Not that there is objection to your mooting them as
subjects of conversation, and as proceeding from yourself, but not as
matters of executive determination. Nay, farther, I will thank you for
your own sentiments and those of others on them. If received before the
20th of April, they will be in time for our deliberation on the subject.
You know that it was in the year X. Y. Z. that so great a transition
from us to the other side took place, and with as real republicans as we
were ourselves; that these, after getting over that delusion, have been
returning to us, and that it is to that return we owe a triumph in 1800,
which in 1799 would have been the other way. The week's suspension
of the election before Congress, seems almost to have completed that
business, and to have brought over nearly the whole remaining mass. They
now find themselves with us, and separated from their quondam leaders.
If we can but avoid shocking their feelings by unnecessary acts of
severity against their late friends, they will in a little time cement
and from one mass with us, and by these means harmony and union be
restored to our country, which would be the greatest good we could
effect. It was a conviction that these people did not differ from us
in principle, which induced me to define the principles which I deemed
orthodox, and to urge a re-union on these principles; and I am induced
to hope it has conciliated many.
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