Part 30 (1/2)
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 Was.h.i.+ngton'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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 friends.h.i.+p of the two republics be commensurate with their existence!”
Was.h.i.+ngton 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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, Was.h.i.+ngton, 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]