dollars, which, with that before existing, is directed into every branch of business, giving life and vigor to industry in its infinitely diversified operation. The enemies of the general government, the funding act and the National Bank may bellow tyranny, aristocracy, and speculators through the Union and repeat the clamorous din as long as they please; but the actual state of agriculture and commerce, the peace, the contentment and satisfaction of the great mass of people, give the lie to their assertions. Jefferson wrote on February 12, 1798: Religious dimension In New England, the Federalist Party was closely linked to the Congregational church. When the party collapsed, the church was disestablished. In 1800 and other elections, the Federalists targeted infidelity in any form. They repeatedly charged that Republican candidates, especially Jefferson, were atheistic or nonreligious. Conversely, the Baptists, Methodists and other dissenters as well as the religiously nonaligned favored the Republican cause. Jefferson told the Baptists of Connecticut there should be a "wall of separation" between church and state. Effects of foreign affairs International affairs—the French Revolution and the subsequent war between royalist Britain and republican France—decisively shaped American politics in 1793–1800 and threatened to entangle the nation in wars that "mortally threatened its very existence". The French revolutionaries guillotined King Louis XVI in January 1793, and subsequently declared war on Britain. The King had been decisive in helping the United States achieve independence, but now he was dead and many of the pro-American aristocrats in France were exiled or executed. Federalists warned that American republicans threatened to replicate the horrors of the French Revolution and successfully mobilized most conservatives and many clergymen. The Republicans, some of whom had been strong Francophiles, responded with support even through the Reign of Terror, when thousands were guillotined, though it was at this point that many began backing away from their pro-France leanings. Many of those executed had been friends of the United States, such as the Comte D'Estaing, whose fleet had fought alongside the Americans in the Revolution (Lafayette had already fled into exile, and Thomas Paine went to prison in France). The republicans denounced Hamilton, Adams and even Washington as friends of Britain, as secret monarchists and as enemies of the republican values. The level of rhetoric reached a fever pitch.Smelser, "The Jacobin Phrenzy: Federalism and the Menace of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity," Review of Politics 13 (1951) 457–82. In 1793,