Washington and the American Republic Part 30

The colors of France were presented to the president for his country, together with the letter of the French Committee of Safety to the Congress, at Washington's residence, in the presence of a large number of distinguished characters. Adet, in a speech on the occasion, presented in glowing colors the position of France as the great dispensatory of free opinions in the old world--as "struggling not only for her own liberty, but for that of the human race. a.s.similated to, or rather identified with, free people by the form of her government," he said, "she saw in them only friends and brothers. Long accustomed to regard the American people as her most faithful allies, she sought to draw closer the ties already formed in the fields of America, under the auspices of victory, over the ruins of tyranny."

A reply to this address, under the peculiar circ.u.mstances in which Washington was placed, required the exercise of much discretion. It was necessary to express generous feelings adapted to the occasion, without the utterance of sentiments, concerning the powers then at war, inconsistent with the position of neutrality which the United States had a.s.sumed. The president accordingly said:--

"Born, sir, in a land of liberty; having early learned its value; having engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it; having, in a word, devoted the best years of my life to its permanent establishment in my own country, my anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes, are irresistibly attracted wheresoever, in any country, I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom. But, above all, the events of the French Revolution have produced the deepest solicitude, as well as the highest admiration. To call your nation brave, were to p.r.o.nounce but common praise. Wonderful people! Ages to come will read with astonishment the history of your brilliant exploits. I rejoice that the period of your toils and your immense sacrifices is approaching. I rejoice that the interesting revolutionary movements of so many years have issued in the formation of a const.i.tution,[90] designed to give permanency to the great object for which you have contended. I rejoice that liberty, which you have so long embraced with enthusiasm--liberty, of which you have been the invincible defenders--now finds an asylum in the bosom of a regularly organized government; a government which, being formed to secure the happiness of the French people, corresponds with the ardent wishes of my heart, while it gratifies the pride of every citizen of the United States by its resemblance to their own. On these glorious events, accept, sir, my sincere congratulations.

"In delivering to you these sentiments, I express not my own feelings only, but those of my fellow-citizens, in relation to the commencement, the progress, and the issue of the French Revolution; and they will certainly join with me in purest wishes to the Supreme Being, that the citizens of our sister-republic, our magnanimous allies, may soon enjoy in peace that liberty which they have purchased at so great a price, and all the happiness that liberty can bestow.

"I receive, sir, with lively sensibility the symbol of the triumphs and of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nts of your nation, the colors of France, which you have now presented to the United States. The transaction will be announced to Congress, and the colors will be deposited with the archives of the United States, which are at once the evidence and the memorials of their freedom and independence. May these be perpetual, and may the friendship of the two republics be commensurate with their existence!"

Washington transmitted to Congress the letter from the Committee of Safety, the French colors, and copies of the speeches of Adet and himself at the presentation, on the fourth of January; whereupon, the house of representatives, by resolution, requested the president to make known to the representatives of the French people "the most sincere and lively sensibility" which was excited by this honorable testimony of the existing sympathy and affections of the two republics; that the house rejoiced "in the opportunity thereby afforded to congratulate the French nation upon the brilliant and glorious achievements" which they had accomplished during the present afflictive war; and hoped that those achievements would be attended with a perfect attainment of their object, and "the permanent establishment of the liberty and happiness of a great and magnanimous people."

On the sixth of January, the senate also pa.s.sed resolutions expressive of the pleasure they felt on the reception of this evidence of the continued friendship of the French republic, and of a desire that the "symbol of the triumphs and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of that great people," as expressed by Washington in his reply to the French minister, might contribute to cherish and perpetuate the sincere affection by which the two republics were so happily united. It was at first proposed, in a resolution offered in the senate, that the president should communicate the sentiments of that body to the proper organ of the French government; but this was opposed, because, it was said, the complimentary correspondence between the two nations had reached a point where, if ever, it ought to cease. This amendment was carried by a strict party vote.

FOOTNOTES:

[89] History of the United States, second series, i, 566.

