History of the United States Volume Ii Part 20

The press was more violently partisan and indecently personal than now.

To oppose the federalist United States Gazette the republican National Gazette had been started, which, with brilliant meanness, a.s.sailed not only Washington's public acts, but his motives and character. Him, and still more Adams, Hamilton, and the other leading Federalists, it, in nearly every issue, charged with conspiracy to found a monarchy.

Republican journals reeked with such doggerel as:

"See Johnny at the helm of State, Head itching for a crowny; He longs to be, like Georgy, great, And pull Tom Jeffer downy."

[Footnote: 2 McMaster, 383]

Federalists were not behind in warfare of this sort. Jefferson was the object of their continual and vilest slander. In New England, the stronghold of Federalism, nearly every Sunday's sermon was an arraignment of the French, and impliedly of their allies, the Republicans. [Footnote: 2 McMaster, 383] From Jefferson's election--he was a conservative free-thinker--they seemed to antic.i.p.ate the utter extermination of Christianity, though the man paid in charities, mostly religious, as for Bibles, missionaries, chapels, meeting-houses, etc., one year of his presidency, $978.20; another year, $1,585.60. One preacher likened the tribute which Talleyrand demanded of Adams's envoys to that which Sennacherib required of Hezekiah. [Footnote: Isaiah, 36]

Another compared Hamilton, killed in a duel, to Abner, the son of Ner, slain by Joab. Another took for his text the message which Hezekiah sent to the Prophet Isaiah: "This is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of contumely," [Footnote: Isaiah, 37: 3 seq.] etc. Another attacked Republicanism outright from the words: "There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel." [Footnote: Joshua. 7: 13] The coolest federalist leaders could fall prey to this partisan temper. Lafayette meditated settling in this country. Such was his popularity here that no one would have dared to oppose this openly. Hamilton, however, while favoring it publicly, yet, lest the great Frenchman's coming should help on the republican cause, secretly did his utmost to prevent it. Even Washington, who was human after all, connived, it seems, at this piece of duplicity.

According to a federalist sheet, Hamilton's death called forth "the voice of deep lament" save from "the rancorous Jacobin, the scoffing deist, the snivelling fanatic, and the imported scoundrel." "Were I asked," said an apologist, "whether General Hamilton had vices, in the face of the world, in the presence of my G.o.d, I would answer, No."

Another poetized of the

"Great day When Hamilton--disrobed of mortal clay-- At G.o.d's right hand shall sit with face benign, And at his murderer cast a look divine."

In 1800 instrumental music might have been heard in some American churches. There were Roman Catholic congregations in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Baltimore had its Catholic bishop. The Protestant Episcopal Church in America had been organized. Methodism, independent of England since 1784, was on its crusade up and down the land, already strong in New York and the South, and in 1790 a Methodist church had been gathered in Boston.

The manufacture of corduroys, bed-ticking, fustian, jeans, and cotton-yarn had been started. Iron ore and iron ware of nearly all sorts was produced. Syracuse was manufacturing salt. Lynn already made morocco leather, and Dedham, straw braid for hats. Cotton was regularly exported in small quant.i.ties from the South. In New York one could get a decayed tooth filled or a set of false teeth made. Four daily stages ran between New York and Philadelphia. The Boston ship Columbia had circ.u.mnavigated the globe. The United States Mint was still working by horse-power, not employing steam till 1815. Whitney's cotton-gin had been invented in 1793. Terry, of Plymouth, Conn., was making clocks. There were in the land two insurance companies, possibly more. Cast-iron ploughs, of home make, were displacing the old ones of wood. Morse's "Geography" and Webster's "Spelling-book" were on the market, and extensively used.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Drawing.]

Cotton Plant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Drawing.]

The Cotton-Gin.

From the original model.

The great industrial inventions which were to color the entire civilization of mankind had a powerful effect upon America. So early as 1775, in England, Crompton's mule-jenny had superseded Hargreaves'

spinning machine. The latter had improved on the old spinning-wheel by making eight, and later eighty, threads with the effort and time the old arrangement had required for one; but the threads were no better, and could be used only for woof, linen being required for warp. Arkwright's roller arrangement was an improvement upon Hargreaves'. It bettered the quality of the threads, making them evener, so that they could serve for warp as well as woof. Crompton's mule was another quant.i.tative improvement, combining the excellences of both Hargreaves and Arkwright.

One man could with this machinery work twenty-two hundred spindles, and they went much faster than by the ancient wheel. Then came steam-power.

Watts's engine was adapted to spinning and carding cotton at Manchester in 1783. Two years later the cylinder printing of cottons was invented, and a little after began the use of acid in bleaching.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Eli Whitney.

These mighty industrial devices did not cross to America immediately, but were all here before the time of which we now write. A spinning-jenny was indeed exhibited in Philadelphia so early as 1775.

