“It is obvious to me,”[129] he wrote to Gallatin soon after the schism broke out, “that unless our Administration take decisive measures to discountenance the factious spirit that has appeared; unless some principle of political cohesion can be introduced into our public councils as well as at our elections; and unless men of character and talents can be drawn from professional and private pursuits into the legislative bodies of our governments, Federal and State,--the empire of Republicanism will moulder into anarchy, and the labor and hope of our lives will terminate in disappointment and wretchedness.... At present we are the slaves of men whose passions are the object of all their actions,--I mean your Duanes, Cheethams, Leibs, etc. They have the press in their power; and though we may have virtue to assert the liberty of the press, it is too plain that we have not spirit enough to resist the tyranny of the printers.” This last sharp sentence aimed at the President, who displeased Dallas by showing too evident a wish not to offend Duane. “The duty of an upright Administration,” Jefferson told Dr. Logan,[130] “is to pursue its course steadily, to know nothing of these family dissensions, and to cherish the good principles of both parties.” Had the President followed this duty in the case of Burr, the triumph of De Witt Clinton and Cheetham would have been more difficult than it was; but the President feared Burr the less because Burr’s newspaper, the “Morning Chronicle,” was respectable, while the “Aurora” was unscrupulous, and to cherish Duane’s principles, whether good or bad, was the only way of escaping the lash of his tongue. Jefferson chose the path of caution in refusing to sustain Dallas and the “Quids” against the party and the Legislature; but during the rest of his term he was forced to endure Duane’s attachment, and to feel that Madison and Gallatin were sacrificed to his own safety. Duane never hesitated to assert that he was in Jefferson’s confidence and was acting in his interests,[131] and commonly he or some of his friends could show a recent letter in the President’s handwriting which gave color to their assertion.