CHAP. X.] VIRGINIA ELECTION. 491 advise with him from the serious and dignified man to whom it was addressed.' Before giving the sequel of Mr. Adams's new step, we will turn our attention to some intervening matters of interest. The elections in Virginia of members of Congress and of the State Legislature in the spring of 1799, attracted profound and general attention. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of the preceding year, had not met with a favorable response from the other States. It was the especial desire of the Federalists to elect a legislature in the latter State, which would rescind those resolutions. The popular reaction caused by the XYZ dispatches had by no means subsided. The President's real course in the late transactions was but very dimly understood. He rather appeared to the country in the light of a brave officer It is, we confess, impossible for us to fathom the whole spirit of Mr. Adams's reply. We could understand his puerile ribaldry in regard to Barlow, for that gentleman's powerful pen had (as it had been made to appear in a court of law) characterized Mr. Adams's conduct as that of a madman. But what means the last paragraph below? Was the writer anxious to sail under false colors-to pass for one of the stiffest haters and scorners of France for a genuine high church Federalist? Or did his insane vanity bristle up because Washington had interfered-because the latter had presumed to imagine he could of possibility render some needful assistance to the "sovereign authority quo ad hoc?" The last is probably the true solution. But the reader will judge. After saying that "yesterday he had determined to nominate Mr. Murray," in consequence of Talleyrand's communications, Mr. Adams proceeded : "Barlow's letter had, I assure you, very little weight in determining me to this measure. I shall make few observations upon it. But, in my opinion, it is not often that we meet with a composition which betrays so many and so unequivocal symptoms of blackness of heart. The wretch has destroyed his own character to such a degree. that I think it would be derogatory to yours to give any answer at all to his letter. Tom Paine is not a more worthless fellow. The infamous threat which he has debased himself to transmit to his country to intimidate you and your country, 'that certain conduct will be followed by war, and that it will be a war of the most terrible and vindictive kind,' ought to be answered by a Mohawk. If I had an Indian chief that I could converse with freely, I would ask him what answer he would give to such a gasconade. I fancy he would answer that he would, if they began their cruelties, cut up every Frenchman joint by joint, roast him by a fire, pinch off his flesh with hot pincers, etc. I blush to think that such ideas should be started in this age. Tranquillity upon just and honorable terms, is undoubtedly the ardent desire of the friends of this country, and I wish the babyish and womanly blubbering for peace may not necessitate the conclusion of a treaty that will not be just nor very honorable. I do not intend, however, that they shall. There is not much sincerity in the cant about peace; those who snivel for it now, were hot for war against Britain a few months ago, and would be now, if they saw a chance. In elective governments, peace or war are alike embraced by parties, when they think they can employ either for electioneering purposes."-Adams's Works, vol. viii. p. 625. In Mr. Adams's justification of himself in 1809, for reopening negotiations with France, he particularly mentioned this letter of Washington of Feb. 1, 1799, and drew from it, among others, the following inferences: "that he was so desirous of peace, that he was willing to enter into correspondence with Mr. Barlow, a private gentleman, without any visible credentials or public character, or responsibility to either Government, in order to bring on a public negotiation!" Here again, as in Logan's case, we have Mr. Adams assuming to rise above the prejudices of his party in the following exquisite specimen of consistency: "I however considered General Washington's question, whether Mr. Barlow's [letter] was written with a very good or a very bad design; and as, with all my jealousy, I had not sagacity enough to discover the smallest room for sus picion of any ill design, I frankly concluded that it was written with a very good one." Adams's Works, vol. ix. p. 242. who had driven France to solicit terms of arrangement. If a useless army in our midst was not of itself an agreeable object of contemplation, multitudes had been kept firmly convinced that it was liable at any moment to be called into active service to defend our firesides and our fanes. If the prospect of increased taxes was not one to enlist partiality, the public knew that war required preparation; and