THE GAGE OF BATTLE
I
There was little in the reception of Hamilton’s famous ‘Report on
Manufactures’ during the congressional session of 1791-92 to foreshadow
the part it was to play in American politics. Bristling with facts and
figures laboriously assembled, the plea for protection and bounties for
manufacturers was plausibly presented. Foreseeing the hostility of the
farmers, the most persuasive arguments were reserved for them. The
diversification of industry would increase the demand for the products
of the farm; the elimination of foreign competition would decrease the
cost of manufactured goods; and the certainty of immigration would
prevent any labor shortage with agriculturists. Better still, the
factories would afford the farmers an opportunity to put their wives and
children to work in the mills.[593] Four sevenths of the employees of
the cotton mills of England were women and children, and many of the
latter of ‘tender age.’[594] In the making of nails and spikes young
boys were able to do the work.[595] As to the constitutional objection,
that was disposed of by the doctrine of implied powers.
The newspapers, including Freneau’s, ran the report in full, but nothing
came of it for the moment. No one was shocked at the idea of working
women and children of tender age. After a while a writer in Freneau’s
paper warned that a new field was being opened ‘for favoritism,
influence and monopoly.’[596] Madison wrote to Pendleton that ‘if
Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done with money ...
the Government is no longer a limited one.’[597] But this ‘Report’
resulted in less controversy than any that had preceded. There was no
storm--just a bare stirring of the leaves.
But Hamilton was not content to allude to brighter worlds--he led the
way. Long before, he had been impressed with the industrial
possibilities of beautiful Passaic Falls in New Jersey, midway between
New York and Newark at the very door of the market. Just how long he was
in interesting moneyed men in his ambitious plans for a great national
manufactory there, we do not know. But even before the publication of
his ‘Report,’ he had personally appeared with others interested before
the New Jersey Legislature to ‘elucidate anything that may appear
obtuse’ in the request for a charter.[598] It was only a little trip
from Philadelphia to Trenton. Then, one summer day, a group of men
appeared at the Falls to purchase land and select the precise sites for
the various mills, and the small but masterful figure of Hamilton was
the center of the group. All sorts of things would be manufactured,
cotton mills predominating, and it would become--this city of
Paterson--the industrial capital of the Republic. Major l’Enfant was
summoned to the task of making this industrial beehive beautiful, and he
responded.[599] Soon there were grumblings among the farmers, outraged
because the charter that Hamilton’s influence had secured gave the
company the right to dig canals on any man’s land. The other
manufacturers were indignant because the new factory was to be free from
taxation for ten years, and its employees were to be excused from
military services except in cases of dire necessity. ‘A Manufacturer’
wrote a vehement protest, mentioning Hamilton by name, and denouncing
the act of the legislature as vicious beyond comparison.[600] Soon the
Philadelphia papers were advertising that the five letters ‘To the
Yeomanry,’ in pamphlet form, complaining of the privileged nature of the
corporation and of the part played by Hamilton, could be had at the
various stores of the city.
But Hamilton was not concerned with the grumblings of the groundlings,
for he was at high tide. In New York men had subscribed for a portrait
of him by Trumbull, and the subscription lists ‘were still open in the
coffee-house.’[601] He had become the idol of the most powerful class. A
little later, Trumbull’s work completed, ‘the best that ever came from
his pencil,’ it was placed temporarily in the old city hall in New
York.[602] The obscure boy from the West Indies had become an
institution in the city of his adoption. Even so Hamilton was ever
vigilant. He had not liked the Freneau project from the start, and he
was watching it like a hawk.
II
When the poet-journalist took an office on High Street and began the
publication of his paper, there was little to justify grave
apprehensions. In his first issues the editor had pledged himself to the
support ‘of the great principles on which the American Revolution was
founded,’ and while this smacked of the jabberings of Sam Adams,
Hancock, and Jefferson, it was probably only a gesture. The tone of the
early editions was temperate, almost academic. The ordinary reader must
have thought it harmless enough, but Hamilton, who used the press
effectively himself, examined the articles more critically. There were
phrases creeping in, innocently, perhaps, that Fenno would have scorned.
The idea that ‘public opinion sets the bounds to every government, and
is the real sovereign of every free one,’[603] would never have soiled
the pages of the ‘Gazette of the United States.’ The little essays on
politics and government were sprinkled all too freely with these
disturbing suggestions. Only an essay on ‘Nobility’--but why make it the
vehicle for the thought that ‘the downfall of nobility in France has
operated like an early frost toward killing the germ of it in
America.’[604] With Fenno chiding the critics of officials, what more
unfortunate than Freneau’s assertion that ‘perpetual jealousy of the
government’ is alone effectual ‘against the machinations of ambition,’
and his warning that ‘where that jealousy does not exist in a reasonable
degree the saddle is soon prepared for the back of the people.’[605] A
defense of parties coupled with a denunciation of privilege,[606] stiff
criticism of ministerial inefficiency apropos of the St. Clair
expedition; forceful protests against the excise law;[607] and then an
article by ‘Brutus’ on the funding system which could not be
ignored--these were bad enough. That system, said ‘Brutus,’ had given
undue weight to the Treasury Department ‘by throwing the enormous sum of
fifty million dollars into the hands of the wealthy,’ thus attaching
them to all the Treasury measures ‘by motives of private interest.’
