SUPPRESSING THE FRENCH SYMPATHISERS
The only cloud on the horizon the day that John Adams became President
lay in the direction of France and was caused by the Jay Treaty. It
seemed impossible to keep peace with both belligerents abroad or with
their factions at home. Adams would probably be more scrupulous of the
rights of the individual than Hamilton; yet drastic measures were
likely to become necessary if the pro-British and the pro-French
agitators were to be muzzled and their clamour hushed. Such a censorship
of speech was a thing not to be lightly contemplated in America.
Freedom of speech and the press had been inherited as a privilege of
Englishmen, wrested from those in authority by years of contest, and
maintained only by constant vigilance. A guarantee that it should not
be restricted by the State had been placed in many of the State
constitutions. A similar prohibition formed the first amendment to the
Federal Constitution. Freedom of movement is closely akin to freedom
of speech. Not even in the heyday of State sovereignty had any serious
attempt been made to prevent the movement of unobjectionable free
people from one State to another. The Constitution guaranteed to
citizens of each State all privileges and immunities of citizens of
the several States. The same instrument allowed Congress to establish
a uniform rule of naturalisation in making United States citizens out
of foreign immigrants; but the right of declaring who should be citizens
of the States, having been assumed by the State constitutions, was
left to them individually. State and national citizenship were thus
separate from the beginning. For these reasons it could happen, as
pointed out in the Dred Scott decision many years later, that a State
could make an alien into a citizen of the State, entitled to all its
rights and privileges, but he might still be an alien in the United
States and deprived of national citizenship.
The first Congress recognised its constitutional obligation to provide
a uniform law for national citizenship by allowing an alien who had
resided two years within its jurisdiction and one year within any State
to take an oath before any court of common-law record to support the
Constitution and thereby become a citizen. Five years later, Congress
feared that the warring powers of Europe would send undesirable aliens
to the United States. "Coming from a quarter of the world so full of
disorder and corruption," said a speaker in the House, "they might
contaminate the purity and simplicity of the American character." A
new naturalisation law was passed, requiring an alien to give three
years' notice of his intention to change his allegiance--a kind of
period of repentance. The required time of residence was then raised
to five years for the nation and one for the State. During that time
he must maintain a good moral character, must abjure allegiance to all
other sovereigns, and must renounce all hereditary titles and orders
of nobility. In this way one speaker said he hoped to shut out those
refugees from the twenty thousand French nobility, who might choose
to fly to the United States. Another expected to see an equally large
number of the peerage arrive from Britain, as soon as the correct
principles of government should take root there.
Little alarm need have been felt about those members of the deposed
nobility of France who did arrive. They were more concerned with getting
daily bread than acquiring citizenship or retaining their titles.
Prince, marquis and marquise, vicomte, and bishop, alike must keep
body and soul together by turning wig-maker, baker, or milliner, until
the madness of the French people should pass. By and by, the changes
of fortune in France began to send over Constitutionalists,
Thermidorians, Fructidorians, and the like, to plot and intrigue. "They
kept their eyes fixed on France," said a French volunteer, who had
returned to America to secure the pay due him since Revolutionary days,
"to which all expected to return sooner or later and recommence what
each called his _great work_, for there were exactly the same number
of political systems as there were refugees." The French sympathisers
in America mingled with these _émigrés_ and were more or less concerned
with their plans. The press offered the opportunity to vent much of
their spleen on Washington and to express their opinions of the "British
United States Government," as they called it.
Added to these scribblers were certain other agitators, preachers, and
writers, refugees from England and Scotland, driven out by the British
Government in its effort to keep the sentiments of the French
propagandists from taking root in British soil. More libel suits had
been instituted in the courts of England during a single year of the
French Revolution than in any two previous decades. Among those banished
was Thomas Paine, who had returned to London, after lending his pen
to the American cause, and had written the famous, or infamous, as
some called it, _Rights of Man_. Many of these aliens in America were
scribblers who had picked up a few current phrases and lofty sentiments
about liberty and equality. They were of varying ability as writers,
but uniform in their venomous abuse and hatred of England and all her
sympathisers. In the rapid increase of newspapers, which marked this
first period of prosperity and the birth of political parties, many
of these writers found precarious employment; a few found remunerative
occupations. Of the two hundred newspapers published in the United
States when John Adams became President, it was estimated that at least
twenty-five were edited by men of alien birth.
