Only in Massachusetts did the Federalists make a comprehensive and argumentative reply to the effect that the constitutionality of measures could only be passed upon by the Supreme Court. The Alien and Sedition Laws were defended as in no wise interfering with the liberty of the press. And here, strangely enough, Democrats were found to support the Resolutions in speeches of no mean merit. In John Bacon of Berkshire the Jeffersonians had their sole representative in the State Senate. Formerly a minister of the Old South Church, and a speaker of some ability, he delivered a carefully prepared speech assailing the constitutionality of the oppressive laws, and gave it to the press.[1582] Dr. Aaron Hill of Cambridge, a Jeffersonian in the House, acted similarly in that body—and on both Hill and Bacon the floodgates of falsehood and abuse were opened. In an open letter to Bacon in the ‘Centinel,’ he was charged with having been a Tory, with having quarreled with the congregation at the Old South, with having owned, as slaves, a married couple, and with having sold the husband into a distant State.[1583] When Bacon proved the charges shamelessly false, the ‘Centinel’ took no notice.[1584] Dr. Hill fared quite as badly when students from Harvard exercised their learning by smashing the windows and casements of his home.[1585] And it was at this juncture that Thomas Adams, of the ‘Independent Chronicle,’ was indicted and Abijah Adams was thrown into a cell for criticizing the action of the Legislature.[1586]
Everywhere the Federalist papers made the Resolutions the occasion for a justification of the Alien and Sedition Laws; everywhere the Jeffersonians, usually refraining from a discussion of the theory of the Federal Union advanced, made them the pretext for a denunciation of the laws. And significantly enough, it was reserved for the favorite Federalist organ of ‘Porcupine’ to preach and all but urge secession. Replying to a correspondent who had denied the right of secession, ‘Porcupine’ said: ‘Does he imagine that the industrious and orderly people of New England will ever suffer themselves to be governed by an impious philosopher or a gambling profligate imposed upon them by Virginia influence? If he does, he knows very little of New England. The New Englanders know well that they are the rock of the Union. They know their own value; they feel their strength, and they will have their full share of influence in the federal government, or they will not be governed by it. It is clear that their influence must decrease; because ... the Middle and Southern States are increasing in inhabitants five times as fast as New England is. If Pennsylvania joins her influence to that of New England the balance will be kept up; but the moment she decidedly throws it into the scale with Virginia the balance is gone, New England loses her influence in the national Government, and she establishes a Government of her own.’[1587] This reflects the spirit of the times when the two parties faced each other for the decisive battle of 1800. The Alien and Sedition Laws and the Terror were issues; the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions played scarcely any part at all.
CHAPTER XVIII
ADAMS PULLS DOWN THE PILLARS
I
MEANWHILE, the Federalist leaders, having, as they thought, cowed and crushed the Democrats, were engaged in an internecine strife for control. There was to be war—at all hazards a war. It was to be a Federalist war, with Jeffersonians rigidly excluded from all places of command. But more than that, it had to be a war personally conducted by Alexander Hamilton—with no unseemly interference from John Adams. This was the grim determination of the radical Federalists everywhere, even the Essex Junto, in the President’s own State, sharing it with the three leading members of the Adams Cabinet. Thus, when Adams one day casually asked Pickering who should be made Commander-in-Chief of the army, and the spectacled Puritan unhesitatingly answered, ‘Colonel Hamilton,’ there was an ominous silence. When, on another occasion, the same question elicited the identical answer, with a similar silence, even Pickering must have sensed the situation. But when, after a third question had brought the same answer, and Adams, a little annoyed, had rejected the suggestion with the sharp observation, ‘It is not his turn by a great deal,’ Pickering might have dropped his plans without disgrace.[1588] But nothing was more remote from his intentions. It was at this time that the conspirators, including the three members of the Cabinet, put their heads together to devise ways and means of forcing the appointment of their idol. The chief command would naturally be offered to Washington, who would accept the position in an honorary sense, but old age and infirmities would make his activities and authority but perfunctory. The important thing was to secure the second position for Hamilton—and even there was a rub. Adams was prejudiced.
