The History of the City of Fredericksburg, Virginia

by S. J. Quinn

Many of the leading citizens of the town endorsed the policy of the President, while a decided majority strongly opposed it. The bitter feeling continued to increase. Not only was Fredericksburg in a state of ebullition, but such was the case with the people throughout the entire country. Fredericksburg was the first to speak her views publicly, which has always been characteristic of her people when questions affecting the public good were to be considered.

A public meeting of the people was called at the courthouse by the friends of the administration to consider and adopt an address to the President, which was then the prevailing mode of communicating popular approval of the conduct of high officials. The meeting was extensively advertised and efforts were made to have it largely attended. This brought on a lively contest. The anti-administrationists of the town determined to try their strength with their opponents by attending the meeting, vote down their address and adopt resolutions setting forth their views and condemning the policy of the administration. To accomplish this the town was thoroughly canvassed by them, which had already been done by the other party, and the courthouse was filled to its utmost capacity.

The meeting was held on the 14th day of May, 1798, and the “Virginia Herald,” the presidential organ of the town, gave the proceedings in full, which will show the temper of the people and their defiant condemnation of the foreign policy of President Adams. The Herald said:

“On Monday the citizens of this corporation met, agreeably to notification published in the public papers, to express their sentiments on the present important and critical situation of this country. The meeting was called by the friends of the Executive, whose object was to address the President of the United States and to express their entire approbation of his conduct with respect to our foreign relations.

“An address to this effect was prepared and presented by Thomas R. Rootes, Esq., which he supported by very lengthy arguments. He was followed by Capt. John Mercer, Col. John Minor and Col. John F. Mercer, who successfully combatted the various arguments adduced by Mr. Rootes in support of his address. And the following resolutions then, prepared by Dr. David C. Ker, were approved and adopted. A division was called for on the address and resolutions and tellers appointed to take the number of votes, who reported that two-thirds of the citizens present were in favor of the resolutions. The meeting was more numerous than any we have ever seen in this place. During the whole of the discussion the most perfect order and decorum prevailed.”

The resolutions, adopted in place of the address, will be interesting reading to our people, even in this day. They are as follows:

1. Resolved, As the opinion of this meeting that the administration of these States received the government of a happy and united people, in peace abroad and prosperity at home; that under their guidance, we have been led, oppressed with public, heavy debts, enormous taxes, a ruined commerce and depreciated produce, into hostility with a nation who aided to secure our independence by their own blood and treasure, with a republic the most powerful and successful that has appeared on earth for eighteen centuries, armed with every weapon to injure us, but whom we can in no wise injure; with a republic united with a confederacy so extensive as to separate us from all the civilized world but Britain, and her dependencies; that they have done this, not through ignorance and folly only, for they were at all times warned of the certain consequence of their measures; not through constraint, for although opposed, they always carried their measures; but men who have proved themselves by their own works, so unfit to govern us, even with every advantage, can never without madness be trusted in times of real difficulty and extreme danger; and that it is equally absurd to found confidence in our disasters, or to pursue that line, or to support those men who have already brought us to the verge of destruction.

2nd. Resolved, That the speech of the President of the United States to the ordinary session of Congress, was, in the opinion of this meeting, calculated to rouse the resentment of the French government and destroy any reasonable hope of successful negotiations between that republic and agents appointed by him.

3rd. Resolved, That the instructions to our envoys, so contrary to the spirit of that speech and the whole conduct of our administration, authorize this conclusion:—that they were rather intended to inflame the American mind than to produce good in France, under the well grounded expectation, that the negotiations would, from those and other causes, fail.

4th. Resolved, That the late negotiations with unauthorized swindlers in Paris, are so unexampled as to afford no justifiable ground for public measures, and that their publication, so far as they tend to excite the sensibility of our citizens, is unjustifiable, as they may commit the safety of the envoys highly imprudent.