7373. REPUBLICANS, Early contests of.—
The inconveniences of an inefficient government,
driving the people as is usual, into
the opposite extreme, the elections to the
first Congress ran very much in favor of those
who were known to favor a very strong government.
Hence the anti-republicans appeared
a considerable majority in both houses
of Congress. They pressed forward the plan,
therefore, of strengthening all the features of
the government which gave it resemblance to
an English constitution, of adopting the English
forms and principles of administration,
and of forming like them a moneyed interest,
by means of a funding system, not calculated
to pay the public debt, but to render it perpetual,
and to make it an engine in the hands
of the executive branch of government which,
added to the great patronage it possessed in
the disposal of public offices, might enable
it to assume by degrees a kingly authority.
The biennial period of Congress being too
short to betray to the people, spread over
this great continent, this train of things during
the first Congress, little change was made
in members to the second. But, in the meantime,
two very distinct parties had formed in
Congress; and before the third election, the
people in general became apprised of the
game which was playing for drawing over
them a kind of government which they never
had in contemplation. At the third election,
therefore, a decided majority of republicans
were sent to the lower House of Congress;
and, as information spread still farther
among the people, after the fourth election
the anti-republican members have become a
weak minority.—
To C. D. Ebeling.
Ford ed., vii, 46.
(1795)