Having combined the great moneyed interest, it had been made formidable
by the Bank monopoly. Out of it all had come the ‘unlimited excise laws
and imposts’ that ‘anticipated the best resources of the country and
swallowed them all up in future payments.’ Because the certificates had
fallen to the wealthy, ‘the industrious mechanic, the laborious farmer
and poorer classes generally are made tributary to the latest
generation.’[608] Rights of property? Yes--but there is property in
rights.[609] Be loyal to the Union? Yes, but who are the enemies of the
Union? ‘Not those who favoring measures which, pampering the spirit of
speculation, disgust the best friends of the Union.’ ‘Not those who
promote unnecessary accumulations of the debts of the Union.’ Not those
‘who study by arbitrary interpretations and insidious precedents to
pervert the limited government of the Union into a government of
unlimited discretion.’[610]
With Freneau hitting his stride, the Federalists began to lose their
patience. Soon the ‘United States Chronicle’ of Providence learned that
the ‘very extraordinary productions’ were probably ‘the work of some
foreigners who wish to reduce the funds in order to purchase.’[611] The
‘Centinel’ of Boston warned that Freneau’s paper was ‘supported by a
junto for electioneering purposes’ and was filled with ‘the most absurd
misrepresentations of facts, or falsehoods highly injurious to the
prevailing character and principles of our government and people.’[612]
But it took the articles of ‘Sidney’ to force the fighting. These were
open attacks on Hamilton and his principles and were written with a
punch. He assailed the House for abdicating its power to originate money
bills to the Secretary of the Treasury. To delegate that duty was to lie
down on a job. And such ‘reports’! Arguments! Pleas! Sophistries! Thence
to the major attack. ‘If we admit that the Secretary is a fallible
mortal, and, however great his capacity may be, that he is liable to
mistakes or to be imposed upon, or, in range of hypothesis, if we
suppose these possible cases, that his political principles do not
correspond with the genius of the government, or with public opinion;
or that he embraces the interests of one class in preference to the
interests of the other classes,--I say admitting any or all of these
circumstances to be possible, then the ministerial mode of influencing
the deliberations of Congress practiced since the change of the
government, is more dangerous than even that which is pursued but loudly
complained of in Britain.’[613] These attacks by Sidney continued with
painful regularity, and Freneau’s paper became a scandal in the
best-regulated families in Philadelphia. Others joined in the fray. ‘A
Citizen’ from a remote section, who had visited the capital to ‘know
more of men and measures,’ speedily convinced himself that many members
of government ‘were ... partners with brokers and stock jobbers, and
that the banking schemes have been too powerfully and effectually
addressed to their avarice.’[614] ‘Centinel’ warned that ‘the fate of
the excise law will determine whether the powers of government ... are
held by an aristocratic junto or by the people.’[615] With the pack in
hot pursuit of his idol, Fenno rushed to the defense with a denunciation
of the ‘mad dogs’ and ‘enemies of the government.’ ‘Ah,’ replied
Freneau, welcoming the fight, ‘I will tell a short story that will put
the matter in a proper light. A pack of rogues once took possession of a
church ... held in high veneration by the inhabitants of the surrounding
district. From the sanctuary they sallied out every night, robbed ...
all the neighbors, and when pursued took shelter within the hallowed
walls. If any one attempted to molest them there, they deterred him from
the enterprise by crying, “Sacrilege,” and swearing they would denounce
him to the inquisition as a heretic and an enemy of the Holy Mother
Church.’[616] And Freneau persevered in his perversity. Right joyously
he returned to the scandal of speculation. ‘It is worthy of notice that
no direct denial has ever appeared of the ... multiplied assertions that
members of the general government have carried on jobs and speculations
in their own measures even while those measures were depending.’[617]
III
An interesting picture was presented the day after the appearance of
this attack: Emerging from the doorway of the Morris house was a
distinguished party. Washington himself, sober and stately, with his
matronly spouse; Hamilton, alert and suave, with little Betty; and a
tall, loose-jointed man of pleasing aspect whom spectators instantly
recognized as Jefferson. Entering carriages they drove away to visit Mr.
Pearce’s cotton manufactory. No one knew better than Washington that a
crisis had been reached in the relations of his ministers. But a few
days before he had sat pondering over a letter from Jefferson. It dealt
with the reason for the growing distrust in government, the fiscal
policy of Hamilton, the disposition to pile up debt, the corruption in
Congress--and it announced a determination to retire from the
Cabinet.[618] Washington, greatly distressed, had earnestly importuned
him to remain. He had agreed to stay on awhile, but the quarreling was
becoming intolerable.
At the factory the little party entered, pausing to examine the
machinery and comment upon it, Hamilton the irreproachable gentleman,
courteous, amusing, pleasant, Jefferson observing all the amenities of
the occasion. It was their last social meeting in small company. But if
Washington, who had invited them, hoped thus to persuade them to drop
their quarrel, he was foredoomed to disappointment. The cause of their
disagreement was elemental and eternal. They returned to the Morris
house after a pleasant diversion--and the fight went on.
IV
In early June, Fenno and Freneau were lashing each other with much
shouting. But the editor of the Hamilton paper played constantly into
the hands of his opponent. He lamented the appearance of a ‘faction,’
meaning party, because factions mean convulsions under a republican
government. It would not be so serious if there were a king, because ‘a
king at the head of a nation to whom all men of property cling with the
consciousness that all property will be set afloat with the government,
is able to crush the first rising against the laws.’[619] There must
have been high glee among the cronies of Freneau in the office on High
Street when they read it. ‘King,’ ‘men of property’--Freneau could not
have dictated the comment for his purpose better. ‘Your paper is
supported by a party,’ charged Fenno. Yes, agreed Freneau, if ‘by a
party he means a very respectable number of anti-aristocratic, and
anti-monarchical people of the United States.’[620] But, not to be
diverted, the poet-editor returned persistently to his indictment.
