Revolution of 1800

The American Revolution of 1800

Notes

Introduction

    1. Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, October 28, 1813, in The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, ed. Lester J. Cappon, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), vol. 2, 387–92.
    2.  Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, November 14, 1786, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), vol. 10, 532–33 [hereafter, Papers of Jefferson].
    3.  Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, September 6, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 15, 395–97.

Chapter 1

The Idea of a Non-party State

   1.   “Caesarism is the classic maneuver employed by the disaffected or thwarted members of a ruling class. Their response to being thwarted is to capitalize on the grievances of the subject population. The people are promised reforms in return for their aid in overthrowing the elite. The Gracchi initiated this maneuver in ancient Rome, but Julius Caesar made it successful.” See Harvey Wheeler, Democracy in a Revolutionary Era: The Political Order Today (New York: Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, 1968), 16.

   2.   Douglass Adair, “The Intellectual Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy” (unpublished PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1943), 1 (summary).

   3.   Richard Hofstadter has come closer than any other American historian, but for unknown reasons failed to follow his research to its logical conclusions. Perhaps the title of his book The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), explains the failure, for to do so would have invalidated his thesis insofar as it applied to the period 1790 to 1801.

   4.   A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (later the Oxford English Dictionary) (Oxford, 1901), vol. 4, s.v. “party,” “faction,” “sedition.”

   5.   Nathan Bailey, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (Edinburgh, 1800), s.v. “party,” “faction.”

   6.   Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (London, 1799), vol. 1. Dr. Johnson’s combination of the two words can also be seen in the subsequent use of the derivative terms factious (“in a manner criminally dissentious or tumultuous”), factiously (“loud and violent in a party”), and factiousness (“violent clamorousness for a party”).

   7.   Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (New York: Great Books of the Western World, 1952).

   8.   New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, vol. 4, 12.

   9.   Hofstadter, Idea of a Party System, 11.

10.   Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York, 1828), vol. 1, s.v. “faction.”

11.   Memoirs of the Life and Ministerial Conduct of the Late Lord Visc. Bolingbroke (London: R. Baldwin, 1752), 41–42. An e-version is available at http://books.google.com/books?id=fq31NMx984wC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

12.   David Hume, The History of England, 6 vols. (London, 1841), vol. 6, 163–64. An e-version is available at http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL8.html.

13.   The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, 5 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1865), vol. 1, 460–64 [hereafter, Works of Burke]. An e-version is available at http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Burke/brkSWv1c1.html.

14.   Works of Burke, vol. 2, 95–96 (“Speech to the Electors of Bristol”). An e-version is available at http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.html.

15.   James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York: Penguin Putnam, 1961), No. 10, 77–84 [hereafter, Federalist] (italics added). The Library of Congress e-versions are available at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html.

16.   Federalist, No. 10, 82. 

17.   Federalist, No. 1, 34.

18.   Federalist, No. 9, 71

19.   Federalist, No. 21, 139–40 (italics added).

20.   Federalist, No. 77, 462

21.   Clinton Rossiter, Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution (New York: Harcourt, Brace, World, 1964), 148.

22.   Hofstadter, Idea of a Party System, 18. “All these anti-party manifestos by party leaders can be set down, if we like, to hypocrisy…” Then, after adroitly stating this theme, Hofstadter has it both ways and says, “the only justification of any party…was to eliminate all parties.”

23.   Fisher Ames, “Laocoon No. 1,” in Works of Fisher Ames (Boston: T. B. Wait, 1809), 107. An e-version is available at https://archive.org/details/worksfisherames00amesrich.

24.   Ibid., 110.

25.   John Jay to Thomas Jefferson, October 27, 1786, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), vol. 10, 489 [hereafter, Papers of Jefferson]. An e-version is available at http://jeffersonpapers.princeton.edu.

26.   “Dissertation on First Principles of Government” (July 1795), in The Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Daniel Edwin Wheeler, 10 vols. (New York: Parke, 1908), vol. 9, 273 [hereafter, Paine] (italics added). An e-version is available at http://books.google.com/books?id=0RaFAAAAMAAJ&authuser=2&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 

27.   Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, eds. Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Bergh, 20 vols. (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903), vol. 15, 212 [hereafter, Writings of Jefferson]. The Library of Congress offers e-versions of Jefferson’s papers at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/mtjprov.html.

