Washington and the American Republic Part 23

Mr. Jay had recently arrived in Philadelphia from New York, and consented to accept the nomination. It was confirmed by the senate on Sat.u.r.day, the nineteenth of April, by a majority of eighteen to eight; Aaron Burr being among the few who opposed it, it being his practice to dissent from every measure proposed by Washington.

Conscious of the urgency of his mission, Mr. Jay made immediate preparations for his departure; and on the twelfth of May he embarked at New York, with Colonel John Trumbull, the artist, as his secretary. He was accompanied to the ship by about a thousand of his fellow-citizens, who desired thus to testify their personal respect and their interest in his mission of peace. A few days preceding, the Democratic Society of Philadelphia issued a most inflammatory denunciation of the mission and the minister; and the opposition in the lower house of Congress succeeded in adopting a resolution to cut off all intercourse with Great Britain. It was lost in the senate by the casting vote of Vice-President Adams; "not," as Washington remarked in a letter to Tobias Lear on the sixth of May, "as it is said and generally believed, from a disinclination to the ulterior expedience of the measure, but from a desire to try the effect of negotiation previous thereto." Mr.

Monroe, acting under instructions from the Virginia legislature, proposed in the senate to suspend by law the article of the treaty of peace which secured to British creditors the right of recovering in the United States their honest debts. This proposition was frowned down by every right-minded man in that chamber.

Another delicate matter connected with the foreign relations of the United States now occupied the mind of Washington. The French government, as we have observed, on recalling Genet, asked that of the United States to recall Mr. Morris. Washington was anxious to appoint a judicious successor--one that would be acceptable to the French, and who would not compromise the neutrality of his own country. He confided in Pinckney, and desired Mr. Jay, in the event of his mission being successful, to remain in London as resident minister. Pinckney would then be sent to France. But Jay would not consent to the arrangement.

Washington then offered the French mission to Robert R. Livingston, chancellor of the state of New York, who, with his extensive and influential family connections, was in politics a republican. Livingston declined, and the president finally offered it to James Monroe. He consented to serve, and his nomination was confirmed by the senate on the twenty-eighth of May. Soon after this, John Quincy Adams, son of the vice-president, was appointed minister at the Hague in place of Mr.

Short, Jefferson's secretary of legation in France, who went to Spain to ascertain what Carmichael, the American minister there, was doing, his government being unable to hear from him except at long intervals.

Mr. Monroe arrived in Paris toward the middle of August, and immediately sent to the president of the convention the following letter:--

"_Citizen-President:_--Having, several days since, arrived with a commission from the president of the United States of America, to represent those states in quality of minister plenipotentiary at the capital of the French republic, I have thought it my duty to make my mission known as early as possible to the national representatives. It belongs to them to determine the day, and to point out the mode, in which I am to be acknowledged the representative of their ally and sister republic. I make this communication with the greater pleasure, because it affords me an opportunity, not only to certify to the representatives of the free citizens of France my personal attachment to the cause of liberty, but to a.s.sure them at the same time, in the most positive way, that the government and people of America take the highest interest in the liberty, success, and prosperity of the French republic."

Robespierre had lately fallen. His b.l.o.o.d.y rule was at an end. For some time he had been hated by the Convention, to which body reason and conscience were bringing their convictions. On the twenty-eighth of July the Convention resolved to crush him. Billaud Varennes, in a speech replete with invective, denounced him as a tyrant; and when Robespierre attempted to speak, his voice was drowned with cries of "Down with the tyrant! down with the tyrant!" A decree of outlawry was then pa.s.sed, and he and some of his friends were ordered to immediate execution. With their fall the Reign of Terror ended. The nation breathed freer, and the curtain fell upon one of the bloodiest tragedies in the history of the race.

It was at this auspicious moment that Monroe appeared. The sentiments of his letter were so much in consonance with the feelings of the hour, that it is said the president of the Convention embraced Monroe affectionately when they met. It was decreed that the American and French flags should be entwined and hung up in the hall of the Convention, as an emblem of the union of the two republics; and Monroe, not to be outdone in acts of courtesy, presented the banner of his country to the Convention in the name of his people.

Congress adjourned on the ninth of June to the first Monday in the succeeding November. The session had been a stormy one. Questions of national policy had arisen, which called forth some of the most animated and eloquent discussions ever held upon the floor of the house of representatives; and when the adjournment took place, questions were pending, the solution of which caused many an anxious hour to the president and the friends of the republic.

