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fabricated and spread abroad to his injury; that he saw also there was such an opposition of views between himself and another part of the administration, as to render it peculiarly unpleasing, and to destroy the necessary harmony; that he believed the next Congress would attempt nothing material, but to render their own body independent; that the republican party, so far as his knowledge extended, were firm in their dispositions to support the present frame of government; and that on the whole, no crisis existed, which threatened any danger.

The President entreated him to remain in until the end of another quarter, the last of December; which would carry them through the difficulties of the present year, by which time he was satisfied the affairs of Europe would be settled; either France would be overwhelmed by the Confederacy, or the latter would give up the contest. By that time, too, Congress would have manifested its character. He went lengthily into the difficulties of naming a successor, canvassed the characters of various conspicuous personages, without being satisfied with any of them, except Mr. Madison, whom he despaired of obtaining; and concluded, by earnestly desiring Mr. Jefferson to take time and consider whether he could not continue with him another quarter; for that, like a man going to the gallows, he was anxious to put it off as long as he could; but if he persisted, he must then look about him, and do the best he could towards providing a successor.*

With the last pressing solicitation of the President, Mr. Jefferson at length complied; and accordingly postponed his resignation until the last day of the year, 1793, as before stated. The political effects upon the government of the United States, of the retirement of this minister, realized the worst apprehensions of General Washington. They even verified the worst predictions of the opponents of the administration. They broke out wildly, and spread themselves with accumulative and disastrous potency, through the remaining period of the eighteenth century; when they were suddenly brought to a stand by the triumphant interposition of the people, in a peaceable and constitutional way. Some developments of that dark history, which have been left by Mr. Jefferson, will appear in the succeeding chapter. Meanwhile, the following para

* Ana.

graph, extracted from his private papers, will not be thought irrele vant or uninstructive.

"From the moment of my retiring from the administration, the federalists got unchecked hold of General Washington. His memory was already sensibly impaired by age, the firm tone of mind for which he had been remarkable, was beginning to relax, its energy was abated, a listlessness of labor, a desire for tranquillity had crept on him, and a willingness to let others act, and even think for him. Like the rest of mankind, he was disgusted with atrocities of the French revolution, and was not sufficiently aware of the difference between the rabble who were used as instruments of their perpetration, and the steady and rational character of the American people, in which he had not sufficient confidence. The opposition too, of the republicans to the British treaty, and the zealous support of the federalists in that unpopular but favorite measure of theirs, had made him all their own. Understanding, moreover, that I disapproved of that treaty, and copiously nourished with falsehoods by a malignant neighbor of mine, who ambitioned to be his correspondent, he had become alienated from myself personally, as from the republican body generally of his fellow citizens; and he wrote the letters to Mr. Adams and Mr. Carroll, over which, in devotion to his imperishable fame, we must for ever weep as monuments of mortal decay."

CHAPTER XI.

The history of the United States from the commencement of the year 1794, to the memorable epoch of 1800, is a history of unre mitting struggles between the advocates of monarchy and republicanism.

This political drama, of which the present recollection is but as a dream of the night, was scarcely less terrible in its course, or less momentous in its consequences, than the internal conflict of the Revolution. The latter, by an unexampled exertion of moral agency, revolutionized the government from a monarchical to a republican structure; the former, by the instrumentality of the same peaceable power, against the same political antagonists, saved it from retrograding into its original deformity. That this was the real ground and nature of the contest, is too notorious to be controverted. Without resorting to the private revelations of a principal

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actor,* touching the secret tractions of the government, and the avowed opinions of its predent agents, or without recurring to the newspaper conflagratio of that tempestuous season, the public and written history of the United States abounds with satisfactory testimony on this point.

The third Congress of the United States, the political character of which had been anticipated with great alarm by the monarchical party, and with some uneasiness by the President, assembled on the 3d of December, 1793. Notwithstanding the atrocious turn of the French Revolution, with which the republican party had become identified, from their sympathy in its principles only, the last elections had secured a republican majority in the popular branch of the Legislature; but, as corruption had become the established principle, at head quarters, the majority was too small not to be easy of debauchery, on questions of vital importance to the party which preponderated in the administration. The political character of the Senate remained essentially unaltered.

At this session, it will be recollected, the celebrated Report of Mr. Jefferson on Commerce and Navigation, was submitted to Congress. The comparative expose which this document presented, of the state of our relations with England and France, displayed in such vivid and incontrovertible contrast the conduct of those governments towards the United States, as had an electric effect upon the elements of the two political parties. The monarchists, who were chained in theory to the British Constitution, and embarked in the design of assimulating ours to that, whose feelings and interests were essentially British, considered the Report as an insidious attack upon their patron nation, and an unmanly truckling to France. The republicans, on the other hand, were gratified at seeing a true exposition of our foreign relations held up to the view of the nation; and they espoused with ardor the principle of commercial discrimination recommended by the author.

