They were rivals, each supported by numerous and powerful
portions of the people, for the highest office. This contest, partly
the cause and partly the consequence of the long existence of two great
political parties in the country, is now part of the history of our
government. We may naturally regret that anything should have
occurred to create difference and discord between those who had acted
harmoniously and efficiently in the great concerns of the revolution.
But this is not the time, nor this the occasion, for entering into the
grounds of that difference, or for attempting to discuss the merits
of the questions which it involves. As practical questions, they were
canvassed when the measures which they regarded were acted on and
adopted; and as belonging to history, the time has not come for their
consideration.
It is, perhaps, not wonderful, that, when the constitution of the
United States went first into operation, different opinions should be
entertained as to the extent of the powers conferred by it. Here was a
natural source of diversity of sentiment. It is still less wonderful,
that that event, about cotemporary with our government under the present
constitution, which so entirely shocked all Europe, and disturbed our
relations with her leading powers, should be thought, by different men,
to have different bearings on our own prosperity; and that the early
measures adopted by our government, in consequence of this new state
of things, should be seen in opposite lights.
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