These denunciations had great immediate effect. All acknowledged that the treaty was not as favorable to the United States as the latter had a right to expect; and “public opinion did receive a considerable shock,” says Marshall. Men unaffected by the spirit of faction felt some disappointment on its first appearance; therefore, when exposed to the public view, continues Marshall, “it found one party prepared for a bold and intrepid attack, but the other not ready in its defence. An appeal to the passions, prejudices, and feelings of the nation might confidently be made by those whose only object was its condemnation; while reflection, information, and consequently time, were required by men whose first impressions were not in its favor, but who were not inclined to yield absolutely to those impressions.”
As we have observed, Washington, for a specific purpose, withheld his signature in ratification of the treaty. The vote of the senate recommending its ratification, with the stipulation that one article should be added, suspending so much of another as seemed requisite, and requesting the president to open without delay further negotiation on that head, presented serious questions to his mind. He had no precedent for his guide. Could the senate be considered to have ratified the treaty before the insertion of the new article? Was the act complete and final, so as to make it unnecessary to refer it back to that body? Could the president affix his official seal to an act before it should be complete? These were important questions, and demanded serious reflection.
The opponents of the treaty, aware of the cause of the delay in its ratification, resolved to endeavor to intimidate the president and prevent his signing it. The most violent demonstrations, by word and deed, were made against it. On the fourth of July, a great mob assembled in Philadelphia, and paraded the streets with effigies of Jay and the ratifying senators. That of Jay bore a pair of scales: one was labelled “American Liberty and Independence;” and the other, which greatly preponderated, “British Gold.” From the mouth of the figure proceeded the words, “Come up to my price, and I will sell you my country.” The effigies were committed to the flames amid the most frightful yells and groans.
Public meetings were assembled all over the country to make formal protests against the treaty. They were called ostensibly to “deliberate upon it,” but they were frequently tumultuous, and always declamatory. A large meeting was held in Boston on the tenth of July. The chief actors there denounced the treaty as not containing one single article honorable or beneficial to the United States. It was disapproved of by unanimous vote, and a committee of fifteen, appointed to state objections, in an address to the president, reported no less than twenty. They were adopted by the meeting without debate, and were sent to the president accompanied by a letter from the selectmen of Boston. Only a few of the stable inhabitants of Boston appear to have been concerned in this matter, and the wealthy merchants and some other rich men who attended the meeting, and whose fears were excited by the leaders of the opposition, were made mere tools of on the occasion.
A meeting for a similar purpose was held in front of the city-hall, in Wall street, New York, on the eighteenth of July, pursuant to a call of an anonymous handbill. There the opposition gathered in great numbers, and there also was a large number of the friends of the treaty, who succeeded at first in electing a chairman. They were then about to adjourn to some more convenient place, when Brockholst Livingston, Mr. Jay's brother-in-law, and a leader of the opposition, urged the meeting to proceed instantly, as the president might ratify the treaty at any moment. Indeed, the whole Livingston family, with the eminent chancellor at their head, were now in the ranks of the opposition, and exerted a powerful influence. “With more than thoughtless effrontery,” says Doctor Francis, “they fanned the embers of discontent.”
Hamilton, Rufus King, and other speakers, occupied the balcony of the city-hall. The former, with sweet and persuasive tones, had uttered conciliatory words, and spoken in favor of adjournment, when the meeting became a good deal disturbed by conflicting sentiments and stormy passions. Just then an excited party of the opposition, who had held a meeting at the Bowling Green, with William L. Smith, a son-in-law of Vice-President Adams, as chairman, and who had burned a copy of the treaty in front of the government house, marched up Broadway, with the American and French flags unfurled, and joined the meeting. The turbulence of the assembly was greatly increased by this addition; and while Hamilton and King “were addressing the people in accents of friendship, peace, and reconciliation, they were treated in return with a shower of stones, levelled at their persons, by the exasperated mob gathered in front of the city-hall.”[80]
“These are hard arguments,” said Hamilton, who was hit a glancing blow upon the forehead by one of the stones. A question was finally taken on a motion to leave the decision on the treaty to the president and senate, when both sides claimed a majority. Then some person, utterly ignoring the presence of a chairman, moved the appointment of a committee of fifteen, to report to another meeting (to be held two days afterward) objections to the treaty. He read a list of names of gentlemen that should form that committee, and, at the close of clamorous shouts, he declared them duly appointed by the vote. The meeting finally broke up in great confusion. The adjourned meeting was attended by only the opponents of the treaty; and Brockholst Livingston, chairman of the committee of fifteen, reported twenty-eight condemnatory resolutions, which were adopted by unanimous vote.
“These resolutions,” says Hildreth, “while expressing great confidence in the president's wisdom, patriotism, and independence, were equally confident that his 'own good sense' must induce him to reject the treaty, as 'invading the constitution and legislative authority of the country; as abandoning important and well-founded claims against the British government; as imposing unjust and impolitic restraints on commerce; as injurious to agriculture; as conceding, without an equivalent, important advantages to Great Britain; as hostile and ungrateful to France; as committing our peace with that great republic; as unequal toward America in every respect; as hazarding her internal peace and prosperity; and as derogatory from her sovereignty and independence.”[81]
On the very next day (July 22), the New York Chamber of Commerce, representing the commercial interests of that city, adopted resolutions diametrically opposed to those offered by Livingston. These set forth that the treaty contained as many features of reciprocity as, under the circumstances, might be expected; that the arrangements respecting British debts were honest and expedient; and that the agreement concerning the surrender of the western posts and for compensation for spoliations, and their prevention in future, were wise and beneficial. If the treaty had been rejected, they said, war with all its attendant calamities would have ensued, and they were satisfied with what had been done.
On the twenty-fourth of July a similar meeting was held in Philadelphia. Among the leaders who denounced the treaty by speech and acts were Chief-Justice M'Kean, Alexander J. Dallas (the secretary of the commonwealth), General Muhlenburg (late speaker of the house of representatives), and John Swanwick (representative elect in Congress). A committee of fifteen was appointed by the meeting to convey the sentiments of the assemblage to the president, who was then at Mount Vernon, in the form of a memorial. That instrument was read twice and agreed to without debate. The treaty was then thrown to the populace—consisting chiefly, as Wolcott said in a letter to the president, of “the ignorant and violent classes”—who placed it upon a pole, and, proceeding to the house of the British minister, burned it in the street in front of it. They performed a like ceremony in front of the dwelling of the British consul, and also of Mr. Bingham, an influential federalist, with loud huzzas, yells, and groans.