THE MARCHING MOBS
I
During the remainder of the short session of Congress, feeling ran high.
The Jeffersonians made a second foolish attempt to trace some act of
official turpitude to Hamilton, and signally failed. The latter was now
ready to go. His great work had been achieved with the establishment of
public credit. His official honor had been vindicated. Never had he
stood so high in the esteem of the commercial interests, the only class
whose good opinion he coveted. He was the leader of the leaders of his
party. With the rank and file he had never been popular, though always
admired, but he sought no popularity with the multitude for whom he had
a certain contempt. After years in the public service, he found himself
in poverty, confronted with obligations to an increasing family. Early
in December he wrote of his plans to Angelica Church: ‘You say I am a
politician, and good for nothing. What will you say when you learn that
after January next I shall cease to be a politician at all? Such is the
fact. I have formally and definitely announced my intention to resign
and have ordered a house to be taken for me in New York.’[992] A little
earlier he had hoped to take a vacation in Europe. He was ‘heartily
tired’ of office. Only the opportunity to quit ‘with honor and without
decisive prejudice to public affairs’ held him at all. Now political
conditions seemed favorable for an early retirement for the elections
promised ‘to prove favorable to the good cause.’[993]
When Jefferson retired, Fenno announced the event in two lines, but he
heralded the resignation of Hamilton in a glowing eulogy, double-spaced,
of the man who had made ‘two blades of grass to grow where none grew
before.’[994] This was too much for Bache. ‘America will long regret
that his work lives after him,’ he wrote. And why the fawning rhapsody?
Had Washington done nothing?--nor Congress?--nor the natural advantages
of the country?--nor the Constitution? ‘No, the Secretary was the life,
the soul, the mind of our political body; the spirit has flown--then we
are a lifeless mass, dust, ashes, clay.’[995]
But the sneer of Bache and the contemptuous fling of Madison, because it
was ‘pompously announced in the newspapers that poverty drives him back
to the Bar for a livelihood,’[996] could not rob the daring innovator of
his triumphs. The Lancaster Troop of Horse, dining, toasted him,--‘May
his domestic felicity be equal to his public services.’[997] The day the
story of this toast was printed, a hundred and fifty of the leading
merchants, capitalists, and social leaders of Philadelphia sat down to a
farewell dinner in his honor. Judges of the Supreme Court and
governmental functionaries were in attendance. When the project was
suggested, merchants ‘crowded to the subscription paper,’ and many were
excluded for lack of space. Toasts were mingled with convivial songs,
and wine, we may be sure, flowed like water. After Hamilton had toasted
the Philadelphia merchants, he withdrew, and he himself was toasted.
‘May he enjoy in private life that happiness to which his public
services have so justly entitled him’--and the rafters rang.[998] Two
nights later, the fashionable Dancing Assembly, celebrating Washington’s
birthday with a dance and dinner, took note of Hamilton’s departure with
a toast.[999] When he reached New York, he found another dinner awaiting
him, when more than two hundred people in his honor sat down at
Tontine’s Coffee-House ‘at the expense of the merchants of the city.’
There among the guests were the Chancellor, the Judges, the Speaker of
the Assembly, the Recorder of the City, the President of Columbia. More
convivial songs and stories, more wine and cheers and laughter, and
again Hamilton toasted the merchants--of New York. And again he retired
to permit the toastmaster to propose ‘Alexander Hamilton’ with nine
cheers. Reporting the affair honestly enough, the ‘New York Journal’
could not omit the observation that ‘few of our best citizens and
genuine Republicans were present.’ The editor had never questioned
Hamilton’s ‘financial abilities,’ but he doubted ‘the propriety of his
political principles.’ However, ‘in the language of the play bills it
was a great dinner, Mr. Hodgkinson,[1000] one of the managers of the
farce being present.’[1001]
Having been thus wined and dined, toasted and roasted, Hamilton retired
with his family to the Schuyler mansion in Albany for relaxation and
rest. Perhaps he could not afford the coveted trip to Europe--it did not
materialize. In April, Justice Iredell wrote his wife that Hamilton had
‘already received more than a year’s salary in retainer fees’ and that a
‘number of mechanics here [New York] have declared that they will build
him a house at their own expense’--a promise unredeemed.[1002] Hamilton
had hoped to open his New York office in May, but autumn found his
family lingering under the hospitable roof of the Schuylers.[1003]
Such, however, was his insatiable craving for power that he was unable
to forget, even for a month, the familiar field of battle. Enraged by a
triumph of his political foes on a measure in the House, he wrote
furiously to King that ‘to see the character of the country and the
Government sported with ... puts my heart to the torture.’[1004] Events
were not moving with the felicity of old under the successor of his own
choosing, and he turned spitefully upon some of his most faithful
followers. ‘So,’ he wrote King, ‘it seems that under the present
administration of the department, Hillhouse and Goodhue are to be
ministers in the House ... and Ellsworth and Strong in the Senate. Fine
work we shall have. But I swear the nation shall not be dishonored with
impunity.’[1005] Clearly he had determined to keep his hand on the
driving wheel from afar. The Cabinet was composed largely of his
followers, only Randolph remaining to plague him, and his days were
short and full of trouble. The Federalists in Congress could be directed
by correspondence--and should be; Washington not only could, but would
be kept constantly advised. Hamilton retired from office in January,
1795, but he was not to retire from power until Adams, repeatedly
betrayed, should drive the Hamiltonian stool-pigeons from his Cabinet
some years later. Meanwhile, a party crisis was approaching that would
require all Hamilton’s genius to save his party from destruction.
