And who was Fisher Ames, that his "Speeches" should be gathered and
re-published sixty-three years after his death? He was a personage in
his time. Let us look upon him in the day of his greatest glory.
It was April 28, 1796, at Philadelphia, in the Hall of the House of
Representatives, of which Fisher Ames was a member. The House and
country were highly excited respecting the terms of the treaty which
John Jay had negotiated with the British government. To a large number
of the people this treaty was inexpressibly odious; as, indeed, _any_
treaty would have been with a power so abhorred by them as England then
was. Some of the conditions of the treaty, we cannot deny, were hard,
unwise, unjust; but, in all probability, it was the best that could then
have been obtained, and Mr. Jay had only the alternative of accepting
the conditions, or plunging his country into war. One great point, at
least, the British government had yielded. After the Revolutionary war,
the English had retained several western posts, to the great annoyance
of settlers, and the indignation of the whole country. These posts
were now to be surrendered, provided the treaty was accepted and its
conditions fulfilled.
President Washington and the Senate had ratified the treaty--with
reluctance, it is true; but still they had ratified it; and nothing
remained but for the House of Representatives to appropriate the
money requisite for carrying the treaty into effect. But here was the
difficulty. The treaty was so unpopular that members of Congress shrunk
from even seeming to approve it. There had been riotous meetings in all
the large cities to denounce it. In New York, Alexander Hamilton,
while attempting to address a meeting in support of it, was pelted with
stones, and the people then marched to the residence of Mr. Jay, and
burned a copy of the treaty before his door.
"Blush," said a Democratic editor, "to think that America should degrade
herself so much as to enter into any kind of treaty with a power now
tottering on the brink of ruin, whose principles are directly contrary
to the spirit of Republicanism!"
A Virginia newspaper advised that, if the treaty negotiated by "that
arch-traitor, John Jay, with the British tyrant, should be ratified,"
Virginia should secede from the Union. Indeed, the public mind has
seldom been excited to such a degree upon any public topic.
It was in these circumstances that Fisher Ames rose to address the House
of Representatives, in favor of the treaty. There was supposed to be
a majority of ten against it in the House, and the debate had been for
some days in progress. Madison and all the leading Democrats had spoken
strongly against it; while Fisher Ames, the greatest orator on the side
of the Administration, was suffering from the pulmonary disease from
which he afterward died, and had been ordered by his physician not to
speak a word in the House. Inaction at such a time became insupportable
to him, and he chafed under it day after day.
"I am like an old gun," he wrote, in one of his letters, "that is
spiked, or the trunnions knocked off, and yet am carted off, not for the
worth of the old iron, but to balk the enemy of a trophy. My political
life is ended, and I am the survivor of myself; or, rather, a troubled
ghost of a politician that am condemned to haunt the field where he
fell."
But as the debate went on, he could no longer endure to remain silent.
He determined to speak, if he never spoke again; and the announcement
of his intention filled the Representatives' Chamber with a brilliant
assembly of ladies and gentlemen. Vice-President Adams came to the
chamber to hear him, among other persons of note. The orator rose from
his seat pale, feeble, scarcely able to stand, or to make himself heard;
but as he proceeded he gathered strength, and was able to speak for
nearly two hours in a strain of eloquence, the tradition of which fills
a great place in the memoirs of the time. The report of it which we
possess is imperfect, and the reading of it is somewhat disappointing;
but here and there there is a passage in the report which gives us some
notion of the orator's power. One of his points was, that the faith of
the country had been pledged by the ratification of the treaty, and that
consequently a refusal of the House to appropriate the money would be
a breach of faith. This led him to expatiate upon the necessity of
national honor.
"In Algiers," said he, "a truce may be bought for money; but when
ratified, even Algiers is too wise or too just to disown and annul its
obligation.... If there could be a resurrection from the foot of the
gallows; if the victims of justice could live again, collect together
and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find themselves
obliged to make justice--that justice under which they fell--the
fundamental law of their State."
This speech was afterward called Fisher Ames' Tomahawk Speech, because
he endeavored to show that, if the posts were not surrendered and not
garrisoned by American troops, the Indians could not be kept in check,
and would fill the frontier with massacre and fire.
"On this theme," the orator exclaimed, "my emotions are unutterable.
If I could find words for them, if my powers bore any proportion to my
zeal, I would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it
should reach every log-house beyond the mountains. I would say to the
inhabitants, Wake from your false security! Your cruel dangers, your
more cruel apprehensions, are soon to be renewed; the wounds yet
unhealed are to be torn open again; in the daytime your path through the
woods will be ambushed; the darkness of midnight will glitter with the
blaze of your dwellings. You are a father--the blood of your sons shall
fatten your corn-fields. You are a mother--the war-whoop shall wake the
sleep of the cradle."
He continued in this strain for some time, occasionally blazing into a
simile that delighted every hearer with its brilliancy, while flashing
a vivid light upon the subject; and I only wish the space at my command
permitted further extracts. The conclusion of the speech recalled
attention to the orator's feeble condition of health, which the vigor of
his speech might have made his hearers forget.
"I have, perhaps," said he, "as little personal interest in the event
as any one here. There is, I believe, no member who will not think
his chance to be a witness of the consequences greater than mine. If,
however, the vote should pass to reject, and a spirit should arise, as
it will, with the public disorders, to make confusion worse confounded,
even I, slender and almost broken as my hold upon life is, may outlive
the government and constitution of my country."
With these words the orator resumed his seat. The great assembly seemed
spell-bound, and some seconds elapsed before the buzz of conversation
was heard. John Adams turned to a friend, Judge Iredell, who happened
to sit next to him, as if looking for sympathy in his own intense
admiration.
"My God!" exclaimed the Judge, "how great he is--how great he has been!"
"Noble!" said the Vice-President.
"Bless my stars!" resumed Judge Iredell, "I never heard anything so
great since I was born."
"Divine!" exclaimed Adams.
And thus they went on with their interjections, while tears glistened
in their eyes. Mr. Adams records that tears enough were shed on the
occasion.
"Not a dry eye in the house," he says, "except some of the jackasses who
had occasioned the oratory.... The ladies wished his soul had a better
body."
After many days' further debate, the House voted the money by a
considerable majority; a large number of Democrats voting with the
administration. Fisher Ames was not so near his death as he supposed,
for he lived twelve years after the delivery of this speech, so slow was
the progress of his disease. He outlived Washington and Hamilton, and
delivered eloquent addresses in commemoration of both.
The great misfortune of his life was that very ill-health to which he
alluded in his speech. This tinged his mind with gloom, and caused him
to anticipate the future of his country with morbid apprehension. When
Jefferson was elected President in 1800, he thought the ruin of his
country was sure, and spoke of the "chains" which Jefferson had forged
for the people. When Hamilton died, in 1804, he declared that his
"soul stiffened with despair," and he compared the fallen statesman to
"Hercules treacherously slain in the midst of his unfinished labors,
leaving the world over-run with monsters." He was one of the most honest
and patriotic of men; but he had little faith in the truths upon which
the Constitution of his country was founded.
He died at his birthplace, Dedham, Massachusetts, on the 4th of July,
1808, in the fifty-first year of his age. His father had been the
physician of that place for many years--a man of great skill in his
profession, and gifted with a vigorous mind. Doctor Ames died when his
son was only six years of age, and it cost the boy a severe and long
struggle to work his way through college to the profession of the law,
and to public life. If he had had a body equal to his mind, he would
have been one of the greatest men New England ever produced.