Volume I Part 7 (2/2)
The outcome was a decided change, sending Jay's majority up to 2380.[85] It is not easy to estimate how much of this result was influenced by the rising war cloud, and how much is to be credited to the individuality of the candidates. Both probably entered into the equation. But the fact that Jay carried legislative districts in which Republicans sent DeWitt Clinton and Ambrose Spencer to the Senate, would indicate that confidence in Jay, if not dislike of Livingston, had been the princ.i.p.al factor in this sweeping victory. ”The result of this election terminated, as was foreseen,” wrote William P. Van Ness, four years later, ”in the defeat and mortification of Mr. Livingston, and confirmed the conviction of the party, that the people had no confidence in his political integrity, and had been disgusted by his unwarrantable expectations. His want of popularity was so well known that nothing could have induced this inexpedient measure, but a desire to show the futility of his pretensions, and thus in future avoid his. .h.i.therto unceasing importunities.”[86]
[Footnote 85: John Jay, 16,012; Robert Livingston, 13,632. _Civil List, State of New York_, (1887), p. 1166.]
[Footnote 86: William P. Van Ness, _Examination of Charges against Aaron Burr_, p. 12.]
Livingston's search for distinction in the political field seems to have resulted in unhappiness. The distinguished ability displayed as chancellor followed him to the end, but the joy of public life vanished when he entered the domain of partisan politics. Had he possessed those qualities of leaders.h.i.+p that bind party and friends by ties of unflinching services, he might have reaped the reward his ambition so ardently craved; but his peculiar temper unfitted him for such a career. Jealous, fretful, sensitive, and suspicious, he was as restless as his eloquence was dazzling, and, although generous to the poor, his political methods savoured of selfishness, making enemies, divorcing friends, and darkening his pathway with gathering clouds.
The story of John Jay's second term is not all a record of success.
Strenuous statesmen, catching the contagion of excitement growing out of the war news from France, formed themselves into clubs, made eloquent addresses, and cheered John Adams and his readiness to fight rather than pay tribute, while the Legislature, in extra session, responded to Jay's patriotic appeal by unanimously pledging the President the support of the State, and making appropriations for the repair of fortifications and the purchase of munitions of war. From all indications, the Federalists seemed certain to continue in power for the next decade, since the more their opponents sympathised with the French, the stronger became the sentiment against them. If ever there was a period in the history of the United States when the opposite party should have been encouraged to talk, and to talk loudly and saucily, it was in the summer of 1798, when the American people had waked up to the insulting treatment accorded their envoys in France; but the Federalist leaders, horrified by the b.l.o.o.d.y record of the French Revolution, seemed to cultivate an increasing distrust of the common people, whom they now sought to repress by the historic measures known as the Naturalisation Act of June 18, 1798, the Alien Act of June 25, and the Sedition Act of July 14.
The briefest recital of the purpose of these laws is sufficient to prove the folly of the administration that fathered them, and when one considers the possible lengths to which an official, representing the President, might go if instigated by private or party revenge, Edward Livingston's declaration that they ”would have disgraced the age of Gothic barbarity” does not seem too strong.[87] Under the Alien Act persons not citizens of the United States could be summarily banished at the sole discretion of the President, without guilt or even accusation, thus jeopardising the liberty and business of the most peaceable and well-disposed foreigner. Under the Act of Sedition a citizen could be dragged from his bed at night and taken hundreds of miles from home to be tried for circulating a pet.i.tion asking that these laws be repealed. The intended effect was to weed out the foreign-born and crush political opponents, and, the better to accomplish this purpose, the Alien Act set aside trial by jury, and the Sedition Act transferred prosecutions from state courts to federal tribunals.
[Footnote 87: ”Let us not establish a tyranny,” Hamilton wrote Oliver Wolcott.--_Works of_, Vol. 8, p. 491. ”Let us not be cruel or violent.”--_Ibid._, 490. He thought the Alien Law deficient in guarantees of personal liberty.--_Ibid._, 5, 26.]
Governor Jay approved these extreme measures because of alleged secret combinations in the interest of the French; and, although no proof of their existence appeared except in the unsupported statements of the press, he submitted to the Legislature, in January, 1799, several amendments to the Federal Const.i.tution, proposed by Ma.s.sachusetts, increasing the disability of foreigners, and otherwise limiting their rights to citizens.h.i.+p. The Legislature, still strongly Federal in both its branches, did not take kindly to the amendments, and the a.s.sembly rejected them by the surprising vote of sixty-two to thirty-eight.
Then came up the famous Kentucky and Virginia resolutions. The Virginia resolves, drafted by Madison and pa.s.sed by the Virginia Legislature, p.r.o.nounced the Alien and Sedition laws ”palpable and alarming infractions of the Const.i.tution;” the Kentucky resolutions, drafted by Jefferson, declared each act to be ”not law, but altogether void and of no force.” This was nullification, and the States north of the Potomac hastened to disavow any such doctrine, although the vote in the New York a.s.sembly came perilously near indorsing it.
