The two parties of Federalists and Anti-Federalists enlisted under their banners the friends and enemies of the new National Constitution, the former asserting the necessity of a strong central government, and the latter opposing, with jealous anxiety, any measure which should lessen the popular power by decreasing that of the individual States. The admirable working, however, of the Constitution under Washington and his able ministry; the increase of commerce; the extension of territory, and the general prosperity, would no doubt within a few years have allayed party animosities, had not an element at that moment come into operation which, if no other causes had existed, would have divided the country into two equally violent parties. This was the French Revolution.

Thomas Jefferson had been recalled from France, where he acted as ambassador of the United States, to take part in the administration under the new Constitution, and brought with him a strong prepossession in favour of the French revolutionists. Nothing could be more natural than that the citizens of the United States, who had so lately and so gloriously achieved their own independence, should sympathise warmly in the struggle of that very nation which had aided them in the time of their difficulty to throw off the despotism under which they was suffering, and the early and better impulse to which had been a spark caught from the American flame of liberty. While the anti-federalists, resisting, as they believed, all dangerous aggressions on their own dearly-bought independence, cordially espoused the French cause; the federalists saw in the outrage and ferocity of the French republicans indications which filled them with the utmost jealousy and alarm, lest the same spirit should break forth upon their shores, and sweep away those wise foundations of order which had been so carefully laid.

With these opposite sentiments towards France were united, as a matter of course, equally opposed feelings towards England. The federalists regarding their country as allied to Great Britain by similarity of language, religion, and literature, were ready even to doubt, with the example of France before them, whether a republican form of government could be relied upon, and to draw still more closely the bonds of union between themselves and the mother-country. They charged the anti-federalists with blind devotion to the French cause, and their leaders, with Jefferson at the head, with being deeply tinctured with the sentiments of the French school of philosophy, and with the design of introducing the same infidel and jacobinical notions into America, as had led to the sanguinary and revolting scenes in France.^[67]

The revolutionary party in France regarded the Americans as brethren, and expected from them only applause and sympathy. The French minister who had been sent over by the king was recalled, and citizen Genet, as representative of the new republic, arrived in April, 1793, about a month after Washington’s second entrance into office, at Charleston, South Carolina, where he was received with distinguished respect and honour, intended to express the approbation with which America regarded the change in the institutions of France. While the minister of the French republic was thus received with peculiar marks of honour by the anti-federal party, they insisted upon the president resuming office with the most republican simplicity. Jefferson was at the head of this movement, and lest he might appear as the only thorough republican in the cabinet, now that republicanism was the fashion, Hamilton, the opponent of Jefferson, fell into the same idea. Knox and Randolph dissented; and Washington took the oath of office in the Senate-chamber in the presence of the members of the cabinet, various public officers and foreign ministers. The Vice-President Adams, too, assumed a republican simplicity of living; gave up his house in Philadelphia and went into lodgings, leaving his wife at home to manage the farm, to whom writing, he said that his style of living made him very popular, and that he himself was well satisfied with his present simplicity. This republican rage was consequently shocked severely on the occasion of Washington’s next birth-day, when visits of congratulation, balls, parties, and other festivities, took place, not in Philadelphia only, where congress was now sitting, but in many other cities and towns; all which were regarded by the democrats as alarming steps towards monarchy, and the press teemed with bitter effusions on the subject.^[68]

Genet, the new French minister, flattered by the reception given to him, and supposing that the American nation, whatever its government might be, were ready to embark in the cause of France, proceeded to authorise the fitting out and arming privateers in the port of Charleston, and the enlisting men and giving commissions to cruise and commit hostilities on nations with whom the United States were at peace. He assumed also to authorise the French consuls throughout the Union to erect Courts of Admiralty, for trying and condemning such prizes as might be brought into the American ports; and acting on this assumed authority, proceeded accordingly against several prizes which were very soon brought to Charleston.