II
We speak of the ‘Jay Treaty’; the Jeffersonians called it the ‘Grenville
Treaty’; as a matter of fact it was more nearly the Hamilton treaty, and
it was certainly a Federalist Party treaty.[1006] Jay had arrived in
London, to be so graciously received and so lavishly entertained that he
had cautiously refrained from mentioning this unusual cordiality in
official reports. Thomas Pinckney, the regular Minister, who had stoutly
fought for American rights, was shunted aside. ‘If I should say that I
had no unpleasant feelings on the occasion I should be insincere,’ he
wrote his brother.[1007] But he accepted the situation with good grace.
In time, after receiving attentions from the King not previously
accorded America’s diplomats at the court, Jay sat down with Lord
Grenville to the negotiation of a treaty. The latter, a favorite of
Pitt’s, comparatively young, but rising rapidly because of an abnormal
capacity for hard work rather than brilliancy, was in no sense the
intellectual superior of Jay. In the first days of the negotiations, the
prospects were bright enough for the Federalist emissary. England had
previously faced and accepted the necessity for the abandonment of the
western posts, and she was not, at the moment, in position vigorously
and persistently to protest the other outstanding American claims. The
conditions on the Continent were far from satisfactory, with the
coalition apparently verging toward disruption. England was not seeking
another open enemy, and she could not afford the loss of the American
trade. But there was another danger threatening that was causing
Grenville no little distress--and this is where Jay held the high card
in the gamble.
The neutral nations of Europe had grown tired of the arrogant sea policy
of the English, and steps were taken for the unification of neutrals in
defense of neutral rights. Sweden and Denmark had ratified an Armed
Neutrality Convention on March 27, 1794, agreeing to join their fleets
for the protection of their peoples. Pinckney had been approached by the
Swedish Minister in London with an invitation to the American Government
to join. He had received the invitation with frank enthusiasm, and
thought his country would agree.[1008] This was all known to Grenville,
who was painfully impressed with the possibilities. He had put his spies
to the task of opening diplomatic mail and keeping him informed of
developments. Instructions had been sent to Hammond, the Minister at
Philadelphia, to exert all his ingenuity to prevent the United States
from joining the Scandinavian combination.[1009] The day that Grenville
sat down with Jay, the former had been informed by Count Finckenstein,
the Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the position of America
was doubtful, and that Jefferson had left the Cabinet to go to Denmark
to assist in the organization and consolidation of the neutrals.[1010]
It was Grenville’s cue to procrastinate on the treaty until he could
ascertain to a certainty just what the United States contemplated in
reference to the Armed Neutrality. Impatient over the delay, Jay
submitted a complete draft of a treaty on September 20, 1794, which was,
in many respects, an admirable document. When the treaty which was
finally signed was submitted with the other papers to the American
Government, the draft of September 20th was conspicuously absent--for
the actual treaty was an almost complete surrender of the claims of the
first draft, and its publication would have had a disastrous effect on
Jay’s reputation and on his party.
Ten days before Jay submitted his draft, Grenville was in possession of
a curious report from Hammond. The latter had been informed by Hamilton,
‘with every demonstration of sincerity,’ that under no circumstances
would America join the Armed Neutrality. This, Hammond understood, was
secret information on Cabinet action.[1011] Thus, through the amazing
indiscretion of Hamilton, Jay was deprived of his high card at the
critical moment of the negotiations. Hamilton was standing behind Jay,
to be sure, but he was holding a mirror, however unconsciously, which
reflected the American negotiator’s cards to the enlightenment of the
suave and smiling Grenville. From that moment Grenville stiffened his
opposition to Jay’s demands, and thenceforth the latter was in a
continuous retreat.[1012]
The result was a sweeping victory for England and the most humiliating
treaty to which an American has ever put his signature.[1013] It
provided for the abandonment of the western posts after June 1, 1796,
but there was to be no remuneration for stolen negro slaves and no
provision for ending the impressment of American seamen. The principle
that ‘free ships make free goods’ was surrendered and the contraband
list was extended. British claimants could appeal to the Mixed Debts
Commission without first exhausting their resources in American courts,
while the American claimants had to exhaust the resources of the British
courts before appealing to the Commission. The Mississippi was to be
opened to British trade; and the West Indian trade, which Jay was
specifically instructed to secure, was granted to American ships of
seventy tons burden only, and then on condition that the West Indian
trade should be wholly free to British vessels and that American vessels
should not carry molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton to any ports
in the world except their own. The East Indian trade was opened to
Americans provided no further restrictions should be laid on British
commerce. And Jay agreed to provisions--despite specific instructions to
enter into no obligations incompatible with our treaty obligations to
France--which amounted to an alliance with England against America’s
ally in the Revolution.[1014]
All in all, it was a rather disreputable performance which even Hamilton
admitted to Talleyrand, in a social moment, to be an ‘execrable one’ on
the part of ‘an old woman.’[1015] By a queer coincidence, Jefferson
described the treaty with the same adjective, as ‘an execrable thing,’
in a letter to Edward Rutledge.[1016]
However, Hamilton, familiar with the treaty long before it reached the
Senate, was willing to accept the ‘execrable thing’ provided the twelfth
article, forbidding American vessels from carrying cotton, among other
articles, to the ports of Europe, should be suspended. He wrote William
Bradford, the Attorney-General, in May, of his distress over this
article,[1017] and Rufus King about the middle of June.[1018] But he was
sternly set on ratification, against a renewal of negotiations, and that
was enough to determine the course of the Senate. There was no other
way. It was a Federalist negotiation. The negotiator had been chosen in
a Federalist caucus. The instructions had been determined upon in a
Federalist conclave. They were practically written by the great
Federalist leader, and the purpose served was in line with Federalist
economics.[1019]
Thus, when the Senate met in extraordinary session, its work was cut out
for it. For eighteen days the Senators debated in secret. The American
people knew that the treaty was under consideration, but they did not
have the most remote idea what it was all about. For eight days the
discussion was general; then the Federalists, acting under Hamilton’s
inspiration, submitted a form of ratification conditioned on the
suspension of that portion of Article XII which enumerated the articles
American ships could not carry to Europe. Meanwhile, the commercial
interests in New York were becoming apprehensive over the delay.
