FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES--EUROPE AND THE UNITED
STATES--THE FEDERALISTS A CONSERVATIVE PARTY--ASPECT OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION--WASHINGTON DOUBTS ITS SUCCESS--INCREASE OF THE
REPUBLICAN PARTY--WASHINGTON'S RE-ELECTION--GOUVERNEUR MORRIS IN
FRANCE--OTHER MINISTERS--GLOOMY FOREBODINGS--JEFFERSON'S
IMPATIENCE--TROUBLES OF THE FRENCH KING--LAFAYETTE IN
DIFFICULTY--TUILLERIES ATTACKED AND THE KING DETHRONED--REIGN OF
TERROR--LAFAYETTE'S FLIGHT, ARREST, AND IMPRISONMENT--BLOODY WORK IN
PARIS--JEFFERSON JUSTIFIES THE JACOBINS--WASHINGTON'S SYMPATHY FOR
LAFAYETTE'S FAMILY--APPEAL OF THE MARCHIONESS--WASHINGTON POWERLESS
TO AID.
The foreign relations of the United States were at this time peculiar
and somewhat anomalous. Popular sentiment, the expression of the
sovereignty of the nation, was mixed in character and yet crude in form,
and it was difficult to discern precisely in what relation it stood to
the disturbed nationalities of Europe. Separated from the old world by a
vast ocean, the public mind here was not so immediately and powerfully
acted upon by passing events as it would have been, if only an imaginary
line of political demarcation had been drawn between the new republic
and convulsed communities; and its manifestations were less
demonstrative than implied.
All Europe was effervescing with antagonistic ideas; and the wisest and
the best men in the old world stood in wonder and awe in the midst of
the upheaval of social and political systems that were hoary with age,
and apparently as settled in their places as the oceans and continents.
France, the old ally and friend of the United States, was the centre of
the volcanic force that was shaking the nations; and with instinctive
motion the potentates, alarmed for the stability of their thrones, had
assumed the attitude of implacable enemies to the new power that was
bearing rule in that kingdom. As the car of revolution rolled onward,
carrying King Louis to the scaffold, they felt the hot breath of
avenging justice upon their own foreheads, and they called out their
legions for defence and to utter a solemn and effective protest. The
people were awed in the presence of gleaming bayonets. In the autumn of
1792, nearly all Europe was in arms against France.
In the United States, where revolution had done its work nobly and
wisely, and the experiment of self-government was working successfully,
sympathy for the struggling people of France and of all Europe was
powerful and untrammelled. Without inquiry, it cheered on the patriots
of France, with Lafayette at their head, when they were struggling for a
constitution; and when it was gained, and the king accepted it, great
satisfaction was felt by every American citizen in whose bosom glowed
the love of freedom for its own sake. With this feeling was mingled a
dislike of Great Britain; first, because the remembrance of her
oppression and her warfare against the independence of the United States
were fresh in the minds of the American people; secondly, because her
government yet refused compliance with the terms of a solemn treaty made
ten years before; and, thirdly, because her attitude was hostile to the
republican movement in France. Thus old alliances and old hatreds, and a
desire to see all people free, made those of the United States
sympathize strongly with those of France in their revolutionary
movements, and to hate the enemies of that nation in its avowed struggle
for liberty.
But there were wise, and prudent, and thoughtful men in the United
States, who had made the science of government a study, and human nature
their daily reading, who perceived principles of self-destruction in the
French constitution. They saw its want of balances, and the course of
the representatives under it, which must inevitably allow the gallery to
rule the legislature, and mobs to give color to the opinions of the
executive. They clearly perceived, what Lafayette and his compatriots
had already deeply lamented, that the true elements of self-government
did not belong to the French nation; that with liberty they were rapidly
degenerating into licentiousness; and that the constitution must prove
as powerless as a rope of sand in restraining the passions of the
people. And some of them, as we have seen, who wrote or spoke in favor
of a well-balanced and potent government were branded by ungenerous men
as the advocates of royalty and aristocracy, and held up to the people
as traitors to republicanism, and fit subjects for the finger of scorn
to point at. They were charged with blind prejudice in favor of British
institutions, and as conspirators for the re-establishment of British
rule in America. But the conservative or federal party, as they were
called, were more powerful if not so numerous as their opponents; and
when Europe armed against the old ally of the United States, the
government of the latter, professedly representing the popular
sentiment, was so restrained by the wise caution of those who held the
sceptre of political power, that it presented the anomalous character of
a warm-hearted, deeply-sympathizing champion of freedom, apparently in
the ranks of the enemies of liberty.
Washington had hailed with satisfaction the dawn of popular liberty in
France, and earnestly desired the success of those who were working for
the establishment of republicanism there; but his wisdom and sagacity
evidently made him doubtful of their success, even from the beginning.
