Addresses and memorials to the President came pouring in, pledging to the government the full confidence of its citizens and unswerving loyalty and support. Volunteer military companies sprang into existence in every quarter over night. War vessels were purchased, or their construction provided for, by public subscription and presented to the government. The white cockade, new emblem of an aroused public spirit, generally appeared. The fierce slogan, “Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute!” and the tuneful strains of “Hail Columbia” and “Adams and Liberty” went ringing through the land. Within a brief period of little more than three months, Congress passed no less than twenty acts for the strengthening of the national defence.[284]
This was one side of the matter; there was another, as events soon made clear. The President, it appeared, was not at one with the more ardent leaders in his own political camp, whose resolution for war was unbounded; he exhibited an attitude of indifference to the whole notion of open war with France that became increasingly manifest as the weeks went by. The President would temporize; he would try to avoid the crisis by sending new commissioners to France to reestablish friendly relations. Against such a policy many of his advisers protested furiously. Besides, the problem of supplying the army with leaders who should serve with Washington had resulted in an unseemly struggle as to whether this or that patriot should stand next to the great hero of Mount Vernon. The President’s policy of conciliation took on the appearance of shameless procrastination;[285] the imbroglios of the Federalist leaders aroused public suspicion, and invited to the garnished hearth the spirits of confusion and clamor.
Those evil spirits, however, which most effectively coöperated to make the last state worse than the first came as the result of the extraordinarily stupid and blundering measures which the Federalists adopted to curb the activities of resident aliens and the abuse of free speech. Beginning with the Naturalization Act of June 18, 1798, there followed in quick succession three other repressive measures, the Act Concerning Aliens of June 25, the Act Respecting Alien Enemies of July 6, and the Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States (the Sedition Act) of July 14.[286] The purpose of these famous acts has already been indicated; the impulse out of which they grew is not so easily determined. Was it that the heads of the national government really anticipated danger on account of the presence of a multitude of foreigners and the unlicensed freedom of action and public utterance which thus far had been allowed?[287] Was it that the memory of more than four years of biting satire and vicious calumny which the opposition had visited upon the heads of Federalist leaders had filled the latter with longings for revenge? Or was it that, conscious of their undisputed control of national affairs and carried away by the sense of their power, the Federalist leaders proposed to show how strong and effective a centralized government could become? No single alternative, doubtless, suggests the full truth. No matter; the effect which these measures produced is, with us, the main point, and to that we turn.
No milder word than maddening will adequately describe the effect of these measures. All the old wounds were opened, all the old antipathies aggravated. Editors and pamphleteers, statesmen and demagogues, tore at each others’ throats as they had never done before and have never done since. A veritable “reign of terror” filled the land.[288] Insult and violence were everywhere. Mobs tore down liberty-poles which Federalist hands had erected and put in their place other poles bearing symbols of defiance to “British faction” and tyrannous Federal government; or the action was reversed, with Federalist mobs tearing down the standards of the opposition. White cockades were snatched from the hats of men who supported the government, and once more the black cockade blossomed forth. Toasts were drunk over tavern bars and on public occasions to the confusion of the British Eagle or the Gallic Cock; to the health and prosperity of the Federal government or to the downfall of tyrants; to the alien and sedition laws, with the fervent wish that “like the sword of Eden [they] may point everywhere to guard our country against intrigue from without and faction from within”;[289] or to “freedom of speech, trial by jury, and liberty of the press,”[290] according as the adherents of one faction or the other were assembled for patriotic or convivial purposes. Raucous and ribald outbreaks of party feeling burst out in the theaters to the interruption of performances, the confusion of performers, and the breaking of not a few heads. Such was the lighter and more ludicrous aspect of affairs.
But beneath this effervescence honest and whole-hearted antagonism to the odious legislation surged in countless breasts. In the power of an anger which scorned all frivolous and tawdry action, men declared their deep and irrevocable opposition to such measures of government. That respectable and well-meaning aliens, from lack either of inclination or opportunity to become citizens, should be expelled from the country, or remaining here should become the targets of suspicion and the victims of political oppression; that opposition to government must henceforth wear a muzzle, with a heavy bludgeon meanwhile held menacingly over its head; that the damage done by favored partisan scribblers was not to be repaired by answering opponents; and all this under the guise of laws which, whatever their intention, operated to the enormous disadvantage of one of the two great political bodies of the day—these were things not to be endured by men to whom liberty was the very breath of life.
