THE DRAMA OF ‘96
I
Exuberant over their success in capitalizing Washington’s consent to the
treaty, the Federalists returned to Philadelphia in an ugly mood. With
celerity and _éclat_, the Senate threw down the gauntlet with the
rejection of the nomination of John Rutledge because of his hostility to
the treaty. The motive was unescapable. He was an able jurist, an
erudite lawyer, a pure patriot with a superb record of high public
services--but he had denounced the Federalist treaty. That was enough.
The leaders were delighted with their action, Senator Johnson thinking
it would have been unfortunate to have permitted Rutledge to remain upon
the Bench ‘after what had appeared.’ Of course, the opposition would
‘endeavor to impress it upon the minds of the people that the majority
were influenced by improper motives,’ but that was unavoidable.[1103]
Jefferson viewed the incident from his hilltop with the vision of a
prophet. ‘A bold thing,’ he thought, ‘because they cannot pretend any
objection to him but his disapprobation of the treaty.’ It meant that
the Federalists ‘would receive none but Tories hereafter into any
department of the government,’ and it would not be surprising were
Monroe recalled from Paris because ‘of his being of the partisans of
France.’ Monticello was remote, but its master could see a long
way.[1104]
The Senate still seemed safe to the Federalists on their return, but
there were grave misgivings as to the House. Young Livingston had caused
trouble enough and he was back to give more than Ames ‘the hypo,’ but
more ominous was the appearance there for the first time of Albert
Gallatin. He had been thrown out of the Senate as speedily as possible,
but not before he had given proof of his financial genius. There, the
Jeffersonians had been weak in leadership. It was characteristic of the
inner circle of the Federalists to hate any opponent they could not
despise--and they dare not despise this young man from Geneva. Even in
private life he had been denounced and damned in the spirit of the
pothouse, and Hamilton had ardently hoped for his indictment in
connection with the Whiskey Insurrection. When his election had seemed
probable, an effort had actually been made to disfranchise his district
as a region of sedition--but here was Gallatin. A duel between
Gallatin’s father-in-law, Admiral Nicholson, and Hamilton had been
narrowly averted in the autumn; but Gallatin, rising serenely above his
detractors, had refused to be ruffled, and had advised his wife not to
express her sentiments on the treatment accorded him too hotly lest it
‘lead to consequences you would forever regret.’[1105] Since these two
brilliant, bitterly hated, and violently abused men, Livingston and
Gallatin, were to play conspicuous parts in the drama of the House, it
is worth while to pause for a more intimate impression of them.
II
‘Edward Livingston now lives here in the style of a nabob,’ wrote
Wolcott during this session.[1106] It was a style to which he had been
accustomed from birth, for he was of the baronial aristocracy of New
York. He was but thirty-two at the time, tall, handsome, dashing and
daring, witty and eloquent, and with a luminous background of wealth,
culture, tradition, and personal achievement. Even the most inveterate
snob among his political opponents must have envied him his advantages.
Born in the mansion of the Livingstons at ‘Clermont,’ on the Hudson, he
had passed his winters in the town house in New York, which swarmed with
slave servants. From boyhood, his society had been eagerly sought. With
his fleeing mother he had witnessed from a hilltop his loved home given
to the flames by British soldiers; and to his dying day he carried a
poignant memory of the parting of his sister with her hero husband,
Richard Montgomery, when he set forth for his final fight. Lafayette had
been so captivated by the charming youth while visiting his home that he
had vainly importuned his mother for permission to take him to France;
and when the young man attended the Marquis a way on the Boston road, so
romantic was the attachment that the latter had urged the youth to make
the journey, nevertheless, with the promise to conciliate the family.
His was a unique charm, a fascinating personality.
Graduating from Princeton, in the class with Giles, he had his choice
between a life of laborious accomplishment and one of leisurely
elegance. Society, the gayest, giddiest, most entrancing, held forth its
arms to him. His mother’s drawing-room was always crowded with brilliant
and beautiful women and clever men, attracted partly by the exquisite
charms of the widow of Montgomery. He had an income, a town and country
house, slaves to do his bidding, and he turned from the enticing
prospect to bury himself in the assiduous study of the law. Now and then
he laid his books aside to flirt with Theodosia Burr, to dance with the
pretty belles, to play for stakes with women at the gambling-table
inseparable from the more fashionable houses--but only as a diversion.
Scarcely had he begun the practice of his profession when he took a
commanding position. Hard work, a noble ambition, and native talent made
him a success. But he could not have been a Livingston and indifferent
to politics. Very early his capacity and popularity swept him into the
fight. Strangely enough, he immediately became the idol of the masses.
This aristocrat was a democrat who was able to move in the crowd with a
distinction that commanded respect while compelling affection. Perhaps
the artisans, the clerks, the lowly were flattered by his smile and
condescension, perhaps captivated by his fighting mettle--whatever the
cause, they loved him, gathered about and sustained him. The Tammany of
his time marshaled its forces for him, and all the wit and wiles of
Hamilton could not harm him. But the Federalists hated him. What moral
right had a man of wealth and intellectual distinction and social
prestige to affiliate with the ‘mob’? They hated him as deserters are
hated--he was an American Égalité to Mrs. Bingham’s drawing-room, and
Wolcott hated him less because he ‘lived like a nabob’ than because he
fought like the devil.[1107]
III
Quite a different type was Albert Gallatin--and yet both were born
aristocrats. From the beginning of the republic at Geneva in the
sixteenth century, his family had been second to none in prestige and
power. The governmental system was aristocratic; his people were
uncompromising aristocrats, and five Gallatins had been, at one time or
another, head of the State. Into this reactionary atmosphere he was
born, and in it he passed his youth. At the home of his grandmother, a
domineering but clever old autocrat, who believed in the divine right of
the aristocracy to rule, he often met Voltaire. Strange couple, that old
woman worshiping tradition, and that cynical old philosopher sneering it
away. And yet in his family Gallatin was an exotic. Instinctively he
despised the system his people thought sacred. Rousseau may have
influenced him, but he was probably born with democracy in his blood.