At few later periods have political parties brought out such scurrilous
abuse in the press as in these early days. Although the number of
newspapers has so increased that irresponsible and vulgar men are to
be found among editors, although the restraints of law upon the press
have been greatly loosened, yet the tone of the leading newspapers
to-day is immeasurably better than it was a century ago. As the
opposition to the Administration gradually crystallised into a party,
few suffered more from the pens of its writers than did the first
President. The abuse, which included such grave charges as that he had
murdered a French envoy near Fort DuQuesne years before, that he had
taken money illegally from the United States Treasury, and that he
hoped to turn his Presidency into a monarchical reign, followed him
to the end of his administration. Washington's replies to the numerous
addresses of societies and public meetings which had greeted his
entrance to office eight years before breathed a spirit of toleration.
It was his eminent desire, as he said in one reply, to have every
association and community make such use of the auspicious years of
peace, liberty, and free inquiry, as they should hereafter rejoice in
having done.
At the same time, the mind of Washington, the exclusive Virginia
gentleman, could easily make a distinction between liberty and license.
He attributed the insurrection against the excise almost entirely to
the unbridled utterances of the Democratic clubs, their "first
formidable fruits," as he put it. Nor did he fail, in reporting the
suppression of the rebellion to the next Congress, to express his
opinion of these "self-created societies" who disseminated suspicions,
jealousies, and accusations of the whole Government. Jefferson, still
believing in the original doctrine of the rights of man, called this
allusion of the President "the greatest error of his political life."
The societies would have soon died out if left alone, he said. Coercion
would make them thrive. "It is wonderful," continued Jefferson to
Madison, "that the President should have permitted himself to be the
organ of such an attack on the freedom of discussion, freedom of
writing, printing, and publishing." He pronounced it almost incredible
that the freedom of association and of the press should be attacked
in the fifth year of the new Government, a step which England, fast
advancing to an absolute monarchy, had not yet attempted.
There was small probability that this abuse from the Jacobin clubs and
presses would cease with the retirement of Washington. When he gave
out his farewell address, written by "the President's president," as
they called Hamilton, a Vermont editor regretted that he had not retired
four years before, which would have saved the country from having been
so debauched by its mistress, England. The day of his departure for
Mount Vernon was celebrated by a scurrilous attack in the _Aurora_,
which a defender of his memory vindicated by an assault upon its editor.
John Adams, as Vice-President, had long been pilloried as "the dangerous
Vice," for his theories upon inherited talent, a doctrine in direct
contradiction to the tenets of democracy. He also appeared in the
Jacobin prints as "President Crispin," the son of a shoemaker, and as
"the President of three votes," alluding to the narrow majority of
Adams over Jefferson in the recent election. Many went so far as to
charge that the election of Adams had been accomplished by prematurely
closing the polls in a Maryland election district and by the action
of a Pennsylvania postmaster, who held back the returns. Franklin's
recent death had plunged the people of two hemispheres into mourning.
His memory was not sacred enough to prevent an accusation that he had
once pocketed the money for two hundred thousand stand of arms, which
had been intended as a present to the United States from the King of
France. The oft-repeated scandal of the lost million francs was freshly
ventilated. Yet so precious was freedom of speech in America that even
those attacked hesitated to follow British pattern in placing a censor
over the press. Even Patrick Henry, being rapidly won to the support
of the experiment which he had formerly opposed, declared: "Although
I am a Democrat myself, I like not the late Democratic societies. As
little do I like their suppression by law."
President Adams had years before placed himself on record concerning
the freedom of the press. Long a fulsome contributor to the newspapers
on political questions, he had said: "There is not in any nation of
the world so unlimited a freedom of the press as is now established
in every State of the American Union, both by law and practice. There
is nothing that the people dislike that they do not attack."
Entertaining such liberal opinions, an unforgiving enemy to Britain,
an admirer of the French people since first he came into contact with
them, John Adams entered the Presidency prepared to save the press
from the storm gathering about it. But the partisans would not stop
their abuse long enough to examine his predilections or to forecast
the attitude he was likely to assume in his conduct of foreign affairs.
They were enraged by the advantage apparently given to Britain in the
Jay Treaty, disappointed in the continued repression of every effort
to aid France, and emboldened by the high tone of the French Directory
after the sympathetic Monroe had been ordered home to be replaced by
the Federalist, Pinckney. They sneered at Adams's inaugural address
where he admitted a personal esteem for the French nation, formed
during seven years spent abroad and chiefly in Paris, and expressed
a sincere desire to preserve the friendship which had been so much to
the honour and interest of both nations.
