HIS LATEST YEARS IN CONGRESS
Genet was at last got rid of, but the evil that he did lived after him.
His presence had provoked an outbreak, to some degree, of the phenomena
of the French Revolution, which, however significant they might be in
the upheaval of an old monarchical despotism, were an unwholesome growth
among a simple people, where one man was as good as another before the
law; where, from the first settlement of the country, all had largely
possessed the advantages of a popular government; and where any other
than a republican government for the future was wellnigh impossible. For
men to address each other as "citizen," as if the word had the new
significance in America that it had just gained in France; to swear
eternal fidelity to liberty, equality, and fraternity, as if these were
lately discovered rights which had been denied the common people for
centuries by kings and nobles, who had always lived in the next street
in inconceivable luxury wrung from the blood and sweat of the poor; to
form Jacobin clubs pledged to the suppression of the tyranny of
aristocrats in a country where, as Samuel Dexter said of New England,
there was hardly a man rich enough to own a carriage, and few so poor as
not to own a horse; for men thus to ape those revolutionary ways, which
meant so much in Paris, may have seemed at the moment, to sober-minded
people, more fantastic than harmful. It was harmful, however, insomuch
as it substituted sentiment for common sense, and made enthusiasm, not
reason, the guide of conduct. A character was given to political
conflict which obtained for years to come. There was, it is true, a
certain manliness about it in remarkable contrast with that maudlin
sentimentality of our time which is rather inclined to ask pardon of the
rebels of the late civil war for having put them to the trouble of
getting up a rebellion. It was a conflict, nevertheless, more of party
passion than of principle, wherein it is impossible to see that either
party was absolutely right, or either absolutely wrong. The Francomania
phase of it disappeared for a time in John Adams's administration; but
it revived again, and gave intensity and virulence to the political
struggles, in the first decade of this century. Then it was that men
went about their daily affairs with cockades on their hats as
distinctive party badges. In their social as well as in their business
relations they were governed by party affinities. Neighbors differing in
politics would hardly speak to each other, and each was always ready to
accept the other's political crookedness as the measure of his possible
depravity in everything else. They would hardly walk on the same side
of the street; or sail in the same packet; or ride in the same
stage-coach; or buy their groceries at the same shop; or listen to the
preaching of the gospel from the same pulpit; indeed, if the preacher
was known to have pronounced political opinions, he was held, by those
who did not agree with him, as one from whose shoulders the clerical
gown should be torn.
Gratitude to France had not yet even become traditional, and it was
intensified by the deepest sympathy for a people struggling for what, by
their aid, Americans had so recently gained. Added to this was the old
hatred to England, which England as carefully nursed as if it were her
settled policy, by exciting Indian hostilities on the borders, by
outrages on the high seas, and by an interference with American
commerce, exercised with as little consideration of the rights of an
independent nation as if the States were still colonies in revolt. Never
did a party find, ready made and close at hand, so many elements of
popularity; and these being appealed to as Genet appealed to them, it
was easy to set the country in a blaze. When the administration was
determined that he should be recalled, and the Republican leaders were
anxious to get rid of him, as they could not restrain him, Jefferson
opposed, in a meeting of the cabinet, the proposition to ask for his
recall, lest such popular indignation should be aroused as would enable
the French minister to defy the government itself. The seed sowed by
such a man, on such a soil, bore fruit a thousand fold for almost a
generation. It is not to be wondered at that the Federalists could not
long hold their own against a party that did not ask the people to
think, but bade them only to remember--much, indeed, that ought to be
remembered--and to feel. That is always so much easier to do than the
other, and it is always so much easier to appeal effectually to
sentiment than to reflection, that the wonder rather is that the
Federalists could hold their own so long as they did. All things were
against them but one. Washington, though altogether above any partisan
bias, as he believed to be the imperative duty of the chief magistrate
of the nation, conducted his administration by the principles which
distinguished the Federalists. He was neither, as he intimated to
Jefferson, so careless as not to know what was done, nor such a fool as
not to understand why it was done; and so greatly was he revered for his
exalted character, so universal was the confidence in his integrity,
sagacity, and sound judgment, that, so long as he remained President,
the party that surrounded him was immovable as a mountain. His policy
was to stave off a rupture with England, and, if possible, to bring that
power into pacific and rational relations with the United States. The
government aimed to keep itself clear of entanglement with all foreign
politics; to maintain that perfect neutrality which should violate no
treaties, offend no national friendships, provoke no jealousies, and
leave England and France to fight their own battles, content that the
United States should be an impartial spectator. Thirty years afterward,
when the Federal party had ceased to exist under that title, this was
announced as the true American policy, and was thenceforth known as "The
Monroe Doctrine," though the merit, even of re-discovery, did not belong
to President Monroe.