Five days before the arrival of Genet at Charleston, the news had reached New York of the French declaration of war against England and Holland. Washington, who was then at Mount Vernon, hastened to Philadelphia, summoned his cabinet, and took into serious consideration the important question, as to what part the United States must take in the present crisis of European affairs. Not wishing to involve his country in the contests of Europe, he himself advocated neutrality, and the cabinet finally came to the same opinion. This step, however, was by no means a popular one. Genet, who was an old and able diplomatist, arrived at Philadelphia immediately after the American government had published their decision. His journey, like his reception, called forth the most extravagant enthusiasm. The very men, says Hildreth, who had reprobated any demonstration of respect to Washington, as savouring too much of the old spirit of monarchical adulation, now seemed almost insane in the fervour of their desire to do honour to the Republic of France, in the person of her minister.

Republican feasts were held in sober Philadelphia; the public press took up the cry; democratic societies were formed; the red cap of Liberty was hoisted; the Marseilles hymn was sung, with two additional verses written by Genet, with reference to the navy; and a large faction, more French than American, seemed all going mad together.

Genet was a firebrand in the country. Not alone did he attempt to exercise sovereignty on the coast, but to organise in Georgia and South Carolina a hostile expedition against Florida, and another in Kentucky against New Orleans. The leadership in this latter undertaking was given to George Rogers Clarke, who formerly distinguished himself in the revolutionary war by the conquest of the Illinois country, but who now had sunk very low by a long course of intemperance. America could not rule her own country as long as Genet remained within it. Nothing could be more opposed than the restless, scheming, hot-headed and unprincipled Genet, and the calm, religious, and sagacious Washington. The excesses into which Genet and his party ran, caused complaints from the British minister. The cabinet resolved to enforce the laws; and Genet, believing that the whole management of American affairs was in his hands, threatened to appeal to the people against their government.

A reaction had already begun, and this very attempt to shake the government served but to strengthen it. Washington requested the recall of Genet, and in the following year his place was supplied by Fauchet, who was instructed to inform the American government that France disapproved of the conduct of her late minister. The Reign of Terror had now commenced in that devoted country, and Genet, who had in the meantime married the daughter of Governor Clinton, of New York, not choosing to return to France settled down in America, dropping at once his character of democratic agitator and sinking into the obscure citizen.

We must now take a rapid glance at the state of affairs in the West. After the defeat of St. Clair in 1791, General Wayne, to whom the Indians gave the name of the Black Snake, was appointed to the command of the American forces. Taking post near the country of the enemy, he made assiduous but vain attempts at negotiating peace, while his troops suffered greatly from a kind of epidemic influenza. The winter of 1793 he passed on the ground where the disastrous battles of 1791 had been fought, and here erected Fort Recovery. The Little Turtle would willingly have made peace, for, said he, addressing the confederated tribes, “we shall not now surprise them, for they have a chief who never sleeps;” but the Indian council insisted on war.

Early in the summer of 1794 operations commenced; Fort Recovery was attacked, and the Indians repulsed, although at the loss of 300 pack-mules and fifty men. In August, a reinforcement of 1,100 men having joined him, Wayne reached the confluence of the Au Glaize and the Maumee rivers, about thirty miles from a British post, where the whole force of the enemy, about 2,000 strong, was collected. Here, taken by surprise, they fled precipitately, and were pursued for two hours at the point of the bayonet. The country was finely cultivated and full of abundant crops. The American commander declared that he had never seen anything equal to it. The banks of those beautiful rivers appeared for many miles one complete village. At this point the conqueror built a strong fort called Fort Defiance, and a second called Fort Adams, to connect it with Fort Recovery.

Wayne offered to treat with the Indians, but they asked ten days for deliberation. This he would not grant, and followed them down the Maumee for two days; on the third he found them strongly encamped by the river, and a battle took place in which they were completely routed. The English lost 107 men; the loss of the Indians was never ascertained. The Indian corn-fields were ravaged up to the very walls of the British fort. Two British companies, it was asserted, with their faces painted to represent Indians, were in the fight; nevertheless, when the routed Indians fled to the fort for refuge, they were refused admittance, which treatment they never forgave; and Buckongahelas, the principal chief of the Delawares, immediately afterwards made peace with the Americans. The British influence over the savages was broken, and their confederacy dissolved. This victory insured peace and security to the whole settlements north-west of the Ohio, and even extended to Georgia.