As soon as Washington could make proper arrangements, he set out on a flying visit to Mount Vernon. Many persons had predicted that the yellow fever would reappear in Philadelphia during that summer; and, to guard his family against the dangers of its presence, he removed them to a pleasant house at Germantown. On the eighteenth of June he left for the Potomac; and at Baltimore he wrote a brief letter to Gouverneur Morris, a.s.suring him of his undiminished personal friendship, notwithstanding his recall. At Mount Vernon he wrote another, in which Washington evinced his consciousness that vigilant eyes were upon all his public movements, and not with friendly intent. "The affairs of this country,"

he said to Morris ironically, "can not go wrong; there are so many watchful guardians of them, and such infallible guides, that no one is at a loss for a director at every turn."

Washington did not return to Philadelphia quite as early as he had antic.i.p.ated, owing to an injury to his back, received while using exertions to prevent himself and horse being precipitated among the rocks at the Falls of the Potomac, at Georgetown, whither he went on a Sunday morning to view the ca.n.a.l and locks at that place, in which he felt a deep interest. He was back, however, early in July, and was soon informed of popular movements in western Pennsylvania and in Kentucky, which presented the serious question whether the government had sufficient strength to execute its own laws.

The movement in Kentucky was the result, in a great degree, of Genet's machinations, and the influence of the Democratic societies. It is true, there had been dissatisfaction among the people there for several years, because the Spanish government kept the Mississippi closed against American commerce. Now, that dissatisfaction a.s.sumed the form of menace.

During the recent session of Congress, the people of that region sent a remonstrance to the supreme legislature respecting the navigation of the Mississippi. It was intemperate and indecorous in language. It charged the government with being under the influence of a local policy, which had prevented its making a single real effort for the security of the commercial advantages which the people of the West demanded, and cast aspersions upon the several departments of government. They also intimated that they would leave the Union if their grievances were not speedily redressed, and the "great territorial right" of the free navigation of the Mississippi secured to them.

This remonstrance was referred to a committee by the senate, who reported, that such rights to the navigation of the great river as were sought by the western people were well a.s.serted in the negotiations then going on at Madrid; and on the recommendation of the committee, the senate resolved that the president should be requested to communicate to the governor of Kentucky such part of the pending treaty between the United States and Spain as he might deem advisable, and not inconsistent with the course of the negotiation. The house of representatives also pa.s.sed a resolution, expressing their conviction that the president was doing all in his power to bring about the negotiation as speedily as possible.

The demagogues at the West, who hoped to profit by the excitement and bring about hostilities with the Spaniards in Louisiana, refused to be soothed by these a.s.surances; and at a convention of a number of the princ.i.p.al citizens of Kentucky, a.s.sembled at Lexington, the following intemperate and indecorous resolutions were adopted:--

"That the general government, whose duty it is to put us in possession of this right [free navigation of the Mississippi] have, either through design or mistaken policy, adopted no effectual measures for its attainment.

"That even the measures they have adopted have been uniformly concealed from us, and veiled in mysterious secrecy.

"That civil liberty is prost.i.tuted, when the servants of the people are suffered to tell their masters, that communications which they may judge important may not be intrusted to them."

These resolutions concluded with a recommendation of county meetings, of county committees of correspondence, and of a convention when it might be judged expedient, to deliberate on the proper steps for the attainment and security of their just rights.

No doubt the leaders in these movements felt indignant because an expedition, which had been prepared in the West for an invasion of Louisiana under the auspices of Genet, had been frustrated by the vigilance of the president, who, when informed of the fact, had ordered General Wayne, then in the Ohio country, to establish a military post at an eligible place on the Ohio river, to stop any armed men who should be going down that stream. This interference with what they had been taught to believe were their inalienable rights was considered a very great grievance.

In a private letter, on the tenth of August, Washington referred to these movements in Kentucky, and said, after expressing a conviction that there "must exist a predisposition among them to be dissatisfied:"

"The protection they receive, and the unwearied endeavors of the general government to accomplish, by repeated and ardent remonstrances, what they seem to have most at heart--namely, the navigation of the Mississippi--obtain no credit with them, or, what is full as likely, may be concealed from them, or misrepresented by those _societies_, which, under specious colorings, are spreading far and wide, either from real ignorance of the measures pursued by the government, or from a wish to bring it, as much as they are able, into discredit; for what purposes, every man is left to his own conjectures."

