Hitherto, their influence and their system
have been irresistible, and they have raised up an executive power which
is too strong for the legislature. But I flatter myself they have passed
their zenith. The people, while these things were doing, were lulled
into rest and security from a cause which no longer exists. No
prepossessions now will shut their ears to truth. They begin to see to
what port their leaders were steering during their slumbers, and there
is yet time to haul in, if we can avoid a war with France. All can be
done peaceably, by the people confining their choice of Representatives
and Senators to persons attached to republican government and the
principles of 1776, not office-hunters, but farmers, whose interests
are entirely agricultural. Such men are the true representatives of the
great American interest, and are alone to be relied on for expressing
the proper American sentiments. We owe gratitude to France, justice to
England, good-will to all, and subservience to none. All this must be
brought about by the people, using their elective rights with prudence
and self-possession, and not suffering themselves to be duped by
treacherous emissaries. It was by the sober sense of our citizens that
we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism,
and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.
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