On the 3rd of August, 1795, Wayne concluded a treaty of peace on behalf of the “Thirteen Fires,” as the federal states were called, with the Indians at Greenville. The principal chiefs, Tarhe, Buckongahelas, Black Hoof, Blue Jacket, and the Little Turtle, attended by 1,100 warriors, were parties to it. This treaty stipulated that the Ohio, with a few reservations, should thence become the boundary of the Indian territory. Besides the extent of country thus ceded, were several detached portions of territory, including the present or former sites of forts in the possession of the British, and about to be surrendered under a treaty with Great Britain, of which we shall speak anon, having, as regards these Indian affairs, somewhat advanced beyond the regular course of events. Among these cessions was a tract opposite Louisville, granted by Virginia to George Rogers Clarke and his soldiers for their services in the Illinois country; the ancient post of Vincennes and other French settlements; Fort Massac on the Ohio; and several other forts on different rivers with adjacent territory, Detroit, Mackinaw, and tracts at Sandusky, Chicago, and at the mouth and head of the Illinois river. The Indians received for these cessions 20,000 dollars worth of goods, with an annual allowance of about 10,000 dollars more.

At the exchange of prisoners which took place on this occasion, many affecting incidents occurred. The war, as against Kentucky, had lasted for about twenty years, during which time a great number of white people had been carried into captivity. Wives and husbands, parents and children, who had been separated for years, were now reunited. Many of the younger captives had quite forgotten their native language, and some of them absolutely refused to leave the savage connexions, into whose families they had been received by adoption.^[69]

We now return to Congress and the affairs of the administration. On the 1st of January, 1794, Jefferson resigned his office as secretary of state, and was succeeded by Randolph; William Bradford, of Pennsylvania, supplying his place as attorney-general.

This year was rendered remarkable by an insurrection in Pennsylvania. In 1791, congress had enacted laws laying duties upon spirits distilled within the United States, and upon stills. The operation of these laws had from the first created dissatisfaction, and an organised system of resistance was formed in the four western counties, and especially among the anti-federal or democratic party, to resist and defeat them. Indictments were found against such as had neglected to enter their stills, and the marshal of the district, about to serve the thirtieth warrant near Pittsburg, was met by an armed force which put him and his men to flight. This was the signal for further and more determined violence. The next morning, the house of General Neville, the inspector of the revenue, who had been wounded the day before, was attacked by an armed force, under a man called Tom the Tinker, and entered. Several persons were wounded, and Neville compelled to enter into stipulations to desist from the execution of his office. The following day the attack was renewed by a still more formidable party, but Neville had then fled, and the buildings were burned to the ground by the infuriated mob, the garrison which was stationed there being compelled to surrender. The marshal and the inspector fled to Ohio, and embarking, descended to Marietta, and thence by land to Philadelphia. This was a great triumph to the malcontents; a meeting was held at Pittsburg, and corresponding societies established. The mail from Philadelphia was intercepted, and the letters examined to ascertain beforehand how their affairs had been taken up at head-quarters. These multiplied outrages appeared to the president as very alarming signs of the times, especially as the democratic societies of the West were beginning to affiliate with their ferocious brethren of Paris. Several of the cabinet agreed with Washington in the necessity of using very decided and summary measures, and it was proposed to call out the militia. Again the governor of Pennsylvania, this time Mifflin, doubted his authority to call them out, or their obedience if he did so, and Washington immediately issued a proclamation commanding the insurgents to disperse, and warning all persons against aiding, abetting, or comforting the perpetrators of these treasonable acts, and requiring all officers and other citizens, according to their respective duties and the laws of the land, to use their utmost endeavours to suppress these dangerous proceedings.

The insurgents were no way deterred by this proclamation, and meetings of delegates from all the disaffected districts took place under liberty-trees with liberty-banners floating around them. The president’s call for the militia was responded to; and quotas were sent in from Virginia under the old revolutionary officer Morgan, as well as from Maryland, while Mifflin, thinking better of his hesitation, made a tour through the lower counties, and using his extraordinary popular eloquence for the occasion, soon filled up the ranks. Again, on the 25th of September, the president issued a second proclamation, admonishing the insurgents, and forcibly stating his determination, after the spirit of defiance with which the former lenient treatment of the government had been received, to obey the duty assigned to him by the Constitution, and “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” and that he would proceed forthwith to reduce the refractory to obedience.

