The Administration had every reason to rejoice that Burr’s factious influence in the State of New York was at an end; for other causes of anxiety gave the President more personal annoyance. The strength of the Republican party lay in the alliance between Virginia and Pennsylvania. So long as these two central States, with their forty members of Congress, remained harmonious, nothing could shake Jefferson’s power; but any discord which threatened his control of Pennsylvania caused him anxiety. Hardly had Burr’s schism been checked in New York by a succession of measures as energetic as De Witt Clinton could persuade Jefferson to adopt, when a schism, that threatened greater mischief, broke out in Pennsylvania.
In this State no social hierarchy existed such as governed New England, nor were rich families with political followings to be found there, as in New York; but instead, Duane’s “Aurora” shone without break or bar over one broad democratic level. Duane was represented in Congress by Michael Leib; while over the State Legislature his influence was complete. In Jefferson’s Cabinet Pennsylvania was represented by Gallatin, who had little sympathy with the “Aurora,” and began his administration of the finances by resisting Duane’s demand for Federal patronage.
“The thirst for offices,” to use Gallatin’s own words,[126] “too much encouraged by Governor McKean’s first measures, created a schism in Philadelphia as early as 1802. Leib, ambitious, avaricious, envious, and disappointed, blew up the flame, and watched the first opportunity to make his cause a general one. The vanity, the nepotism, and the indiscretion of Governor McKean afforded the opportunity. Want of mutual forbearance among the best-intentioned and most respectable Republicans has completed the schism. Duane, intoxicated by the persuasion that he alone had overthrown Federalism, thought himself neither sufficiently rewarded nor respected; and possessed of an engine which gives him an irresistible control over public opinion, he easily gained the victory for his friends.”
In the spring of 1803 the “Aurora” began to attack Gallatin and Madison, under cover of devotion to the President; and from this beginning Duane went on to quarrel with Governor McKean and Alexander J. Dallas, the district attorney.
The impeachment of Judge Pickering in Congress followed and in some degree imitated an impeachment by the Pennsylvania Legislature of Judge Addison, one of the five president judges of the Common Pleas. With the help of Dallas and Governor McKean, the Legislature in January, 1803, removed Judge Addison; then, inspired by Randolph’s attack on Justice Chase, they turned against their Supreme Court,—at one sweep impeaching three of the judges, and addressing the Governor for the removal of H. H. Brackenridge, the fourth, because he insisted on making common cause with his associates. The alleged ground of impeachment was the arbitrary committal of a suitor for contempt of court; the real motive seemed rather to be a wish for legal reforms such as society was too unskilful to make for itself, and lawyers were slow to begin. Throughout America the bar was a sort of aristocracy, conservative to a degree that annoyed reformers of every class. Jefferson and his party raised one Republican lawyer after another to the bench, only to find that when their professions of political opinion were tested in legal form, the Republican judge rivalled Marshall in the Federalist and English tendencies of his law. The bar chose to consider the prejudice of society against their caste unreasonable; but the bar was itself somewhat unreasonable to require that an untrained and ill-led body of country farmers and local politicians should say precisely what legal reform they wanted, or know exactly what was practicable.
No sooner did the Pennsylvania Legislature begin to pull in pieces the judicial system of the State, and persecute the legal profession, than Dallas, McKean, and all the educated leaders of the Republican party broke from the mass of their followers, and attempted to check their violence. Governor McKean stopped with his veto certain measures which the Legislature had approved, and he declined to remove Judge Breckenridge when the Legislature asked him to do so. Dallas became counsel for the impeached judges. Duane and Leib raged against McKean and Dallas; a large majority of Pennsylvania Republicans followed the “Aurora;” Gallatin lost control over his State, and saw himself threatened, like his friend Dallas, with ostracism; while the outside world, roused by the noise of this faction-fight, asked what it meant, and could not understand the answer. The Federalists alone professed to explain the mystery which perplexed people less wise than themselves; they had said from the beginning that the democrats had neither virtue nor understanding to carry on the government, and must bring about a crisis at last.
After the excitement of Burr’s intrigues and Hamilton’s death subsided, leaving the politics of New York in comparative repose, the autumn elections in Pennsylvania began to disturb Jefferson’s temper.
“Thank Heaven!” wrote Dallas to Gallatin, in October,[127] “our election is over! The violence of Duane has produced a fatal division. He seems determined to destroy the Republican standing and usefulness of every man who does not bend to his will. He has attacked me as the author of an address which I never saw till it was in the press. He menaces the Governor; you have already felt his lash; and I think there is reason for Mr. Jefferson himself to apprehend that the spirit of Callender survives.”
A struggle took place over the re-election of Leib to Congress, which the “Aurora” carried by a few hundred votes. Republicans of Dallas’s kind, who would not support Leib, were nicknamed “Quids” by Duane, after the tertium quid, which was worth not even a name. At least three fourths of the Republican party followed the “Aurora,” and left the “Quids” in the solitude of deserted leaders.
Jefferson’s social relations were wholly with Gallatin, McKean, and Dallas, but his political strength depended on the popular vote, which followed Duane and Leib. At one moment he wanted to reason with Duane, but by Gallatin’s advice gave up this idea. At length he temporized, became neutral, and left Gallatin and Dallas to their own resources.