Washington and his colleagues; a chronicle of the rise and fall of federalism

by Henry Jones Ford

A few months before France declared war upon England, February 1, 1793, Edmond Genet was appointed French Minister to the United States. He landed at Charleston, April 8, and at once began activities so authoritative as to amount to an erection of French sovereignty in the United States. The subsequent failure of his efforts and the abrupt ending of his diplomatic career have so reacted upon his reputation that associations of boastful arrogance and reckless incompetency cling to his name. This estimate holds him too lightly and underrates the peril to which the United States was then exposed. Genet was no casual rhetorician raised to important office by caprice of events, but a trained diplomatist of hereditary aptitude and of long experience. His father was chief of the bureau of correspondence in the Department of Foreign Affairs for the French monarchy, and it was as an interpreter attached to that bureau that the son began his career in 1775. While still a youth, he gained literary distinction by his translations of historical works from Swedish into French. Genet was successively attached to the French Embassies at Berlin and Vienna, and in 1781 he succeeded his father in the Department of Foreign Affairs. In 1788, he was Secretary of the French Embassy at St. Petersburg, where his zeal for French Revolutionary principles so irritated the Empress Catherine that she characterized him as "a furious demagogue," and in 1792 he was forced to leave Russia. In the same year he was named Ambassador to Holland, and thence was soon transferred to the United States.

It is obvious that a man of such experience could not be ignorant of diplomatic forms and of international proprieties of behavior. If he pursued a course that has since seemed to be a marvel of truculence, the explanation should be sought in the circumstances of his mission more than in the nature of his personality. When the matter is considered from this standpoint, not only does one find that Genet's proceedings become consistent and intelligible, but one becomes deeply impressed with the magnitude of the peril then confronting the United States. Nothing less than American independence was at stake.

It should be borne in mind that France, in aiding America against England, had been pursuing her own ends. In August, 1787, the French government advised its American representative that it had observed with indifference the movements going on in the United States and would view the break-up of the Confederation without regret. "We have never pretended to make of America a useful ally; we have had no other object than to deprive Great Britain of that vast continent." But, now that war with England had broken out again, it was worth while making an effort to convert America into a useful ally. Jefferson, while Minister to Paris, had been sympathetic with the Revolutionary movement. In 1789, the English Ambassador reported to his government that Jefferson was much consulted by the leaders of the Third Estate. On the other hand, Gouverneur Morris, who was then living in Paris, sympathized frankly with the King. Nevertheless he was chosen to succeed Jefferson as the American Minister. In notifying him of the appointment, Washington let him know that there had been objections. "It was urged that in France you were considered as a favorer of the aristocracy, and unfriendly to its Revolution." Washington's reminder that it was his business to promote the interest of his own country did not have any apparent effect on Morris's behavior. He became the personal agent of Louis XVI, and he not only received and disbursed large sums on the King's account, but he also entered into plans for the King's flight from Paris. During the Reign of Terror which began in 1792, he behaved with an energy and an intrepidity honorable to him as a man; in general, however, his course tended to embroil and not to guard American interests.

In the face of the European coalition against revolutionary France, the principle of action was that announced by Danton,—"to dare, and to dare, and without end to dare." Genet therefore went on his mission to America keyed to measures which were audacious but which can hardly be described as reckless. By plunging heavily he might make a big winning; if he failed, he was hardly worse off than if he had not made the attempt. To draw the United States into the war as the ally of France was only one part of his mission. He was also planning to reëstablish the French colonial empire, the loss of which was still an unhealed wound. Canada, Louisiana, and the Floridas were all in his mind. In Louisiana, France regarded conditions as being so favorable that Genet was instructed to make special efforts in that quarter. Spain, which had entered the coalition against republican France, held the lower Mississippi. Spain was therefore the common enemy of France and of the American settlements west of the mountains. Ought not then those two republican interests to work together to expel Spain and to seize Louisiana? Moreover, there was a belief, not without grounds, that the older States which formed the American union were indifferent to the needs and interests of the country west of the Alleghenies and would be more relieved than afflicted if it should take its destinies into its own hands. Such considerations animated a group of Americans in Paris, among whose prominent members were Thomas Paine, the pamphleteer, Joel Barlow, the poet, and Dr. James O'Fallon, a Revolutionary soldier now interested in Western land speculation. All were then ardent sympathizers with the French Revolution, and they entered heartily into the design of stirring up the Western country against Spain. The project attracted some frontier leaders, among them George Rogers Clark, famous for his successful campaigns against the hostile Indians and the British during the Revolutionary War. He was to lead a force of Western riflemen against the Spanish posts in Louisiana, and Genet brought with him blank brevets of officers up to the grade of captain for bestowal on the Indian chiefs who would cooperate. The expenses of the expedition were to be met by collections which Genet expected to make from the treasury of the United States on account of sums due to France.

