History of the United States of America, Volume 2 (of 9) : $b During the first administration of Thomas JeffersonAdams, Henry
History
History of the United States of America, Volume 2 (of 9) : $b During the first administration of Thomas Jefferson
Adams, Henry
United States -- History -- 1801-1809; United States -- History -- 1809-1817
The Pennsylvania schism was not serious. Governor McKean and Dallas
were alarmed when they saw the democratic system blundering in its
rude way, without taking sound advice or heeding trained lawyers; but
only the Federalists believed in a crisis. Society went undisturbed
to its daily duties in spite of Duane’s outcries and Dallas’s
grumbling. The only result of the Pennsylvania schism was to check the
aggressive energy of the democratic movement by alarming a few of the
older leaders and causing them to halt. From the day of Jefferson’s
inauguration this tendency toward reaction had begun, and it developed
in party schisms which could not fail to hurry the process. The
symptom, however unpleasant to old political leaders such as Jefferson,
McKean, and Dallas, who liked the quiet enjoyment of power, was healthy
for society at large; but no one could fail to be struck by the
contrast which in this respect was offered by the two great sections
of the country. While the mobile, many-sided, restless democracy of
New England, New York, and Pennsylvania exhibited its faults, and
succeeded, with much personal abuse, in thrusting out the elements
foreign to its character which retarded its movement, the society of
the Southern States was classically calm. Not a breath disturbed the
quiet which brooded over the tobacco and cotton fields between the
Potomac and Florida. A Presidential election was taking place, but
the South saw only one candidate. The State legislatures quietly chose
electors to vote for Jefferson and Clinton. From the St. Mary’s to the
Potomac and the Ohio, every electoral voice was given to Jefferson.
With some surprise the public learned that Maryland gave two of eleven
votes to C. C. Pinckney, who received also the three votes of Delaware.
This little State even went back on its path, repudiated Cæsar A.
Rodney, and returned to its favorite Bayard, who was sent by a handsome
majority to his old seat in the House of Representatives. Broken for an
instant only by this slight check, the tide of democratic triumph swept
over the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, and burst
upon Connecticut as though Jefferson’s hope of dragging even that State
from its moorings were at length to be realized. With difficulty the
Connecticut hierarchy held its own; and with despair after the torrent
passed by, it looked about and found itself alone. Even Massachusetts
cast 29,310 votes for Jefferson, against 25,777 for Pinckney.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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