Formation of the Union, 1750-1829 Part 18

[Sidenote: Suppression.]

As this violence was directed against the revenue laws, Hamilton made it his special task to suppress it. On September 25 the President called out the militia from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia.

Hamilton himself accompanied the troops, fifteen thousand in number; they marched over the mountains, and reached the disaffected country at the end of October. The insurgents made no stand in the field, and the troops returned, after making a few arrests.

The matter now went to the courts. Six persons were indicted for treason, of whom two, Vigol and Mitch.e.l.l, were convicted. They were rough and ignorant men, who had been led into the outbreak without understanding their own responsibility, and Washington pardoned them both. In July, 1795, a general amnesty was proclaimed.

[Sidenote: Effect.]

The effect of the whole movement was to make it evident throughout the nation that the United States had at its disposal a military force sufficient to put down any ordinary insurrection. In his message on the subject on Nov. 19, 1794, Washington alluded to "combinations of men who have disseminated suspicions, jealousies, and accusations of the whole government." The Senate applied these words to "self-created societies."

The allusion was to the Democratic clubs, founded in 1793 when Genet came to the country (-- 84), and still in existence. The effect of Washington's criticism was to break down the societies and to check a movement which looked toward resistance to all const.i.tuted government. The opposition were compelled to take a less objectionable party name, and began to call themselves Republicans.

87. ELECTION OF JOHN ADAMS (1796).

[Sidenote: Washington retires.]

[Sidenote: Nominations.]

On Sept. 17, 1796, Washington, in a public address, announced that he should not accept a re-election. The presidency had been irksome to Washington, and the personal attacks upon himself had grieved him; but he retired with the admiration and respect of the whole country. The selection of a successor at once became a party question. Jefferson, who had resigned the office of Secretary of State at the end of 1793, was the natural leader of the Republicans. John Adams, then Vice-President, had the largest Federalist following; but Hamilton hoped, by an electoral trick, to bring T. Pinckney, the candidate for Vice-President, in over his head. Adams candidly expressed his opinion of this intrigue: "That must be a sordid people indeed, a people dest.i.tute of a sense of honor, equity, and character, that could submit to be governed and see hundreds of its most meritorious public men governed by a Pinckney under an elective government."

[Sidenote: Adams and Jefferson.]

The danger was not, however, from Pinckney, but from Jefferson. When the votes were counted it was found that Adams had received the vote of the Northern States, with Delaware and a part of Maryland; but that Jefferson had received almost the whole vote of the South and of Pennsylvania. Adams became President by a vote of seventy-one, and Jefferson Vice-President by a vote of sixty-eight. The two men had been a.s.sociated in early years, and were not unfriendly to each other. There was even a hint that Jefferson was to be taken into the cabinet. As soon as the administration began, all confidence between them was at an end. The same set of elections decided the membership of Congress to serve from 1797 to 1799; the Senate remained decidedly Federalist; in the House the balance of power was held by a few moderate Republicans.

[Sidenote: Adams's cabinet.]

Adams considered himself the successor to the policy of Washington, and committed the serious mistake of taking over his predecessor's cabinet.

Hamilton retired in 1795; he had been replaced by his friend and admirer, Oliver Wolcott; the Secretary of State was Timothy Pickering of Pennsylvania: both these men looked upon Hamilton as their party chief.

The administration began, therefore, with divided counsels, and with jealousy in the President's official household.

88. BREACH WITH FRANCE (1795-1798).

[Sidenote: Monroe's mission.]

While the war-cloud with England was gathering and disappearing, new complications had arisen with France. The Jay treaty was received by that power as an insult, partly because it was favorable to her rival, partly because it removed the danger of war between England and the United States. In 1795 the first period of the Revolution was over, and an efficient government was const.i.tuted, with an executive directory of five.

James Monroe, appointed minister to France, had begun his mission in September, 1794, just after the fall of Robespierre; he appeared in the National Convention, and the president of that body adjured him to "let this spectacle complete the annihilation of an impious coalition of tyrants." During Jay's negotiations he continued to a.s.sure the French of the friendship of America, although the Directory speedily declared that Jay's treaty had released France from the treaty of 1778. As Monroe made no effort to push the American claims for captured vessels, he was recalled in disgrace in 1796, and C. C. Pinckney was appointed as his successor.

[Sidenote: Pinckney rebuffed.]

