XII. the whole shipping of the nation an unresisting prey to CHAPTER French privateers, many were hardly willing to go the length of paying an additional tribute in money, or, for 1798. the sake of avoiding a breach with France, to abandon the position of neutrals, to break the English treaty, and to risk a war in that quarter. Nor did every body believe, with Giles and Jefferson, that the British government would certainly be overthrown within two years. "The public mind," wrote Jefferson a week afterward, April 12. "appears still in a state of astonishment. There never was a moment in which the aid of an able pen was so important to place things in their just attitude. On this depends the inchoate movement in the Eastern mind, and the fate of the elections in that quarter, now beginning, and to continue through the summer. I would not propose to you such a task on any ordinary occasion; but be assured that a well-digested analysis of these papers would now decide the future turn of things, which are at this moment on the careen.". This was the second urgent appeal to Madison to come forward as the apologist of the French government and the assailant of his own. "You will see in Fenno," Jefferson had written a week before, "two numbers of a paper signed Mar- April 5. cellus. They promise much mischief, and are ascribed, without any difference of opinion, to Hamilton. You must, my dear sir, take up your pen against this champion. You know the ingenuity of his talents, and there is not a person but yourself who can foil him. For Heaven's sake, then, take up your pen, and do not desert the public cause altogether." Strong evidence was speedily exhibited, in the action of Congress, of that reflux of opinion and feeling of which Jefferson so bitterly complained. Sprigg's resolutions were abandoned in despair, and the bills already men CHAPTER tioned for the purchase or lease of cannon founderies XII. and the procuring of additional armed vessels were speed1798. ily passed, the former with an amendment appropriating $800,000 for the purchase of cannon, small arms, and additional military stores. For the purchase of vessels under the other bill, $950,000 were appropriated; and for the management of naval affairs, a separate naval department was now first established. A second regiment of artillery was added to the military establishment, and $250,000 were appropriated for harbor fortification. It was also provided that any of the states from which Revolutionary balances were due should be credited with so much toward those balances as they might expend, under the president's direction, in erecting fortifications within their own limits. To aid in the defense of harbors, the president was further authorized to purchase and equip ten galleys. The Senate, meanwhile, had passed and sent to the House a bill for raising a provisional army of twenty thousand men. Unable to make any effectual combined resistance to these measures of defense, the baffled and astounded leaders of the opposition each did what he could after his own fashion. Liv. ingston and Nicholas, in hopes to frighten the people by the expense, adopted the policy of voting for the highest sums proposed for whatever military objects. Gallatin took the opposite ground. His eyes had been suddenly opened to the dependence of the revenue on commerce. A war would dry up that resource, and he insisted that, before voting any money at all, the House ought to provide the necessary ways and means. Once, indeed, the opposition rallied, and succeeded in reducing the number of additional armed vessels from sixteen to twelve; but on a motion that these vessels should not be employed as convoys, after a warm debate, XII. they were beaten by the decisive vote of fifty to thirty- CHAPTER two; after which the Federalists had every thing much their own way. 1798. April 20. Out of doors, the Aurora and other organs of the opposition argued that it was better to pay the money demanded, the douceur included-the odium of which it was attempted to shift from the Directory to Talleyrand -than to run the risk of a war. Why not purchase peace of France as well as of the Indians and Algerines? In Congress, though some of the opposition did complain that the peace of the country had been hazarded by the indiscreet publication of the dispatches, nobody dared to lisp such a proposal. Some petitions, also, were got up out of doors against arming or any hostile measures. But the impulse the other way was overwhelming. The grand jury of the Federal Circuit Court for Pennsylvania set the fashion of an address to the president, applauding his manly stand for the rights and dignity of the nation-an example speedily followed in every direction. Philadelphia was suddenly converted once more, as during the first and second Congress, to friendship for the Federal administration. All the neutral newspapers, and several others which had leaned strongly to the opposition, came out in support of the president's policy. Besides an address from five thousand of the citizens, presented to the president, the young men adopted a separate address of their own, and went in a body to carry it, many of them wearing the black May 8. cockade, the same which had been worn in the American army during the War of Independence. by way of defiance and response to the tricolored cockade worn by all Frenchmen since Adet's famous proclamation, and by not a few American citizens also, even by some companies of militia, who wished to exhibit by This was done CHAPTER this outward sign their extreme devotion to the French XII. republic. Hence the origin of the term "Black Cock1798. ade Federalist," which became ultimately an epithet of 25. bitter party reproach. Such was the warmth of party feeling, that several who wore this new emblem became the objects of violent personal assaults. But the zeal for mounting it was a good deal increased by the rage: it inspired in the more violent Democrats a term restricted at this time to the warm partisans of France, and as yet chiefly employed by the Federalists, along with the term Jacobin, as an epithet of reproach. The song of "Hail, Columbia !" written by the younger Hopkinson, had, under the excitement of the moment, a tremendous run, and, though totally destitute of poetical merit, is still kept in existence by the force of patriotic sentiment. "Adams and Liberty," written by Paine of Boston, the son of another signer of the Declaration of Independence, though now almost forgotten, enjoyed, like "Hail, Columbia!" an immense popularity, both songs being sung at the theaters and elsewhere with rapturous encores. In the midst of this excitement occurred the election April 23-in New York for state officers and members of Congress. Jay was re-elected governor by a majority of upward of two thousand over Chancellor Livingston, supported by the opposition. In the election of members of Congress that party was more successful. They succeeded in choosing six out of the ten members, including Edward Livingston, re-elected from the city of New York by a majority nearly as large as Jay's. Following the example of Philadelphia, the young men of the May 7. city of New York met to concert an address to the president. An unfortunate event which grew out of this meeting added new fury to party excitement. In the Ar XII. gus, the opposition organ, edited by Greenleaf-the same CHAPTER printer whose office had been mobbed ten years before on account of his opposition to the adoption of the Federal 1798. Constitution-Brockholst Livingston undertook to ridicule the persons concerned in getting up the meeting, selecting, among other objects of his satire, a Mr. Jones, who happened not to have been present. Jones gave him a caning in consequence, which led to a challenge and duel, in which that unfortunate gentleman was killed -a result which occasioned a great excitement at the time, and which left on Livingston's mind a gloom from which he never recovered, though afterward rewarded for his party services by high political preferment. Nor was it to Philadelphia and New York that these testimonies of zeal were confined. Addresses poured in from every side, and the spirited replies of the president, who was now in his element, served, in their turn, to kindle and sustain the blaze of patriotic indignation. Appealing, as in the days of the Revolution, to religious feeling, he issued a proclamation for a day of national May 8. fasting and prayer, and, much to the chagrin of the leaders of the opposition, the appointment was very generally observed. Protected against the responsibility of voting by his fortunate position as president of the Senate, in which the Federalists had a decided majority, Jefferson could afford to be firm in his private correspondence. But the Virginia members of the House begun to waver, and several of them to seek safety in flight under pretense of attending to their private affairs. "Giles, Clopton, Cabell, and Nicholas have gone," so Jefferson wrote April 26. to Madison, "and Clay goes to-morrow. Parker has completely gone over to the war party. In this state of things, they will carry what they please. One of the war |