currency and adequate representation for the growing backcountry. The societies strongly protested the excise tax on whiskey. They denounced John Jay as special envoy to London and vehemently repudiated Jay Treaty, which he signed. They complained about secret sessions of Congress and the state legislatures and demanded that public officials abandon the use of "dark, intricate, antiquated formalities" and "obsolete phraseology," which only lawyers and classical scholars could understand. Grievances The societies viewed excessive power as the enemy of liberty and were wary of the undue corrupt accumulation of power in the central government. The Society of Newcastle, Delaware, stated, "If we consult the lamentable annals of mankind, and cast our eyes back over the historic page we shall find this solemn truth recorded in large characters; that all governments however free in their origin, have in the end degenerated into despotism." The societies adhered to Jeffersonian thought and believed that the infant nation was fragile and needed careful protection by a vigilant population. The societies feared that Hamilton's financial policies edged too closely to English aristocracy and saw them as “prescriptions of Aristocracy, under the masque of Federalism.” They opposed the growing class of commercial elites and speculators. One society in New York City stated that it had “less respect to the consuming speculator, who wallows in luxury, than to the productive mechanic who struggles with indigence.” The societies grieved a lack of virtue and patriotism in the 1790s. They viewed "jealousy" and suspicion of the government not as protest, but as the duty of a virtuous vigilant citizen to maintain the republic. Tunis Wortman, secretary of the Democratic Society of New York, stated, “It is a truth too evident to be disguised, that since the completion and final establishment of our revolution, the flame of liberty has burned less bright, and become less universal in its operation. The charms of wealth, the allurements of luxury, the thirst for gain and the ruinous system of speculation, have borne down like the irresistible flood upon us, and have threatened destruction to the most valuable elements of social life:-the desire of affluence and the love of ease, have absorbed every honorable and patriotic consideration; have rendered us supine and indolent, and have nearly banished from our minds the sentiment of public virtue, destroyed the ardor of liberty, and diminished our attachment to the sacred interests of our country.” Doctrines The societies