When his grandmother arranged to get him a commission in the mercenary
army of her friend the Landgrave of Hess, and he scornfully refused on
the ground that he would ‘never serve a tyrant,’ the old woman boxed his
ears--but without jarring his principles.[1108] He was a grave
disappointment in the family circle. It is a notable coincidence that
like Hamilton he was remarkably precocious. He graduated from the
Academy of Geneva in his seventeenth year, first in his class in
mathematics, natural philosophy, and Latin translation. There, too, he
had studied history under Müller, the eminent historian, and in the
facts and philosophy of world history he was to have no equal in
American public life. Nothing contributed more to his desertion of his
country than his hatred of its petty aristocracy, its autocratic rule.
He was a dreamer in his youth. Was it Rousseau who planted in him a
dislike of cities and a passion for the wilderness? Secretly he left
Geneva and came to America, landing in Boston. He carried a letter of
introduction from Benjamin Franklin to his son-in-law, the father of the
editor of ‘The Aurora’ at Philadelphia. A few dreary months in Boston, a
happier winter in a cabin in the wilderness of northern Maine, a year at
Harvard as a teacher of French, a short time in Philadelphia in a
boarding-house with Pelatiah Webster, the political philosopher, and
the lure of land speculation led him to Virginia. There, in Richmond,
some of his happiest days were passed. Society was courteous, kindly,
and there he came in contact with great minds. John Marshall invited him
into his office with the prediction that he would distinguish himself at
the Bar, and Patrick Henry advised him to go West, with the observation
that he was intended for statesmanship. At this time he was a youth of
twenty-one with a pronounced foreign accent. Washington met him, and,
impressed with his keenness, offered to make him his land agent--an
honor happily declined. Then into the wilderness of Pennsylvania; a
house on a hilltop which he called ‘Friendship Hill’; a domestic
tragedy--the death of his young wife; and soon the Whiskey Boys, keen of
vision as Marshall, Henry, or Washington, literally swept him into
public life.
He was primarily a democrat and an opponent of strong government.
Fascinated by the work of the Constitutional Convention, he thought the
Executive had been given too much power. But he was opposed to tinkering
with constitutions once adopted.[1109] As a member of the convention to
revise the Constitution of Pennsylvania, he worked as earnestly as had
Madison in the greater convention, fighting with moderation, but
persistence for a popular government, for the freedom of the press, and
popular suffrage. It is significant that when the subject of courts was
reached he sought the advice of John Marshall--and received it.[1110]
His views on the French Revolution were those of Jefferson. He
recognized the many excesses, the greed of demagogues for power, and he
did not expect ‘a very good government within a short time,’ but he knew
‘their cause to be that of mankind against tyranny’ and that ‘no foreign
nation has the right to dictate a government to them.’[1111] One glance
at Genêt revealed to him the naked man--‘totally unfit for the place he
fills,’ his abilities ‘slender.’[1112] Yet, like Jefferson, despite the
massacres in Paris and the Genêt excesses in Philadelphia, he clung to
France because, ‘if France is annihilated, as seems to be the desire of
the combined powers, sad indeed will the consequences be for
America.’[1113] If he opposed the Excise Law, as was his right, he had
a reason, and it was sane.[1114] The charge the Federalists were to
make, that he had incited the hard-pressed pioneers to violations of the
law, was maliciously false. Throughout that insurrection, his part was
hard, and he met it with sanity and courage.
This was the background of this remarkable man when, at the age of
thirty-five, he stepped forward with the confidence of a veteran to
assume the intellectual leadership of the Jeffersonians in the House. A
shy man in social relations, he was utterly fearless in debate. There
was no mind in that body so well stocked with facts, and none with a
broader vision or deeper penetration. There was no one more masterful in
logic, more clear, downright, incisive in statement, and none more
impervious to abuse. His was the dignity of a superior mentality. If his
foreign accent was still pronounced, and members, priding themselves on
their refinement and taste, sneered openly, he remained the perfect
gentleman, indifferent to such jeers. In the midst of excitement, he was
calm. When others were demoralized, he kept his head. No greater figure
ever stood upon the floor of an American Congress than when Albert
Gallatin appeared, to force notable reforms in the fiscal system, and to
challenge the Federalists to an intellectual combat that would call
forth their extreme exertions.
IV
One of the most important and brilliant debates in American history,
surpassing that on the Foote Resolutions, was precipitated early in
March when Edward Livingston threw a bomb into the complacent camp of
the Federalists with resolutions calling upon the President to lay
before the House the instructions and papers pertaining to the Jay
Treaty. There was some maneuvering in the beginning to feel out the
position of the enemy, and then the members settled down to a month of
memorable debating. On the whole, the discussion was pitched upon a high
plane, for the question was one of constitutional interpretation.
Throughout, there was scarcely a touch of personalities, albeit Tracy,
described by his admirers as the ‘Burke of Connecticut,’ and by his
enemies as the ‘Burke of Connecticut without his intelligence,’ could
not restrain a stupid sneer at the accent of Gallatin who led for the
enemies of the treaty. A Pennsylvania member denounced Tracy’s vulgar
conduct as ‘intolerable,’ and there were many cries of ‘order.’ With the
brazen effrontery of his school, Tracy asked Speaker Dayton to decide,
and that rather disreputable speculator, if not peculator, held it in
order to insult Gallatin with impunity.[1115] But this incident was
happily unique.