[90] The letter brought by Adet was from the Committee of Safety, which, under the revolutionary system in France, was the department charged with foreign intercourse. After his departure a new order of things was established. On the thirty-first of May, 1795, the revolutionary tribunal was, by a decree of the National Convention, abolished in France. On the twenty-third of June, a committee, appointed for the purpose, presented the draft of a new const.i.tution, modelled in many respects after that of the United States. The reading of it, which occupied several hours, was frequently interrupted by the loudest bursts of applause. At the conclusion, it was decreed that the discussion of the instrument should be opened on the fourth of July. On the sixth of September, the people of France met in primary a.s.semblies for the purpose of accepting or rejecting the new const.i.tution. The armies of the eastern and western Pyrenees accepted it on that day, and so did a great majority of the French nation. The result was announced in the convention on the tenth of September, with information that two thirds of the members of that body had been re-elected. In consequence of that acceptance, a dreadful riot broke out in Paris on the sixth of October, which lasted several days; but the insurgents were finally overpowered by the convention troops. Many persons were slain on both sides, and ringleaders of the riot were soon afterward executed.

The French const.i.tution established an Executive Directory, composed of five members, who ruled in connection with two legislative chambers, called respectively The Council of Ancients, and the Council of Five Hundred. The directory were formally installed at the Luxembourg, in Paris, on the first of November, 1795. On the same day a pen-picture of the convention was published at Paris, signed REAL. "The convention," he said, "has terminated its sittings. Where is the Tacitus who shall write the history of its glorious actions and its abominable excesses? Obscure men, sent to devise laws, have during a dictation of three years displayed an energy, a greatness, and a ferocity, which no longer allow us to envy either the virtues of ancient Rome or the wild atrocities of the first Cesars. Physicians, lawyers, and attorneys' clerks, became suddenly professed legislators, and warriors full of boldness. They have overturned all Europe, and changed its system.

"With a daring hand they have signed the death-warrant of the successor of an hundred kings, and in one day broken the sceptre for which an existence of fourteen centuries had procured a religious and fanatical veneration. On that day they threw down the gauntlet before astonished Europe; and William the Conqueror, when he burnt his fleet, did not place himself with more audaciousness between victory and death. Without money, without credit, without arms, artillery, saltpetre, and armies; betrayed by Dumorier; Valenciennes being taken by the Austrians; Toulon in the hands of the English; the king of Prussia under the walls of Landau, and a country of ninety leagues extent devoured by one hundred and fifty thousand Vendeans, they published a decree, and on a sudden all France became a vast manufactory of arms and saltpetre; one million, four hundred thousand men sprang up ready armed; the king of Prussia was defeated near Landau, the Austrians repulsed near Maubenge, the English routed near Hondschoote, the Vendeans annihilated at Lavenay, and the tri-colored flag was hoisted on the walls of Toulon.

"Their folly disconcerted the wisdom of ancient politics; songs and the charging step defeated the celebrated tactics of the Germans; generals just left the ranks--obscure generals, who but a few months before were simple sergeants--conceived and executed the plan of the campaign of 1795 which will always remain the admiration of military men, and defeated the most celebrated generals, the pupils and companions of the great Frederick. Holland was conquered in January by the inexperienced troops; and what Louis XIV, in the zenith of his glory, did not dare to conceive, the French, by founding a republic, have carried into effect, and planted the tri-colored standard on the banks of the Rhine.

"It is amidst this long tempest, amidst proscriptions and scaffolds, this dreadful convention has opened the road to glory; after having desolated the world, it has exhausted against itself its devouring energy. Two parties, by turns victorious and vanquished, have been sent to the scaffold by a third, which, embracing always the cause of the strongest, preserved itself by sometimes striking against the mountain, sometimes against the plain.

"Voracious men! your pernicious versatility has produced all the evils which have devastated France; your wickedness, which you call wisdom, has overflowed my native land with blood; and posterity will ask, with wonder, 'What was the political opinion of those who condemned Danton, Brissot, Lacroix, and Ducos; who advised with Robespierre and Lanjunais, Billaud de Varennes, and Barrere?' Voracious men! you will be despised by the present generation, and detested by posterity. Convention! the murders and atrocities which thy reign has produced will be handed down to posterity, and will not be credited."