The discussion of these measures gave opportunity for the public opening of a great career in New York legislation--a career that was to continue into the years made memorable by Martin Van Buren and William L. Marcy. The record of New York party politics for forty years is a record of long and brilliant contests in which Erastus Root, if not a recognised party chieftain, was one of the ablest lieutenants that marshalled on the field of combat. He was a man of gigantic frame, scholarly and much given to letters, and, although somewhat uncouth in manner and rough in speech, his forceful logic, coupled with keen wit and biting sarcasm, made him a dreaded opponent and a welcomed ally. He resembled Hamilton in his independence, relying less upon organisation and more upon the strength of his personality, yet shrewdly holding close relations with those whose careful management and adroit manipulation of the spoils kept men in line whatever the policy it seemed expedient to adopt. For eleven years he served in the a.s.sembly, and thrice became speaker; for eight years he served in the Senate, and twice became its president; for twelve years he served in the lower house of Congress, and once became lieutenant-governor. Wherever he served, he was recognised as a master, not always consistent, but always earnest, eloquent, and popular, fighting relentlessly and tirelessly, and compelling respect even when unsuccessful.
Just now Root was an ardent admirer of Aaron Burr and a bitter opponent of Alexander Hamilton. He was only twenty-six years old.
During the contest over the Federal Const.i.tution he was a leader in boyish sports at his Connecticut home, thinking more of the next wrestling match and the girl he should escort from the lyceum than of the character of the const.i.tution under which he should live; but he came to the a.s.sembly in 1798 a staunch supporter of republicanism, believing that Federalists should give place to men inclined to trust the people with larger power, and in this spirit he led the debate against the Alien and Sedition laws with such brilliancy that he leaped into prominence at a single bound. Freedom and fearlessness characterised the work of this young orator, singling him out as the people's champion, and giving him the confidence of five thousand ”Wild Irishmen,” as Otis called them, who had sought America as an asylum for the oppressed of all nations. Unrestrained by precedent and unruled by fear for the future, he spoke with confidence to a people whom he delighted with the breadth and liberality of his views, lifting them onto heights from which they had never before surveyed their political rights.
In the debate in the a.s.sembly on the indors.e.m.e.nt of the Kentucky resolutions Root maintained with great force the right of the people's representatives in the Legislature to express an opinion upon an act of Congress, however solemn, and he ridiculed the argument that questions limited to the judiciary were beyond the jurisdiction of any other body of men to criticise and condemn. This touched a popular chord, and if the mere expression of an opinion by the a.s.sembly had been the real question at issue, young Root might have carried his point as he did the fight against the amendments proposed by Ma.s.sachusetts. But there was one question Root did not successfully meet. Although Jefferson's eighth and ninth resolutions--declaring that whenever the general government a.s.sumed powers not delegated, ”a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy” of every State--had been stricken out, the dangerous doctrine was still present in the preamble, making it apparent to the friends of the Const.i.tution that the promulgation of such a monstrous heresy would be worse than the acts sought to be annulled. It is not clear that Root's understanding of these resolutions went so far; for the question discussed by him concerned only the right of the Legislature to express an opinion respecting the wisdom or unwisdom of an act of Congress. Nor does it appear that he favoured what afterward became known as ”nullification;”
for it is certain that when, thirty-four years later, the doctrine came up again under John C. Calhoun's leaders.h.i.+p, Erastus Root, then in Congress, struck at it as he would at the head of a viper, becoming the fearless expounder of principles which civil war permanently established.
While young Root was leading the debate in the a.s.sembly, Ambrose Spencer led it in the Senate. Spencer's apostacy produced a profound sensation in political circles. He had given no intimation of a change of political principles. Although still a young man, barely thirty-three, he had ranked among the foremost leaders of the Federalist party, having been honoured as an a.s.sistant attorney-general, a state senator, a member of the Council of Appointment, a friend of Hamilton, and the confidential adviser of Jay. The latter's heart might well sink within him to be abandoned by such a colleague at a time when the stability of the Union was insidiously attacked; nor ought Spencer to have been surprised that public rumour immediately set to work to find some reason for his change less simple and less honest, perhaps, than a dislike of the Federalist policy. Various causes have been given for his mysterious behaviour. Some thought him eager for a high mark of presidential favour, possibly a mission abroad, which was not warmly advocated by Hamilton; others believed that the bitter quarrel between Adams and Hamilton influenced him to desert a sinking party; but the rumour generally accepted by the Federalists ascribed it to his failure to become state comptroller in place of Samuel Jones, an office which he sought. It was recalled that shortly after Jones' appointment, Spencer raised the question, with some show of bitterness, that Jones' seat in the Senate should be declared vacant.