28.   James Monroe to Thomas Jefferson, March 3, 1801, The Writings of James Monroe, ed. Stanislaus M. Hamilton, 7 vols. (New York: G. P. Putman’s Sons, 1900), 263.

29.   Patrick Henry; Life, Correspondence and Speeches, ed. William Wirt Henry, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), vol. 2, 609–10. An e-version is available at books.google.com/books?id=yx5CAAAAIAAJ.

30.   A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1897, ed. James Daniel Richardson (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1897), vol. 1, 209–11 [hereafter, Messages and Papers] (italics added). An e-version is available at https://archive.org/details/acompilationmes63richgoog.

31.   John Adams to Jonathan Jackson, October 2, 1780, in The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, 1851), vol. 9, 511 [hereafter, Works of Adams]. An e‑version is available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/adams-the-works-of-john-adams-10-vols.

32.   Messages and Papers, vol. 1, 221.

33.   John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, December 25, 1813, in The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, ed. Lester J. Cappon, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), vol. 2, 412 [hereafter, Letters].

34.   Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 14, 650–51.

35.   Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, June 1, 1798, in The Works of Thomas Jefferson (Federal edition), ed. Paul Leicester Ford, 12 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), vol. 8, 430–433. An e-version is available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jefferson-the-works-of-thomas-jefferson-12-vols.

36.   Messages and Papers, vol. 1, 310.

37.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 282.

38.   Messages and Papers, vol. 1, 312.

39.   Thomas Jefferson to Henry Knox, March 27, 1801, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 10, 245–46.

40.   Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, June 27, 1813, Letters, vol. 2, 335–38.

41.   Thomas Jefferson to Marquis de La Fayette, May 14, 1817, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 15, 115–16 (italics added).

 

Chapter 2

The Idea of Revolution

   1.   That Adams considered himself a student of revolutions as well as constitutions is borne out in a letter he wrote late in life. And though he may have viewed them more skeptically than Jefferson, he nevertheless saw them much in the same light. Here he recounts his involvement:

I had been plunged head and ears in the American revolution from 1761 to 1798 (for it had been all revolution during the whole period). Did [anyone]…think that I had trod upon feathers, and slept upon beds of roses, during those thirty-seven years? I had been an eye-witness of two revolutions in Holland; one from aristocracy to a mongrel mixture of half aristocracy and half democracy, the other back again to aristocracy and the splendid restoration of the Stadtholder. Did [anyone]…think that I was so delighted with these electric shocks, these eruptions of volcanoes, these tremblements de terre, as to be ambitious of the character of the chemist, who could produce artificial ones in South America? I had been an ear-witness of some of the first whispers of a revolution in France in 1783, 1784, and 1785, and had given all possible attention to its rise and progress, and I can truly say, that it had given me as much anxiety as our American revolution had ever done. The last twenty-five years of the last century, and the first fifteen years of this, may be called the age of revolutions and constitutions. We began the dance and have produced eighteen or twenty models of constitutions, the excellences and defects of which you probably know better than I do.

         John Adams to James Lloyd, March 29, 1815, in The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, 1851), vol. 10, 148–49 [hereafter, Works of Adams].

   2.   John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, May 18, 1817, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, eds. Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Bergh, 20 vols. (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903), vol. 15, 120 [hereafter, Writings of Jefferson].

   3.   John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, August 24, 1815, in The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, ed. Lester J. Cappon, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), vol. 2, 455 [hereafter, Letters]. See also John Adams to Dr. Jedidiah Morse, December 29, 1815, Works of Adams, vol. 10, 182; and John Adams to Thomas McKean, November 26, 1815, Works of Adams, vol. 10, 180.

   4.   Nathan Bailey, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (Edinburgh, 1800), s.v. “revolution.”

   5.   Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York, 1828), vol. 2, s.v. “revolution,” “revolutionized.”

   6.   John Quincy Adams to William Vans Murray, January 27, 1801, in The Selected Writings of John and John Quincy Adams, ed. Adrienne Koch and William Peden (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946), 257–58 (italics added).