the public blood was already heated by our quasi-war with France on the ocean. On the whole, the Federalists entered the elections under advan tageous auspices. We have seen how actively Mr. Jefferson was exerting himself in his political correspondence. Madison, Monroe, Giles, Nicholas, Taylor, Mason, Tazewell, and a brilliant band of younger men, were as industrious on the same side. On the other, Marshall, one of the Ministers ordered out of France, and General Lee, were making great efforts. General Washington's immense personal influence was now for the first time brought to bear in a local political struggle. He wrote Patrick Henry, January 15th, 1799: "It would be a waste of time to attempt to bring to the view of a person of your observation and discernment, the endeavors of a certain party among us to disquiet the public mind with unfounded alarms; to arraign every act of the Administration; to set the people at variance with their Government; and to embarrass all its measures. Equally useless would it be to predict what must be the inevitable consequences of such a policy, if it cannot be arrested. "Unfortunately, and extremely do I regret it, the State of Virginia has taken the lead in this opposition. I have said the State, because the conduct of its Legislature in the eyes of the world will authorize the expression, and because it is an incontrovertible fact, that the principal leaders of the opposition dwell in it, and that with the help of the chiefs in other States, all the plans are arranged and systematically pursued by their followers in other parts of the Union; though in no State except Kentucky, that I have heard of, has the legislative countenance been obtained beyond Virginia." After giving some reasons for the previous successes of the opposition in Virginia; dilating on the importance of "such a crisis as this, when everything dear and valuable to us was assailed;" and portraying the disastrous consequences which would ensue if, by reason of " activity and misrepresentation on one side, and supineness on the other," the Republicans, "accumulated by intriguing and discontented foreigners under proscription, who were at war with their own governments, and the greater part CHAP. X.] HENRY'S LAST CAMPAIGN-HIS DEATH. 493 of them with all governments," should carry the election; he asked Mr. Henry to come forward as a candidate for representative in the General Assembly of Virginia. And he added: "Your weight of character and influence in the House of Representatives would be a bulwark against such dangerous sentiments as are delivered there at present. It would be a rallying point for the timid, and an attraction of the wavering. In a word, I conceive it to be of immense importance at this crisis that you should be there; and I would fain hope, that all minor considerations will be made to yield to the measure." "1 Mr. Henry listened to this earnest appeal; offered himself for the representation of Charlotte; and the last effort of that eloquence which in the Virginia Convention had been so vehemently directed against the adoption of the Federal Constitution, as too strongly favoring consolidation, was now heard advocating the doctrine that "Virginia was to the Union, only what Charlotte county was to Virginia "-pronouncing the Alien and Sedition Laws "good and proper "-and depicting "Washington at the head of a numerous and well appointed army, inflicting military execution" on the people of Virginia, as the probable ultimate consequence of their persisting in the line of policy laid down in the resolutions of 1798. Mr. Henry was elected. His eloquent biographer thus gives the sequel: "His intention having been generally known for some time before the period of the State elections, the most formidable preparations were made to oppose him in the Assembly. Mr. Madison (the late President of the United States), Mr. Giles of Amelia, Mr. Taylor of Caroline, Mr. Nicholas of Albemarle, and a host of young men of shining talents from every part of the State were arrayed in the adverse rank, and commanded a decided majority in the House. But Heaven in its mercy saved him from the unequal conflict. The disease which had been preying on him for two years now hastened to its crisis; and on the sixth of June, 1799, this friend of liberty and of man was no more.' Patrick Henry was not without his share of human weakness. If he had faults, an honest change of opinion, however mistaken, is not to be ranked as one. He was unquestionably as honest in the last act of his public life as he was in that glo. rious first one, when, an obscure young man, he threw himself in front of the old Whig leaders of Virginia, and lit the torch Sparks's Washington, vol. xi. pp. 388-391. 