Spencer denied the charges with expletives and with emphasis, treating the accusations as a calumny, and insisting that his change of principles occurred in the spring of 1798 before his re-election as senator. This antedated the alien and sedition measures, but not the appointment of Samuel Jones, making his conversion contemporary with the candidacy for governor of Chancellor Livingston, to whom he was related. It is not unlikely that he shared Livingston's confidence in an election and thought it a good time to join the party of his relative; but whether his change was a matter of principle, of self-interest, or of resentment, it bitterly stung the Federalists, who did not cease to a.s.sail him as a turncoat for the flesh-pots.[88]
[Footnote 88: ”Ambrose Spencer's politics were inconsistent enough to destroy the good name of any man in New England; but he became a chief-justice of ability and integrity.”--Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 1, p. 112.]
The debut of the brilliant Root and the St. Paul-like conversion of Ambrose Spencer were not, however, needed to overthrow a party responsible for the famous alien and sedition laws. No one has ever yet successfully defended this hasty, ill-considered legislation, nor has any one ever admitted responsibility for it, except President Adams who approved it, and who, up to the last moment of his long life, contended that it was ”const.i.tutional and salutary, if not necessary.” President Adams had, indeed, refrained from using the power so lavishly given him; but rash subordinates listened to the dictate of unwise party leaders. The ridiculous character of these prosecutions is ill.u.s.trated by a fine of one hundred dollars because one defendant wished that the wadding used in a salute to John Adams had lodged in the ample part of the President's trousers.
But the sedition law had a more serious enemy than rash subordinates.
John Armstrong, author of the celebrated ”Newburgh Letters,” and until recently a Federalist, wrote a vitriolic pet.i.tion for its repeal, which Jedediah Peck circulated for signatures. This incited the indiscreet and excitable Judge Cooper, father of the distinguished novelist, to begin a prosecution; and upon his complaint, the United States marshal, armed with a bench-warrant, carried off Peck to New York City for trial. It is two hundred miles from Cooperstown to the mouth of the Hudson, and in the spring of 1800 the marshal and his prisoner were five days on the way. The newspapers reported Peck as ”taken from his bed at midnight, manacled, and dragged from his home,”
because he dared ask his neighbours to pet.i.tion Congress to repeal an offensive law. ”The rule of George Third,” declared the press, ”was gracious and loving compared to such tyranny.” In the wildest delirium of revolutionary days, when patriots were refusing to drink tea, and feeding it to the fishes, New York had not been more deeply stirred than now. ”A hundred missionaries in the cause of democracy, stationed between New York and Cooperstown,” says Hammond, the historian, ”could not have done so much for the Republican cause as this journey of Jedediah Peck from Otsego to the capital of the State. It was nothing less than the public exhibition of a suffering martyr for the freedom of speech and the press, and for the right of pet.i.tion.”[89]
[Footnote 89: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol.
1, p. 132.]
This was the political condition when Aaron Burr, in the spring of 1800, undertook to gain twelve electoral votes for the Republicans by carrying the Legislature of New York. It required seventy electoral votes to choose a President, and outside of New York the anti-Federalists could count sixty-one. The capture of this State, therefore, would give them a safe majority. Without advertising his purposes, Burr introduced the sly methods that characterised his former campaigns, beginning with the selection of a ticket that would commend itself to all, and ending with an organisation that would do credit to the management of the later-day chiefs of Tammany. To avoid the already growing rivalry between the Clinton and Livingston factions, George Clinton and Brockholst Livingston headed the ticket, followed by Horatio Gates of Revolutionary fame, John Broome, soon to be lieutenant-governor, Samuel Osgood, for two years Was.h.i.+ngton's postmaster-general, John Swartout, already known for his vigorous record in the a.s.sembly, and others equally acceptable. Burr himself stood for the county of Orange. For the first time in the history of political campaigning, too, local managers prepared lists of voters, canva.s.sed wards by streets, held meetings throughout the city, and introduced other methods of organisation common enough nowadays, but decidedly novel then.
Hamilton was alive to the importance of the April election, but scarcely responsible for the critical character of the situation. He had not approved the alien and sedition measures, nor did he commit himself to the persecuting policy sanctioned by most Federal leaders, and although he favoured suppressing newspaper libels against the government, he was himself alien-born, and of a mind too broad not to understand the danger of arousing foreign-born citizens against his party on lines of national sentiment. ”If we make no false step,” he wrote Oliver Wolcott, ”we shall be essentially united, but if we push things to extremes, we shall then give to faction body and solidity.”[90] It was hasty United States attorneys and indiscreet local politicians rather than the greatest of the Federal leaders, who gave ”to faction body and solidity.”
[Footnote 90: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 491.]
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