be immediately demanded of the French government. Genêt was recalled. In the opinion of America, as well as in his demand upon France, Washington gained a triumph. The federalists indignantly rallied around him. The pretensions and extravagant conduct of Genêt had alienated many persons of the democratic party. Jefferson had not hesitated to support the President against him. A favorable reaction took place, and the contest seemed at an end. {140} But in government, as well as in war, there are victories which cost dear, and leave the danger still existing. The revolutionary fever, once more kindled in the United States, did not depart with a recalled minister. Instead of that harmony of feeling, that calm after the storm of passions; instead of that course of prosperity and general moderation, upon which the American republic was lately congratulating itself, two parties were there in a hostile attitude, more widely separated, more violently irritated, than ever. The opposition no longer confined its attacks to the administration alone, to the financial measures of government, and to this or that doubtful application of legal powers. It had, concealed within itself, in the democratic associations, in the periodical press, and among the foreigners who swarmed throughout the country, a true revolutionary faction, eager to overturn society and its government, in order to reconstruct them upon other foundations. "There exists in the United States," writes Washington to Lafayette, "a party formed by a combination of causes, which oppose the government in all its measures, and are determined, as all their conduct evinces, by clogging its wheels, indirectly to change the nature of it, and to subvert the Constitution. {141} To effect this, no means which have a tendency to accomplish their purposes are left unessayed. The friends of government, who are anxious to maintain its neutrality, and to preserve the country in peace, and adopt measures to secure these objects, are charged by them as being monarchists, aristocrats, and infractors of the Constitution, which, according to their interpretation of it, would be a mere cipher. They arrogated to themselves the sole merit of being the friends of France, when in fact they had no more regard for that nation than for the Grand Turk, farther than their own views were promoted by it; denouncing those who differed in opinion, (whose principles are purely American, and whose sole view was to observe a strict neutrality,) as acting under British influence, and being directed by her counsels, or as being her pensioners." [Footnote 84] [Footnote 84: Washington's Writings, Vol. XI. p. 378,] {142}