Washington continued: "That similar attempts to give discontent to the public mind have been practised with too much success in some of the western counties in this state [Pennsylvania], you are, I am certain, not to learn. Actual rebellion against the laws of the United States exists at this moment, notwithstanding every lenient measure, which could comport with the duties of the public officers, has been exercised to reconcile them to the collection of taxes upon spirituous liquors and stills. What may be the consequence of such violent and outrageous proceedings is painful in a high degree, even in contemplation. But, if the laws are to be so trampled upon with impunity, and a minority, a small one too, is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put, at one stroke, to republican government; and nothing but anarchy and confusion are to be expected hereafter. Some other man or society may dislike another law, and oppose it with equal propriety, until all laws are prostrate, and every one--the strongest, I presume--will carve for himself."

Washington alluded to the rebellious movement in western Pennsylvania, at that time, known in history as "The Whiskey Insurrection."

FOOTNOTES:

[64] The following are the names of the officers appointed by Washington: John Barry, Samuel Nicholson, Silas Talbot, Richard Dale, Thomas Truxton, James Sever, _commanders_; Joshua Humphreys, George Cleghorn, Forman Cheeseman, John Morgan, David Stodder, James Hackett, _naval constructors_; Isaac c.o.xe, Henry Jackson, John Blagge, W.

Pennock, Jeremiah Yellott, Jacob Sheafe, _navy agents_.

[65] A striking caricature appeared a little earlier than this, ent.i.tled _The Contrast_. It was in the form of two medallions, one called _English liberty_, and the other _French liberty_. On the former is seen Britannia, holding the pileus and cap of liberty in one hand with Magna Charta, and in the other the scales of justice. At her feet stoops a lion; and on the placid sea, in the distance, is a British merchant-vessel under full sail. Under the medallion are the words, "Religion, Morality, Loyalty, Obedience to the Laws, Independence, Personal Security, Justice, Inheritance, Protection, Property, Industry, National Prosperity, Happiness." On the latter medallion is a fury, in the form of a woman; her hair formed of serpents; flames issuing from her cestus of snakes; in one hand a b.l.o.o.d.y sword, in the other a trident--the head of a man, streaming with blood upon one p.r.o.ng, and a human heart upon each of the others; while under her feet is a prostrate, naked, headless man. In the distance is seen a street lamp, with a man hanging by the neck from its supporting bracket. Under this medallion are the words, "Atheism, Perjury, Rebellion, Treason, Anarchy, Murder, Equality, Madness, Cruelty, Injustice, Treachery, Ingrat.i.tude, Idleness, Famine, National and Private Ruin, Misery." Below all is the significant question, "_Which is best_?"

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA--A GLANCE AT ITS PROGRESS--WASHINGTON'S PROCLAMATION--HIS OPINION OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES--A MILITARY FORCE CALLED OUT--THEIR LEADERS--PEACE COMMISSIONERS AND THE RESULT OF THEIR MISSION--WASHINGTON JOINS THE MILITARY AT CARLISLE--THE VETERAN MORGAN IN THE FIELD--HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH WASHINGTON--INSURGENTS ALARMED--WASHINGTON AT FORT c.u.mBERLAND AND BEDFORD--LEE THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMY--WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PHILADELPHIA--MARCH OF THE ARMY OVER THE MOUNTAINS--THE INSURRECTION QUELLED WITHOUT BLOODSHED.

While the inhabitants of Kentucky were talking of insurrection, those of some of the western counties of Pennsylvania actually lifted the arm of defiance against the general government. In August, 1794, acts were committed in opposition to the ministers of the law, which called for the interference of the powers of the federal executive, and the episode in our history known as "The Whiskey Insurrection" was inaugurated.

Properly to understand its character, we must take a brief glance at its antecedents. Some of these have already been alluded to in our consideration of the revenue system of the new government.

Among other taxes recommended by Secretary Hamilton for the support of the government, and authorized by a bill reported in the house of representatives in January, 1791, was one upon domestic distilled spirits and distilleries. As whiskey was almost entirely a luxury, and not a necessity, it seemed a just subject for levying a duty upon. And the College of Physicians of Philadelphia advocated it as desirable both to the morals and bodily health of the people. The bill was pa.s.sed and received Washington's signature. It imposed a tax of from nine to twenty-six cents a gallon upon spirits distilled from grain.

Regulations for the collection of these duties were made and officers appointed to collect them. Opposition to the law manifested itself in various parts of the Union immediately after its pa.s.sage, but nowhere so prominently as in Pennsylvania. In July, 1791, a public meeting on the subject was held at Red Stone (Brownsville), when it was arranged that county committees should be convened at the different shire towns of Alleghany, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland counties. In August, at a meeting of another committee already alluded to,[66] one of the resolutions adopted, as we have seen, declared, after condemning the law, that whosoever should accept office under it should be considered an enemy to his country, should be treated with contempt, and all intercourse with him be dissolved. These resolutions were published in a Pittsburgh paper and produced a feverish excitement.