Notwithstanding these cordial words, President Adams, within three
months, was calling together the first extra session of Congress in
the history of the Government, and informing them in vigorous language
that Pinckney, an American Minister, had been refused cards of
hospitality by the Executive Directory at the head of the Republic of
France, had been threatened by the police, and had finally been
practically ordered out of the country. The right to reject an
ambassador was recognised by the law of nations. But "a refusal to
receive him until we have acceded to their demands without discussion
and without investigation," said the President, "is to treat us neither
as allies nor as friends, nor as a sovereign state." The warlike message
advised strengthening the army and navy, perfecting the coast defences,
preventing further building of foreign cruisers in the United States,
and the raising of revenue sufficient for these purposes. Although
closing with a promise of continued effort toward neutrality, this
hostile address from the first statesman-President forms a strong
contrast with the mild messages of the first soldier-President. The
granite rock of New England had been reached and it gave no evidence
of yielding. The response to the defensive tone of the President varied
according to foreign affiliations. Parties in America were as yet
reflections of European wars. The pro-British faction, strong in all
parts of the National Government except the executive, were as eager
for a trial at arms with France as they had been reluctant for war
with England two years before. Hamilton wrote columns for the daily
press to prove that the assistance which France gave to us during our
struggle for independence was based on purely selfish motives. We were
bound by no ties of gratitude to yield to her pique at the Jay Treaty.
"Those who can justify displeasure in France on this account," said
he, "are not Americans but Frenchmen. They are not fit for being members
of an independent nation."
The opponents to this attitude--those whom Hamilton called "the servile
minions of France, who have no sensibility to injury but when it comes
from Great Britain, and who are unconscious of any rights to be
protected against France," were equally clamorous for forbearance.
They asked Adams, in this crisis, to send a sympathetic man, say
Jefferson, who would be acceptable to France and would soothe French
pride and avert the threatened war. Although Jay had been taken by
Washington from the Supreme Bench to be sent as envoy to England, Adams
thought the Vice-President too dignified a person to be used in this
manner. Such an action would also imperil the presidential succession.
Yet he was desirous of seeking some kind of an accommodation to preserve
neutrality. Although France had "inflicted a wound in the American
breast," as he put it in his message, he appointed three special envoys
to renew negotiations. Their number would protect American interests
and show to France the gravity of the situation. Pinckney, the rejected
Minister, was made quite justly one of the three. John Marshall, the
second member, like Pinckney, belonged to the anti-French faction.
Gerry, the third envoy, was a former Anti-Federalist and a sympathiser
with France.
The treatment which these three envoys received in France caused the
tempest in a teapot commonly known as "the X Y Z affair." By
discrediting the French faction, it hastened the day of their attempted
suppression by the Government of the United States. With the mysterious
methods current during the days of the contemptible Directory then at
the head of the Government of France, certain supposed go-betweens
approached the American envoys with suggestions that "money, lots of
money," would be necessary to heal the wounds inflicted on the French
heart by the Jay Treaty and by the recent words of President Adams.
This gold, it was said, was necessary as a pre-requisite for opening
negotiations. Part of it was to constitute a loan to carry on the war
with England, and the rest was understood to be a _douceur_ for the
pockets of the members of the Directory. "We loaned you money in your
hour of need," Pinckney was told by a mysterious Frenchwoman, who
figured in the affair. "Why should not you lend to us?"
[Illustration: A HALF PAGE OF THE X Y Z DISPATCHES. From the original
in the Department of State. A close inspection will show the brackets
drawn around the name of Horttinguer and the letter "X" inserted in
margin on left. This was done by order of Timothy Pickering, Secretary
of State, before the dispatches were published.]
In the reports of these envoys which John Adams sent to Congress as
rapidly as received, the name of Hubbard, who had introduced the three
to the go-betweens, was indicated by the letter "W," Horttinguer by
"X," Bellamy by "Y," and Hauteval, who acted as interpreter, by "Z."
It was useless for Jefferson, Madison, and the French sympathisers in
America to point out that _douceur_ meant a gift and not a bribe, and
that the supposed go-betweens were discredited and their action
disavowed by Talleyrand and the Directory. It was believed and is
currently stated in America that an attempt was made to bribe these
dignified representatives of the American people. The national spirit
was aroused. Unionism received such an impulse as years of domestic
relationship could not produce. The war microbe was loosed among the
people. One of those sudden outbursts of national rage, as unexpected
as violent, ran the length and breadth of the land. A broadside was
circulated, with stanzas beginning:
"At length the Envoys deign to tell us
They had to deal with scurvey fellows--
With Autun and the five-head beast
And half the alphabet, at least."