During the Revolution, Philadelphia was a seat of much manufacture. We have in an earlier chapter remarked that Beverly, Ma.s.s., had a cotton factory in 1787. Oxen furnished its power, as a horse did that for the first Philadelphia mill. A cotton mill was also started very early at Worcester, but whether in 1780 or 1789 may admit of doubt. There is some evidence that before July, 1790, a cotton factory run by water, with ginning, carding, and spinning machines, the last of eighty-four spindles apiece, was in operation near Statesburg, S. C.; but whether it was successful or not is not known. Oliver Evans was operating a single-flue boiler for steam-power by 1786. Soon after he had one with two flues, and in 1779 a high-pressure or non-condensing engine, the principle of which he is by many believed to have invented. He was the earliest builder of steam-engines in the United States, having in 1804 secured a patent for the high-pressure device. His factory furnished engines to all parts of the country.

England did her best to prevent all knowledge of the new manufacturing machinery from crossing the Atlantic. The Act 21 George III., c. 37, denounced upon anyone who should aid toward giving America any tool, machine, or secret relating to manufacture in any branch, a penalty of 200 pounds and one year's imprisonment. In vain. Partly by smuggling, partly by invention, the new arts soon flourished here as there. Some Scotch artisans who came to Bridgewater, Ma.s.s., by invitation from Mr.

Hugh Orr, of that town, constructed, about 1786, the first cotton-spinning machines in America, including the Arkwright inventions.

To build and launch the English machinery with full success was, however, reserved for Samuel Slater, a native of Belper, Derbyshire, England, who, in 1790, erected at Pawtucket, R. I., the Old Mill in rear of Mill Street, which still stands and runs. Slater had served his time at the making of cotton-manufacturing machinery with J. Strutt, who, had been Arkwright's partner. In Strutt's factory he had risen to be overseer. So thoroughly had he mastered the business that, on arriving here, he found himself able to imitate the foreign machines from memory alone, without model, plan, or measurement. Having gotten his gear in readiness, almost solely with his own hands, December 20, 1790, he started three cards, drawing and roving, also seventy-two spindles, all on the Arkwright plan, the first of the kind ever triumphantly operated on this side of the ocean. President Jackson styled Slater "the father of American manufactures," and 1790 may be taken as the birth-year of the American factory system.

The Tariff, the embargo policy of President Jefferson, and the hatred toward England, taking form in organizations pledged to wear only home-made clothing, all powerfully stimulated the erection of factories.

A report in 1810, of Albert Gallatin, Madison's Secretary of the Treasury, states that by the end of the year preceding, eighty-seven cotton factories had arisen in this country, calculated for eighty thousand spindles. The power loom, however, not used in England till about 1806, did not begin its work here till after the War of 1812.

[Footnote: See. further, Period II., Chap. VIII.]

CHAPTER IX.

DEMOCRACY AT THE HELM

[1801]

By the original mode of election, President and Vice-President could not be separately designated on electors' tickets, so that, soon as party spirit led each elector to vote for the same two men, these two were tied for the first place. This occurred in 1801. The republican candidates were Jefferson and Burr. Each had the same number of electoral votes, seventy-three, against sixty-five for Adams, sixty-four for C. C. Pinckney, and one for John Jay. There being no choice, the election went to the House. This had a federalist majority, but was, by the parity of the two highest candidates, const.i.tutionally shut up to elect between these, both of them Republicans. Jefferson as the abler and from the South, was more than Burr an object of federalist hate.

Against Hamilton's advice, to his honor be it remembered, the Federalists agreed to throw their votes for Burr. But the vote then, as to-day in such a case, had to be by States. There were sixteen States, nine being necessary to a choice. In nineteen ballots on February 11th, nine the 12th, one the 13th, four the 14th, one each the 16th and 17th, thirty-five in all, Jefferson every time carried eight States and Burr six, while Maryland and Vermont were equally divided, and therefore powerless.

The fear at last began to be felt that the Union would go to pieces and the Federalists be to blame. Accordingly, on the 36th ballot, five Federalists from South Carolina, four from Maryland, one from Vermont, and one from Delaware--Mr. Bayard, grandfather to President Cleveland's first Secretary of State--did not vote, enabling the republican members from Vermont and Maryland to cast the votes of those States for Jefferson. Thus, with ten States, he was elected, Burr becoming Vice-President. This crisis led, in 1804, to the XIIth Amendment to the Const.i.tution, which directs each elector to vote for Vice-President as such. There can hardly now be a tie between the two leading presidential candidates, and if there is for any reason delay in electing the President, the Senate may proceed to elect the Vice-President at once.

The improvement became manifest when, in 1825, the House again had to elect the President, and chose John Quincy Adams over Crawford and Jackson.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Thomas Jefferson.

