Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

486

CHAPTER XX.

Insurrection in Pennsylvania. Mr. Jefferson refuses a seat in the Cabinet. Democratic Societies. The President's Speech-Mr. Jefferson's strictures on it. The fitness of large states for Republican Government considered. Gouverneur Morris recalled—his character. James Munroe. Discontent of Kentucky. Direct and Indirect Taxes. Alexander Hamilton resigns-his character. Mr. Jefferson refuses to become a Candidate for the Presidency. Treaty with Great Britain-ratified by the Senate-made public by one of the Senators-violent opposition to it.—Mr. Jefferson's views of it—its provisions—its want of reciprocity detailed and explained.

1794-5.

AN event now occurred which was calculated to excite the mortification and regret of the friends of the constitution, and the advocates for popular government. The discontents produced by the excise law in the western part of Pennsylvania had gone on increasing, until it had broken out in open resistance to the laws. The immediate occasion of the popular rising was on the marshal's attempt to execute process against some offenders, who had been indicted in the federal court. A body of armed men fired on him, and compelled him to retreat. The house of the inspector-general, who superintended the excise, having been besieged, he himself was obliged to surrender, and his papers were seized. The marshal was compelled to promise that he would execute no more process on the west of the Alleghany; and both he and the inspector being threatened for refusing to resign, sought safety in flight. The insurgents opened the mail and examined the letters it contained to dis

cover the persons who were opposed to them, and these they immediately compelled to leave the country. They called a convention, the object of which was to compel the resignation of all officers engaged in the collection of the excise, and to resist the authority of the law by force, until it was repealed.

On a certificate from one of the judges, as the act of Congress required, that the execution of the laws was obstructed, the president, on the 7th of August, issued a proclamation commanding the insurgents to disperse, and warning them of the consequences of disobedience.

He

Having learnt from the Governor of Pennsylvania, that the militia of that state would not be sufficient to put down the resistance, and wishing to crush all hopes of effectual opposition, he determined to require aid from other states. accordingly made a requisition of 12,000 militia of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. A second admonitory proclamation was issued on the 28th September, and other conciliatory measures were pursued without effect. The call for militia was promptly met in all these states except in Pennsylvania, and finally, by the efforts of Governor Mifflin, in that. 'On the arrival of the government forces, the insurgents dispersed, and some of the leaders were seized for prosecution. The ease with which this open resistance to the laws was quelled, afforded matter of triumph and congratulation to the friends of the administration, for the prudence and humanity of their course, and of censure on the part of the opposition for the vain parade and unnecessary expense of a force so disproportionate to the occasion.

In September, during the pendency of this commotion, Mr. Jefferson received a letter from Mr. Edmund Randolph, the secretary of state, by express, which found him in bed, under a severe attack of rheumatism, inviting him to resume a place in the public councils; but the invitation was peremptorily declined. "No circumstance, he says, my dear sir, will ever more tempt me to engage in any thing public. I thought myself perfectly fixed in this determination when I left Philadelphia, but every day and hour since has added to its inflexibility. It is a great

pleasure to me to retain the esteem and approbation of the president, and this forms the only ground of any reluctance at being unable to comply with every wish of his. Pray convey these sentiments and a thousand more to him, which my situation does not permit me to go into."

One of the instances in which our citizens manifested a disposition to imitate what was French, was in the establishment of democratic societies for the purpose of guiding political opinion, and even influencing the measures of the government. As they were in general opposed to the administration, from its supposed hostility to the French revolution, they naturally condemned the excise. They had indeed from the first been regarded with aversion and distrust by those who feared the introduction of the same political frenzy here which had prevailed in Paris, and to which they were supposed to have contributed.

General Washington partaking of this opinion, thus noticed these societies in his opening message to Congress. "From a belief that by a more formal concert the operation (of the laws) might be defeated, certain self-created societies assumed the tone of condemnation;" and in a subsequent passage he says, and "when in the calm moments of reflection, they shall have retraced the origin and progress of insurrection, let them determine whether it has not been fomented by combinations of men, who, careless of consequences, and disregarding the unerring truth that those who rouse cannot always appease a civil convulsion, have disseminated, from an ignorance or perversion of facts, suspicions, jealousies, and accusations of the whole government."

