During his three years' term in the Senate he was one of the strong pillars of the Federalist party; but he was both too independent and too erratic to act always within strict party lines, and while he was an ultra-Federalist on some points, he openly abandoned his fellows on others. He despised Jefferson as a tricky and incapable theorist, skillful in getting votes, but in nothing else; a man who believed "in the wisdom of mobs, and the moderation of Jacobins," and who found himself "in the wretched plight of being forced to turn out good officers to make room for the unworthy."
After the election that turned them out of power, but just before their opponents took office, the Federalists in the Senate and House passed the famous judiciary bill, and Adams signed it. It provided for a number of new federal judges to act throughout the states, while the supreme court was retained as the ultimate court of decision. It was an excellent measure, inasmuch as it simplified the work of the judiciary, saved the highest branch from useless traveling, prevented the calendars from being choked with work, and supplied an upright federal judiciary to certain districts where the local judges could not be depended upon to act honestly. On the other hand, the Federalists employed it as a means to keep themselves partly in power, after the nation had decided that they should be turned out. Although the Democrats had bitterly opposed it, yet if, as was only right, the offices created by it had been left vacant until Jefferson came in, it would probably have been allowed to stand. But Adams, most improperly, spent the last hours of his administration in putting in the new judges.
Morris, who heartily championed the measure, wrote his reasons for so doing to Livingstone; giving, with his usual frankness, those that were political and improper, as well as those based on some public policy, but apparently not appreciating the gravity of the charges he so lightly admitted. He said: "The new judiciary bill may have, and doubtless has, many little faults, but it answers the double purpose of bringing justice near to men's doors, and of giving additional fibre to the root of government. You must not, my friend, judge of other states by your own. Depend on it, that in some parts of this Union, justice cannot be readily obtained in the state courts." So far, he was all right, and the truth of his statements, and the soundness of his reasons, could not be challenged as to the propriety of the law itself; but he was much less happy in giving his views of the way in which it would be carried out: "That the leaders of the federal party may use this opportunity to provide for friends and adherents is, I think, probable; and if they were my enemies, I should blame them for it. Whether I should do the same thing myself is another question.... They are about to experience a heavy gale of adverse wind; can they be blamed for casting many anchors to hold their ship through the storm?" Most certainly they should be blamed for casting this particular kind of anchor; it was a very gross outrage for them to "provide for friends and adherents" in such a manner.
The folly of their action was seen at once; for they had so maddened the Democrats that the latter repealed the act as soon as they came into power. This also was of course all wrong, and was a simple sacrifice of a measure of good government to partisan rage. Morris led the fight against it, deeming the repeal not only in the highest degree unwise but also unconstitutional. After the repeal was accomplished, the knowledge that their greed to grasp office under the act was probably the cause of the loss of an excellent law, must have been rather a bitter cud for the Federalists to chew. Morris always took an exaggerated view of the repeal, regarding it as a death-blow to the constitution. It was certainly a most unfortunate affair throughout; and much of the blame attaches to the Federalists, although still more to their antagonists.
The absolute terror with which even moderate Federalists had viewed the victory of the Democrats was in a certain sense justifiable; for the leaders who led the Democrats to triumph were the very men who had fought tooth and nail against every measure necessary to make us a free, orderly, and powerful nation. But the safety of the nation really lay in the very fact that the policy hitherto advocated by the now victorious party had embodied principles so wholly absurd in practice that it was out of the question to apply them at all to the actual running of the government. Jefferson could write or speak—and could feel too—the most high-sounding sentiments; but once it came to actions he was absolutely at sea, and on almost every matter—especially where he did well—he had to fall back on the Federalist theories. Almost the only important point on which he allowed himself free scope was that of the national defenses; and here, particularly as regards the navy, he worked very serious harm to the country. Otherwise he generally adopted and acted on the views of his predecessors; as Morris said, the Democrats "did more to strengthen the executive than Federalists dared think of, even in Washington's day." As a consequence, though the nation would certainly have been better off if men like Adams or Pinckney had been retained at the head of affairs, yet the change resulted in far less harm than it bade fair to.
On the other hand the Federalists cut a very sorry figure in opposition. We have never had another party so little able to stand adversity. They lost their temper first and they lost their principles next, and actually began to take up the heresies discarded by their adversaries. Morris himself, untrue to all his previous record, advanced various states-rights doctrines; and the Federalists, the men who had created the Union, ended their days under the grave suspicion of having desired to break it up. Morris even opposed, and on a close vote temporarily defeated, the perfectly unobjectionable proposition to change the electoral system by designating the candidates for President and Vice-President; the reason he gave was that he believed parties should be forced to nominate both of their best men, and that he regarded the Jefferson-Burr tie as a beautiful object-lesson for teaching this point!
On one most important question, however, he cut loose from his party, who were entirely in the wrong, and acted with the administration, who were behaving in strict accordance with Federalist precepts. This was in reference to the treaty by which we acquired Louisiana.
While in opposition, one of the most discreditable features of the Republican-Democratic party had been its servile truckling to France, which at times drove it into open disloyalty to America. Indeed this subservience to foreigners was a feature of our early party history; and the most confirmed pessimist must admit that, as regards patriotism and indignant intolerance of foreign control, the party organizations of to-day are immeasurably superior to those of eighty or ninety years back. But it was only while in opposition that either party was ready to throw itself into the arms of outsiders. Once the Democrats took the reins they immediately changed their attitude. The West demanded New Orleans and the valley of the Mississippi; and what it demanded it was determined to get. When we only had the decaying weakness of Spain to deal with, there was no cause for hurry; but when Louisiana was ceded to France, at the time when the empire of Napoleon was a match for all the rest of the world put together, the country was up in arms at once.
The Administration promptly began to negotiate for the purchase of Louisiana. Morris backed them up heartily, thus splitting off from the bulk of the Federalists, and earnestly advocated far stronger measures than had been taken. He believed that so soon as the French should establish themselves in New Orleans, we should have a war with them; he knew it would be impossible for the haughty chiefs of a military despotism long to avoid collisions with the reckless and warlike backwoodsmen of the border. Nor would he have been sorry had such a war taken place. He said that it was a necessity to us, for we were dwindling into a race of mere speculators and driveling philosophers, whereas ten years of warfare would bring forth a crop of heroes and statesmen, fit timber out of which to hew an empire.
Almost his last act in the United States Senate was to make a most powerful and telling speech in favor of at once occupying the territory in dispute, and bidding defiance to Napoleon. He showed that we could not submit to having so dangerous a neighbor as France, an ambitious and conquering nation, at whose head was the greatest warrior of the age. With ringing emphasis he claimed the western regions as peculiarly our heritage, as the property of the fathers of America which they held in trust for their children. It was true that France was then enjoying the peace which she had wrung from the gathered armies of all Europe; yet he advised us to fling down the gauntlet fearlessly, not hampering ourselves by an attempt at alliance with Great Britain or any other power, but resting confident that, if America was heartily in earnest, she would be able to hold her own in any struggle. The cost of the conquest he brushed contemptuously aside; he considered "that counting-house policy, which sees nothing but money, a poor, short-sighted, half-witted, mean, and miserable thing, as far removed from wisdom as is a monkey from a man." He wished for peace; but he did not believe the Emperor would yield us the territory, and he knew that his fellow-representatives, and practically all the American people, were determined to fight for it if they could get it in no other way; therefore he advised them to begin at once, and gain forthwith what they wanted, and perhaps their example would inspirit Europe to rise against the tyrant.