University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER I

FEDERALIST DOMINATION OF THE UNION, 1789-1801

That the Constitution did not reflect the wishes of the
people of Virginia was shown by the complexion of the House
of Delegates—the popular branch of the Virginia Legislature.
This body had been elected in April, 1788, a month after the
members of the Convention had been chosen. They must
have been selected with reference to their opinions about the
proposed Constitution, which was the absorbing topic. The
Legislature held a short session beginning June 23, two days
after the State Convention adjourned, and after transacting
business of an ordinary character, the members returned
home, as we are told, to gather in their harvest. But that
short visit to their constituents appeared to have instilled
into the minds of a great majority, if it was wanting before,
a most determined opposition to the Constitution, which had
just been accepted by the Convention. Jefferson wrote to
William Short that the Assembly was "possessed by a
vast majority of anti-Federalists," and that "Henry was
supreme."

When the Assembly convened again in the month of October
Henry's supremacy was quickly shown by ridding the
Assembly of Mr. Madison, who was elected to be sent to the
Continental Congress at New York. Despite the talk of his
enemies, it is not necessary to suppose that in doing this
Henry was actuated by any other than patriotic motives,
for the Assembly was too pronounceably anti-Federalist for
any fear to be entertained of Madison's influence. No Federalists
of much prominence were left in the Legislature
except Francis Corbin, Richard Bland Lee, Zachariah Johnston

and Richard Turberville, while Henry had on his side
old veterans in debate, like Benjamin Harrison, William Grayson,
and James Monroe. The receipt of a circular from the
New York Convention, in which opposition to the Constitution
prevailed for very different reasons than in Virginia,
inviting cooperation for a second convention to propose
amendments, impelled Henry to give further evidence of his
influence.

On October 30 Henry proposed and the Assembly adopted
a series of resolutions calling for a new convention, and a
substitute, favored by the Federalists, providing that Congress
be allowed to prepare amendments to be accepted by
the states, as set forth in that instrument, was voted down
by 85 to 39—more than two to one. Later, on November 14,
both houses—the Senate and the House of Delegates—
declaring the cause of amendments to be the "Common
Cause," adopted a petition to Congress, drawn up by the
same great leader, that a convention be immediately called
with full power to enter into consideration of the defects of
the Constitution, suggested by the State Conventions. They
were passed in the House by a vote of 72 to 50. Following
this, two pronounced anti-Federalists, Richard Henry Lee
and William Grayson, were elected the two first Virginia
senators, over Madison, who was a candidate of the
Federalists.

The election for the members of the House of Representatives
occurred on February 2, and the interval seems to have
had a cooling effect upon the suspicions of the people of
Virginia. The unanimous selection of Washington as first
President under the Constitution gratified their pride, and
from fear that a new convention might imperil the Union
itself a change of opinion resulted; and out of ten members
elected seven were Federalists—including Madison, who
had been opposed by James Monroe. The same contemptible
spirit which had slandered the noble Henry in other particulars
attributed to him in the arrangements of the Congressional

districts by the Legislature a plan "to gerrymander"
Madison out of his election.

Madison's talents assured him the leadership in the House
of Representatives, and when Theodoric Bland laid before
Congress the petition of Virginia for a second convention,
he prevented its consideration. He proposed and carried
through Congress nine amendments, chiefly declaratory in
their character, but the great body of the Virginia amendments
were not supported by him and they were rejected.
Prominent among these was the one requiring a two-thirds
vote for the passage of a commercial law.

Madison proposed a bill laying an impost to provide
revenue and another to establish three executive departments
of the Government—Foreign Affairs, Treasury and
War. Other things considered were titles to the executive,
tonnage duties, taxation of slaves, and the seat of government.
On these questions the real difference in the Union
constantly showed itself. The heat of party feud was cold
and dull compared with the fervor of sectional hate, the hate
that sprang up between the East as the East and the South
as the South. This rancor increased at the second session
of this First Congress, when Hamilton, the secretary of the
treasury, proposed his plans for providing for the support
of the public credit, embracing a funding scheme, assumption
of the state debts, a national bank and a tariff.

These measures were all in the interest of the North.
Most of the national debt in the shape of certificates were
held and owned in the North by speculators who had bought
them up at ten cents on the dollar. The state debts were
largely owing by northern states; the natural habitat of the
bank was in a commercial center, and the North had all the
large cities; and the tariff, even if its aim was revenue, promoted
the interest of commerce rather than of agriculture, and
the North had the commerce and the South had the agriculture.