‘Pernicious doctrines have been maintained’--‘Members of Congress deeply
concerned in speculating and jobbing in their own measures ... have
combined with brokers and others to gull and trick their uninformed
constituents out of their certificates.’[621]
‘The names--give us the names,’ demanded Fenno. ‘That reminds us,’ said
Freneau, ‘of the impudence of a noted prostitute of London, who, having
a difference with a young man, was by him reproached for her profligacy,
and called by the plain name of her profession.... “I’ll make you prove
it or pay for it,” said she. Accordingly, she sued the young man for
defamation of character, and although half the town knew her character,
yet nobody could prove her incontinency without owning himself an
accomplice, and the defendant was lost for want of evidence and obliged
to pay heavy damages. Thus it is when any man talks of
speculators--“prove the fact, sir”--as if, indeed, the men who hired out
the pilot boats and the brokers who negotiated the securities would come
forward to expose their employers and themselves.’[622]
Thus with charge on charge, with sarcasm and satire, especially the
latter, Freneau constantly increased the intensity of his assaults.
These slashing and insidious attacks did not reach the citizens of
Philadelphia only--they were copied far and wide. The paper itself went
into every State. Men were discussing and quoting it on the streets, in
the coffee-houses of New York, on the stage-coaches jolting between the
scarcely broken forests of remote places, about the fireplace in the
cabin in the woods. No one had followed it with greater rage than
Alexander Hamilton. One day Fenno’s ‘Gazette’ contained a short letter
bearing the signature ‘T. L.,’ which started the tongues to wagging all
the way from O’Eller’s grogshop to Mrs. Bingham’s drawing-room.
Mr. Fenno: The editor of the National Gazette receives a salary
from the Government. QUERE--Whether this salary is paid him for
translations, or for publications, the design of which is to vilify
those to whom the voice of the people has committed the
administration of our public affairs--to oppose the measures of
government, and by false insinuations to disturb the public peace?
In common life it is thought ungrateful to bite the hand that puts
bread in its mouth; but if a man is hired to do it, the case is
different.
Freneau’s paper had become dangerous, Fenno was unable to meet its
onslaughts, and thus, anonymously, Hamilton took up his pen.[623]
V
It was at this time that Hamilton first shocked his friends with the
disclosure of his temperamental weakness that was to destroy his
leadership. Persuaded that Freneau’s journal was established for the
primary purpose of wrecking him, he saw red, lost his customary poise
and self-control, and, throwing discretion to the winds along with his
dignity as a minister of State, he entered the lists as an anonymous
letter-writer. We search in vain through the correspondence of his
friends for evidence of approval.
The attack was met by Freneau with a certain dignity. Reproducing the
‘T. L.’ letter he wrote:
The above is beneath reply. It might be queried, however, whether a
man who receives a small stipend for services rendered as French
translator to the Department of State, and as editor of a free
newspaper admits into his publication impartial strictures on the
proceedings of government, is not more likely to act an honest and
disinterested part toward the public, than a vile sycophant, who
obtaining emoluments from government, far more lucrative than the
salary alluded to, finds his interest in attempting to poison the
minds of the people by propaganda and by disseminating principles
and sentiments utterly subversive of the true republican interests
of the country, and by flattering and recommending every and any
measures of government however pernicious and destructive its
tendency might be to the great body of the people. The world is
left to decide the motive of each.[624]
This controversy of mere journalists did not interest Hamilton. He was
out gunning for bigger game. Thoroughly convinced that Jefferson was
responsible for much of the contents of Freneau’s paper, he hoped to
draw his colleague into an open newspaper fight and, if possible, drive
him from the Cabinet. The relations of the two Titans had been growing
more and more hostile. They disputed across the table in the council
room, and at rare times seemed at the point of blows. Hamilton knew
Jefferson’s opinions of his policies--and similar opinions were
appearing in the paper edited by a clerk in his rival’s office. Nor were
they slovenly, superficial articles. They were the work of close
observers and clever controversialists. Not only was he ignorant of the
fact that many of these were the work of Madison, that Brackenridge
wrote some, George Tucker, editor of the American edition of Blackstone,
some,[625] but he ridiculously underestimated the capacity of Freneau.
These articles were strong, stinging, effective, and therefore Jefferson
wrote or dictated them. He would drag Jefferson into the arena and have
it out.
Thus, in his letter of August 4, he contemptuously dismissed the editor
as ‘the faithful and devoted servant of the head of a party,’ and
launched his personal bitter attack on Jefferson. If he wished to attack
‘the Government,’ why didn’t Jefferson resign?[626] ‘Can he reconcile it
to his own personal dignity, and the principles of probity, to hold an
office under it, and employ the means of official influence in that
opposition?’ Besides, he was an enemy of the Constitution. He had been
opposed to it and had written his objections ‘to some of his friends in
Virginia.’[627] Four days later, Freneau denied in an affidavit
published in Fenno’s paper that Jefferson had any connection with the
‘National Gazette’ or had written or dictated a line. The same day, in
his own paper, he raised the curtain on Hamilton’s _nom de plume_, with
a comment that ‘all is not right with certain lofty-minded persons who
fondly imagined their ambitious career was to proceed without check or
interruption to the summit of their wishes.’ To which he added that
‘the devil rageth when his time is short.’[628] In his letter of August
11th, Hamilton dismissed the denial unimpressively. At this moment he
thought himself hot on the trail. Elias Boudinot, he recalled, had once
told him of the part Madison had played. If he could get an affidavit
from Boudinot! Acting on an impulse, he wrote him that ‘a friend’ was
writing the attacks on Jefferson. He had mentioned the Boudinot
conversation to that ‘friend’ who was anxious to have an affidavit. ‘It
is of real importance that it should be done,’ he wrote. ‘It will
confound and put down a man who is continually machinating against the
public happiness.’[629] But Boudinot does not appear to have had any
stomach for the mess, albeit he, like every one else, must have known
that the ‘friend’ was Hamilton himself. No affidavit was forthcoming.
