with the laws, and habits, and deeply sacred sentiments of Americans by
those whose position, alike dictated by modesty and safety, to them as
well as to us, is that of minors in training for American, not European,
liberty.

"I have not, at this late day, to make up an opinion on this subject. My
sentiments 'On the dangers to the free institutions of the United States
from foreign immigration' are the same now that I have ever entertained,
and these same have been promulgated from Maine to Louisiana for more
than twenty years.

"This subject involves questions which, in my estimation, make all others
insignificant in the comparison, for they affect all others. To the
disturbing influence of foreign action in our midst upon the political
and religious questions of the day may be attributed in a great degree
the present disorganization in all parts of the land.

"So far as the Society you speak of is acting against this great evil it,
of course, meets with my hearty concurrence. I am content to stand on the
platform, in this regard, occupied by Washington in his warnings against
foreign influence, by Lafayette, in his personal conversation and
instructions to me, and by Jefferson in his condemnation of the
encouragement given, even in his day, to foreign immigration. If this
Society has ulterior objects of which I know nothing, of these I can be
expected to speak only when I know something."

As his opinions on important matters, political and religious, appear in
the course of his correspondence, I shall make note of them. It is more
than probable that, as he differed radically from his father and the
other Federalists on the question of men and measures during the War of