Then, one day, Adams ordered McHenry to Mount Vernon to proffer the chief command to Washington, with a request for advice in the formation of the officers’ list. The names of several eligibles for the leading posts, enumerated by Adams, might be mentioned. Hamilton was among them, but he was fourth on the list. That day McHenry hastened to Pickering, and the conspiracy against the President in his own household began to unfold. It was agreed that Pickering should send a personal letter on ahead urging Hamilton for second place, McHenry should reënforce Pickering’s plea in person, Hamilton should be instantly notified and a letter from him should be delivered to Washington along with the commission from Adams. Thus, when the smug-faced little War Secretary, more familiar with the pen of the rhymester than with the sword of the soldier, bade his chief adieu and set out upon his mission, he was the messenger of his chief’s dearest enemy, prepared to exhaust his ingenuity in thwarting the plans of the man of whom he was a subordinate and on whose mission he went forth.
As early as June, Washington had planned to make Hamilton Inspector-General, but without placing him ahead of Pinckney or Knox, both of whom outranked him in the old army.[1589] Just what treachery McHenry practiced as he sat on the veranda at Mount Vernon those July days will never be positively known. That he pleaded the cause of Hamilton against the wishes of his chief there can be no doubt. That it was he who suggested that Washington should make his own acceptance conditional on having absolute power in the selection of his subordinates is more than probable. At any rate, when he returned to Philadelphia he carried in Washington’s handwriting the names of the three Major-Generals—Hamilton, Pinckney, and Knox, in the order given. In this order Adams, who assumed that their relative positions would be determined by himself, sent them to the Senate and they were confirmed.
Soon the Federalist camp was in fermentation as to whether Knox, favored by the President, or Hamilton, preferred by the party bosses, should be second in command. Pinckney, who accepted slights with the same contrite spirit with which his brother had stepped aside for Jay in London, agreed to serve under the Federalist leader, but Knox, not so humble, refused, and the crisis came. Personally fond of Knox, the quarrel was embarrassing to Washington, but it had never been the habit of the Hamiltonians to spare him where their wishes were involved. Soon Hamilton was bombarding Mount Vernon with letters strikingly lacking in the spirit of humility. His claims were superior to those of Knox or Pinckney, and the Federalists preferred him to the former.[1590] ‘If I am to be degraded beneath my just claims in public opinion, ought I acquiesce?’ he wrote the sympathetic Pickering.[1591] To McHenry he wrote that he would not surrender the first place to which he ‘had been called by the voice of the country’;[1592] to Washington that the Federalists of New England favored him over Knox.[1593]
All the while the three leading members of the Cabinet were concocting plans for the humiliation of Adams, taking their orders from Hamilton, who, from his law office in New York, was directing the fight of the President’s trusted advisers against their chief. One day the angels looked down and smiled through tears on the spectacle of McHenry writing a letter to Knox fixing his status, from a model in the handwriting of Alexander Hamilton.[1594] As Adams stubbornly held his ground, one by one all the Hamiltonians of consequence were drawn into the conspiracy against him.
One evening the secretarial conspirators sat about a table phrasing a persuasive note to Adams which Wolcott, the most consummate deceiver of the three, should sign and send as his personal view. ‘Public opinion’ favored Hamilton, Washington preferred him, and ‘Knox [has] no popular character even in Massachusetts.’[1595] Having dispatched this cunning letter, Wolcott immediately wrote his real chief in New York that ‘measures have been taken to bring all right,’ and requesting Hamilton neither to do nor to say anything ‘until you hear from me.’[1596] Another little caucus of conspirators in Boston: present, Cabot, Ames, and Higginson; purpose, the framing of a letter to Adams that Cabot should sign, assuring the President of a ‘remarkable uniformity of sentiment’ in New England for Hamilton over Knox.[1597] Having sent this letter, Cabot wrote confidentially to Pickering suggesting that General Wadsworth, who was ‘accustomed to tell [Knox] his faults,’ should be enlisted in the cause.[1598] Meanwhile Pickering, more sinister, if less deceptive than the others, was seeking to intimidate his chief by having Hamiltonian Senators declare that the officers had been confirmed with the understanding that Hamilton stood at the head.[1599]