In nine cases out of ten, perhaps in ninety-nine out of a hundred, the
wisest statesmanship is the knowledge when and how to compromise.
Certainly that was all John Jay, whom the President sent to England to
make a treaty, could do. The treaty was a bad one; that is, it was not
such an one as any President and Senate would have dared to consent to
for the last sixty years; it was not so good an one as that which Monroe
and Pinkney negotiated ten years later, and which President Jefferson,
lest it should help England and hurt France, then quietly locked up in
his desk without permitting the Senate even to know of its existence;
nor was it so bad as the treaty of peace made with England in 1814. But
it was undoubtedly the best that could be done at the time. The question
was between it and nothing; and the best its warmest defenders could say
was that it was better than nothing. No treaty meant war; and war at
that moment with England meant ruin. At least so the Federalists
thought, and, so far as human foresight could go, they were probably
right.
But never was a treaty more unpopular than this, when its provisions
came to be understood. The government, in delaying to make it public,
seemed to fear for its reception, and by that hesitation helped to raise
the very doubts it was afraid of. But when it was published the whole
South was aroused as one man on finding that the payment for fugitive
slaves, who during the war of the Revolution had sought refuge with the
British army, was not provided for. Other concessions made to England
were, in other parts of the country, deemed not less humiliating and
injurious to the national honor than this refusal to pay for runaway
negroes. Also, there was a one-sided stipulation relating to commerce in
the West Indies, so injurious to American interests that the President
and Senate, rather than ratify it, determined to reject the whole treaty
and take the consequences. There was hardly a town of any note that did
not hold its indignation meeting. Jay was burned in effigy, or the
attempt was made so to express the public disapprobation, in more than
one of the larger towns. Hamilton, when at a public meeting in New York
he tried to explain and defend the treaty, was stoned and compelled to
retire. If the more violent opponents of the administration were to be
believed, its members, from the President down, and all the leading men
of the party supporting it, were bought by "British gold," or were ready
without being bought, but from pure original depravity, to betray their
own country and help to destroy France. The name of the ingenious
inventor of the argument of "British gold," then used for the first
time, has unfortunately been lost; but it has stood the test of a
hundred years' usage, and is as startling and conclusive to-day as it
was a century ago.
There soon came, however, the sober second thought which took into
consideration the circumstances under which the treaty was made, the
possible and even probable consequences of its rejection, as well as the
objections to the treaty itself. After the first excitement had passed
away, many thought it worth while to read for themselves what hitherto
they had only reviled at the suggestion of others, or from sympathy with
the popular clamor. The commercial community, the New York Chamber of
Commerce leading the way, came to the conclusion that their rights and
interests were reasonably protected; that to be recognized as a neutral
between two such belligerent powers as England and France was a great
point gained; that partial indemnity was better than total loss; and
that the chance of a fairly profitable trade in the future was
preferable to the ruin of all foreign commerce. It was universally
agreed that peace was better than war; but there was this difference
between the two parties: while one maintained that war was not a
necessary consequence of the rejection of the treaty, the other declared
it must be inevitable, where there were so many points of collision
which could only be escaped by mutual agreement. This was especially
true on the frontier, where Indian hostilities were sure to follow, and
lead to general war, if the military posts, which should have been given
up at the close of the Revolution, should remain longer in the hands of
the English.
