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Ch. 12.
chose to look upon as its cause. Even an ode of the Massachusetts poet Thomas Paine, whose better-known name of Robert Treat Paine recorded the political passions which caused him to petition for the change, served to console Jefferson for the partial defeat of his consolidating schemes. Paine's refrain ran,—
- "Rule, New England! New England rules and saves!"
and this echo of Virginia sentiments in 1798, this shadowy suggestion of a New England Confederacy, jarred on the President's ear. Toward autumn he wrote to his friend Langdon, of New Hampshire:[1]—
- "Although we have not yet got a majority into the fold of Republicanism in your State, yet one long pull more will effect it. We can hardly doubt that one twelve-month more will give an executive and legislature in that State whose opinions may harmonize with their sister States,—unless it be true, as is sometimes said, that New Hampshire is but a satellite of Massachusetts. In this last State the public sentiment seems to be under some influence additional to that of the clergy and lawyers. I suspect there must be a leaven of State pride at seeing itself deserted by the public opinion, and that their late popular song of 'Rule, New England,' betrays one principle of their present variance from the Union. But I am in hopes they will in time discover that the shortest road to rule is to join the majority."
The struggle was full of interest; for if Jefferson had never yet failed to break down every opponent,
- ↑ Jefferson's Writings (Ford), viii. 160.