Three weeks after his inauguration Adams received a despatch from Pinckney announcing that he had been treated as a suspected foreigner, and that official notice had been given that the Directory would not receive another minister from the United States until the French grievances had been redressed. A special session of Congress was at once summoned, and the President declared that "the action of France ought to be repelled with a decision which shall convince France and the world that we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority." Headstrong behavior on the President's part would have immediately brought on war; but he had already made up his mind to send a special mission to France. In June, 1797, John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry, a Republican, but a personal friend of the President, were sent out to join Pinckney in a final representation.

[Sidenote: X. Y. Z. affair.]

It was nearly a year before news of the result was received. On April 2, 1798, the President communicated the despatches revealing the so-called "X. Y. Z. affair." It appeared that the envoys on reaching Paris, in October, 1797, had been denied an official interview, but that three persons, whose names were clouded under the initials X. Y. Z., had approached them with vague suggestions of loans and advances; these were finally crystallized into a demand for fifty thousand pounds "for the pockets of the Directory." The despatch described one conversation.

"'Gentlemen,' said X., 'you do not speak to the point. It is money. It is expected that you will offer money.' We said that we had spoken to that point very explicitly, that we had given an answer. 'No,' he replied, 'you have not. What is your answer?' We replied, 'It is No, no, no; not a sixpence.'" The President concluded with a ringing paragraph which summed up the indignation of the American people at this insult. "I will never send another minister to France without a.s.surances that he will be received, respected, and honored as the representative of a great, free, powerful, and independent nation."

[Sidenote: Naval war with France.]

The Republican opposition in Congress was overwhelmed and almost silenced.

A succession of statutes in April, May, and June hurried on military and naval preparations, and on July 7, 1798, American vessels of war were authorized to attack French cruisers. On Feb. 9, 1799, the "Constellation"

took the French frigate "Insurgente," and American cruisers and privateers had the satisfaction of retaliating for the numerous captures of American vessels by preying on French commerce. Measures were taken to raise land forces; but here again the rift in the Federal party appeared. Washington was made t.i.tular commander-in-chief. It was expected that operations would be directed by the second in command, and Hamilton's friends insisted that he should receive that appointment. With great reluctance Adams granted the commission, the result of which was the resignation of Knox, who had been third on the list.

89. ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS (1798).

[Sidenote: Triumph of the Federalists.]

[Sidenote: Alien Act.]

For the first and last time in his administration John Adams found himself popular. From all parts of the country addresses were sent to the President approving his patriotic stand. The moderate Republicans in the House were swept away by the current, and thus there was built up a compact Federalist majority in both houses. It proceeded deliberately to destroy its own party. The newspapers had now reached an extraordinary degree of violence; attacks upon the Federalists, and particularly upon Adams, were numerous, and keenly felt. Many of the journalists were foreigners, Englishmen and Frenchmen. To the excited imagination of the Federalists, these men seemed leagued with France in an attempt to destroy the liberties of the country; to get rid of the most violent of these writers, and at the same time to punish American-born editors who too freely criticised the administration, seemed to them essential. This purpose they proposed to carry out by a series of measures known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. A naturalization law, requiring fourteen years residence, was hurried through. On April 25 a Federalist introduced a temporary Alien Act, for the removal of "such aliens born, not ent.i.tled by the const.i.tution and laws to the rights of citizenship, as may be dangerous to its peace and safety." The opposition, headed by Albert Gallatin, made a strong appeal against legislation so unnecessary, sweeping, and severe. The Federalists replied in panic fear: "Without such an act," said one member, "an army might be imported, and could be excluded only after a trial." To the details of the bill there was even greater objection. It conferred upon the President the power to order the withdrawal of any alien; if he refused to go, he might be imprisoned at the President's discretion, Nevertheless, the act, limited to two years, was pa.s.sed on June 25, 1798. Adams seems to have had little interest in it, and never made use of the powers thus conferred.

[Sidenote: Sedition Act.]

[Sidenote: Sedition prosecutions.]

The Sedition Act was resisted with even greater stubbornness. It proposed to punish persons who should conspire to oppose measures of the government, or to intimidate any office-holder. The publishing of libels upon the government, or either house, or the President, was likewise made a crime. Against this proposition there were abundant arguments, on grounds both of const.i.tutionality and expediency. It introduced the new principle of law that the United States should undertake the regulation of the press, which up to this time had been left solely to the States. That its main purpose was to silence the Republican journalists is plain from the argument of a leading Federalist: the "Aurora," a Republican organ, had said that "there is more safety and liberty to be found in Constantinople than in Philadelphia;" and the "Timepiece" had said of Adams that "to tears and execrations he added derision and contempt." It is impossible to agree with the member who quoted these extracts that "they are indeed terrible. They are calculated to freeze the blood in the veins." The Sedition Act was to expire in 1801. It was quickly put into operation, and one of the prosecutions was against Callender, known to be a friend of Jefferson; he was indicted and convicted for a.s.serting among other things that "Mr. Adams has only completed the scene of ignominy which Mr. Washington began." So far from silencing the ribald journalists, the Act and its execution simply drew down worse criticism. On the other hand, the Federalist press, which had been hardly inferior in violence, was permitted to thunder unchecked. The Alien and Sedition Acts were party measures, pa.s.sed for party purposes; they did not accomplish the purposes intended, and they did the party irreparable harm.