While he was waiting vainly for the affidavit, an anonymous writer in
Freneau’s paper, referring to Hamilton’s assaults, made a
counter-charge. What about ‘the immaculate Mr. Fenno’? Did he not have
the printing of the Senate, ‘the emoluments of which office are
considerable?’ Did he not ‘enjoy exclusively the printing of the
Treasury department where it seems he has rendered himself a particular
favorite?’ Was he not already ‘making his approaches to another office
on Chestnut Street [the Bank],’ and in a fair way to secure ‘if not
already in possession of the business appertaining thereto?’[630]
On August 18th, Hamilton appeared again to sneer at Freneau’s
announcement that he would pay no attention to the charges until the
author came forward to make them in the open. ‘It was easily anticipated
that he might have good reasons for not discovering himself, at least at
the call of Mr. Freneau, and it was necessary for him to find shelter.’
Freneau’s affidavit! scoffed a writer in Hamilton’s organ. He had no
faith in it. The editor had certainly not sworn upon the Bible. Had he
taken the oath on Jefferson’s ‘Notes on Virginia’?[631]
But Hamilton was already discovered. No one there was in public life
from Washington down who did not know the author. The amazing spectacle
was the talk of the taverns and the dinner tables, and was beginning to
assume the proportions of a scandal. Washington was shocked and
aggrieved. He would stop it.
VI
On August 26th he tried his art of conciliation, appealing to both
Hamilton and Jefferson, albeit, as he knew, the latter had not written a
line. Both replied in September, Hamilton admitting the authorship of
the articles, and declared his inability ‘to recede now.’ He had been
forced to write. He had been ‘the object of uniform opposition from Mr.
Jefferson’; ‘the object of unkind whispers and insinuations from the
same quarter’; and he had evidence that the ‘National Gazette’ had been
instituted by Jefferson ‘to render me and all the objects connected with
my administration odious.’ He had been most patient. In truth, he had
‘prevented a very severe and systematic attack upon Mr. Jefferson by an
association of two or three individuals, in consequence of the
persecution he brought upon the Vice-President by his indiscreet and
light letter to the printer, transmitting Paine’s pamphlet.’[632]
Jefferson replied that in private conversation he had ‘utterly
disapproved’ of Hamilton’s system, which ‘flowed from principles adverse
to liberty and calculated to undermine and demolish the Republic by
creating an influence of his department over members of the
legislature.’ He had seen this influence ‘actually produced’ by ‘the
establishment of the great outlines of his project by the votes of the
very persons who, having swallowed his bait, were laying themselves out
to profit by his plans.’ Then, too, Hamilton had constantly interfered
with his department, particularly in relation to England and
France.[633] As to Freneau, he hoped he ‘would give free place to pieces
written against the aristocratic and monarchical principles.’ He and
Fenno, he said, ‘are rivals for the public favor. The one courts them by
flattery, the other by censure, and I believe it will be admitted that
the one has been as servile as the other has been severe.’ Then, turning
again to Hamilton: ‘But is not the dignity and even decency of
government committed when one of its principal Ministers enlists himself
as an anonymous writer or paragraphist for either the one or the other
of them?’ As for criticism of governmental measures, ‘no government
ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever
will. If virtuous, it need not fear the free operation of attack and
defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the
truth, either in religion, law, or politics. I think it is as honorable
to government neither to know nor notice its sycophants, as it would be
undignified and criminal to pamper the former and persecute the
latter.’[634]
Thus ended Washington’s attempt to intervene. Hamilton had refused to
discontinue his attacks, and, within two days after replying to
Washington’s appeal, he was again appearing in the ‘Gazette of the
United States.’
VII
Even while Hamilton and Jefferson were writing their letters, the fight
was proceeding merrily, if bloodlessly, in the papers. ‘Aristides,’ none
other than Madison, had gone to the defense of his leader in an article
in Fenno’s paper on Jefferson’s attitude toward the Constitution. No one
was so well qualified to know, unless it was Washington himself. He had
sat in the Convention, a leading figure, and listened to Hamilton’s
speeches and proposals, and had been in correspondence with Jefferson.
