But the only security oL all, is in a free press. The force of public
opinion cannot be resisted, when permitted freely to be expressed. The
agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary to keep the
waters pure.
We are all, for example, in agitation even in our peaceful country. For
in peace as well as in war, the mind must be kept in motion. Who is
to be the next President, is the topic here of every conversation. My
opinion on that subject is what I expressed to you in my last letter.
The question will be ultimately reduced to the northernmost and
southernmost candidates. The former will get every federal vote in the
Union, and many republicans; the latter, all those denominated of
the old school; for you are not to believe that these two parties are
amalgamated, that the lion and the lamb are lying down together.
The Hartford convention, the victory of Orleans, the peace of Ghent,
prostrated the name of federalism. Its votaries abandoned it through
shame and mortification; and now call themselves republicans. But the
name alone is changed, the principles are the same. For in truth,
the parties of Whig and Tory are those of nature. They exist in all
countries, whether called by these names, or by those of Aristocrats and
Democrats, Cote Droite and Cote Gauche, Ultras and Radicals, Serviles
and Liberals. The sickly, weakly, timid man, fears the people, and is
a tory by nature.
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