fools. But to return to Federalism and apostacy.

The plan of the leaders of the faction was to overthrow the liberties
of the new world, and place government on the corrupt system of the old.
They wanted to hold their power by a more lasting tenure than the choice
of their constituents. It is impossible to account for their conduct and
the measures they adopted on any other ground. But to accomplish that
object, a standing army and a prodigal revenue must be raised; and to
obtain these, pretences must be invented to deceive. Alarms of dangers
that did not exist even in imagination, but in the direct spirit of
lying, were spread abroad. Apostacy stalked through the land in the garb
of patriotism, and the torch of treason blinded for a while the flame of
liberty.

For what purpose could an army of twenty-five thousand men be wanted?
A single reflection might have taught the most credulous that while
the war raged between France and England, neither could spare a man to
invade America. For what purpose, then, could it be wanted? The case
carries its own explanation. It was wanted for the purpose of destroying
the representative system, for it could be employed for no other. Are
these men Federalists? If they are, they are federalized to deceive and
to destroy.

The rage against Dr. Logan's patriotic and voluntary mission to France
was excited by the shame they felt at the detection of the false alarms
they had circulated. As to the opposition given by the remnant of
the faction to the repeal of the taxes laid on during the former
administration, it is easily accounted for. The repeal of those taxes
was a sentence of condemnation on those who laid them on, and in the
opposition they gave in that repeal, they are to be considered in the
light of criminals standing on their defence, and the country has passed
judgment upon them.

Thomas Paine.

City of Washington, Lovett's Hotel, Nov. 19, 1802.

LETTER III.(1)

1 The National Intelligencer, Dec. 29th, 1802.--_Editor._.

To ELECT, and to REJECT, is the prerogative of a free people.

Since the establishment of Independence, no period has arrived that
so decidedly proves the excellence of the representative system of
government, and its superiority over every other, as the time we now
live in. Had America been cursed with John Adams's _hereditary Monarchy_
or Alexander Hamilton's _Senate for life_ she must have sought, in the
doubtful contest of civil war