The Livingston Resolutions were based upon the theory that the House was
a party to the treaty in that it would be asked to make appropriations
to carry it into effect, and that the facts were necessary to the
determination of its course. This was in perfect accord with the
position of Jefferson.[1116] The Federalists contended that the
President and Senate alone were officially concerned, and that the House
was obligated to carry out any financial arrangements entered into in a
treaty. Did not the Constitution specifically say that the treaty-making
power was lodged in the President and the Senate? Conceded, replied the
opposition, but the Constitution also said that money bills must
originate in the House, and in making appropriations for any purpose the
popular branch of Congress is constitutionally bound to use its own
discretion. Both sides could, and did, appeal to the Constitution. There
was nothing merely factious or obstructive in the fight of the
opposition, and it is impossible to peruse the seven hundred and nine
pages of the debates without a realization of the complete sincerity of
the participants. Into the debate dashed all the leaders of the first
order. The galleries were packed. The discussion was the sole
conversational topic in streets and coffee-houses. The newspapers
printed the leading speeches in full. Even the Federal courts injected
themselves into the controversy, and one jurist introduced a
denunciation of the enemies of the treaty into his charge to the grand
jury.[1117] Fenno stupidly stumbled into the blunder of proving the
opponents of the treaty a ‘Robespierre faction’ by quoting the London
‘Morning Chronicle,’[1118] and Cobbett, the Englishman and Federalist
pamphleteer, selected this particular time to outrage the Philadelphia
‘rabble’ by filling his windows with pictures of kings, queens,
princes, dukes, Pitt, Grenville, and George III. With studied insolence,
he added some portraits of American Revolutionary heroes, and ‘found out
fit companions for them.’ Thus he ‘coupled Franklin with Marat’ and
‘M’Kean and Ankerstrom.’[1119]
The burden of the debate was borne by Gallatin, Madison, Livingston, and
Giles for the Resolutions, and by Sedgwick and Griswold against them.
Livingston spoke with spirited eloquence and with that power of
reasoning which was afterward to compel his recognition as one of the
foremost political thinkers of his time.[1120] Giles sustained his
reputation as a fluent, forceful, slashing debater. Madison spoke with
moderation; but the honors of primacy fell to Gallatin. He was a
revelation, and the Federalists were beside themselves with rage. Tall,
and above medium size, his fine face aglow with intelligence, his black
eyes burning with earnestness, his profile resembling in its sharp
outlines that of a Frenchman, his accent foreign, his delivery slow and
a little embarrassed, he spoke with a clarity and force that made the
Federalists wince. Livingston was more showy, Giles more boisterous,
Madison more academic. This new man was another Madison with greater
punch.[1121] He did not wander a moment from his argument--the
constitutional rights of the House in the case of treaties involving
appropriations.
‘The House has a right to ask for papers,’ he said, ‘because their
coöperation and sanction is necessary to carry the Treaty into full
effect, to render it a binding instrument, and to make it, properly
speaking, a law of the land; because they have a full discretion to
either give or refuse that coöperation; because they must be guided in
the exercise of that discretion by the merits and expediency of the
Treaty itself, and therefore they have a right to ask for every
information which can assist them in deciding that question.’ Whence led
the argument of the foes of the Resolutions? ‘The Constitution says that
no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of
appropriations made by law. But treaties, whatever provisions they may
contain, are law; appropriations may therefore be made by treaties. Then
the shortest way to carry this treaty into effect would have been to
add another article appropriating the money.’ Turning to the power of
the House of Commons in the case of treaties involving an appropriation,
he found an analogy to the constitutional power of the President and the
Senate, in the power of the King to make treaties. But no one in England
challenged the right of the Commons to appropriate or not in putting the
provisions of a treaty into effect--and the speaker cited instances
where the Commons had rejected treaties by refusing appropriations. ‘Are
we in a worse situation than Great Britain?’ he asked. ‘Is the House of
Representatives ... the immediate representatives of the American people
ranked below the British House of Commons? Shall the Legislative power
be swallowed up by the Treaty-making power as contended for here, though
never claimed even in Great Britain?’ The issue raised by the opposition
to the Resolutions was clear, and their rejection would be ‘tantamount
to saying that the House abandons their share in legislation, and
consents that the whole power shall be centered in the other branches.’
Such, in general, was the tenor of the argument for the Resolutions;
while the Federalists insisted that the House possessed no power to
refuse any appropriation called for by a treaty--and thus the discussion
went round and round like a wagon wheel in motion. Sedgwick, in
justifying the Senate’s power, made a blunder on which the supporters of
the Resolutions seized and with which they played throughout the
discussion. The Senators were safer than the Representatives, he
thought, because the former were not chosen by ‘an ignorant herd, who
could be cajoled, flattered, and deceived.’
At length the vote was taken, and the Resolutions adopted by 61 to 38.
Gallatin and Livingston, chosen by the House, personally presented the
call for the papers to Washington, who promised an answer after
consideration. An answer, sneered Bache, which sounds like that which
the King of France used to give to his subjects.[1122]
V
When Livingston introduced his Resolutions, Hamilton, in New York, was
momentarily at sea. His first impression was that they were ‘of
doubtful propriety.’[1123] Within a few days, after discussions with
‘those who think,’ he was persuaded that the papers should be
refused--possibly on the ground that no purpose could be served unless
impeachment proceedings against Washington were in contemplation.[1124]
Here we have, in a flash, the political strategy outlined--to convince
the people that the Jeffersonians were planning the expulsion of
Washington from office. Again the Federalist war-cry--‘Stand by the
President!’ But a week later, Hamilton wrote King that the papers should
be refused on the ground that the House had nothing to do with treaties,
and that they were laws of the land to which the House had to
conform.[1125] Learning of the adoption of the Resolutions, Hamilton
wrote Washington to refuse compliance and to await suggestions that
would be sent the next day.[1126] Two days later, he was mortified at
his inability to send the promised papers, but he was at work upon them.
Meanwhile, the papers should not be sent because the instructions to Jay
would ‘do no credit to the Administration.’ Some would disappoint and
inflame the people.[1127] Two days after this, Washington sent his reply
to the House, following Hamilton’s instructions and using some of his
phraseology, even to the convenient suggestion of an impeachment.[1128]
The House, with equal firmness and with a dignified moderation,
responded with resolutions reaffirming its right--and the issue was
made.[1129] Almost immediately the introduction of a resolution
providing the appropriation threw the House into another month’s battle,
on the treaty itself.