For perhaps the only time in his life, John Adams tasted the sweets
of a widespread popularity. His birthday, like that of his predecessor,
was generally celebrated. The sympathetic French following was swept
off its feet. "Exultation on one side and a certainty of victory; while
the other is petrified with astonishment," was Jefferson's admission.
In reporting to Congress that Pinckney and Marshall had indignantly
withdrawn from France, and that Gerry, who lingered, had been officially
notified by his Government that no loans of any kind would be made,
President Adams used a sentence which immediately became current: "I
will never send another minister to France without assurances that he
will be received, respected, and honored as the representative of a
great, free, powerful, and independent nation."
The British faction had at last an opportunity of crushing the French
sympathisers, and they accepted it most willingly. In their intolerance,
they went almost as far as the other side had gone a few years before.
A South Carolinian, visiting in New York, was assaulted in the circus
because he refused to take off his hat when the President of the United
States entered. A "reign of terror" was instituted against the
pro-French office-holders. It was even claimed by them that a general
massacre had been arranged for the Pennsylvania fast-day, and Bache,
the editor of the _Aurora_, made a show of garrisoning his house with
an armed body of his friends. A Senator in debate was reported to have
declared his willingness to vote for a law punishing every citizen of
America who educated his children in the study of the French language.
Hamilton and those who wished to give new precedent to the National
Government along lines of its foreign relations where patriotism would
support strong measures, were delighted with the response on the part
of the people. Theatre crowds demanded encores of the _President's
March_ and hissed French airs when played. Merchants of New York and
other seaports worked voluntarily on the neglected coast-defences. A
song was put to the air of _True Hearts of Oak_ in order to "cheer
those unused to spade and barrow, who might tire of working on the
several forts." It began:
"Ye friends of your country, the summons attend,
Be this your employment, your joy and your pride,
Your heav'n-granted rights to preserve and defend,
And the spirits of freemen your labors shall guide."
Chorus.
"Our country demands-her call we obey,
Let 's work and be merry,
We'll never be weary,
While freedom and glory our labors repay."
Hundreds of addresses reached the President, the larger number heartily
endorsing his attitude toward the insulting Directory. Public opinion
supported Congress at the time in passing many war measures at this
special session of 1798 and the regular session which followed. Eighteen
acts were added to the Statutes at Large during the special and
seventy-five at the regular session, nearly double the number of laws
enacted at any prior sitting. The exportation of arms was forbidden
and their importation encouraged. The navy was separated from the army
and a new department created for it. The three men-of-war which
constituted the United States Navy were repaired and put into
commission. The construction of others was begun. Frigates, galleys,
and rowboats were ordered and regiments of artillerists and engineers
authorised to be recruited. A quarter of a million dollars was
appropriated to the coast-defences. Over a million was voted for
increasing the number and for arming the regular troops. A provisional
army of ten thousand men and a marine corps were placed at the disposal
of the President. From his retirement at Mt. Vernon, ex-President
Washington was summoned to assume command of the provisional army.
Not alone measures of defence, but actual war measures were passed.
The President was authorised to seize armed French vessels found near
the American coast. Merchantmen were permitted to arm against the
French. Thirty thousand stand of arms were distributed among the militia
of the States. All treaties with France were formally dissolved, and
all intercourse with her suspended until the next session of Congress.
To provide money for these unusual expenditures a loan of five million
dollars for fifteen years was authorised, and a stamp-tax levied not
unlike that of thirty years before, against which the colonists had
rebelled.
As if they had not yet sufficiently endangered the party, the triumphant
Federalist majority proceeded to vent its long accumulated wrath upon
its critics, and thereby brought the story of the United States a long
chapter forward. Those who had writhed under the attacks of Duane, a
former resident of Ireland, but lately driven from India for violating
the liberty allowed to the press, hoped for sweet revenge. Others
wanted retribution against Callender, setting up at Richmond an abusive
press such as had caused him to be driven from Scotland not long before.
The list of lesser offenders among the alien writers was long. As
President Adams asked: "How many presses, how many newspapers have
been directed by vagabonds, fugitives from a bailiff, a pillory, or
a halter in Europe?"
