One of the first victories of the Federalists was to pass the famous Logan Law (January 30) forbidding any citizen of the United States to commence or carry on any verbal or written correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government, or any officer thereof in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States. Doctor Logan's intentions had been of the best. He had seen members of the French Directory in Paris and had brought with him "non-equivocal proofs of the pacific dispositions of the French Government towards the United States" and particularly the Statement of Merlin that "_la liberté des États-Unis nous a coûté trop de sang pour qu'elle ne nous soit pas chère._"[372] None of these activities could be called treacherous, and in normal times would not have been noticed. But behind Logan, Jefferson was aimed at, and he was perfectly aware, as he wrote to Madison, that "the real views in the importance they have given to Logan's enterprise are mistaken by nobody."[373] Yet he thought he had to justify himself to his friends, and sent a long letter on the subject to Gerry. Far more important than his defense was a declaration of the principles he did not fear to avow. "They are unquestionably," he said, "the principles of the great body of our fellow-citizens." It was really the program of the Democratic Party and the most luminous exposition of the Jeffersonian doctrine ever made. I do then, with sincere zeal, wish an inviolable preservation of our present federal Constitution, according to the true sense in which it was adopted by the States ... and I am opposed to the monarchising its features by the forms of its administration, with a view to conciliate a first transition to a President and Senate for life, and from that to an hereditary tenure of these offices.... I am for preserving to the States the powers not yielded by them to the Union, and to the legislature of the Union its constitutional share in the division of powers; and I am not for transferring all the powers of the States to the General Government, and all those of that Government to the executive branch. I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans.... I am for relying, for internal defence, on our militia solely, till actual invasion ... and not for a standing army in time of peace, which may overawe the public sentiment; nor for a navy, which by its own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public burthens, and sink us under them. I am for free commerce with all nations; political connections with none; and little or no diplomatic establishment ... I am for freedom of religion, and against all manoeuvres to bring about a legal