It was not this defense that made Fenno restive. It was a pointed
attack. ‘It is said, Mr. Fenno, that a certain head of a department is
the real author or instigator of these unprovoked and unmanly attacks on
Mr. Jefferson--and that the time of that gentleman’s departure from the
city on a visit to his home was considered as best suited to answer the
design it was intended to effect.’ ‘Unmanly attack’ and an insinuation
of cowardice! Fenno took the precaution to add a note warning that no
further letters would be printed containing ‘personal strictures’ unless
the name of the author was furnished ‘in case of emergency.’ Coffee and
pistols--was it coming to that?[635] Freneau had no such concern, for on
the same day a writer in his paper referred to the ‘base passions that
torment’ Hamilton, and called upon the author of the anonymous articles
to ‘explain the public character who on an occasion well known to him,
could so far divest himself of gratitude and revolt from the spirit of
his station as to erect his little crest against the magnanimous chief
who is at the head of our civic establishment, and has on many free
occasions since spoken with levity and depreciation of some of the
greatest qualities of that renowned character; and now gives himself out
as if he were his most cordial friend and admirer, and most worthy of
public confidence on that account.’[636]
Two days after refusing Washington’s request for a cessation, Hamilton
returned to the attack in answer to the charge of the ‘National Gazette’
that he had not liked the Constitution, and had pronounced the British
monarchy the most perfect government. All this he stoutly denied. The
records and debates of the Constitutional Convention were then under
secrecy, and members who had heard his speeches were under the ban of
silence. He felt safe. This is the most amazing letter of the series.
And so the dismal affair dragged on. Another letter appeared reiterating
a connection between Jefferson and Freneau; another charging that
Jefferson was opposed to the Constitution and against paying the public
debt; still another complaining of Jefferson’s interference with the
Treasury Department. Then another on Jefferson and the Constitution, and
finally, two months after Washington’s appeal, demanding that Jefferson,
who remained in the Cabinet on the earnest solicitation of Washington,
withdraw. ‘Let him not cling to the honor or emolument of an office,
whichever it may be that attracts him, and content himself with
defending the injured rights of the people by obscure or indirect
means.’
Meanwhile, Jefferson had refused to be drawn into the controversy
personally. The situation had become painful--the Philadelphia
drawing-rooms lifting their brows at him. His official associations were
unpleasant, but he never touched pen to a paper intended for
publication. Only in his personal letters did he pour forth his
bitterness against his colleague. ‘The indecency of newspaper squabbling
between two public Ministers,’ he wrote Edmund Randolph, ‘has drawn
something like an injunction from another quarter. Every fact alleged
... as to myself is false.... But for the present lying and scribbling
must be free to those who are mean enough to deal in them and in the
dark.’[637] He had hoped for an early retirement, and the attacks had
indefinitely postponed the realization of his desire. ‘These
representations have for some weeks past shaken a determination which I
had thought the whole world could not have shaken,’ he wrote
Martha.[638] Meanwhile, the small-fry partisans were busy in all the
papers. The effect, on the whole, had been favorable to Jefferson,
making him the idol of the democrats everywhere. ‘It gives us great
pleasure,’ said a Boston paper, ‘to find that the patriotic Jefferson
has become the object of censure, as it will have a happy tendency to
open the eyes of the people to the strides of certain men who are
willing to turn every staunch Republican out of office who has
discerning to ken the arbitrary measures, and is honestly sufficient to
reveal them.’[639] To the ‘Independent Chronicle’ the ‘slander and
detraction’ of men like Jefferson seemed ‘a convincing proof of the
badness of the cause behind it.’[640] The onslaught had in no wise
weakened Jefferson’s faith in the effectiveness of the ‘National
Gazette.’ The smoke had not lifted from the field when he was rejoicing
because it was ‘getting into Massachusetts under the patronage of
Hancock and Sam Adams.’[641] Even Freneau found the democrats rallying
around him.
It is a Fact [wrote a correspondent] that immense wealth has been
accumulated into a few hands, and that public measures have favored
that accumulation.
It is a Fact that money appropriated to the sinking of the debt has
been laid out, not so as most to sink the debt, but so as to succor
gamblers in the funds.
It is a Fact that a Bank law has given a bounty of from four to
five million dollars to men in great part of the same description.
It is a Fact that a share of this bounty went immediately into the
pockets of the very men most active and forward in granting it.
These, Mr. Freneau, are facts--...severe, stubborn, notorious
facts.[642]
VIII
Thus Hamilton’s remarkable attack had only whetted the appetite of the
Jeffersonians for battle--and a national campaign was in progress. The
unanimous reëlection of Washington was universally demanded, but why
should the ‘aristocratic’ and ‘monarchical’ author of ‘The Discourses of
Davilla’ be chosen again? At any rate, efforts could be made to change
the political complexion of Congress.
There were mistakes, blunders, tragedies, that could be used to affect
public opinion. What more shocking than the humiliating collapse of the
General St. Clair expedition against the Indians in the western country?
Gayly enough had the unfortunate commander set forth with twenty-three
hundred regular troops and a host of militiamen. There had been a
scarcity of provisions and inadequate preparations. Hundreds of
soldiers, consumed with fever, shaken with chills, had vainly called for
medicine. Many died, hundreds deserted in disgust, and finally but
fourteen hundred worn and weary, sick and hungry men remained to face
the enemy. It was easy enough to blame St. Clair, and, as he passed
through the villages en route to the capital, the people flocked about
to hiss and jeer.
But why the lack of proper preparations? Why the insufficiency of the
commissary? Even the officials in Philadelphia were prone to find
extenuations for the failure of St. Clair. A correspondent of the Boston
‘Centinel,’ dining with some of the first official characters where the
tragic collapse of the expedition had been discussed, found ‘not one
expression dropped to his prejudice.’[643] The Jeffersonians were aiming
higher than St. Clair. There was Knox, Secretary of War--what had he to
say in defense of the honesty of the army contractor, to the negligence
of the quartermaster? The House investigating committee bore heavily on
these two in its report--but who was responsible for the cupidity of the
one and the inefficiency of the other? Soon the Jeffersonian press was
attacking Knox with distressing regularity, picturing him as the
‘Philadelphia Nabob.’[644] Was he not squandering public money on
‘splendor’ and ‘extravagance’? Soon the more irresponsible of the
gossip-mongers were whispering that he had profited financially.