VI
Up to this time the congressional struggle had caused little excitement
among the people. Now the idea that the Union itself was at stake was
assiduously put out by the Federalist leaders. The Senate practically
ceased to function. When Senator Tazewell called attention to the
accumulation of business and urged action, King bluntly told him it was
purposely held back, and that if the House failed to appropriate for the
treaty, the Senate would consider all legislation at an end, and he
would assume the Union dissolved. The next day Cabot expressed something
of the same sentiment. In important commercial circles there was much
loose talk of the dissolution of the Union.
The action of Washington, on the other hand, had aroused resentment and
disgust. Jefferson, with his usual prescience, had foreseen it while
hoping against it. ‘I wish that his honesty and his political errors may
not furnish a second occasion to exclaim, “curse on his virtues, they
have undone his country,”’ he had written of Washington to Madison three
days before the refusal was sent to Congress.[1130] Madison thought the
tone and temper of the presidential letter ‘improper and indelicate,’
and suggested that Jefferson compare it with ‘one of Callimus’ last
numbers ... and the latter part of Murray’s speech.’[1131] It was
reserved to Bache, as usual, to strike the harsh note. ‘Thus though his
decision could not be influenced by the voice of the people, he could
suffer it to be moulded by the opinion of an ex-Secretary,’ he wrote.
‘Thus ... though he has apparently discharged the nurse, he is still in
leading strings.’
Meanwhile, the attacks on the Treaty were spreading consternation in all
commercial quarters and infuriating the Federalist leaders. ‘A most
important crisis ensues,’ wrote Hamilton to King a week after the debate
opened; and he outlined a plan of action in the event the appropriations
were refused. The President should send a solemn protest to the House
and a copy to the Senate. That body should pass a resolution strongly
commending the protest and advising the President to proceed with the
execution of the Treaty. Then the merchants should meet in all the
cities, adopt resolutions commendatory of the position of the President
and Senate, and invite their fellow citizens to coöperate with them.
Petitions should be circulated throughout the country. The Senate should
refuse to adjourn until the terms of the members of the House had
expired. Washington should send a confidential apology to England. ‘The
glory of the President, the safety of the Constitution depend upon it.
Nothing will be wanting here.’[1132]
Hamilton immediately set his machinery in motion, and thus, while the
debate was at high tide in the House, the political leaders were busy
with the country. King had written of the alarm of the merchants in
Philadelphia. ‘Our merchants here are not less alarmed and will do all
they can,’ Hamilton replied. Arrangements had been made for the
insurance people to meet that day; the merchants and traders would meet
the next. A petition would be put in circulation.[1133] Two days later,
he wrote jubilantly of the action of the merchants. ‘Unexampled
unanimity,’ he said. And more--‘persons to-day are going through the
different wards’--presumably with petitions.[1134] That very day he was
writing Wolcott that ‘the British Ministry are as great fools or as
great rascals as our Jacobins, else our commerce would not continue to
be distressed as it is, with their cruisers.’[1135]
The very day that Hamilton was writing of the distress of the New York
merchants, Madison was writing to Jefferson of the plans of the
Democrats. While a merchants’ petition had been circulated in
Philadelphia, he promised that ‘an adverse petition will be signed by
three or four times’ as many people. In New York and Boston similar
petitions would be put out. In Baltimore little could be expected, for
there, while originally against the treaty, they had been won over ‘by
the hope of indemnification for past losses.’[1136] Five days later, he
reported progress. The Philadelphia petition against the treaty greatly
outnumbered that for it, and petitions were being circulated in Delaware
and New Jersey. The insurance companies in Philadelphia and New York
were seeking to intimidate the people by stopping business. The banks
had been active peddlers of petitions in the cities where there was
‘scarce a trader or merchant but what depends on discounts.’ A hateful
picture, thought Madison. ‘Bank Directors soliciting subscriptions are
like highwaymen with a pistol demanding the purse.’[1137]
Boston found the Federalists triumphant in a town meeting dominated by
the eloquence of Otis, who played upon the horrors of war, and thus gave
Ames and the other party leaders their cue. It was on this occasion that
the orator, who had studied French under Gallatin at Harvard, and been
treated kindly, referred to the latter sneeringly as a nobody who had
come to America without a second shirt on his back. Later, to the
disgust of his Federalist co-workers, he had the decency to apologize to
Gallatin.[1138] Everywhere the latter was being deluged with
billingsgate. There was not contempt here--there was hate. Noah Webster,
in the ‘Minerva,’ was sneering at his foreign birth, while taking his
cue from Hamilton, born in the West Indies; attacking his position on
the excise with falsehoods and innuendoes; charging him with being an
agent of France. Adams, of the ‘Independent Chronicle,’ replied with a
parody, substituting Hamilton for Gallatin and England for France and
making as good sense.[1139] Wolcott was writing his father that it was
‘neither unreasonable nor uncandid to believe that Mr. Gallatin is
directed by foreign politics and influence.’[1140] Nothing could have
pained the sensitive Wolcott more than the feeling that he was being
uncandid.
Meanwhile, the fight in the House went on--Gallatin in the forefront.
The Federalists were thoroughly frightened over the prospect, resorting
to every device to gain votes. Dreadful pictures of war if the treaty
failed, appeals to ‘stand by Washington,’ and intimidation--these were
favorite devices. ‘I am told,’ wrote Wolcott, with evident pleasure,
‘that if Findlay and Gallatin don’t ultimately vote for their
[treaties’] execution, their lives will be scarcely spared.’[1141] But
frightened and afraid of a vote, they decided ‘to risk the consequences
of a delay, and prolong the debates in expectation of an impulse from
some of the districts on their representatives.’[1142] However, a vote
could not be indefinitely delayed. Public business was at a standstill.
Everything possible had been done. The bankers had been sent out with
petitions to their creditors. The insurance companies had stopped
business. The merchants had passed resolutions. Petitions had been
circulated. Washington’s glory had been pictured as in jeopardy. And the
horrors of war had been described. The time had come to close the
debate. The greatest orator in the country was their spokesman, and he
had been held back for the last appeal. The time had come for Fisher
Ames to make the closing plea.
