Part 27 (1/2)
Hamilton, Rufus King, and other speakers, occupied the balcony of the city-hall. The former, with sweet and persuasive tones, had uttered conciliatory words, and spoken in favor of adjournment, when the meeting became a good deal disturbed by conflicting sentiments and stormy pa.s.sions. Just then an excited party of the opposition, who had held a meeting at the Bowling Green, with William L. Smith, a son-in-law of Vice-President Adams, as chairman, and who had burned a copy of the treaty in front of the government house, marched up Broadway, with the American and French flags unfurled, and joined the meeting. The turbulence of the a.s.sembly was greatly increased by this addition; and while Hamilton and King ”were addressing the people in accents of friends.h.i.+p, peace, and reconciliation, they were treated in return with a shower of stones, levelled at their persons, by the exasperated mob gathered in front of the city-hall.”[80]
”These are hard arguments,” said Hamilton, who was. .h.i.t a glancing blow upon the forehead by one of the stones. A question was finally taken on a motion to leave the decision on the treaty to the president and senate, when both sides claimed a majority. Then some person, utterly ignoring the presence of a chairman, moved the appointment of a committee of fifteen, to report to another meeting (to be held two days afterward) objections to the treaty. He read a list of names of gentlemen that should form that committee, and, at the close of clamorous shouts, he declared them duly appointed by the vote. The meeting finally broke up in great confusion. The adjourned meeting was attended by only the opponents of the treaty; and Brockholst Livingston, chairman of the committee of fifteen, reported twenty-eight condemnatory resolutions, which were adopted by unanimous vote.
”These resolutions,” says Hildreth, ”while expressing great confidence in the president's wisdom, patriotism, and independence, were equally confident that his 'own good sense' must induce him to reject the treaty, as 'invading the const.i.tution and legislative authority of the country; as abandoning important and well-founded claims against the British government; as imposing unjust and impolitic restraints on commerce; as injurious to agriculture; as conceding, without an equivalent, important advantages to Great Britain; as hostile and ungrateful to France; as committing our peace with that great republic; as unequal toward America in every respect; as hazarding her internal peace and prosperity; and as derogatory from her sovereignty and independence.”[81]
On the very next day (July 22), the New York Chamber of Commerce, representing the commercial interests of that city, adopted resolutions diametrically opposed to those offered by Livingston. These set forth that the treaty contained as many features of reciprocity as, under the circ.u.mstances, might be expected; that the arrangements respecting British debts were honest and expedient; and that the agreement concerning the surrender of the western posts and for compensation for spoliations, and their prevention in future, were wise and beneficial.
If the treaty had been rejected, they said, war with all its attendant calamities would have ensued, and they were satisfied with what had been done.
On the twenty-fourth of July a similar meeting was held in Philadelphia.
Among the leaders who denounced the treaty by speech and acts were Chief-Justice M'Kean, Alexander J. Dallas (the secretary of the commonwealth), General Muhlenburg (late speaker of the house of representatives), and John Swanwick (representative elect in Congress).
A committee of fifteen was appointed by the meeting to convey the sentiments of the a.s.semblage to the president, who was then at Mount Vernon, in the form of a memorial. That instrument was read twice and agreed to without debate. The treaty was then thrown to the populace--consisting chiefly, as Wolcott said in a letter to the president, of ”the ignorant and violent cla.s.ses”--who placed it upon a pole, and, proceeding to the house of the British minister, burned it in the street in front of it. They performed a like ceremony in front of the dwelling of the British consul, and also of Mr. Bingham, an influential federalist, with loud huzzas, yells, and groans.
At the South, equally hostile feelings toward the treaty and its friends were manifested. John Rutledge, then chief justice of South Carolina, denounced the treaty in violent language at a public meeting. He said it was dest.i.tute of a single article that could be approved, and reproached Jay with being either a knave or a fool--with corruption or stupidity--in having signed it. The stanch old patriot, Christopher Gadsden, denounced it in terms equally decisive; and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, at the close of a violent harangue, moved to request the president to take steps to have Jay impeached. ”If he had not made this public exposure of his conduct and principles,” said Pinckney, ”he might one day have been brought forward, among others, as a candidate for our highest office: but the general and deserved contempt which his negotiations have brought both his talents and principles into, would for ever, he trusted, secure his fellow-citizens from the dangerous and unwise use which such a man would have made of the powers vested in a president.”
