“Vain will it be to look for peace and happiness, or for the security of liberty or property, if civil discord should ensue.  And what else can result from the policy of those among us, who, by all the measures in their power, are driving matters to extremity, if they cannot be counteracted effectually?  The views of men can only be known, or guessed at, by their words or actions.  Can those of the leaders of opposition be mistaken, then, if judged by this rule?  That they are followed by numbers, who are unacquainted with their designs and suspect as little the tendency of their principles, I am fully persuaded.  But if their conduct is viewed with indifference, if there are activity and misrepresentations on one side and supineness on the other, their numbers accumulated by intriguing and discontented foreigners under proscription, who were at war with their own government, and the greater part of them with all governments, they will increase, and nothing short of omniscience can foretell the consequences.”

It would have been difficult to draw a severer indictment of the opposition party than that given in this letter, but there is one other letter even more striking in its contents, without which no account of the relation of Washington to the two great parties which sprang up under his administration would be complete.  It was addressed to Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, was written on July 21, 1799, less than six months before his death, and although printed, has been hidden away in the appendix to the “Life of Benjamin Silliman.”  Governor Trumbull, who bore the name and filled the office of Washington’s old revolutionary friend, had written to the general, as many other Federalists were writing at that time, urging him to come forward and stand once more for the presidency, that he might heal the dissensions in his own party and save the country from the impending disaster of Jefferson’s election.  That Washington refused all these requests is of course well known, but his reasons as stated to Trumbull are of great interest.  “I come now,” he said, “my dear sir, to pay particular attention to that part of your letter which respects myself.

“I remember well the conversation which you allude to.  I have not forgot the answer I gave you.  In my judgment it applies with as much force now as then; nay, more, because at that time the line between the parties was not so clearly drawn, and the views of the opposition so clearly developed as they are at present.  Of course allowing your observation (as it respects myself) to be well founded, personal influence would be of no avail.

“Let that party set up a broomstick, and call it a true son of liberty,—­a democrat,—­or give it any other epithet that will suit their purpose, and it will command their votes in toto![1] Will not the Federalists meet, or rather defend, their cause on the opposite ground?  Surely they must, or they will discover a want of policy, indicative of weakness and pregnant of mischief, which cannot be admitted.  Wherein, then, would lie the difference between the present gentleman in office and myself?