Part 6 (2/2)

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 13: The most serious difficulty in the way of the final suppression of the African slave trade in the present century was, that it could be carried on withoutThe ruling power in the United States, fro that their own cruisers shouldthe search, by the cruisers of other powers, of any vessel under the Aht be absolutely certain that she had coht from the coast of Africa, and that her ”between-decks” was crowded full of negroes to be sold as slaves in Cuba]

CHAPTER XII

FEDERALISTS AND REPUBLICANS

Madison was a Federalist until, unfortunately, he drifted into the opposition He ept away partly, perhaps, by the influence of personal friends, particularly of Jefferson, and partly by the influence of locality,--that ”go-with-the-State” doctrine, which is a harmless kind of patriotisovernment like ours when unrestrained Had he been born in a free State it seems more than probable that he would never have been President; but it is quite possible that his place in the history of his country would have been higher The better part of his life was before he became a party leader As his career is followed the presence of the statesradually dimmer in the shadow of the successful politician

In the course of the three sessions of the First Congress the line was distinctly drawn between the Federal and Republican (or Democratic) parties The Federalists, it was evident, had succeeded in firreat nation, or into what, in due tier a loose asse, indeed, around a central power, but with a centrifugaloff into space, or destroy theents Those who opposed the Federalists, however, had no fear of a tendency to tangents; the danger was, as they believed, of too ht fall into the central sun and disappear altogether Even if there were no flying off into space, and no falling into the sun, they had no faith in this sort of political astrono to float in fixed orbits obedient to a supreme law other than their own

There is no need to doubt the honesty of either party then, whatever came to pass in later years Nor, however, is there any more doubt nohich was the wiser Before the end of the century the adovernment rested from the hands of those who had created the Union; and within fifteen years more the Federal party, under that name, had disappeared It would not be quite just to say that they were opposed for no better reason than because they were in power But it is quite true that the principles and the policy of the Federalists survived the party organization; and they not only survived, but, so far as the opposite party was ever of service to the country, it hen that party adopted the federal measures It was in accordance with the early principles of Federalism that the republic was defended and saved in the war of 1860-65; as it was the principles of the De oligarchy, that made that war inevitable

Ha of 1792, that he was thoroughly convinced by Madison's course in the late Congress that he, ”cooperating with Mr Jefferson, is at the head of a faction decidedly hostile to overnerous to the union, peace, and happiness of the country” At first he was disposed to believe, because of his ”previous impressions of the fairness of Mr Madison's character,” that there was nothing personal or factious in this hostility But he soon changed his ress there had always been perfect accord between them, and Hamilton accepted his seat in the cabinet ”under the full persuasion,” he said, ”that froood-will, I should have the fireneral course of my administration” But when he found in Madison his most determined opponent, either open or covert, in the ress,--the settlement of the domestic debt, the assumption of the debts of the States, and the establishment of a national bank,--he was compelled to seek for other than public motives for this opposition ”It had been,”

he declared, ” than I have been able to resolve into a sincere difference of opinion I cannot persuade myself that Mr Madison and I, whose politics had fore so widely in our opinions of the measures which are proper to be pursued”

In the letter from which these extracts are made Jefferson and Madison are painted as alh the color was laid the thicker on Jefferson, if there was any difference Hamilton seemed to think that, if Jefferson was the more malicious, Madison was the et the better of the secretary of the treasury by a trick which was dishonorable in itself, and at the same titon

Before sending in his ress the President submitted it to Madison, who, Hae and by the addition of a feords, that the President was made to seem, unconsciously to himself, to approve of Jefferson's proposal to establish the sahts This would have been to disapprove of the proposal of the secretary of the treasury that the dollar should ree The stateotten the words which e was restored to its original form by the President when its possible interpretation was pointed out to hie whether Madison may not have been quite innocent of the intention ih, however, that Hamilton was sore and disappointed at Madison's conduct, and that he was quick to seize upon any incident that justified hi, ”The opinion I once entertained of the candor and simplicity and fairness of Mr Madison's character has, I acknowledge, given way to a decided opinion that it is one of a peculiarly artificial and complicated kind” To justify this opinion, and as an evidence of how bitter Madison's political and personal enmity toward him had become, he refers in the same letter to Madison's relation to Freneau and his paper, ”The National Gazette” ”As the coadjutor of Jefferson,” he wrote, ”in the establishment of this paper, I include Mr Madison in the consequences imputable to it”

