When
a retrospect has been taken of the Washingtonian administration
for eight years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment
that a single individual should have cankered the principles of
republicanism in an enlightened people just emerged from the gulf
of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the
public liberty so far as to have put in jeopardy its very
existence. Such, however, are the facts, and with these staring us
in the face, the day ought to be a JUBILEE in the United States."
This was not the outburst of a single malevolent spirit. The article
was copied and imitated in New York and Boston, and wherever the
party that called Jefferson leader had a representative among the
newspapers. It is not probable that stuff of this sort gave Washington
himself a moment's anxiety, for he knew too well what he had done, and
he was too sure of his own hold upon the hearts of the people, to be
in the least disturbed by the attacks of hostile editors. But the
extracts are of interest as showing that the opposition party of that
time, the party organized and led by Jefferson, regarded Washington as
their worst enemy, and assailed him and slandered him to the utmost.
They even went so far as to borrow materials from the enemies of the
country with whom we had lately been at war, by publishing the forged
letters attributed to Washington, and circulated by the British in
1777, in order to discredit the American general.
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