In the course of his correspondence, we find him often expressing
earnest _wishes_ for the happy results concerning which Lafayette had
dreamed so fondly, but he never expressed a _hope_, because he never
felt it; and when, in the summer and autumn of 1792, the Revolution in
France assumed a bloody and ferocious character, and the noble goal
toward which his friend the marquis had so enthusiastically pressed was
utterly lost sight of in the midst of the lurid smoke of a
self-constituted tyranny, as bad in feature and act as the foulest on
history's records, he was disgusted, and with the conservative party,
then fortunately holding the reins of executive and legislative power,
he resolved that the government of the United States should stand aloof
from all entanglements with European politics.
The doctrines of Jefferson and his party, having sympathy with the
French Revolution and enmity to Great Britain among its prime elements,
was rapidly gaining ground in the United States, because the avowed
principles of that party were in accordance with the proclivities of the
great mass of the people, who were moved by passion rather than by
reason. Yet that very people, although aware of the sentiments of
Washington and his supporters in the government, re-elected him by
unanimous voice, thereby showing their great love for, and unbounded
confidence in, the man of men. John Adams, who was again a candidate for
the vice-presidency, was opposed by Governor George Clinton of New York,
and was elected by not a large majority. He received in the electoral
college seventy votes, and Clinton fifty. The Kentucky electors voted
for Jefferson for the same office, and one vote was cast by a South
Carolina delegate for Aaron Burr.
We have just hinted at the progress of violence in France in the autumn
of 1792. Let us take a nearer view for a moment; for such scrutiny is
necessary to the elucidation of political events in the United States a
few months later.
Gouverneur Morris, who, as we have seen, was sent on a semi-official
embassy to England, was appointed full minister at the French court,
after Jefferson's retirement from that post. Mr. Morris was a
federalist, and his appointment was not pleasant to Mr. Jefferson and
his political friends. With Morris's commission, the president wrote a
friendly, and at the same time admonitory, letter to the new minister.
He frankly enumerated all the objections that had been made to his
appointment, and intimated that he thought the charge of his being a
favorite with the aristocracy in France, and anti-republican in his
sentiments, especially as regarded the French Revolution, were too well
founded upon the tenor of his conduct. "Not to go further into detail,"
he said, "I will place the ideas of your political adversaries in the
light in which their arguments have presented them to me, namely: that
the promptitude with which your lively and brilliant imagination
displays itself allows too little time for deliberation and correction,
and is the primary cause of those sallies which too often offend, and of
that ridicule of character which begets enmity not easy to be
forgotten, but which might easily be avoided if it were under the
control of more caution and prudence. In a word, that it is
indispensably necessary that more circumspection should be observed by
our representatives abroad than they conceive you are inclined to adopt.
In this statement you have the _pros_ and _cons_. By reciting them I
give you a proof of my friendship, if I give none of my policy or
judgment. I do it on the presumption that a mind conscious of its own
rectitude fears not what is said of it, but will bid defiance to shafts,
that are not baited with accusations against honor or integrity. Of my
good opinion and of my friendship and regard you may be assured."
Count de Moustier had been succeeded as French minister to the United
States by M. Ternant, a more agreeable gentleman; and diplomatic
intercourse had been opened with Great Britain, by the arrival of Mr.
Hammond as minister plenipotentiary of that government, in the previous
autumn, and the appointment, on the part of the United States, of Thomas
Pinckney, of South Carolina, as minister to the court of St. James. Mr.
Hammond was the first minister Great Britain had deigned to send to the
United States, and John Adams was the only person who had been sent in
the same capacity from his government to the British court. For some
years there had been no diplomatic intercourse between the two
countries.
Mr. Morris arrived in Paris, in May, 1792, and on the second of June he
was introduced to the king and queen. Two days afterward he presented a
letter from the president to his majesty--a letter which, according to
Morris, gave several members of the _corps diplomatique_ a high idea of
Washington's wisdom. "It is not relished by the democrats," Morris wrote
to the president, "who particularly dislike the term '_your people_;'
but it suits well the prevailing temper, which is monarchical." Mr.
Morris was very active in his duties there; and while he communicated
officially to Jefferson and Hamilton everything necessary for them to
know, he kept Washington constantly apprized, by both public and private
letters, of the true state of affairs in France, His accounts revealed
shocking scenes of anarchy and licentiousness in the French capital. He
truly represented that Lafayette, in endeavoring to check excesses, had
lost his popularity. "Were he to appear just now in Paris," he wrote,
"unattended by his army, he would be torn to pieces." These tidings gave
Washington great concern; while Jefferson, because of the gloomy future
which these letters foreshadowed and the unfavorable commentary which
they made upon the French Revolution, was very impatient. With his blind
devotion to democracy, and his ungenerous judgment concerning all who
differed from him, he spoke of Morris as "a high-flying monarchy man,
shutting his eyes and his faith to every fact against his wishes, and
believing everything he desired to be true," and keeping the president's
mind "constantly poisoned with his forebodings."