Hamilton was bombarded with anxious inquiries on the report that the
treaty had been rejected, and was able to deny it, writing at the same
time to Rufus King of the ‘disquietude.’[1020] Two days after Hamilton
wrote King, Senator Aaron Burr moved to postpone ratification and to
institute new negotiations, but this, with other hostile motions, was
voted down. At length the Federalist programme was pushed through,
Senator Gunn of Georgia voting to ratify. Ten Senators remained in
opposition. And then the Senate, with a keen appreciation of the
humiliating nature of the treaty, solemnly voted to ‘not countenance the
publication’ of the document.[1021] Such a high-handed proceeding,
predicated upon the theory that the people had no right to know to what
they had been bound, made an unpleasant impression even on Hamilton,
who wrote Wolcott that it was ‘giving much scope to misrepresentation
and misapprehension.’[1022]
But there was one Senator who refused to be bound in a conspiracy to
conceal from the people the people’s business. Stevens Thomson Mason of
Virginia had crowded into his thirty-five years as much patriotic
service as any of his colleagues. Although but sixteen when the
Declaration of Independence was signed, he had served as a volunteer
aide on the staff of Washington at Yorktown, and had been made a
brigadier-general in the militia of Virginia. In the few years that
remained to him, he was to earn an appreciation that partisan historians
have denied him by his militant challenge to the Sedition Law. Ardent
and courageous, he felt that the people had a right to know the contents
of the treaty, and, while the Federalist Senators were congratulating
themselves on having bound the Senate to secrecy, Bache’s paper came out
with the full text of the treaty. Mason had deliberately, openly,
defiantly taken a copy to the office of the ‘Aurora.’
Then something like a cyclone swept the land.
III
The injunction of secrecy and Bache’s sharp comments upon it had
prepared the public for something startling. ‘A secrecy in relation to a
law which shall rival the darkness of a conclave of a seraglio.’[1023]
‘Secrecy is the order of the day in our government--charming expedient
to keep the people in ignorance.’[1024] ‘What are we to infer from this
secrecy’ but that ‘the treaty will be unacceptable to the people?’[1025]
‘This imp of darkness,’ he had written, referring to the treaty.[1026]
When Mason’s copy reached Bache’s paper, it was eagerly seized upon by
the people, and copied in all the papers of the country. The people all
but rose _en masse_.
July 3d found the Philadelphia streets littered with a handbill urging
an attack on a British vessel at Goldbury’s wharf. That night the
streets leading to the wharf were packed with people, most of them from
the section of the laborers, with a sprinkling of the curious. The
Governor had ordered out some soldiers who prepared to meet the
emergency with stern methods. Until eleven o’clock the crowd stood in
sullen silence waiting for something to happen, for some one to lead the
assault. Darkly outlined in the night loomed the British ship, in front
the silent soldiers, behind them the angry crowd. Slowly this dwindled,
and before midnight the danger was over, but the sight of the ship had
not worked a conciliatory spirit in the people.[1027] It aroused the mob
spirit for action on the Fourth.
Throughout that day--an ominous quiet. Out in the suburb of Kensington,
the ship carpenters were planning a demonstration. This was postponed
till night because the troops were out in honor of the Nation’s natal
day. Eleven o’clock found five hundred men, mostly workmen, moving from
the suburb on the city. By the lights they carried could be seen an
effigy of Jay. This, according to rumors that flew over the town, was to
be burned before Washington’s house on Market Street. Then a feverish
summoning of the light-horse, little Paul Reveres hurrying from door to
door summoning soldiers to the saddle. Long before the marching mob
reached the heart of the city, the cavalry was drawn up on Market Street
waiting. On moved the mob in uncanny silence. Most of the people were
asleep, and only the bobbing lights of the marchers indicated that
something was stirring. No attempt was made to reach Washington’s house.
Through other streets tramped the mob in orderly procession, then back
to Kensington where Jay was burned in effigy. Just for a moment a pause
in the jubilation, when Captain Morrell and some of his men dashed into
the glare of the lights to disperse the mob and to be pelted with stones
and forced to precipitate flight. Only that, and an advertisement in the
papers the next day announcing the finding of ‘an elegant horseman’s
sword’ which could be recovered by ‘producing his muddy regimentals.’
Little damage had been done. Some one had hurled a stone through the
window at Bingham’s house, but that was all, aside from the bruises of
Captain Morrell, who had fought neither too wisely nor too well.