It was time that summary measures were taken, for disaffection and sedition were spreading in all directions; armed mobs were marching everywhere, erecting liberty-poles and committing deeds of violence. Fifteen thousand men were sent into the disaffected districts, under General Lee of Virginia. No sooner was the news abroad that this formidable army was advancing against them, than the tide of democratic violence began to ebb; liberty-poles were pulled down, and the armed insurgents dispersed. Several of the most active leaders were handed over to the civil authorities for trial, but were afterwards pardoned, as were also two others who were found guilty of treason. Morgan, however, remained in the disaffected counties through the winter, with a body of 2,500 men. The government was strengthened even by this outbreak; the decision and promptitude of the president won the respect, and his lenity the hearts of the country.

During this session an act was passed to raise a naval force consisting of six frigates, as a defence for American commerce against the Algerine pirates; no less than eleven merchant vessels and upwards of 100 citizens having been captured by those pests of the ocean. An act also was passed about the same time for fortifying the principal harbours, the more immediate cause for which was the apprehension of war with Great Britain, which at that time prevailed.

Ever since the treaty of peace in 1783, Great Britain and the United States had been mutually reproaching each other for having violated its conditions. The former complained that the royalists were prevented from recovering possession of their estates, and British subjects from recovering their debts. The Americans, on the other hand, complained that the British had carried away negroes at the close of the war, and that they still obstinately retained those military posts in the north-west, of which such frequent mention has been made. The excitement against Great Britain received, however, at this moment a great accession by two orders in council just issued, and by which all British cruisers were directed to stop and seize all ships laden with provisions bound for any French port, and to bring them for adjudication into the British courts of admiralty. These orders, which in fact went to destroy all neutral trade with the French colonies, produced the utmost excitement in Philadelphia, and for the moment nothing but war with Great Britain was talked of. Congress assembled, and a bill was passed laying an embargo for thirty days, which was again extended to a second thirty; and it was further debated whether all commercial intercourse with Great Britain and her subjects, as far as regarded all articles of British growth or manufacture, should not be discontinued, until she had acceded to their reasonable demands.

Washington foresaw in these violent measures no other issue than war with the mother-country, which he desired under every circumstance to avoid; and believing that the existing differences between the two countries might be brought to an amicable adjustment, resolved to make the experiment. Accordingly, Chief-Justice Jay being appointed to this important mission, embarked on May 13th, being attended to the shore by a great concourse of people, whom at parting he assured of his determination to leave no means untried for the security of the blessings of peace.

This measure being taken for pacific arrangements, congress passed acts for putting the country in a state of defence. The principal harbours were to be fortified, as we have before said, and 80,000 militia to be held in readiness for immediate service; the importation of arms was permitted free of duty, and additional taxes were levied.

About this time, the afterwards celebrated John Quincy Adams, son to the vice-president, received his first public appointment as minister at the Hague, he having already distinguished himself by certain articles in a Boston paper on Genet’s proceedings, which attracted Washington’s attention.

Hamilton, at the commencement of this year, resigned his office of Secretary of the Treasury, and was succeeded by Oliver Wolcot; and at the close of this session, General Knox having resigned, Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts was appointed Secretary of War.

Jay was successful in his mission, and early in the following year a treaty was laid before the Senate for ratification. This treaty provided that the posts which the British had retained should be given up to the Americans, and compensation made for illegal captures of American property; and the United States were to secure to the British creditor the proper means of collecting debts which had been contracted before the peace of 1783. It did not, however, prohibit the right of searching merchant vessels, and thus violated the favourite maxim of the Americans, that “free ships make free goods.” The treaty was not all that Washington himself desired; but as no better terms were to be had, he wisely resolved that, if the Senate approved of it, he would not withhold his signature.

The country was in a state of angry excitement, and ready to reject rather than accept it, even before they knew the exact terms of the treaty, while the Senate, with closed doors, were discussing it and coming gradually to the decision that it should be ratified. At this moment an imperfect copy appeared in a newspaper, and Washington then ordered it to be published.

This was like throwing a lighted brand among combustibles. The partisans of France assailed it with the utmost violence; an outcry was raised against it from one end of the Union to the other, as “a pusillanimous surrender of American rights, and a shameful breach of obligations to France.” City after city protested against it, and the popular feeling was expressing itself in acts of outrage and violence, when Washington, with the prompt decision of a wise governor, after protesting and remonstrating against such clauses of the treaty as he considered injurious to the American interests, settled the question by attaching his signature to the treaty. “As regards this treaty,” says Jared Sparkes in his Life of Washington, “time disappointed its enemies and more than satisfied its friends. It saved the country from a war, improved its commerce, and served in no small degree to lay the foundation of its durable prosperity. The great points which were said to be sacrificed or neglected—the impressment of seamen, neutral rights and colonial trade—have never yet been settled, and are never likely to be settled while England maintains the ascendancy she now holds on the ocean.”

Two other treaties were negotiated about the same time; one with Algiers, by which the commerce of the Mediterranean was opened, and the prisoners who had been in bondage for many years released; but for this was paid the large sum of 763,000 dollars, with an annual tribute in stores of 24,000 dollars, a black-mail which was paid likewise by various European nations, to secure them from the piracies of the Dey. The other treaty was with Spain. Spain had long acted towards the United States in an unfriendly manner. She was fearful lest the principles of liberty and independence which they had so successfully asserted should find their way into her contiguous provinces. She had always endeavoured that the western boundary of this so dangerous neighbour should be fixed at 300 miles east of the Mississippi, and she denied to the inhabitants west of the Alleganies access to the ocean by that great river, the mouth of which was in her province of Louisiana. At length, however, when at home she became involved in a war with France, and in America alarmed by the unauthorised preparations making in Kentucky, under the influence of Genet, to invade Louisiana, she intimated her willingness to adjust her differences with the United States by treaty. An envoy extraordinary was therefore immediately despatched to Madrid, and in October a treaty was signed, by which the western boundary of the American republic was fixed according to their own claims, the navigation of the Mississippi made free to both nations, and the American citizens allowed the privilege of landing and depositing cargoes at New Orleans.

During the recess of congress, and while the president was busied with filling up vacancies in his cabinet, the treaty with Great Britain was agitating the country, and petitions got up against it and numerously signed were presented to the House of Representatives when the fourth sitting of congress commenced. By this time, however, the offensive treaty had been ratified by his Britannic Majesty, and no other means of opposition now remained to the democratic or French party in the House of Representatives but to demand from the president the instructions by which Jay had entered into this negotiation. Washington refused to comply with this demand, asserting that the power to make treaties was vested by the Constitution solely in the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and that the House of Representatives had hitherto acquiesced in this mode of procedure. The malcontents were not prepared for this refusal, and the debate which it led to was carried on for many days with great eloquence as well as warmth. But even though Washington hazarded much in opposing the popular branch of the legislature, his was not a mind to be swayed by any lesser consideration from that which he knew to be the true line of duty. He believed that to yield in this instance would be to introduce a dangerous principle into the diplomatic transactions of the nation, and he was firm in his refusal.

The resolution moved in the house, to make the necessary appropriations to carry the treaty into effect, again called forth violent opposition. The people themselves now took up the subject also; meetings were held, and the strength of the two parties fully tried, until at length it was evident that the majority were in favour of the treaty. Petitions in its favour were presented to congress; and lastly, Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, at that time just risen from his sick-bed, appeared in the house, pale, feeble, and scarcely able to stand, and spoke with such irresistible power on behalf of the treaty, that further opposition was vain. The eloquence of the sick man conquered; and the necessary laws were passed for the fulfilment of this agitated treaty.

The number of 60,000 inhabitants being required to constitute a state government, and Tennessee having attained to a still higher population, was admitted into the Union this year; and Sevier, who had distinguished himself in the extinct state of Frankland, was elected governor. This new State was peopled principally from North Carolina. The first newspaper established at Knoxville was in 1793.

The troubles regarding Jay’s treaty with Great Britain were not yet at an end. The French government and its partisans in America, who had, spite of the neutral position assumed by the United States, always calculated upon substantial aid and service being rendered to France, were consequently greatly disappointed and annoyed by the line of conduct which Washington had adopted, and which had tended to knit up, rather than to dissever, the old relationships between the two kindred countries. Washington and the federalists were pronounced to be hostile to the cause of France; to be traitors to their own principles, enemies to the rights of man, and meanly subservient to Great Britain.

