It involves the political difference between
government by the people and government by the representatives of
the people, and the practical difference between a government by
law and a government by mass-meeting.
Jefferson was a master organizer. At letter-writing, the one
means of communication in those days, he was a Hercules. His pen
never wearied. He soon had a compact party. It included not only
most of the Anti-Federalists, but the small politicians, the
tradesmen and artisans, who had worked themselves into a
ridiculous frenzy over the French Revolution and who despised
Washington for his noble neutrality. But more than these,
Jefferson won over a number of distinguished men who had worked
for the adoption of the Constitution, the ablest of whom was
James Madison, often called "the Father of the Constitution."
The Jeffersonians, thus representing largely the debtor and
farmer class, led by men of conspicuous abilities, proceeded to
batter down the prestige of the Federalists. They declared
themselves opposed to large expenditures of public funds, to
eager exploitation of government ventures, to the Bank, and to
the Navy, which they termed "the great beast with the great
belly." The Federalists included the commercial and creditor
class and that fine element in American life composed of leading
families with whom domination was an instinct, all led,
fortunately, by a few idealists of rare intellectual attainments.
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