Major Beckwith, the British Agent, hastened to express his pained surprise to Washington’s Secretary at the recommendation by the Secretary of State of a pamphlet which had been suppressed in England. The secretary was sufficiently impressed by the scandalized tone of the aristocratic society of Philadelphia, which was usually lionizing some degenerate members of the European nobility, to write his chief in detail. When Randolph dined with Mrs. Washington, Lear retailed it to him, and the suggestion was made that Jefferson should know. Thus there was something more than a tempest in a teapot. Everywhere men were partisans of the pamphlets of Burke or Paine, the aristocrats on one side, the democrats on the other, the stoutest of the republicans everywhere delighted with ‘The Rights of Man.’ This was true in even the small towns and the villages of far places. One traveler passing through Reading was surprised to find the two pamphlets the ‘general topic of conversation,’ and he was assured of the delight that awaited him in the reading of Paine’s.[322] All too long had the Americans been drugged with Fenno’s deification of the upper classes—with John Adams’s ‘Discourses’ on the necessity of ‘distinctions’—and here was old ‘Common Sense’ back again in the old form slashing the aristocrats fore and aft. The press responded to the popular demand, and everywhere ‘The Rights of Man’ was being published serially to be eagerly read by the thousands who had not seen the pamphlet. But it was not all one-sided. If the ‘Painites’ wrote furiously in some papers, the ‘Burkites’ were prolific in Fenno’s and a few others. In the fashionable drawing-rooms a poll would have shown a decided preference for the defender of aristocracy who had wept so eloquently over the woes of a frivolous Queen. Nowhere was Burke so popular and Paine so loathed as in the home of Adams, the Vice-President. ‘What do you think of Paine’s pamphlet?’ asked Dr. Rush, to whom society was cooling because of his democratic tendencies. The second official of the Republic hesitated as if for dramatic effect, and then, solemnly laying his hand upon his heart, he answered, ‘I detest that book and its tendency from the bottom of my heart.’ Indeed, most of the Federalists were frankly with Burke. ‘Although Mr. Burke may have carried his veneration for old establishments too far, and may not have made sufficient allowance for the imperfections of human nature in the conflict of the French Revolution,’ wrote Davie to Judge Iredell, ‘yet I think his letter contains a sufficient amount of intelligence to have rescued him from the undistinguishing abuse of Paine.’[323]
With most of the Federalist leaders in sympathy with Burke, few ventured to attack Paine in the open. Not so with Adams who was spluttering mad over the Jefferson ‘preface.’ He was positive that the publication of Paine’s pamphlet in this country had been instigated by his former colleague at Paris.[324] To him the pamphlet of Paine, the ‘preface’ of Jefferson, the acclaim for both on the part of the people was but a devilish conspiracy of Jefferson’s to pull him down. ‘More of Jefferson’s subterranean tricks.’ And with this conviction, John Quincy Adams, the son, then in Boston, took up a trenchant pen to write the articles of ‘Publicola’ for the ‘Centinel,’ sneering at the Jeffersonian note to the printer, assailing Paine and democracy, and stoutly defending the governmental forms of England. So well did he discharge his filial duty that his articles were published in pamphlet form in England by the friends of Burke, and many of the Federalist papers reproduced them as they appeared.
Then the newspaper battle began in earnest. Many indignant democrats rushed to the attack of ‘Publicola’ with all the greater zest because of the belief that ‘Publicola’ was none other than ‘Davilla’ himself. ‘America will not attend to this antiquated sophistry,’ wrote one, ‘whether decorated by the gaudy ornaments of a Burke, the curious patch-work of a Parr to which all antiquity must have contributed its prettiest rags and tatters, or the homely ungraceful garb which has been furnished her by Mr. John Adams.’[325] Another suggested that ‘Publicola’ would soon cease to write since ‘the time for the new election is approaching,’ although the ‘Discourses’ might be continued without danger since ‘dullness, like the essence of opium, sets every reader to sleep before he has passed the third sentence.’[326] As for ‘Publicola,’ his letters were ‘being brought forward to persuade the people that an hereditary nobility, and, of consequence, high salaries, pomp and parade are essential to the prosperity of the country.’[327] In Boston, where the letters were appearing, ‘Agricola’ and ‘Brutus’ began spirited replies in the rival paper.[328] Other writers, with less grace and force, joined in the fray. Who are to constitute our nobility, demanded ‘Republican,’ our moneyed men—the speculators? If so ‘Dukes, Lords and Earls will swarm like insects gendered by the sun,’ and the worn-out soldier who had been tricked out of his paper would have the satisfaction of ‘bowing most submissively to their lordships while seated in their carriages.’[329]
But Adams was not without his defenders. ‘An American’ declared that all the abuse was ‘designed as a political ladder by which to climb.’ Miserable creatures! ‘Ages after the tide of time has swept their names into oblivion, the immortal deeds of Adams will shine on the brightest pages of history.’[330] ‘The Ploughman’ indignantly resented the insinuation that Adams had written the ‘Publicola’ letters. In truth, ‘his friends consider Dr. Adams as being calumniated’ by having such sentiments ascribed to him.[331] To all the ‘hornets’ that were buzzing about Adams, Fenno felt he could be indifferent, for they had no stings. They were merely nonentities trying to give consequence to their scribblings by appearing to be answering the Vice-President.
