Note (return) — Chapter V · WASHINGTON AS A PARTY MAN
Reading edition
"All this, I grant, ought to be like dust in the balance, when put in competition with a great public good, when the accomplishment of it is apparent. But, as no problem is better defined in my mind than that principle, not men, is now, and will be, the object of contention; and that I could not obtain a solitary vote from that party; that any other respectable Federal character could receive the same suffrages that I should;1 that at my time of life (verging towards threescore and ten) I should expose myself without rendering any essential service to my country, or answering the end contemplated; prudence on my part must avert any attempt of the well-meant but mistaken views of my friends to introduce me again into the chair of government."