Mr. Jefferson comments on these remarks with great severity in a letter to Mr. Madison. He speaks of the "denunciation" as one of the most extraordinary acts of boldness of which we have seen so many from the faction of monocrats; says, “it is won⚫derful indeed that the president should have permitted himself to be the organ of such an attack on the freedom of discussion, the freedom of writing, printing, and publishing." He then contrasts these societies with the Cincinnati, says that this denun

ciation of the societies had been universally condemned: That the resistance to the excise law did not amount to more than a riot, and that the law itself was "an infernal one." That the first error was to admit it by the constitution: the second, to act on that admission; the third and last will be, to make it the instrument for dismembering the union, and setting us all afloat to choose what part of it we will adhere to." "The information of our militia, he adds, returned from the westward, is uniform, that that though the people there let them pass quietly, they were objects of their laughter, not of their fear; that their detestatation of the excise law is universal, and has now associated to it a detestation of the government; and that separation, which perhaps was a very distant and problematical event, is now near, and certain, and determined in the mind of every man."

He proceeds to make further comment on the opening message of the president, both for what it contained and what it pretermitted; and, writing in the freedom of confidential intercourse, is not sparing of his censure, or even ridicule. But he thus consoles himself with the prospect of a better state of things: "However, the time is coming when we shall fetch up the leeway of our vessel. The changes in your House, I see, are going on for the better, and even the Augean herd over your heads [meaning the senate] are slowly purging off their impurities. Hold on then, my dear friend, that we may not shipwreck in the mean while. I do not see, in the minds of those with whom I converse, a greater affliction than the fear of your retirement; but this must not be, unless to a splendid and a more efficacious post. There I should rejoice to see you; I hope I may say, I shall rejoice to see you. I have long had much in my mind to say to you on that subject. But double delicacies have kept me silent. I ought perhaps to say, while I would not give up my retirement for the empire of the universe, how I can justify wishing one whose happiness I have so much at heart as yours, to take the front of the battle which is fighting for my security. This would be easy enough to be done, but not at the heel of a lengthy epistle."

It appears from the preceding letter that the force of his op

VOL. I.-62

position to the federal party had not abated by his retirement, and that he, in common with the rest of his political associates, was disposed to consider General Washington as no longer neutral between the two parties.

It would also seem from the last part of the letter that there had been no arrangement at that time as to the candidate whom the republican party would support for the presidency. It is evident that the subject had been frequently mentioned to Mr. Jefferson, and that he had to this time disclaimed all intention of being a candidate. The delicacy and forbearance which were manifested on this subject by those who first held that office, whether they be regarded as expressing their real feelings, or they be supposed to have deceived themselves, (for few will regard them as utterly hollow and hypocritical,) are in strong contrast with the course which has since been too often pursued by those who aspired to that office: and who, instead of positive disclaimers, have sometimes condescended to engage in an open canvass. It is not easy to decide whether the difference is accidental, and to be attributed to the diversities of individual character, or is to be ascribed to a more general change in the nation as to the modes of thinking and acting on this subject. Do the votaries of ambition and popular favour become bolder, as the power and distinction they covet become greater, and their competitors more numerous? Or does the sensitiveness of the people themselves to egotism, the love of power, and confident pretension, become blunted by habit, so as to tolerate what once gave offence? Men's passions and desires undergo little change; but their manifestations of them are greatly modified by circumstances.

The dread of disunion, which seems to have been so strong on Mr. Jefferson's mind, in consequence of this civil commotion, and the measures pursued by the government to suppress it, appears never to have been general; and all local and partial symptoms of it soon passed away.

In the early part of the year 1795, Mons. D. Ivernois of Geneva wrote to him to propose to transplant the college of Geneva to Virginia; to which proposal he answered that, on consulting

« PředchozíPokračovat »