Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/237

226 In the fervor of his representation, Dwight painted what he believed was to happen as though it had actually come to pass. He and his friends, at least, felt no doubt of it. Madison could hardly be blamed for thinking this spirit perverse; and the President was as little to be censured for wishing to rectify it. Elizur Goodrich, a person who was quite in the same way of thinking, was Collector of New Haven. Jefferson removed him, and appointed an old man named Bishop, whose son had made himself conspicuous by zealous republicanism in a community where zeal in such a cause was accounted a social crime. A keen remonstrance was drawn up, signed by New Haven merchants, and sent to the President. Couched, as Madison said, "in the strongest terms that decorum would tolerate," this vigorous paper was in effect a challenge, for it called on the President to proclaim whether he meant to stand by the conciliatory professions of his Inaugural Address, or on his private convictions; and Jefferson was not slow to accept the challenge, in order to withdraw himself from an embarrassing position which was rapidly rousing discontent among his friends. He wrote a reply to the New Haven remonstrants, in which, without going so far as to assert that to the victors belonged the spoils, he contented himself with claiming that to the victors belonged half the spoils. Without abandoning his claim to establish harmony, he appealed to the necessity under which he was placed by the duty of doing justice to his friends.