In the second place, it was inevitable that Jefferson should dislike
Hamilton, for there never were two men more unlike in character and in
their ways of looking at things. Hamilton was bold, direct, imperious,
and masculine; he went straight to his mark, and if he encountered
opposition he either rode over it or broke it down. When Jefferson
met with opposition he went round it or undermined it; he was adroit,
flexible, and extremely averse to open fighting. There was also good
ground for a genuine difference of opinion between the two secretaries
in regard to the policy of the government. Jefferson was a thorough
representative of the great democratic movement of the time. At bottom
his democracy was of the sensible, practical American type, but he
had come home badly bitten by many of the wild notions which at that
moment pervaded Paris. A man of much less insight than Jefferson would
have had no difficulty in perceiving that Hamilton and his
friends were not in sympathy with these ideas. They hoped for the
establishment of a republic, but they desired for it a highly
energetic and centralized government not devoid of aristocratic
tendencies. This fundamental difference of opinion, increased as it
was by personal jealousies, soon put Jefferson, therefore, into an
attitude of hostility to the men who were then guiding the policy of
the government. The new administration had been so successful that
there was at first practically no party of opposition, and the task
before Jefferson involved the creation of a party, the formulation of
principles, and the definition of issues, with appropriate shibboleths
for popular consumption.
Pages:
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223