When Washington by proclamation of April 22, 1793, declared this country’s neutrality in the then war in which France was engaged, Citizen Edmund Charles Genet, the agent in the United States of the new French Republic, did everything in his power to excite opposition against the federal government, by organizing political clubs in communities where French sympathy was strong, and his agents were most successful in Kentucky.
Seeing the hopelessness of procuring direct aid from the United States he concentrated his efforts in an attempt to excite Kentucky and the western country into making a river attack upon New Orleans, thus hoping to force war between Spain and the United States.
In November, 1793, five of his agents came to Kentucky. They conferred with General George Rogers Clark and prevailed upon him to accept a French commission as “Major General of the armies of France and Commander in Chief of the Revolutionary Legions of the Mississippi.”
[pg 279] General Clark issued a proclamation to the effect that each person participating in the planned expedition against New Orleans should receive a great boundary of land in payment for his services, or, if he preferred it, be paid one dollar a day; and that all should share in the plunder taken. His reputation was such and the scheme so enticing that many volunteered.
The Kentucky Gazette, a Lexington paper, on October 12, 1793, declared editorially:
“How long will America submit to the operation of paying a heavy degrading tribute to a Spanish officer for a license (in his power even to deny) to proceed to sea with their vessels and produce and under restrictions of making such vessels Spanish bottoms * * *? If they wish to export their produce they must not only make use of the most humble solicitations but they are compelled besides to pay a very high duty for the permission of sailing out of the Mississippi under the colors of a foreign nation at war with our allies. How degrading such restrictions! How humiliating to an American!”
In the same issue appeared certain resolutions of the Lexington Democratic Society: “* * * Resolved that the free and undisturbed use and navigation of the river, Mississippi, is the natural right of the Citizens of this Commonwealth; and is inalienable except with the soil; and that neither time, tyranny nor prescription on the one side nor acquiescence, weakness or non-use on the other can ever sanctify the abuse of this right.”
Again this society on November 11, 1793, published in the Gazette an address giving its plan for forcing this issue: “* * * It will be proper to make an attempt in a peaceable manner to go with an American bottom properly registered and cleared into the sea through the channel of the Mississippi, that we may either procure an [pg 280] immediate acknowledgment of our right from the Spaniards or if they obstruct us in the enjoyment of that right, that we may be able to lay before the Federal Government such unequivocal proofs of their having done so, that they will be compelled to say whether they will abandon or protect the inhabitants of the Western Country.”
The reply of Governor Shelby to a communication of Secretary of State Jefferson as to the matter, indicates sympathy with the movement. In part he says: “I have grave doubts even if they attempt to carry this plan into execution (provided they manage the business with prudence) whether there is any legal authority to restrain or to punish them, at least before they have actually accomplished it. For if it is lawful for any one citizen of this state to leave it, it is equally as lawful for any number of them to do it. It is also lawful for them to carry with them any quantity of ammunition, provisions and arms. And if the act is lawful in itself there is nothing but the intention with which it is done which can make it unlawful. But I know of no law which inflicts a punishment upon intention only or any criterion by which to decide what would be sufficient evidence of that intention * * much less would I assume power to exercise it against men whom I consider as friends and brothers, in favor of a man whom I view as an enemy and a tyrant. I shall also feel but little inclined to take an active part in punishing or restraining my fellow citizens for a supposed intention only to gratify or remove the fears of the minister of a prince who openly withholds from us an invaluable right and who secretly instigates against us a most savage and cruel enemy.”
On March 24, 1794, President Washington issued a proclamation: “Whereas I have received information that certain persons in violation of the laws have presumed, [pg 281] under color of a foreign authority, to enlist citizens of the United States and others within the State of Kentucky; and have there assembled an armed force for the purpose of invading and plundering the territory of a nation at peace with the said United States, * * * I have, therefore, thought proper to issue this proclamation, hereby solemnly warning every person not authorized by the laws, against enlisting any citizen or citizens of the United States for the purpose aforesaid or proceeding in any manner to the execution thereof as they will answer the same at their peril.”