Almost the next vessel from Europe rebuked these unfair expressions, by
confirming the most gloomy anticipations of Morris. Anarchy had seized
upon unhappy France. From the head of his army at Maubeuge, Lafayette
had sent a letter to the National Assembly, denouncing in unmeasured
terms the conduct of the Jacobin club as inimical to the king and
constitution; but it was of no avail. Day after day the disorder in the
capital increased; and on the twentieth of June the populace, one
hundred thousand in number, professedly incensed because the king had
refused to sanction a decree of the National Assembly against the
priesthood, and another for the establishment of a camp of twenty
thousand men near Paris, marched to the Tuilleries with pikes, swords,
muskets, and artillery, and demanded entrance. The gates were finally
thrown open, and at least forty thousand armed men went through the
palace and compelled the king, in the presence of his family, to put the
_bonnet rouge_, or red cap of liberty, upon his head.
Hearing of these movements, Lafayette hastened to Paris, presented
himself at the bar of the National Assembly, and in the name of the army
demanded the punishment of those who had thus insulted the king in his
palace and violated the constitution. But he was powerless. A party had
determined to abolish royalty. On the third of August, _Pelíon_, in the
Assembly, demanded that the king should be excluded from the throne.
The unhappy monarch, perceiving the destructive storm that was
impending, endeavored on the sixth to escape from the Tuilleries in the
garb of a peasant. He was discovered by a sentinel, and all Paris was
thrown into the greatest commotion. Two days afterward the Assembly, by
a handsome majority, acquitted Lafayette of serious charges made against
him by the Jacobins. The populace were dissatisfied, and, as they could
not touch the general, they determined that the king whom he supported
should be deposed. Members of the assembly who had voted in favor of
Lafayette were insulted by armed men who surrounded the legislative
hall; and the national legislature declared their sitting permanent
until order should be restored.
At midnight on the ninth of August the tocsin was sounded in every
quarter, and the _generale_ was beat. Early the next morning the
Tuilleries were attacked by the populace, and the king and his family,
attended by the Swiss guard, fled for protection to the National
Assembly. In the conflict that ensued nearly every man of that guard was
butchered, and the National Assembly decreed the suspension of the
king's authority.
Monarchy in France was now overthrown, and with it fell Lafayette and
the constitutional party. All were involved in one common ruin. The
Jacobins denounced the marquis in the National Assembly, procured a
decree for his arrest, and sent emissaries to seize him. Then the Reign
of Terror was inaugurated.
At first Lafayette resolved to go to Paris and boldly confront his
accusers. It would have been madness. He perceived it, and, yielding to
the force of circumstances, set off from his camp at Sedan, with a few
faithful friends, to seek a temporary asylum in Holland until he could
make his way to the United States. But he and his companions were first
detained at Rochefort, the first Austrian post, and afterward cast into
a dungeon at Olmutz.
When intelligence of these events reached Washington he was greatly
shocked, and the sad fate of his friend grieved him sorely. Every
arrival from Europe brought tidings still more dreadful than the last.
"We have had a week of unchecked murders," Morris wrote to Jefferson on
the tenth of September, "in which some thousands have perished in this
city. It began with two or three hundred of the clergy, who had been
shut up because they would not take the oaths prescribed by the law, and
which they said were contrary to their conscience. Thence _these
executors of speedy justice_ went to the _Abbaye_, where the persons
were confined who were at court on the tenth of August. These were
despatched also, and afterward they visited the other prisons. All those
who were confined either on the accusation or suspicion of crimes were
destroyed."
Morris then detailed other horrors; yet Mr. Jefferson, looking upon the
whole movement against monarchy and aristocracy as essentially right,
and based upon the same principles as that of the American Revolution,
persisted in regarding the Jacobins, who were the chief promoters of
these bloody deeds, and who had laid violent hands on the constitution
and its supporters, as "republican patriots." He was shocked, but was
neither disappointed nor very sorrowful. He looked upon the whole affair
as an indispensable struggle of freemen in the abolition of monarchy and
all its prerogatives and injustice; and he deplored the death of the
innocent who had fallen, but only as he should have done "had they
fallen in battle." "The liberty of the whole earth," he said, "was
depending on the issue of the contest; and was ever such a prize won
with so little innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply
wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause," he continued; "but rather
than that it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth
desolated. Were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country, and
left free, it would have been better than it now is."