In the discussion of these questions the incompatibility of

states, some given to commerce and others given to agriculture,
was startlingly made manifest. In a letter dated September
29, 1789, written to Patrick Henry, immediately after
the close of the first session of Congress, Senator Grayson
stated the differences as follows:[1]

"Gentlemen now begin to feel the observations of the
Antis, when they informed them of the different interests in
the Union, and the probable consequences that would result
therefrom to the southern states, who would be the milch cow
out of whom the substance would be extracted. If I am not
mistaken, they will e'er long have abundant cause to conclude
that the idea of a difference between carrying states and
productive states and manufacturing states and slave states
is not a mere phantom of the imagination. If they reflect
at all on the meaning of protective duties, by way of encouragement
to manufactures, and apply the consequences to
their own constituents, I think they would now agree that
we were not totally beside ourselves in the convention. In my
opinion, whenever the impost bill comes into action, the
friends of the South will be let into some secrets that they
do not or will not at present apprehend. You would be astonished
at the progress of manufactures in the seven easternmost
states; if they go on in the same proportion for seven
years, they will pay very little on impost, while the South will
continue to labor under the pressure. This, added to the
advantage of carrying for the productive states, will place
them in the most desirable situation whatever."

In Virginia the measure in Congress particularly detested
was the Assumption bill. Since the peace the state had made
great efforts to reduce her public debt, and could point with
just pride to the figures which gave evidence of her success.
It was, therefore, a gross injustice, in the opinion of men of
both parties in the state, Federalists and anti-Federalists
alike, that Virginia should be called upon to pay the debts of
the delinquent states, which, with the exception of South

Carolina, were all northern states. The Virginia Legislature,
taking the Assumption bill into consideration after it had
passed, forwarded to Congress a vigorous remonstrance. It
was written by Henry and came from a committee of eleven
members, seven of whom had advocated the ratification of
the Constitution in the Convention of 1788, including the
chairman, Francis Corbin. It was the first remonstrance of a
state against a Federal act.

The Assumption bill was bitterly fought in Congress and
would not have been passed except for the intervention of
Thomas Jefferson, who was affected by profoundly patriotic
reasons. He came back to the United States from France in
December, 1789, and on March 21, 1790, he went to New York
to enter upon the duties of his office of secretary of state. He
found public affairs in an alarming condition. The House
had rejected the Assumption scheme, and so bitter were the
feelings of the two parties that they could not do business
together, and Congress adjourned from day to day. In the
street he met Hamilton, who painted pathetically the temper
of the northern states, the danger of the secession of their
members and the separation of the Union. A conference was
had the next day when two members of Congress from Virginia
were also present—Alexander White and Richard Bland
Lee. They agreed to change their votes, but it was resolved
that to soften the measure Hamilton should exert his influence
to fix the capital of the Union on the Potomac, a location
ardently desired by the South. This was done in the middle
of July, 1790, and on July 23 the amendment of the pending
bill providing for the assumption of the state debts was
agreed to by a vote of 32 ayes to 29 noes. The only southerners
voting for it, except the South Carolina members,
were White and Lee of Virginia and Daniel Carroll and
George Gale of Maryland.

As a matter of fact there was no equivalent in the bargain,
and a year later Jefferson declared that he had been
duped by Hamilton and made his tool in lending his aid to the

Assumption bill, and that of all the errors of his political life
he regretted this the most.[2]

That the Union did not break up at this time was due not
alone to the action of Jefferson but to the universality of the
belief in the South that the inferiority of the section in population
was only temporary, and that empire was coming their
way. The North too shared in the belief, and this accentuated
their opposition to the Mississippi and to the application
of Kentucky for admission as a state. That part of
Virginia had on its petition been allowed to call a state convention
as early as January, 1786, but a delay in forming a
Constitution had resulted from an Indian war on the frontiers,
which broke out in that year. Sevier led an expedition
from Tennessee which punished the Indians severely, but disaster
befell a much larger expedition that went out from Kentucky
under Gen. George Rogers Clark. This expedition was
known as the Wabash Expedition, but after proceeding some
distance against the Indian towns, the men got dissatisfied,
refused to go any further, and despite the tears and entreaties
of their leader returned home, having accomplished nothing.

