Chapter II: Political Entanglements and Hysteria (2)

Those evil spirits, however, which most effectively coöperated to make the last state worse than the first came as the result of the extraordinarily stupid and blundering measures which the Federalists adopted to curb the activities of resident aliens and the abuse of free speech. Beginning with the Naturalization Act of June 18, 1798, there followed in quick succession three other repressive measures, the Act Concerning Aliens of June 25, the Act Respecting Alien Enemies of July 6, and the Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States (the Sedition Act) of July 14.[286] The purpose of these famous acts has already been indicated; the impulse out of which they grew is not so easily determined. Was it that the heads of the national government really anticipated danger on account of the presence of a multitude of foreigners and the unlicensed freedom of action and public utterance which thus far had been allowed?[287] Was it that the memory of more than four years of biting satire and vicious calumny which the opposition had visited upon the heads of Federalist leaders had filled the latter with longings for revenge? Or was it that, conscious of their undisputed control of national affairs and carried away by the sense of their power, the Federalist leaders proposed to show how strong and effective a centralized government could become? No single alternative, doubtless, suggests the full truth. No matter; the effect which these measures produced is, with us, the main point, and to that we turn.

No milder word than _maddening_ will adequately describe the effect of these measures. All the old wounds were opened, all the old antipathies aggravated. Editors and pamphleteers, statesmen and demagogues, tore at each others’ throats as they had never done before and have never done since. A veritable “reign of terror” filled the land.[288] Insult and violence were everywhere. Mobs tore down liberty-poles which Federalist hands had erected and put in their place other poles bearing symbols of defiance to “British faction” and tyrannous Federal government; or the action was reversed, with Federalist mobs tearing down the standards of the opposition. White cockades were snatched from the hats of men who supported the government, and once more the black cockade blossomed forth. Toasts were drunk over tavern bars and on public occasions to the confusion of the British Eagle or the Gallic Cock; to the health and prosperity of the Federal government or to the downfall of tyrants; to the alien and sedition laws, with the fervent wish that “like the sword of Eden [they] may point everywhere to guard our country against intrigue from without and faction from within”;[289] or to “freedom of speech, trial by jury, and liberty of the press,”[290] according as the adherents of one faction or the other were assembled for patriotic or convivial purposes. Raucous and ribald outbreaks of party feeling burst out in the theaters to the interruption of performances, the confusion of performers, and the breaking of not a few heads. Such was the lighter and more ludicrous aspect of affairs.

But beneath this effervescence honest and whole-hearted antagonism to the odious legislation surged in countless breasts. In the power of an anger which scorned all frivolous and tawdry action, men declared their deep and irrevocable opposition to such measures of government. That respectable and well-meaning aliens, from lack either of inclination or opportunity to become citizens, should be expelled from the country, or remaining here should become the targets of suspicion and the victims of political oppression; that opposition to government must henceforth wear a muzzle, with a heavy bludgeon meanwhile held menacingly over its head; that the damage done by favored partisan scribblers was not to be repaired by answering opponents; and all this under the guise of laws which, whatever their intention, operated to the enormous disadvantage of one of the two great political bodies of the day—these were things not to be endured by men to whom liberty was the very breath of life.

The actual amount of personal injury inflicted by the operation of the alien and sedition laws was not enormous, though certainly not negligible. A considerable body of aliens fled the country, either during the period when the alien laws were pending or immediately after they went into effect.[291] Probably something more than a score of individuals were arrested under the sedition law, less than half of whom were compelled to stand trial.[292] But once again popular judgment was based upon qualitative rather than quantitative grounds. The popular sense of personal liberty had been outraged by these acts.[293] The Federalist leaders by their precipitate and inconsiderate action had very much overshot the mark and were about to bring their house tumbling down about their heads. As for the opposition, those of its leaders whose highest political interest was party advantage lived to bless the day when, blinded by hysteria or lust of power, the Federalist party made the alien and sedition acts the law of the land. Six months after these unsavory measures were passed, discerning Democrats were able to rejoice that this body of legislation was operating as a powerful sedative to quiet the inflammation which that “God-send” to the Federalists, the X.Y.Z. despatches, had incited.[294] By their own blunder in party strategy the Federalists had alienated the sympathies of the people and given to the ground-swell of republican principles a tremendous impetus which carried them to a speedy triumph.

