Edited sentence: Disclaimer (written so because editing this text would be too time consuming):.George Washington made clear his thoughts in his farewell address to the nation when he wrote about "the baneful effects of the spirit of party ..." and Thomas Jefferson probably said it best: "I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men … where I was capable of thinking for myself.Historians and political scientists have ignored the considerable writings of the Founding Fathers that made clear they would have nothing to do with the kinds of formal parties that exist today.If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.Modern writers have amalgamated the Federalist movement with the structure of the modern parties they are familiar with, thus misrepresenting the former's true nature.Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.The Federalists did not belong to a party as we know it.The Founders, in fact, warned succeeding generations to assiduously resist factionalizing the government they created (read Federalist #10).The following account is a significant misrepresentation of early United States government political activity.To suggest otherwise is an ironic disrespect of their contribution to history