‘Infamous!’ screamed the Federalist press. ‘The public monies have never
been in the hands of Mr. Knox.’[645] ‘But who made arrangements with
the dishonest contractor?’ replied the Jeffersonians. ‘Who selected the
quartermaster who let the soldiers starve?’
All through the summer and autumn this was the talk in the taverns and
coffee-houses, but with the bursting of the bubble of speculation a far
more effective weapon of assault was at hand. To this inevitable outcome
of the gambling mania Jefferson had looked forward with the utmost
confidence. He had seen money ‘leaving the remoter parts of the Union
and flowing to [Philadelphia] to purchase paper’; had seen the value of
property falling in places left bare of money--as much as twenty-five
per cent in a year in Virginia. Extravagance, madness everywhere.[646]
As a result in the remoter sections the hatred of the speculator had
reached the stage of hysteria. ‘Clouds, when you rain, bleach him to the
skin,’ prayed a Georgia paper. ‘When you hail, precipitate your heaviest
globes of ice on his ill-omened pate. Thunders, when you break, break
near him, shatter an oak or rend a rock full in his view. Lightning,
when you burst, shoot your electric streams close to his eyelids.
Conscience, haunt him like a ghost.... Ye winds, chill him; ye Frost,
pinch him, freeze him. Robbers meet him, strip him, scourge him, rack
him. He starved the fatherless and made naked the child without a
mother.’[647] Even the Worcester correspondent of the orthodox Boston
‘Centinel’ complained that ‘as soon as one bubble bursts another is
blown up’ and ‘we are in the way of becoming the greatest sharpers in
the universe’--all ‘assuredly anti-republican.’[648] When a town meeting
was advertised for Stockbridge, a village wit penciled on the poster the
purpose of the conference: ‘To see if the town will move to New York and
enter into the business of speculation.’[649] While publishing these
letters and stories the Federalist organ in Boston did it with the
sneer: ‘They who are in--Grin. They who are out--Pout. They who have
paper--Caper. They who have none--Groan.’[650]
Then in April, with the failure of Colonel Duer in New York the crash
came. Many went to ruin in the wreckage, and New York became a madhouse,
with business paralyzed, and Duer taking to flight. He had been among
the most favored of the beneficiaries of Hamilton’s policies, rising
from opulence overnight, and he was among the first to fall from their
abuse.[651] The brutality and cowardice of the speculators intensified
the general contempt for the tribe. ‘Instead of exerting themselves to
preserve some kind of moral character,’ wrote a New York correspondent
of the ‘Maryland Journal,’ ‘they are endeavoring to lower themselves
still more by descending to the mean level of fish women and common
street boxers.’[652]
All this was viewed by Hamilton with indignation and concern. He had
sought in every way to discourage the frenzy of speculation, and had
used his office to protect the public wherever possible. But it began
with the funding system--and with thousands that was enough. Instantly
the Jeffersonian press was hot on the trail. ‘Business has not been
benefited by Hamilton’s Bank,’ declared the ‘Independent Chronicle,’
‘for a merchant can scarcely venture to offer his note for $100, while a
speculator can obtain thousands for no other purpose than to embarrass
commerce.’ Look around and see who have obtained wealth. ‘Speculators,
in general, are the men.’ Thus, ‘the industrious merchant is forced to
advance to the government thousands, while the gambling speculator is
receiving his quarterly payments.’[653] A Maryland correspondent of
Louden’s New York ‘Register’ ‘could not help thinking Mr. Madison’s
discriminating propositions would have prevented in great measure the
exorbitant rage of speculation.’[654] Meanwhile, Fenno was denouncing
the critics as ‘anarchists’ and enemies of the Government, which only
intensified their rage. ‘Our objection is not to paying off the debt,’
protested an indignant critic, ‘but to ... the excise, failure to
discriminate, the play to speculation’; and if all who shared these
views could be assembled it ‘would make the greatest army that ever was
on one occasion collected in the United States.’[655] In the Boston
‘Centinel,’ John Russell was taking a lighter tone. ‘The suffering
yeomanry burdened with taxes? Why not simply eliminate all State and
National debts and forget them?’[656] The storm? What of it? ‘The Six
Per Cents, a first rate, belonging to the fleet commanded by Admiral
Hamilton, notwithstanding several hard COUNTRY gales, and a strong lee
current setting out of the Hudson and Delaware is still working to
windward and bids fair to gain her destined port.’[657]
IX
With such attacks and counter attacks in the papers, the campaign of
1792 was fought, with the bitter gubernatorial battle between John Jay
and George Clinton in New York setting the pace in the spring. The
Federalists had set their hearts on the crushing of Clinton, and but for
the frown of Hamilton, Burr might have joined them in the attempt.[658]
The campaign was spectacular, and class feeling and prejudice played a
part. Jay was an aristocrat by birth and temperament, and this gave the
Clintonians their cue. Up, Plebs, and at ’em! An aristocrat against a
democrat, the rich against the poor. Had not Jay said that ‘those who
own the country ought to govern it’? Had not Jay’s Constitution