The next morning the curious strolled toward Kensington, where they
found the ashes, and a board stuck in the ground bearing the words:
‘Morrell’s Defeat--Jay Burned July 4, 1795.’ There, unmolested, it
stood for days. ‘I think an attempt to take it down without considerable
force would be attended by serious consequences,’ wrote a Philadelphian
to a friend in New York.[1028] The story of the burning spread rapidly
over the country, carrying its inevitable suggestion.[1029] While the
ship carpenters were nursing their plans at Kensington, the Philadelphia
County Brigade was celebrating the Fourth with a dinner in the woods
along Frankfort Creek, where the French Treaty was toasted, and those
seeking to supersede it were denounced as traitors. The ten Senators who
voted against ratification were praised for having ‘refused to sign the
death warrant of American liberty,’ Mason was eulogized, and the woods
reverberated with shouts and laughter over the toast: ‘A Perpetual
Harvest to America--but clipped wings, lame legs, the pip and an empty
crop to all Jays.’[1030] Three weeks later a throng assembled in the
State House yard to take formal action, with men of the first
distinction in the community on the platform. A memorial of denunciation
was read, adopted without debate, and the treaty was thrown
contemptuously to the crowd, which pounced upon it, stuck it on the end
of a pole, and marched to the French Minister’s house where a ceremony
was performed, albeit Adet denied himself to the mob; thence on to the
British Minister’s house where the treaty was burned while the mob
cheered lustily; then on to the British Consul’s and Bingham’s for a
hostile demonstration.
The Federalist leaders observed these demonstrations with misgivings,
whistling the while to keep up courage. Somewhere on the outskirts stood
Oliver Wolcott, who instantly wrote Washington at Mount Vernon that the
crowd was composed mostly of ‘the ignorant and violent part of the
community.’ Nothing shocked him more than the introduction to the mob of
Hamilton Rowan, the Irish patriot, and the swinging of hats in token of
welcome. Judge M’Kean swung his, Wolcott supposed, ‘because he expected
the honor soon of having the fellow to hang for some roguery in this
country.’[1031] Even more shocking to Wolcott was the invitation of the
colorful Blair McClenachan, as he threw the treaty to the crowd, to
‘kick it to hell.’[1032] Pickering assured Washington that there ‘were
not probably two hundred whom Chief Justice M’Kean would deem qualified
to sit on a jury.’[1033]
But it was not to be so easy to belittle the protest or to confine it to
Philadelphia. It spread--like an epidemic. In New York City, the home of
Jay, the feeling was virulent. The Fourth of July celebrations disclosed
the sharp divisions between the commercial interests and the body of the
people. With the merchants dining at the Tontine with Jay, the Democrats
at Hunter’s with the French Consul were shouting approval of the toast:
‘May the cage constructed to coop up the American eagle prove a trap for
none but Jays and King-birds.’[1034] The ‘Argus’ published a scathing
open letter to ‘Sir John Jay.’[1035] With the advertisement of a town
meeting, Hamilton and King sought to organize the opposition of the
merchants at a meeting at the Tontine when it was decided to contest the
issue at the mass meeting. An address, protesting against the method of
the proposed meeting, written by Hamilton, was given to the papers, and
circulated in handbills. The stroke of twelve found from five to seven
thousand people assembled, and the plans of the Hamiltonians were
instantly surmised. There, on the stoop on Broad Street stood Hamilton
himself, with King and a few others grouped about him. At the stroke of
the clock, Hamilton, without waiting for the organization of the
meeting, began to speak impassionedly. ‘Let us have a chairman!’ cried
the crowd. A chairman was chosen and took his station on the balcony of
Federal Hall. Instantly Peter Livingston began to speak. Hamilton
interrupted. Cries of ‘Order! Order!’ from the people. ‘Who shall speak
first?’ asked the chairman. ‘Livingston,’ shouted the greater part of
the crowd. But when he sought to comply, he could not raise his voice
above the confusion, though he managed to reach the swaying mass with
the suggestion that all favoring the treaty go to the left, and those
opposed to the right. A goodly portion of the crowd passed to the right
to Trinity Church, and Hamilton, assuming that only friends of the
treaty remained, began to speak. Hissing--hooting--coughing--his voice
was drowned. The orator paused, consulted his supporters, and a
resolution prepared by King was passed to the chairman to read. A
momentary lull, and then, finding it commendatory of the treaty, an
angry roar--‘We’ll hear no more of that, tear it up.’
Meanwhile, a stone struck Hamilton, without injuring him severely. With
a derisive smile, he called on ‘all friends of order’ to follow him, and
the Hamiltonians deserted the field. That afternoon at Bowling Green a
cheering crowd could have been seen burning the treaty, while in the
Fields another crowd was screaming its delight as Jay’s effigy went up
in smoke.
The next day the meeting reconvened and unanimously adopted resolutions
against the treaty, and the Hamiltonians called a meeting of the
merchants to protest against the action. This meeting of the merchants
is more impressive in books than it was in reality. The ‘Minerva’
announced that the treaty had been endorsed by a practically unanimous
vote; while the ‘Argus,’ more specific, reported that among the seventy
present, ten had opposed the treaty, and that these ten ‘own more
tonnage than the other sixty put together.’[1036] The minority of ten
publicly denounced the majority as ‘either inimical to this country in
the late war, or have immigrated to this country since that period.’
