IV.
Precedents Favor Titles.
It should not be forgotten, however, that Adams, Lee and other advocates of titles were powerfully supported in their position by precedents. It was shown that in almost every other detail Americans had adopted English and German—then the dominating races in the thirteen colonies—methods of procedure. The postal service was based on imported lines, our dollar was copied from the Bohemian “thaler,” colonial jurisprudence had its main inspiration in British law. Churches and custom-houses were conducted much the same as in the old countries.
The very fact that opposition to any elaborate form of divine service being connected with Washington’s inauguration was overruled shows how closely the founders of the “new” government followed Old World examples. It appears that the inauguration had been planned with a view to excluding the clergy in their official capacities and, in all probability, this programme would have been carried out had not the ministers in New York protested. Here again precedents from motherlands carried the day. When, at the eleventh hour the “sacrilege” was called to the attention of the Right Reverend Provoost, Episcopal bishop of New York, he cautiously replied that the Church of England “had always been used to look up to Government upon such occasions.” “The question of holding services on the day of the inauguration,” records Ebenezer Hazard, “had been agitated by the clergymen in town.... The bishop thought it prudent not to do anything till they knew what Government would direct. If the good bishop never prays without an order from Government,” wrote Hazard, “it is not probable that the kingdom of heaven will suffer much from his violence.”
In the light of these facts it is not strange that we find Adams, Lee and others turning their eyes to procedures of the Old World for guidance in the matter of titles. To be sure, the Constitution not only declared that no titles of nobility shall be granted by the United States but that employès of the Government, of whatever degree, shall not accept them from any foreign potentate. Yet there was a large question as to what kind of title might have been meant; whether a patent of nobility with landed estates to be handed down from generation to generation—which, undoubtedly, was the “evil” aimed at by the framers of the Constitution—or a mere title of courtesy as “Mister” or “Mr.” or “Sir” used in ordinary correspondence. Congress had met to put the Constitution in operation and had the power to construe doubtful passages. Broader interpretations of the articles have been made than those proposed by the titleists.
Adams had spent much time in Europe and had been impressed with the effect of formalities, titles, wigs, gowns, etc., on the “common” people. That he was correct, in some degree, in his advocacy of these forms is attested by the fact that gowns have come more and more into use in the administration of the judiciary of some states and in the Supreme Court of the United States while, in the general run of commerce, liveries—the insignia of station or rank—are getting to be the rule rather than the exception.
V.
Forcing the Fight on Titles.
Acting with his usual energy, Adams forced the fighting on titles from the start. He arrived in New York on Monday, April 20, and by Thursday, April 23, he had the Title Committee appointed; and the discussion of titles occupied most of the time of the Senate from then until May 14, when it was finally disposed of. Pending the inaugural, April 30, the subject lay in abeyance. On the morning following, May 1, the Senate met at 11 o’clock. At the conclusion of “prayers” was the reading of the minutes and almost the first words were “His Most Gracious Speech”—referring to Washington’s inaugural address. Adams frankly admitted that these words had been inserted at his instance by Samuel Otis, the secretary of the Senate.
Maclay records: “I looked all around the Senate. Every countenance seemed to wear a blank. The Secretary was going on. I must speak or nobody would. ‘Mr. President, we have lately had a hard struggle for our liberty against kingly authority. The minds of men are still heated; everything related to that species of government is odious to the people. The words prefixed to the President’s speech are the same that are usually placed before the speech of his Britannic Majesty. I know they will give offense. I consider them improper. I, therefore, move that they be struck out and that it stand simply address or speech as may be adjudged most suitable.’
“Mr. Adams rose in his chair and expressed the greatest surprise that anything should be objected to on account of its being taken from the practice of that Government under which we had lived so long and happily formerly; that he was for a dignified and respectable government and, as far as he knew the sentiments of the people, they thought as he did; that, for his part, he was one of the first in the late contest [the Revolution] and, if he could have thought of this, he never would have drawn his sword.
“Painful as it was, I had to contend with the Chair. I admitted that the people of the colonies had enjoyed, formerly, great happiness under that species of government but the abuses of that Government under which they had smarted had taught them what they had to fear from that kind of government; that there had been a revolution in the sentiments of people respecting that government, equally great as that which had happened in the government itself; that even the modes of it were now abhorred; that the enemies of the Constitution had objected to it believing there would be a transition from it to kingly government and all the trappings and splendor of royalty; that if such a thing as this appeared on our minutes, they would not fail to resent it as the first step of the ladder in the ascent to royalty.