   7.   John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, May 11, 1794, Letters, vol. 1, 254.

   8.   Autobiography, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 180.

   9.   Thomas Jefferson to James Currie, September 27, 1785, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), vol. 8, 558 [hereafter, Papers of Jefferson].

10.   Thomas Jefferson to Hilliard d’ Auberteuil, February 20, 1786, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 9, 290–91.

11.   “Address to the General Assembly of Virginia” (February 16, 1809), Writings of Jefferson, vol. 16, 333.

12.   Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, June 19, 1802, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 10, 324.

13.   “To the Citizens of Washington” (March 4, 1807), Writings of Jefferson, vol. 16, 347–48.

14.   Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, September 12, 1821, Letters, vol. 2, 574–75.

15.   Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, September 4, 1823, Letters, vol. 2, 596.

16.   Harvey Wheeler, The Politics of Revolution (Berkeley, CA: Glendessary Press, 1971), vii.

17.   Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, September 4, 1823, Letters, vol. 2, 596–97.

18.   Thomas Jefferson to William Smith, November 13, 1787, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 12, 356 (italics added).

19.   Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, January 30, 1787, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 11, 93.

20.   Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 20, 1787, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 12, 442.

21.   Thomas Jefferson to St. John de Crevecoeur, August 9, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 13, 485.

22.   Papers of Jefferson, vol. 17, 63. See editor’s comment.

23.   See the explanatory notes in The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 265–66.

24.   Autobiography, in The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, eds. Adrienne Koch and William Peden (New York: Modern Library, 1944), 108–9 [hereafter, Autobiography]. An e‑version of Jefferson on Jefferson is available at http://books.google.com/books?id=q7e8zI3QwY8C&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false.

25.   Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, May 4, 1787, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 11, 340–41.

26.   Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, May 17, 1818, Letters, vol. 2, 524.

27.   Thomas Jefferson to Elénor-François-Elie, Comte de Moustier, March 13, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 14, 652.

28.   Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, March 17, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 14, 671.

29.   Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, May 2, 1788, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 13, 126.

30.   Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, July 18, 1788, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 13, 378.

31.   Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, March 18, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 14, 676–77.

32.   Thomas Jefferson to Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, April 2, 1790, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 16, 293.

33.   Autobiography, 38–47.

34.   Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, September 10, 1787, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 12, 113.

35.   Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, March 18, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 14, 678.

36.   Ibid.

37.   Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, September 6, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 15, 395–97.

38.   Wheeler, Politics of Revolution, 9.

39.   Robert R. Palmer, The Age of Democratic Revolution: The Challenge (Prince-ton: Princeton University Press, 1959), vol. 1, 21.

40.   Jacques Ellul, Autopsy of Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1971), 79.

41.   Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, March 18, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 14, 679 (italics added).

42.   Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Lomax, March 12, 1799, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 10, 123–24.

 

Chapter 3

The Idea of Revolution: Conspiracy and Counterrevolution

   1.   Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 94. The most informative treatment on the fears of conspiracy in early American politics can be seen in Bailyn’s book. See especially chapters 3 and 4 and “A Note on Conspiracy.”

   2.   John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, November 15, 1813, in The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, ed. Lester J. Cappon, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), vol. 2, 400 [hereafter, Letters] (italics added).

   3.   “The Vindication No. 1,” in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, eds. Harold C. Syrett and Jacob E. Cooke (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), vol. 11, 463 [hereafter, Papers of Hamilton]. Though this essay was never published, it was written May–August 1792.

   4.   The Journal of William Maclay: United States Senator from Pennsylvania 1789 to 1791, ed. Charles A. Beard (New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1927), 11–12.

   5.   Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, November 14, 1786, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), vol. 10, 532–33 [hereafter, Papers of Jefferson].

   6.   The Anas, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, eds. Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Bergh, 20 vols. (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903), vol. 1, 267 [hereafter, Writings of Jefferson].

   7.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 267. Years later William Branch Giles would say on the floor of Congress (November 19, 1794) that “there existed a self created society, that of the Cincinnati, the principles of which were…hereditary succession.” William Cobbett, Porcupine’s Works, 12 vols. (London: Cobbett and Morgan, 1801), vol. 2, 177 [hereafter, Porcupine’s Works]. An e-version is available at http://books.google.com/books/about/Porcupine_s_Works.html?id=LtgFAAAAIAAJ. “Porcupine” is Cobbett, a journalist whose Porcupine’s Gazette was one of the most vitriolic and partisan papers of the era.