But, after all, the real question with the Republicans was the influence
which a treaty with England might have upon the relations of France and
the United States. They detested England for her own sake; they detested
her still more for the sake of France. If there had been no question of
France in the way they would, perhaps, have been willing, like the
Federalists, to consider the relations of England and the United States
on their merits,--to remember that the commerce between them was greater
than that which the United States had with any other country, the loss
of which might be a disastrous check to her prosperity; that the peoples
of the two countries were, after all, of one blood, and that theirs was
a common heritage in the institutions, laws, language, and character
that distinguished the race; that the quarrel between them was--though
it might be the more bitter on that account--a family quarrel, and ought
for that reason to be the more speedily settled. But, if England would
not remember these things,--as she never has to this day,--if, on the
contrary, she chose to be overbearing, contemptuous, insolent, quite
regardless of American rights,--as she always has been when she could be
so safely,--then it behooved the United States, inasmuch as she was a
young and as yet a feeble nation, to conciliate this powerful enemy
whenever she could do so consistently with her self-respect, to avoid
giving unnecessary offense or provoking fresh injuries, and, in the mean
while, to nurture and husband her strength, to keep an accurate account
of all the wrongs that in her weakness she should be compelled to submit
to, and to bide her time. These were the principles of the Federalists.
Their aim was, not the good of England, but the good of the United
States. They were an American party; to them foreign relations were of
importance mainly for the influence these might have upon the
prosperity, happiness, and power of their own country. They did not
forget the gratitude due to France for the aid she had given to the
struggling colonies, though that aid was given not so much for love of
America as for hatred of England. The pacific and friendly relations
already established with France they held in due estimation; and their
sympathies went out to her people in full measure in their struggle for
a popular government, so long as that struggle was kept within the
bounds of reason and humanity. But sympathy with and gratitude to France
did not blind them to the wisdom and expediency of pacific and friendly
relations with England, provided such could be established without the
sacrifice of their own prosperity, independence, and national pride. It
was only to add to that prosperity, to gain new security for that
independence, and to build up a nation of which they and their
children, to the latest generation, might well be proud, that they ought
to be on good terms with that powerful state with whom they were
co-heirs in all the ideas and institutions constituting the civilization
that made her great. They hoped to build up, west of the Atlantic Ocean,
"an Inglishe Nation" in its broadest sense, of which Walter Raleigh had
hoped that he might live to see the beginning, and which the latest
historical writers in England are just now recognizing as the most
important part of the modern empire of the English race.
The House of Representatives was not in session when the Jay treaty was
ratified by the President and Senate, but Mr. Madison's letters show
that he could see in it nothing but evil. In February, 1796, the
ratification by both governments was announced to both houses of
Congress, and measures were at once taken by the Republicans in the
lower house to render the treaty, if possible, null and void. A
resolution, warmly supported by Mr. Madison, was offered, calling upon
the President for copies of the instructions under which Mr. Jay acted,
with the correspondence and any other papers, proper to be made public,
relating to the negotiation. The resolution was subjected to a debate of
three weeks, but was finally passed. The request was refused by the
President, on the ground that the treaty-making power was, by the
Constitution, confided to the President and Senate. It was on this point
mainly that the debate had turned; and the President, in support of his
opinion as well as that of the Federalists generally, referred to his
recollection of the plain intention of the Constitutional Convention,
and to the fact that a proposition, "that no treaty should be binding on
the United States which was not ratified by law," was "explicitly
rejected." Mr. Madison said a day or two after, that, while he did not
doubt "the case to be as stated, he had no recollection of it." Of the
message itself, he said that it was "as unexpected as its tone and tenor
are improper and indelicate." But Hamilton, he thought, wrote it, and
the President was, as usual, lamented over for having been taken in. A
resolution, however, was finally passed in favor of the treaty, though
by a majority of three only. The debate upon it was earnest and long,
Mr. Madison leading the opposition. His disappointment was bitter. "The
progress of this business throughout," he wrote to Jefferson, "has been
to me the most worrying and vexatious that I ever encountered; and the
more so, as the causes lay in the unsteadiness, the follies, the
perverseness, and the defections among our friends, more than in the
strength, or dexterity, or malice of our opponents."
