5352. MONARCHY, Preference for.—[continued].
When I arrived at New
York in 1790, to take a part in the administration,
being fresh from the French Revolution,
while in its first and pure stage, and consequently
somewhat whetted up in my own republican
principles, I found a state of things,
in the general society of the place, which I
could not have supposed possible. Being a
stranger there, I was feasted from table to
table, at large set dinners, the parties generally
from twenty to thirty. The revolution I
had left, and that we had just gone through in
the recent change of our own government, being
the common topics of conversation, I was
astonished to find the general prevalence of
monarchical sentiments, insomuch that in
maintaining those of republicanism, I had always
the whole company on my hands, never
scarcely finding among them a single coadvocate
in that argument, unless some old member
of Congress happened to be present. The
furthest that any one would go, in support of
the republican features of our new government,
would be to say, “the present Constitution is
well as a beginning and may be allowed a fair
trial; but it is, in fact, only a stepping stone
to something better”. Among their writers,
[Joseph] Dennie, the editor of the “ Portfolio
”, who was a kind of oracle with them,
and styled “the Addison of America”, openly
avowed his preference of monarchy over all
other forms of government, prided himself on
the avowal, and maintained it by argument
freely and without reserve in his publications.
I do not myself know that the Essex Junta, of
Boston, were monarchists, but I have always
heard it so said, and never doubted. These
are but detached items from a great mass of
proofs then fully before the public. * * *
They are now disavowed by the party. But,
had it not been for the firm and determined
stand then made by a counter party, no man
can say what our government would have been
at this day. Monarchy, to be sure, is now defeated,
and they wish it should be forgotten
that it was ever advocated. They see that it
is desperate, and treat its imputation to them
as a calumny; and I verily believe that none of
them have it now in direct aim. Yet the spirit
is not done away. The same party takes now
what they deem the next best ground, the consolidation
of the government; the giving to
the Federal member of the Government, by
unlimited constructions of the Constitution, a
control over all the functions of the States,
and the concentration of all power ultimately
at Washington.—
To William Short. Washington ed. vii, 390.
Ford ed., x, 332.
(M.
1825)