   8.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 266.

   9.   Thomas Jefferson to John Langdon, September 11, 1785, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 8, 512.

10.   Thomas Jefferson to John Page, May 4, 1786, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 9, 446.

11.   Thomas Jefferson to Charles W. F. Dumas, May 6, 1786, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 9, 462–63.

12.   Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, September 28, 1787, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 12, 190.

13.   John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, October 9, 1787, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 12, 220–21. Less than two years later, Adams would flabbergast Jefferson by requesting the Senate and the House of Representatives to address the president with a royal title. See Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, July 29, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 15, 315. Madison, meanwhile, pushed through the lower House a resolution that “formally and unanimously condemned” Adams’s suggestion. “This,” said Madison, “will show to the friends of Republicanism that our new Government was not meant to substitute either Monarchy or Aristocracy, and that the genius of the people is as yet adverse to both.” James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, May 9, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 15, 115.

14.   David Ramsay to Thomas Jefferson, April 7, 1787, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 11, 279.

15.   Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Hawkins, August 4, 1787, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 11, 684.

16.   Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, May 2, 1788, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 13, 128.

17.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 269.

18.   David Humphreys to Thomas Jefferson, November 29, 1788, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 14, 500.

19.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 270–71.

20.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 271.

21.   Jefferson: Political Writings, eds. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 158.

22.   The Reports of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Jacob E. Cooke (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 1–45.

23.   See “Editor’s note on Arrearages in Soldier’s pay, 1790,” Papers of Jefferson, vol. 16, 455–62.

24.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 272.

25.   “Editor’s Note,” Papers of Jefferson, vol. 16, 460.

26.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 271.

27.   John Marshall, The Life of George Washington, 4 vols. (Philadelphia, 1804; rev. ed. 1831), vol. 2, 182–83.

28.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 276.

29.   Thomas Jefferson, Memorandum on the Compromise of 1790. An e-version is available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1790-jefferson-memorandum-on-the-compromise-of-1790?q=memorandum+on+the+compromise+of+1790.

30.   Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, February 4, 1791, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 19, 241–42.

31.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 277.

32.   The Works of Thomas Jefferson (Federal edition), ed. Paul Leicester Ford, 12 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), vol. 6, 198 [hereafter, Works of Jefferson (Federal ed.)]. An e-version is available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jefferson-the-works-of-thomas-jefferson-12-vols.

33.   Jared Sparks, “Life of Gouverneur Morris,” American Quarterly Review 11 (June 1832): 454.

34.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 278–79.

35.   Others too had tasted the fruits of Hamilton’s corruption, and one John F. Mercer became embroiled in a controversy with Hamilton over his conduct of administration. Mercer accused Hamilton of “increasing your own influence and attaching to your administration a Monied Interest as an Engine of Government.” See Alexander Hamilton to John Mercer, September 26, 1792, Papers of Hamilton, vol. 12, 575. See editor’s note on the details of the dispute, 481–90.

36.   Samuel F. Bemis, Jay’s Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy (New York: Macmillan, 1924), 41–48.

37.   Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, September 9, 1792, in Works of Jefferson (Federal ed.), vol. 7, 140.

38.   There is enough of a parallel between English and American politics, of which Hamilton was a particularly keen student, to suggest that he might have, in the spirit of the times, believed he was “managing” the government in the personal and factional style of Robert Walpole. William L. Smith, one of Hamilton’s supporters, noted that after the establishment of the funding and assumption plans, “the Secretary of the Treasury acquired a well-earned Fame and general popularity; his reputation traversed the ocean and in distant climes his Name was mentioned among the great ministers of the age.” The Politicks and Views of a Certain Party Displaced (n.p., 1792), 12.

         Indeed it is possible that Hamilton, with his admiration for the British system, knew people still alive who had witnessed the great minister Walpole, and his administration, firsthand. A description of Walpole’s life by a contemporary author, Tobias Smollett, reads like a miniature biography of Alexander Hamilton.