So many of the first characters of the District had joined
the army that the meeting of the convention which was to
decide the question of the independence of Kentucky had
to be postponed. But the Indians did not escape their just
punishment. Col. Benjamin Logan, a brave and efficient
officer, crossed the Ohio where Maysville now stands with 500
mounted riflemen, penetrated the Indian country, burned eight
towns, laid waste many hundreds of cornfields, killed twenty
braves, and with eighty prisoners hastened back to Kentucky.[3]
Later Kentucky framed its constitution and asked Congress
to be admitted as a state, but from fear of its increasing the
power of the South, admission was delayed by Congress till
1792. Not till four acts of cession had been passed by Virginia
and nine conventions held by the people of Kentucky,

did the bill pass both houses of Congress and receive the
assent of the President.

Perhaps the greatest bond of union was found in the
character of the great President, whom Virginia had given
to the Union. His countrymen of the South revered him, and
his sympathy being wholly given to the cause, he exerted a
mighty influence in determining the southerners to accept the
evils of the moment, in hopes that juster conduct on the part
of the North might prevail in the future. But it is a mistake
to suppose that Washington was not a southern man in thought
and feeling. In a letter to David Stuart, March 28, 1790, he
preached the necessity of a union of the South, and justified
it on the ground of the well-known selfishness of the New
England states.[4] But he differed from Grayson and Henry
in unwillingness to think that the variances were absolutely
contradictory, as they proved to be. And Madison, who by
his services at Philadelphia had won the title of "Father of
the Constitution," was so impressed with the hardships
imposed upon the South by Hamilton's financial policy that,
after vainly attempting to modify his plan, he declared that
"had a prophet arisen up in that body (the convention at
Philadelphia) and brought the declarations and proceedings of
this day into view, I as firmly believe Virginia would not at
this moment have been a part of the Union."[5]

Had there been two separate nations under different governments,
Hamilton's measures adopted in each would have
been acceptable. Credit could have been restored in each,
without any hardship to either. As it was credit was restored,
which became of common benefit, but it was at the price of
the sacrifice of southern interests then existing. The North
was immensely benefited, and in the eyes of northern historians
Hamilton is one of the greatest financiers that ever
lived!

After this time and until 1794, when Jefferson resigned

as secretary of state, the North was represented in the Cabinet
of Washington by Hamilton and the South by Jefferson. In
the language of the latter, "They were pitted against each
other like fighting cocks." Two great parties grew up about
them—one called the Federalist, and the other the Republican.
In mental force the two leaders were perhaps equal, but in
all other particulars Jefferson was immensely superior.
Hamilton was confessedly an immoral man, but against Jefferson
there was nothing to his discredit, except vague charges
for which no adequate proof was ever advanced. Hamilton
had little imagination, and therefore no originality. His
financial measures were copies in fact of British legislation.
But Jefferson was full of imagination, and was therefore a
genius. Had he given his life to philosophy, or to architecture,
or to invention, he would have ranked with the masters
in those lines of endeavor. As it was, he was no mean
philosopher, no mean architect and no mean inventor. He gave
most of his time to law-making and politics, and in each he
was supreme. There is no evidence derived from any source
that Jefferson went about forming a party, but the party
formed about him, because of his ideals. He gave "form
and substance" to political doctrines which are imperishable,
and the masses of the people came to look upon him as the
great apostle of the equal rights of man.

On the other hand, Hamilton was a politician of somewhat
the modern stamp, and secretly planned and organized.
He intrigued in 1793 to defeat the nomination of John Adams
as vice president, and he not only encouraged others to write
but wrote himself anonymous letters[6] to the newspapers, slandering
Jefferson, and he did all he could to poison Washington
against him. Jefferson never wrote a letter to any newspaper,
and the worst that could be said against him was that
he did not deem it his duty to denounce the men who revered
his views and said bitter things in public. He was a talkative
man, and often pursued ideas to conclusions which were

plainly illogical, and he was sometimes inconsistent both in
words and action. But the thing which made him so great
a leader of men, the thing that places him among the foremost
men of all time—was his idealism. He was a man of ideals,
which spoke their own argument and were independent of his
own actions or explanations. He was tireless in his correspondence
and full of criticisms, not always just, on the
policy and measures of the Federalists, but he left to others
the building up of the machinery of party organization. There
is nothing in Jefferson's correspondence that resembles the
trickery of Hamilton in his letter to Governor Jay, in 1800,
advising him to reconvene the Legislature of New York and
put through a law for the choice of presidential electors by
districts. Jay endorsed it as "Proposing a measure for party
purposes which I think it would not become me to adopt."[7]
Not only did Hamilton conspire against Jefferson at this
time, but against John Adams in favor of C. C. Pinckney for
President.

