The two parties of Federalists and Anti-Federalists enlisted under their banners the friends and enemies of the new National Constitution, the former asserting the necessity of a strong central government, and the latter opposing, with jealous anxiety, any measure which should lessen the popular power by decreasing that of the individual States. The admirable working, however, of the Constitution under Washington and his able ministry; the increase of commerce; the extension of territory, and the general prosperity, would no doubt within a few years have allayed party animosities, had not an element at that moment come into operation which, if no other causes had existed, would have divided the country into two equally violent parties. This was the French Revolution.
Thomas Jefferson had been recalled from France, where he acted as ambassador of the United States, to take part in the administration under the new Constitution, and brought with him a strong prepossession in favour of the French revolutionists. Nothing could be more natural than that the citizens of the United States, who had so lately and so gloriously achieved their own independence, should sympathise warmly in the struggle of that very nation which had aided them in the time of their difficulty to throw off the despotism under which they was suffering, and the early and better impulse to which had been a spark caught from the American flame of liberty. While the anti-federalists, resisting, as they believed, all dangerous aggressions on their own dearly-bought independence, cordially espoused the French cause; the federalists saw in the outrage and ferocity of the French republicans indications which filled them with the utmost jealousy and alarm, lest the same spirit should break forth upon their shores, and sweep away those wise foundations of order which had been so carefully laid.
With these opposite sentiments towards France were united, as a matter of course, equally opposed feelings towards England. The federalists regarding their country as allied to Great Britain by similarity of language, religion, and literature, were ready even to doubt, with the example of France before them, whether a republican form of government could be relied upon, and to draw still more closely the bonds of union between themselves and the mother-country. They charged the anti-federalists with blind devotion to the French cause, and their leaders, with Jefferson at the head, with being deeply tinctured with the sentiments of the French school of philosophy, and with the design of introducing the same infidel and jacobinical notions into America, as had led to the sanguinary and revolting scenes in France.[[67]]
The revolutionary party in France regarded the Americans as brethren, and expected from them only applause and sympathy. The French minister who had been sent over by the king was recalled, and citizen Genet, as representative of the new republic, arrived in April, 1793, about a month after Washington’s second entrance into office, at Charleston, South Carolina, where he was received with distinguished respect and honour, intended to express the approbation with which America regarded the change in the institutions of France. While the minister of the French republic was thus received with peculiar marks of honour by the anti-federal party, they insisted upon the president resuming office with the most republican simplicity. Jefferson was at the head of this movement, and lest he might appear as the only thorough republican in the cabinet, now that republicanism was the fashion, Hamilton, the opponent of Jefferson, fell into the same idea. Knox and Randolph dissented; and Washington took the oath of office in the Senate-chamber in the presence of the members of the cabinet, various public officers and foreign ministers. The Vice-President Adams, too, assumed a republican simplicity of living; gave up his house in Philadelphia and went into lodgings, leaving his wife at home to manage the farm, to whom writing, he said that his style of living made him very popular, and that he himself was well satisfied with his present simplicity. This republican rage was consequently shocked severely on the occasion of Washington’s next birth-day, when visits of congratulation, balls, parties, and other festivities, took place, not in Philadelphia only, where congress was now sitting, but in many other cities and towns; all which were regarded by the democrats as alarming steps towards monarchy, and the press teemed with bitter effusions on the subject.[[68]]
Genet, the new French minister, flattered by the reception given to him, and supposing that the American nation, whatever its government might be, were ready to embark in the cause of France, proceeded to authorise the fitting out and arming privateers in the port of Charleston, and the enlisting men and giving commissions to cruise and commit hostilities on nations with whom the United States were at peace. He assumed also to authorise the French consuls throughout the Union to erect Courts of Admiralty, for trying and condemning such prizes as might be brought into the American ports; and acting on this assumed authority, proceeded accordingly against several prizes which were very soon brought to Charleston.
Five days before the arrival of Genet at Charleston, the news had reached New York of the French declaration of war against England and Holland. Washington, who was then at Mount Vernon, hastened to Philadelphia, summoned his cabinet, and took into serious consideration the important question, as to what part the United States must take in the present crisis of European affairs. Not wishing to involve his country in the contests of Europe, he himself advocated neutrality, and the cabinet finally came to the same opinion. This step, however, was by no means a popular one. Genet, who was an old and able diplomatist, arrived at Philadelphia immediately after the American government had published their decision. His journey, like his reception, called forth the most extravagant enthusiasm. The very men, says Hildreth, who had reprobated any demonstration of respect to Washington, as savouring too much of the old spirit of monarchical adulation, now seemed almost insane in the fervour of their desire to do honour to the Republic of France, in the person of her minister.
Republican feasts were held in sober Philadelphia; the public press took up the cry; democratic societies were formed; the red cap of Liberty was hoisted; the Marseilles hymn was sung, with two additional verses written by Genet, with reference to the navy; and a large faction, more French than American, seemed all going mad together.
Genet was a firebrand in the country. Not alone did he attempt to exercise sovereignty on the coast, but to organise in Georgia and South Carolina a hostile expedition against Florida, and another in Kentucky against New Orleans. The leadership in this latter undertaking was given to George Rogers Clarke, who formerly distinguished himself in the revolutionary war by the conquest of the Illinois country, but who now had sunk very low by a long course of intemperance. America could not rule her own country as long as Genet remained within it. Nothing could be more opposed than the restless, scheming, hot-headed and unprincipled Genet, and the calm, religious, and sagacious Washington. The excesses into which Genet and his party ran, caused complaints from the British minister. The cabinet resolved to enforce the laws; and Genet, believing that the whole management of American affairs was in his hands, threatened to appeal to the people against their government.
A reaction had already begun, and this very attempt to shake the government served but to strengthen it. Washington requested the recall of Genet, and in the following year his place was supplied by Fauchet, who was instructed to inform the American government that France disapproved of the conduct of her late minister. The Reign of Terror had now commenced in that devoted country, and Genet, who had in the meantime married the daughter of Governor Clinton, of New York, not choosing to return to France settled down in America, dropping at once his character of democratic agitator and sinking into the obscure citizen.
We must now take a rapid glance at the state of affairs in the West. After the defeat of St. Clair in 1791, General Wayne, to whom the Indians gave the name of the Black Snake, was appointed to the command of the American forces. Taking post near the country of the enemy, he made assiduous but vain attempts at negotiating peace, while his troops suffered greatly from a kind of epidemic influenza. The winter of 1793 he passed on the ground where the disastrous battles of 1791 had been fought, and here erected Fort Recovery. The Little Turtle would willingly have made peace, for, said he, addressing the confederated tribes, “we shall not now surprise them, for they have a chief who never sleeps;” but the Indian council insisted on war.