39.   The Anas, Writings, vol. 1, 284. Entry date August 13, 1791 (italics added).

40.   The Anas, Writings, vol. 1, 298. Julian P. Boyd brought out the truth of Jefferson’s suspicions in the full light of day. Boyd’s Number 7: Alexander Hamilton’s Secret Attempts to Control American Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964) implicated Hamilton as aiding Major George Beckwith, the British representative in 1790. Boyd proved that Hamilton revealed secret information to the British minister and was ready to engage in deceit and intrigue (a conspiracy?) to such a degree that it endangered American foreign policy.

41.   George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, October 20, 1792, in The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745–1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, 39 vols. (1931–1944), vol. 32, 187. An e-version is available at http://etext.virginia.edu/washington/fitzpatrick.

42.   Leonard D. White, The Federalists (New York: Macmillan, 1948), 228.

43.   Gazette of the United States (Philadelphia), October 24, 1792, Metellus. See Papers of Hamilton, vol. 12, 613–17.

44.   Alexander Hamilton to Colonel Edward Carrington, May 26, 1792, in The Works of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Henry Cabot Lodge, 10 vols. (New York, 1886), vol. 8, 248–65 [hereafter, Works of Hamilton]. An e-version of the Federal Edition is available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hamilton-the-works-of-alexander-hamilton-federal-edition-12-vols. Five months later Hamilton would reveal his uncanny foresight in intuiting Jefferson’s becoming president. Hamilton seemed to believe that any serious rival was guilty of excessive ambition. In addition to his attack on Jefferson, his rival in New York, Aaron Burr, was caricatured as “the worst sort,” “determined to climb to the highest honors of the State,” and caring “nothing about the means of effecting his purpose.” “In a word,” said Hamilton, “if we have an embryo-Caesar in the United States, it is Burr.” His use of the word “Caesar” in this instance had all the dangerous connotations of one ready and willing to overthrow the republic. Alexander Hamilton to [unknown], September 26, 1792, Works of Hamilton, vol. 10, 22.

45.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 317.

46.   Ibid., 318. Entry date October 1, 1792. This was a topic of long debate and resulted in a combined strategy by Jefferson and William Giles in the House.

47.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 332. Entry date February 7, 1793.

48.   Alexander Hamilton to Colonel Edward Carrington, May 26, 1792, Works of Hamilton, vol. 8, 252.

49.   Alexander Hamilton to Colonel Edward Carrington, Works of Hamilton, vol. 8, 264. William Cobbett raised a point that bears on Hamilton’s remark and throws light on the relationship between conspiracy and revolution. Given the administrative theory of the time, wherein opposition to government was considered intolerable, Porcupine defined the struggle between the factions, with their conspiratorial mentality, as an idea of revolution. And revolution, we may recall, negates government itself.

Thus…I think, nobody will deny, that a hatred of the British Government and that of the United States go hand in hand. Nor is the reason of this at all mysterious; it is not…as the Democrats have ingeniously observed, because “there is some dangerous connection between Great Britain and our public affairs”; it is because they are both pursuing the same line of conduct with respect to clubs and conspiracies; it is because they both possess the same radical defect, a power to suppress anarchy; it is, to say all in one word, because they are governments.…It is not the form of a government, it is not the manner of its administration; it is the thing itself they are at war with, and that they must be eternally at war with.

         Porcupine’s Works, vol. 2, 34. Like Hamilton, what Porcupine refused to recognize was that Jefferson and his colleagues were not anarchists; they had in mind a definite system of government. The only difference was that it was based on opposite principles than those Hamilton and his quilled friend thought acceptable.

50.   Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, May 15, 1793, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 9, 88–89.

51.   James Thomson Callender wrote, “When the counsels of Mr. Hamilton shall…be completely unveiled, no suprize will remain at the resignation of Secretary Jefferson. The sole mystery seems to be, by what magic spell these two contending powers of light and darkness could act in unison, or even common civility, for a single day.” Sedgwick & Co. or A Key to the Six Per Cent Cabinet (Philadelphia, 1798), 35. 

52.   John Adams complained of Hamilton’s influence in later years and the problem Washington had of getting competent people to serve from 1794 on. “The truth is,” Adams said, “Hamilton’s influence over him was so well known, that no man fit for the Office of State or War would accept either. He was driven to the necessity of appointing such as would accept.” John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 3, 1813, Letters, vol. 2, 349.