From the painting by Gilbert Stuart--property of T. Jefferson Coolidge.

The Democratic Party proved to have entered upon a long lease of power.

For forty years its hold upon affairs was not relaxed, and it was in no wise broken even by the elections of Harrison in 1840 and Taylor in 1848. Nor did it ever appear probable that the Whigs, upon anyone of the great issues which divided them from the Democrats, were in a way to win permanent advantage. Not till after 1850 had the ruling dynasty true reason to tremble, and then only at the rise of a new party, the modern Republicans, inspired by the bold cry of anti-slavery, which the Whigs had never dared to raise.

As to its main outlines, the democratic policy was well foreshadowed in Jefferson's first inaugural. It favored thrift and simplicity in government, involving close limitation of army, navy, and diplomatic corps to positive and tangible needs. It professed peculiar regard for the rights and interests of the common man, whether of foreign or of native parentage. Strict construction of the Const.i.tution, which was to a great extent viewed as a compact of States, was another of its cherished ideas. It also maintained special friendliness for agriculture and commerce. From its strict constructionism sprung, further, its hostility to internal improvements; from this and from its regard to agriculture and commerce resulted its dislike to restrictive tariffs.

Particularly after the whig schism, about 1820, did these ideas stand forth definite and p.r.o.nounced as the authoritative democratic creed. In and from Jackson's time they were more so still.

Yet in most respects Jefferson has remained the typical Democrat, He had genuine faith in the people, in free government, in unfettered individuality, His administration was frugal almost to a fault. He insisted upon making the civil power supreme over the military, and scorned all pretensions on the part of any particular cla.s.s to rule, In two points only was his democracy ideal rather than ill.u.s.trative of that which followed, viz., adroitness in giving trend and consistency to legislation, and non-partisan administration of the civil service. In the former no executive has equalled him, in the latter none since Quincy Adams.

Growing up as a scholar and a gentleman-farmer, with refined tastes, penning the great Declaration, which was early scouted for its abstractions, long minister to France, where abstract ideas made all high politics morbid, the sage of Monticello turned out to be one of the most practical presidents this nation has ever had. If he overdid simplicity in going to the Capitol on horseback to deliver his first inaugural, tying his magnificent horse, Wildair, to a tree with his own hands, he yet entertained elegantly, and his whole state as President, far from humiliating the nation, as some feared it would, was in happy keeping with its then development and nature. His cabinet, Madison, Gallatin, Dearborn, Smith, and Granger, was in liberal education superior to any other the nation has ever had, every member a college graduate, and the first two men of distinguished research and attainments.

As to the civil service, Jefferson, it is true, made many removals from office, some doubtless unwise and even unjust; but in judging of these we must remember his profound and unquestionably honest conviction that the Federalists lacked patriotism. It was this belief which dictated his prosecution, almost persecution, of Burr, whom Federalists openly befriended and defended.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Aaron Burr.

From a painting by Vallderlyn at the New York Historical Society.

Aaron Burr was the brilliant grandson of President Edwards. Graduating at Princeton at the early age of seventeen, he studied theology a year, then law, which on the outbreak of the Revolution he deserted for army life at Boston. He went in Arnold's expedition to Canada, was promoted to be colonel, and served on Washington's staff. In Canada he did service as a spy, disguised as a priest and speaking French or Latin as needed. His legal studies completed, 1783 found him in practice in New York, office at No. 10 Little Queen Street. Both as lawyer and in politics he rose like a meteor, being Hamilton's peer in the one, his superior in the other. Organizing his "Little Band" of young Republicans, spite of federalist opposition and sneers from the old republican chiefs, he became Attorney-general of New York in 1789. In 1791, superseding Schuyler, he was United States senator from that State, and in 1800, Vice-President.

Higher he could not mount, as federalist favor cursed him among his own party, yet was too weak to aid him independently. It was kept down by Hamilton, who saw through the man and opposed him with all his might.

For this Burr forced him to a duel, and fatally shot him, July 11, 1804.

Indicted for murder, Burr now disappears from politics, but only to emerge in a new role. During all the early history of our Union the parts beyond the Alleghanies were attached to it by but a slender thread, which Spanish intrigue incessantly sought to cut. At this very time Spain was pensioning men in high station there, including General Wilkinson, commanding our force at New Orleans. Could not Burr detach this district or a part of it from our Government and make here an empire of his own? Or might he not take it as the base of operations for an attack on Spanish America that should give him an empire there? Some vision of this sort danced before the mad genius's vision, as before that of Hamilton in the Miranda scheme. Many influential persons encouraged him, with how much insight into his plan we shall never know.

Wilkinson was one of these. Blennerha.s.sett, whose family and estate Burr irreparably blasted, was another. He expected aid from Great Britain, and from disaffected Mexicans.