Once again our special interest must be allowed to center upon a secondary element in the situation, _i. e._, the over-wrought tension of nerves because of which the most fantastic and unlikely of happenings seemed wholly within the circle of reason and probability. The circumstances which have just been considered were, in the main, upon the surface. As such they were capable of being evaluated and weighed. But who was to say that they were not attended by subterranean influences and designs? Affairs everywhere, be it remembered, were moving with incredible swiftness. In every quarter the beleaguered forces of conservatism found themselves surrounded and hemmed in by radical elements which manifested a spirit of militancy and a resolute will to conquer. With the European situation to lend strong emphasis to the suggestion of sinister tendencies and secret combinations, it cannot be thought extraordinary that here in America, where traditional opinions and institutions were as certainly being undermined, the conviction should take root that beneath all this commotion over foreign and domestic policies secret forces must be at work, perfecting organizations, promoting conspiracies, and ready at any hour to leap forth into the light to throttle government and order.

There is, of course, no desire to make it appear that apprehensions concerning hidden designs and movements were generally shared by the citizens of the United States. There was then, as there has always been, a very large body of citizens whose faith in the stability and high destiny of the nation made them immune to such fears; calm and philosophic souls who were equally unmoved by the rant of the demagogue or the distracted mood of the self-deceived alarmist. Their sympathy for and their faith in the democratic tendencies of the age inhibited every impulse to despair. But there were also other men, as has been the case in every deeply agitated generation, who were fully persuaded that they were able to catch deeper tones than their neighbors, to whom the gift had been given to read the signs of the times more accurately than their fellows. For them the conclusion was inescapable that no postulate which did not leave room for secret combinations was adequate to explain the peculiar cast of events in the United States at the end of the eighteenth century. To dismiss the case of such men with the casual judgment that they were temperamentally susceptible to such impressions, is to rule out of account the extraordinary character of the age to which they belonged. Apropos of this observation, the two following items are deserving of notice.

Some time previous to the celebration of the national fast of 1798, three anonymous letters were flung into President Adams’ house, announcing a plot to burn the city of Philadelphia on the day of the approaching fast. Convinced that the matter was of moment, the President made the contents of the letters publicly known. As a result, many people of the city packed their most valuable belongings and prepared to make a quick departure in the event that the threats made should come to fulfilment.[295] Was this a mere “artifice to agitate the popular mind,” the work of “war men” who were restless and impatient for an immediate declaration of hostilities against France? Quite possibly. Such, at least, was the private opinion of Thomas Jefferson.[296] But who was to _know_? The true lay of the land was not easily to be discovered in the midst of an age when, in the language of a contemporary, “all the passions of the human heart are in a ferment, and every rational being from the throne to the cottage is agitated by the picturesque circumstances of the day.”[297]

Alexander Hamilton left among his manuscripts certain comments which he had made upon the character and import of the French Revolution. Before we turn to consider the European Illuminati and the outcry against its alleged presence in the United States, we may, by perusing this document, throw a little added light upon the gnawings of anxiety and fear which were felt at the time by very rational gentlemen in America.

Facts, numerous and unequivocal, demonstrate that the present AERA
is among the most extraordinary which have occurred in the history
of human affairs. Opinions, for a long time, have been gradually
gaining ground, which threaten the foundations of religion,
morality and society. An attack was first made upon the Christian
revelation, for which natural religion was offered as a substitute.
The Gospel was to be discarded as a gross imposture, but the being
and attributes of God, the obligations of piety, even the doctrine
of a future state of rewards and punishments, were to be retained
and cherished.