After the adoption of Hamilton's financial measures politics
shaped themselves on sympathy with France and Great
Britain. France had not only helped us to independence but
professed democratic principles. Naturally, therefore, Jefferson
sympathized with France and so did the Republican
party and Virginia especially. In support of Jefferson were
the small farmers, artisans and mechanics throughout the
Union, but the aristocrats, moneyed men and bondholders
everywhere supported Hamilton, and New England was their
headquarters. It is hard to understand even at this day this
northern friendship for Great Britain. It is vain to say that
it was due to the excesses of the French Revolution, for as we
have seen a British party existed in 1783, and had been
denounced in Congress. Undoubtedly this dislike of the
French was a survival of the old autocratic prejudices of New
England against popular rule for which France was coming
forward as a champion.

The conduct of France was uniformly friendly till 1793,
when she went to war with Great Britain. Up to that time
there was no cause of complaint, but in 1793 France took it
unkindly that the United States did not go to war in company
with her, and her minister Genet went so far as to violate
the neutrality of our territory by equipping ships of war in
our ports. There is much to be said in excuse of Genet.
Undoubtedly the treaties placed the United States under great
obligations to France, and it seemed pretty hard to put this
"old, tried friend" on an equal footing with a nation which
had made war upon us, had failed to carry out the Treaty
of Peace, impressed our seamen and continually violated our
rights.

Jefferson advised Washington to issue a proclamation of
neutrality, but he gave the advice with much reluctance, very
different from Hamilton who hated France and gleefully
accepted the situation, carrying his zeal so far as to interfere
with the conduct of Jefferson's own department.[8]

During his stay in the Cabinet of Washington Jefferson
prepared many able state papers, but among them his note
to Mr. Hammond, the British minister, is perhaps the most
remarkable. In this splendid production he reviewed at
length the whole course of the dispute between Great Britain
and the United States since the peace in 1783, showing by a
formidable array of legal and historical proof that the United
States had carefully fulfilled its treaty obligations and Great
Britain had not. When Washington's first term was closing,
Jefferson wanted to resign, but was induced to remain another
year at Washington's urgent instance. When he did resign
in 1794 Washington wrote him a letter stating that "the
opinion of his integrity and talents, which dictated the original
nomination, had been confirmed by the fullest experience,"
and that "both had been eminently displayed in the
discharge of his duty."

In the meantime, after the declaration of neutrality, the

French government opened their West India Islands to our
trade, but Great Britain, invoking the rule of 1756, refused
to regard our commerce with the French West Indies as
neutral. Orders in Council, in the summer and autumn of
1793, practically stopped all trade with France and the French
Indies, and hundreds of American ships were seized, their
cargoes condemned, and their seamen impressed. Some Americans
wanted the American government to sequestrate British
goods found in the United States, others advised war, and
still others advised further negotiations. The latter advice
was determined on, and John Jay was sent to England to
attempt a solution of the difficulties.

Jay brought back a treaty which was a practical surrender
of everything. It was silent on the questions of impressment,
the repeal of the Orders in Council, and granted only niggardly
concessions to our West Indian trade. The French
had, in the treaty of 1778, conceded the principle of "free
ships make free goods," but Jay's treaty had a clause in
favor of the English contention that enemy's goods found in a
neutral ship of the United States were subject to seizure. The
forts on the frontier were surrendered after a detention of
thirteen years, but the loss of the fur trade was not compensated
for, and the United States agreed to pay British creditors
debts due them from insolvent estates, to the amount
of $2,664,000.

On the South fell the burden of the hardships of the treaty.
There were no provisions protecting its tobacco from the
ruinous British tariffs or for the value of the negroes taken
off from the South during the Revolutionary war, and for
which payment was promised by the treaty of peace. All
claim to indemnification was released, though it may be noted
here that the same deportation of slaves took place in the
War of 1812, followed by the same stipulation for indemnity
in the treaty which closed the war that was contained in the
treaty that closed the war of the Revolution, and attended
by the same refusal to comply with it. It was not till 12 years

later and under the administration of John Quincy Adams,
and under the arbitration of the Emperor Alexander of Russia
that indemnity for these deported slaves of 1812 was received.

