CHAPTER LVIII.

HAMILTON IMPROVES THE OPPORTUNITY.

AND so this weighty embassy, this grand and magnanimous endeavor to restore the ancient friendship between two estranged nations, seemed to end pitifully in an intrigue to get a little money. French cruisers had despoiled American commerce of many millions of dollars; and a demand was now made of millions more, before the claim for redress would be listened to! Half a dozen corrupt men, whirled aloft in the storm of the Revolution, committed this outrage; but to the people of the United States, remote from Europe, unversed in its tortuous and childish politics, what could it seem but the act of France? For a short time France had few friends in the United States; and the extremists of the Federalist party, led by Hamilton, had every thing their own way.

Judge of the effect of this intelligence upon the public mind by events: Gerry recalled; Marshall received home like a conqueror; meetings everywhere; addresses "poured into" the president's office from every town, "offering life and fortune;" a navy department created; a navy voted; guns ordered; small arms purchased to a vast amount; an army of ten thousand regulars, and any number of militia authorized, in case war was declared, or the country invaded; Washington induced to accept the command as lieutenant-general; three major-generals, and nine brigadiers commissioned; Hamilton nominally second in command, but practically commander-in-chief; the fortification of harbors begun; merchant vessels authorized to arm and to resist French men-of-war; naval commanders ordered to seize and bring in any French vessel which had molested, or was suspected of being about to molest, American ships; the president authorized to suspend commercial intercourse between France and the United States. In a word, the power and resources of the

country were placed at the disposal of the president, to be by him employed in waging war against France, at his discretion. Hamilton saw the dream of his life about to be realized, — a war, in which he should win the only distinction he valued, military glory, and employ, at least, the prestige of a victorious sword on behalf of what he was accustomed to style "social order." All this year 1798, he was in earnest, confidential correspondence with Miranda, the South American patriot, who was in England striving to unite William Pitt and Alexander Hamilton, or, in other words, the government of England and the United States, in an expedition to invade and wrest from Spain her American colonies.

This was to Hamilton a captivating scheme, as it was a few years later to Aaron Burr. But Hamilton, ardently as he cherished it, expressly stipulated that he could have nothing to do with it, "unless patronized by the government of this country." The country, he wrote in August, 1798, was .not quite ready for the undertaking; "but we ripen fast." The plan, he thought, should be this: A fleet of Great Britain, an army of the United States, a government for the liberated territory agreeable to both the co-operators. Mr. Pitt, it seems, was decided for the scheme. Miranda replied to Hamilton's August letter in October. "Your wishes are in some sort fulfilled," wrote the South American; "since they have agreed here that no English troops are to be employed on shore, seeing that the auxiliary land forces should be American only, while the naval force shall be purely English. All difficulties have vanished, and we only await the fiat of your illustrious president to set out like a flash." To this point Hamilton had brought the mad scheme without the illustrious president knowing any thing of it.

But even this was not the wildest nor the worst of Hamilton's misuse of the transient power which circumstances gave him in 1798. What shall be said of his attempt to fasten upon the United States the stupid and shameful repressive system of George III.? What of the Alien Laws, inspired by him, approved by him, passed by his adherents? The mere rumor of the intention to pass such laws sent shiploads of French and Irish exiles hurrying home, and prevented worthy men from seeking needful refuge here. Kosciuszko and Volney departed; Priestley was not deemed safe; noble Gallatin was menaced. By these Alien Laws, the wonder and opprobrium of American politics, servile copies of Pitt's servile

originals, the president could order away "all such aliens as he should judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States;" and the alien who disobeyed the order was liable to three years' imprisonment. Other clauses and amendments placed the entire foreign population of the United States, and all who might in future seek their shores, under strictest surveillance; and, in case of war with France, every Frenchman not naturalized was to leave the country, or be forcibly put out of it.

But even this was not so monstrous as the Sedition Law, also borrowed from recent British legislation. Five years' imprisonment and five thousand dollars' fine for conspiring to oppose any measure passed by Congress, or for attempting or advising a riot or insurrection, whether "the advice or attempt should have the proposed effect or not." Imprisonment for two years, and a fine of two thousand dollars, for writing, speaking, or publishing "any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the president of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said president; or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States; or to stir up sedition within the United States; or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States." Is it not incredible? But I have open before me, at this moment, a ponderous law-book of seven hundred and twenty-one. large pages, two-thirds filled with "State Trials" under the Alien and Sedition Laws.

