again most readily submit to. I do not pretend to have no party opinions, to have no predilection for particular descriptions of men or of measures; but I do not act upon minor considerations; I belong here, as in my former country, to the great party of mankind."
Duane, for whom Cooper was sponsor, has been very roundly abused, and unjustly so. This is understandable when it comes from contemporaries, or from a man like John Quincy Adams, whose father had suffered so much at Duane's hands; it is not quite so understandable when it comes from historians of this generation. Duane occupied a conspicuous and important place in American life, and it is not true, as one historian has said, that "his friendship (almost intimacy) and his loyalty to Jefferson, constituted his claim for recognition."[1]
His latef history, like that of most of the early political editors, was unhappy. With the advent into power of Jefferson, Duane opened a store in Washington, in the hope of obtaining the government printing. Gallatin endorsed his application,[2] and Jefferson himself promised to help him in the matter of purchasing supplies.[3]
The various prosecutions under the Alien and Sedition Acts, together with the time he had spent in prison, had reduced his business considerably. In a letter to President Madison he recounted that, in addition to his own family, he had taken care of the progeny of the descendants of Benjamin Franklin. But through all his applications for assistance, he showed himself to be independent, and more deeply interested in the cause of the party
