During the first decade of the nineteenth century, a most important
formative period of American history, James A. Bayard was the
recognized leader of the Federalists in the Senate. They had lost
the presidential election of 1800, and their party had been so
completely disorganized by the defeat that they never recovered from
it, nor won, as a party, another victory. Defeat, however, did not
prevent them from making a stubborn fight for principle--from
filing, as it were, an appeal from the first to the third quarter of
the century. In this James A. Bayard was their special advocate and
representative. The pleas he made in his celebrated speech on the
Judiciary, delivered in the House of Representatives, and in similar
speeches in the Senate, defined as they had not been defined before,
the views of that body of Conservatives whose refusal to accept the
defeat of 1800 as anything more than an ephemeral incident, led to
the far-reaching results achieved by other parties which their ideas
brought into existence. It was said of Bayard, as their
representative and leader, that "he was distinguished for the depth
of his knowledge, the solidity of his reasoning, and the perspicuity
of his illustration." He was called "the Goliath of Federalism,"
and "the high priest of the constitution," by the opponents of
"Jacobinism." as Federalists often termed Jeffersonian democracy.
Mr. Bayard was born in Philadelphia, July 28th, 1767. His father,
Dr. James A. Bayard, claimed his descent from the celebrated
"Chevalier" Bayard,--a fact which greatly influenced the son as it
has others of the family who have succeeded him in public life.
Thus when offered the French mission James A. Bayard declined it,
fearing that it might involve the suspicion of a bargain. "My
ambitions," he wrote in a letter to a relative, "shall never be
gratified at the expense of a suspicion. I shall never lose sight
of the motto of the great original of our name."
After preparing for the bar. Bayard settled in Delaware and in 1796
that State elected him to the lower house of Congress, promoting him
in 1804 to the Senate and re-electing him at the expiration of his
first term. In 1813, President Madison appointed him one of the
Commissioners to conclude the treaty of peace with England.
After the success of that mission, he was appointed minister to
Russia, but declined saying that he had "no wish to serve the
administration except when his services were necessary for the
public good." He died in August 1815.
His speeches show a strong and comprehensive grasp of facts, a power
to present them in logical sequence, and an apprehension of
principle which is not often seen in public speeches. They were
addressed, however, only to the few who will take the pains to do
severe and connected thinking and they are never likely to become
extensively popular.