“[E]very difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans; we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated.” March 14 Jefferson names cabinet appointments, including Madison as Secretary of State. March 21 Jefferson’s response to Baltimore’s New Jerusalem Church April 29 Jefferson, to the inhabitants of Warren County, N.C.: “Nothing is more important to the interest of our country, than the absolute exclusion of every degree of foreign influence.” May 13 republishing from the Gazette of the United States all 25 “Phocion Letters,” which questioned Jefferson’s temperament for the presidency, accused him of hypocrisy on slavery, and hinted at his relationship with Sally Hemings. (Hamilton had used that pen name in 1784, so some observers believed him to be the author. However, William Loughton Smith, a Federalist Congressman and Hamilton ally from South Carolina, has since been identified as the more probable author of the 1796 Phocion letters.) June 10 “The Dey of Algiers has DECLARED WAR against the United States.” July 25 Jefferson’s “Reply to the ‘Remonstrance of the Merchants of New-Haven,’” Jefferson, already suspected of partisan motives in dismissing many Federalist office-holders, drew sharp criticism when he denied the substance of the merchants’ complaint. (p1/c5) Aug. 8 “Whatever claims to eminence Dr. Franklin may have…there is no point of light in which his character shines with more luster, than when we view him as a man or a citizen. He was eminently great in common things.… Nothing ever passed through his hands without receiving improvement; and no person ever went into his company without gaining wisdom.” Aug. 15 Toussaint L’Ouverture, Address to the People of Santo Domingo, commemorating their new Constitution. (p1/c4) Constitution printed in full in Aug. 19 issue.
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