Without knowing
the views of what is called the republican party here, or having any
communication with them, I could, undertake to assure him, from my
intimacy with that party in the late Congress, that there was not a view
in the republican party as spread over the United States, which went
to the frame of the government; that I believed the next Congress would
attempt nothing material, but to render their own body independent; that
that party were firm in their dispositions to support the government;
that the manoeuvres of Mr. Genet might produce some little
embarrassment, but that he would be abandoned by the republicans the
moment they knew the nature of his conduct; and on the whole, no crisis
existed which threatened any thing.
He said, he believed the views of the republican party were perfectly
pure, but when men put a machine into motion, it is impossible for them
to stop it exactly where they would choose, or to say where it will
stop. That the constitution we have is an excellent one, if we can keep
it where it is; that it was, indeed, supposed there was a party disposed
to change it into a monarchical form, but that he could conscientiously
declare there was not a man in the United States who would set his
face more decidedly against it than himself. Here I interrupted him by
saying, 'No rational man in the United States suspects you of any other
disposition; but there does not pass a week, in which we cannot prove
declarations dropping from the monarchical party, that our government is
good for nothing, is a milk-and-water thing which cannot support itself,
we must knock it down, and set up something of more energy.
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