The exalted opinion he entertained of his own country was flattering to his fellow citizens; and the purity of his mind, the unblemished integrity of a life spent in the public service, had gained him their confidence.
A government, supported in all its departments by so much character and talent, at the head of which was placed a man whose capacity was undoubted, whose life had been one great and continued lesson of disinterested patriotism, and for whom almost every bosom glowed with an attachment bordering on enthusiasm, could not fail to make a rapid progress in conciliating the affection of the people.

That all hostility to the constitution should subside, that public measures should receive universal approbation; that no particular disgusts and individual irritations should be excited; were expectations which could not reasonably be indulged.

Exaggerated accounts were indeed occasionally circulated of the pomp and splendour which were affected by certain high officers, of the monarchical tendencies of particular institutions, and of the dispositions which prevailed to increase the powers of the executive.

That the doors of the senate were closed, and that a disposition had been manifested by that body to distinguish the President of the United States by a title,[43] gave considerable umbrage, and were represented as evincing inclinations in that branch of the legislature, unfriendly to republicanism.

The exorbitance of salaries was also a subject of some declamation, and the equality of commercial privileges with which foreign bottoms entered American ports, was not free from objection.