The meeting appointed a committee of fifteen to report their sentiments at another gathering. It was done on the twenty-second of July. The report contained severe criticisms upon the several articles of the treaty, and recommended a memorial to the president, asking him not to ratify it. Meanwhile the populace trailed a British flag through the streets, and then burned it at the door of the British consul.
While these meetings were occurring in the princ.i.p.al cities, the opposition press all over the country was alive with the subject, and its denunciations were sometimes so violent that it was difficult to find words strong enough to express them. The Democratic Societies, vivified by the excitement, were also active with a sort of galvanic life. One of these in South Carolina resolved, ”That we pledge ourselves to our brethren of the republican societies throughout the Union, as far as the ability and individual influence of a numerous society can be made to extend, that we will promote every const.i.tutional mode to bring John Jay to trial and to justice. He shall not escape, if guilty, that punishment which will at once wipe off the temporary stain laid upon us, and be a warning to traitors hereafter how they sport with the interests and feelings of their fellow-citizens. He was instructed, or he was not: if he was, we will drop the curtain; if not, and he acted of and from himself, we shall lament the want of a GUILLOTINE.”
The Pendleton Society of the same state declared their ”abhorrence and detestation of a treaty which gives the English government more power over us as states than it claimed over us as colonists--a treaty, involving in it pusillanimity, stupidity, ingrat.i.tude, and treachery.”
In Virginia, the grand panacea for all political evils of the federal government, DISUNION, was again presented. The following specimen of the prescription, taken from a Virginia newspaper, will suffice as an example:--
”Notice is hereby given, that in case the treaty entered into by that d.a.m.ned arch-traitor, John Jay, with the British tyrant should be ratified, a pet.i.tion will be presented to the next general a.s.sembly of Virginia at their next session, praying that the said state may recede from the Union, and be under the government of one hundred thousand free and independent Virginians.
”P. S. As it is the wish of the people of the said state to enter into a treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, with any other state or states of the present Union who are averse to returning again under the galling yoke of Great Britain, the printers of the (at present) United States are requested to publish the above notification.--_Richmond, July 31, 1795_.”
Even at that early period of the republic, neither newspaper editors, nor political combinations, nor gatherings of clamorous a.s.semblies, could make any sensible impression on the real strength of the Union.
Nor did these individual or public demonstrations move Was.h.i.+ngton from his steady march in the line of duty, or in his allegiance to what he discerned to be truth and justice. On his way to his home on the Potomac, he was overtaken at Baltimore, on the eighteenth of July, by the committee from Boston, bearing to him the proceedings of the great public meeting there on the subject of the treaty. He immediately sent the papers back to Mr. Randolph, the secretary of state, with a request that he would confer upon the subject with the other two secretaries and the attorney-general, and transmit the opinion of the cabinet to him as early as possible. The whole affair, he had no doubt, was intended to place him ”in an embarra.s.sed situation.” The cabinet members, after consultation, wrote out replies to the Boston authorities in accordance with their views, and sent them to the president. He weighed them carefully, and on the twenty-eighth of July he addressed the following letter to the selectmen of Boston:--[82]
”In every act of my administration I have sought the happiness of my fellow-citizens. My system for the attainment of this object has uniformly been to overlook all personal, local, and partial considerations; to contemplate the United States as one great whole; to consider that sudden impressions, when erroneous, would yield to candid reflection; and to consult only the substantial and permanent interests of our country.
”Nor have I departed from this line of conduct, on the occasion which has produced the resolutions contained in your letter of the thirteenth instant.
”With a predilection for my own judgment, I have weighed with attention every argument which has at any time been brought into view. But the const.i.tution is the guide, which I never can abandon.
It has a.s.signed to the president the power of making treaties, with the advice and consent of the senate. It was doubtless supposed that these two branches of government would combine, without pa.s.sion, and with the best means of information, those facts and principles upon which the success of our foreign relations will always depend; that they ought not to subst.i.tute for their own conviction the opinions of others, or to seek truth through any channel but that of a temperate and well-informed investigation.
