IMPORTANT INFLUENCE OF FRENCH RED RADICALISM IN PROPAGATING THE
MANHOOD SUFFRAGE DOCTRINE IN THE UNITED STATES.
The doctrine of manhood suffrage was imported to America from France in
the latter part of the eighteenth century, and began to infect American
politics some twenty years after the Independence, though its final
triumph was delayed another score of years. To some of us it seems
almost incredible that any honest man could avoid being strongly
prejudiced against a political institution which had produced such
horrible results as manhood suffrage in France, and it would probably
today be but a poor recommendation of any political scheme to an
intelligent man that it was adopted by the French Revolutionary
Convention of 1792. But a century ago the masses in the United States
were not thinkers, and were even more inclined to be carried away by
emotional crazes than they are at present; no doubt the success of the
American Revolution had turned many heads. It was a time when young
gentlemen were much afflicted by morbid sentimentality; when ladies did
not fail to faint on proper occasion; when American gentlemen fought
duels because of sham sentiment or to sustain a sham honor; when
blood-curdling novels were devoured with gusto; when Byron’s all-defying
pirate heroes were the rage; when young clerks went about gloomily
brooding in turned-down collars and imagining that the whole world
consisted of oppressors and the oppressed. To such a romantic and
superficial young America the platitudes and empty sentimentalities of
the French Radicals made a stronger appeal than the plain common sense
talk of the British Tories. Besides all this a large part of the
American people at the close of the American Revolution in 1783 were
deeply grateful to the French nation for its timely and effective
assistance in the war for Independence. Without French aid, it was
thought that the revolt might have failed, and of course they did not
stop to reflect that Lafayette and Rochambeau were noblemen; that it was
a French monarchy and not a republic which had been so helpful to
America. And so when a few years later France became a Republic, largely
owing, it was thought, to American influence and example, there was
great enthusiasm in many American hearts for France and everything
French, including the new political theories of the Rights of Man,
Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Even the Terrorists for a time had
their sympathizers here, some of whom probably were unaware of the facts
as the newspaper accounts of doings abroad were meagre and distorted.
The French partisans here even believed and circulated slanders against
the noble and spotless Washington. It is easy to believe interesting
lies. Did not our fellow Americans in the South work themselves up in
1860 to a silly belief that they were or were about to be plundered and
oppressed by the perfectly harmless rest of us? Did not the English and
French make themselves believe and declare in January, 1865, that the
Southern States were on the eve of final victory when they were
obviously tottering to a final fall? Have not we Americans to the last
deluded man of us gone about for the past century believing and swearing
that we won a signal triumph in the war of 1812 and refusing to credit
our own officers and historians to the contrary? How many Americans
failed to go wrong in their sympathies at the beginning of the last
Russian revolution? The American radicals therefore probably chose to
believe that Marat, Robespierre, Danton and Co., instead of being
humbugs, blackguards and miscreants, were wise and honest republicans,
whose massacres of harmless prisoners and other similar performances
were excusable ebullitions of patriotic zeal. When for instance the news
of the defeat of Brunswick by Dumouriez came to America in December,
1792, there were great rejoicings among them. There were dinners,
suppers, speeches, cannon firing and processions in New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities. The inns and taverns were filled
with those whose heads were turned by liquor and enthusiasm; some
wearing liberty caps and cockades; all singing, shouting and drinking
toasts. On December 27th in New York City the whole day was given up to
public rejoicing, including a celebration by the Tammany Society.
The instinct of imitation is strong, especially among children, savages
and the lower classes. We had been imitating the British; we now took to
imitating the French. Everything French was popular; became the rage.
When the French Minister Genet, representing the Terrorist government,
arrived here in April, 1793, he landed at Charleston, whence he
proceeded to Philadelphia, the seat of the Federal Government. He really
represented a band of blood-stained scoundrels who had usurped power in
France, who had just guillotined the king and most of whom were for
sale, yet he was hailed by a faction here as a hero and the emissary of
sages and patriots. There were receptions, escorts, processions and
banquets, where “Citizen” Genet was glorified, our own government was
denounced, and an American reign of terror threatened. At some of the
banquets a red liberty cap was displayed; half drunken young American
radicals danced about the table; the guillotine was toasted, and
capitalists were threatened with death. At that time England, outraged
and disgusted by the insults and bloody rapine of the French Terrorist
government, had gone to war with France; our howling mobs therefore
yelled for war with England, and mouthing politicians who had never
smelt gunpowder pretended to be eager to fight Great Britain, although
we had neither army, navy, transports nor money. Two American privateers
were actually fitted out to sail under French colors and prey on English
commerce in defiance of the law and of the Federal Government.
Meantime the American friends and enemies of the French Revolution
taunted and vilified each other in newspapers, pamphlets, and otherwise
publicly and privately. Some of the American featherheads, in imitation
of the antics of the French Republicans, addressed each other as
“citizen” and “citess,” instead of Mr. and Mrs. this and that. Serious
and sensible folk, including President Washington, looked askance at
these follies, and by many they were treated with the ridicule they
deserved. The rabble thereupon after their nature and in further
imitation of the French democracy which they so admired, revenged
themselves by flinging coarse insults at their unsympathetic fellow
citizens, including Washington himself. In about three years’ time this
wild craze passed away; but French influence continued. French dancing
schools, fencing schools, dishes, names, expressions, customs, dress,
music, and books were popular; French newspapers were published in all
important cities, and some permanent progress was made by French
Revolutionary influence and ideas.
We may here note that after the death of Robespierre and the overthrow
of the Terror and on September 23rd, 1795, after a test of over three
years, manhood suffrage was abolished in France almost without a
protest. It was unanimously recognized that it was responsible for the
Terror, for the disorder and insecurity of life and property which had
prevailed since its adoption and for the complete financial and economic
prostration of France, whose people were starving by thousands for need
of that social order and confidence without which modern civilization is
impossible. In the official report on the subject presented to the
National Convention in 1795, and which was adopted after full
discussion, we read these words: “We ought to be governed by the best;
the best are the most highly educated, and those most interested in the
maintenance of the laws. Now with very few exceptions you will only find
such men among those who, possessing a freehold, are attached to the
country which contains it, the laws which protect it, and the
tranquillity which preserves it, and who owe to their property and their
affluence the education which has fitted them to discuss with justice
and understanding the advantages and disadvantages of the laws which
determine the fate of their country.... A country governed by
freeholders is in a social condition; a country in which the
non-proprietors govern is in a state of nature.” Unfortunately the
mischief that had been already done by the radicals has never been quite
cured, and France has suffered many things since then; but that is
another story. The extreme French Radicals did not for all this abandon
their attachment to their revolutionary ideas; their influence in the
United States continued to be very considerable, and the rapid spread of
the new-fangled doctrine of manhood suffrage in the young American
states after the death of Washington had removed his conservative
influence was no doubt largely due to the effect of the plausible
ranting and twaddle of the French Revolutionists and their followers.
Everything has to be paid for in this world, and for the help of France
in the fight for independence, the United States had something to pay in
the corruption, waste and deterioration caused by the adoption of the
silly theory of the French radicals that in governmental matters one
man’s judgment and intent are as good as another’s, those of the
ignorant and thriftless equal to those of the frugal, industrious and
well-informed.