Washington and the American Republic Part 17

[38] See page 198

[39] For the correspondence in full, see Hamilton's Works, volume iv; Sparks's Life and Writings of Washington, volume x; Randall's Life of Jefferson, volume ii.

[40] The following is the resolution referred to: "That, whereas some men may be found amongst us, so far lost to every sense of virtue and feeling for the distresses of this country as to accept offices for the collection of the duty: _Resolved_, that in future we will consider such persons as unworthy of our friendship, have no intercourse or dealings with them, withdraw from them every a.s.sistance, withhold all the comforts of life which depend upon those duties that as men and fellow-citizens we owe to each other, and upon all occasions treat them with that contempt they deserve; and that it be, and is hereby, most earnestly recommended to the people at large to follow the same line of conduct toward them."

CHAPTER XIX.

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES--EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES--THE FEDERALISTS A CONSERVATIVE PARTY--ASPECT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION--WASHINGTON DOUBTS ITS SUCCESS--INCREASE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY--WASHINGTON'S RE-ELECTION--GOUVERNEUR MORRIS IN FRANCE--OTHER MINISTERS--GLOOMY FOREBODINGS--JEFFERSON'S IMPATIENCE--TROUBLES OF THE FRENCH KING--LAFAYETTE IN DIFFICULTY--TUILLERIES ATTACKED AND THE KING DETHRONED--REIGN OF TERROR--LAFAYETTE'S FLIGHT, ARREST, AND IMPRISONMENT--b.l.o.o.d.y WORK IN PARIS--JEFFERSON JUSTIFIES THE JACOBINS--WASHINGTON'S SYMPATHY FOR LAFAYETTE'S FAMILY--APPEAL OF THE MARCHIONESS--WASHINGTON POWERLESS TO AID.

The foreign relations of the United States were at this time peculiar and somewhat anomalous. Popular sentiment, the expression of the sovereignty of the nation, was mixed in character and yet crude in form, and it was difficult to discern precisely in what relation it stood to the disturbed nationalities of Europe. Separated from the old world by a vast ocean, the public mind here was not so immediately and powerfully acted upon by pa.s.sing events as it would have been, if only an imaginary line of political demarcation had been drawn between the new republic and convulsed communities; and its manifestations were less demonstrative than implied.

All Europe was effervescing with antagonistic ideas; and the wisest and the best men in the old world stood in wonder and awe in the midst of the upheaval of social and political systems that were h.o.a.ry with age, and apparently as settled in their places as the oceans and continents.

France, the old ally and friend of the United States, was the centre of the volcanic force that was shaking the nations; and with instinctive motion the potentates, alarmed for the stability of their thrones, had a.s.sumed the att.i.tude of implacable enemies to the new power that was bearing rule in that kingdom. As the car of revolution rolled onward, carrying King Louis to the scaffold, they felt the hot breath of avenging justice upon their own foreheads, and they called out their legions for defence and to utter a solemn and effective protest. The people were awed in the presence of gleaming bayonets. In the autumn of 1792, nearly all Europe was in arms against France.

In the United States, where revolution had done its work n.o.bly and wisely, and the experiment of self-government was working successfully, sympathy for the struggling people of France and of all Europe was powerful and untrammelled. Without inquiry, it cheered on the patriots of France, with Lafayette at their head, when they were struggling for a const.i.tution; and when it was gained, and the king accepted it, great satisfaction was felt by every American citizen in whose bosom glowed the love of freedom for its own sake. With this feeling was mingled a dislike of Great Britain; first, because the remembrance of her oppression and her warfare against the independence of the United States were fresh in the minds of the American people; secondly, because her government yet refused compliance with the terms of a solemn treaty made ten years before; and, thirdly, because her att.i.tude was hostile to the republican movement in France. Thus old alliances and old hatreds, and a desire to see all people free, made those of the United States sympathize strongly with those of France in their revolutionary movements, and to hate the enemies of that nation in its avowed struggle for liberty.