Early in September another meeting was held in Pittsburgh. Twelve delegates were present, and many complaints against the government, in connection with the excise law, were recited. They adopted a representation to Congress, and a remonstrance to the legislature of Pennsylvania, against the excise on whiskey. Not long after this, a collector of the revenue for two of the counties before-named was seized, tarred and feathered, and deprived of his horse, by some armed men in disguise. The perpetrators were known, however, and processes were issued against them from the district court of Pennsylvania; but the public feeling was so strongly against the law, west of the Alleghany mountains, that, as a marshal to whom the writ was committed for execution said, "any attempt to serve it would have occasioned the most violent opposition from a greater portion of the inhabitants;" and he declared that if he had attempted it, he believed he would not have returned alive.

The resistance to law now a.s.sumed most alarming aspects. The meetings, said Secretary Hamilton in a report upon the subject, "composed of very influential persons, and conducted without moderation and prudence, were justly chargeable with the excesses which have from time to time been committed, serving to give consistency to an opposition, which had at length matured to a point that threatened the foundations of the government and the Union, unless speedily and effectually subdued."

The working of the federal government was then merely experimental, and those who had charge of the complicated and precious machine, and regarded it as the very ark of freedom, used its powers with wise caution. Therefore, while occasional outrages in connection with the excise laws were perpetrated, it was thought best to let coercive measures against the law-breakers remain untried, until at the next session of Congress some modifications of the law might be made to allay excitement.

In May, 1792, an act of Congress became a law which materially modified the provisions of the excise act. The duty on whiskey and stills was so reduced as to silence all complaints on that head. All serious objections to the old law were considered, and the act was so amended as to promise peace; but there were men of influence who would not accept these concessions, and they kept up the opposition excitement. The well-disposed citizens were intimidated by the violent ones of the opposition. In August, 1792, a meeting of the malcontents was held at Pittsburgh, at which resolutions were pa.s.sed no less objectionable than those adopted the year before. After denouncing the tax on spirituous liquors, they concluded by declaring that they considered it their duty to "persist in remonstrances to Congress and every other legal measure that might obstruct the operations of the law." Almost daily outrages were committed, and three or four counties of western Pennsylvania a.s.sumed many of the features of openly rebellious communities. It was then that Washington, under the advice of Hamilton and others, issued his proclamation of September the sixteenth, 1792, warning all persons to desist from such unlawful combinations, _et cetera_.[67] Some legal steps were taken against the malcontents, but these and the proclamation were of little effect toward subduing the rebellious and quieting the excitement. The officers of the law were still defied, denounced, insulted, and abused.

At the next session of Congress (1792-'93) inefficient efforts were made to amend the excise laws. The forbearance of the federal government was construed by the ringleaders of the opposition as weakness, and they became more bold. Distillers who were willing to comply with the law were abused. Finally, the Congress pa.s.sed an act, which became a law in 1794, calculated to strengthen the executive arm in enforcing obedience.

This law made the opposition still more earnest and bold; and few men in the district of country where they exercised a sort of reign of terror dared openly to dissent from their views. So general was the combined influence of actual disaffection upon one portion of the community, and dread of the violence of the turbulent, among the others, that out of the family connection of General Neville, inspector of revenues, the employees of the government, and two others, there were none in Pittsburgh who dared to condemn these lawless proceedings, for fear of personal harm. Mails were robbed; Neville's house was twice attacked and finally burned by an armed party of lawless men; and preparations were made to seize Fort Fayette, in that region. Among the leaders of the insurgents was one Bradford, who, by common consent, appears to have a.s.sumed the position of commander-in-chief. At this time the insurrectionary spirit had spread into adjoining counties of Maryland and Virginia, and Bradford and his a.s.sociate leaders issued a call for the a.s.sembling of the militia on Braddock's field, on the first of August, with arms and accoutrements, and provisions for four days.

Within three days seven thousand men were a.s.sembled, some of them out of curiosity, but a greater part with the determination to follow, in resistance to the federal and state governments, wherever Bradford and others might lead.

It was Bradford's design to seize Fort Pitt and its arms and ammunition; but he found most of the militia officers unwilling to co-operate in such an overt act of treason. But they readily consented to the perpetration of outrages against excise officers, and the whole country in that region was governed, for the moment, by the combined powers of mobocracy and military despotism.