Meanwhile, Jefferson was keenly enjoying the turmoil. We wish it were possible to trace it all to his contrivance, for nothing could have served his purpose better. To have foreseen that the writing of a few simple lines would have awakened the militant republicanism of the country and have aroused the democratic impulses of the inert mass would have been complimentary to his political genius. But this is not the only instance where a clever politician with the reputation of a magician has stumbled forward. There is no doubt that Jefferson was astonished and embarrassed on learning that the printer had made an unauthorized use of his personal note. He admitted to Washington that he had Adams’s writings in mind, but that nothing was more remote from his thoughts than of becoming ‘a contributor before the public.’ However, he was not impressed with the reflections on his taste. ‘Their real fear,’ he added, ‘is that this popular and republican pamphlet ... is likely ... to wipe out all the unconstitutional doctrines which their bellwether, Davilla, has been preaching for a twelve-month.’[332] This explanation was enough for Knox, who wrote accordingly to Adams,[333] but not enough for Jefferson who sent a frank explanation to Adams with an expression of regret. In generous mood, the latter accepted the explanation with the protestation that their old friendship was ‘still dear to my heart,’ and that ‘there is no office I would not resign rather than give a just occasion for one friend to desert me.’[334]
Madison, to whom Jefferson had sent a similar explanation, had assumed that there had been a mistake or an imposition, but he could see no reason for indignation on the part of Adams or his friends. ‘Surely,’ he wrote, ‘if it be innocent and decent for one servant of the public to write against its government, it cannot be very criminal or indecent in another to patronize a written defence of the principles on which that Government is founded.’[335]
However much Jefferson may have regretted the unauthorized use of his letter, he rejoiced in its effect. He wrote Paine that the controversy had awakened the people, shown the ‘monocrats’ that the silence of the masses concerning the teachings of ‘Davilla’ did not mean that they had been converted ‘to the doctrine of king, lords and commons,’ and that they were ‘confirmed in their good old faith.’[336] The incident had established Jefferson in the public mind as the outstanding leader of democracy, had set the public tongue to wagging on politics again. More was involved in the pamphlets of Burke and Paine than differences over the French Revolution. The keynote of Burke’s was aristocracy and privilege; that of Paine’s was democracy and equal rights. The former was the gospel of the American Federalists; the latter the covenant of the American Democracy. Studying the reactions with his characteristic keenness, Jefferson was convinced that the time was ripe to mobilize for the inevitable struggle.
VII
‘What do you think of this scrippomony?’ Jefferson wrote to Edward Rutledge in the late summer. ‘Ships are lying idle at the wharfs, buildings are stopped, capital withdrawn from commerce, manufactures, arts and agriculture to be employed in gambling, and the tide of public prosperity ... is arrested in its course.... I imagine that we shall hear that all the cash has quitted the extremities of the nation and accumulated here.’[337] As he wrote, Jefferson had before him the report of the craze which had just reached him in a letter from Madison in New York. ‘Stock and scrip the sole domestic subjects of conversation ... speculations ... carried on with money borrowed at from two and a half per cent a month to one per cent a week.’[338]
Men grown reckless with the frenzy of the intoxication were resorting to fraud to rob the Government, many taking out administration papers for deceased soldiers who had left no heirs. ‘By this knavery,’ wrote Madison at an earlier period, ‘a prodigious sum will be unsaved by the public, and reward the worst of its citizens.’ And suppose one of the clerks of the account offices is not proof against the temptation?[339]