It is scarcely possible, at this distant day, to appreciate the terror of irresponsible and arbitrary power which had been impressed upon the minds of men who had themselves suffered from its excesses, or had witnessed the cruelties it had inflicted on others, or whose fathers had been victims of its crimes. Even Mr. Jefferson, who differed from the Anti-Federalists in respect to these questions, as I shall hereafter have occasion to show, though he sympathized with them in their general feelings, in a letter to Mr. Madison in December, 1787, from Paris, upon the subject of the Constitution, did not hesitate to say, "I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive."[5] [5] 2 Jefferson's _Correspondence_, 276. Similar feelings were exhibited by Massachusetts in 1785. That leading State in the confederacy was, during the whole of this period, strongly imbued with the feelings of the misnamed Anti-Federal party. This was in no small degree owing to the talents, zeal, and activity displayed in their behalf by Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two of the three persons (John Adams having been the third), who were excepted by the British Government from the offer of pardon to its rebellious subjects. Hancock was a leading merchant and a zealous Revolutionary patriot, who had the honor of placing his name first to the Declaration of Independence, and the higher honor of sustaining the contest which it provoked to its close with inflexible firmness and at unusual risks, growing out of his large interests in commerce. Samuel Adams was equal to any man of his day in intelligence, integrity, and patriotism. He was among the very first who embraced the Revolution in the sense which it finally assumed,--that of entire separation from the British Crown,--and he supported the principles upon which it was founded, as well during the conflict as for the residue of his long life, with great ability and unsurpassed devotion. Whilst many of his associates, not less sincere than himself in resistance to the despotic acts of the mother country, could yet express their admiration of the English system and were consequently inclined to limit their efforts to a redress of temporary grievances, he at the earliest period avowed his hostility to kingly government, and rallied around himself the advocates for an entire separation, most of whom became with him early and prominent members of the Anti-Federal party.