5127. MASSACHUSETTS, Defection of.—
Some apprehend danger from the defection
of Massachusetts. It is a disagreeable circumstance
but not a dangerous one. If they become
neutral, we are sufficient for one enemy
without them, and in fact we get no aid from
them now. If their administration determines
to join the enemy, their force will be annihilated
by equality of division among themselves. Their
federalists will then call in the English army,
the republicans ours, and it will only be a transfer
of the scene of war from Canada to Massachusetts;
and we can get ten men to go to Massachusetts
for one who will go to Canada.
Every one, too, must know that we can at any
moment make peace with England at the expense
of the navigation and fisheries of Massachusetts.
But it will not come to this. Their
own people will put down these factionists as
soon as they see the real object of their opposition;
and of this Vermont, New Hampshire,
and even Connecticut itself, furnish proofs.—
To William Short. Washington ed. vi, 402.
(M.
Nov. 1814)
—MASSACHUSETTS, Federal Constitution
and.—See Constitution (Federal).