When intelligence of these proceedings reached the president, he called his cabinet into council. All regarded the movement as a critical one for the republic. The example of the insurgents in Pennsylvania might become infectious; for the Democratic societies, spread all over the land, while they professed to oppose and deprecate violence, openly denounced the excise laws, and, no doubt, secretly fomented rebellion against the federal government. It was agreed in the cabinet council that forbearance must now end, and the effective power of the executive be put forth to suppress the rising rebellion. Accordingly, on the seventh of August, Washington issued a proclamation warning the insurgents to disperse, and declaring, that if tranquillity should not be restored in the disturbed counties before the first of September, an armed force would be employed to compel submission to the laws.[68] At the same time the president made a requisition on the governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, for militia sufficient to compose an army of twelve thousand men.

To the chief magistrate of the latter state, his friend and companion-in-arms, General Henry Lee, Washington wrote privately, from Germantown, on the twenty-sixth of August, and said, "It is with equal pride and satisfaction I add, that, as far as my information extends, this insurrection is viewed with universal indignation and abhorrence, except by those who have never missed an opportunity, by side-blows and otherwise, to attack the general government.... I consider this insurrection as the first formidable fruit of the Democratic societies, brought forth, I believe, too prematurely for their own views, which may contribute to the annihilation of them.

"That these societies were inst.i.tuted by the artful and designing members (many of their body, I have no doubt, mean well, but know little of the real plan), primarily to sow among the people the seeds of jealousy and distrust of the government, by destroying all confidence in the administration of it, and that their doctrines have been budding and blowing ever since, is not new to any one who is acquainted with the character of their leaders and has been attentive to their manoeuvres.

I early gave it as my opinion, to the confidential characters around me, that if these societies were not counteracted (not by prosecutions, the ready way to make them grow stronger), or did not fall into disesteem from the knowledge of their origin, and the views with which they had been inst.i.tuted by their father, Genet, for purposes well known to the government, they would shake the government to its foundation. Time and circ.u.mstances have confirmed me in this opinion, and I deeply regret the probable consequences; not as they will effect me personally--for I have not long to act on this theatre, and sure I am that not a man amongst them can be more anxious to put me aside than I am to sink into the profoundest retirement--but because I see, under a display of popular and fascinating disguises, the most diabolical attempts to destroy the best fabric of human government and happiness that has ever been presented for the acceptance of mankind."

Washington's proclamation had very little effect in suppressing the lawless acts of the insurgents, and on the twenty-fifth of September he issued a second proclamation, in which he vividly described the perverse spirit in which the lenient propositions of the government had been met, and declared his determination to reduce the refractory and lawless men to obedience.[69]

The president now determined to act with vigor against the insurgents.

He appointed Governor Lee, of Virginia, the commander-in-chief. General Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, was appointed his second in command. Governor Howell, of New Jersey, the third; and General Daniel Morgan, the veteran leader of the riflemen in the War for Independence, the fourth. General Hand, of Pennsylvania, was appointed adjutant-general.

From the best information that the president could obtain, it was supposed that there were in the rebellious counties about sixteen thousand men capable of bearing arms, and that at least seven thousand of them might be brought into the field. It was therefore resolved to employ a sufficient force at once to put down all opposition. The number of militia first called for was twelve thousand; it was subsequently increased to fifteen thousand. The place of rendezvous appointed for the New Jersey troops under Howell, and the Pennsylvanians under Mifflin, was Bedford, in Pennsylvania. Those from Virginia and Maryland--the former under General Morgan, and the latter under General Smith, the hero of Fort Mifflin in 1777, and now the Baltimore member of Congress--a.s.sembled at c.u.mberland, on the Potomac. The latter formed the left wing of the gathering army, and were directed to march across the mountains by Braddock's road. Those under Mifflin and Howell composed the right wing, and were ordered to cross the mountains by the more northern route, over which Forbes and his army crossed in 1758.

These martial preparations were made after every peaceful effort had been exhausted. As we have observed, the president had issued two proclamations before ordering the militia into the field. He had also, at the time of issuing the first proclamation, appointed three federal commissioners--Senator Ross, Mr. Bradford, the attorney-general, and Yates, a judge of the supreme court of Pennsylvania--to visit the insurgent counties, with discretionary powers to arrange, if possible, prior to the fourteenth of September, an effectual submission to the laws, offering lenient terms to the offenders. These were joined by Chief-Justice M'Kean and General Irvine, commissioners appointed by the state of Pennsylvania. At the same time, Governor Mifflin issued two proclamations--one calling the Pennsylvania legislature together; the other requiring submission on the part of the rioters, and announcing his determination to obey the president's call for militia.