The treaty was at first hailed with hearty execrations all
over the Union, but as months went on the opposition in the
North began to diminish, and soon Fisher Ames and the other
Federalists began to find this dishonorable treaty a pretty
likeable thing after all. They painted the danger of war so
vividly to Washington that, from a determination to veto the
treaty, he finally approved it. The Senate ratified the treaty
by a bare two-thirds vote, 20 to 10, and the inevitable two
nations showed themselves in the character of the majority
and minority. The Virginia senators voted against it, being
not afraid to try another war.

No Virginian is desirous of censuring Washington's
approval of Jay's treaty, but it is difficult to understand the
"superior" wisdom of a policy which involved us in war with
our best and nearest friend for a vain attempt to avoid one
with our most inveterate and dangerous enemy. When Jefferson
came home to become secretary of state, his place in
France was filled by Gouverneur Morris, a high-strutting
aristocratic Federalist, who was strongly pro-British in his
ideas. When Washington demanded the recall of Genet, the
French government demanded in return the recall of Morris.
Morris came home, and about the time John Jay went to England,
James Monroe, of Virginia, was sent to fill the vacancy
caused by Morris' absence from France. His instructions
enjoined upon him to use his utmost endeavors to inspire
the French government with the solicitude felt by President
Washington of his preference for France to all other nations
as "the friend and ally of the United States," and to declare
in explicit terms that although neutrality was the lot we preferred,
yet in case we embarked in the war it would be on her
side and against her enemies, be they who they might. They
expressly warranted him in saying that the projected negotiations
with England were confined solely to the procuring

compensation for depredations committed on our trade and
obtaining the surrender of the western posts.[9]

The negotiation then of a treaty of commerce with Great
Britain, without any consultation with Monroe, aroused the
suspicions and resentments of France, and placed Monroe in
a trying position. When the treaty became public, Monroe
justly considered himself badly treated and France viewed
with disgust a people who, while she exempted British goods
on American vessels from seizure, agreed to permit this
enemy to seize French goods on American vessels. Monroe
had assured the French, in strict conformity with his instructions,
that no such permission was thought of by Jay, and
after some sharp words of rebuke by Secretary Pickering he
was recalled by Washington and returned to America, where
he soon published, as he had a right to do, a defence of his
conduct in a pamphlet which was largely applauded by Republicans
everywhere. Washington sent C. C. Pinckney of South
Carolina, to succeed Monroe.

Washington would not ask for a third term, and John
Adams was made President, and Jefferson, Vice President.
A few days after the inauguration came news that C. C. Pinckney
had been denied an audience by the Directory of France,
and ordered out of the country. Hamilton was strong for
war with France, but John Adams showed a superior statesmanship
and sent John Marshall, a Virginia Federalist, and
Elbridge Gerry, a Republican of Massachusetts, to join with
Pinckney in a commission to Paris. Talleyrand, the wily
minister of foreign affairs, would not receive them officially,
but instead sent certain inferior agents, called by Adams
X Y Z in his message, who told them that no negotiations
would be had till Adams had apologized and a good sum of
money paid to the Directors personally. The commissioners
made a spirited reply and the words ascribed to Pinckney

aroused much enthusiasm. "Millions for defense, but not a
cent for tribute."

Marshall and Pinckney left France in high disgust though
Gerry remained, and the war feeling rose very high in the
United States. Adams declared that "he would never send
another minister to France until he was assured that he
would be honored as the representative of a great, free, powerful
and independent nation." Congress enlarged the army,
made Washington commander-in-chief, and ordered the capture
of French vessels. For two years there were hostilities
at sea, and the Americans captured many French merchantmen
and a few warships. The Federalist party was given a
new lease of life, and the Republicans suffered a proportionate
decline.

But it was rightly asked, How about that aversion to war
with Great Britain in 1796, when the Jay treaty was ratified,
or was it that the United States was more afraid of Great
Britain than of France? The Republicans contended that
all the troubles flowed from Jay's treaty, which practically
converted this country into an ally of their old enemy Great
Britain, and naturally alienated their old friend, France, and
there was much truth in this charge.

