Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/222

1804. by virtue of some democratic law which rested on truth that could never change. The White House was filled with an atmosphere of adulation. Flattery, gross as any that man could ask, was poured into the President's ear, but was as nothing compared with the more subtle flattery of the popular vote. No friend stopped him to ask how such a miraculous success had been brought about. Four years had not passed since Jefferson and his party had clamored against attempts to give energy to government; and no one could ever forget that they claimed and received power from the people in order to defend States-rights, restrict Executive influence, and correct strained constructions of the Constitution. Who upheld States-rights in 1804, and complained of Executive influence and strained constructions? Certainly not Jefferson or his friends, but the monarchical Federalists, who were fit inmates for an asylum. Whenever Jefferson had occasion to discuss the aims and opinions of the two parites, he did not allude to the principles set forth in 1798; not a word was said of "strict construction." The only theories opposed to his own which he could see in the political horizon were those of a few hundred conservatives of the colonial epoch.


 * "What, in fact," he wrote, "is the difference of principle between the two parties here? The one desires to preserve an entire independence of the executive and legislative branches on each other and the dependence of both on the same source,—the free election of the