In proportion as success has appeared to attend the plan, a bolder
project has been unfolded. The very existence of a Deity has been
questioned and in some instances denied. The duty of piety has been
ridiculed, the perishable nature of man asserted, and his hopes
bounded to the short span of his earthly state. DEATH has been
proclaimed an ETERNAL SLEEP; “the dogma of the _immortality_ of the
soul a _cheat_, invented to torment the living for the benefit
of the dead.” Irreligion, no longer confined to the closets of
conceited sophists, nor to the haunts of wealthy riot, has more or
less displayed its hideous front among all classes....

A league has at length been cemented between the apostles and
disciples of irreligion and anarchy. Religion and government have
both been stigmatized as abuses; as unwarrantable restraints upon
the freedom of man; as causes of the corruption of his nature,
intrinsically good; as sources of an artificial and false morality
which tyrannically robs him of the enjoyments for which his
passions fit him, and as clogs upon his progress to the perfection
for which he is destined....

The practical development of this pernicious system has been seen
in France. It has served as an engine to subvert all her ancient
institutions, civil and religious, with all the checks that served
to mitigate the rigor of authority; it has hurried her headlong
through a rapid succession of dreadful revolutions, which have
laid waste property, made havoc among the arts, overthrown cities,
desolated provinces, unpeopled regions, crimsoned her soil with
blood, and deluged it in crime, poverty, and wretchedness; and all
this as yet for no better purpose than to erect on the ruins of
former things a despotism unlimited and uncontrolled; leaving to
a deluded, an abused, a plundered, a scourged, and an oppressed
people, not even the shadow of liberty to console them for a long
train of substantial misfortunes, or bitter suffering.

This horrid system seemed awhile to threaten the subversion of
civilized society and the introduction of general disorder among
mankind. And though the frightful evils which have been its first
and only fruits have given a check to its progress, it is to be
feared that the poison has spread too widely and penetrated too
deeply to be as yet eradicated. Its activity has indeed been
suspended, but the elements remain, concocting for new eruptions as
occasion shall permit. It is greatly to be apprehended that mankind
is not near the end of the misfortunes which it is calculated to
produce, and that it still portends a long train of convulsion,
revolution, carnage, devastation, and misery.

Symptoms of the too great prevalence of this system in the United
States are alarmingly visible. It was by its influence that efforts
were made to embark this country in a common cause with France in
the early period of the present war; to induce our government to
sanction and promote her odious principles and views with the blood
and treasure of our citizens. It is by its influence that every
succeeding revolution has been approved or excused; all the horrors
that have been committed justified or extenuated; that even the
last usurpation, which contradicts all the ostensible principles
of the Revolution, has been regarded with complacency, and the
despotic constitution engendered by it slyly held up as a model not
unworthy of our imitation.

In the progress of this system, impiety and infidelity have
advanced with gigantic strides. Prodigious crimes heretofore
unknown among us are seen....[298]

FOOTNOTES:

[270] _The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, vol. vii, pp. 93 _et seq._ In similar strain, Jefferson wrote Adams a day later, offering his best wishes for his administration, but with the thought of the impending “storm” still well fixed in his mind. _Cf. ibid._, pp. 95 _et seq._ _Cf._ Jefferson’s letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, _ibid._, pp. 113 _et seq._

[271] The following clause in the treaty seemed to afford ample protection to the rights of France: “Nothing in this treaty contained shall, however, be construed or operate contrary to former and existing public treaties with other sovereigns or states.” (_United States Statutes at Large_, vol. viii, p. 128: Article XXV of the treaty.) But France was unable to blind her eyes to the practical consideration that her European enemy, Great Britain, and an American government, suspicious of if not positively antagonistic to French influence, were to be the interpreters of the treaty.

[272] _Annals of Congress_, vol. vii, p. 103.

