Delaware being still hostile) it must be on some greater occasion than
is likely to arise within my time. I look to it, therefore, as a course
which will probably be to be left to the consideration of my successor.

I consider, with you, the federalists as completely vanquished, and
never more to take the field under their own banners. They will now
reserve themselves to profit by the schisms among republicans, and to
earn favors from minorities, whom they will enable to triumph over
their more numerous antagonists. So long as republican minorities barely
accept their votes, no great harm will be done; because it will only
place in power one shade of republicanism, instead of another. But
when they purchase the votes of the federalists, by giving them
a participation of office, trust, and power, it is a proof that
anti-monarchism is not their strongest passion. I do not think that the
republican minority in Pennsylvania has fallen into this heresy, nor
that there are in your State materials of which a minority can be made
who will fall into it.

With respect to the tour my friends to the north have proposed that I
should make in that quarter, I have not made up a final opinion. The
course of life which General Washington had run, civil and military,
the services he had rendered, and the space he therefore occupied in the
affections of his fellow-citizens, take from his examples the weight of
precedents for others, because no others can arrogate to themselves the
claims which he had on the public homage. To myself, therefore, it comes
as a new question, to be viewed under all the phases it may present.
I confess, that I am not reconciled to the idea of a chief magistrate
parading himself through the several States as an object of public gaze,
and in quest of an applause, which, to be valuable, should be purely
voluntary. I had rather acquire silent good will by a faithful discharge