Such was a life-picture, drawn by a master-hand, of the men and the government with whose operations the leaders of a strong party in the United States endeavored with mad zeal, for three years, to involve their own government; a catastrophe prevented only, so far as human agency was concerned, by the fearless courage and profound wisdom of Washington in maintaining neutrality.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

RETURN OF JAY'S TREATY--IT IS PROCLAIMED TO BE THE LAW OF THE LAND--THE OPPOSITION OFFENDED--HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CALL UPON THE PRESIDENT FOR ALL PAPERS RELATING TO THE TREATY--DEBATES THEREON--ACTION OF THE CABINET--THE PRESIDENT'S REPLY--HE REFUSES TO ACCEDE TO THE CALL OF THE HOUSE--CONSIDERATION OF HIS REFUSAL IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES--BLOUNT'S RESOLUTIONS--DEBATES ON THE TREATY--SPEECHES OF MADISON, GALLATIN, AND AMES--EFFECT OF AMES'S SPEECH--DECISION OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE--FINAL VOTE.

The treaty with Great Britain, ratified by King George, was returned to the United States government in February, much to the relief of its friends, and indeed of all parties. "We are wasting our time in the most insipid manner, waiting for the treaty," wrote John Adams to his wife on the tenth of January. "Nothing of any consequence will be done till that arrives, and is mauled and abused, and then acquiesced in. For the _antis_ must be more numerous than I believe them, and made of sterner stuff than I conceive, if they dare hazard the surrender of the posts and the payment for spoliations, by any resolution of the house that shall render precarious the execution of the treaty on our part."

The federal const.i.tution declaring a treaty, when duly ratified by the contracting powers, to be the law of the land, Washington, on the last day of February, issued a proclamation announcing the one just concluded with Great Britain, as such. This had been a mooted point. The president's proclamation decided that the treaty was law without further action of Congress; and it now remained for that body to make provision for carrying it into effect. The president sent it to both houses on the first day of March, with the following brief message:--

"The treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation concluded between the United States and his Britannic majesty having been duly ratified, and the ratifications having been exchanged at London on the twenty-eighth of October, one thousand, seven hundred and ninety-five, I have directed the same to be promulgated, and herewith transmit a copy thereof for the information of Congress."

This action was the signal for both parties to prepare for a great struggle. The opposition, who had openly denied the right of the president to even _negotiate_ a treaty of commerce, because, they said, it practically gave to the executive and senate the power to regulate commerce, were highly offended because the president had ventured to issue this proclamation before the sense of the house of representatives had been declared on the obligations of the instrument. This feeling a.s.sumed tangible form when, on the seventh of March, Edward Livingston, of New York, offered a resolution calling upon the president for copies of all papers relating to the treaty. This resolution, as modified on motion of Madison, was as follows:--

"_Resolved_, That the president of the United States be requested to lay before this house a copy of the instructions given to the minister of the United States, who negotiated the treaty with Great Britain, communicated by his message of the first instant, together with the correspondence and doc.u.ments relating to the said treaty, excepting such of said papers as any existing negotiation may render improper to be disclosed."

A warm debate immediately arose, and speedily took the form of a discussion on the nature and extent of the treaty-making power. "The friends of the administration maintained," says Marshall, "that a treaty was a contract between two nations, which, under the const.i.tution, the president, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, had a right to make; and that it was made when, by and with such advice and consent, it had received his final act. Its obligations then became complete on the United States, and to refuse to comply with its stipulations was to break the treaty and to violate the faith of the nation.

"The opposition contended that the power to make treaties, if applicable to every object, conflicted with powers which were vested exclusively in Congress. That either the treaty-making power must be limited in its operations, so as not to touch objects committed by the const.i.tution to Congress, or the a.s.sent and co-operation of the house of representatives must be required to give validity to any compact, so far as it might comprehend those objects. A treaty, therefore, which required an appropriation of money or any act of Congress to carry it into effect, had not acquired its obligatory form until the house of representatives had exercised its powers in the case. They were at full liberty to make, or to withhold, such appropriation, or other law, without incurring the imputation of violating any existing obligation, or breaking the faith of the nation."[91]

