All the ability, experience, and zeal at the disposal of the State were necessary, for the whiskey tax was only less disliked in Virginia than in Pennsylvania, and a portion of the Commonwealth was inclined to assist rather than to suppress the insurrection.[246] Whether or not he was one of the military force that, on the ground, overawed the whiskey insurgents, it is positively established that Marshall was ready, in person, to help put down with arms all forcible opposition to the National laws and authority.
Jefferson, now the recognized commander-in-chief of the new party, was, however, heartily with the popular outbreak. He had approved Washington's first proclamations against the whiskey producers;[247] but, nevertheless, as the anger of the people grew, it found Jefferson responsive. "The excise law is an infernal one," he cried; the rebellion against it, nothing more than "riotous" at the worst.[248]
And Jefferson wielded his verbal cat-o'-nine-tails on Washington's order to put the rebellion down by armed forces.[249] It was all "for the favorite purpose of strengthening government and increasing public debt."[250] Washington thought the Whiskey Rebellion treasonable; and Jefferson admitted that "there was ... a meeting to consult about a separation" from the Union; but talking was not acting.[251] Thus the very point was raised which Marshall enforced in the Burr trial twelve years later, when Jefferson took exactly opposite grounds. But to take the popular view now made for Republican solidarity and strength. Criticism is ever more profitable politics than building.
All this had different effects on different public men. The Republican Party was ever growing stronger, and under Jefferson's skillful guidance, was fast becoming a seasoned political army. The sentiment of the multitude against the National Government continued to rise. But instead of weakening John Marshall's Nationalist principles, this turbulent opposition strengthened and hardened them. So did other and larger events of that period which tumultuously crowded fast upon one another's heels. As we have seen, the horrors of the Reign of Terror in Paris did not chill the frenzied enthusiasm of the masses of Americans for France. "By a strange kind of reasoning," wrote Oliver Wolcott to his brother, "some suppose the liberties of America depend on the right of cutting throats in France."[252]
In the spring of 1793 France declared war against England. The popular heart in America was hot for France, the popular voice loud against England. The idea that the United States was an independent nation standing aloof from foreign quarrels did not enter the minds of the people. But it was Washington's one great conception. It was not to make the American people the tool of any foreign government that he had drawn his sword for their independence. It was to found a separate nation with dignity and rights equal to those of any other nation; a nation friendly to all, and allied with none[253]—this was the supreme purpose for which he had fought, toiled, and suffered. And Washington believed that only on this broad highway could the American people travel to ultimate happiness and power.[254] He determined upon a policy of absolute impartiality.
On the same day that the Minister of the new French Republic landed on American shores, Washington proclaimed Neutrality.[255] This action, which to-day all admit to have been wise and far-seeing statesmanship, then caused an outburst of popular resentment against Neutrality and the Administration that had dared to take this impartial stand. For the first time Washington was openly abused by Americans.[256]
"A great majority of the American people deemed it criminal to remain unconcerned spectators of a conflict between their ancient enemy [Great Britain] and republican France," declares Marshall. The people, he writes, thought Great Britain was waging war "with the sole purpose of imposing a monarchical government on the French people. The few who did not embrace these opinions, and they were certainly very few, were held up as objects of public detestation; and were calumniated as the tools of Britain and the satellites of despotism."[257]
The National Government was ungrateful, cried the popular voice; it was aiding the tyrants of Europe against a people struggling for freedom; it was cowardly, infamous, base. "Could any friend of his kind be neutral?" was the question on the popular tongue; of course not! unless, indeed, the miscreant who dared to be exclusively American was a monarchist at heart. "To doubt the holiness of their [the French] cause was the certain road to odium and proscription," testifies an observer.[258] The Republican press, following Paine's theory, attacked "all governments, including that of the United States, as naturally hostile to the liberty of the people," asserts Marshall.[259] Few were the friends of Neutrality outside of the trading and shipping interests.[260]
Jefferson, although still in Washington's Cabinet, spoke of "the pusillanimity of the proclamation"[261] and of "the sneaking neutrality" it set up.[262] "In every effort made by the executive to maintain the neutrality of the United States," writes Marshall, "that great party [Republican] which denominated itself 'The People' could perceive only a settled hostility to France and to liberty."[263]
And, of course, Washington's proclamation of Neutrality was "unconstitutional," shouted the Republican politicians. Hamilton quickly answered. The power to deal with foreign affairs was, he said, lodged somewhere in the National Government. Where, then? Plainly not in the Legislative or Judicial branches, but in the Executive Department, which is "the organ of intercourse between the nation and foreign nations" and "the interpreter of ... treaties in those cases in which the judiciary is not competent—that is between government and government.... The executive power of the United States is completely lodged in the President," with only those exceptions made by the Constitution, as that of declaring war. But if it is the right of Congress to declare war, "it is the duty of the Executive to preserve peace till the declaration is made."[264]