90. VIRGINIA AND KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS (1798-1800).

[Sidenote: Danger of disunion.]

[Sidenote: Madison's and Jefferson's resolutions.]

The elections of 1798 in the excited state of public feeling a.s.sured a Federalist majority in the Congress to sit from 1799 to 1801. The Republicans felt that their adversaries were using the power of the federal government to destroy the rights of the people. June 1, 1798, Jefferson wrote to a friend who thought that the time was come to withdraw from the Union; "If on the temporary superiority of one party the other is to resort to a scission of the Union, no federal government can exist."

The remedy which lay in his mind was an appeal to the people through the State legislatures. In November and December, 1798, two series of resolutions were introduced,--one in the Virginia legislature, the other in the Kentucky legislature; the first drawn by Madison, and the second by Jefferson's own hand. They set forth that the Const.i.tution was a compact to which the States were parties, and that "each party has an equal right to judge for itself as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress." The Alien and Sedition Acts and some other statutes were declared by Kentucky "not law ... void and of no effect;" and the other States were called upon to unite in so declaring them void, and in protesting to Congress. For the first time since the Const.i.tution had been formed, a clear statement of the "compact" theory of government was now put forth. It was a reasonable implication from these resolutions that if the Federalist majority continued to override the Const.i.tution, the States must take more decisive action; but the only distinct suggestion of an attack on the Union is found in a second series of Kentucky resolutions, pa.s.sed in 1799, in which it is declared that "nullification ... of all unauthorized acts ... is the rightful remedy."

[Sidenote: Purpose of the resolutions.]

The const.i.tutional doctrine in these resolutions was secondary. The real purpose was to arouse the public to the dangerous character of the Federalist legislation. Madison, many years afterward, explained that he meant only an appeal to the other States to unite in deprecation of the measures. The immediate effect was to set up a sort of political platform, about which the opponents of the Federalists might rally, and by the presentation of a definite issue to keep up the Republican organization against the electoral year 1800.

91. ELECTION OF 1800-1801.

[Sidenote: Peace with France.]

[Sidenote: Breach in the party.]

The Alien and Sedition Acts had quickly destroyed all Adams's popularity in the Republican party; his later action deprived him of the united support of the Federalists. War with France was pleasing to them as an a.s.sertion of national dignity, as a protest against the growth of dangerous democracy in France, and as a step toward friendship or eventual alliance with England. Early in 1799 Talleyrand intimated that a minister would now be received from the American government. Without consulting his cabinet, with whom Adams was not on good terms, the President appointed an emba.s.sy to France. Early in 1800 they made a favorable treaty with France: better guarantees were secured for American neutral trade; the old treaties of 1778 were practically set aside; and the claims of American merchants for captures since 1793 were abandoned, This last action gave rise to the French Spoliation Claims, which remained unsettled for nearly a century thereafter, Adams's determination to make peace was statesmanlike and patriotic, but it gave bitter offence to the warlike Federalists. In May, 1800, Adams found his cabinet so out of sympathy that he removed Pickering, Secretary of State, and appointed John Marshall.

This meant a formal breach between the Adams and the Hamilton wings of the party.

[Sidenote: Republicans successful.]

The campaign of 1800 thus began with the Federalists divided, and the Republicans hopeful. Hamilton was determined to force Adams from the headship, and prepared a pamphlet, for which materials were furnished by Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury. Aaron Burr, a wily Republican leader, managed to get a copy, published it, and spread it broadcast.

Adams was re-nominated by a caucus of Federalist members, and C. C.

Pinckney was put on the ticket with him. Jefferson was, as in 1796, the candidate of his party for President. For Vice-President there was a.s.sociated with him Burr, who was able to control the important vote of the State of New York. The result of this coalition was seen in May, 1800, when a New York legislature was elected with a Republican majority; and that legislature would, in the autumn, cast the vote of the State. The Federalists persevered, but South Carolina deserted them, so that both Jefferson and Burr received seventy-three votes, and Adams had only sixty- five. The Federalist supremacy was broken.

[Sidenote: Election by the House.]