[273] Gibbs, _Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams_, vol. i, p. 416, letter of Uriah Tracy to Oliver Wolcott.

[274] _Works of Fisher Ames_, vol. i. pp. 232 _et seq._, Ames’ letter to Timothy Pickering.

[275] _Cf._ _The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, vol. vii, pp. 127 _et seq._, letter of Jefferson to Thomas Pinckney. Even Jefferson’s steadfast faith and loyalty to France was momentarily put to rout.

[276] _Cf._ Morison, _The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis_, vol. i, p. 69, letter of Otis to Gen. William Heath. This letter was published in full in the _Massachusetts Mercury_ of April 17, 1798.

[277] Morison, _The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis_, vol. i, p. 69.

[278] _The Works of John Adams_, vol. viii, pp. 615, 620. President Adams was fully persuaded that French notions of domination “comprehended all America, both _north_ and _south_”. (_Ibid._) _Cf._ also _Annals of Congress_, vol. vii, p. 1147, speech of Otis on Foreign Intercourse; _American Historical Association Report for 1896_, p. 807, Higginson’s letter to Pickering.

[279] One of the pamphlets of the day, frequently referred to, much quoted in the newspapers, and evidently much read, bore the horrific title: _The Cannibals’ Progress; or the Dreadful Horrors of French Invasion, as displayed by the Republican Officers and Soldiers, in their Perfidy, rapacity, ferociousness & brutality, exercised towards the Innocent inhabitants of Germany. Translated from the German, by Anthony Aufrer(e), Esq._ ... _The Connecticut Courant_, in announcing a new edition of this work as just off the press, offered the following description of its character: “This work contains a circumstantial account of the excesses committed by the French Army in Suabia. At the present moment, when our country is in danger of being overrun by the same nation, our people ought to be prepared for those things, which they must expect, in case such an event should happen. The pamphlet should be owned by every man, and read in every family. They will there find, from an authentic source, that the consequences of being conquered by France, or even subjected to their government, are more dreadful than the heart of man can conceive. Murder, robbery, burning of towns, and the violation of female chastity, in forms too dreadful to relate, in instances too numerous to be counted, are among them. Five thousand copies of this work were sold in Philadelphia in a few days, and another edition of ten thousand is now in the press in that city.” _Cf._ the issue of the _Courant_ for July 2, 1798. Another book of horrors which deserves mention in this connection, although it came to public attention in America a little later, was the following: _The History of the Destruction of the Helvetic Union and Liberty_. By J. Mallet Du Pan. This work was first printed in England in 1798, and the following March was reprinted in Boston. A sentence or two taken from the author’s preface will convey a fair notion of its nature: “In the Helvetic History, every Government may read its own destiny, and learn its duty. If there be yet one that flatters itself that its existence is reconcilable with that of the French Republic, let it study this dreadful monument of their friendship. Here every man may see how much weight treaties, alliances, benefactions, rights of neutrality, and even submission itself, retain in the scales of that Directory, who hunt justice from the earth, and whose sanguinary rapacity seeks plunder and spreads ruin alike on the Nile as on the Rhine, in Republican Congresses as well as in the heart of Monarchies.” Like _The Cannibals’ Progress_, this work was much quoted in the newspapers and caught the sympathetic eye of many clergyman, Jedediah Morse among the number. July 29, 1799, Chauncey Goodrich, of Hartford, Connecticut, wrote Oliver Wolcott to the effect that “the facts ... in Du Pan, Robinson, Barruel, have got into every farm house; they wont go out, till the stories of the indian tomahawk & war dances around their prisoners do.” (_Wolcott Papers_, vol. v, 77.) Nathaniel Ames did not think highly of the veracity of _The Cannibals’ Progress_, yet he paid tribute to its influence in the following fashion: “July 31, 1798. Judge Metcalf with his cockade on came down to see Gen. Washington expecting to get a Commission to fight the French & infatuated at the slanders of the Progress of the Cannibals that the French skin Americans, to make boots for their Army, &c.” (_Dedham Historical Register_, vol. ix: Diary of Ames, p. 24.)