Having made the charge, they entered into details. Of the sixty
merchants favoring the treaty, only eighteen had been outside the
British lines in the Revolution, eight had actually joined the British,
six came to the country from England during the war and located in
sections held by the British army, and ten entered the country after the
war.[1037] At any rate, there were seven thousand people in the mass
meeting and but seventy in the meeting of the merchants.
The ferocity of the protest had a depressing effect on Hamilton, who
could imagine nothing less than ‘Jacobins meditating serious mischief’
to ‘certain individuals.’ Instinctively he thought of mobs, and
meditated on soldiers to put them down. He was afraid the New York
militia was sympathetic toward the mob. Time would be required for the
Federalists to ‘organize a competent armed substitute.’ He had thought
of the ‘military now in the forts,’ but understood they were ‘under
marching orders.’ Would not Wolcott confer confidentially with the
Secretary of War and ‘engage him to suspend the march?’[1038] The
majority were against the treaty--time to summon the soldiers. Nor was
Hamilton alone in this thought of force. Ames could see no other way and
was ready to ‘join the issue tendered.’ The moment was favorable for the
Government to show its strength. Then action--‘Washington at the head,
Pittsburg at its feet, pockets full of money, prosperity shining like
the sun on its path.’[1039] Within two weeks Hamilton, in the Assembly
Room on William Street was denouncing the rabble, declaring the
situation meant a foreign or civil war, and expressing his preference
for the latter. Meanwhile he was proposing a house-to-house canvass
through the wards for the treaty.[1040]
If Hamilton was alarmed in New York, and Pickering chagrined in
Philadelphia, the Federalist leaders in Massachusetts were stunned by
the intensity of the feeling of the mob. A protest meeting was held at
Faneuil Hall, with the venerable Samuel Adams participating with spirit.
Without a dissenting vote resolutions were passed denouncing the treaty
and praising Senator Mason for ‘his patriotism in publishing.’[1041] The
aristocratic leaders of the Federalists in Boston knew the futility of
challenging the throng. Declining the issue, they busied themselves with
the merchants and wrote explanatory letters to their friends. ‘Men of
reputation would not attend the meeting,’ Stephen Higginson, the
merchant-politician, wrote Pickering, ‘being opposed to the town’s
taking up the subject. They were left wholly to themselves; no attempt
was made to counteract them, though nine merchants out of ten reprobated
the procedure.’ The people, to be sure, were excited, for had not Bache
been to Boston ‘with a large collection of lies of riots in Philadelphia
and New York to create a flame here.’[1042] Cabot, more truthful, was
lamenting about the same time that ‘some of our most respectable men
have on this occasion joined the Jacobins and very many of them
acquiesced in their proceedings.’[1043] Ames could not restrain his
disgust because many of the rich had participated. Even so, these
clever, tireless Massachusetts leaders were not inactive. After all,
what were the farmers, artisans, and lawyers compared with the
merchants? One merchant was more influential with them than a thousand
tillers of the soil. Thus, they summoned the Chambers of Commerce to
action, and resolutions were passed endorsing the treaty. ‘The
proceedings are to be transmitted to the President,’ wrote the
complacent Cabot to Wolcott.[1044]
But that did not end the treaty fight in Boston, for throughout the
summer the indignation of the people simmered and occasionally boiled
over. The ‘rabble’ had to have its fling. On the walls enclosing the
home of Robert Treat Paine were chalked the words: ‘Damn John Jay! Damn
every one who won’t damn John Jay! Damn every one who won’t put lights
in his windows and sit up all night damning John Jay!’[1045] Then, early
in September, a great crowd marched through the crooked, narrow streets
with a figure representing Jay; and the next day it reappeared with
another effigy of Jay with a watermelon head, and marched noisily
through the principal streets to the home of Samuel Adams who appeared
and smiled approvingly upon the scene. A few days later, Jay was burned
in effigy at Oliver’s Wharf, and the home of the editor of the ‘Federal
Orrery’ was attacked with bricks and stones.[1046] The non-participants
observed that the Federalist leaders were more outraged at the burning
of the effigy than over the action of a British man-of-war that sailed
into the harbor and helped itself to anything it wanted.[1047]
Fisher Ames ascribed the mob spirit to ‘a few young men who have lost
property by British captures.’ Just a few, he said--mostly boys with
fifes and drums. ‘The anti-treaty men were ashamed of the
business.’[1048] The Boston Federalists preferred to fight the mob with
merchants’ resolutions and their barbed wit. ‘The reason given by the
Jacobins for not reading the treaty,’ wrote Russell in the ‘Centinel,’
‘is that no person ought to read what he knows to be bad.’[1049]
Meanwhile, the leaders were busy as swarming bees all over
Massachusetts, drumming up the merchants, soliciting resolutions,
exerting influence to prevent town meetings. ‘At Salem the respectable
people are all acquiescent; and many of them approve but think it
inadvisable to act,’ wrote Cabot to Wolcott. ‘At Newburyport, the
principal merchants are also well satisfied; and some steps have been
taken to bring them to express their opinions.’[1050] With the merchants
acquiescent, and the principal merchants satisfied, need any one worry
over the marching multitudes?
But alas, in commercial Charleston, home of the Pinckneys and William
Smith--there, too, the marching mobs, and mingling with them some of the
rich and aristocratic. Here was the most bitter disappointment of all.
It began in the Senate when the patrician South Carolina Senator Pierce
Butler, cousin of the Duke of Ormond, refused to vote for ratification.
