Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/99

82 What he rightly feared more than any other political disaster was the risk of falling back to the feelings of 1798 and 1799, "when a final dissolution of all bonds, civil and social, appeared imminent." With zeal which never flagged, Jefferson kept up his struggle with the New England oligarchy, whose last move alarmed him. So sensitive was the President, that he joined personally in the fray that distracted New England; and while waiting for news from Monroe, he wrote a defence of his own use of patronage, showing, under the assumed character of a Massachusetts man, that a proportionate division of offices between the two parties would, since the Federalists had so much declined in numbers, leave to them even a smaller share of Federal offices than they still possessed. This paper he sent to Attorney-General Lincoln, to be published in the Boston "Chronicle;" and there, although never recognized, it appeared.

Had the Federalists suspected the authorship, they would have fallen without mercy upon its arguments and its modest compliment to "the tried ability and patriotism of the present Executive;" but the essay was no sooner published than it was forgotten. The "Chronicle" of June 27, 1803, contained Jefferson's argument founded on the rapid disappearance of the Federalist party; the next issue of the "Chronicle," June 30, contained a single headline, which sounded the death-knell of Federalism altogether: "Louisiana