53.   The Anas, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 1, 282–83.

54.   Ibid., 317. Entry date October 1, 1792.

55.   Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, April 3, 1794, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 9, 281.

56.   Francis Wharton, State Trials of the United States during the Administration of Washington and Adams (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1849), 102–97.

57.   Ibid., 109.

58.   Harry Marlin Tinkcom, The Republicans and Federalists in Pennsylvania, 1790–1801: A Study in National Stimulus and Local Response (Harrisburg, PA: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1950), 100.

59.   Wharton, State Trials, 118. See also “Proclamation of George Washington,” in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1897, ed. James Daniel Richardson (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1897), vol. 1, 150–54.

60.   Wharton, State Trials, 159–61. See Hamilton’s “detailed instructions to the Western Army,” October 20, 1794.

61.   James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, November 16, 1794, in The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900), vol. 2, 18–19.

62.   Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, November 11, 1794, Works of Hamilton, vol. 6, 65.

63.   Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 28, 1794, Works of Jefferson, vol. 8, 156–59 (italics added).

64.   Ibid. (italics added).

65.   Ibid. (italics added).

66.   Hamilton himself had described the basis for Madison’s fear in Federalist No. 8, 67–68: “But standing armies, it may be replied, must inevitably…strengthen the executive arm of government, in doing which their constitutions would acquire a progressive direction toward monarchy.” James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York: Penguin Putnam, 1961).

67.   Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, January 16, 1811, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 11, 165–73 (italics added). See also The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, eds. John A. Schutz and Douglass Adair (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1966), 2.

 

Chapter 4

The Principles of the American and French Revolutions

   1.   Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, January 7, 1793, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, eds. Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Bergh, 20 vols. (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903) vol. 9, 13 [hereafter Writings of Jefferson]; see also Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, June 2, 1793, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 9, 107; and Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, June 29, 1793, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 9, 147.

   2.   The Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Daniel Edwin Wheeler, 10 vols. (New York: Parke, 1908), vol. 4, 220 [hereafter, Paine].

   3.   John Paul Jones to Marquis de La Fayette, June 15–26, 1788, in  John Henry Sherburne, Life and Character of the Chevalier John Paul Jones: A Captain in the Navy of the United States, During Their Revolutionary War (New York: Wilder & Campbell, 1825, 301. An e-version is available at http://books.google.com/books?id=LeJ8NnY1AJUC&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

   4.   George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, January 2, 1788, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), vol. 12, 490 [hereafter, Papers of Jefferson].

   5.   Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, November 4, 1788, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 14, 330 (italics added).

   6.   William Cobbett, “A Summary View,” in Porcupine’s Works, 12 vols. (London: Cobbett and Morgan, 1801), vol. 7, 283 [hereafter, Porcupine’s Works].

   7.   Paine, vol. 4, 196–97.

   8.   Ibid., 21.

   9.   Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826, in The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, eds. Adrienne Koch and William Peden (New York: Modern Library, 1944), 730–31.

10.   See Paine’s preface to the French edition (May 7, 1791) of The Rights of Man, Paine, vol. 4, xxv.

11.   Paine, vol. 4, 2 (italics added).

12.   In the essay Novanglus, written in 1774, John Adams referred to another author’s attempts to dismiss the ideas “that all men by nature are equal; that kings are but the ministers of the people; that their authority is delegated to them by the people for their good, and they have a right to resume it, and place it in other hands, or keep it themselves, whenever it is made use of to oppress them.” Adams then wrote, “These are what are called revolution-principles. They are the principles of Aristotle and Plato, of Livy and Cicero, and Sidney, Harrington, and Locke. The principles of nature and eternal reason…It is therefore astonishing…that writers…should in this age and country…insinuate a doubt concerning them.” The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, 1851), vol. 4, 15 [hereafter, Works of Adams]. The elder Adams was combating the sophistry of Daniel Leonard, a Massachusetts Tory. Needless to say, these were the basic principles underlying both the American and French Revolutions.

13.   Paine, vol. 4, 22.

14.   Ibid., 7–8.

15.   Ibid., 27.

16.   Ibid., 42–43.

17.   Jacques Ellul, Autopsy of Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1971), 71.

18.   Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, January 12, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 15, 232–33.

