The public knew well the dissensions of the
cabinet, but never had an uneasy thought on their account; because they
knew also they had provided a regulating power, which would keep the
machine in steady movement. I speak with an intimate knowledge of these
scenes, _quorum pars fui_; as I may of others of a character entirely
opposite. The third administration, which was of eight years, presented
an example of harmony in a cabinet of six persons, to which perhaps
history has furnished no parallel. There never arose, during the whole
time, an instance of an unpleasant thought or word between the members.
We sometimes met under differences of opinion, but scarcely ever failed,
by conversing and reasoning, so to modify each other's ideas, as to
produce an unanimous result. Yet, able and amiable as these members
were, I am not certain this would have been the case, had each possessed
equal and independent powers. Ill defined limits of their respective
departments, jealousies, trifling at first, but nourished and
strengthened by repetition of occasions, intrigues without doors of
designing persons to build an importance to themselves on the divisions
of others, might, from small beginnings, have produced persevering
oppositions. But the power of decision in the President left no object
for internal dissension, and external intrigue was stifled in embryo by
the knowledge which incendiaries possessed, that no divisions they
could foment would change the course of the executive power.
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