The actual amount of personal injury inflicted by the operation of the alien and sedition laws was not enormous, though certainly not negligible. A considerable body of aliens fled the country, either during the period when the alien laws were pending or immediately after they went into effect.[291] Probably something more than a score of individuals were arrested under the sedition law, less than half of whom were compelled to stand trial.[292] But once again popular judgment was based upon qualitative rather than quantitative grounds. The popular sense of personal liberty had been outraged by these acts.[293] The Federalist leaders by their precipitate and inconsiderate action had very much overshot the mark and were about to bring their house tumbling down about their heads. As for the opposition, those of its leaders whose highest political interest was party advantage lived to bless the day when, blinded by hysteria or lust of power, the Federalist party made the alien and sedition acts the law of the land. Six months after these unsavory measures were passed, discerning Democrats were able to rejoice that this body of legislation was operating as a powerful sedative to quiet the inflammation which that “God-send” to the Federalists, the X.Y.Z. despatches, had incited.[294] By their own blunder in party strategy the Federalists had alienated the sympathies of the people and given to the ground-swell of republican principles a tremendous impetus which carried them to a speedy triumph.
Once again our special interest must be allowed to center upon a secondary element in the situation, i. e., the over-wrought tension of nerves because of which the most fantastic and unlikely of happenings seemed wholly within the circle of reason and probability. The circumstances which have just been considered were, in the main, upon the surface. As such they were capable of being evaluated and weighed. But who was to say that they were not attended by subterranean influences and designs? Affairs everywhere, be it remembered, were moving with incredible swiftness. In every quarter the beleaguered forces of conservatism found themselves surrounded and hemmed in by radical elements which manifested a spirit of militancy and a resolute will to conquer. With the European situation to lend strong emphasis to the suggestion of sinister tendencies and secret combinations, it cannot be thought extraordinary that here in America, where traditional opinions and institutions were as certainly being undermined, the conviction should take root that beneath all this commotion over foreign and domestic policies secret forces must be at work, perfecting organizations, promoting conspiracies, and ready at any hour to leap forth into the light to throttle government and order.
There is, of course, no desire to make it appear that apprehensions concerning hidden designs and movements were generally shared by the citizens of the United States. There was then, as there has always been, a very large body of citizens whose faith in the stability and high destiny of the nation made them immune to such fears; calm and philosophic souls who were equally unmoved by the rant of the demagogue or the distracted mood of the self-deceived alarmist. Their sympathy for and their faith in the democratic tendencies of the age inhibited every impulse to despair. But there were also other men, as has been the case in every deeply agitated generation, who were fully persuaded that they were able to catch deeper tones than their neighbors, to whom the gift had been given to read the signs of the times more accurately than their fellows. For them the conclusion was inescapable that no postulate which did not leave room for secret combinations was adequate to explain the peculiar cast of events in the United States at the end of the eighteenth century. To dismiss the case of such men with the casual judgment that they were temperamentally susceptible to such impressions, is to rule out of account the extraordinary character of the age to which they belonged. Apropos of this observation, the two following items are deserving of notice.
Some time previous to the celebration of the national fast of 1798, three anonymous letters were flung into President Adams’ house, announcing a plot to burn the city of Philadelphia on the day of the approaching fast. Convinced that the matter was of moment, the President made the contents of the letters publicly known. As a result, many people of the city packed their most valuable belongings and prepared to make a quick departure in the event that the threats made should come to fulfilment.[295] Was this a mere “artifice to agitate the popular mind,” the work of “war men” who were restless and impatient for an immediate declaration of hostilities against France? Quite possibly. Such, at least, was the private opinion of Thomas Jefferson.[296] But who was to know? The true lay of the land was not easily to be discovered in the midst of an age when, in the language of a contemporary, “all the passions of the human heart are in a ferment, and every rational being from the throne to the cottage is agitated by the picturesque circumstances of the day.”[297]