John Adams and his Federalist Congress, borne along on
a great wave of popularity in the northern and middle states,
passed acts in June or July, 1798, born of arrogance and
hatred of democracy. The occasion was the coming to this
continent of a good many foreigners who were the victims
of tyranny in their own countries and sought greater liberty
here. They naturally allied themselves with that party which
opposed the government here, and they both opposed and
condemned it. The result was the passage of a Sedition Act
which imposed imprisonment and heavy fines on all who
should write or say anything detrimental to John Adams or
his government. There was also the Alien Act which gave
the President arbitrary authority to arrest and send out of
the country any alien whom he should judge "dangerous to

the peace and safety of the United States." To these were
added a Naturalization Act which raised the probationary
term of residence from five years to fourteen, with an intent
to keep out such dangerous republican allies. Massachusetts,
the center of Federalism, passed an act recommending an
amendment to remove from office certain aliens. During this
time Federalist newspapers and Federalist orators denounced
democracy, and eulogized autocracy in every way, and represented
Jefferson as an atheist, anarchist and plunderer. They
defended their Alien and Sedition laws by invoking the general
clauses of the Constitution and the Common Law of
England. Republican orators retorted fiercely, and exaggerated
the imminence of the danger to republican government,
but that danger existed is overwhelmingly shown by the
evidence.

The passion for class distinctions had always been conspicuous
in the North, where the servants continued to be
drawn from the white population. The leveling principles of
the Revolution failed to do away with it, and Senator Grayson
of Virginia noticed, in a letter to Patrick Henry, written June
12, 1789, from the first Congress, the favor bestowed by the
New England people especially on class and monarchical ideas.
He attributed to John Adams, the Vice President, the responsibility
for the desire of the Senate over which he presided
for a pompous title to be given to the president—"His Highness
and Protector of the Liberties of America." The following
is an extract from his letter:[10]

"Many gentlemen here are of opinion that the Federalists
aim at a limited monarchy, to take effect in a short
time. This, however, I doubt extremely, except in the Eastern
states, who, I believe, if the question was left to them, would
decide in favor of one tomorrow. They say, they have no
surety in their fisheries, or in the carrying business, or in
any particular privileges, without a strong government. Is
it not strange that monarchy should issue from the East?

"Is it not still stranger that John Adams, the son of a
tinker, and the creature of the people, should be for titles
and dignities and preeminencies, and should despise the herd
and the ill-born? It is said he was the primum mobile in the
Senate for the titles for the President, in hopes that in the
scramble he might get a slice for himself. The committee of
the lower House have reported five thousand dollars for his
salary, at which he is much offended, and I am in great hopes
the House will still offend him more by reducing it."

Hamilton did not disguise his views, and was open in his
professions of admiration for the British government. He did
not believe in a popular government, and said, in an after-dinner
discussion, striking the table with his fist: "Your
people, sir, is a great beast." He and King and Gouverneur
Morris corresponded quite frankly on the prospect of establishing
an American empire on foundations "much firmer
than yet have been devised." A few years after Hamilton's
death Morris confessed that "Hamilton disliked the Constitution,
believing all republican governments radically defective."[11]

In Virginia the Federalists were never so extreme as those
of New England. They did not want monarchy, but they
distrusted a popular rule and wanted a strong government.
There, John Marshall declared that he feared "that those who
say that man is incapable of governing himself have the truth
on their side," admitting, however, that "there is no opinion
more degrading to the dignity of man." Even George Washington
wrote: "Mankind left to themselves are unfit for their
own government."[12]

To these views the optimism of Jefferson in the capacity
of the people to rule—a principle which has entered into the
life of the world too firmly to be shaken—was in striking contrast,
and Mr. Muzzey says that "it is not the least testimony
to his labors for democracy that since the Republican triumph

which ushered in the nineteenth century every political party
that has gained or sought the direction of our government has
made its appeal to the people of America."

Virginia became the center of resistance to Hamilton's
autocratic program. Under the lead of Jefferson of that state
there was a notable consultation between John Taylor of Caroline,
the brothers George and Wilson Cary Nicholas, John
Breckenridge and James Madison, and it was determined to
obtain from the Legislature of Virginia declaratory resolutions
against the Federal party's unconstitutional doctrines
in general and against the Alien and Sedition laws in particular;
and to invite the cooperation of other states in asking
for a repeal of those laws and a declaration that they were
unconstitutional and consequently null and void. Jefferson
drew a set of resolutions, which were offered in the Kentucky
Legislature by Breckenridge and adopted by them in November,
1799, and to Madison is due the honor of having drafted
the Virginia resolutions of December 21, 1798, and that masterly
vindication of them in reply to seven states of the North,
which was adopted by the Legislature of Virginia during the
session of 1799-1800, a paper which is familiarly known as
"Madison's Report."