Nothing of the rabble about him or his charming wife. When the treaty
reached Charleston, the flags of the city were lowered to half-mast. The
treaty was burned ‘amidst shouts of abhorrence’--nor was there anything
clandestine about the burning. It was duly advertised in advance. ‘This
evening at 8 o’clock,’ read the notice, ‘will be burned by the public
executioner near the old Market in Broad street, the treaty proposed to
be established between Great Britain and America to show the disapproval
of the citizens of Charleston. Also an effigy of Jay will be burned.’
Taking cognizance of rumors of possible interference, the ‘satellites of
anarchy,’ were promised ‘tar and feathers.’ These took the hint and both
the treaty and Jay crackled in the flames.
Then followed a formal meeting of protest in the Exchange--a great
crowd--many veterans of the Revolution--an adjournment to Saint
Michael’s Church to accommodate the throng. Then rose a figure familiar
to the generation of the Revolution, and then Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States, John Rutledge. An able man was
Rutledge, with a luminous career. Speaking with vigorous eloquence,
analyzing the treaty as he proceeded, he denounced it as a betrayal of
American interests and an insult to American manhood.[1051] At a
subsequent meeting condemnatory resolutions were adopted, Butler was
lauded, and Senator Read, who had voted to ratify, was denounced as
‘unworthy of any further public trust.’[1052] In the midst of this
meeting there was a stir of anticipation when the popular orator Charles
Pinckney, just arrived from his country place and covered with dust,
strode into the room and claimed recognition. His was one of the
fiercest excoriations of the year, and a few days later this speech,
revised, appeared in the ‘City Gazette,’ to be copied by all the papers
inimical to the treaty in the country. A master of the philippic, he
poured oil upon the flames.[1053] In parish after parish, meetings were
called and the treaty denounced. The Federalists were appalled at the
action of Rutledge, and he who had been numbered among ‘the wise and the
good’ became a symbol of unspeakable depravity over night. It was
suddenly discovered that he whom Washington had deliberately chosen for
Chief Justice was ‘insane.’[1054] In the ‘Centinel’ of Boston appeared
an open letter to him declaring him unfit to sit upon the Bench--because
of his hostility to the document of Jay.[1055] The private
correspondence of the Federalist leaders bristled with abuse, and plans
were immediately made to reject his nomination in the Senate.
In North Carolina the opposition was even more bitter, partly because of
the absurd surrender in Article XII, and partly because of the provision
which threw the property rights of Americans into jeopardy.[1056] This
one provision was said to affect half the lands in the State, and there
was wild talk of resisting it by force.[1057] Even Senator Johnson,
Federalist, was shocked and disgusted. ‘A hasty performance’ at best,
and one which greatly lowered his opinion of Jay’s ability.[1058]
William R. Davie, however, was outraged at the opposition and thought
the treatment of Jay measured ‘the baseness of human nature.’[1059]
In Virginia the people were infuriated. They, too, were affected by
Article IX, and on the day the treaty was signed, Grenville presented
Jay with papers which began the long litigation over the Fairfax estate;
and more than any other State she was a sufferer from the loss of
negroes carried away by the British troops. In 1791, Cornwallis had
taken thirty thousand slaves, of whom all but three thousand had died
of smallpox and fever. When a mass meeting was convened at Richmond, the
Federalist leaders had another shock when the celebrated Chancellor
Wythe, a powerful figure at the American Bar, took the chair--‘a
circumstance,’ wrote Madison to Jefferson, ‘which will not be without
its weight, especially as he presided at the former meeting in favor of
the Proclamation.’[1060] Here the treaty was denounced as ‘insulting to
the dignity, injurious to the interests, dangerous to the security, and
repugnant to the Constitution, of the United States.’[1061] Patrick
Henry thought it ‘a very bad one indeed.’[1062] And so thought the
Virginians generally. At Petersburg a tribute was paid Senator Mason and
Jay was burned in effigy.[1063]
Still another blow fell to the Federalists when Senator John Langdon of
New Hampshire, who had supported Hamilton’s financial policies, deserted
on the treaty. The merchants of Portsmouth--a sacred class with the
Hamiltonians--shared in the general protest. A mass meeting was called
at the State House. ‘Your only hope is in the President,’ ran the
handbills. ‘Assemble, then, to a man; shut up your shops; repair to the
State House; remonstrate.’[1064] And never had Portsmouth seen so great
a throng. The treaty was denounced, Langdon approved, Mason praised for
giving out the document ‘unduly withheld by the Senate from the people.’
When Langdon returned, he was given a public dinner at the Assembly Room
with practically every merchant and tradesman gathered about the board.