VII
Fisher Ames was not only the premier orator of his party; he was one of
its most brilliant and captivating personalities. He had a genius for
friendship and was good company. Nature had blessed him with her richest
intellectual gifts. His precocity equaled that of Hamilton or
Gallatin--he was a prodigy. At six he was studying Latin, at twelve he
had entered Harvard, and there he was conspicuous because of his
scintillation. His powers of application were equal to his natural
ability, but he found time for relaxation when his animation, wit, and
charm, combined with modesty, endeared him to his fellows and won the
affection of his instructors. Even at Harvard he was ardently
cultivating the art of oratory, and the style then formed, while
strengthened by age and experience, never greatly changed. Cicero was
his model through life. During his preparation for the Bar, his appetite
for good literature was not neglected, and he delved deeply into ancient
history and mythology, natural and civil history, and he pored over the
novelists and lived with the poets--Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil. These
were fruitful years and the Federalists were to get the harvest. At the
Bar he instantly took rank as a pleader, but he found time to write
articles on the political affairs of the time. In the convention called
to ratify the Constitution, he disclosed the political prepossessions
that were to govern his career. While not hostile to a republican
experiment, he was skeptical of republics, fearing the domination of
popular factions. These factions he considered the rabble. Democracy, he
despised. He was an aristocrat by instinct and this guided his political
conduct.
He would have distinguished himself in literature had he devoted himself
to it. He wrote, as he spoke, out of a full mind, and his first draft of
an article required no polishing or revision. This made him an amazingly
brilliant extemporaneous orator. Although the slow processes of logical
argumentation were not beyond him, he depended more on illustration. His
mind fairly teemed with images. The poets had endowed him with their
gift. There was something Shakespearean in the fertility of his fancy,
and he delighted his hearers or readers with his rapidly changing
pictures. These came spontaneously, and, leaving an indelible
impression on his audience, they were lost to him with their utterance.
He scattered gems as though they were grains of the sea, and he the
owner of the sands of the shore. Remarkably enough, this did not lead
him to rhetorical flamboyance or over-elaboration. He was a master of
the short sentence, and he possessed rare powers of condensation.
In social relations he was lovable, but he carefully selected his
intimates, having no stomach for the commonplace person. His companions
were of the élite. Among them he was simplicity itself, and generosity
and kindness, but no man had a more brutal wit or sarcasm for a foe.
Above middle height and well proportioned, he held himself erect. There
was little in his features to distinguish him, for they were not
strongly marked. His forehead was neither noticeably high nor broad; his
blue eyes were mild and without a suggestion of the fire of domination;
his mouth was well formed, but not strong; but his voice was melody
itself. One who often heard him found that ‘the silvery tones of his
voice fell upon the ear like strains of sweetest music’ and that ‘you
could not choose but hear.’[1143] There was more than a touch of
aristocratic cynicism in his nature, and his favorite weapon in attack
was sarcasm, but he was ordinarily considerate of the feelings of a foe
in combat. No other member of the House could approach him in the
eloquence of persuasion.[1144]
VIII
Happily married to a beautiful woman, Ames had built himself an elegant
home at Dedham where he lived and was to die, but in the fall of 1796 he
had little expectation of lingering long to enjoy it. Nothing had
enraged him more than the popular agitation against the Jay Treaty, and
in the midst of the fight he suffered a physical collapse. In September,
he was unable to ride thirty miles without resting for a day.[1145] He
had consulted various ‘oracles’ and found that he was bilious, nervous,
cursed with a disease of the liver, and he had been ‘forbidden and
enjoined to take almost everything’--meat--cider--a trotting horse--and
to refrain from excess of every kind.[1146] In October, with the
congressional battle approaching, he had a relapse--‘extreme weakness,
want of appetite, want of rest.’ Faint hope then of reaching
Philadelphia at the first of the session, ‘if ever.’ Still, the cool
weather might restore him. Philadelphia, perhaps, by December.[1147] But
December found him at Dedham, with King writing him of the desperate
prospects in the House and urging his presence,[1148] and in January
Ames was writing Jeremiah Smith of his resolve to go on to Philadelphia.
‘Should this snow last, I am half resolved to jingle my bells as far as
Springfield.’ At any rate, on the morrow he would go to ‘my loyal town
of Boston in my covered sleigh by way of experimenting of my
strength.’[1149]
February found him on the way. At New Haven where he lodged, the snow
grew thin, and ‘there was great wear and tear of horse flesh.’ At
Stamford it was gone and he took a coachee. At Mamaroneck, twenty-five
miles from New York, he slept, and awoke to find the snow ‘pelting the
windows.’ Back with the coach, and a wait for the sleigh. Even so, he
wrote, ‘to-morrow I expect to hear the bells ring and the light horse
blow their trumpets’ on reaching New York. ‘If Governor Jay won’t do
that for me, let him get his treaty defended by Calumus, and such
under-strappers.’ Two days in New York--three more--and Philadelphia.
‘Do not let me go down to the pit of the Indian Queen,’ he had written a
colleague. ‘It is Hades and Tartarus, and Periphlegethon, Cocytus, and
Styx where it would be a pity to bring all the piety and learning that
he must have who knows the aforesaid infernal names. Please leave word
at the said Queen, or if need be at any other Queens where I may unpack
my weary household gods.’[1150] The day before this letter was written,
Bache’s paper said that the ‘ratification is not to arrive until Mr.
Ames has recovered,’ because ‘the subaltern officers of the corps not
being supposed sufficiently skilled in tactics to be entrusted with the
principal command.’[1151] Six days later, he announced Ames’s arrival in
New York.[1152] Thus, like a warrior borne to battle on a stretcher,
Ames entered the capital.
All through March he sat in silence listening to the debate on
Livingston’s Resolutions, groaning under his physical disability. ‘I am
not a sentry, not in the ranks, not on the staff,’ he wrote in disgust.
