Giving the Central Government sufficient military strength was not the only result of the first open attempt to oppose it. Individualism had received a telling blow. The State was no longer inviolate. Objection had been raised in the trivial matter of creating districts for collecting the revenue because they disregarded State boundaries. It was now seen that the National Government could and would march militia directly to a place of resistance regardless of State lines. The people of the States were no longer safe from invasion by the power which they had created. Not only a respect for the United States laws, taxes, courts, and officers was created by the incident, but the fidelity of the militia, residents of different States, to the central authority was assured. Jay was at this time on his celebrated mission to England to prevent war with that nation, if possible. To him Washington sent enthusiastic accounts of the people turning out to show their abhorrence of the insurrection. He said that some of the officers had disregarded rank and that others had gone as privates. He told of numbers of men, possessed of the first fortunes of the country, yet willing to stand in ranks, to carry knapsacks, and sleep on straw in soldiers' tents with a single blanket on frosty nights. Evidently the spirit of Valley Forge had not been lost. Five times the number could have been secured, he said, to preserve the peace of the country. He also hazarded a prediction that the failure of the insurrection would have a deterrent effect on the political clubs, which he blamed almost entirely for the inception of the insurgent spirit.
CHAPTER XI
NATIONAL PARTIES ON FOREIGN ISSUES
The Democratic clubs, which Washington scored so roundly, and so unjustly as Jefferson thought, were simply reflexes of one phase of the French Revolution. They serve to illustrate not only how dependent America was upon Europe for political guidance and how strong was European influence in America, but also that early parties were factions along social lines of cleavage rather than divisions on national policies.
Caste is always a relative thing. The patriots who inaugurated and led to success the American Revolution had been, generally speaking, of an inferior social rank to the Tories. Washington is regarded as a striking exception. Yet his fame rested solely upon his early military record. He was never a part of the gay life at Williamsburg. The royal governor was at the head of the Court and set the social standard. The patriots, being opposed to him, were placed in an inferior social position. But when once the governors had been driven out and the Tories had been subjugated or exiled, the patriots became the ruling or superior class. Immediately a new inferior class arose, hostile to the Administration. Thus it came about that Washington, Hamilton, Adams, and Jay, the former democrats, were changed into aristocrats in the eyes of Jefferson, Madison, and the present democrats.
The new democrats were in full sympathy with the effort made in France to abolish the nobility, and imitated the Democratic clubs which were established there on the basis of "liberty, equality, and fraternity." Having no nobility to abolish in America, they declared war upon such titles as "His Excellency the President," or "His Honour the Mayor," and even "Reverend" and "Esquire." These they would replace by a uniform "Citizen." Record is to be found of some twenty-four of these local Democratic societies, scattered from Maine to South Carolina and westward to Kentucky. Their object, as set forth by a Vermont society, was "the promotion of real and genuine Republicanism, unsullied and uncontaminated with the smallest spark of monarchical or aristocratic principles." They pledged themselves to the "utmost exertions to support the rational and equal rights of man."
Like all movements depending upon enthusiasm, the Democratic societies went to the bounds of extravagance. Taking offence at a tavern sign in Philadelphia, they were not content until the proprietor had painted a red streak about the neck of Marie Antoinette to denote the work of the guillotine. A waxworks in the same city drew large crowds to witness a representation of the execution of Louis XVI. According to the advertisement, "The knife falls, the head drops, and the lips turn blue. The whole is performed to the life by an invisible machine, without any perceivable assistance." Children were admitted at half price. A bust of George III., which had stood through the intense feeling engendered by the Revolution, was now mutilated. At Democratic banquets, a boar's head, representing the head of Louis XVI., was passed about to be stabbed by the guests.
The resolutions adopted by the local societies frequently concerned local grievances. The Kentucky club protested against the Spanish claim to the exclusive control of the lower Mississippi, and a club in western Pennsylvania paid its respects to the collection of the excise tax. Nevertheless, it should be said that many societies in other States deprecated the resistance to the National Government in that quarter. In view of this fact, Jefferson thought Washington unjust in attributing the insurrection to the encouragement of the clubs.
There was a more practical aim in the associations than the adoption of resolutions. They hoped to unite the local bodies in a national association which should bring the State and eventually the nation into sympathy with France and her struggle for liberty. "France caught the divine fire of liberty from us," said one society. "Shall we now withhold ourselves from her?" The varying responses to this question brought about eventually the rise of political parties in the United States.
Three well-defined periods have marked political parties in the Republic. The first epoch turned, as indicated above, entirely upon the choice of sides in the war between France and England, which followed the proclamation of the French Republic, September 21, 1792. The second period, following the close of the War of 1812, the end of foreign dominance, was produced by differences of opinion upon the constitutional powers of the National Government. It was foreshadowed by several constitutional debates in the first period. The Civil War, by an appeal to the sword, decided the majority of these constitutional doubts in favour of the Union. Since that time, a third phase of party government has been developed, purely on grounds of expediency in domestic and foreign control.