Where Madison thought a weak republic would only invite disorder, Jefferson reacted to the turmoil with aplomb. “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing,” he told Madison loftily from Paris, “and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”26 To Colonel William Smith, Jefferson sent his famous reassurance: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”27 While Hamilton feared that disorder would feed on itself, the more hopeful and complacent Jefferson thought that periodic excesses would correct
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