‘I am thrown into the wagon as part of the baggage.’[1153] With the
debate on the treaty itself about to begin, he wrote that he was ‘not
fit for debate on the treaty and not able to attend through a whole
sitting.’[1154] Thus he watched the swaying fortunes of the fight, sick
and feeble, but expected to save the day in a pinch. When he rose that
April day to make the final effort for his party, there was drama in the
general appreciation of his condition. That Ames enjoyed it, we have no
doubt. It was so much like Chatham carried into the House of Peers
wrapped in his flannels.
IX
Ames was a consummate actor that spring day. Not without art did he
begin with a reference to his frailty. Here was a man ready to die for a
cause. Impassionedly he pleaded against passion. The treaty, he said,
had ‘raised our character as a nation.’ Its rejection would be a
‘violation of public faith.’ It had ‘more critics than readers,’ and
‘the movements of passion are quicker than those of understanding.’
Lightly he touched upon the constitutional question, and then hastened
to his purpose--to discuss the consequences of rejection, to play on
fear. With this he expected to win his fight--with this he won. Reject
the treaty and leave the posts in the hands of the British and invite
war?
‘On this theme,’ he said in his most thrilling tones, ‘my emotions are
unutterable. If I could find words for them ... I would swell my voice
to such a note of remonstrance, it would reach every log house beyond
the mountains. I would say to the inhabitants, wake from your false
security, your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions are soon to
be renewed; the wounds yet unhealed, are to be torn open again; in the
day time your path through the woods will be ambushed, the darkness of
midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a
father--the blood of your son shall fatten your corn field. You are a
mother--the war whoop shall waken the sleep of the cradle.... By
rejecting the posts we light the savage fires, we bind the victims. This
day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom our
decision will make; to the wretches who will be roasted at the stake; to
our country; and I do not deem it too serious to say, to our conscience
and God. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of the wilderness;
it exclaims that while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the
other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that
will open.... I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance
and the shrieks of torture; already they seem to sigh on the western
wind; already they mingle with every echo from the mountains.’
How the frontiersmen in the gallery must have stared at this solicitude
for them from a Federalist of New England!
Then, in closing, a perfect piece of art. ‘I have perhaps as little
personal interest in the event as any one here. There is, I believe, no
member who will not believe his chance to be a witness to the
consequences greater than mine. If, however, the vote should pass to
reject, and a spirit should rise as it will, with the public disorder to
make confusion worse confounded, even I, slender and almost broken as my
hold upon life is, may outlive the governments and Constitution of my
country.’ He sank into his seat. ‘My God,’ exclaimed a Federal Judge,
‘did you ever hear anything like it?’ Crusty old John Adams wiped his
eyes. Accept, said Ames, or England will turn the savages upon you;
accept, or your Constitution will be overthrown; accept, or the Republic
will be destroyed.
The Federalists were jubilant--as was Ames, none the worse for the
speech. Soon Christopher Gore was writing him from London that he knew
his speech was ‘in the hands of Mr. Pitt, Mr. Dundas and Lord
Grenville.’[1155] The Jeffersonians were alarmed. Madison was bitter
because of the summons to ‘follow Washington wherever he leads.’[1156]
Soon he was to find that ‘the name of the President and the alarm of
war’ had done mischief.[1157] When the roll was called, several enemies
of the treaty had been frightened from the firing line. Patton of New
Jersey had a convenient illness. Varnum was unavoidably absent. Freeman
of New Hampshire had obtained leave of absence, and a newly elected
Democrat from Maryland discreetly withheld his credentials until after
the fight was over. By a majority of three the House decided to
appropriate. Even so, it was the most expensive victory the Federalists
had won, for the majority in the country was on the other side. Out of
the struggle had emerged a new great leader to serve the Jeffersonians,
Albert Gallatin. Jefferson had been so delighted with his speech that he
wrote Madison that it deserved a place in ‘The Federalist.’[1158] During
the remainder of the session, he was to cause much mental distress with
his fiscal reform plans and his attacks on the Treasury.
X
Jefferson had followed the fight on the treaty from his mountain, making
no personal effort to influence the result. It had not been so easy as
he had hoped to forget politics in the cultivation of his peas, and when
Congress met he had subscribed for Bache’s paper.[1159] He divided the
friends of the treaty into two classes; the honest who were afraid of
England, and the dishonest who had pecuniary motives. At no time did he
question the honesty of Washington. In his letters to Madison he poured
forth his innermost thoughts, but beyond this his correspondence had not
been extensive.
It is the fashion to set down as a pose his pretended indifference to
the Presidency in 1796, but there is evidence enough that he was deeply
concerned over his health. He had begun, as he thought, ‘to feel the
effects of age,’ and was convinced that his health had ‘suddenly broken
down.’[1160] In a letter to Washington touching on political topics, he
wrote that he would ‘put aside this disgusting dish of old fragments and
talk ... of peas and clover.’[1161] In July, with the Federalist press,
in expectation of his candidacy, intemperately denouncing his letter to
Mazzei, he was writing a friend his estimate of the height of the Blue
Ridge Mountains, explaining his plan for a moulding-board, and
expressing his indignation because of the silly attacks on the memory of
Franklin.[1162]
Fenno and Webster were working themselves into a frenzy over the letter
to Philip Mazzei, the Italian, in which Jefferson had frankly discussed
American politics. It contained nothing that Jefferson had not
repeatedly said to Washington’s face. ‘An Anglican
aristocratical-monarchical party’--this the theme. But he had hinted
that Washington had been captured by the aristocrats and
monarchists--and here was treason. Webster said so with all his
vocabulary, and there was some ridiculous talk of impeaching the author
of the letter after his election to the Vice-Presidency, but throughout
it all Jefferson made no public comment, no denial, no explanation. He
was ever the consummate politician.[1163] The announced decision of
Washington to retire made Jefferson’s candidacy a certainty, whether he
willed it or not. Three years before, the Democrats had decided. All
through the summer and autumn that was the understanding.