Charges against these aliens were not confined to their political
writings. The air was full of conspiracy. Some suspected a league
between foreigners and the United Irishmen; others thought the aliens
leagued with the Freemasons for the destruction of all social relations,
private property, religion, and government. Emissaries of France were
supposed to be in every republic plotting for her universal dominion.
Holland and Switzerland had already lost their liberty in this way.
Talleyrand, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had spent his
exile in America and had become a naturalised citizen, was in secret
correspondence, so it was declared in Congress, with certain people
in this country. Another Frenchman, it was said, "of a literary and
intriguing character, formerly a member of the Club Breton, doubtless
in the confidence of the Directory, who had for a long time lived in
Pennsylvania, has recently taken flight." Should this menace be allowed
to continue? Both France and England were exercising the right of
self-preservation and banishing suspicious aliens. These fled to the
United States and made it a common plotting-ground. They were described
in the Congressional debate on this subject as "men endeavoring to
spread sedition and discord; who had assisted in laying other countries
prostrate; whose hands are reeking with blood and whose hearts rankle
with hatred toward us. Have we not the power to shake off these
firebrands?"
By a safe majority in the House and a vote of two to one in the Senate,
the Federalists placed additional bars to the doors of the United
States by raising the time required for national residence prior to
naturalisation to fourteen years, with a residence of five years in
some one State, and a declaration of intention made five years before
admission. All white aliens were required to report to some official
register, and get a certificate within forty-eight hours after arrival.
By a law, called the "Alien Friends act," Congress gave power to the
President to order out of the United States all aliens whom he suspected
of being concerned in any treasonable or secret machination against
the Government. If he chose, he could give such an alien a license to
remain under bond. The duration of the act was limited to two years.
A companion measure, called the "Alien Enemies act," contemplated the
possibility of an immediate war with France and gave the President and
the courts power to arrest, to punish, or remove natives of a hostile
country after due proclamation. All courts were authorised to hear
complaints against aliens, much in the style of the denunciation system
of France a few years before.
The alien writers and the Republican press generally had not been
afraid to attack the war measures and the bills for the restraint of
foreigners as they were proposed and debated. Upon the sudden rage of
naming vessels after the President, Duane in the _Aurora_ sarcastically
remarked that the name would be a host of strength in itself and
completely protect our extensive commerce. He thought we outstripped
the British in this instance.
"In the navy of England, there is only one royal George and one
Charlotte; there is to be sure the Sovereign and the Queen; but we shall
certainly have, The President, the Lady Adams, or the Lady President,
with Squire Quincy and Squire Charley, otherwise the navy of Columbia
will be incomplete."
In other papers, the President figured as "Johnny Molasses" from the
rum manufacture of Massachusetts. The New York _Time-Piece_ pronounced
him "a person without patriotism, without philosophy, and a mock monarch
who had been jostled into the chief magistracy by the ominous
combination of old Tories with old opinions and old Whigs with new."
Addresses were printed begging aliens not to enlist in the provisional
army if any laws should be passed against them.
All action taken thus far to ensure the perpetuity and safety of the
Government against the strangers within its gates seemed to the
Federalists incomplete while this seditious press remained unbridled.
The crowning measure of the session of 1798, therefore, took the shape
of an addition to the early act defining crimes against the United
States. It provided fine and imprisonment for conspiring to oppose
measures of the Government, for advising insurrection, and for libelling
the Government, either House of Congress, or the President. The duration
of the act was limited to the end of the present Administration. As
originally introduced into the Senate, this "sedition act" declared
that giving aid or comfort to a Frenchman or to France was treason to
the United States, punishable by death. It was toned down in this and
several other particulars by moderate spirits before being enacted
into a law.
The opposition in Congress, called "Republicans" by themselves and
"Jacobins" by their enemies, had resisted these famous "alien and
sedition laws" at every step. They pleaded that such police regulations
had been left by the Constitution to the States; that national
citizenship did not exist separate from State citizenship; that Congress
could pass uniform laws of naturalisation, but could not control aliens
resident in a State; that adequate punishment for sedition was already
provided in the laws of the various States; that the crime of treason
was taken care of by the Constitution and Federal laws; that existing
treaties required notice to be given before foreigners could be sent
away, and then only in case of war; and that a dangerous power was
placed in the hands of the President. The constitutional amendments
guaranteeing trial by jury and freedom of speech were also quoted in
vain. When a member from New York declared that the people ought not
to submit to such tyrannical legislation and would deserve the chains
which these measures were forging for them if they did not resist,
such language was declared treasonable by the other side and productive
of the insurrectionary spirit they were trying to stamp out.
