8685. UNION (The Federal), Washington and.—
I can scarcely contemplate a more
incalculable evil than the breaking of the
Union into two or more parts. Yet when we
review the mass which opposed the original
coalescence, when we consider that it lay
chiefly in the Southern quarter, that the Legislature
have availed themselves of no occasion
of allaying it, but on the contrary whenever
the Northern and Southern prejudices
have come into conflict, the latter have been
sacrificed and the former soothed; that the
owers of the [public] debt are in the Southern
and the holders of it in the Northern division;
that the anti-federal champions are now
strengthened in argument by the fulfilment of
their predictions; that this has been brought
about by the monarchical federalists themselves,
who, having been for the new government
merely as a stepping stone to monarchy,
have themselves adopted the very constructions
of the Constitution, of which, when
advocating its acceptance before the tribunal
of the people, they declared it insusceptible;
that the republican federalists, who espoused
the same government for its intrinsic merits,
are disarmed of their weapons; that which
they denied as prophecy, having now become
true history, who can be sure that these things
may not proselyte the small number which
was wanting to place the majority on the
other side? And this is the event at which I
tremble, and to prevent which I consider your
[President Washington] continuing at the
head of affairs as of the last importance. The
confidence of the whole Union is centred in
you. Your being at the helm, will be more
than answer to every argument which can be
used to alarm and lead the people in any
quarter into violence and secession. North
and South will hang together, if they have
you to hang on; and, if the first correction of
a numerous representation [in Congress]
should fail in its effect, your presence will
give time for trying others not inconsistent
with the Union and peace of the States.—
To President Washington. Washington ed. iii, 363.
Ford ed., vi, 4.
(Pa.,
May. 1792)