The project of using the United States as a French base could claim legal rights under the treaties of 1778 between France and the United States. There were two treaties, both concluded on the same day. One, entitled a treaty of amity and commerce, was a mutual conveyance of privileges; it provided that the ships of war of each country should defend the vessels of the other country against all attacks that might occur while they were in company. Besides this right of convoy, each country had the right to use the ports of the other, either for ships of war or for privateers and their prizes, "nor shall such prizes be arrested or seized when they come to and enter the ports of either party; nor shall the searchers or other officers of those places search the same, or make any examination concerning the lawfulness of such prizes, but they may hoist sail at any time, and depart." All vessels of either country had the right to take refuge in the ports of the other, whether from stress of weather or pursuit of enemies, "and they shall be permitted to refresh and provide themselves at reasonable rates, with victuals and all things needful for the sustenance of their persons or reparation of their ships, and conveniency of their voyage; and they shall no ways be detained or hindered from returning out of the said ports or roads, but may remove and depart when and whither they please, without any let or hindrance." It was expressly provided that such hospitality should not be extended to vessels of an enemy of either country. The accompanying instrument, entitled a treaty of alliance, was a mutual guarantee of territorial possessions, "forever against all other powers." These broad rights and privileges were supplemented by the convention of 1788 on consular functions, which facilitated the organization of a consular jurisdiction competent to deal with cases arising from the treaties. There was still due to France on loans contracted during the Revolution a remainder of about $2,300,000 payable by instalments, subject to the proviso that "Congress and the United States" had "the liberty of freeing themselves by anticipated payments should the state of their finances admit." It was planned to get the United States to reciprocate the past favors of France by favoring her now, if not by direct payments of money, at least by acceptances which Genet could use in purchasing supplies. The fact that whatever in the way of money or accommodations was obtained in the United States would be used in business in that country was counted upon to facilitate the transaction.

These facts form the background against which Genet's activities should be viewed. He came with deliberate intent to rush the situation, and armed with all needful powers for that purpose, so far as the French government could confer them. According to a dispatch from Morris to the State Department, Genet "took with him three hundred blank commissions which he is to distribute to such as will fit out cruisers in our ports to prey on the British commerce."

At Charleston, Genet received an enthusiastic reception. The Revolutionary commander, General Moultrie, who was then governor of South Carolina, entered so cordially into Genet's plans that in his first dispatch home, Genet was able to say to his government that Moultrie had permitted him to arm privateers and had assisted the various branches of his mission in every possible way. Such was Genet's energy that within five days after his arrival he had opened a recruiting station at which American seamen were taken into the French service; he had commissioned American vessels as French privateers; and he had turned the French consul's office into an admiralty court for which business was provided by the prizes that were being brought in.

After seeing under way all matters that he could attend to in Charleston, Genet moved on to Philadelphia, and received on his way thither such greetings as to give to his journey the character of a triumphal progress. Meanwhile, L'Ambuscade, the French frigate which had brought Genet to Charleston, was proceeding to Philadelphia, taking prizes on her way and sending them to American ports. In Delaware Bay she captured the Grange, an English merchantman lying there at anchor, and took this vessel with her to Philadelphia as a prize. As Genet neared Philadelphia on May 16, L'Ambuscade gave notice by firing three guns, at which signal a procession was formed to meet Genet at Gray's Ferry and escort him to his lodgings. He found awaiting him a letter from George Rogers Clark, which gave an account of his plans for the invasion of Louisiana and the capture of New Orleans, and which announced his readiness to start if he were assisted by some frigates and provided with three thousand pounds sterling to meet expenses. Genet received reports from other agents or friendly correspondents in the Spanish territory, and so active was he in forwarding the objects of his mission that on June 19 he was able to write to his government, "I am provisioning the West Indies, I excite the Canadians to break the British yoke, I arm the Kentukois and prepare a naval expedition which will facilitate their descent on New Orleans."

These claims were well founded. Genet did, in fact, make an effective start, and had he been able to command funds he might have opened a great chapter of history. George Rogers Clark was the ablest and most successful commander that the frontier had yet produced, and such was the weakness of the Spanish defenses that had his expedition been actually launched as planned, the conquest of Louisiana might indeed have been accomplished. It was not any defect in Genet's arrangements that frustrated his plans, but his inability to raise money and the uncertainty of his position as the agent of a government which was undergoing rapid revolutionary change.

News that the French Republic had declared war against Great Britain reached the United States early in April, 1793. Washington, who was then at Mount Vernon, wrote to Jefferson that "it behooves the Government of this country to use every means in its power to prevent the citizens thereof from embroiling us with either of those Powers, by endeavoring to maintain a strict neutrality," and he requested that the Secretary should "give the subject mature consideration, that such measures as shall be deemed most likely to effect this desirable purpose may be adopted without delay." On arriving at Philadelphia a few days later, Washington was met by a distracted Cabinet. The great difficulty was the conflict of obligations. The United States had a treaty of alliance with France; it had a treaty of peace with Great Britain. The situation had become such that it could not sustain both relations at the same time. If the United States remained neutral, it would have to deny to France privileges conferred by the treaty which had been negotiated when both countries were at war with Great Britain. How far was that treaty now binding? It had been made with "the Most Christian king," whose head had been cut off. Did not his engagements fall with his head? That was the very position taken by the government of the French Republic, which had asserted the right to decide what treaties of the old monarchy should be retained and what rejected. As an incident of the present case, the question was to be decided whether the ambassador of the French Republic should be received.