Volume II Part 11 (1/2)
At last Jay secured from Great Britain the famous treaty that bears his name. It is perhaps the most humiliating compact into which America ever entered. He was expected to secure the restriction of contraband--it was enlarged; payment for the slaves--it was refused; recognition of the principle that ”free s.h.i.+ps make free goods”--it was denied; equality with France as to belligerent rights--it was not granted; opening of the West Indian trade--it was conceded upon hard and unjust conditions; payment for British spoliation of American commerce--it was promised at some future time, but even then only on the award of a commission; immediate surrender of the posts--their evacuation was agreed to, but not until a year and a half after the treaty was signed.
On the other hand, the British secured from us free navigation and trading rights on the Mississippi--never contemplated; agreement that the United States would pay all debts due from American citizens to British creditors--a claim never admitted hitherto; prohibition of any future sequestration of British debts; freedom of all American ports to British vessels, with a pledge to lay no further restrictions on British commerce--never before proposed; liberty of Indians and British subjects to pa.s.s our frontiers, trade on our soil, retain lands occupied without becoming American citizens, but privileged to become such at pleasure--an odious provision, which, formerly, had never occurred to anybody.
Thus, by the Treaty of 1794, we yielded everything and gained little not already ours. But we secured peace; we were saved from war. That supreme end was worth the sacrifice and that, alone, justified it. It more than demonstrated the wisdom of the Jay Treaty.
While the Senate was considering the bitter terms which Great Britain, with unsheathed sword, had forced upon us, Senator Stephen T. Mason of Virginia, in violation of the Senate rules, gave a copy of the treaty to the press.[322] Instantly the whole land shook with a tornado of pa.s.sionate protest.[323] From one end of the country to the other, public meetings were held. Boston led off.[324] Was.h.i.+ngton was smothered with violent pet.i.tions that poured in upon him from every quarter praying, demanding, that he withhold his a.s.sent.[325] As in the struggle for the Const.i.tution and in the violent attacks on Neutrality, so now the strongest advocates of the Jay Treaty were the commercial interests. ”The common opinion among men of business of all descriptions is,” declares Hamilton, ”that a disagreement would greatly shock and stagnate pecuniary plans and operations in general.”[326]
The printing presses belched pamphlets and lampoons, scurrilous, inflammatory, even indecent. An example of these was a Boston screed.
This cla.s.sic of vituperation, connecting the treaty with the financial measures of Was.h.i.+ngton's Administration, represented the Federalist leaders as servants of the Devil; Independence, after the death of his first wife, Virtue, married a foul creature, Vice, and finally himself expired in convulsions, leaving Speculation, Bribery, and Corruption as the base offspring of his second marriage.[327]
Everywhere Jay was burned in effigy. Hamilton was stoned in New York when he tried to speak to the mob; and with the blood pouring down his face went, with the few who were willing to listen to him, to the safety of a hall.[328] Even Was.h.i.+ngton's granite resolution was shaken. Only once in our history have the American people so scourged a great public servant.[329] He was no statesman, raged the Republicans; everybody knew that he had been a failure as a soldier, they said; and now, having trampled on the Const.i.tution and betrayed America, let him be impeached, screamed the infuriated opposition.[330] Seldom has any measure of our Government awakened such convulsions of popular feeling as did the Jay Treaty, which, surrendering our righteous and immediate demands, yet saved our future. Marshall, watching it all, prepared to defend the popularly abhorred compact; and thus he was to become its leading defender in the South.
When, finally, Was.h.i.+ngton reluctantly approved its ratification by the Senate,[331] many of his friends deserted him.[332] ”The trouble and perplexities ... have worn away my mind,” wrote the abused and distracted President.[333] Mercer County, Kentucky, denounced Senator Humphrey Marshall for voting for ratification and demanded a const.i.tutional amendment empowering State Legislatures to recall Senators at will.[334] The Legislature of Virginia actually pa.s.sed a resolution for an amendment of the National Const.i.tution to make the House of Representatives a part of the treaty-making power.[335] The Lexington, Kentucky, resolutions branded the treaty as ”shameful to the American name.”[336] It was reported that at a dinner in Virginia this toast was drunk: ”A speedy death to General Was.h.i.+ngton.”[337] Orators exhausted invective; poets wrote in the ink of gall.[338]
Jefferson, in harmony, of course, with the public temper, was against the treaty. ”So general a burst of dissatisfaction,” he declared, ”never before appeared against any transaction.... The whole body of the people ... have taken a greater interest in this transaction than they were ever known to do in any other.”[339] The Republican chieftain carefully observed the effect of the popular commotion on his own and the opposite party. ”It has in my opinion completely demolished the monarchical party here[340] [Virginia].” Jefferson thought the treaty itself so bad that it nearly turned him against all treaties. ”I am not satisfied,” said he, ”we should not be better without treaties with any nation. But I am satisfied we should be better without such as this.”[341]
The deadliest charge against the treaty was the now familiar one of ”unconst.i.tutionality.” Many urged that the President had no power to begin negotiations without the a.s.sent of the Senate;[342] and all opponents agreed that it flagrantly violated the Const.i.tution in several respects, especially in regulating trade, to do which was the exclusive province of Congress.[343] Once more, avowed the Jeffersonians, it was the National Government which had brought upon America this disgrace.
