Working patiently in his stuffy office amidst the Potomac miasma and mosquitoes during the sweltering months, it was Marshall's unhappy fate to behold the beginning of the break-up of that great party which had built our ship of state, set it upon the waters, navigated it for twelve tempestuous years, through the storms of domestic trouble and foreign danger.[1170] He was powerless to stay the Federalist disintegration. Even in his home district Marshall's personal strength had turned to water, and at the election of his successor in Congress, his party was utterly crushed. "Mr. Mayo, who was proposed to succeed Gen. Marshall, lost his election by an immense majority," writes the alert Wolcott; "was grossly insulted in public by a brother-in-law of the late Senator Taylor, and was afterwards wounded by him in a duel. This is a specimen of the political influence of the Secretary of State in his own district."[1171]
Marshall himself was extremely depressed. "Ill news from Virginia," he writes Otis. "To succeed me has been elected by an immense majority one of the most decided democrats[1172] in the union." Upon the political horizon Marshall beheld only storm and blackness: "In Jersey, too, I am afraid things are going badly. In Maryland the full force of parties will be tried but the issue I should feel confident would be right if there did not appear to be a current setting against us of which the force is incalculable. There is a tide in the affairs of nations, of parties, and of individuals. I fear that of real Americanism is on the ebb."[1173] Never, perhaps, in the history of political parties was calm, dispassionate judgment and steady courage needed more than they were now required to avert Federalist defeat.
Yet in all the States revenge, apprehension, and despair blinded the eyes and deranged the councils of the supreme Federalist managers.[1174] The voters in the party were confused and angered by the dissensions of those to whom they looked for guidance.[1175] The leaders agreed that Jefferson was the bearer of the flag of "anarchy and sedition," captain of the hordes of "lawlessness," and, above all, the remorseless antagonist of Nationalism. What should be done "by the friends of order and true liberty to keep the [presidential] chair from being occupied by an enemy [Jefferson] of both?" was the question which the distressed Federalist politicians asked one another.[1176]
In May, Hamilton thought that "to support Adams and Pinckney equally is the only thing that can save us from the fangs of Jefferson."[1177] Yet, six days later, Hamilton wrote that "most of the most influential men of that [Federalist] party consider him [Adams] as a very unfit and incapable character.... My mind is made up. I will never more be responsible for him by any direct support, even though the consequence should be the election of Jefferson.... If the cause is to be sacrificed to a weak and perverse man, I withdraw from the party."[1178]
As the summer wore on, so acrimonious grew the feeling of Hamilton's supporters toward the President that they seriously considered whether his reëlection would not be as great a misfortune as the success of the Republican Party.[1179] Although the Federalist caucus had agreed to support Adams and Pinckney equally as the party's candidates for President,[1180] yet the Hamiltonian faction decided to place Pinckney in the presidential chair.[1181]
But, blindly as they groped, their failing vision was still clear enough to discern that the small local leaders in New England, which was the strong Federalist section of the country, were for Adams;[1182] and that everywhere the party's rank and file, though irritated and perplexed, were standing by the President. His real statesmanship had made an impression on the masses of his party: Dayton declared that Adams was "the most popular man in the United States."[1183] Knox assured the President that "the great body of the federal sentiment confide implicitly in your knowledge and virtue.... They will ... cling to you in preference to all others."[1184]
Some urged Adams to overthrow the Hamiltonian cabal which opposed him. "Cunning half Jacobins assure the President that he can combine the virtuous and moderate men of both parties, and that all our difficulties are owing to an oligarchy which it is in his power to crush, and thus acquire the general support of the nation,"[1185] testifies Wolcott.
The President heeded this mad counsel. Hamilton and his crew were not the party, said Adams; they were only a faction and a "British faction" at that.[1186] He would "rip it up."[1187] The justly angered President, it appears, thought of founding a new party, an American Party, "a constitutionalist party."[1188] It was said that the astute Jefferson so played upon him that Adams came to think the engaging but crafty Virginian aspired only to be and to be known as the first lieutenant of the Massachusetts statesman.[1189] Adams concluded that he could make up any Federalist loss at the polls by courting the Republicans, whose "friendship," wrote Ames, "he seeks for himself."[1190]
But the Republicans had almost recovered from the effect of the X. Y. Z. disclosures. "The rabies canina of Jacobinism has gradually spread ... from the cities, where it was confined to docks and mob, to the country,"[1191] was the tidings of woe that Ames sent to Gore. The Hamiltonian leaders despaired of the continuance of the Government and saw "a convulsion of revolution" as the result of "excessive democracy."[1192] The union of all Federalist votes was "the only measure by which the government can be preserved."[1193] But Federalist union! As well ask shattered glass to remould itself!
The harmonious and disciplined Republicans were superbly led. Jefferson combined their battle-cries of the last two years into one mighty appeal—simple, affirmative, popular. Peace, economy, "freedom of the press, freedom of religion, trial by jury, ... no standing armies," were the issues he announced, together with the supreme issue of all, States' Rights. Upon this latter doctrine Jefferson planted all the Republican guns and directed their fire on "centralization" which, said he, would "monarchise" our Government and make it "the most corrupt on earth," with increased "stock-jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-holding, and office-hunting."[1194]