The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, vol. 2 - Online Library of ...

Online Library of Liberty: The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, vol. 2
legislatures, being under the immediate view of their constituents, will find the truth
of the old adage, ‘Too much familiarity breeds contempt.’ The present amendment of
the Constitution is urged by Virginia and New York for the purpose of dividing
between them, at the next election, the two first offices of the Union. Virginia was
almost in open revolt against the national authority during Mr. Adams’s reign because
a Yankee, and not a Virginian, was President, and laws are passed in conformity with
fine maxims, assumed from the British constitution, which give to a Virginia
President royal power. Not by mere inference, but by downright demonstration, it is
shown that the republican party were not dissatisfied because the power of the
Government was too great, but because it was not in their hands. The false principles
which they have dignified with the name of republican principles—hostile to all
government, and immediately fatal to all republican government—were only assumed
to lead honest men by slow but sure degrees to abjure the principles of our
Constitution, and co-operate in their own subjugation to the aristocracies of Virginia
and New York. You may, from what I have said, be inclined to set me down as a
croaker, but in this you would be deceived. There is always a counter-current in
human affairs which opposes alike both good and evil. While the republican form
lasts we shall be tolerably well governed, and when we are fairly afloat again on the
tempestuous sea of liberty, our Cromwell or Bonaparte must so far comply with
national habit as to give us an independent judiciary and something like a popular
representation. Like the forked, featherless bipeds which have preceded them, our
posterity will be shaken into the political form which shall be most suitable to their
physical and moral state. They will be born, procreate, and die like the rest of
creation, while here and there some accomplished scoundrels, rari nantes in gurgite
vasto, will give their names to the periods of history.”
“I like well your treaty with France,” Morris wrote to Robert L. Livingston,
November 28th, “and have declared to my friends, some of whom are not pleased
with the declaration, that it is in my opinion one of the best we have made. Our party,
though with numerous exceptions, opposed it; for one reason, that it cost money the
greater part of which we to the northward must pay, and it gains territory which will,
in their apprehension, by giving strength to the Southern representation, diminish the
Eastern influence in our councils. They dislike it, also, because it has strengthened an
administration which they abhor. To tell you an important truth, my friend, you have
saved that administration, who, in return, will never forgive you for performing,
without orders and without power, such great public service. Your conduct is a satire
on theirs, for you have gained what they did not dare ask.
“I agree with you in the opinion that the late negotiation was conducted miserably on
the part of Britain. But mark how the affairs of this world run: the King’s Ministers,
having bungled themselves into a miserable peace, bungled themselves out of it into
an expensive war, and have thereby roused the national spirit, depressed before; and
now it is well within the circle of probabilities that events to which they are but
solemn witnesses shall get them gloriously through the contest, and place their
country foremost in the rank of nations. Britain, by continuing the war, may break the
power of France; for even if the First Consul get over with fifty thousand men, his
condition will be perilous. While hemmed up in Britain, his affairs on the Continent
may run wild. If he be successful, the greater powers of Europe may perceive that
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