Stinging toasts, patriotic songs, a stirring speech from Langdon--who at
this time aligned himself with the Jeffersonians and became their leader
in New Hampshire.[1065]
Even so, the Federalists held the line fairly well in New England. In
Vermont, where the treaty was the sole topic of conversation, there were
no public meetings. The Democratic Societies of the State had fallen
under the frown of Washington, and rough-and-ready Matthew Lyon had not
assumed the leadership. As late as September, ‘Vermont Farmer,’
complaining of non-action, urged that meetings be called in every town
and county--but nothing was done.[1066] In Connecticut, where the
preachers, professors, and politicians had the people cowed, there was
scarcely a whimper. ‘I have heard little said by our people about the
treaty,’ wrote Governor Wolcott to his son. ‘Our people are calm and
hard at work.’[1067] In New Jersey a mass meeting was held at Trenton in
the State House and the treaty denounced--with numerous township
meetings following in its wake.[1068] The sentiment generally was
hostile. Another meeting at Newport, Rhode Island, and another sweeping
denunciation.[1069] In Delaware the opposition was overwhelming, even
the Cincinnati at its Fourth of July dinner at Newcastle drinking
heartily to the toast: ‘John Jay, may he enjoy all the benefits of
purgatory,’[1070] while the diners at a more popular dinner drank, ‘His
Excellency, John Jay ... may he and his treason be forever politically
damned.’[1071] In August the people of Wilmington crowded the Upper
Market House in protest, with men like Cæsar Rodney and John Dickinson
participating.[1072]
In Georgia, where the popular sense had been betrayed by the
ratification vote of Senator Gunn, the bitterness was sizzling. One day
the people gathered about a poster in the Market at Savannah inviting
them to meet the next day at the Court-House and join in the burning of
John Jay in effigy. Most of the town responded. There they found the
effigies of Jay and Gunn on a cart. Forming in procession, with the cart
in front, they paraded through the numerous streets, along the Bay and
back to the Court-House, and thence to the South Common where the
gallows stood. Halters were put about the necks of Jay and the offending
Senator, solemnly the accusation of treason was read to them, and they
were given to the flames.[1073]
In Maryland the Federalists whistled hard to sustain their courage, and
made a brave effort to close their eyes to the situation. Representative
Murray wrote encouragingly to Wolcott that among the men gathered for
the General Court ‘nine tenths ... from all the counties approved the
treaty.’[1074] In Baltimore the merchants rallied and sought to
intimidate Sam Smith, their Representative, by the circulation of a
paper of instructions. He hastened home to suppress it, and failing,
had a set of counter-instructions started. But there was no magic in
pretense, and soon Murray, himself intimidated, was writing of his
decision to retire with the admission that on the Eastern Shore there
‘had been more agitation than I had imagined.’[1075]
IV
These marching mobs, mass meetings, resolutions and petitions, and
burning effigies give no conception of the popular ferment. Never had
the people been more agitated or outraged. Whenever two men met, whether
bankers or bakers, the treaty was the topic of their talk. In taverns,
where travelers were promiscuously packed like sardines in a box, the
quarreling made night hideous and sleep impossible. In the bar-rooms,
men, in their cups, disputed and fought. The stage-coaches were a forum,
the crossroads store a battle-ground. An English tourist, finding
himself in a wayside tavern, was driven to distraction by the noise of
combat. The farmers were against the treaty, the lawyers for it, and
they debated with passion, with more heat than light. Assigned to a room
with five or six beds, the forlorn foreigner was forced to listen to the
continuance of the struggle until at length ‘sleep closed their eyes and
happily their mouths at the same time.’[1076] The Duc de la Liancourt,
journeying through upper New York, was swept into the maelstrom of
controversy and had to record his own opinions in his ‘Travels.’[1077]
When the messenger from the Boston mass meeting reached New York,
hurrying to Philadelphia, Greenleaf stopped his press to print the story
of the incident.[1078] Soon the anti-treaty press was publishing
statistics on public sentiment--the mass meetings against the select
gatherings of the merchants. Fifteen thousand people had met and
denounced the treaty, and seven hundred had approved it, according to
the ‘Independent Chronicle.’[1079]
Meanwhile, Washington was causing the Federalists some uneasiness. As
late as July 31st, he had written Pickering evincing a desire to know
public sentiment. Had the Jacobins captured Washington? Wolcott was
painfully depressed lest America lose the respect of England. What
would she think with their ‘Minister’s house insulted by a mob, their
flag dragged through the streets as in Charleston ... a driveler and a
fool appointed Chief Justice’ by Washington?[1080] Only the day before,
Washington was writing of his alarm lest France resent a treaty she had
some right to resent.[1081] Clearly Washington required some attention.
V
The President held the treaty seven weeks before signing, and this put
the Federalist leaders to the torture. Among themselves they made no
concealment of their chagrin and indignation. Cabot, writing to King,
confessed that the President’s hesitation ‘renews my anxiety for the
welfare of the country.’ He would suggest to the Boston merchants that
they make ‘a manly declaration of their sentiments’ to Washington. He
had ‘too much respect for the character of the President to believe that
he can be deterred from his duty by the clamor or menaces of these city
mobs,’ but he realized that something should be done to counteract their
influence.[1082] If Cabot kept a rein on his patience, it was not true
of all. In a great house known as ‘Elmwood’ at Windsor, Connecticut,
surrounded by elm trees and filled with books and religion, a stern and
forceful master was literally walking the floor, and tossing restlessly
on a sleepless bed, for Oliver Ellsworth was doubting Washington’s
firmness and courage. In bitterness he was writing that ‘if the
President decides right or wrong or does not decide soon his good
fortune will forsake him.’[1083] In commercial circles in New York many
were already turning upon the man they made a virtue of pretending to
worship. About the middle of July, Washington and his family left
Philadelphia for Mount Vernon, he in a two-horse phaëton for one, his
family in a coach with four horses and two servants, another servant
leading a saddle horse--and without giving the slightest intimation of
his intention.[1084]
Then came the scandal involving Randolph and the French Minister Faucet.