Though the Jay treaty was not--as was said on a previous page--such an
one as the United States would have acceded to in latter times, the
result proved it to be a wise and timely measure. Notwithstanding the
disturbed condition of affairs in Europe, its influence upon the United
States, and the increasing violence of faction here, the increase for
the next ten or twelve years of the commerce, and the consequent growth
and prosperity, of the country were greater than the most sanguine
supporters of the treaty had dared to hope for. Their immediate
expectations that it might be possible to establish better relations
with England, without disturbing essentially those existing with France,
were, however, signally disappointed. Their opponents were wiser; for
they not only measured accurately the indignation of the French by their
own, but they took good care that it should not languish for want of
encouragement. The French Directory might have been reconciled to the
situation had it been plain to them that there was neither an
"Anglicized" party nor a French party in the United States, but that the
people were united in the determination to maintain, for their own
protection, whatever their personal sympathies might be, an absolute
neutrality between the belligerent powers. But as they were assured that
their friends in America meant also to be their effectual allies, so
they believed that those who professed neutrality used it only as a mask
for friendship to England.
James Monroe had been received in Paris as American minister, literally
as well as morally, with open arms, in that memorable scene when, in the
presence and amid the cheers of the National Convention, the president,
Merlin de Douai, imprinted upon his cheeks, in the name of France, the
kiss of fraternity. Till he was recalled in the latter days of
Washington's administration, Monroe was the representative not so much
of the government to which he owed allegiance as of the faction to which
he belonged at home. He was not, it is true, unmindful of the hundreds
of outrages perpetrated by French naval vessels and privateers upon
American merchantmen; that their crews were thrown into French prisons,
and that the detention of their cargoes had brought ruin upon many
American citizens; nor did he neglect to demand redress. But he seemed
absolutely incapable of understanding that if there were anything to
choose between the insults and wrongs which America was compelled to
submit to from England and France, it was only in the greater ability of
England to inflict them. English ships swept the ocean, and pretexts
were never wanting for overhauling American vessels, stripping them of
some of their men, or confiscating both ships and cargoes. France had as
many pretexts, and quite as good a will to enforce them; but she had
fewer ships, and for that reason, and that only, did rather less damage.
But however earnest Monroe was in insisting upon the rights of neutrals,
in urging upon the French ministry the strict observance of treaty
obligations, and in complaining of the constant injuries done in their
despite, there was another thing about which he was far more earnest.
He was as anxious to aid the French to baffle, if possible, Jay's
negotiations in London as if he were uncovering a plot against his own
government. When the ratification of the treaty was made known in Paris,
the indignation of the Directory was hardly kept within bounds. The
minister of foreign affairs notified Monroe that the Directory
considered the stipulations of the treaty of 1778 as altered and
suspended in their most essential parts by this treaty with England.