”Under this persuasion, I have resolved on the manner of executing the duty before me. To the high responsibility attached to it I freely submit; and you, gentlemen, are at liberty to make these sentiments known as the grounds of my procedure. While I feel the most lively grat.i.tude for the many instances of approbation from my country, I can no otherwise deserve it than by obeying the dictates of my conscience.”
To these n.o.ble sentiments Was.h.i.+ngton firmly adhered, and they were the basis of his replies to all similar communications. Before this letter was sent, Was.h.i.+ngton received many private and public letters on the subject, as well as newspaper accounts of meetings all over the country.
He perceived that a crisis had arrived, when he must act promptly and energetically, in accordance with his convictions of right. He saw that the excitement throughout the Union was becoming formidable, and he resolved to return to Philadelphia immediately, summon his cabinet, and propose to ratify the treaty without delay--notwithstanding such return would be to him a great personal sacrifice. ”Whilst I am in office,” he said to Randolph in his letter announcing his determination to return, ”I shall never suffer private convenience to interfere with what I conceive to be my official duty.” This was one of the great maxims of his life.
”I view the opposition,” he said, ”which the treaty is receiving from the meetings in different parts of the Union, in a very serious light; not because there is more weight in any of the objections which are made to it than was foreseen at first, for there is none in some of them, and gross misrepresentations in others; nor as it respects myself personally, for this shall have no influence on my conduct, plainly perceiving, and I am accordingly preparing my mind for it, the obloquy which disappointment and malice are collecting to heap upon me. But I am alarmed at the effect it may have on, and the advantage the French government may be disposed to make of, the spirit which is at work to cherish a belief in them that the treaty is calculated to favor Great Britain at their expense. Whether they believe or disbelieve these tales, the effect it will have upon the nation will be nearly the same; for, whilst they are at war with that power, or so long as the animosity between the two nations exists, it will, no matter at whose expense, be their policy, and it is to be feared will be their conduct, to prevent us from being on good terms with Great Britain, or her from deriving any advantages from our trade, which they can hinder, however much we may be benefitted thereby ourselves. To what length this policy and interest may carry them is problematical; but when they see the people of this country divided, and such a violent opposition given to the measures of their own government pretendedly in their favor, it may be extremely embarra.s.sing, to say no more of it.
”To sum the whole up in a few words, I have never, since I have been in the administration of the government, seen a crisis, which in my judgment has been so pregnant with interesting events, nor one from which more is to be apprehended, whether viewed on one side or the other. From New York there is, and I am told will further be, a counter current; but how formidable it may appear I know not. If the same does not take place at Boston and other towns, it will afford but too strong evidence that the opposition is in a manner universal, and would make the ratification a very serious business indeed. But, as it respects the French, even counter resolutions would, for the reasons I have already mentioned, do little more than weaken in a small degree the effect the other side would have.”
Two days afterward (the thirty-first of July) he wrote to Mr. Randolph, informing him that he should not set out for Philadelphia until he should receive answers to some letters, and then said:--
”To be wise and temperate, as well as firm, the present crisis most eminently calls for. There is too much reason to believe, from the pains which have been taken, before, at, and since the advice of the senate respecting the treaty, that the prejudices against it are more extensive than is generally imagined. This I have lately understood to be the case in this quarter, from men who are of no party, but well disposed to the present administration. How should it be otherwise, when no stone has been left unturned that could impress on the minds of the people the most arrant misrepresentation of facts; that their rights have not only been _neglected_, but absolutely _sold_; that there are no reciprocal advantages in the treaty; that the benefits are all on the side of Great Britain; and, what seems to have had more weight with them than all the rest and to have been most pressed, that the treaty is made with the design to oppress the French, in open violation of our treaty with that nation, and contrary, too, to every principle of grat.i.tude and sound policy? In time, when pa.s.sion shall have yielded to sober reason, the current may possibly turn; but, in the meanwhile, this government, in relation to France and England, may be compared to a s.h.i.+p between the rocks of Scylla and Charybdis. If the treaty is ratified, the partisans of the French, or rather of war and confusion, will excite them to hostile measures, or at least to unfriendly sentiments; if it is not, there is no foreseeing all the consequences which may follow as it respects Great Britain.
”It is not to be inferred from hence that I am disposed to quit the ground I have taken, unless circ.u.mstances more imperious than have yet come to my knowledge should compel it; for there is but one straight course, and that is, to seek truth and pursue it steadily.