Volume Ii Part 17 (2/2)
From a painting by Ezra Ames.
Upon learning that the United States had ratified Jay's treaty, France went insane with rage. A declaration of war by us could not have angered her more. Adet was called home and the alliance with America declared at an end. Barras dismissed Mr. Monroe, our minister, in a contemptuous speech, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, sent as Monroe's successor, was not only not received but ordered from the land. New and worse decrees went forth against American commerce. Our s.h.i.+ps were confiscated for carrying English goods though not contraband. Arbitrary and unheard-of tests of neutrality were trumped up, wholly contrary to the treaty, which indeed was now denounced. American sailors found serving, though compelled, on British armed vessels, were to be condemned as pirates.
[1797]
These brutal measures, coupled with Napoleon's increasing power, begot in America the belief, even among Republicans, that France's struggle was no longer for liberty but for conquest. The insolence of the French Government waxed insufferable. President Adams, to a special session of the Vth Congress, on May 19, 1797, announced the insult to the nation in the person of Pinckney, and urged preparation for war. A goodly loan, a direct tax, and a provisional army, Was.h.i.+ngton again leader, were readily voted. Our Navy Department was created at this time. The navy was increased, and several captures were made of French vessels guilty of outrage. Adams, however, to make a last overture for peace, despatched John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry to the aid of Pinckney, the three to knock once more at France's doors for a becoming admission. In vain. The only effect was a new chapter of French mendacity and insolence, furthering America's wish and preparations for war.
Napoleon's recent Italian victories, terrifying Europe, had puffed up France with pride. Talleyrand a.s.sumed to arraign us as criminals, and what was worse, pressed us, through his agents, to buy his country's forgiveness with gold. ”You must pay money,” our envoys were told, and ”a good deal of it, too.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]
John Marshall.
All this was duly made known at Philadelphia, and the President a.s.sured Congress that no terms were obtainable from France ”compatible with the safety, honor, and general interest of the nation.” The opposition thought this an exaggeration, and called for the despatches, expecting refusal or abridgment. The President sent every word.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]
Elbridge Gerry
Confusion seized the Republicans. Federalists were again in the ascendant, the VIth Congress being much more strongly federalist than the Vth. For once proud, reserved John Adams was popular, and anti-French feeling irresistible. ”Millions for defence but not a cent for tribute,” echoed through the land. Hosts of Republicans went over to the administration side. Patriotism became a pa.s.sion. Each night at the theatre rose a universal call for the ”President's March” [Footnote: The music was that of our ”Hail Columbia.”] and ”Yankee Doodle,” the audience rising, cheering, swinging hats and canes, and roaring ”encore.” The black c.o.c.kade, American, on all hands supplanted the tricolor c.o.c.kade worn by the ”Gallomaniacs;” and bands of ”a.s.sociated Youth,” organizing in every town and city, deluged the President with patriotic addresses.
Seeing that we could not be bullied and that the friends of France here were Americans first; ashamed, on their publication, of the indignities which he had offered our envoys, and after all not wis.h.i.+ng war with what he saw to be potentially another naval power like England, the sly Talleyrand neatly receded from his arrogant demands, and expressed a desire to negotiate.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DECLINE OF THE FEDERALIST PARTY
[1797]
The heat of the nation's wrath evoked by this conflict with France betrayed the Federalists in Congress into some pieces of tyrannical legislation. These were especially directed against refugees from France, lest they should attempt to reenact here the b.l.o.o.d.y drama just played out there. Combinations were alleged, without proof, to exist between American and French democrats, dangerous to the stability of this Government.
A new naturalization act was pa.s.sed, requiring of an immigrant, as prerequisite to citizens.h.i.+p, fourteen years of residence instead of the five heretofore sufficient. Next came three alien acts, empowering the President, at his discretion, without trial or even a statement of his reasons, to banish foreigners from the land; any who should return unbidden being liable to imprisonment for three years, and cut off from the possibility of citizens.h.i.+p forever. A ”sedition act” followed, to fine in the sum of $5,000 each and to imprison for five years any persons stirring up sedition, combining to oppose governmental measures, resisting United States law, or putting forth ”any false, scandalous, or malicious writings” against Congress, the President, or the Government.
To President Adams's credit, he was no abettor of these hateful decrees, and did little to enforce them. The sedition law, however, did not rest with him for execution, and was applied right and left. Evidently its champions were swayed largely by political motives. Matthew Lyon, a fiery Republican member of Congress from Vermont, had, in an address to his const.i.tuents, charged the President with avarice and with ”thirst for ridiculous pomp and foolish adulation,” He was convicted of sedition, fined $1,000, and sentenced to four months in prison. This impoverished him, as well as took him from his place in Congress for most of a session. Adams refused pardon, but in 1840 Congress paid back the fine to Lyon's heirs.
It is now admitted that these measures were unconst.i.tutional, as invading freedom of speech and of the press, and a.s.signing to the Federal Judiciary a common-law jurisdiction in criminal matters. But they were also highly unwise, subjecting the Federalist Party to the odium of fearing free speech, of declining a discussion of its policy, and of hating foreigners. The least opposition to the party in power, or criticism of its official chiefs, became criminal, under the head of ”opposing” the Government. A joke or a caricature might send its author to jail as ”seditious.” It was surely a travesty upon liberty when a man could be arrested for expressing the wish, as a salute was fired, that the wadding might hit John Adams behind. Even libels upon government, if it is to be genuinely free, must be ignored--a principle now acted upon by all const.i.tutional States.
But the Federalists were blind to considerations like these. As Schouler well remarks: ”A sort of photophobia afflicted statesmen, who, allowing little for the good sense and spirit of Americans, or our geographical disconnection with France, were crazed with the fear that this Union might be, like Venice, made over to some European potentate, or chained in the same galley with Switzerland or Holland, to do the Directory's bidding. That, besides this unfounded fear, operated the desire of ultra-Federalists to take revenge upon those presses which had a.s.sailed the British treaty and other pet measures, and abused Federal leaders; and the determination to entrench themselves in authority by forcibly disbanding an opposition party which attracted a readier support at the polls from the oppressed of other countries, no candid writer can at this day question.”
[1798]
It was next the turn of the Republicans to blunder. In November, 1798, the Kentucky Legislature pa.s.sed a series of resolutions, drawn up by John Breckenridge upon a sketch by Jefferson, in effect declaring the alien and sedition acts not law, but altogether void and of no force. In December the Virginia Legislature put forth a similar series by Madison, milder in tone and more cautiously expressed, denouncing those acts as ”palpable and alarming infractions of the Const.i.tution.” A year after their first utterance, the Kentucky law-makers further ”resolved that the several States who formed (the Const.i.tution), being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.”
Virginia again declared it a State's right ”to interpose” in such cases.
These resolutions were intended to stir reflection and influence opinion, and, if possible, elicit a concurrent request to Congress from the various States to repeal the obnoxious acts. They do not hint at the use of force. Their execration of the hated laws is none too strong, and their argument as a whole is masterly and unanswerable. But at least those of Kentucky suggest, if they do not contain, a doctrine respecting the Const.i.tution which is untenable and baneful, in kernel the same that threatened secession in Jackson's time and brought it in Buchanan's. The State, as such, is not a party to the Const.i.tution. Still less is the Legislature. Nor is either, but the Supreme Court, the judge whether in any case the fundamental law has been infringed.
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