disfranchised thousands on the score of their poverty? Were not the
speculators, the stock-jobbers, the bankers, the gamblers, swindlers,
and the forces of privilege supporting Jay?[659] The result was the
election of Clinton, on a technicality,[660] and instantly there was an
uproar, broken bones and bloody noses, coffee-house quarrels and blows,
wild talk of a revolutionary convention and the seating of Jay with
bayonets, and serious bloodshed was prevented only through the efforts
of Hamilton, Jay, and King. Never had party feeling run so high, and
several duels were fought in the course of a week.[661] The defeated or
cheated candidate was accorded the acclamations due a conqueror on his
journey from his judicial circuit to New York where he was given a
testimonial dinner.[662] The democrats were none the less jubilant
because of the questionable nature of their triumph, and at a dinner in
honor of Clinton, the Tammany braves rose to the toast, ‘Thomas
Jefferson,’ and gave their war-whoop.[663]
The bitterness in New York spread to various parts of the country where
the Jeffersonians were fighting brilliantly, with clever strategy, to
gain seats in the Congress. Some of the Federalists, who were to prove
themselves generally inferior except in a smashing charge, and incapable
of maintaining their morale in a siege or in reverses, were even then
growing pessimistic. ‘Perhaps you are not informed,’ wrote George Cabot
to Theophilus Parsons, ‘that in Pennsylvania and New York the opponents
are well combined and are incessantly active, while the friends discover
a want of union and a want of energy.’[664] And Parsons, in melancholy
mood, was convinced that the Government had ‘seen its best days.’[665]
Woe to the politician who enters the reminiscent stage when confronted
by a virile opponent looking to the future. There was little in the New
England of 1792 to depress the Federalists. Only a little evidence that
among the working-men in Boston ‘heresies’ were making their way; only
reports that ‘itinerant Jacobins’ were haranguing the curious in the
bar-rooms of Rhode Island and Vermont; only the strange spectacle of
‘drill masters’ meeting with people of no property or importance to
organize them to battle for democratic principles.[666] Only this, and a
strange doctrine creeping into Vermont papers. In choosing members of
Congress who should be selected? asked a ‘Land Holder’ of that State.
‘What class of people should they represent? Who are the great body of
the people? Are they Lawyers, Physicians, Merchants, Tradesmen? No--they
are respectable Yeomanry. The Yeomanry therefore ought to be
represented.’[667] In Maryland a ferocious fight was waged under the
eyes of both Hamilton and Jefferson, for both were interested in the
fate of Mercer who had slashed right lustily at the policies of
Hamilton, making no secret of his belief that they were bottomed on
corruption. He had vitalized the democrats of Maryland, extending his
interest into districts other than his own, and arranging for candidates
to oppose the sitting Federalists in the House. McHenry, who kept
Hamilton informed of the progress of the fight, hoped to array the
German Catholics against the obnoxious Mercer through the intervention
of Bishop Carroll, whom he thought more influential than the better
known Charles Carroll of Carrollton.[668] A man was employed by the
energetic McHenry to circulate bills against Mercer, who fought back,
and gave blow for blow. He was charged with having said that Hamilton
had tried to bribe him in the Assumption fight;[669] that he was
personally interested in the contract for supplying the western army,
and privately engaged in the purchase of securities. This, Mercer was to
disavow, and Hamilton’s friends were to show that the conversation
between the Marylander and the Secretary had been in the presence of
company and in jest.[670] Even so we may assume that Mercer had painted
the incident black. He let it be understood that Washington wished his
reelection, and the celerity with which the President issued a denial
was probably due to the importunity of Hamilton who did not scruple to
use him without stint to further the cause of his party.[671]
In North Carolina the Jeffersonians, under the crafty leadership of
picturesque Willie Jones, contested every inch of the ground, determined
to retire all the Hamiltonians from Congress, and before the impetuosity
of their charge the Federalists were forced to fight defensively and
under a cloud.[672]
In the new State of Kentucky the Jeffersonians were thoroughly organized
under the leadership of John Brown, a Virginian, educated at Princeton
and at Jefferson’s alma mater, who had fought through the War of
Independence. ‘Brown can have what he wants,’ Madison wrote his leader
in midsummer,[673] and he took the toga. In Virginia the Democrats were
strongly in the ascendancy. The influence of Jefferson had been
strengthened by the acquisition of Madison, and Hamilton, in the course
of the campaign, wrote his famous letter to Colonel Edward Carrington
attacking both in an effort to satisfy the Virginia Federalists of the
justice of his own position, but it was blowing against a tornado.[674]
An amazing campaign document--this letter.
Thus, in 1792, if the Jeffersonians had not yet perfected their
organization, they had forced sporadic fighting, and the result of the
congressional elections was greatly to strengthen them in the House.