This principle had been a favorite one with Mr. Jefferson, from the origin of the government. In his letters to America, while in France, he had constantly and most strenuously enforced the idea. To make the interest of every nation on the globe, stand surety for its justice to us, and to make injury to them follow injury to us, in

* Jefferson's ANA, which abounds in irresistable proofs on this head.

equal degree, and as surely as effect follows its cause, was his first, and uniform doctrine through life. With respect to the British government, in particular, his opinion was, that nothing would force them to do justice, but the loud voice of their people, and that this could only be excited by distressing their commerce. Besides, it would argue injustice, not to say ingratitude, on our part, to admit every nation to an equal participation in the benefits of our com. merce, whilst one loaded us with freedoms, liberalities and courtesies, and another with burthens, prohibitions and execrations. This was precisely the case as between England and France. In a letter to Mr. Madison, dated Paris, 1789, Mr. Jefferson wrote:

"When of two nations, the one has engaged herself in a ruinous war for us, has spent her blood and money to save us, has opened her bosom to us in peace, and received us almost on the footing of her own citizens, while the other has moved heaven, earth, and hell to exterminate us in war, has insulted us in all her councils in peace, shut her doors to us in every part where her interests would admit it, libeled us in foreign nations, endeavored to poison them against the reception of our most precious commodities; to place these two nations on a footing, is to give a great deal more to one than to the other, if the maxim be true, that to make unequal quantities equal, you must add more to one than the other. To say, in excuse, that gratitude is never to enter into the motives of national conduct, is to revive a principle which has been buried for centuries, with its kindred principles of the lawfulness of assassination, poison, perjury, &c. All of these were legitimate principles in the dark ages which intervened between ancient and modern civilization, but exploded and held in just horror in the eighteenth century. I know but one code of morality for men, whether acting singly or collectively. He who says I will be a rogue when I act in company with a hundred others, but an honest man when I act alone, will be believed in the former assertion, but not in the latter."

His ideas on commerce, and the line of conduct proper to be observed towards France and England, are stated more at length in a letter to Elbridge Gerry, about this time :

"I do sincerely wish with you, that we could take our stand on a ground perfectly neutral and independent towards all nations. It has been my constant object through my public life: and with respect to the English and French, particularly, I have too often expressed to the former my wishes, and made to them propositions, verbally and in writing, officially and privately, to official and pri vate characters, for them to doubt of my views, if they could be content with equality. Of this they are in possession of several

written and formal proofs, in my own hand-writing. But they have wished a monopoly of commerce and influence with us; and they have in fact obtained it. When we take notice that theirs is the workshop to which we go for all we want; that with them centre either immediately or ultimately all the labors of our hands and lands; that to them belongs either openly or secretly the great mass of our navigation; that even the factorage of their affairs here, is kept to themselves by factitious citizenships; that these foreign and false citizens now constitute the great body of what are called our merchants, fill our sea-ports, are planted in every little town and district of the interior country, sway every thing in the former places by their own votes, and those of their dependents, in the latter, by their insinuations and the influence of their ledgers; that they are advancing fast to a monopoly of our banks and public funds, and thereby placing our public finances under their control; that they have in their alliance the most influential characters in and out of office; when they have shown that by all these bearings on the different branches of the government, they can force it to proceed in whatever direction they dictate, and bend the interests of this country entirely to the will of another; when all this, I say, is attended to, it is impossible for us to say we stand on independent ground, impossible for a free mind not to see and to groan under the bondage in which it is bound. If any thing after this could excite surprise, it would be that they had been able so far to throw dust in the eyes of our own citizens, as to fix on those who wish merely to recover self government the charge of subserving one foreign influence because they resist submission to another. But they possess our printing presses, a powerful engine in their government of us. At this very moment [1797] they would have drawn us into a war on the side of England, had it not been for the failure of her bank. Such was their open and loud cry, and that of their gazettes, till this event. After plunging us in all the broils of the European nations, there would remain but one act to close our tragedy, that is, to break up our Union; and even this they have ventured seriously and solemnly to propose and maintain by arguments in a Connecticut paper. I have been happy, however, in believing, from the stifling of this effort, that that dose was found too strong, and excited as much repugnance there as it did horror in the other parts of our country, and that whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators. Much as I abhor war, and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind, and anxiously as I wish to keep out of the broils of Europe, I would yet go with my brethren in these, rather than separate from them. But I hope we may still keep clear of them, notwithstanding our present thraldom, and that time may be given us to reflect on the awful crisis we have passed

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