Under any circumstances the French would, no doubt, have resented the
establishment of friendly relations between the United States and the
old enemy of France, with whom she at that moment was engaged in a war
arousing more than the bitter inherited enmity of the two peoples. But
the course Monroe had seen fit to pursue had done much to assure the
French that the strong party in the United States, which he represented,
would never permit the virgin republic to be delivered, as it was
assumed the treaty did deliver her, bound and gagged, into the hands of
the power which Jefferson loved to call "the harlot England." The first
enthusiasm of the Revolution was fast growing into cant in both
countries, and the language of devotion to liberty, equality, and
fraternity was beginning to lose all meaning. But it was easy to be
deceived by the assurances, more significant in actions than in words,
of an official representative, that the American people, save an
Anglicized and decreasing minority, were the friends, and meant to be
the allies, of France. Of course the French were all the more
exasperated because they had permitted themselves to be deluded. Monroe
was first rebuked by his own government for neglecting to do all that
might have been done to reconcile the Directory to a treaty between the
United States and Great Britain; and soon after, his conduct continuing
unsatisfactory, he was recalled.
It is, of course, possible that the French Directory were not misled;
that nothing would have reconciled them to the British treaty; and that
their subsequent course would have been the same had they believed the
American people were desirous to be on good terms with England solely
for their own tranquillity and interest, and not at all because any
large portion of them were at enmity with France. This, however, would
not be a valid excuse for Monroe's course as a representative of his
government. The only defense for him is, that he was deceived by his
friends at home; they must share, therefore, the responsibility for his
conduct, inasmuch as they encouraged a man not over strong in mind or
character, and more likely to be governed by impulse than by good
judgment, to abuse the confidence placed in him by the administration.
From any share in this responsibility, however, Madison must be
relieved. He was in very constant correspondence with Monroe, and kept
him carefully advised as to the progress of the treaty. No man desired
its defeat more earnestly than he, and he believed that a majority of
the people were opposed to it. But he evidently doubted its rejection
from the first, and his discussion of possibilities in his letters to
Monroe was always frank and discriminating. In the end he accounted for
the vote in its favor in the House of Representatives by the activity
and influence of its friends, which its opponents wanted the ability or
the time to overcome. It is probable that his colleagues of his own
party in the House did not agree with him that public opinion was
against the treaty, as it was by votes from their side that its
acceptance was carried.
[Illustration: D P Madison]
With the ensuing session of Congress, at the close of Washington's
administration, Madison's congressional service ended. The leadership of
the opposition, whatever may be thought of its influence upon the
welfare of the country, or of the personal motives by which he may have
been governed, had devolved upon him, almost from the beginning, by
natural selection of the fittest for that position. It was not an easy
place to take, either by one's own choice or by the suffrages of others;
for at the head of the administration to be opposed stood the man most
revered by a grateful country, surrounded by men among those, at least,
who were best known for their past services and most esteemed for their
ability and character. It was the more difficult for one whose personal
relation to the President was that of the warmest friendship; to whom
the President was accustomed to turn for counsel and even for
guidance; and who, being among those eminent men to whom the people owed
their new Constitution, was counted upon to strengthen the union of the
States and build up a strong and stable government. He played his
difficult part, nevertheless, with dignity; if not brilliant, he was
always ready with the best reasons that could be given for the measures
he supported; and his zeal was invariably tempered with a wise
moderation and a courtesy toward opponents which made him always
respected, and sometimes feared for reserved force, in debate.
Somewhat more than a year before his retirement from Congress Mr.
Madison had married, and it is quite possible that this may in part have
moved him to seek rest in the tranquillity of a country life. Tradition
says that Mrs. Madison was a beautiful woman. She has in our time been a
marked figure in the society of Washington, and many remember her for
her fine presence, her powers of conversation, and that beauty which
sometimes belongs to the aged, though it may not have been preceded by
youthful comeliness. Her maiden name was Dolly Payne, and her parents
were members of the Society of Friends. When Madison married her she was
Mrs. Todd, the widow of John Todd, a lawyer of Philadelphia. Her age at
this time was twenty-six years, Mr. Madison being forty-three, and she
survived him thirteen years, dying in 1849. On her tombstone she is
called "Dolley;" but Mr. Rives, in his life of her husband, ever
mindful of the proprieties, calls her "Dorothea," or rather, Mrs.
Dorothea Payne Madison; for, like the Vicar of Wakefield, he loved to
give the whole name.