In these papers Virginia stepped forward as the champion
of personal freedom, liberty of conscience, liberty of the
press, and the limited authority of Congress under the Constitution,
and it was categorically denied that the common
law was a part of the law of the United States. The Virginia
resolutions declared the Constitution a compact to which the
states were parties and "that in case of a deliberate, palpable
and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the
said compact, the states who are parties thereto have the right
and are in duty bound to interpose." The Kentucky resolutions
declared that "nullification" by the state sovereigns was
the rightful remedy for Federal usurpation.

Undoubtedly in these declarations the two nations were
again revealed, but the ideals of Jefferson were so general as

to involve in their application the whole country. Democracy
was not a principle incapable like slavery of expansion, and
the object of both Madison and Jefferson was "decentralization,
not disunion." As Mr. Muzzey says, they wanted to
reform the Government, to restore it to its pristine purity and
for the accomplishment of their ends were not above using
force, if necessary. "Indeed, it was just exactly destruction
of the Federal Union through its conversion into a consolidated
despotism that Jefferson believed he was working to
prevent, and he rebuked speculations on disunion whether
they came from friends like John Taylor, of Caroline, or
enemies like Hamilton or Wolcott."[13] He deemed strict construction
necessary to keep the Government from becoming a
despotism and exerting its baleful influence over the whole
United States, and it was not till 1820 that the full significance
of the dual Union was reluctantly admitted by him.

The election that followed was hotly contested. The Republican
ticket of Jefferson and Burr was elected, but as the two
members of the ticket received the same vote, technically
under the Constitution there was a tie and the House of
Representatives, voting as states, had to decide the issue.
The Federalist members did the highly immoral thing of trying
to upset the ticket, and they voted for Burr for President.
It was a gigantic fraud attempted upon the popular will which
meets with no direct defense today. Burr did not authorize
the Federalists to use his name, but he committed the unforgivable
error of not coming out at once and letting the whole
world know that he would under no circumstances accept an
office for which he had never been intended.

But a strange thing happened. When the vote was taken
in the House there was again no election. Eight states voted
for Jefferson, six for Burr and the votes of two were divided.
The states that voted for Jefferson were Virginia, North Carolina,
Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, New York, New Jersey
and Pennsylvania, and the six states that voted for Burr were

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
Delaware and South Carolina, and the two states that divided
were Vermont and Maryland. All the South voted for Jefferson,
except South Carolina, which was dominated by the
commercial interests of Charleston, and New England, with
the exception of Vermont, was solid for the Federalist program.
The balloting continued, and for a long time no decision
was reached.

Both sides had arms in contemplation. The Federalist
papers abounded in exhortations to their followers to stand
firm, and one Federal statesman, after enumerating the
Massachusetts militia supported by New Hampshire and Connecticut,
wanted to know what Pennsylvania aided by Virginia
could do under such circumstances. All sorts of wild notions
were entertained by them. One was to declare somebody by
a simple vote of the House of Representatives President and
adjourn. The Republicans were no less determined. Jefferson
wrote to James Monroe, then governor of Virginia, that
the Republicans in Congress had declared openly and firmly
one and all "to their opponents" that the day an act was
passed for putting the Government in the hands of an officer,
the middle states would arm, and that no such usurpation, even
for a single day, would be submitted to. Samuel Tyler, of
Monroe's council, who had been sent to watch the proceedings
in Washington, wrote on February 9, the day the balloting
began, that Pennsylvania had her courier there, and the report
was that she had 22,000 men ready to take up arms "in the
event of extremities." He advised that if things remained in
statu quo for a week the Legislature should be convened and
a union made with Pennsylvania and New York and all the
states south of the Potomac.[14] It was at this juncture that
the Virginia Legislature passed the defensive measures of
building the armory in Richmond and made provision for purchasing
5,000 stands of arms. But on the thirty-sixth ballot
the Federal members from Maryland, Delaware and Vermont

cast blank ballots, and the Republicans secured ten states,
thereby electing Jefferson.

There was an old story[15] that Mr. Jefferson's final victory
was attributed to a deal with Bayard of Delaware, who is said
to have obtained certain pledges in return for his desertion
of his fellow Federalists, but there are no real facts in support
of the charge and Jefferson denied it. Samuel Tyler's letter,
dated on the day the balloting commenced shows that Bayard
of Delaware, and Craik and Baer of Maryland were three
Federalists counted on by the Republicans from the first to
support Jefferson, and it must be suspected that they were
only glad of any excuse to stop voting for Burr. Maryland
had elected a Republican legislature, and many Federalists
in Delaware and Maryland disapproved of the conduct of
the party in Congress and made their views known.[16]