The story of Freneau need not be repeated here at length, having been already told in another volu in that affair, however, for which Jefferson could be fairly called to account, Madison e wasfor Freneau a clerkshi+p in the State Depart him to establish a newspaper, Madison frankly related the facts in a letter to Ed to deny except to repel with soe that he had helped to establish the journal in order that it htest expectation or intention on his part of any relation between the State Departe friends, a deserving lad to help There was nothing ie its duties for the post of translator in a government office; and as those duties, for which the yearly salary was only two hundred and fifty dollars, were light, there was no good reason why the clerk should not find other e said this, had stopped there, his critics would have been silenced But when he added that he advised his friend with anotherhim to start a newspaper, then, as the expressive , cos were rare, that the editor, whose daily bread, whether it be cake or crust, comes from the bounty of the man in office or other place of power,--that an editor so fed, and perhaps fattened, is only a servant bought at a price Madison said that to help a needymotive” But he adds: ”That, as a consequential one, I entertained hopes that a free paperwould be an antidote to the doctrines and discourses circulated in favor of monarchy and aristocracy; would be an acceptable vehicle of public information in many places not sufficiently supplied with it,--this also is a certain truth” What was this but an acknowledgainst Jefferson and hiht not devoutly hope for an antidote to the poisonous doctrines of h in very truth the existence of any such poison was only one of the ots which, bred in the ment in his brain; not that it was not a coood newspaper to circulate where it wasin hi hand to the friend who had been less fortunate than hi his friend to a clerkshi+p in a departovernment, his motive was in part that the possession of a public office would enable the an That was precisely the point of the charge which he seee was used at his suggestion to further party ends

Freneau had intended to start a newspaper somewhere in New Jersey

Whether or not that known intention suggested that the project could be better carried out in Philadelphia, and a clerkshi+p in the State Departe of plan was adopted and the clerkshi+p bestowed upon him The paper--the first number of which appeared five days after his appointment--was, as it was known that it would be, an earnest defender of Jefferson and his friends, and a forical conclusion was that thethe opportunities the place afforded him to fulfill the hopes of those to whom he was indebted Madison and Jefferson both denied, withto do with the editorial conduct of the paper No doubt they spoke the truth They had to draw the line soly sharp and fine line it was For it is plain that Freneau knew very hat he was about and as expected of him, and his powerful friends knew very well that he knew it They could feel in him the most implicit confidence as an untaratitude would be kept alive by the remembrance of poverty and the hope of future favors There was clearly no need of a board of directors for the editorial supervision of ”The National Gazette,” and it was quite safe to deny that any existed The fact, nevertheless, reiven the editor at Mr Jefferson's elbow

Three months before Madison heard that his relation to Freneau was bringing him under public censure, he showed an evident interest in the ”Gazette” hardly consistent with his subsequent avowal of having nothing to do with its e on newspapers established by the bill for the regulation of post-offices, and fears that it will prove a grievance in the loss of subscribers He suggests that a notice be given that the papers ”will not be put into theby that, probably, that they would be sent under the franks of ht offer ”Will you,” he adds, ”hint this to Freneau? His subscribers in this quarter seeularity and safety hich they get the papers, and highly pleased with the paper itself” This was careful dry-nursing for the bantling which had been provided with so comfortable a cradle in the State Department

The political casuist of our time may wonder at the iht that ”there were giants in those days,” but we may also remember that in the modern science of ”practical politics” they were as babes and sucklings Madison was ood his place as a leader of the opposition hardly second to Jefferson hienerally, he fell more even than Jefferson fell in their esteem He fell more, because he had farther to fall No overn about a convention to frame a federal Constitution; and when at last that as done, no one, not even Hamilton himself, was more zealous to convince his countrymen that national salvation depended upon union, and that union was hopeless unless the Constitution should be adopted

