Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3.

by Benson John Lossing

It was at this auspicious moment that Monroe appeared. The sentiments of his letter were so much in consonance with the feelings of the hour, that it is said the president of the Convention embraced Monroe affectionately when they met. It was decreed that the American and French flags should be entwined and hung up in the hall of the Convention, as an emblem of the union of the two republics; and Monroe, not to be outdone in acts of courtesy, presented the banner of his country to the Convention in the name of his people.

Congress adjourned on the ninth of June to the first Monday in the succeeding November. The session had been a stormy one. Questions of national policy had arisen, which called forth some of the most animated and eloquent discussions ever held upon the floor of the house of representatives; and when the adjournment took place, questions were pending, the solution of which caused many an anxious hour to the president and the friends of the republic.

As soon as Washington could make proper arrangements, he set out on a flying visit to Mount Vernon. Many persons had predicted that the yellow fever would reappear in Philadelphia during that summer; and, to guard his family against the dangers of its presence, he removed them to a pleasant house at Germantown. On the eighteenth of June he left for the Potomac; and at Baltimore he wrote a brief letter to Gouverneur Morris, assuring him of his undiminished personal friendship, notwithstanding his recall. At Mount Vernon he wrote another, in which Washington evinced his consciousness that vigilant eyes were upon all his public movements, and not with friendly intent. “The affairs of this country,” he said to Morris ironically, “can not go wrong; there are so many watchful guardians of them, and such infallible guides, that no one is at a loss for a director at every turn.”

Washington did not return to Philadelphia quite as early as he had anticipated, owing to an injury to his back, received while using exertions to prevent himself and horse being precipitated among the rocks at the Falls of the Potomac, at Georgetown, whither he went on a Sunday morning to view the canal and locks at that place, in which he felt a deep interest. He was back, however, early in July, and was soon informed of popular movements in western Pennsylvania and in Kentucky, which presented the serious question whether the government had sufficient strength to execute its own laws.

The movement in Kentucky was the result, in a great degree, of Genet's machinations, and the influence of the Democratic societies. It is true, there had been dissatisfaction among the people there for several years, because the Spanish government kept the Mississippi closed against American commerce. Now, that dissatisfaction assumed the form of menace. During the recent session of Congress, the people of that region sent a remonstrance to the supreme legislature respecting the navigation of the Mississippi. It was intemperate and indecorous in language. It charged the government with being under the influence of a local policy, which had prevented its making a single real effort for the security of the commercial advantages which the people of the West demanded, and cast aspersions upon the several departments of government. They also intimated that they would leave the Union if their grievances were not speedily redressed, and the “great territorial right” of the free navigation of the Mississippi secured to them.

This remonstrance was referred to a committee by the senate, who reported, that such rights to the navigation of the great river as were sought by the western people were well asserted in the negotiations then going on at Madrid; and on the recommendation of the committee, the senate resolved that the president should be requested to communicate to the governor of Kentucky such part of the pending treaty between the United States and Spain as he might deem advisable, and not inconsistent with the course of the negotiation. The house of representatives also passed a resolution, expressing their conviction that the president was doing all in his power to bring about the negotiation as speedily as possible.

The demagogues at the West, who hoped to profit by the excitement and bring about hostilities with the Spaniards in Louisiana, refused to be soothed by these assurances; and at a convention of a number of the principal citizens of Kentucky, assembled at Lexington, the following intemperate and indecorous resolutions were adopted:—

“That the general government, whose duty it is to put us in possession of this right [free navigation of the Mississippi] have, either through design or mistaken policy, adopted no effectual measures for its attainment.

“That even the measures they have adopted have been uniformly concealed from us, and veiled in mysterious secrecy.

“That civil liberty is prostituted, when the servants of the people are suffered to tell their masters, that communications which they may judge important may not be intrusted to them.”