19.   Anon., An Impartial History of the Revolution in France, 2 vols. (London, 1794), vol. 2, 357.

20.   Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, January 8, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 14, 420.

21.   Thomas Jefferson to Diodati, August 3, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 15, 327.

22.   Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, January 8, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 14, 420.

23.   Ellul, Autopsy of Revolution, 54.

24.   Paine, vol. 4, 124–25. A New England clergyman, Jedidiah Morse, would see the same development taking place in America. He told his congregation that “the Jacobin Clubs, instituted by [Edmund] Genet, were a formidable engine for the accomplishment of the designs of France to subjugate this country. They started into existence by a kind of magic influence, in all parts of the United States, from Georgia to New Hampshire, and being linked together by correspondence, by constitutional ties, and…by oaths,…they acted upon one plan, in concert, and with an ultimate reference to the same grand objects.…And,” he added, “there is reason to believe their intention was…to produce a ‘general explosion’ or, in other words, a revolution in our country.” Jedidiah Morse, A Sermon, preached at Charlestown, November 29, 1798, on the Anniversary of Thanksgiving in Massachusetts (Boston, 1798), 67.

25.   Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, June 17, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 15, 190.

26.   Thomas Jefferson to Francis dal Verme, August 15, 1787, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 12, 42.

27.   William Short to John Jay, November 30, 1789, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 16, 3.

28.   Porcupine’s Works, vol. 7, 305.

29.   “Fragment on the French Revolution,” n.d., in The Works of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Henry Cabot Lodge, 10 vols. (New York: 1886), vol. 7, 377.

30.   Porcupine’s Works, vol. 2, 15.

31.   Fisher Ames, “Equality II,” in Works of Fisher Ames (Boston: T. B. Wait, 1809), 234–35 (italics added).

32.   Patrick Henry; Life, Correspondence and Speeches, ed. William Wirt Henry, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), vol. 2, 576 (italics added).

33.   Thomas Jefferson to Reverend Charles Clay, January 27, 1790, Papers of Jefferson, vol. 16, 129.

34.   Paine, vol. 4, 103.

35.   Thomas Paine to Thomas Jefferson, April 20, 1793, in The Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Moncure D. Conway, 3 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895), vol. 3, 132–33.

36.   Thomas Jefferson to Destutt de Tracy, January 26, 1811, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 13, 20 (italics added).

37.   Ibid., 19.

38.   Thomas Jefferson to Judge William Johnson, June 12, 1823, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 15, 444. “I have been blamed for saying, that a prevalence of the doctrines of consolidation would one day call for reformation or revolution.” See also Thomas Jefferson to Robert J. Garnett, February 14, 1824, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 16, 14.

39.   Thomas Jefferson to Destutt de Tracy, January 26, 1811, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 13, 20–21.

 

Chapter 5

The Politics of Faction

   1.   For example, “Freedom of…political expression whether written or verbal was feared as a means of triggering conspiracies, internal disorders, wars, revolutions or some other disastrous train of events that might pull down…the State. In Leonard W. Levy, Legacy of Suppression; Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 7.

   2.   William Cobbett, “A Summary View,” in Porcupine’s Works, 12 vols. (London: Cobbett and Morgan, 1801), vol. 10, 18–19 [hereafter, Porcupine’s Works]. Remember, it was not until 1826 that Sir John Hobhouse, then a member of Lords, derisively commented on “His Majesty’s Opposition,” indicating that he believed their presence an innocuous one. Richard Hofstadter believes that the idea did not gain acceptance in England until the 1840s, a full two generations after Jefferson’s victory in 1800.

   3.   Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 151

   4.   Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 9.

   5.   Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, September 9, 1792, in The Works of Thomas Jefferson (Federal edition), ed. Paul Leicester Ford, 12 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), vol. 7, 137–38 [hereafter Works of Jefferson (Federal ed.)].

   6.   Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, June 13, 1790, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), vol. 16, 493 [hereafter, Papers of Jefferson].

   7.   Papers of Jefferson, vol. 17, 172; see also New York Daily Advertiser, July 7, 8, and 9, 1790; and Connecticut Courant, July 15, 1790.

