Part 23 (1/2)

[Footnote 1: The Senate ratified this treaty in the summer of 1795.]

%232. Treaty with Spain.%--About the same time (October, 1795) we made our first treaty with Spain, and induced her to accept the thirty-first degree of lat.i.tude as the south boundary of our country, and to consent to open the Mississippi to trade. As Spain owned both banks at the mouth of the river, she claimed that American s.h.i.+ps had no right to go in or out without her consent, and so prevented the people of Kentucky and Tennessee from trading in foreign markets. She now agreed that they might float their produce to New Orleans and pay a small duty, and then s.h.i.+p it wherever they pleased.

%233. The Election of Adams and Jefferson, 1796%.--Was.h.i.+ngton had been reelected President in 1792, but he was now tired of office, and in September, 1796, issued his ”Farewell Address,” in which he declined to be the candidate for a third presidential term. In those days there were no national conventions to nominate candidates, yet it was well understood that John Adams, the Vice President, was the candidate of the Federalists, and Thomas Jefferson, of the Republicans. When the votes were counted in Congress, it was found that Adams had 71 electoral votes, and Jefferson 68; so they became President and Vice President.

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Adams]

%234. Trouble with France.%--Adams was inaugurated on March 4, 1797, and three days later heard that C. C. Pinckney, our minister to the French Republic, had been driven from France. Pinckney had been sent to France by Was.h.i.+ngton in 1796, but the French Directory (as the five men who then governed France were called) had taken great offense at Jay's treaty: first because it was favorable to Great Britain, and in the second place because it put an end for the present to all hope of war between her and the United States. The Directory, therefore, refused to receive Pinckney until the French grievances were redressed.

The President was very angry at the insult, and summoned Congress to meet and take such action as, said he, ”shall convince France and the whole world that we are not a degraded people humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority.” But the Republicans declared so vigorously that if a special mission were sent to France all would be made right, that Adams yielded, and sent John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry to join Pinckney as envoys extraordinary. On reaching Paris, three men acting as agents for the Directory met them, and declared that before they could be received as ministers they must do three things:

1. Apologize for Adams's denunciation of the conduct of France.

2. Pay each Director $50,000.

3. Pay tribute to France.

When the President reported this demand to Congress, the names of the three French agents were suppressed, and instead they were called Mr. X, Mr. Y, Mr. Z. This gave the mission the nickname ”X, Y, Z mission.”

%235. ”Millions for Defense, not a Cent for Tribute.”%--As the newspapers published these dispatches, a roar of indignation, in which the Federalists and Republicans alike joined, went up from the whole country. ”Millions for defense, not a cent for tribute,” became the watchword of the hour. Opposition in Congress ceased, and preparations were at once made for war. The French treaties were suspended. The Navy Department was created, and a Secretary of the Navy appointed. Frigates were ordered to be built, money was voted for arms, a provisional army was formed, and Was.h.i.+ngton was again made commander in chief, with the rank of lieutenant general. The young men a.s.sociated for defense, the people in the seaports built frigates or sloops of war, and gave their services to erect forts and earthworks. Every French flag was now pulled down from the coffeehouses, and the black c.o.c.kade of our own Revolutionary days was once more worn as the badge of patriotism. Then was written, by Joseph Hopkinson of Philadelphia,[1] and sung for the first time, our national song _Hail, Columbia!_

[Footnote 1: The music to which we sing _Hail, Columbia!_ was called _The President's March_, and was played for the first time when the people of Trenton were welcoming Was.h.i.+ngton on his way to be inaugurated President in 1789. For an account of the trouble with France read McMaster's _History of the People of the United States_, Vol. II, pp.

207-416, 427-476.]

%236. The Alien and Sedition Acts.%--Carried away by the excitement of the hour, the Federalists now pa.s.sed two most unwise laws. Many of the active leaders and very many of the members of the Republican party were men born abroad and naturalized in this country. Generally they were Irishmen or Frenchmen, and as such had good reason to hate England, and therefore hated the Federalists, who they believed were too friendly to her. To prevent such becoming voters, and so taking an active part in politics, the Federalists pa.s.sed a new naturalization law, which forbade any foreigner to become an American citizen until he had lived fourteen years in our country. Lest this should not be enough to keep them quiet, a second law was pa.s.sed by which the President had power for two years to send any alien (any of these men who for fourteen years could not become citizens) out of the country whenever he thought it proper.