There was infinite joy in the Federalist camp. Pickering and Randolph
hastened a summons to Washington to return. There was a dramatic scene,
in which Washington is described as winking at Pickering, and setting a
trap for his Secretary of State, who was the sole member of his original
Cabinet chosen by the President to please himself. Randolph was
dismissed--and Washington signed the treaty. The merits of the treaty
were in no wise affected by anything Randolph may have done, and it is
fair to assume that there was no connection between the disgracing of
the Secretary and the signing.[1085] The strategy of the Federalist now
outlined itself, and Washington became the treaty and the treaty became
Washington, and to oppose the treaty was to insult Washington. The
popular President was literally pushed to the front line in the fight.
Pickering was writing Jay suggesting that Washington be persuaded to
issue ‘a solemn public declaration ... of the principles of his
Administration,’ appealing to the record of his life ‘for the purity and
patriotism of his conduct’;[1086] and Jay was replying that while ‘in
many respects useful,’ he doubted the wisdom.[1087] Christopher Gore was
writing King inquiring if it were not ‘possible for Col. Hamilton and
yourself to induce the President to adopt some measures that would
decidedly express his sentiments in favor of the treaty.’ He was
positive that ‘in New England the word of the President would save the
Government.’[1088]
This plan of using the prestige of Washington for a party measure was
not made for this particular occasion. Pickering and Gore wrote on the
same day,[1089] one from Philadelphia, and the other from Boston. It had
long been a favorite feature in the party strategy. Ellsworth regained
his composure and wrote Wolcott that ‘the current I believe is turning
in Massachusetts, though you may perhaps hear of some obscure town
meetings.’[1090] Senator James Ross, writing to Pickering from
Pittsburgh, thought that after all it was well that Washington had taken
his time. ‘His sanction after hearing all the objections will quiet the
minds of the thoughtful.’[1091]
All that was required to make Washington the issue in the treaty fight
was a stupid attack upon him from the Democratic press, and that was
instantly forthcoming. When Fenno’s paper announced that the treaty had
been signed, Bache wrote that since ‘no information has been filed for a
libel on the Executive ... it may be fairly presumed, the character of
the President for patriotism and republicanism notwithstanding, that the
assertion is well founded.’[1092] And when a great crowd attended the
next presidential levee, Bache capped the climax of asininity with the
comment that ‘it was certainly necessary to let the public know that the
just resentment of an injured and insulted people had not reached the
purview of Saint Washington.’[1093] These bitter expressions convinced
the Federalists that the fight was not yet over. The public had too
bitterly and generally resented the treaty to be so quickly won.
Instinctively the friends of the treaty thought of Hamilton and the
prowess of his pen. ‘Mr. Hamilton might do great good,’ wrote Murray of
Maryland to Wolcott, ‘by giving the public his luminous pen.’[1094] Even
as Murray wrote, Hamilton sat in his office writing ‘Camillus’ for Noah
Webster’s paper. His health was failing at the time, but King and Jay
had promised to assist. For weeks and months the papers appeared,
thirty-eight in all, in the most effective argumentative style, covering
every possible phase. ‘It is to pass for Hamilton’s,’ wrote John Adams
to his wife, ‘but all three consulted together upon most.’[1095] Two
months after the series began, the enemies of the treaty were
circulating the story that Hamilton and Webster had quarreled because of
the latter’s decision to limit the number of papers. ‘More than a
hundred columns have already been run, to the exclusion of news, and the
people are tired, no doubt,’ suggested an editor.[1096]
Unhappily, while Hamilton wrote, England was up to her old tricks upon
the sea again. Scarcely had the treaty been ratified, when Pickering was
officially protesting against an outrage on the United States by the
British ship of the line _Africa_, and by the British Vice-Consul in
Rhode Island,[1097] and was writing complainingly to John Quincy Adams
in London that ‘if Britain studied to keep up the irritation in the
minds of Americans ... some of her naval commanders appear perfectly
qualified for the object.’[1098] The enemies of the treaty made the
most of these affronts. ‘A Loyalist of ‘75’ was urging Hamilton to
‘discontinue his laborious work of defending the treaty’ to give some
attention to the justification of Captain Home of the _Africa_, and to
the defense of the other sea captain who stole a peep ‘at Mr. Monroe’s
despatches.’ ‘Camillus’ could resume on the treaty after quieting ‘the
minds of the swinish multitude’ on these later outrages.[1099] Thus
Hamilton’s efforts were being constantly neutralized in effect by the
conduct of the English, and the ‘swinish multitude’ chortled not a
little over the doggerel:
‘Sure George the Third will find employ
For one so wise and wary,
He’ll call “Camillus” home with joy,
And make him Secretary.’[1100]
In truth, even as he wrote, Hamilton was raging not a little over these
stupid insults to America, and was writing Wolcott proposing that the
exchange of ratifications be refused until the order to seize our
vessels with provisions be rescinded.[1101]
Far away on his hilltop, Jefferson was observing Hamilton’s literary
efforts with real concern, if the rank and file of his party were not.
‘Hamilton is really a colossus to the anti-republican party,’ he wrote
Madison, apropos of the defense of the treaty. ‘Without numbers, he is a
host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they
can be finished; but too much security on the republican part will give
time to his talent ... to extricate them.... When he comes forward there
is no one but yourself who can meet him. For God’s sake take up your pen
and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillus.’[1102] But neither
‘for God’s sake,’ nor for Jefferson’s, did Madison comply. He was
enjoying his vacation with Dolly. Even so, the Federalists were still in
the woods on the treaty--and there was yet a memorable fight ahead.