But there were wise, and prudent, and thoughtful men in the United States, who had made the science of government a study, and human nature their daily reading, who perceived principles of self-destruction in the French const.i.tution. They saw its want of balances, and the course of the representatives under it, which must inevitably allow the gallery to rule the legislature, and mobs to give color to the opinions of the executive. They clearly perceived, what Lafayette and his compatriots had already deeply lamented, that the true elements of self-government did not belong to the French nation; that with liberty they were rapidly degenerating into licentiousness; and that the const.i.tution must prove as powerless as a rope of sand in restraining the pa.s.sions of the people. And some of them, as we have seen, who wrote or spoke in favor of a well-balanced and potent government were branded by ungenerous men as the advocates of royalty and aristocracy, and held up to the people as traitors to republicanism, and fit subjects for the finger of scorn to point at. They were charged with blind prejudice in favor of British inst.i.tutions, and as conspirators for the re-establishment of British rule in America. But the conservative or federal party, as they were called, were more powerful if not so numerous as their opponents; and when Europe armed against the old ally of the United States, the government of the latter, professedly representing the popular sentiment, was so restrained by the wise caution of those who held the sceptre of political power, that it presented the anomalous character of a warm-hearted, deeply-sympathizing champion of freedom, apparently in the ranks of the enemies of liberty.

Washington had hailed with satisfaction the dawn of popular liberty in France, and earnestly desired the success of those who were working for the establishment of republicanism there; but his wisdom and sagacity evidently made him doubtful of their success, even from the beginning.

In the course of his correspondence, we find him often expressing earnest _wishes_ for the happy results concerning which Lafayette had dreamed so fondly, but he never expressed a _hope_, because he never felt it; and when, in the summer and autumn of 1792, the Revolution in France a.s.sumed a b.l.o.o.d.y and ferocious character, and the n.o.ble goal toward which his friend the marquis had so enthusiastically pressed was utterly lost sight of in the midst of the lurid smoke of a self-const.i.tuted tyranny, as bad in feature and act as the foulest on history's records, he was disgusted, and with the conservative party, then fortunately holding the reins of executive and legislative power, he resolved that the government of the United States should stand aloof from all entanglements with European politics.

The doctrines of Jefferson and his party, having sympathy with the French Revolution and enmity to Great Britain among its prime elements, was rapidly gaining ground in the United States, because the avowed principles of that party were in accordance with the proclivities of the great ma.s.s of the people, who were moved by pa.s.sion rather than by reason. Yet that very people, although aware of the sentiments of Washington and his supporters in the government, re-elected him by unanimous voice, thereby showing their great love for, and unbounded confidence in, the man of men. John Adams, who was again a candidate for the vice-presidency, was opposed by Governor George Clinton of New York, and was elected by not a large majority. He received in the electoral college seventy votes, and Clinton fifty. The Kentucky electors voted for Jefferson for the same office, and one vote was cast by a South Carolina delegate for Aaron Burr.

We have just hinted at the progress of violence in France in the autumn of 1792. Let us take a nearer view for a moment; for such scrutiny is necessary to the elucidation of political events in the United States a few months later.

Gouverneur Morris, who, as we have seen, was sent on a semi-official emba.s.sy to England, was appointed full minister at the French court, after Jefferson's retirement from that post. Mr. Morris was a federalist, and his appointment was not pleasant to Mr. Jefferson and his political friends. With Morris's commission, the president wrote a friendly, and at the same time admonitory, letter to the new minister.

He frankly enumerated all the objections that had been made to his appointment, and intimated that he thought the charge of his being a favorite with the aristocracy in France, and anti-republican in his sentiments, especially as regarded the French Revolution, were too well founded upon the tenor of his conduct. "Not to go further into detail,"

he said, "I will place the ideas of your political adversaries in the light in which their arguments have presented them to me, namely: that the prompt.i.tude with which your lively and brilliant imagination displays itself allows too little time for deliberation and correction, and is the primary cause of those sallies which too often offend, and of that ridicule of character which begets enmity not easy to be forgotten, but which might easily be avoided if it were under the control of more caution and prudence. In a word, that it is indispensably necessary that more circ.u.mspection should be observed by our representatives abroad than they conceive you are inclined to adopt.