This law Adams never used.

For five years past the Republican newspapers had been abusing Was.h.i.+ngton, Adams, the acts of Congress, the members of Congress, and the whole foreign policy of the Federalists. The Federalist newspapers, of course, had retaliated and had been just as abusive of the Republicans. But as the Federalists now had the power, they determined to punish the Republicans for their abuse, and pa.s.sed the Sedition Act.

This provided that any man who acted seditiously (that is, interfered with the execution of a law of Congress) or spoke or wrote seditiously (that is, abused the President, or Congress, or any member of the Federal government) should be tried, and if found guilty, be fined and imprisoned. This law was used, and used vigorously, and Republican editors all over the country were fined and sometimes imprisoned.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Alien and Sedition acts are in Preston's _Doc.u.ments_, pp. 277-282.]

%237. Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.%--The pa.s.sage of these Alien and Sedition laws greatly excited the Republicans, and led Jefferson to use his influence to have them condemned by the states. For this purpose he wrote a set of resolutions and sent them to a friend in Kentucky who was to try to have the legislature adopt them.[2] Jefferson next asked Madison to write a like set of resolutions for the Virginia legislature to adopt. Madison became so interested that he gave up his seat in Congress and entered the Virginia legislature, and in December, 1798, induced it to adopt what have since been known as the Virginia Resolutions of 1798.

[Footnote 2: Kentucky had been admitted to the Union in 1792 (see p.

213).]

Meantime the legislature of Kentucky, November, 1798, had adopted the resolutions of Jefferson.[3]

[Footnote 3: E. D. Warfield's _Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions_. The Resolutions are printed in Preston's _Doc.u.ments_, pp. 283-298; _Jefferson's Works_, Vol. IX., p. 494.]

Both sets declare 1. That the Const.i.tution of the United States is a compact or contract. 2. That to this contract each state is a party; that is, the united states are equal partners in a great political firm.

So far they agree; but at this point they differ. The Kentucky Resolutions a.s.sert that when any question arises as to the right of Congress to pa.s.s any law, _each state_ may decide this question for itself and apply any remedy it likes. The Virginia Resolutions declare that _the states_ may judge and apply the remedy.

Both declared that the Alien and Sedition laws were wholly unconst.i.tutional. Seven states answered by declaring that the laws were const.i.tutional, whereupon Kentucky in 1799 framed another set of resolutions in which she said that when a state thought a law to be illegal she had the right to nullify it; that is, forbid her citizens to obey it. This doctrine of nullification, as we shall see, afterwards became of very serious importance.[1]

[Footnote 1: The answers of the states are printed in Elliot's _Debates_, Vol. IV., pp. 532-539.]

%238. The Naval War with France.%--Meantime war opened with France.

The Navy Department was created in April, 1798, and before the year ended, a gallant little navy of thirty-four frigates, corvettes, and gun sloops of war had been collected and sent with a host of privateers to scour the sea around the French West Indies, destroy French commerce, and capture French s.h.i.+ps of war.[1] One of our frigates, the _Constellation_, Captain Thomas Truxton in command, captured the French frigate _Insurgente_, after a gallant fight. On another occasion, Truxton, in the _Constellation_, fought the _Vengeance_ and would have taken her, but the Frenchman, finding he was getting much the worst of it, spread his sails and fled. Yet another of our frigates, the _Boston_, took the _Berceau_, whose flag is now in the Naval Inst.i.tute Building at Annapolis. In six months the little American twelve-gun schooner _Enterprise_ took eight French privateers, and recaptured and set free four American merchantmen. These and a hundred other actions just as gallant made good the patriotic words of John Adams, ”that we are not a degraded people humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority.” So impressed was France with this fact that the war had scarcely begun when the Directory meekly sent word that if another set of ministers came they would be received. They ought to have been told that they must send a mission to us. But Adams in this respect was weak, and in 1800, the Chief Justice, Oliver Ellsworth, William R.

Davie, and William Vans Murray were sent to Paris. The Directory had then fallen from power, Napoleon was ruling France as First Consul, and with him in September, 1800, a convention was concluded.