To the Hamiltonians the retirement of Washington was peculiarly
distressing. On most controversial subjects he had ultimately adopted
their view. More than one of their unpopular measures had been saved
with their war-cry, ‘Stand with Washington.’ With Washington eliminated,
it was vitally important to Hamilton and his leaders to find a successor
who would be more or less subservient. Hamilton himself was out of the
question for the reason that Hamilton had given--he did not have the
confidence of the people. Jay, who would have been the second choice,
would have been a red rag to the ‘rabble’ in 1796. Few of the other
leaders, with all their brilliancy and personal charm, could have made a
popular appeal; and Adams was thoroughly distrusted and disliked by the
Hamiltonians because of his independence.
Under these circumstances, Hamilton and King, consulting, conceived the
idea of persuading Patrick Henry to be a candidate. Just what appealed
to them has never been satisfactorily explained, for Henry had been
among the most bitter and brilliant enemies of the ratification of the
Constitution. With the acquisition of wealth, great changes had occurred
in the old patriot’s manner of thinking, and he had come to lean
strongly toward the Federalists.[1164] Fear of Jefferson and a desire to
break the solidarity of Virginia’s vote may have been a determining
motive. That an effort was being made to find a candidate who would
appeal to the South and West appears in King’s letter to
Hamilton.[1165] Whatever the motive, the decision to offer Henry the
support of the Hamiltonians was reached, and John Marshall was asked to
approach him.
The old orator was living quietly and happily at ‘Red Hill,’ his home in
the country, where he liked nothing better than to drag his chair out
under the trees, tilt it against one of the trunks, and, with a can of
cool spring water beside him, look out lazily across the green valley.
There, with his family and friends about him, he asked nothing better
than to be let alone.[1166] Motives of discretion and the limitations of
a letter dissuaded the chosen emissary from writing to ‘Red Hill,’ but
Henry Lee, who knew Henry more intimately, was asked to write him an
intimation of what was in the air. No answer was forthcoming. Very soon,
however, the old patriot would be in Richmond and Marshall would then
sound him, and, discovering an indisposition to embark on the
enterprise, would ‘stop where prudence may direct.’[1167] Thus Henry was
cautiously approached, without being given any intimation of the source
of the suggestion, and was found ‘unwilling to embark in the
business.’[1168] Thus ended the flirtation with Patrick Henry, with the
friendly conspirators hidden behind the fan.
Anticipating a declination, Hamilton and King had canvassed the
availability of Thomas Pinckney, the American Minister in London. ‘It is
an idea of which I am fond in various lights,’ wrote Hamilton to King.
‘I rather wish to be rid of Patrick Henry that we may be at full liberty
to take up Pinckney.’[1169] This was due to the feeling that ‘to his
former stock of popularity he will now add the good will of those who
have been peculiarly gratified with the Spanish treaty’--which he had
negotiated.[1170] Thus the inner circle of the Hamiltonians settled the
matter for themselves without reference to the rank and file of the
party.
XI
Thomas Pinckney was one of the finest gentlemen of his time. Tall,
slender, erect, with handsome features and a princely bearing, he was a
superb figure of a man. His manners were those of the natural
aristocrat; he was courteous, dignified, and charming. A perfect
self-control was reflected in the repose of his features and the tone of
his voice. Though of ardent temper, he kept a tight rein upon it, and he
became a master of persuasion and conciliation. A man of artistic
temperament, with a touch of architectural genius, he planned his own
houses, all imposing, and his town house in Charleston was the first to
have self-supporting stairs four stories high. His library was one of
the most extensive in the country. While lacking luster, there was a
charm in his personality and a solidity in his character that appealed
to men of conservative disposition. Born of wealthy parents, he had been
educated in England, at Westminster, Oxford, and the Temple, and he had
attended the fencing and riding school of Angelo in London. He had been
trained as one destined to command. Through his English experiences he
passed without yielding one jot of his robust Americanism, and he fought
in the Revolution and was once left wounded on the field of battle.
As Governor of South Carolina, he had served with distinction; as
Minister to England, he had stubbornly maintained positions that Jay was
to yield; and as Minister to Spain he had electrified the country with a
signal triumph. Matching wits with the celebrated Godoy, he had secured
a treaty establishing our southern limits from the Atlantic to the
Mississippi, making the river our western boundary, and throwing it open
to our navigation with an outlet to the Gulf and the privileges of the
port of New Orleans. It was this achievement, hailed with enthusiasm in
sections where the Federalists were weak, that led to his selection by
Hamilton and King.
XII
The campaign of 1796 was one of scurrility, albeit both Jefferson and
Adams, favored by the rank and file of the Federalist Party, comported
themselves becomingly. The party press teemed with silly attacks and
personalities. Adams was a monarchist, an aristocrat, a panter after
titles, an enemy of the masses, the defender of the red-coated assassins
of the Boston massacre; and Jefferson was a French tool, a friend of
anarchy, the inciter of the Whiskey Insurrection, a foe to public
credit, an atheist, an enemy of the Constitution,[1171] an incompetent
in office, and a plagiarist who had stolen his essay on weights and
measures from a pamphlet with which Noah Webster was familiar.[1172]
Worse still: Adet, the French Minister, ‘better supplied with money than
Faucet,’ was distributing it liberally in an effort to elect Jefferson,
and had sent agents into the western country in his behalf. Had not
Gallatin been seen ‘in frequent conferences with Adet?’[1173] A grave
disappointment, this Adet who had such a ‘handsome wife’ and had seemed
‘mild tempered, well educated and no Jacobin.’[1174] Then came Adet’s
letter to Pickering reviewing the complaints of France against the
American Government, and mentioning Jefferson pleasantly in connection
with his official acts--and the Federalists had an issue. France was
trying to dictate a President to America. Her Minister was
electioneering. Fenno and Noah Webster were hysterical, Hamilton was
pleased, Pickering, the new Secretary of State, was frothing so
furiously as to disgust the Federalist leader in New York.[1175] Madison
was disgusted too,[1176] and the notorious Judge Chase was demanding the
jailing of editors who had dared publish the Adet letter which had been
given to the press.[1177] What though Bache did point out that the
letter was written on instructions from Paris given before the
announcement of Washington’s retirement--it was a campaign screed![1178]
Soon it was the paramount issue, and the ‘Aurora,’ accepting it, was
urging Fenno to spare some of his indignation for ‘the scourging of an
American at a British gangway as Captain Jessup was scourged,’ and the
shooting of a brother of a member of Congress trying to escape from a
British press gang.[1179] Meanwhile, strange things were happening
behind the screen in Federalist circles.