An analysis of the distribution of the vote on the Alien bill shows
that these presses, although located in the Northern and Central States,
were supported by the Southern people. Perhaps the sectional tendency
of the vote should be considered as indicative of the loss of the
Southern States to the Administration and prophetic of the support
which individualism was to receive from that section. Not a Senator
north of the Mason and Dixon line opposed the measure, and only one
from south of the line supported it. Of the Southern members in the
House, nine voted for and thirty against sending away dangerous aliens.
In the Northern section the vote stood thirty-seven to ten in favour
of the punitive action.
Jefferson, presiding over the Senate while these measures, so obnoxious
to him, were being passed, deprived of even the pleasure of casting
an occasional deciding vote by the overwhelming Federal majority,
quietly bided his time until this madness should die out. "War, land
tax and stamp tax," said he, "are sedatives which must calm its ardour."
To his mind, the people were still essentially republican; they retained
unadulterated the principles of '75; they needed only reflection and
information to bring themselves and their affairs to rights.
"A little patience," he wrote to a correspondent in Virginia, who
mentioned the possibility of separating that State and North Carolina
from the tyrannical majority, "and we shall see the reign of the witches
pass over, their spells dissolved, and the people recovering their true
sight, restoring their government to its true principles. Better keep
together as we are, haul off from Europe as soon as we can, and from all
attachments to any portions of it."
At the same time, if war should come, he advised all to join for the
defence of home on the principle that if one's house is on fire he
must try to extinguish it without stopping to inquire whether it was
fired from without or within.
The execution of the Alien and Sedition laws proved as unpopular and
as futile as Jefferson had imagined. Callender escaped the Alien law
by completing his naturalisation, but was fined and imprisoned for
seditious publications. His counsel, Cooper, a lawyer-editor, suffered
similar punishment. A chartered vessel carried back to France, now
under more tolerant government, a large number of _émigrés_ including
Volney, the philosophical writer and former friend of Washington,
suspected of being at the head of the conspirators in the United States.
The abusive _Time-Piece_ was abandoned, one of the editors fleeing
the country and the other being under arrest. Duane was assaulted in
his office, his presses destroyed by a mob, and himself haled before
Congress for criticising their actions. Lyon, a violent Republican who
had come near being expelled from the House for assaulting a
fellow-member, was fined and imprisoned for commenting on certain
appointments made by the President. A half-dozen or more insignificant
country editors were caught in the Federalist drag-net, serving only
to make the law more ridiculous.
President Adams never found a dangerous alien friend to send out of
the country. The war with France was averted and the Alien Enemies act
consequently never enforced. Some new issue arose to attract popular
attention. The war fever passed as quickly as it came. Only the extra
taxes remained to remind the people that the French-war scare of 1798
had ever occurred. War measures are always popular at the time they
are passed. National patriotism is aroused, excitement refuses to
listen to conservatism, and judgment is replaced by impulse. Measures
necessary to raise the extra revenue are easily voted; but after the
excitement has passed, the extra taxes become an extra burden. Those
who yesterday clamoured most loudly for national defence and "patriotic"
measures will to-morrow seek to evade payment or turn and rend the
party which imposed the levies. The war is soon over; the train of
taxes which follows seems endless. A political party takes small risk
in fathering a war; it faces a great danger in the reaction which
follows.
The Federalists had not only authorised by their war measures a large
addition to the national debt, but had imposed certain forms of direct
taxes. Even more odious than either the stamp tax or the tax on slaves
was that on "improvements" in property. In order to arrive at a fair
conclusion of the value of dwellings, the number of windows in each
was taken as a standard by the assessors. This method was not unknown
to the Old World, but proved extremely obnoxious in the New. Resistance
in eastern Pennsylvania took the form of the so-called '"Fries
Insurrection." It offered another opportunity to the National Government
to assert its authority, but rendered President Adams still more
unpopular, and increased public hostility toward the Federalists.
Although Adams pardoned the leader, John Fries, he did not appease the
Republicans, and he angered the Hamiltonians, who would show no clemency
toward the opponents of law and order. Like some mastodon of old, the
party floundered deeper into the swamp, eventually to succumb, leaving
only its bones as a warning to the danger of overconfidence.