It was not till the last session that I became unequivocally convinced of the following truth, "that Mr. Madison, co-operating with Mr. Jefferson, is at the head of a faction [the Democratic-Republicans], decidedly hostile to me, and my [Federalist] administration; and actuated by views, in my judgment, subversive of the principles of good government, and dangerous to the Union, peace and happiness of the country." …

This conviction in my mind is the result of a long train of circumstances, many of them minute. To attempt to detail them all would fill a volume. I shall therefore confine myself to the mention of a few.

First, as to the point of opposition to me, and my administration.

Mr. Jefferson, with very little reserve, manifests his dislike of the funding system generally; calling in question the expediency of funding a debt at all [referring to Hamilton's plan of having the federal government assume state debts.] Some expressions which he has dropped in my own presence (sometimes without sufficient attention to delicacy) will not permit me to doubt, on this point, representations which I have had from various respectable quarters. I do not mean that he advocates directly the undoing of what has been done; but he censures the whole, on principles, which, if they should become general, could not but end in the subversion of the system…

In almost all the questions, great and small, which have arisen since the first session of Congress, Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison have been found among those who are disposed to narrow the Federal authority…

In respect to our foreign politics, the views of these gentlemen are, in my judgment, equally unsound, and dangerous. They have a womanish attachment to France, and a womanish resentment against Great Britain. They would draw us into the closest embrace of the former, and involve us in all the consequences of her politics; and they would risk the peace of the country, in their endeavors to keep us at the greatest possible distance from the latter. This disposition goes to a length, particularly in Mr. Jefferson, of which, till lately, I had no adequate idea. Various circumstances prove to me that, if these gentlemen were left to pursue their own course, there would be, in less than six months, an open war between the United States and Great Britain…

Having delineated to you what I conceive to be the true complexion of the politics of these gentlemen, I will now attempt a solution of these strange appearances. Mr. Jefferson, it is known, did not, in the first instance, cordially acquiesce in the new Constitution for the United States; he had many doubts and reserves. He left this country before we had experienced the imbecilities of the former. In France he saw government only on the side of its abuses. He drank deeply of the French philosophy, in religion, in science, in politics. He came from France in the moment of a fermentation, which he had a share in exciting; and in the passions and feelings of which he shared both from temperament and situation. He came here probably with a too partial idea of his own powers and with the expectation of a greater share in the direction of our councils than he has in reality enjoyed. I am not sure that he had not peculiarly marked out for himself the department of the finances…

He came electrified plus with attachment to France, and with the project of knitting together the two countries in the closest political bands….

Attempts were made by these gentlemen, in different ways, to produce a commercial warfare with Great Britain. In this, too, they were disappointed. And, as they had the liveliest wishes on the subject, their dissatisfaction has been proportionably great; and, as I had not favored the project, I was comprehended in their displeasure…

It is possible, too, (for men easily heat their imaginations when their passions are heated,) that they have, by degrees, persuaded themselves of what they may have at first only sported to influence others; namely, that there is some dreadful combination against State government and Republicanism; which, according to them, are convertible terms. [Referring to the Democratic-Republicans' support of strong state governments, as opposed to the Hamiltonian Federalists' support of a strong federal government.] But there is so much absurdity in this supposition that the admission of it tends to apologize for their hearts at the expense of their heads….