The truth is that the hysteria for getting at the throat of the French democracy was over almost as soon as it began, and the masses commenced to reflect on the cost, as the war measures grew apace. Jefferson, noting the increasing boldness of opposition in Pennsylvania, where petitions were signed by four thousand people protesting against the Alien and Sedition Laws, standing armies, and extraordinary war powers for the President, and observing similar unrest in New Jersey and New York, and ‘even in New Hampshire,’ was fearful of insurrection. ‘Nothing could be so fatal,’ he wrote. ‘Anything like force would check the progress of public opinion.’[1617]
When Wolcott tried to float a loan, he found the moneyed men cold to the regular legal rate of interest, for their patriotic passion had suffered a chill when it came to cash. After all, business was business, and why should the Federalist men of money fail to get in on the profits? It was not hard to persuade Wolcott, who had a sentimental weakness for the financiers, and he could see nothing unreasonable in a demand for eight per cent. The rates for stocks were good, commercial prospects were alluring, and after all, eight per cent would be but ‘moderate terms.’ Adams, sore from the unmerciful pummeling from his party, was outraged at such a rate,[1618] but Wolcott persisted—it was the only way. War was war as business was business. Finally, in sheer disgust, Adams capitulated to necessity with the exclamation: ‘This damned army will be the ruin of this country; if it must be so, it must; I cannot help it. Issue your proposals as you please.’[1619] When Hamilton had urged that all the resources of revenue be seized upon, Adams thought him mad, but it soon became evident that something of the sort would be necessary.[1620]
Aha, said the ‘Independent Chronicle,’ ‘“millions for defence but not one cent for tribute.” This has been the language of those who are in favor of war. The patriotism of such persons is every day becoming more and more evident. A loan of five million has been attempted, but instead of the old legal rate of six per cent these modern patriots have required the moderate premium of Eight. At this rate we shall soon verify the first part of the motto, viz., “millions for defence,” but whether the latter is not violated by the extra interest is left to the decision of those who are to bear the burdens.’[1621] And they who were to pay the piper gave an acquiescent nod.
The taxes which the war party had levied with such patriotic abandon aroused bitter resentment. Among the Germans of Pennsylvania, the taxes on houses, lands, and windows were considered the beginning of a system which would extend to everything. The immediate outcome was an insurrection led by John Fries, an ignorant son of a German farmer, and the marching of the troops and the easy dissipation of the incipient rebellion against the assessors.[1622]
About that time Hamilton arrived in Philadelphia. ‘For what purpose?’ inquired ‘The Aurora.’ ‘Can it be to foment another insurrection and thereby to increase the energies of the Government? What distinguished citizen is there in the counties of Northampton and Bucks that he wishes to glut his vengeance upon? Does he wish that Easton may be burned to afford him a pretext for military execution?’[1623] If there were no executions, the people had a touch of military rule. A troop of horse from Lancaster committed outrages on citizens at Reading, and Jacob Schneider, a local editor, commented with severity upon their actions. On their return through Reading these troops went to the editor’s office, tore his clothing from his back, dragged him to the Market House, and were preparing to give him twenty-five lashes when troops from Philadelphia interfered.[1624] The brutality of the soldiers shocked the country. The prisoners taken on the expedition were treated with the same unnecessary cruelty which marked the treatment of the rebels in the Whiskey Insurrection. Ignorant or besotted with partisan passion, under a lax discipline, and contemptuous of the civil government, many soldiers strutting about in uniforms, insulting and attacking citizens, convinced the majority of the people that the Jeffersonians were right in their observations upon the evils of standing armies.
