The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
UNITY / POLITICAL PARTIES / ROLE OF MINORITY
Our majority in the House of Representatives has been about two to
one, in the Senate, eighteen to fifteen. After another election it
will be of two to one in the Senate, and it would not be for the
public good to have it greater. A respectable minority is useful as
censors. The present one is not respectable, being the bitterest
remains of the cup of federalism, rendered desperate and furious by
despair. We shall now be so strong that we shall certainly split
again; for freemen, thinking differently and speaking and acting as
they think, will form into classes of sentiment. But it must be under
another name. That of federalism is become so odious that no party can
rise under it As the division into whig and tory is founded in the
nature of man; the weakly and nerveless, the rich and the corrupt,
seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive; the
healthy, firm, and virtuous, feeling a confidence in their physical
and moral resources, and willing to part with only so much power as is
necessary for their good government; and, therefore, to retain the
rest in the hands of the many, the division will substantially be into
whig and tory, as in England formerly.
to Joel Barlow, 3 May 1802
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