When fully assured of Lafayette's fate, Washington felt an ardent desire
to befriend his family, consisting of his wife and young children. He
knew that their situation, in the raging storm, must be dreadful at the
best; and on the first information of their probable residence, at the
close of January, 1793, he addressed the following letter to the
marchioness:--
"If I had words that could convey to you an adequate idea of my
feelings on the present situation of the Marquis de Lafayette,
this letter would appear to you in a different garb. The sole
object in writing to you now is, to inform you that I have
deposited in the hands of Mr. Nicholas Van Staphorst, of Amsterdam,
two thousand three hundred and ten guilders, Holland currency,
equal to two hundred guineas, subject to your orders.
"This sum is, I am certain, the least I am indebted for services
rendered to me by the Marquis de Lafayette, of which I never yet
have received the account. I could add much; but it is best,
perhaps, that I should say little on this subject. Your goodness
will supply my deficiency.
"The uncertainty of your situation, after all the inquiries I have
made, has occasioned a delay in this address and remittance; and,
even now, the measure adopted is more the effect of a desire to
find where you are, than from any knowledge I have obtained of your
residence."
Soon after this letter was despatched, Washington received one from the
marchioness, dated at Chavaniac on the eighth of October, 1792, which
came by the way of England. It was accompanied by a letter from an
English farmer who had resided several months in the family of
Lafayette, in which, speaking of the marchioness, he said: "Her present
situation is truly affecting; separated from her husband without the
means of hearing from him, herself in captivity under the safeguard of
the municipality, she is anxiously expecting the decision of his and her
own destiny. Under these circumstances, she relies on your influence to
adopt such measures as may effectuate their mutual freedom."
The marchioness was then a prisoner, in utter ignorance of the real fate
of her husband. She had been commanded by the Jacobins to repair to
Paris about the time when the attack was made upon the Tuilleries and
the destruction of the Swiss guard; but they subsequently allowed her to
reside at the place from which her letter was dated. In that letter she
made a solemn appeal to Washington and the nation to aid her in
procuring the liberty of her husband. "He was taken by the troops of the
emperor," she said, "although the king of Prussia retains him a prisoner
in his dominions. And while he suffers this inconceivable persecution
from the enemies without, the faction which reigns within keeps me a
hostage at one hundred and twenty leagues from the capital. Judge, then,
at what distance I am from him. In this abyss of misery, the idea of
owing to the United States and to Washington the life and liberty of M.
de Lafayette kindles a ray of hope in my heart. I hope everything from
the goodness of the people with whom he has set an example of that
liberty of which he is now made the victim. And shall I dare speak what
I hope? I would ask of them through you for an envoy, who shall go to
reclaim him in the name of the republic of the United States wheresoever
he may be found, and who shall be authorized to make, with the power in
whose charge he may be placed, all necessary engagements for his
release, and for taking him to the United States, even if he is there to
be guarded as a captive. If his wife and his children could be comprised
in this mission, it is easy to judge how happy it would be for her and
for them; but if this would in the least degree retard or embarrass the
measure, we will defer still longer the happiness of a reunion. May
Heaven deign to bless the confidence with which it has inspired me! I
hope my request is not a rash one."
Washington was powerless to aid his friend. His heart yearned to do so,
but there were no means that, in the then political condition of Europe,
could be used with any hope of success, except giving unofficial
instructions to American ministers abroad to make every effort in their
power to procure his release, and this was done. "The United States,"
says Sparks, "had neither authority to make _demands_, nor power to
enforce them. They had no immediate intercourse with Prussia or Austria,
and were in no condition to ask the favors or avenge the tyranny of the
rulers of those countries, who were only responsible for the treatment
of Lafayette, and whose pleasure it was, if not their policy and
interest, to keep him in chains."
The whole matter was very painful to Washington, especially as a great
delay in his letter made the marchioness feel that she was neglected by
her husband's dearest friend, and that husband deserted by the nation
for whose freedom he had so nobly fought. Referring to a former letter,
she said:--
"Has this letter reached you? Was it necessary that it should
arrive to excite your interest? I can not believe it. But I confess
that your silence, and the abandonment of M. de Lafayette and his
family for the last six months, are of all our evils the most
inexplicable to me." Then assuring Washington that the fate of her
husband was in a measure in the hands of the president and
government of the United States, and that she, not allowed to have
any communication with him, could do nothing for him, she said, "I
will only add that my confidence in General Washington, though
severely tried, remains firm, and that I dare make to him a tender
of my homage, and of my high esteem of his character."
Although Lafayette was a citizen of the United States, an American
officer, and no more in the French service, his adopted government could
do nothing effectual in his behalf, and for three years he lay in the
dungeon at Olmutz. His wife and daughter were permitted to share his
dungeon life; and finally his eldest son, bearing the name of
Washington, came to seek an asylum in the United States. His reception
here we shall consider hereafter.