No one had denounced these excesses with greater vehemence than William Duane, editor of ‘The Aurora.’ One day some petty officers in uniforms, swords and pistols on their persons, said by Duane to have numbered thirty and by his enemies to have been fifteen, entered his office. With drawn pistols the compositors and pressmen were driven into a corner and kept at bay by a part of the assailants. Some grasped and held Duane’s hands while others beat him over the head with the butt end of a pistol. Then with ten gallant soldiers participating in the assault on the one man, he was brutally dragged downstairs into Franklin Court, where the assault was repeated. He was knocked down and kicked. The editor’s request to be permitted to fight any one of them was ignored, and had not his sixteen-year-old son thrown himself across his father’s body, and a number of Democrats arrived to give battle, he would have been murdered in cold blood. That night armed Democrats went to the ‘Aurora’ office prepared to give shot for shot if an attempt should be made to destroy the plant.[1625] ‘Porcupine’ chortled, and young Fenno declared that ‘the punishment of this caitiff is of no more consequence than that of any other vagabond.’ Besides, did not every one know that ‘the infernal Aurora and the United Irishman who conducts it’ were ‘expressly chargeable with the Northampton Insurrection?’[1626]
With such encouragement from the organs of the Administration, these outrages by soldiers soon became commonplace wherever they were assembled, with uniformed ruffians swaggering down the streets pushing civilians into the gutters, taking liberties with women, picking quarrels while drunk, and slashing and lunging with dirk and sword.[1627] This bullying spirit affected the petty officers and reached a climax when civil officials, armed with a warrant for a thief who had escaped to the soldiers near Philadelphia, were literally kicked out of the camp, their warrant cursed and trampled.[1628] With the tide rising rapidly against both the war and the army, the recruiting lagged. Adams in later years recalled that the army was as unpopular ‘as if it had been a ferocious wild beast let loose upon the nation to devour it.’[1629] With the recruiting officers putting forth their utmost efforts, ‘with all the influence of Hamilton, reënforced by the magical name of Washington,’ they were unable to ‘raise one half of their ... little army.’[1630] Duane wrote that before the law creating the army passed ‘there were 15,000 applications for commissions—since the passing of the law there have been only 3000 soldiers.’[1631] There is more than a touch of irony in the fact that while the Administration papers were vilifying the Irish, ‘three fifths of the men enlisted were Irish immigrants.’[1632]
But there was another reason for the failure in recruiting—the people soon concluded that some one had cried ‘wolf’ when there was no wolf. No one, including Hamilton, believed that France had the most remote notion of warring on the United States. The impression grew that the army was intended for purposes other than the protection of the country from a foreign foe. Meanwhile, the taxes were bearing hard, the national debt was mounting and the passion for peace returned. Right gallantly the war party sought to reawaken the fine frenzy of the hysterical days of the X Y Z papers. The preachers were as distressed over the possibility of peace as the politicians, and a convention of ministers in Boston issued a war cry. ‘You will see by these things that the clergy are not asleep this way,’ wrote a Massachusetts man to Wolcott. ‘They ought everywhere to be awake.’[1633] From the New York ‘Commercial Advertiser’ came a pathetic attempt to sweep back the rising tide for peace: ‘The necessity in times like the present in cherishing the war spirit ... is evident.’[1634] Apropos of the report that the French were ready to make every concession to our interest and pride, the ‘Centinel’ in Boston sent forth the warning, ‘The trying time is now approaching’;[1635] but the rabble, as the masses were called, could see nothing distressing in winning a war without the loss of a drop of blood. Fenno’s ‘Gazette,’ commenting on the business stagnation, promised that ‘a war with France would within two months revivify every department of society, commerce would be invigorated, the funds would rise, and every employment of life would receive new vigor.’[1636] This sordid note he was soon to strike again.[1637] But it was all unavailing. The enlistments dwindled to nothing, common soldiers were actually cheering the Democratic Governor in the streets of Philadelphia, no one feared an invasion, and, as Wolcott confided to Fisher Ames, ‘no one has thought it prudent to say that the army is kept to suppress or prevent rebellions.’[1638] To make matters all the worse, desertions multiplied until the harassed McHenry was writing Hamilton urging executions. The little rhymester was far beyond his depths, scolded by Washington, kicked like a flunky by Hamilton in one or two letters a day. But the idea of shooting a deserter was a bit too high-toned for Hamilton. ‘There must be some caution,’ he wrote, ‘not to render our military system odious by giving it the appearance of being sanguinary.’[1639] Adams was prepared for extreme measures, but it was decided to leave the decision with Hamilton and McHenry—which meant with Hamilton. ‘If the virtuous General Hamilton is determined upon shooting every soldier who deserts,’ said ‘The Aurora,’ ‘Billy Wilcox’s court martial will be kept at pretty constant duty. In a Daily Advertiser of last week no less than ten of these strayed gentlemen are advertised for apprehension at $10 a head.’[1640]
But Hamilton was too wise to shoot.