7367. REPUBLICANS, Divisions among.—[further continued]..
Of the unhappy effects
of the schisms in Pennsylvania and New York,
you see the fruit in the State lying between
them, where the federalists have recovered a
majority in one branch of the legislature, are
very near it in the other, and as soon as they
shall reach it, they place the executive and
every office under it in federal hands. If the
two sections of republicans were irreconcilable,
still the minor one should not have coalesced
with, and voted for federalists. If, on the contrary,
they would keep themselves independent,
and set up their own ticket, their whole body
would come forward and vote, which would
give them the benefit of that part of their force
which kept back because it could not support
federalists, and the federalists themselves, having
no hope of bringing in men of their own,
would have to choose between the two republican
tickets that least disagreeable to themselves.
This would only bring into the public
councils the different shades of republicans so
that the whole body should be represented.—
To Andrew Elliott.
Ford ed., viii, 479.
(W.
Nov. 1806)
