Knowing, as I do, the consummate vanity of John Adams, and the
shallowness of his judgment, I can easily picture to myself that when
he arrived at the Federal City he was strutting in the pomp of his
imagination before the presidential house, or in the audience hall, and
exulting in the language of Nebuchadnezzar, "Is not this great Babylon,
that I have built for the honour of my Majesty!" But in that unfortunate
hour, or soon after, John, like Nebuchadnezzar, was driven from among
men, and fled with the speed of a post-horse.
Some of John Adams's loyal subjects, I see, have been to present him
with an address on his birthday; but the language they use is too tame
for the occasion. Birthday addresses, like birthday odes, should not
creep along like mildrops down a cabbage leaf, but roll in a torrent of
poetical metaphor. I will give them a specimen for the next year. Here
it is--
When an Ant, in travelling over the globe, lift up its foot, and put it
again on the ground, it shakes the earth to its centre: but when YOU,
the mighty Ant of the East, was born, &c. &c. &c, the centre jumped upon
the surface.
This, gentlemen, is the proper style of addresses from _well-bred_ ants
to the monarch of the ant hills; and as I never take pay for preaching,
praying, politics, or poetry, I make you a present of it. Some people
talk of impeaching John Adams; but I am for softer measures. I would
keep him to make fun of. He will then answer one of the ends for which
he was born, and he ought to be thankful that I am arrived to take his
part. I voted in earnest to save the life of one unfortunate king, and
I now vote in jest to save another. It is my fate to be always plagued
with fools. But to return to Federalism and apostacy.
The plan of the leaders of the faction was to overthrow the liberties
of the new world, and place government on the corrupt system of the old.
They wanted to hold their power by a more lasting tenure than the choice
of their constituents. It is impossible to account for their conduct and
the measures they adopted on any other ground. But to accomplish that
object, a standing army and a prodigal revenue must be raised; and to
obtain these, pretences must be invented to deceive. Alarms of dangers
that did not exist even in imagination, but in the direct spirit of
lying, were spread abroad. Apostacy stalked through the land in the garb
of patriotism, and the torch of treason blinded for a while the flame of
liberty.
For what purpose could an army of twenty-five thousand men be wanted?
A single reflection might have taught the most credulous that while
the war raged between France and England, neither could spare a man to
invade America. For what purpose, then, could it be wanted? The case
carries its own explanation. It was wanted for the purpose of destroying
the representative system, for it could be employed for no other. Are
these men Federalists? If they are, they are federalized to deceive and
to destroy.
The rage against Dr. Logan's patriotic and voluntary mission to France
was excited by the shame they felt at the detection of the false alarms
they had circulated. As to the opposition given by the remnant of
the faction to the repeal of the taxes laid on during the former
administration, it is easily accounted for. The repeal of those taxes
was a sentence of condemnation on those who laid them on, and in the
opposition they gave in that repeal, they are to be considered in the
light of criminals standing on their defence, and the country has passed
judgment upon them.
Thomas Paine.
City of Washington, Lovett's Hotel, Nov. 19, 1802.