But to one who knows to what a height the spirit of faction will reach, nothing in all this unnatural hostility will seem strange. The country, at this time, was divided into Federalists and Democrats, who were scarcely less vindictive in their animosities, than the Whigs and Tories of the revolution. New England was the furnace of Federalism, and Boston the focal point from which issued incessant and bitter assaults on Jefferson's, and afterwards on Madison's administration. Thus, in the most trying period of our existence since the adoption of the constitution, the country was divided and torn by the fiercest spirit of faction with which it has ever been cursed. I shall not enter into a history of the feuds of these two parties. The principle which originally divided them was plain. One was for a consolidated government, and more power in the executive; the other for a larger distribution of power among the separate states of the confederacy; one was strongly conservative, and the other tending to radicalism; one was for putting the strictest construction on the constitution, the other for giving it the greatest possible latitude. These two parties had grown up with the republic. Their germs were seen in the first convention that met after the achievement of our independence, to settle the form of government. On one point all were agreed--that our mutual safety and welfare depended on a confederacy, but a difference of opinion arose on the amount of power the separate states should confer on the Federal head. The constitution which was finally adopted was not stringent enough to suit the Federalists; but as a compromise, it was on the whole the best that could be secured. Besides, by standing firmly with the general government in all conflicts with the separate states, and with the executive when brought in collision with Congress, and by the great patronage of the President, that power which they preferred to see directly delegated might practically be obtained. This party numbered among its leaders, the first statesmen of the land.