In this statement you have the _pros_ and _cons_. By reciting them I give you a proof of my friendship, if I give none of my policy or judgment. I do it on the presumption that a mind conscious of its own rect.i.tude fears not what is said of it, but will bid defiance to shafts, that are not baited with accusations against honor or integrity. Of my good opinion and of my friendship and regard you may be a.s.sured."

Count de Moustier had been succeeded as French minister to the United States by M. Ternant, a more agreeable gentleman; and diplomatic intercourse had been opened with Great Britain, by the arrival of Mr.

Hammond as minister plenipotentiary of that government, in the previous autumn, and the appointment, on the part of the United States, of Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina, as minister to the court of St. James. Mr.

Hammond was the first minister Great Britain had deigned to send to the United States, and John Adams was the only person who had been sent in the same capacity from his government to the British court. For some years there had been no diplomatic intercourse between the two countries.

Mr. Morris arrived in Paris, in May, 1792, and on the second of June he was introduced to the king and queen. Two days afterward he presented a letter from the president to his majesty--a letter which, according to Morris, gave several members of the _corps diplomatique_ a high idea of Washington's wisdom. "It is not relished by the democrats," Morris wrote to the president, "who particularly dislike the term '_your people_;'

but it suits well the prevailing temper, which is monarchical." Mr.

Morris was very active in his duties there; and while he communicated officially to Jefferson and Hamilton everything necessary for them to know, he kept Washington constantly apprized, by both public and private letters, of the true state of affairs in France, His accounts revealed shocking scenes of anarchy and licentiousness in the French capital. He truly represented that Lafayette, in endeavoring to check excesses, had lost his popularity. "Were he to appear just now in Paris," he wrote, "unattended by his army, he would be torn to pieces." These tidings gave Washington great concern; while Jefferson, because of the gloomy future which these letters foreshadowed and the unfavorable commentary which they made upon the French Revolution, was very impatient. With his blind devotion to democracy, and his ungenerous judgment concerning all who differed from him, he spoke of Morris as "a high-flying monarchy man, shutting his eyes and his faith to every fact against his wishes, and believing everything he desired to be true," and keeping the president's mind "constantly poisoned with his forebodings."

Almost the next vessel from Europe rebuked these unfair expressions, by confirming the most gloomy antic.i.p.ations of Morris. Anarchy had seized upon unhappy France. From the head of his army at Maubeuge, Lafayette had sent a letter to the National a.s.sembly, denouncing in unmeasured terms the conduct of the Jacobin club as inimical to the king and const.i.tution; but it was of no avail. Day after day the disorder in the capital increased; and on the twentieth of June the populace, one hundred thousand in number, professedly incensed because the king had refused to sanction a decree of the National a.s.sembly against the priesthood, and another for the establishment of a camp of twenty thousand men near Paris, marched to the Tuilleries with pikes, swords, muskets, and artillery, and demanded entrance. The gates were finally thrown open, and at least forty thousand armed men went through the palace and compelled the king, in the presence of his family, to put the _bonnet rouge_, or red cap of liberty, upon his head.

Hearing of these movements, Lafayette hastened to Paris, presented himself at the bar of the National a.s.sembly, and in the name of the army demanded the punishment of those who had thus insulted the king in his palace and violated the const.i.tution. But he was powerless. A party had determined to abolish royalty. On the third of August, _Pelion_, in the a.s.sembly, demanded that the king should be excluded from the throne.