   8.   “A Citizen of America,” New York Journal, July 27, 1790, in Papers of Jefferson, vol. 17, 181. See editorial note.

   9.   George Washington to the Acting Secretary of State, September 27, 1795, in The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745–1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, 39 vols. (1931–1944), vol. 34, 314–16 [hereafter, Writings of Washington].

10.   Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, November 13, 1790, in The Life of John Jay: with Selections from his Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers, ed. William Jay, 2 vols. (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), vol. 2, 202–3 [hereafter, Life of John Jay]. The Virginia Assembly had passed several resolutions, one of which stated: “An act making provisions for the debt of the United States as limits the right of the United States in their redemption of the public debt is dangerous to the rights and subversive of the interests of the people, and demands the marked disapprobation of the General Assembly.” This was the spirit Hamilton wished killed.

11.   In The Idea of a Party System, Hofstadter remarked, “In America…party opposition…had been carried on in the face of a firm conviction by each side…that the other was not legitimate, and in a healthy state of affairs would be put out of business” (page x). The reason for extinguishing the opposition, in the absence of any clearly defined loyal party system, could only have been the fear of potential revolution against the state.

12.   Thomas Jefferson to Colonel John Harvie, July 25, 1790, Works of Jefferson (Federal ed.), vol. 6, 109.

13.   Alexander Hamilton to Colonel Edward Carrington, May 26, 1792, in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, eds. Harold C. Syrett and Jacob E. Cooke (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), vol. 11, 429 [hereafter, Papers of Hamilton] (italics added).

14.   Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, June 29, 1792, Works of Jefferson (Federal ed.), vol. 7, 130.

15.   Alexander Hamilton to William Short, February 5, 1793, Papers of Hamilton, vol. 14, 7.

16.   George Washington to John Jay, November 1, 1794, Life of John Jay, vol. 2, 233 (italics added).

17.   Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, May 5, 1793, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, eds. Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Bergh, 20 vols. (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903), vol. 9, 75 [hereafter, Writings of Jefferson].

18.   James Madison to James Monroe, December 4, 1794, The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900), vol. 6, 220–23 [hereafter Writings of Madison] (italics added).

19.   James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, June 1, 1794, in The Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (published by order of Congress), 4 vols. (New York, 1884), vol. 2, 18 [hereafter, Letters and Other Writings of Madison]. An e-version is available at https://archive.org/details/letterswritings01madirich.

20.   Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 28, 1794, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 9, 295.

21.   James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, February 15, 1795, Letters and Other Writings of Madison, vol. 2, 35–36.

22.   Oliver Wolcott to Oliver Wolcott Sr., May 3, 1794, in Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and Adams, Edited from the Papers of Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, ed. George Gibbs, 2 vols. (New York: William Van Norden, 1846), vol. 1, 136.

23.   Samuel Smith to Otho H. Williams, March 20, 1794, Papers of Otho Holland Williams, IX, no. 866, Maryland Historical Society, in Noble E. Cunningham Jr., The Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Organization, 1789–1801 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957), 69.

24.   Henry William De Saussure to Richard Bland Lee, February 14, 1795, R. B. Lee Papers, Library of Congress.

25.   William Wyche, Party Spirit: An Oration, Delivered to the Horanian Literary Society, at Their First Anniversary Meeting, on the 10th of May, 1794, at Tammany Hall  (New York: T. and J. Swords, 1794), 15–16.

26.   John Taylor of Caroline, A Definition of Parties: Or the Political Effects of the Paper System Considered (Philadelphia: Francis Bailey, 1794), 4–16.

27.   James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, April 14, 1794, Letters and Other Writings of Madison, vol. 2, 10.

28.   John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, May 11, 1794, in The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, ed. Lester J. Cappon, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), vol. 1, 255 [hereafter, Letters].

29.   Fisher Ames to Thomas Dwight, March 9, 1796, in Works of Fisher Ames (Boston: T. B. Wait, 1809), 481.

30.   George Washington to John Adams, August 20, 1795, Writings of Washington, vol. 34, 280 (italics added).

31.   John Jay to George Washington, December 14, 1795, Life of John Jay, vol. 2, 260.

32.   Thomas Jefferson to Philip Mazzei, April 24, 1796, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 9, 335–36.

33.   Article II, