A School History of the United States

by John Bach McMaster

CHAPTER XVI

THE STRUGGLE FOR NEUTRALITY

%227. Trouble with Great Britain and France.%—From the congressional election in 1792 we may date the beginning of organized political parties in the United States. They sprang from differences of opinion as to domestic matters. But on a sudden in 1793 Federalists and Republicans became divided on questions of foreign affairs.

Ever since 1789 France had been in a state of revolution, and at last (in 1792) the people established the French Republic, cut off the heads of the King and Queen (in 1793), and declared war on England and sent a minister, Genet, to the United States. At that time we had no treaty with Great Britain except the treaty of peace. With France, however, we had two treaties,—one of alliance, and one of amity and commerce. The treaty of alliance bound us to guarantee to France "the possessions of the crown of France in America," by which were meant the French West Indian Islands. When Washington heard that war had been declared by France, and that a French minister was on his way to America, he became alarmed lest this minister should call on him to make good the guarantee by sending a fleet to the Indies. On consulting his secretaries, they advised him that the guarantee applied only when France was attacked, and not when she was the attacking party. The President thereupon issued a proclamation of neutrality; that is, declared that the United States would not side with either party in the war, but would treat both alike.

%228. Sympathy for France; the French Craze.%—Then began a long struggle for neutrality. The Republicans were very angry at Washington and denounced him violently. France, they said, had been our old friend; Great Britain had been our old enemy. We had a treaty with France; we had none with Great Britain. To treat her on the same footing with France was therefore a piece of base ingratitude to France. A wave of sympathy for France swept over the country. The French dress, customs, manners, came into use. Republicans ceased to address each other as Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, Sir, or "Your Honor," and used Citizen Smith and Citizen Jones. The French tricolor with the red liberty cap was hung up in taverns and coffeehouses, which were the clubhouses of that day. Every French victory was made the occasion of a "civic feast," while the anniversaries of the fall of the Bastile and of the founding of the Republic were kept in every great city.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read McMaster's History of the People of the United
States, Vol. II., pp. 89-96; Harpers Magazine, April, 1897.]

%229. England seizes our Ships; the Rule of 1756%.—To preserve neutrality in the face of such a public sentiment was hard enough; but Great Britain made it more difficult yet. When war was declared, France opened the ports of her West Indian Islands and invited neutral nations to trade with them. This she did because she knew that the British navy could drive her merchantmen from the sea, and that all trade between herself and her colonies must be carried on in the ships of neutral nations.

Now the merchants of the United States had never been allowed to trade with the French Indies to an unlimited extent. The moment, therefore, they were allowed to do so, they gladly began to trade, and during the summer of 1793 hundreds of ships went to the islands. There were at that time four questions of dispute between us and Great Britain:

1. Great Britain held that she might seize any kind of food going to a French port in our ships. We held that only military stores might be so seized.

2. Great Britain held that when a port had been declared to be blockaded, a ship bound to that port might be seized even on the high seas. We held that no port was blockaded unless there was a fleet actually stationed at it to prevent ships from entering or leaving it.

3. Great Britain held that our ships might be captured if they had French goods on board. We held that "free ships made free goods," and that our ships were not subject to capture, no matter whose goods they had on board.

4. Great Britain in 1756 had adopted a rule that no neutral should have in time of war a trade she did not have in time of peace.

The United States was now enjoying a trade in time of war she did not have in time of peace, and Great Britain began to enforce her rule. British ships were ordered to stop American vessels going to or coming from the French West Indies, and if they contained provisions, to seize them. This was done, and in the autumn of 1793 great numbers of American ships were captured.

%230. Our Sailors impressed.%—All this was bad enough and excited the people against our old enemy, who made matters a thousand times worse by a course of action to which we could not possibly submit. She claimed the right to stop any of our ships on the sea, send an officer on board, force the captain to muster the crew on the deck, and then search for British subjects. If one was found, he was seized and carried away. If none were found, and the British ships wanted men, native-born Americans were taken off under the pretext that one could not tell an American from an English sailor. Our fathers could stand a great deal, but this was too much, and a cry for war went up from all parts of the country.

But Washington did not want war, and took two measures to prevent it. He persuaded Congress to lay an embargo for thirty days, that is, forbid all ships to leave our ports, and induced the Senate to let him send John Jay, the Chief Justice, to London to make a treaty of amity and commerce with Great Britain.

%231. Jay's Treaty, 1794.%—In this mission Jay succeeded; and though the treaty was far from what Washington wanted, it was the best that could be had, and he approved it.[1] At this the Republicans grew furious. They burned copies of the treaty at mass meetings and hung Jay in effigy. Yet the treaty had some good features. By it the King agreed to withdraw his troops from Oswego and Detroit and Mackinaw, which really belonged to us but were still occupied by the English. By it our merchants were allowed for the first time to trade with the British West Indies, and some compensation was made for the damage done by the capture of ships in the West Indies.

[Footnote 1: The Senate ratified this treaty in the summer of 1795.]

%232. Treaty with Spain.%—About the same time (October, 1795) we made our first treaty with Spain, and induced her to accept the thirty-first degree of latitude as the south boundary of our country, and to consent to open the Mississippi to trade. As Spain owned both banks at the mouth of the river, she claimed that American ships had no right to go in or out without her consent, and so prevented the people of Kentucky and Tennessee from trading in foreign markets. She now agreed that they might float their produce to New Orleans and pay a small duty, and then ship it wherever they pleased.

%233. The Election of Adams and Jefferson, 1796%.—Washington had been reëlected President in 1792, but he was now tired of office, and in September, 1796, issued his "Farewell Address," in which he declined to be the candidate for a third presidential term. In those days there were no national conventions to nominate candidates, yet it was well understood that John Adams, the Vice President, was the candidate of the Federalists, and Thomas Jefferson, of the Republicans. When the votes were counted in Congress, it was found that Adams had 71 electoral votes, and Jefferson 68; so they became President and Vice President.

[Illustration: John Adams]

%234. Trouble with France.%—Adams was inaugurated on March 4, 1797, and three days later heard that C. C. Pinckney, our minister to the French Republic, had been driven from France. Pinckney had been sent to France by Washington in 1796, but the French Directory (as the five men who then governed France were called) had taken great offense at Jay's treaty: first because it was favorable to Great Britain, and in the second place because it put an end for the present to all hope of war between her and the United States. The Directory, therefore, refused to receive Pinckney until the French grievances were redressed.

The President was very angry at the insult, and summoned Congress to meet and take such action as, said he, "shall convince France and the whole world that we are not a degraded people humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority." But the Republicans declared so vigorously that if a special mission were sent to France all would be made right, that Adams yielded, and sent John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry to join Pinckney as envoys extraordinary. On reaching Paris, three men acting as agents for the Directory met them, and declared that before they could be received as ministers they must do three things:

1. Apologize for Adams's denunciation of the conduct of France. 2. Pay each Director $50,000. 3. Pay tribute to France.

When the President reported this demand to Congress, the names of the three French agents were suppressed, and instead they were called Mr. X, Mr. Y, Mr. Z. This gave the mission the nickname "X, Y, Z mission."

%235. "Millions for Defense, not a Cent for Tribute."%—As the newspapers published these dispatches, a roar of indignation, in which the Federalists and Republicans alike joined, went up from the whole country. "Millions for defense, not a cent for tribute," became the watchword of the hour. Opposition in Congress ceased, and preparations were at once made for war. The French treaties were suspended. The Navy Department was created, and a Secretary of the Navy appointed. Frigates were ordered to be built, money was voted for arms, a provisional army was formed, and Washington was again made commander in chief, with the rank of lieutenant general. The young men associated for defense, the people in the seaports built frigates or sloops of war, and gave their services to erect forts and earthworks. Every French flag was now pulled down from the coffeehouses, and the black cockade of our own Revolutionary days was once more worn as the badge of patriotism. Then was written, by Joseph Hopkinson of Philadelphia,[1] and sung for the first time, our national song Hail, Columbia!

[Footnote 1: The music to which we sing Hail, Columbia! was called The President's March, and was played for the first time when the people of Trenton were welcoming Washington on his way to be inaugurated President in 1789. For an account of the trouble with France read McMaster's History of the People of the United States, Vol. II, pp. 207-416, 427-476.]

%236. The Alien and Sedition Acts.%—Carried away by the excitement of the hour, the Federalists now passed two most unwise laws. Many of the active leaders and very many of the members of the Republican party were men born abroad and naturalized in this country. Generally they were Irishmen or Frenchmen, and as such had good reason to hate England, and therefore hated the Federalists, who they believed were too friendly to her. To prevent such becoming voters, and so taking an active part in politics, the Federalists passed a new naturalization law, which forbade any foreigner to become an American citizen until he had lived fourteen years in our country. Lest this should not be enough to keep them quiet, a second law was passed by which the President had power for two years to send any alien (any of these men who for fourteen years could not become citizens) out of the country whenever he thought it proper. This law Adams never used.

For five years past the Republican newspapers had been abusing Washington, Adams, the acts of Congress, the members of Congress, and the whole foreign policy of the Federalists. The Federalist newspapers, of course, had retaliated and had been just as abusive of the Republicans. But as the Federalists now had the power, they determined to punish the Republicans for their abuse, and passed the Sedition Act. This provided that any man who acted seditiously (that is, interfered with the execution of a law of Congress) or spoke or wrote seditiously (that is, abused the President, or Congress, or any member of the Federal government) should be tried, and if found guilty, be fined and imprisoned. This law was used, and used vigorously, and Republican editors all over the country were fined and sometimes imprisoned.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Alien and Sedition acts are in Preston's Documents, pp. 277-282.]

%237. Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.%—The passage of these Alien and Sedition laws greatly excited the Republicans, and led Jefferson to use his influence to have them condemned by the states. For this purpose he wrote a set of resolutions and sent them to a friend in Kentucky who was to try to have the legislature adopt them.[2] Jefferson next asked Madison to write a like set of resolutions for the Virginia legislature to adopt. Madison became so interested that he gave up his seat in Congress and entered the Virginia legislature, and in December, 1798, induced it to adopt what have since been known as the Virginia Resolutions of 1798.

[Footnote 2: Kentucky had been admitted to the Union in 1792 (see p. 213).]

Meantime the legislature of Kentucky, November, 1798, had adopted the resolutions of Jefferson.[3]

[Footnote 3: E. D. Warfield's Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. The Resolutions are printed in Preston's Documents, pp. 283-298; Jefferson's Works, Vol. IX., p. 494.]

Both sets declare 1. That the Constitution of the United States is a compact or contract. 2. That to this contract each state is a party; that is, the united states are equal partners in a great political firm. So far they agree; but at this point they differ. The Kentucky Resolutions assert that when any question arises as to the right of Congress to pass any law, each state may decide this question for itself and apply any remedy it likes. The Virginia Resolutions declare that the states may judge and apply the remedy.

Both declared that the Alien and Sedition laws were wholly unconstitutional. Seven states answered by declaring that the laws were constitutional, whereupon Kentucky in 1799 framed another set of resolutions in which she said that when a state thought a law to be illegal she had the right to nullify it; that is, forbid her citizens to obey it. This doctrine of nullification, as we shall see, afterwards became of very serious importance.[1]

[Footnote 1: The answers of the states are printed in Elliot's Debates, Vol. IV., pp. 532-539.]

%238. The Naval War with France.%—Meantime war opened with France. The Navy Department was created in April, 1798, and before the year ended, a gallant little navy of thirty-four frigates, corvettes, and gun sloops of war had been collected and sent with a host of privateers to scour the sea around the French West Indies, destroy French commerce, and capture French ships of war.[1] One of our frigates, the Constellation, Captain Thomas Truxton in command, captured the French frigate Insurgente, after a gallant fight. On another occasion, Truxton, in the Constellation, fought the Vengeance and would have taken her, but the Frenchman, finding he was getting much the worst of it, spread his sails and fled. Yet another of our frigates, the Boston, took the Berceau, whose flag is now in the Naval Institute Building at Annapolis. In six months the little American twelve-gun schooner Enterprise took eight French privateers, and recaptured and set free four American merchantmen. These and a hundred other actions just as gallant made good the patriotic words of John Adams, "that we are not a degraded people humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority." So impressed was France with this fact that the war had scarcely begun when the Directory meekly sent word that if another set of ministers came they would be received. They ought to have been told that they must send a mission to us. But Adams in this respect was weak, and in 1800, the Chief Justice, Oliver Ellsworth, William R. Davie, and William Vans Murray were sent to Paris. The Directory had then fallen from power, Napoleon was ruling France as First Consul, and with him in September, 1800, a convention was concluded.

[Footnote 2: For an account of this war, read Maclay's History of the
United States Navy, Vol. I., pp. 155-213.]

%239. The Stamp Tax; the Direct Tax and Fries's Rebellion, 1798.%—The heavy cost of the preparations for war made new taxes necessary. Two of these, a stamp tax very similar to the famous one of 1765, and a direct tax, greatly excited the people. The direct tax was the first of its kind in our history, and was laid on lands, houses, and negro slaves. In certain counties of eastern Pennsylvania, where the population was chiefly German, the purpose of the tax was not understood, and the people refused to make returns of the value of their farms and houses. When the assessors came to measure the houses and count the windows as a means of determining the value of the property, the people drove them off. For this some of the leaders were arrested. But the people under John Fries rose and rescued the prisoners. At this stage President Adams called out the militia, and marched it against the rebels. They yielded. But Fries was tried for treason, was sentenced to be hanged, and was then pardoned. Thus a second time was it proved that the people of the United States were determined to support the Constitution and the laws and put down rebellion.

%240. Washington the National Capital.%—In accordance with the bargain made in 1790, Washington selected a site for the Federal city on both banks of the Potomac. This great square tract of land was ten miles long on each side, and was given to the government partly by Maryland and partly by Virginia.[1] It was called the District of Columbia, and in it were marked out the streets of Washington city.

[Footnote 1: In 1846 so much of the District as had belonged to Virginia was given back to her.]

Though all possible haste was made, the President's house was still unfinished, the Capitol but partly built, and the streets nothing but roads cut through the woods, when, in the summer of 1800, the secretaries, the clerks, the books and papers of the government left Philadelphia for Washington. With the opening of the new century, and the occupation of the new Capitol, came a new President, and a new party in control of the government.

[Illustration: The National Capitol as it was in 1825]

%241. The Election of Thomas Jefferson.%—The year 1800 was a presidential year, and though no formal nomination was made, a caucus of Republican leaders selected as candidates Thomas Jefferson for President, and Aaron Burr for Vice President. A caucus or meeting of Federalist leaders selected John Adams and C. C. Pinckney as their candidates. When the returns were all in, it appeared that Jefferson had received seventy-three votes, Burr seventy-three votes, Adams sixty-five votes, Pinckney sixty-four votes. The Constitution provided that the man who received the highest number of electoral votes, if the choice of the majority of the electors, should be President. But as Jefferson and Burr had each seventy-three, neither had the highest, and neither was President. The duty of electing a President then devolved on the House of Representatives, which after a long and bitter struggle elected Jefferson President; Burr then became Vice President. To prevent such a contest ever arising again, the twelfth amendment was added to the Constitution. This provides for a separate ballot for Vice President. March 4, 1801, Jefferson, escorted by the militia of Georgetown and Alexandria, walked from his lodgings to the Senate chamber and took the oath of office.{1} He and his party had been placed in power in order to make certain reforms, and this, when Congress met in the winter of 1801, they began to do.

[Footnote 1: For a fine description of Jefferson's personality, read Henry Adams's History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 185-191. As to the story of Jefferson riding alone to the Capitol and tying his horse to the fence, see Adams's History, Vol. I, pp. 196-199; McMaster's History, Vol. II., pp. 533-534.]

%242. The Annual Message.%—While Washington and Adams were presidents, it was their custom when Congress met each year to go in state to the House of Representatives, and in the presence of the House and Senate read a speech. The two branches of Congress would then separate and appoint committees to answer the President's speech, and when the answers were ready, each would march through the streets to the President's house, where the Vice President or the Speaker would read the answer to the President. When Congress met in 1801, Jefferson dropped this custom and sent a written message to both houses—a practice which every President since that time has followed.

%243. Republican Reforms.%—True to their promises, the Republicans now proceeded to repeal the hated laws of the Federalists. They sold all the ships of the navy except thirteen, they ordered prosecutions under the Sedition law to be stopped, they repealed all the internal taxes laid by the Federalists, they cut down the army to 2500 men, and reduced the expenses of government to $3,700,000 per year—a sum which would not now pay the cost of running the government for three days. As the annual revenue collected at the customhouses, the post office, and from the sale of land was $10,800,000, the treasury had some $7,000,000 of surplus each year. This was used to pay the national debt, which fell from $88,000,000 in 1801 to $45,000,000 in 1812, and this in spite of the purchase of Louisiana.

[Illustration: Thomas Jefferson]

%244. The Purchase of Louisiana.%—When France was driven out of America, it will be remembered, she gave to Spain all of Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, together with a large tract on the east bank, at the river's mouth. Spain then owned Louisiana till 1800, when by a secret treaty she gave the province back to France.[1]

[Footnote 1: Adams's _History of the United States, _Vol. I., pp. 352-376.]

For a while this treaty was really kept secret; but in April, 1802, news that Louisiana had been given to France and that Napoleon was going to send out troops to hold it, reached this country and produced two consequences. In the first place, it led the Spanish intendant (as the man who had charge of all commercial matters was called) to withdraw the "right of deposit" at New Orleans, and so prevent citizens of the United States sending their produce out of the Mississippi River. In the second place, this act of the intendant excited the rage of all the settlers in the valley from Pittsburg to Natchez, and made them demand the instant seizure of New Orleans by American troops. To prevent this, Jefferson obtained the consent of Congress to make an effort to buy New Orleans and West Florida, and sent Monroe to aid our minister in France in making the purchase.

When the offer was made, Napoleon was about going to war with England, and, wanting money very much, he in turn offered to sell the whole province to the United States—an offer that was gladly accepted. The price paid was $15,000,000, and in December, 1803, Louisiana was formally delivered to us.

%245. Louisiana.%—Concerning this splendid domain hardly anything was known. No boundaries were given to it either on the north, or on the west, or on the south. What the country was like nobody could tell.[1] Where the source of the Mississippi was no white man knew. In the time of La Salle a priest named Hennepin had gone up to the spot where Minneapolis now stands, and had seen the Falls of St. Anthony (p. 63). But the country above the falls was still unknown.

[Footnote 1: In a description of it which Jefferson sent to Congress in 1804, he actually stated that "there exists about one thousand miles up the Missouri, and not far from that river, a salt mountain. This mountain is said to be one hundred and eighty miles long and forty-five in width, composed of solid rock salt, without any trees or even shrubs on it.">[

%246. Explorations of Lewis and Clark.%—That this great region ought to be explored had been a favorite idea of Jefferson for twenty years past, and he had tried to persuade learned men and learned societies to organize an expedition to cross the continent. Failing in this, he turned to Congress, which in 1803 (before the purchase of Louisiana) voted a sum of money for sending an exploring party from the mouth of the Missouri to the Pacific. The party was in charge of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Early in May, 1804, they left St. Louis, then a frontier town of log cabins, and worked their way up the Missouri River to a spot not far from the present city of Bismarck, North Dakota, where they passed the winter with the Indians. Resuming their journey in the spring of 1805, they followed the Missouri to its source in the mountains, after crossing which they came to the Clear Water River; and down this they went to the Columbia, which carried them to a spot where, late in November, 1805, they "saw the waves like small mountains rolling out in the sea." They were on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. After spending the winter at the mouth of the Columbia, the party made its way back to St. Louis in 1806.

%247. The Oregon Country.%—Lewis and Clark were not the first of our countrymen to see the Columbia River. In 1792 a Boston ship captain named Gray was trading with the Pacific coast Indians. He was collecting furs to take to China and exchange for tea to be carried to Boston, and while so engaged he discovered the mouth of a great river, which he entered, and named the Columbia in honor of his ship. By right of this discovery by Gray the United States was entitled to all the country drained by the Columbia River. By the exploration of this country by Lewis and Clark our title was made stronger still, and it was finally perfected a few years later when the trappers and settlers went over the Rocky Mountains and occupied the Oregon country.[1]

[Footnote 1: Barrows's Oregon; McMaster's History, Vol. II., pp. 633-635.]

[Illustration: Mouth of the Columbia River]

%248. Pike explores the Southwest.%—While Lewis and Clark were making their way up the Missouri, Zebulon Pike was sent to find the source of the Mississippi, which he thought he did in the winter of 1805-06. In this he was mistaken, but supposing his work done, he was dispatched on another expedition in 1806. Traveling up the Missouri River to the Osage, and up the Osage nearly to its source, he struck across Kansas to the Arkansas River, which he followed to its head waters, wandering in the neighborhood of that fine mountain which in honor of him bears the name of Pikes Peak. Then he crossed the mountains and began a search for the Red River. The march was a terrible one. It was winter; the cold was intense. The snow lay waist deep on the plains. Often the little band was without food for two days at a time. But Pike pushed on, in spite of hunger, cold, and suffering, and at last saw, through a gap in the mountains, the waters of the Rio Grande. Believing that it was the Red, he hurried to its banks, only to be seized by the Spaniards (for he was on Spanish soil), who carried him a prisoner to Santa Fé, from which city he and his men wandered back to the United States by way of Mexico and Texas.

[Illustration: %EXPLORATION OF THE SOUTHWEST% BY ZEBULON M. PIKE %1806-1807%]

%249. Astoria founded.%—The immediate effect of these explorations was greatly to stimulate the fur trade. One great fur trader, John Jacob Astor of New York, now founded the Pacific Fur Company and made preparations to establish a line of posts from the upper Missouri to the Columbia, and along it to the Pacific, and supply them from St. Louis by way of the Missouri, or from the mouth of the Columbia, where in 1811 a little trading post was begun and named Astoria. This completed our claim to the Oregon country. Gray had discovered the river; Lewis and Clark had explored the territory drained by the river; the Pacific Fur Company planted the first lasting settlement.