The unhappy monarch, perceiving the destructive storm that was impending, endeavored on the sixth to escape from the Tuilleries in the garb of a peasant. He was discovered by a sentinel, and all Paris was thrown into the greatest commotion. Two days afterward the a.s.sembly, by a handsome majority, acquitted Lafayette of serious charges made against him by the Jacobins. The populace were dissatisfied, and, as they could not touch the general, they determined that the king whom he supported should be deposed. Members of the a.s.sembly who had voted in favor of Lafayette were insulted by armed men who surrounded the legislative hall; and the national legislature declared their sitting permanent until order should be restored.

At midnight on the ninth of August the tocsin was sounded in every quarter, and the _generale_ was beat. Early the next morning the Tuilleries were attacked by the populace, and the king and his family, attended by the Swiss guard, fled for protection to the National a.s.sembly. In the conflict that ensued nearly every man of that guard was butchered, and the National a.s.sembly decreed the suspension of the king's authority.

Monarchy in France was now overthrown, and with it fell Lafayette and the const.i.tutional party. All were involved in one common ruin. The Jacobins denounced the marquis in the National a.s.sembly, procured a decree for his arrest, and sent emissaries to seize him. Then the Reign of Terror was inaugurated.

At first Lafayette resolved to go to Paris and boldly confront his accusers. It would have been madness. He perceived it, and, yielding to the force of circ.u.mstances, set off from his camp at Sedan, with a few faithful friends, to seek a temporary asylum in Holland until he could make his way to the United States. But he and his companions were first detained at Rochefort, the first Austrian post, and afterward cast into a dungeon at Olmutz.

When intelligence of these events reached Washington he was greatly shocked, and the sad fate of his friend grieved him sorely. Every arrival from Europe brought tidings still more dreadful than the last.

"We have had a week of unchecked murders," Morris wrote to Jefferson on the tenth of September, "in which some thousands have perished in this city. It began with two or three hundred of the clergy, who had been shut up because they would not take the oaths prescribed by the law, and which they said were contrary to their conscience. Thence _these executors of speedy justice_ went to the _Abbaye_, where the persons were confined who were at court on the tenth of August. These were despatched also, and afterward they visited the other prisons. All those who were confined either on the accusation or suspicion of crimes were destroyed."

Morris then detailed other horrors; yet Mr. Jefferson, looking upon the whole movement against monarchy and aristocracy as essentially right, and based upon the same principles as that of the American Revolution, persisted in regarding the Jacobins, who were the chief promoters of these b.l.o.o.d.y deeds, and who had laid violent hands on the const.i.tution and its supporters, as "republican patriots." He was shocked, but was neither disappointed nor very sorrowful. He looked upon the whole affair as an indispensable struggle of freemen in the abolition of monarchy and all its prerogatives and injustice; and he deplored the death of the innocent who had fallen, but only as he should have done "had they fallen in battle." "The liberty of the whole earth," he said, "was depending on the issue of the contest; and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause," he continued; "but rather than that it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country, and left free, it would have been better than it now is."

When fully a.s.sured of Lafayette's fate, Washington felt an ardent desire to befriend his family, consisting of his wife and young children. He knew that their situation, in the raging storm, must be dreadful at the best; and on the first information of their probable residence, at the close of January, 1793, he addressed the following letter to the marchioness:--

"If I had words that could convey to you an adequate idea of my feelings on the present situation of the Marquis de Lafayette, this letter would appear to you in a different garb. The sole object in writing to you now is, to inform you that I have deposited in the hands of Mr. Nicholas Van Staphorst, of Amsterdam, two thousand three hundred and ten guilders, Holland currency, equal to two hundred guineas, subject to your orders.

"This sum is, I am certain, the least I am indebted for services rendered to me by the Marquis de Lafayette, of which I never yet have received the account. I could add much; but it is best, perhaps, that I should say little on this subject. Your goodness will supply my deficiency.

"The uncertainty of your situation, after all the inquiries I have made, has occasioned a delay in this address and remittance; and, even now, the measure adopted is more the effect of a desire to find where you are, than from any knowledge I have obtained of your residence."

