Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/215

196 body of country farmers and local politicians should say precisely what legal reform they wanted, or know exactly what was practicable.

No sooner did the Pennsylvania Legislature begin to pull in pieces the judicial system of the State, and persecute the legal profession, than Dallas, McKean, and all the educated leaders of the Republican party broke from the mass of their followers, and attempted to check their violence. Governor McKean stopped with his veto certain measures which the Legislature had approved, and he declined to remove Judge Brackenridge when the Legislature asked him to do so. Dallas become counsel for the impeached judges. Duane and Leib raged against McKean and Dallas; a large majority of Pennsylvania Republicans followed the "Aurora;" Gallatin lost control over his State, and saw himself threatened, like his friend Dallas, with ostracism; while the outside world, roused by the noise of this faction-fight, asked what it meant, and could not understand the answer. The Federalists alone professed to explain the mystery which perplexed people less wise than themselves; they had said from the beginning that the democrats had neither virtue nor understanding to carry on the government, and must bring about a crisis at last.

After the excitement of Burr's intrigues and Hamilton's death subsided, leaving the politics of New York in comparative repose, the autumn elections in Pennsylvania began to disturb Jefferson's temper.