7381. REPUBLICANS, Historical misrepresentation of.—
Were a reader of this
period [immediately following the establishment
of the Constitution] to form his idea of
it from this history alone [Marshall's Life
of Washington] he would suppose the republican
party (who were in truth endeavoring
to keep the government within the line of
the Constitution, and prevent its being monarchised
in practice) were a mere set of
grumblers, and disorganizers, satisfied with
no government, without fixed principles of
any, and, like a British parliamentary opposition,
gaping after loaves and fishes, and
ready to change principles, as well as position,
at any time, with their adversaries. But
* * * the contests of that day were contests
of principle, between the advocates of
republican and those of kingly government,
and had not the former made the efforts they
did, our government would have been, even
at this early day [1818], a very different
thing from what the successful issue of those
efforts have made it.—
The Anas.
Ford ed., i, 156.
(1818)