”Not one in a thousand would have resisted Great Britain ... in the beginning of the Revolution” if the vile conduct of Was.h.i.+ngton had been foreseen; and it was plain, at this late day, that ”either the Federal or State governments must fall”--so wrote Republican pamphleteers, so spoke Republican orators.[344]
Again Hamilton brought into action the artillery of his astounding intellect. In a series of public letters under the signature of ”Camillus,” he vindicated every feature of the treaty, evading nothing, conceding nothing. These papers were his last great constructive work.
In numbers three, six, thirty-seven, and thirty-eight of ”Camillus,” he expounded the Const.i.tution on the treaty-making power; demonstrated the exclusive right of the President to negotiate, and, with the Senate, to conclude, treaties; and proved, not only that the House should not be consulted, but that it is bound by the Const.i.tution itself to pa.s.s all laws necessary to carry treaties into effect.[345]
Fearless, indeed, and void of political ambition were those who dared to face the tempest. ”The cry against the Treaty is like that against a mad-dog,” wrote Was.h.i.+ngton from Mount Vernon.[346] Particularly was this true of Virginia, where it raged ungovernably.[347] A meeting of Richmond citizens ”have outdone all that has gone before them” in the resolutions pa.s.sed,[348] bitterly complained Was.h.i.+ngton. Virginians, testified Jefferson, ”were never more unanimous. 4. or 5. individuals of Richmond, distinguished however, by their talents as by their devotion to all the sacred acts of the government, & the town of Alexandria const.i.tute the whole support of that instrument [Jay Treaty] here.”[349]
These four or five devoted ones, said Jefferson, were ”Marshall, Carrington, Harvey, Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton, Doctor Stewart.”[350] But, as we are now to see, Marshall made up in boldness and ability what the Virginia friends of the Administration lacked in numbers.
FOOTNOTES:
[195] Compare Hamilton's ”Opinion as to the Const.i.tutionality of the Bank of the United States” with Marshall's opinion in McCulloch vs.
Maryland, The student of Marshall cannot devote too much attention to Hamilton's great state papers, from the ”First Report on the Public Credit” to ”Camillus.” It is interesting that Hamilton produced all these within five years, notwithstanding the fact that this was the busiest and most crowded period of his life.
[196] Binney, in Dillon, iii, 301-02.
[197] La Rochefoucauld, iii, 73. For a man even ”to be pa.s.sive ... is a satisfactory proof that he is on the wrong side.” (Monroe to Jefferson, July 17, 1792; Monroe's _Writings_: Hamilton, i, 238.)
[198] George Mason to John Mason, July 12, 1791; Rowland, ii, 338.
[199] Corbin to Hamilton, March 17, 1793; as quoted in Beard: _Econ. O.
J. D._, 226.
[200] ”Patrick Henry once said 'that he could forgive anything else in Mr. Jefferson, but his corrupting Mr. Madison.'” (Pickering to Marshall, Dec. 26, 1828; Pickering MSS., Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc.) ”His [Madison's]
placing himself under the pupilage of Mr. Jefferson and supporting his public deceptions, are sufficient to put him out of my book.” (Pickering to Rose, March 22, 1808; _ib._)
[201] Madison's course was irreconcilable with his earlier Nationalist stand. (See Beard: _Econ. O. J. D._, 77; and see especially the remarkable and highly important letter of Hamilton to Carrington, May 26, 1792; _Works_: Lodge, ix, 513-35, on Madison's change, Jefferson's conduct, and the politics of the time.) Carrington was now the brother-in-law of Marshall and his most intimate friend. Their houses in Richmond almost adjoined. (See _infra_, chap. V.)
[202] See brief but excellent account of this famous journey in Gay: _Madison_ (American Statesmen Series), 184-85; and _contra_, Rives, iii, 191.
[203] Jefferson to Madison, June 29, 1792; _Works_: Ford, vii, 129-30.