The fact is that he has generally given his principles to one party, and his practice to the other, the oyster to one, the shell to the other.... On the precedent now to be set will depend the future construction of our Constitution, and whether the powers of legislation shall be transferred from the President, Senate, and House of Representatives to the President and Senate, and Piamingo or any other Indian, Algerine, or other chief.[327] Clearly he was getting back into his stride and when thoroughly aroused, as he had been once or twice in his career, he could also hit back or rather pierce with rapid thrust of the rapier. And yet he was not really thinking of reëntering the arena, for at the same time he was offering to George Wythe to superintend an edition of the laws of Virginia, of which he had made as complete a collection as he could, "either the manuscripts crumbling into dust or printed."[328] Yet he had an eye upon the budding geniuses of the Democratic party. Soon he realized the value of Albert Gallatin, who had undertaken a thorough analysis and demolition of Hamilton's administration: Hamilton's object from the beginning was to throw them into forms which would be utterly undecypherable.... If Mr. Gallatin would undertake to reduce this chaos to order, present us with a clear view of our finances, and put them in a form as simple as they will admit, he will merit an immortal honor. The accounts of the United States ought to be, and may be made as simple as those of a common farmer, and capable of being understood by common farmers.[329] With such sentences, simple and easily remembered, such felicity of expression and of thought, one can make a lasting impression on the people, without addressing directly the Indians of Tammany Hall or participating in whisky riots. One can also throw suspicion of intentional dishonesty on one's adversaries, coin mottoes which, repeated in a political campaign, fix themselves easily in the unsophisticated minds of the common people. But it does not ensue necessarily that Jefferson was an arch plotter, pulling the strings and laying plots to explode years later. He was quite sincere in his dislike of Hamilton's budgets, for the simple reason that he did not understand them himself. The master financier and expert was beyond Jefferson's comprehension; in many respects he was even far ahead of his own time, while Jefferson, in matters of finance at least, remained all his life an eighteenth-century man. But the young Swiss-American who had made his mark in the whisky insurrection must have felt himself elated at Jefferson's approval. By such appropriate compliments and encouragements, great tacticians create and foster party and personal loyalty, and Jefferson was a past master in this difficult art.