Soon after this letter was despatched, Washington received one from the marchioness, dated at Chavaniac on the eighth of October, 1792, which came by the way of England. It was accompanied by a letter from an English farmer who had resided several months in the family of Lafayette, in which, speaking of the marchioness, he said: "Her present situation is truly affecting; separated from her husband without the means of hearing from him, herself in captivity under the safeguard of the munic.i.p.ality, she is anxiously expecting the decision of his and her own destiny. Under these circ.u.mstances, she relies on your influence to adopt such measures as may effectuate their mutual freedom."

The marchioness was then a prisoner, in utter ignorance of the real fate of her husband. She had been commanded by the Jacobins to repair to Paris about the time when the attack was made upon the Tuilleries and the destruction of the Swiss guard; but they subsequently allowed her to reside at the place from which her letter was dated. In that letter she made a solemn appeal to Washington and the nation to aid her in procuring the liberty of her husband. "He was taken by the troops of the emperor," she said, "although the king of Prussia retains him a prisoner in his dominions. And while he suffers this inconceivable persecution from the enemies without, the faction which reigns within keeps me a hostage at one hundred and twenty leagues from the capital. Judge, then, at what distance I am from him. In this abyss of misery, the idea of owing to the United States and to Washington the life and liberty of M.

de Lafayette kindles a ray of hope in my heart. I hope everything from the goodness of the people with whom he has set an example of that liberty of which he is now made the victim. And shall I dare speak what I hope? I would ask of them through you for an envoy, who shall go to reclaim him in the name of the republic of the United States wheresoever he may be found, and who shall be authorized to make, with the power in whose charge he may be placed, all necessary engagements for his release, and for taking him to the United States, even if he is there to be guarded as a captive. If his wife and his children could be comprised in this mission, it is easy to judge how happy it would be for her and for them; but if this would in the least degree r.e.t.a.r.d or embarra.s.s the measure, we will defer still longer the happiness of a reunion. May Heaven deign to bless the confidence with which it has inspired me! I hope my request is not a rash one."

Washington was powerless to aid his friend. His heart yearned to do so, but there were no means that, in the then political condition of Europe, could be used with any hope of success, except giving unofficial instructions to American ministers abroad to make every effort in their power to procure his release, and this was done. "The United States,"

says Sparks, "had neither authority to make _demands_, nor power to enforce them. They had no immediate intercourse with Prussia or Austria, and were in no condition to ask the favors or avenge the tyranny of the rulers of those countries, who were only responsible for the treatment of Lafayette, and whose pleasure it was, if not their policy and interest, to keep him in chains."

The whole matter was very painful to Washington, especially as a great delay in his letter made the marchioness feel that she was neglected by her husband's dearest friend, and that husband deserted by the nation for whose freedom he had so n.o.bly fought. Referring to a former letter, she said:--

"Has this letter reached you? Was it necessary that it should arrive to excite your interest? I can not believe it. But I confess that your silence, and the abandonment of M. de Lafayette and his family for the last six months, are of all our evils the most inexplicable to me." Then a.s.suring Washington that the fate of her husband was in a measure in the hands of the president and government of the United States, and that she, not allowed to have any communication with him, could do nothing for him, she said, "I will only add that my confidence in General Washington, though severely tried, remains firm, and that I dare make to him a tender of my homage, and of my high esteem of his character."

Although Lafayette was a citizen of the United States, an American officer, and no more in the French service, his adopted government could do nothing effectual in his behalf, and for three years he lay in the dungeon at Olmutz. His wife and daughter were permitted to share his dungeon life; and finally his eldest son, bearing the name of Washington, came to seek an asylum in the United States. His reception here we shall consider hereafter.

CHAPTER XX.