[280] Channing, _History of the United States_, vol. iv, pp. 176 _et seq._, gives a brief but entertaining account of the political jockeying on the part of our government which lay back of Monroe’s recall and the despatch of Pinckney to France.

[281] Gibbs, _Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams_, vol. ii, pp. 15 _et seq._ _Cf._ McMaster, _History of the People of the United States_, vol. ii, pp. 368 _et seq._

[282] _Cf._ _Works of Fisher Ames_, vol. i, p. 225, letter of Ames to H. G. Otis. Ames’ comment on the discomfiture of the Democrats was characteristically vigorous: “The late communications [_i. e._, the X. Y. Z. despatches] have only smothered their rage; it is now a coal-pit, lately it was an open fire. Thacher would say, the effect of the despatches is only like a sermon in hell to awaken conscience in those whose day of probation is over, to sharpen pangs which cannot be soothed by hope.”

[283] _The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, vol. vii, p. 228, Jefferson’s letter to Edmund Pendleton.

[284] The elation of Jedediah Morse over the turn affairs seemed to be taking was great. Under date of May 21, 1798, he wrote Wolcott, dilating on “the wonderful and happy change in the public mind. Opposition is shrinking into its proper insignificance, stripped of the support of its deluded _honest_ friends. I now feel it is an honour to be an American.” (_Wolcott Papers_, vol. viii, 23.)

[285] Jedediah Morse was far from comfortable over the unwillingness of the President to proceed with vigor in handling affairs with France. An ill-concealed vein of impatience is discoverable in the following letter which he wrote to Wolcott, under date of July 13, 1798: “He [Washington] will unite all _honest_ men among us. It gladdens the hearts of some at least, to my knowledge, of our deluded, warm democrats. They say, ‘Washington is a good man—an American, & we will rally round his standard!’ ... The rising & unexpected spread of the American spirit has dispelled all gloom from my mind, respecting our country. I rejoyce at the crisis, because I believe, the issue will be, the _extinction of French influence among us_, & if this can be effected, treasure & even blood, will not be spilt in vain.—The government is strengthening every day, by the confidence and assertions of the people.—We are waiting with almost impatience to _have war declared agt. France_, that we may distinguish more decidedly between friends & foes among ourselves. I believe there is energy enough in government to silence, & if necessary _exterminate its obstinate & dangerous enemies_.” (_Wolcott Papers_, vol. viii, 27.) Eleven months later Morse expressed to Wolcott his grave fears on account of the disposition of the national government to reciprocate the “pacific overtures of the French govt.” (_Wolcott Papers_, vol. viii, 24.) It is not French _arms_, but their “principles” which he holds in dread. (_Cf. ibid._) Back of the fire-eating spirit of this New England clergyman was a genuine moral and religious concern.

[286] The texts of these various acts may be found in _United States Statutes at Large_, vol. i, pp. 566–569, 570–572, 577–578, 596–597. The Naturalization Act extended from five to nineteen years the period of residence necessary for aliens who wished to become naturalized; that is to say, fourteen years of residence, to be followed by an additional five years of residence after the declaration of intention to become a citizen had been filed. It is obvious that this measure was intended to defeat the process by which the Democrats had been absorbing the foreign vote. The Act Concerning Aliens empowered the President “to order all such aliens as he should judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or should have reasonable grounds to suspect were concerned in any treasonable or secret machinations against the government thereof, to depart out of the territory of the United States within such a time as should be expressed in such order.” Penalties in the form of heavy imprisonment and the withdrawal of the opportunity to become citizens were attached. The Act Respecting Alien Enemies gave the president power when the country was in a state of war to cause the subjects of the nation at war with the United States “to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.” The Sedition Act, not only in point of time but in sinister significance as well, stood at the apex of this body of legislation. It provided that fines and imprisonments were to be imposed upon men who were found guilty of unlawfully combining or conspiring for opposition to measures of government, or for impeding the operation of any law in the United States, or for intimidating an officer in the performance of his duty. The penalty was to be a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding five years. Penalties were also provided for publishing false, scandalous, and malicious writings against the government.

