cy of public feeling, and must have known its
strength: instead of attempting to go with it, and shape it to the
exigencies his party required, he vainly attempted to stem the current,
defy it, and control it by law. He disregarded the earnest entreaties
of his best friends, counselling only with the extremists of the
Federal party: the result was the Alien and Sedition Laws. Pickering
warned him, and he quarrelled with him. He would not conciliate, but
punish his political foes. He loved to exercise power; he did it
unscrupulously, and became exceedingly offensive to many of his own
party, and bitterly hated by his political enemies. The Alien and
Sedition Laws emanated from the extremists of the Federal party, and
were in opposition to the views of Adams himself--yet he approved them,
and determined to execute them. He knew these laws were in direct
opposition to the views and feelings of an immense majority of the
people; and with these lights before him, and when he had it in his
power to have conciliated the masses, he defied them.

Mr. Adams was unaccustomed to seek or court public favor; his
associations had never been with the masses, and he understood very
little of their feelings; when these were forced upon him, he received
their manifestations with contempt, and uniformly disregarded their
teachings. All these defects of character were seized upon by the
opposition, to render odious the Federal party.

Mr. Jefferson placed himself in active opposition, and was known at an
early day as the candidate of the opposition to succeed Adams. Our
difficulties with France, and the action of Congress in appointing
Washington commander-in-chief of the American forces, brought
Washington into contact with Adams on several occasions; and especially
when Washington made his acceptance of the office conditional upon the
appointment of Hamilton as second in command, Adams thought he had not
been respectfully treated, either by Congress or Washington; and there
were some pretty sharp letters written by Washington in relation to the
course of Adams.

Jefferson was opposed to the French war. The aid afforded by France in
our Revolution had made grateful the public heart, and the people were
indisposed to rush into a war with her for slight cause. The pen of
Jefferson was never idle: he knew the general feeling, and inflamed it,
and what the consequences to the country might have been, had not the
war come to an abrupt and sp