To these base imitations the Federalists added an originality that surpassed in refined absurdity any thing devised by Pitt or executed by Castlereagh. A very worthy, benevolent physician, Dr. George Logan of Philadelphia, appalled at the prospect of two friendly nations being thus cruelly misled into a bloody war, scraped together a little money with much difficulty, and went to France to try and prevent, by purely moral means, by mere remonstrance and persuasion, a calamity so dire and so unnecessary. He discovered by conversations with Talleyrand and others, and so reported, that there was nothing the French government so little desired as war with the United States. To parry this blow, the Hamiltonians

passed what was called, in party parlance, the Logan Law, five thousand dollars' fine and three years' imprisonment to any future Logan, or any person who "should carry on any verbal or written correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government, or any officer or agent thereof, with an intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government, or any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States." Hamilton was not going to be balked of his war and his Miranda project by any sentimental Quaker; least of all, by one for whom Jefferson had procured a safe conduct, and provided with a certificate of citizenship! Dr. Logan won great honor by this worthy and useful attempt; and in 1810, after an honorable public career in Pennsylvania, he went to England to endeavor, by the same means, to prevent war between the United States and Great Britain.

From his lofty seat in the chair of the Senate, Jefferson surveyed the momentary triumph of the re-actionists, and prepared to frustrate their intentions. Not for a moment was he deceived concerning the real disposition of France. One of the first letters that he wrote, after reading the despatches of the envoys, contains these words: "You will perceive that they have been assailed by swindlers, whether with or without the participation of Talleyrand is not apparent. But that the Directory knew any thing of it is neither proved nor probable." The lapse of seventy-five years has added little to our knowledge of that intrigue. "Assailed by swindlers," that is about all we are sure of at this moment. In reckoning up the wrongs inflicted by France upon his country, he ruled out, therefore, all that mass of curious dialogue, thirty-six pages of cipher, between the envoys and the individuals whom Mr. Adams considerately named X, Y, Z, and who are at once named and explained to modern ears by the word strikers. Hence, his position and that of his friends, Madison, Gallatin, Monroe, Giles, and the rest of the Republican forlorn hope: "The peaceparty will agree to all reasonable measures of internal defence, but oppose all external preparations." With regard to the Alien and Sedition Laws, he thought they were an experiment to ascertain whether the people would submit to measures distinctly contrary to the Constitution. If the experiment succeeded, the next thing would be a life presidency; then an hereditary presidency; then a Senate for life. "Nor," said he, October, 1798, "can I be confi

dent of their failure, after the dupery of which our countrymen have shown themselves susceptible."

He soon, however, had new evidence of the truth of the words he had spoken to his Albemarle neighbors on returning from France in 1790: "The will of the majority, the natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err; but its errors are honest, solitary, and shortlived."

How he toiled and schemed to enlighten the public mind at this crisis, his letters of the time reveal, and the hatred of the enemies of freedom attest. He was the soul of the opposition. By long, able, earnest letters to leading public men in many States, he roused the dormant and restrained the impetuous. He induced good writers on the Republican side, Madison above all, to compose the right articles for the press. Madison, overpowered in Congress, and regarding the Constitution as set aside, and no longer any restraint upon an arrogant and exulting majority, had retired to the legislature of Virginia, as a general falls back to make a new stand in the fastnesses of his native, familiar hills. "Every man," wrote Jefferson to him in February, 1799, "must lay his purse and his pen under contribution. As to the former, it is possible I may be obliged to assume something for you. As to the latter, let me pray and beseech you to set apart a certain portion of every post-day to write what may be proper for the public. Send it to me while here; and when I go away I will let you know to whom you may send, so that your name shall be sacredly secret. You can render such incalculable services in this way as to lessen the effect of our loss of your presence here." At the same time Jefferson, acting on behalf of a club of choice spirits to which he belonged, endeavored to induce Madison to publish the notes taken by him of the debates in the Convention of 1787. The project failed. The work was, indeed, too voluminous, and yet all too brief, for the purpose of recalling the public mind to a sense of constitutional obligation. And what did the Hamiltons of the day care for the intentions of that convention? Every pen, however, that could be used with effect against the military faction, Jefferson sought out, and stimulated; urging upon his friends the powerlessness of blackguard vituperation, if met by good sense, and strong, clear, dignified reasoning.