CLOUDS GATHERING--JEALOUSY OF EXECUTIVE INFLUENCE--ANGRY PARTY DEBATES--CALLS FOR INFORMATION RESPECTING FINANCIAL AFFAIRS--HAMILTON CHARGED WITH BEING A DEFAULTER--HIS REPLY AND THE RESULT--VENERATION FOR WASHINGTON TOUCHED BY PARTY RANCOR--FORMS TO BE OBSERVED AT HIS SECOND INAUGURATION--THE CEREMONY--ACCOUNT BY AN EYE-WITNESS--WASHINGTON CALLED TO MOUNT VERNON--DEATH OF HIS NEPHEW--INTELLIGENCE OF DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST ENGLAND BY FRANCE--OF THE DEATH OF KING LOUIS--EXCITEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES IN FAVOR OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONISTS--POPULAR MANIFESTATIONS OF SYMPATHY IN BOSTON AND ELSEWHERE--DANGEROUS TENDENCY OF THAT SYMPATHY--CITIZEN GENET AND HIS MISSION--WASHINGTON HASTENS BACK TO PHILADELPHIA--CABINET COUNCIL--PROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITY--OPPOSITION TO THE MEASURE.

When the last session of the second Congress commenced in Philadelphia on the fifth of November, 1792, ominous clouds were gathering in the political horizon, which gave Washington many apprehensions of an impending storm. Party spirit was growing more and more violent; war with the Indians in the Northwest was progressing; discontents with the operations of the excise laws were a.s.suming alarming aspects; the att.i.tude of the European governments brought serious questions to those who controlled public affairs in the United States; and the cabinet, where unity of feeling was necessary in order to counsel the president well, was yet torn by dissentions, with no prospect of their being healed.

There was much apparent good feeling among the members of Congress when they first met, but action upon public business soon aroused party spirit in all its rancor. It was first summoned from its sleep by a motion for the secretaries of war and of the treasury to attend the house, and give such information as they might possess concerning the conduct of the Indian war in the Northwest, with which there was much public dissatisfaction. This proposition raised a cry of alarm from those in the house opposed to the administration. It was resisted as unconst.i.tutional, and threatening to subject the house to executive influence that might be dangerous--that heads of departments would control the legislature.

A motion to refer the portion of the president's message relating to the redemption of the public debt to the secretary of the treasury, to report a plan, called forth still more angry opposition, and Jefferson's charges of corruption were heard on every side. The secretary of the treasury was violently a.s.sailed; and dark insinuations were made that members of the house were implicated with Hamilton in dishonest proceedings in relation to the a.s.sumption of state debts, the operation of the Indian war, etc. And when Hamilton, in his report, offered a scheme for the redemption of the public debt that effectually silenced the clamors of his enemies, who had insisted that he regarded that debt as a public blessing and meant to fix it upon the country as an incubus, they changed their plans of opposition.

They called upon the president first for particular information as to the several sums of money borrowed by his authority, the terms of the loans, and the application of the money. These questions being explicitly answered, another call was made by an unscrupulous member of the opposition, from Virginia, for more minute information upon financial matters. He made an elaborate speech in presenting the motion, in which, in effect, he charged the secretary of the treasury with being a defaulter to the amount of a million and a half of dollars! Other charges having a similar bearing upon the integrity of Hamilton were made, and the administration was most foully aspersed. The speaker--acting, it was believed, under the influence of his superiors in office--based his charges upon the letter of returns and other treasury statements.

These charges were met by Hamilton in a calm and dignified report, which ought to have disarmed malignity and made implacable party spirit hide its head in shame. It was baffled for a moment, but not dismayed; and, selecting points in the secretary's management of the financial concerns of the government, the accuser already alluded to proceeded to frame nine resolutions of censure, for which he asked the vote of the house. The result was, says a careful and candid historian, "much to raise the character of the secretary of the treasury, by convincing the great body of impartial men, capable of understanding the subject, that, both as regarded talent and integrity, he was admirably qualified for his office, and that the multiplied charges against him had been engendered by envy, suspicion, and ignorance."[41]