X
It was clear quite early that the Jeffersonians would not permit Adams’s
reëlection to go unchallenged. The press had teemed with controversial
articles on his books for more than a year. As early as March his
friends took up the cudgels in his defense. ‘Homo’ in the Boston
‘Centinel’ warned that ‘a detestable cordon of desperadoes’ were trying
to destroy public confidence in Adams by vilification.[675] Within three
months, Hamilton convinced himself that the opposition, in dead earnest,
had concentrated on Clinton, and hastened to warn Adams, who was
enjoying the placidity of his farm at Quincy.[676] It is interesting to
observe that this plan to displace Adams was interpreted by Hamilton as
‘a serious design to subvert the government.’ If the candidacy of
Clinton was annoying to Hamilton, the warning he received in September
of the possible candidacy of Aaron Burr was maddening, and he fell
feverishly to the task of denouncing the ambitions of this ‘embryo
Cæsar’ in letters to his friends.[677] Clinton ‘has been invariably the
enemy of national principles,’ he wrote General C. C. Pinckney in
ordering a mobilization for defense in South Carolina, and as for Burr,
he was a man of ‘no principles other than to mount, at all events, to
the full honors of the state, and to as much more as circumstances will
permit.’ Was Jefferson behind the conspiracy against Adams--Jefferson,
that man of ‘sublimated and paradoxical imagination, entertaining and
propagating opinions inconsistent with dignified and orderly
government?’[678] To John Steele in North Carolina he wrote in the
manner of a commander, to inform him ‘that Mr. Adams is the man who will
be supported by the Northern and Middle States.’ Of course, he had ‘his
faults and foibles,’ and some of his opinions were quite wrong, but he
was honest, and loved order and stable government.[679] Meanwhile,
painful complications were threatened in Maryland where a number of
notables[680] joined in a public letter rallying Marylanders to the
support of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.[681] This gave James McHenry,
an idolater of Hamilton, and still tortured by a persistent, and, as
yet, ungratified itch for office, his opportunity. He assumed the
responsibility for whipping the rebels back into line. These signers of
the Carroll letter had been imposed upon. The fight against Adams was a
fight against the Constitution--in keeping with the plan of the enemies
of government to drive able men from office. Had not Hamilton ‘whose
attachment to the Constitution is unquestionable’ been assailed with
virulence? Yes, from ‘the master workman in his craft down to the
meanest of his laborers,’ all were engaged in the dirty work. Thus the
submission of Carroll’s claims at so late an hour wore ‘a very doubtful
and invidious aspect.’ Was it done ‘to get ten votes against Adams or to
promote Carroll’s election?’ Was any one so foolish as to think that the
Democrats in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia would desert
Clinton?[682] This letter, signed by ‘A Consistent Federalist,’ was
copied by all the Federalist papers of the country.
Meanwhile, Adams, lingering lovingly on his home acres, showed no
inclination to return to Philadelphia, and it was reported that he might
not appear to preside over the Senate until late in the session. This
was an appalling lack of tact. Hamilton, assuming the rights of the
leader, did not hesitate. ‘I learn with pain that you may not be here
until late in the session,’ he wrote the loiterer behind the firing
lines. ‘I fear this will give some handle to your enemies to
misrepresent.... Permit me then to say it best suits the firmness and
elevation of your character to meet all events, whether auspicious or
otherwise, on the ground where station and duty call you.’[683]
By November the press was hotly engaged in the controversy, but poor
Fenno was to have trouble with his correspondents who were to convert
his dignified journal into a cock-pit. Adams was both pelted and salved
on the same page. His writings proved him a monarchist at heart, wrote
‘Mutius.’[684] His writings would be appreciated more a century hence,
said a defender in the same issue. Had he not already been vindicated on
one point in the appearance of the ‘gorgon head of party’? Freneau
cleverly replied by quoting a laudatory article from an English paper
paying tribute to the governmental notions of ‘the learned Mr.
Adams.’[685] Yes, wrote ‘Cornucopia’ in the ‘Maryland Journal,’ ‘it will
require the whole strength of the federalists to keep poor John Adams
from being thrust out of the fold.’[686]
And ‘poor John Adams’ was not entirely happy in his defenders. Why not
reëlect him, demanded ‘Philanthropos’ in a glowing tribute, for was he
not ‘a man of innocent manners and excellent moral character?’[687] ‘Why
not?’ echoed a scribe in Albany. He was ‘a reputed aristocrat, at the
same time an honest man, the noblest work of God.’[688] From ‘Otsego’
came a more robust blow at Adams’s enemies as ‘the jacktails of
mobocracy’ seeking the defeat of ‘the virtuous Adams’ because he was
against ‘anarchy and disorder.’[689] Wrong, wrote ‘Portius’ the next
day, advocating Clinton. ‘Untinctured by aristocracy, and a firm
republican, the patriots of America look to him.’[690] ‘Titles, titles,’
sneered ‘Condorcet.’ ‘This rattle which so peculiarly delights certain
characters.... He never appears but in the full blaze of office, as if
every place he went was a Senate, and every circle which he invited
needed a Vice President.’[691] Thus, throughout the fall and early
winter the lashing and slashing went on, but when the time came Adams
was reëlected, albeit the result was a bitter humiliation to the proud,
sensitive spirit of the victor. Where Washington had been unanimously
reëlected, Adams had a margin of but twenty-seven votes. New York,
Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia had moved _en masse_ into the
Clinton camp, and Kentucky had cast her vote for Jefferson. Five States
had gone over to the Jeffersonians, and the Federalists had been unable
to get a unanimous vote in Pennsylvania. But if Adams was hurt, Hamilton
could bear his pains, for the brilliant, dashing chief of the party
preferred that the uncongenial man from Braintree should not become too
perky.
Thus ended the first year of actual party struggle--Hamilton a bit
soiled by his descent to anonymous letter-writing, Jefferson greatly
strengthened by his silence under assault; the Hamiltonians triumphant,
but not exultant over the reëlection of Adams, the Jeffersonians, having
tasted blood, and tested their weapons, more than ever eager for combat
and rejoicing in their congressional gains.
Hamilton had tried to drive Jefferson from the Cabinet, and failed. It
was now the latter’s turn.