The Federalists, routed out of Congress and the Presidency,
determined to hold on to the judiciary. They had already
instituted the spoils system by filling all the offices with members
of their party. Washington had, during his first administration,
tried to rule with both parties, but after Jefferson's
withdrawal from the Cabinet he fell completely in the hands
of the Federalists, and his appointees thereafter were nearly
all Federalists. He now wrote that he thought it political
suicide to appoint to office men of tenets adverse to government
measures.[17] Adams prided himself on being more intolerant
in this particular than Washington.[18]

In Congress his mouthpieces, Bayard and Otis, laid down
with utmost precision the principle of the spoils. The first
(Bayard) announced[19] that "the politics of the office seeker
would be the great object of the President's attention, and
an invincible objection if different from his own," and the

latter[20] that the pecuniary claims of Henry Miller for extra
clerk's hire, occasioned by his leaving his office to electioneer
for Adams, was "a paltry consideration infinitely outweighed
by the service he was rendering his country" in so doing. This
spirit went so far that Adams' secretary of war wrote that
political principles should be the test of the volunteers to be
raised to defend the country.[21] In Virginia the district judgeship,
the most important Federal office in the state, had been
given to Cyrus Griffin, instead of to John Tyler, who as judge
of the State Court of Admiralty, which had been superseded
by the aforesaid District Court, considered his non-nomination
a removal from office. And Tyler, to whom the office
was restored by President Madison, speaking of this action
of the Federalists, made the rule in all similar cases, despite
the natural pretensions of the incumbents of the old offices
under the states to the new offices substituted for them under
the Constitution, declared[22] that "this kind of conduct began
the strong distinction between parties, producing a spirit of
retaliation on the part of the Republicans." In 1796 Senator
Henry Tazewell writing to James Monroe declared that every
important officer south of the Potomac, except two, had been
succeeded by one north of it.[23]

The Federalists in possession of the state offices kept pace
with the National Government. In New England the town
politics had long sunk in corruption and spoils, and Mr. Gerry
in the Federal convention of 1787 declared[24] that "in Massachusetts
the worst men get into the Legislature" and "that several
members of that body had been lately convicted of
infamous crimes." In Connecticut as in Massachusetts a system
of voting first on the incumbents in office confined power
to the Federalist autocrats who were continued indefinitely in
authority. In 1797 only one in twenty persons qualified to

vote exercised the right of suffrage in that state. Rhode
Island was a close oligarchy till Dorr's rebellion in 1842 produced
a change.

As the election approached for a new President, tax collectors
and judges, even those of the highest stamp turned
active electioneerers. At the beginning of August, 1800, Judge
Chase left the bench to stump the State of Maryland in behalf
of Adams' administration, and the result was that Ellsworth,
the chief justice, being then on the French Mission, the
Supreme Court was left for a whole term without a quorum.
Wharton says there was not a charge to the grand jury which
was not a party harangue.[25] This was hardly to be wondered
at when men like Jay, Ellsworth and Marshall, whose personal
purity is unquestioned, saw no impropriety in uniting the
highest judicial functions with political offices which almost
necessarily made them partisans. While acting as chief justice
all three accepted missions abroad or offices at home quite
incompatible with their judicial position, sometimes on the
same day issuing reports in their political character and
delivering judgments in their judicial. John Marshall succeeded
Timothy Pickering as secretary of state in May, 1799,
and on January 31, 1801, Adams appointed him chief justice,
but he did not resign his former office.

This was when their power was fast waning. The Federalist
Congress, realizing that the reign of Federalism was
over, busied itself at its last session with creating sixteen
Circuit Judgeships, with marshals, attorneys and clerks. The
appointees were called the "midnight judges" because
appointed by Adams when his term was so nearly closed.
Adams showed little delicacy, and kept up the work of appointment
till 9 o'clock of March 3d. A perfect army of surveyors,
collectors and judges were sent to the complaisant Senate, and
when all the important offices were filled, Adams employed his
last hours in appointing justices of the peace for the District
of Columbia. The Spoils System was rampant. Such was

the extreme desperation of some of the Federalists that the
suggestion was made to Adams that he should appoint himself
Chief Justice, with a commission to take effect as soon
as his presidential tenure terminated. In Connecticut in the
spring of 1801 the last frantic act of the Federalists was to
sweep the offices of all Republicans.[26]

Adams is said to have shed tears at his defeat,[27] and did
not remain in Washington to witness Jefferson's triumph, but
early on the morning of the 4th he drove away from the
capital, and a new era began.[28]