7386. REPUBLICANS, New England and.—
If a prospect could be once opened upon
us of the penetration of truth into the Eastern
States; if the people there, who are unquestionably
republicans, could discover that
they have been duped into the support of
measures calculated to sap the very foundations
of republicanism, we might still hope
for salvation, and that it would come, as of
old, from the East. But will that region
ever awake to the true state of things? Can
the Middle, Southern and Western States
hold on till they awake? These are painful
and doubtful questions; and if, * * *
you can give me a comfortable solution of
them, it will relieve a mind devoted to the
preservation of our republican government in
the true form and spirit in which it was established,
but almost oppressed with apprehension
that fraud will at length effect what
force could not, and that what with currents
and counter-currents, we shall, in the end, be
driven back to the land from which we
launched twenty years ago. Indeed, we have
been but a sturdy fish on the hook of a dexterous
angler, who, letting us flounce till we
have spent our force, brings us up at last.—
To Aaron Burr. Washington ed. iv, 186.
Ford ed., vii, 147.
(Pa.,
June. 1797)