At the outset, a member had inquired the object of Mr. Livingston's motion, since on that would depend its propriety. It was contended, that if the impeachment of either Mr. Jay or the president was intended, it was a proper motion; but not so if the const.i.tutionality of the treaty was to be questioned, because that must depend on the treaty itself. It was further inquired whether the house proposed to consider whether a better treaty might not have been made. Mr. Livingston did not disavow either of the objects suggested, but stated as his princ.i.p.al reason, a firm conviction that the house was vested with a discretionary power, allowing it to carry the treaty into execution or not. This consideration was made the chief point in the debate, in which Albert Gallatin took a leading part in favor of the resolution, well supported by Madison, Livingston, Giles, and Baldwin, and others of less note. It was opposed by Smith, of South Carolina, Murray, Harper, Hillhouse, and others. About thirty speeches on either side were made, and the debate did not terminate until the twenty-fourth of the month.

During this debate, the eloquent Fisher Ames was a member of the house, but was compelled by ill health to be silent. It was a great trial for the patriot, for he saw the need of soldiers for the contest. He had been, from the beginning, a warm friend of the government; and now, at what he deemed a crisis, he wished to lift up his voice in defence of its measures. To a friend in Springfield he wrote on the ninth of March, saying:--

"I sit now in the house; and, that I may not lose my temper and my spirits, I shut my ears against the sophisms and rant against the treaty, and divert my attention by writing to you.

"Never was there a time when I so much desired the full use of my faculties, and it is the very moment when I am prohibited even attention. To be silent, neutral, useless, is a situation not to be envied. I almost wish ***** was here, and I at home, sorting squash and pumpkin seeds for planting.

"It is a new post for me to be in. I am not a sentry, not in the ranks, not in the staff. I am thrown into the wagon as part of the baggage. I am like an old gun that is spiked or the trunnions knocked off, and yet am carted off, not for the worth of the old iron, but to balk the enemy of a trophy. My political life is ended, and I am the survivor of myself, or rather the troubled ghost of a politician, that am condemned to haunt the field of battle where I fell. Whether the government will long outlive me is doubtful. I know it is sick, and, many of the physicians say, of a mortal disease. A crisis now exists, the most serious I ever witnessed, and the more dangerous because it is not dreaded. Yet, I confess, if we should navigate the federal ship through this strait, and get out again into the open sea, we shall have a right to consider the chance of our government as mended. We shall have a lease for years--say four or five; not a freehold--certainly not a fee simple.

"How will the Yankees feel and act when the day of trial comes? It is not, I fear, many weeks off. Will they let the casuists quibble away the very words, and adulterate the generous spirit of the const.i.tution? When a measure pa.s.ses by the proper authorities, shall it be stopped by force? Sophistry may change the form of the question, may hide some of the consequences, and may dupe some into an opinion of its moderation when triumphant; yet the fact will speak for itself. The government can not go to the halves. It would be another, a worse government, if the mob, or the leaders of the mob in Congress,[92] can stop the lawful acts of the president, and unmake a treaty. It would be, either no government, or instantly a government of usurpation and wrong.... I think we shall beat our opponents in the end, but the conflict will light up a fierce war."

Ames grew stronger; and at length, in the final debate in Congress upon the subject of the treaty, his eloquence was heard, like the tones of a trumpet, and with great effect, as we shall presently observe.

Livingston's motion was carried, on the twenty-fourth of March, by the decisive vote of sixty-two to thirty-seven. A committee of the house, deputed for the purpose, carried the vote to the president, who replied that he would take the request into consideration. He immediately summoned a cabinet council, and laid the matter before them in the form of two queries; first, on the right of the house, under the circ.u.mstances, to make such a call; and secondly, whether it would be expedient to furnish the papers, even though the belief might be entertained that the house had no right to call for them. He also referred the matter to Colonel Hamilton for his opinion.

The cabinet members were unanimous in opinion, that he ought not to comply with the requisitions of the house. Each of them stated, in writing, the grounds of his opinion; and Chief-Justice Ellsworth, who had lately been appointed to the bench of the supreme court of the United States, had, while the debate was in progress, drawn up an opinion coincident with the views of Washington and his cabinet.

