Yielding and accommodating in non-essentials, he was inflexibly firm in a principle or position deliberately taken.
On the one hand, he regards him as supreme in power, controlling the destinies of Babylonia and Egypt as well as those of Israel, and as inflexibly just in dealing with ordinary offences against morality.
This incident caused a considerable sensation, and was the prelude to a long crisis in Hungarian affairs, during which the emperor-king, while quick to repair the unfortunate impression produced by his momentary pique, held inflexibly to his resolve in the matter of the common army.
As Hamilton was somewhat officious and very combative, and Jefferson, although uncontentious, very suspicious and quite independent, both men holding inflexibly to opinions, cabinet harmony became impossible when the two secretaries had formed parties about them and their differences were carried into the 1 It was at this period of his life that Jefferson gave expression to some of the opinions for which he has been most severely criticized and ridiculed.