Morris, the successor of Jefferson as American representative in France, a man of great sagacity and cool judgment, who having taken an active part in the revolution of his own country, could not yet regard with satisfaction the means adopted to establish a republic in France, was looked upon with suspicion by whatever party for the time being held the reins of government. Accordingly, when the Committee of Public Safety, under Robespierre and his associates, sent letters of recall to Genet, they requested also that another ambassador might be sent to supply the place of Morris. Mr. Monroe, an ardent friend of republican liberty and the rights of man, was sent over. The fall of Robespierre had taken place when Monroe arrived in Paris, and the Thermodorians, who were then in power, received him with considerable coolness, as questioning the loyalty of the nation which he represented to their great goddess of liberty.

The new ambassador by his instructions was empowered to contradict the report circulated in France of the unfriendly feelings of the president and his party towards the cause of that country. Monroe made the most of this permission; and Merlin de Douay and he embraced in public, that the French people might be edified by the spectacle which was to “complete the annihilation of an impious coalition of tyrants;” and the convention passed a decree that the “flags of the two republics should be entertwined and suspended in their hall, in testimony of eternal union and friendship.” In return, the French colours were sent to America for the same purpose, by M. Adet, who superseded Fauchet, he being removed at the fall of the Robespierre faction. These colours were duly presented on New-year’s-day, 1796, with an address, and the president replying, the colours were ordered to be deposited with the archives of the nation.

These theatrical flatteries were, however, but tricks and cajoleries to induce America to take part in the wars of France; and Monroe, caught in the snare that was laid, was not long before he wrote to urge the policy of a loan to France, adding “that the Americans in that case might at once seize the western posts, and the territory on the Lower Mississippi, occupied by the Spaniards, and trust to French aid to see them out of the war—if war should follow, which he did not conceive likely, either on the part of Britain or Spain, considering the success of the French arms.”

The schemes of the infatuated Monroe did not meet with that encouragement in America which he had led the French government to expect; and Jay’s treaty being about this time ratified, the French cruisers were ordered to capture, in certain cases, the vessels of the United States, and several hundred vessels laden with valuable cargoes were in consequence seized and confiscated.

Monroe, highly unfit for his office, not only displeased the government at home by his attempt to compromise them, but fell into disgrace at Paris, because he had failed to bring about that close alliance between the United States and France which he had promised. He was recalled; and Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, appointed in his stead, he being furnished with instructions to use every effort, compatible with national honour, to restore the amicable relations which had formerly existed between the two countries.

But events were tending more and more to separate them. The British, at this time, were endeavouring to complete the conquest of the French portion of St. Domingo, the defence of which, for the republic, was left almost entirely in the hands of the black general, Touissaint. Provisions and horses, purchased in America, had been forwarded in American vessels chartered for that purpose, for the supply of the British troops. Adet complained of this, and very soon after had to communicate the decree of July 14, which empowered the seizure of American vessels in the West India seas. In November a proclamation was issued by Adet, commanding, in the name of the French Directory, all Frenchmen in America to assume the tri-coloured cockade. And this cockade was at once mounted, not only by Frenchmen, but by the American partisans of the French Republic. Adet was commencing the career of Genet.

With the close of 1796, which was now at hand, the time for the election of a new president was come. Washington, weary of the anxieties and contentions of public life, had already, in September, published a farewell address to his countrymen, which bore strongly upon the present state of public feeling; he emphatically urged the maintenance of Union, as the palladium of political prosperity and safety; of the Federal constitution, and of the public credit; he solemnly adjured them to avoid sectional jealousies and heartburnings, the baleful effect of party-spirit, and of permanent inveterate antipathies against particular nations or passionate attachments for others. He dwelt at length on the policy of an impartial neutrality and of a disconnexion with the nations of Europe, so far as existing treaties would permit, together with the dangers of foreign influence.

The address bore directly upon the present position of America with regard to France, and was, in fact, so important in this respect, that Adet followed it up with a manifesto which, like the address, was circulated through the newspapers and intended to counteract its effect.

Washington, as president, met the national legislature for the last time in December, and his last words in that character were a fervent desire “that the virtue and happiness of the people might be preserved, and that the government which they had instituted for the protection of their liberties might be perpetual.”