The distinction usually established between domestic and foreign politics is obviously an arbitrary one and does not correspond to reality. This was particularly true of an age when the attributes of the Secretary of State were far less specialized than in our day. Even if he had been inclined to neglect the questions of internal administration--to give himself entirely to foreign affairs--Jefferson would have been constantly reminded of the existence of many other problems of equal importance to the future of the nation by his colleagues and the President himself. In addition, it was Washington's ordinary practice not only to discuss all important measures in a Cabinet council, but often to request each member of his official family to give his opinion in writing on these questions. Such documents as have been preserved constitute a most precious source of information for the history of the period; they are usefully supplemented by the notes that Jefferson took at the time and transcribed "twenty five years or more" afterwards for the use of posterity. The three volumes "bound in marbled paper" in which Jefferson copied these notes, taken on loose scraps of paper, are the famous "Anas" which he collected to justify himself against the accusations that biographers of Washington--such as Marshall--had already launched against him. Although there is no reason to believe that Jefferson deliberately altered the old records, it is certain that they were edited, that many scraps of papers were discarded, although not destroyed, and that a "critical" edition of the "Anas" would not be without interest. They are preceded by an introduction in which, more than twenty-five years later, Jefferson gave an estimate of his former opponents, Hamilton and John Adams. This final judgment can in no way be used in discussing events that took place between 1790 and 1793, and it contains no indication worth retaining about Jefferson's attitude at that time towards his colleagues and the Vice President. The man who wrote this introduction in February, 1818, was really another Jefferson. He may tell us that he arrived in the midst of a bitter contest, "But a stranger to the ground, a stranger to the actors on it, so long absent as to have lost all familiarity with the subject, and as yet unaware of its object, I took no concern in it."[240] It must be admitted at the outset that such is not the impression one can gather from the correspondence.