2 Wirt's Life of Henry, p. 109. of the Revolution. Except in his divine gift of oratory, there were others perhaps greater than he; but not one was so indispensable. He was the Tribune of the People-the exponent of their innermost hearts-the master of the magical key which unlocked and gave the control of their minds. There was a lyrical splendor and depth of feeling in his oratory which moved the most learned and saturnine; but when it descended on the thirsty and loving ears of the multitude, it fell like flame on dry combustibles. There was not a passion or emotion in the common heart, which the mighty master could not as rapidly touch singly or in combination as the skillful player touches the keys of his instrument. Every note in the heart's diapason was within his perfect command, from the tenderest emotion of love or pity to the fierce extremity of rage: and he could dissolve the brown multitude into unwonted tears, or precipitate them raging and roaring on the foe. He was the first-incomparably the firstorator of his country. None approached him but (in his great moods) titanic John Adams. When Patrick Henry went down to the grave in 1799, he left not a warmer, a braver, or a truer heart behind. All that was erring or drossy in his career, then perished. His labors and his motives alone survived; and his fame-not an abstraction resting on a cold conviction of the understanding, but a sentiment bearing somewhat the warmth of personal love-was left a patrimony to his State. That State has been the teeming mother of great men. The American who has closely studied the history of the Revolution -whose heart has kindled to that great epic-visits Virginia for the first time with associations and memories which kindle at every step. Every ripple of a Virginia river, every sigh of a Virginia breeze, syllable to his ear the names of her great dead. And in the long array, not a name comes oftener or warmer before the mind's eye and ear than that of Patrick Henry. Mr. Henry's last speech at Charlotte Court House, at the March court,' was answered by the Republican candidate for Congress in the district of which his county formed a part-"a tall, slender, effeminate looking youth," with " light hair combed back into a well-adjusted cue-pale countenance, a beardless 1 Mr. Wirt erroneously places the date of this speech at the opening of the polls in April. (See Randolph to Mrs. Bryan, Garland's Randolph, vol. i. p. 130.) CHAP. X. THE ELECTIONS-ULTIMATUM WITH FRANCE. 495 chin, bright, quick hazel eye, blue frock, buff small clothes, and fair top boots." This individual, John Randolph of Roanoke, now a candidate for office the first time, was elected to Congress over Powhatan Bolling, the Federal candidate, who was also present at the March court-"dressed in his scarlet coat, tall, proud in his bearing, and a fair representative of the old aristocracy." Marshall beat Clopton, the late member, for Congress, in the Richmond district; and General Henry Lee beat Jones, the Republican candidate in the Westmoreland district. General Washington rode ten miles to deposit his vote. "With infinite pleasure," he wrote, "he received the news of Marshall's election." He only regretted that his and Lee's majorities had not been larger-but "as the tide was turned, he hoped it would come in with a full flow-but this would not happen if there was any relaxation on the part of the Federalists.' 2 993 The Federalists carried upwards of a third of the members. The legislature remained strongly Republican. The Federal gains in the Congressional election, about corresponded with these throughout the entire South. In the middle States there was little change. In New England the triumph of that party was overwhelming. President Adams called a Cabinet meeting on the 10th of March, to consult upon the instructions to be given to the new Envoys to France. These were agreed upon, and reduced to writing on the 11th. The points settled as "ultimata," were: that France should indemnify our citizens for spoliations on their commerce committed by the armed vessels of France, or by the adjudication of her courts; that no condemnation of American vessels for want of a rôle d'équipage,' should be held valid, and that this point was to be considered settled in advance, if commissioners should be agreed upon to adjust claims; and that the United States should not stipulate to guarantee any part of the dominions of France." Garland's Life of Randolph, vol. i. pp. 129, 130. Letter to Marshall, May 5th. Sparks's Washington, vol. xi. p. 424. Letter to Bushrod Washington, May 5th. Sparks's Washington, vol. xi. p. 425. An ancient ordinance of France authorized their ships of war to capture as pirates vessels not having a rôle d'équipage, that is, articles signed by the seamen, and countersigned by a public officer. It was on this ground that many of the American captures and condemnations had been made. Adams's Works, vol. viji. p. 627. |