Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

by Gilbert Chinard

CHAPTER V

POLITICAL LEADER AND STRATEGIST

When Jefferson went home after the adjournment of Congress he remained completely silent for two months. But the newspaper war went on in Philadelphia with more virulence than ever: attacks against the arch plotter and the defender of the French Jacobins were multiplied, prosecutions were begun in Massachusetts under the Sedition Act and for a time Jefferson himself seems to have feared for his own safety. To Samuel Smith, who had sent him a clipping in which he was vehemently accused, he answered that he had "contemplated every event which the Maratists of the day can perpetrate, and I am prepared to meet every one in such a way, as shall not be derogatory to the public liberty or my own personal honor." He naturally denied that he had in any way plotted with Bache, the editor of the Aurora, or Doctor Leib; then he went on to define once more his position. He had acted on the same principles from the year 1775 to that day, and he was convinced that these principles were those of the great body of the American people. He was for peace certainly, not only with France but also with England. He was aware that both of them "have given and are daily giving, sufficient cause of war; that in defiance of the laws of nations, they are every day trampling on the rights of the neutral powers, whenever they can thereby do the least injury, either to the other." But he still maintained that the best policy was and would have been "to bear from France for one more summer what we have been bearing from both of them these four years." With England the United States had chosen peace; with France they had chosen war; to what extent the Government was supported by the majority of the people was a thing to be seen in the coming elections. He ended with a note of Christian forgiveness for Fenno and Porcupine, who "covered him with their implacable hatred." "The only return I will ever make them, will be to do them all the good I can, in spite of their teeth."[364]

This was almost too godly to be true; but if we remember that his letters were intercepted and read by Adams' police, as he repeatedly complained, and that letters sent to him were opened on their way to Monticello, we may wonder whether he did not write these lines for the eye of the censor, and with his tongue in his cheek. That he really believed at the time in the existence of a monarchical conspiracy appears from a letter to Stephens Thompson Mason.[365]

The Alien and Sedition bills were just a beginning. If the people did not revolt against them, the next step would be to persuade Congress that the President should continue in office for life, reserving to another time the transfer of the succession to his heirs and the establishment of the Senate for life.

This was a very accurate prophecy of the course that events were to follow, not in America, but in France, and this shows at least that Jefferson had an exact understanding of the gradual steps through which a republican government might become an empire. But France had Bonaparte, while neither Adams nor Washington ever had the inclination or the power to bring about such a change in America. Yet when one thinks of the military ambitions of Hamilton, of his real opposition and scorn for republican government, it would perhaps be unfair to dismiss these apprehensions as absolutely groundless. Whatever the case may have been, Jefferson thought the time had come to erect a strong barrier against the encroachments of the Federal Government. Towards the end of the same month, the two Nicholas brothers, George and Wilson C., discussed with Jefferson at Monticello a plan to put to work the Republicans, who, finding themselves useless in Congress, had retired from the field. A plan was finally adopted to arouse the State legislatures; during these meetings were drawn up the famous "Resolutions" that George Nicholas was to present to the legislature of Kentucky, and which Madison was to bring before the Virginia Assembly.[366]

The exact authorship of the "Resolutions" remained a matter of doubt until Jefferson more than twenty years later acknowledged his participation in a letter to the son of George Nicholas.[367] It was well for Jefferson's peace of mind that he remained behind the scenes on this occasion and let Madison take the responsibility of the recommendation, which he did not allow to pass without modifying the original text to a considerable degree. The Kentucky resolutions have been the subject of many discussions, and Madison himself used a great deal of ink and time to explain the true import of the measures he had sponsored before the Virginia Assembly. They will become much more intelligible when studied in the light of the theory developed by Jefferson in the document in which he stated his views on the social compact, considered as a pactum foederis and not a pactum subjectionis.[368] It was simply the reaffirmation that in forming a society neither men nor States abdicate entirely their sovereignty but reserve a specified part of their natural rights set forth in a Bill of Rights—an essential foundation on which to build a constitution. Such is clearly the meaning of the first resolution;

1. Resolved. That the several States composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general Government for special purposes—delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the Government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but, that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

Not only was Jefferson perfectly consistent in repeating almost word for word in this Resolution the doctrine of natural rights and State rights already enunciated in 1776, but the last lines foretold the theory he was to defend against Marshall during his presidency. By denying that the parties to the Federal compact had a common judge, he refused in advance to consider the Supreme Court as the guardian, interpreter, and defender of the Constitution. This principle once asserted, Jefferson endeavored to prove that the Sedition Bill, the Alien Bill and other measures adopted by Congress at the instigation of the Federalists constituted an infringement of State rights, since they did not deal with matters specifically reserved to Congress and since it was provided that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively or to the people." This was at the same time an attempt to prove the unconstitutionality of the recent legislation and an endeavor to define more exactly the powers of the Federal Government. The Eighth Resolution, the longest, proposed the establishment of a committee of correspondence to communicate the resolutions to the different legislatures and enunciated the doctrine of nullification, namely that the State had the right to consider as nonexistent such laws as might be passed in defiance of the Constitution. Naturally the Law of Sedition and the Alien Bill came under that category.

Strong as the language of the Resolutions may have been, it was not Jefferson's intention to promote a rebellion of certain States against the Federal Government and to provoke a secession. They contained a strong affirmation that the subscribers to the Resolutions were sincerely anxious for the preservation of the Union. As a matter of fact, in Jefferson's intention they were a piece of political strategy and he had no desire to push the matter too far. A letter he wrote to Madison on the subject is particularly significant on that score: "I think we should distinctly affirm all the important principles they contain, so as to hold to that ground in future, and leave the matter in such a train as that we may not be committed absolutely to push the matter to extremities, and yet may be free to push as far as events will render prudent."[369]