Hamilton also transmitted to the president a long and able paper, in which, with his usual force of unanswerable logic, he sustained the action of the cabinet, and fortified the president's views. In acknowledging the receipt of this paper on the thirty-first of March, the president said:--

"I had from the first moment, and from the fullest conviction in my own mind, resolved to _resist the principle_, which was evidently intended to be established by the call of the house of representatives; and only deliberated on the manner in which this could be done with the least bad consequences. To effect this, three modes presented themselves. First, a denial of the papers _in toto_, a.s.signing concise but cogent reasons for that denial; secondly, to grant them in whole; or, thirdly, in part; accompanied in both the last-mentioned cases with a pointed protest against the right of the house to control treaties, or to call for papers without specifying their object, and against the compliance being drawn into a precedent.

"I had as little hesitation in deciding that the first was the most tenable ground; but, from the peculiar circ.u.mstances of the case, it merited consideration, if the _principle_ could be saved, whether facility in the provision might not result from a compliance. An attentive examination of the subject and papers, however, soon convinced me that to furnish _all_ the papers would be highly improper, and that a partial delivery of them would leave the door open for as much calumny as a refusal of them altogether; perhaps more, as it might, and I have no doubt would, be said that all such as were essential to the purposes of the house were withheld.

"Under these impressions, I proceeded, with the heads of departments and the attorney-general, to collect materials, and to prepare an answer, subject, however, to revision and change according to circ.u.mstances. This was ready on Monday, and proposed to be sent in on Tuesday; but it was delayed until I should hear from you, which happened on that day about noon. This induced a further postponement until yesterday, notwithstanding the apparent and anxious solicitude, which was visible in all quarters, to learn the result of the application.

"Finding that the draft which I had prepared embraced the most if not all the principles, which were detailed in yours of yesterday, though not the reasonings; that it would take considerable time to copy yours; and, above all, having understood that if the papers were refused, a fresh demand with strictures on my conduct was to be expected, I sent in the answer, which was ready, and have reserved yours, as a copious resource, in case the matter should go any further."[93]

Washington gave a decided negative to the request of the house. It appears to have been unexpected. The opposition were not prepared for such boldness and firmness on the part of the executive, and it "appeared to break," says Marshall, "the last cord of that attachment which had theretofore bound some of the active leaders of the opposition to the person of the president." Amid all the excitements of party contests, there was real affection and respect for Washington on the part of those who were politically opposed to him; but this act, so much like defiance of the popular will as expressed by the house of representatives, in the eyes of the unreflecting, seemed, for the moment, to extinguish every lingering spark of affection in the bosom of his old friends, now his political enemies.

After a week's delay, the president's message was taken up in committee of the whole, with two resolutions offered by Blount, of North Carolina, declaratory of the sense of the house respecting its own power on the subject of treaties. These embodied doctrines contrary to those expressed in the message. The first, after disclaiming any pretensions on the part of the house to "any agency in making treaties," a.s.serted, that "when a treaty stipulated regulations on any of the subjects submitted by the const.i.tution to the power of Congress, it must depend for its execution, as to such stipulations, on a law to be pa.s.sed by Congress," and that the house had a right to deliberate on the expediency or inexpediency of such law, and pa.s.s or reject it as they might determine. The second resolution a.s.serted, that in applications to the president for information, the house was not bound to specify for what purpose such information was wanted.

These resolutions took a rather less untenable position than had been maintained in argument, and were quite inexplicit on an essential part of the question. After a brief debate, in which Madison was chief speaker in favor of the resolutions, they were adopted by a vote of fifty-seven to thirty-five.