[287] At the time the country numbered among its population a very large number of aliens. French refugees from the West Indies, to the number of perhaps 25,000, were here. _Cf._ _Report of the American Historical Association for 1912_: “The Enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Laws,” by F. M. Anderson, p. 116. England, also, had her quota of citizens here, not a few of whom were fugitives from justice, and some of whom, like William Cobbett and J. Thomson Callender (_cf._ McMaster, _History of the People of the United States_, vol. ii, p. 338), either drew the fire of the advocates of French principles or busied themselves in the affairs of government on this side of the ocean. The amount of scurrilous abuse, aimed at the heads of government, which issued from the public press had become appalling. No innuendoes were too indelicate, no personalities too coarse, no slanders too malicious, no epithets too vile to be of service in the general campaign of villification. The prostitution of the public press in America has never been more abject than it was at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. (Duniway, _The Development of Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts_, pp. 143, 144.) Unfortunately, Federalists compromised their position and scandalized their cause by writing as scurrilous and libelous articles as their enemies; but the agencies of administration were in their hands, and, as the Democrats charged, their offences were not noticed.

[288] Morison, _The Life and Letters of Harrison Cray Otis_, vol. i, pp. 106 _et seq._ Morison’s treatment of this tempestuous period is characterized by keen discrimination and fine balance. It is one of the most satisfying as well as one of the most vivid accounts of the situation to be found.

[289] _Connecticut Courant_, July 8, 1799.

[290] _Independent Chronicle_, Dec. 3, 1798.

[291] _Report of the American Historical Association for 1912_: “The Enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Laws,” by F. M. Anderson, pp. 115 _et seq._ _Cf._ _The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, vol. vii, pp. 256 _et seq._, 262, letters of Monroe to Jefferson.

[292] Anderson, who appears to have made a painstaking examination of the available records, states his conclusions thus: “I have made a special effort to discover every possible instance and to avoid confusing Federal and State cases. There appears to have been about 24 or 25 persons arrested. At least 15, and probably several more, were indicted. Only 10, or possibly 11, cases came to trial. In 10 the accused were pronounced guilty. The eleventh case may have been an acquittal, but the report of it is entirely unconfirmed.” (_Report of the American Historical Association for 1912_, p. 120. _Cf._ Bassett, _The Federalist System_, p. 264.) An important phase of the judicial aspects of the situation, as respects the forming of public opinion, was the widespread publication in the newspapers of the charges made to grand juries by Federal judges who exerted themselves to defend the alien and sedition laws, and whose utterances received caustic criticism at the hands of Democrat writers.

[293] Duniway, _The Development of Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts_, pp. 145, 146.

[294] _The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, vol. vii, pp. 331 _et seq._, Jefferson’s letter to Elbridge Gerry.

[295] The report of this episode may be found in the _Connecticut Courant_ of May 14, 1798. _Cf._ _The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, vol. vii, pp. 252 _et seq._, Jefferson’s letter to Madison.

[296] _Ibid._

[297] _An Answer to Alexander Hamilton’s Letter, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq., President of the United States_, New York, 1800, p. 3. In this connection it may be noted that as ardent and hopeful a Democrat as Nathaniel Ames seriously contemplated the outbreak of civil war in the United States as the result of the tense party situation near the end of 1798. _Cf._ _Dedham Historical Register_, Diary of Ames, vol. ix, p. 63.

[298] _The Works of Alexander Hamilton_, vol. vii, pp. 374–377: Fragment on the French Revolution. The Fragment is undated. It could not have been written later than 1804, of course. There are some slight traces that it was compiled at the time the excitement over the Illuminati was prevalent in America.