1804
CONSPIRACY.
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could eradicate if there were a Lycurgus in every village. We are democratic altogether; and I hold democracy in its natural operation to be the government of the worst.
- "There is no energy in the Federal party, and there could be none manifested without great hazard of losing the State government. Some of our best men in high stations are kept in office because they forbear to exert any influence, and not because they possess right principles. They are permitted to have power if they will not use it. . . . I incline to the opinion that the essential alterations which may in future be made to amend our form of government will be the consequences only of great suffering or the immediate effects of violence. If we should be made to feel a very great calamity from the abuse of power by the National Administration, we might do almost anything; but it would be idle to talk to the deaf, to warn the people of distant evils. By this time you will suppose I am willing to do nothing but submit to fate. I would not be so understood. I am convinced we cannot do what is wished; but we can do much, if we work with Nature (or the course of things), and not against her. A separation is now impracticable, because we do not feel the necessity or utility of it. The same separation then will be unavoidable when our loyalty to the Union is generally perceived to be the instrument of debasement and impoverishment. If it is prematurely attempted, those few only will promote it who discern what is hidden from the multitude."
Cabot's letter, more clearly than any writing of Alexander Hamilton himself, expressed the philosophy and marked the tactics of their school. Neither Cabot nor Hamilton was a lively writer, and the dust