While this exciting subject was before Congress, the treaties with the Indians, with the dey of Algiers, and with Spain respecting the navigation of the Mississippi, had been ratified by the president and senate, and communicated to the house of representatives. It was moved to refer them to the committee of the whole house; but, for several days in succession, the motion was voted down. It was finally carried; and on the thirteenth of April, the moment the committee of the whole was organized by the chairman taking his seat, Mr. Sedgwick, of Ma.s.sachusetts, arose and moved "that provision ought to be made by law for carrying into effect, with good faith, the treaties lately concluded with the dey and regency of Algiers, the king of Great Britain, the king of Spain, and certain Indian tribes northwest of the Ohio." The opposition were completely surprised by this unexpected movement, and an angry altercation ensued. They complained loudly of the manner in which an attempt was made to force action upon the four treaties together, and resented what they deemed the ungenerous sharp practice of their opponents, because it was in contravention of the solemn vote of the house lately recorded upon their journals, declaratory of their right to exercise a free discretion over the subject. It was contended, on the other hand, that, as the four treaties formed part of one system, if one was rejected, it might be expedient to reject the others also. After a warm debate, it was agreed to dispose of the other treaties before taking up that with Great Britain. In accordance with this determination, the action of the house on the other treaties was such as not to contradict the claim set up by Blount's resolutions, and they were disposed of without any difficulty.

The treaty with Great Britain was taken up on the fifteenth of April.

Its friends, in and out of Congress, supposing that on a subject which had so long agitated the community, the mind of every member was settled, and that an attempt to make converts by either party through debates would be futile, urged an immediate decision of the matter. They felt confident that the majority would not dare to meet the country on such an issue as the withholding of means for the execution of the treaty; but that majority, though knowing they had the power to break the treaty, were unwilling to do so without first embracing an opportunity for giving satisfactory reasons for their action. They therefore called for discussion. "The expectation," says Marshall, "might not unreasonably be entertained, that the pa.s.sions belonging to the subject would be so inflamed by debate as to produce the expression of a public sentiment favorable to their wishes; and if in this they should be disappointed, it would be certainly unwise, either as a party or as a branch of the legislature, to plunge the nation into embarra.s.sments in which it was not disposed to entangle itself, and from which the manner of extricating it could not be distinctly perceived."

The friends of the treaty did not shrink from discussion; and the debate, which lasted a fortnight, was opened by Madison with a speech, elaborate in its details and carefully prepared. He maintained that there was the grossest want of reciprocity exhibited in that part of the treaty that related to the settlement of disputes growing out of the compact of 1783. The British, he a.s.serted, got all they asked--the debts due their merchants with damages in the shape of interest. We got nothing, he said, for the valuable negroes carried away, and we received nothing for damages accruing from the long detention of the western posts. And they, he said, were received with conditions respecting the Indian trade which made them almost useless to us, as to influence over the savage tribes, in which alone their greatest value consisted; and he considered the agreement to pay the American claims for spoliations as no offset for the loss of the negroes.

The same want of reciprocity, he said, prevailed in the portion of the treaty respecting neutral rights and the law of nations. By it we yielded the favorite principle, long ago enunciated, that "free ships make free goods," and had actually added naval stores and even provisions to the list of contraband articles. He severely animadverted upon the provisions which conceded to British subjects the right to hold lands within the territory of the United States; the stipulation concerning the navigation of the Mississippi; and the permission to open all American ports to British shipping, while our own vessels were excluded from the colonial harbors.

The latter measure, allowing Great Britain to retain her colonial monopoly and preserve intact her colonial system, he denounced as "a phenomenon which had filled him with more surprise than he knew how to express." And more vehement than all, because it interfered with his favorite scheme of commercial coercion, was Madison's denunciations of the provisions which prevented the Americans from retaliating upon the British, in the event of their making commercial restrictions to our disadvantage by further discriminations. He concluded with scouting the idea that war would ensue if the treaty should be rejected, because the hostilities England were then waging with France were quite as much as she was able to manage at that time.

Madison's speech alarmed the country, especially the sensitive mercantile cla.s.ses, for whose losses, by spoliations, the treaty made provision, and those who were dependant upon trade, because they feared its influence in causing the inexecution of the treaty, and consequent war with Great Britain, by which their interests would be seriously effected. Other cla.s.ses were also alarmed; indeed, all who loved peace and deprecated quarrels, much less physical contests, with other nations, trembled for the fate of the treaty. The country was violently agitated. Public meetings were held in all parts of the United States, and the strength of parties was once more fully tried. Pet.i.tions were sent in to Congress from all the great marts of business in the country in favor of ratification; while counter meetings were held and counter pet.i.tions were sent in from various places. Insurance against captures on the high seas could no longer be obtained for vessels or goods; and a sudden blow was given to commerce, which threatened financial ruin.