The disappointradually drew off from those who had hitherto counted him as on their side They could not understand how he could find so itimate administration--as they believed it to be--of a Constitution he had done so much to create, and the beneficent results of which he had foreseen and foretold Or, if they understood him, it was on the supposition that he had thrown his convictions and his principles to the winds, abandoned his old friends and attached himself to new ones, from motives of personal ambition This, of course, may not have been absolutely just It is quite possible that he did not deliberately surrender his principles, but persuaded himself that he was as true as ever to the Constitution It is, nevertheless, certainly true that thefailed to prevent the adoption of the Constitution, now aimed, by zealous endeavors for an assumed strict construction, to defeat the purpose for which it was framed[14]

Naturally his motives were suspected, and his conduct narroatched

Jefferson's influence over hi to do with the fra of the Constitution, had been doubtful at first of its wisdoave his assent to it at last with radually stronger in Virginia as in all the Southern States; most of Madison's warmest personal friends, as well as Jefferson, were of that party What chance would he have in the public career he had marked out for himself if his path and theirs led in opposite directions? How much he was influenced by these considerations it is impossible to tell; perhaps he himself could not have told Perhaps they were not even considerations, but only unconscious influences, which he would have thrown behind hinized them as possible motives To others, however, whether justly or not, they were quite sufficient to explain his course, and, once accepted, no other explanation was sought for The appointment of Freneau to office at Madison's request, followed by the alan, edited by this clerk in Mr

Jefferson's depart the Federalists; and Madison's explanation, when it came to be known, of his share in that business, did not add to his reputation either for frankness or political rectitude Perhaps it was at first usted his old friends They could have one over to the ene to find in the Constitution sufficient ground for hostility to their ht so thin a disguise of other ument

All he said and did atched with suspicion In the interval between the First and Second Congresses, he and Jefferson h some of the Eastern States, as they said, for relaxation and pleasure

But it was looked upon as a strategic ston and Burr in New York were reported to Hamilton as ”a passionate courtshi+p” They visited Albany, it was said, ”under the pretext of a botanical excursion,” but in reality to riculture, and as they continued on their journey into New England they were accused of ”sowing tares” as they traveled Such treachery would have been considered as aggravated by hypocrisy had it been known then that on his return Mr Madison wrote to his father from New York: ”The tour I lately iven the outlines to h interesting country, new to us both” This was cool, if the journey really was a political reconnoissance

Though Mr Madison et for this kind of partisan rancor, it was by no means confined to hi his ene divide with hi the best hated iven when the question was discussed, both in the First and Second Congresses, as to the successor to the presidency in case the office should become vacant by the deaths of both President and Vice-President A bill was sent down fro should ever happen, that the president _pro tempore_ of the Senate, or, should the Senate have no temporary president, the speaker of the House of Representatives, should succeed to the vacant office The House sent back the bill with an a the secretary of state for the succession in the possible vacancy instead of the presiding officers of the two houses of Congress Madison was very earnest for this amendment, but the Senate rejected it, and the House finally assented to the original bill It was shown in the course of the debate that according to the doctrine of chances the office of president would not devolve, through the accident of death, upon a third person oftener than once in about eight hundred and forty years The rejection of the a the secretary of state as the proper person to succeed to the presidency, in the improbable event supposed, was nevertheless resented by the Republicans as a direct reflection upon Mr Jefferson

Nor did the Federalists deny it With grim humor they seized upon the opportunity, apparently, to announce that not with their consent should he ever be president, even by accident, though he should wait literally eight hundred and forty years It was a long-range shot, but there could not have been one better aimed

If before there had been soress left no doubt as to which party he had cast his lot with His hostility to the establishht, justified by what he saw at the opening of the subscription books in New York The anxiety to get possession of the stock was not to hiument, therefore, in favor of such an institution, but ”a mere scramble for so much public plunder”

He could only see that ”stock-jobbing drowns every other subject The coffee-house is in an eternal buzz with the gamblers” ”It pretty clearly appears also,” he said, ”in what proportions the public debt lies in the country, what sort of hands holding it, and by whooverned” Here, perhaps, was one cause of his hostility to Hamilton's financial policy Its immediate benefit was for that class whose pecuniary stake in the stability of the governest This class was chiefly in the Northern States, where capital was in money and was always on the lookout for safe and profitable investment At the South, capital was in slaves and land, and could not be easily changed If the Bank and the bondholders were to exercise--as he feared they would, and as he believed that the Federalists overnment, it was certainly pretty apparent ”by whooverned” It would be the North, not the South; and he was a Virginian before he was a Unionist