XIII
Hamilton was planning a repetition of the scheme he engineered in 1789,
to bring Adams in second, with Pinckney first. He had never cared for
the downright Puritan of Quincy, and the latter had never forgiven him
the reduction of the Adams vote far below that of Washington in the
first election. During the first Administration, Adams’s vote was
indispensable to Hamilton’s policies on several occasions, and it had
never failed. Thus there was no opposition to his reëlection. But the
Presidency--that was different. It was evident that Adams was not a man
to be led around by the nose by any man or clique, and Hamilton had
never been a god of his idolatry. Thus, during the summer and autumn of
‘96, Hamilton was busy with a subterranean plan to substitute Pinckney
for Adams in the Presidency by arranging for Federalist electors,
scattered over the country, to vote to a man for Pinckney, while
throwing a few Adams votes away on other men. As the high man was
elected President and the second Vice-President, he expected to carry
his point by management.
It does not appear, however, that all his followers were in on the
secret. His ever-faithful servitor, Oliver Wolcott’s father, either knew
nothing of it or disapproved, for he feared that the juggling would
result in the election of Jefferson, to the Vice-Presidency at
least.[1180] In the event of his election to the Presidency, Wolcott
hoped ‘the northern States would separate from the southern.’[1181] As
fate would have it, the suspicious Adams anticipated some such attempt
to trick him, and his friends decided quietly to offset any possible
Adams losses by dropping a few Pinckney votes to a third party. The
result was a Jeffersonian sweep in the West and South, with the
exception of Maryland, where Adams had a majority of three. Of the
thirty-nine New England votes, Pinckney received but twenty-two, while
all went to Adams. Such was the result of Hamilton’s strategy. Adams was
elected with 71 votes, and Jefferson, with three votes less, had eight
more than Pinckney.
Thus the hated leader of the Democrats became Vice-President.
Then, too late, the Hamiltonians realized their mistake. Wolcott groaned
that Jefferson in the Vice-Presidency ‘would be more dangerous than as
President.’[1182] His very willingness to accept the position was
‘sufficient proof of some defect of character.’ Chauncey Goodrich was in
accord. ‘We must expect him to be the nucleus of a faction,’ he wrote,
‘and if it will give him some greater advantage for mischief, it draws
him from his covert.’[1183] Ames dreaded his election as ‘a formidable
evil.’[1184] Hamilton buried his chagrin in a cynicism. ‘Our Jacobins
say they are pleased that the Lion and Lamb are to lie down together,’
he wrote King. ‘Mr. Adams’s personal friends talk a little the same
way.... Skeptics like me quietly look forward to the event, willing to
hope but not prepared to believe. If Mr. Adams has vanity ’tis plain a
plot has been laid to take hold of it.’[1185] These hints at the
possible seduction of Adams were not without some justification.
Madison had urged Jefferson to accept the Vice-Presidency on the ground
that ‘your neighborhood to Adams may have a valuable effect on his
counsels.... It is certain that his censures of our paper system, and
the intrigues at New York for setting Pinckney above him have fixed an
enmity with the British faction.’[1186] Before receiving this letter,
the incomparable strategist at Monticello had written Madison that in
the event of a tie he should ‘solicit on my behalf that Mr. Adams may be
preferred.’[1187] Could he, by any chance, have expected this admonition
to reach Adams in any way? A few days later, we find him writing
directly to Adams expressing regret that they had been put in opposition
to one another. It seemed, he said, that Adams had been chosen. Of
course he might be ‘cheated’ by ‘a trick worthy of the subtilty of your
arch-friend of New York who has been able to make of your real friends
tools to defeat their and your best wishes.’ Personally, he asked no
happier lot than to be left ‘with the society of neighbors, friends, and
fellow-laborers of the earth’ rather than with ‘spies and
sycophants.’[1188] Four days later, we find him writing Madison of his
willingness to serve under Adams. ‘He is perhaps the only sure barrier
against Hamilton’s getting in.’[1189] Other letters probably phrased for
Adams’s eye went out from Monticello, referring to their ‘ancient
friendship.’ But he wanted no place in the counsels of the
Administration--and that was significant enough.[1190]
Meanwhile, the Jefferson letter to Adams, sent to Madison to be
delivered or withheld according to his judgment, was put aside. There
was a ‘general air’ in the letter indicative of the difficulty under
which it was written. Adams might resent the reference to Hamilton.
Again he might interpret Jefferson’s expressed preference for the simple
life as a reflection on his own ambition. ‘You know the temper of Mr.
Adams better than I do,’ wrote Madison, ‘but I have always conceived it
to be a very ticklish one.’ The Jeffersonian press had begun to speak in
kindly tones of Adams to the disgust of the Federalists.
Then, one bitter cold day, the family carriage appeared at the door of
Monticello, and the master carefully supervised the packing of the bones
of a mastodon which he had recently acquired and wished to present to
the Philadelphia Philosophical Society, of which he had been elected
president. Thus he reached the capital on March 2d, to be received,
against his expressed wishes, with gun-fire and a procession flying a
flag inscribed: ‘Jefferson, Friend of the People.’ He went at once to
Francis Tavern to pay his respects to Adams.
Thus the new Administration began, Bache sending a brutal parting shot
at the old--an insult to Washington.[1191] But the star of Hamilton had
not set, for Adams had foolishly retained the Washington Cabinet,
hand-picked by his ‘arch-friend of New York,’ and the congressional
leaders were still under the magic spell of the old Federalist chief.
That was the cloud on the horizon, small that day, but destined to grow
bigger and blacker until the storm broke, leaving much wreckage behind.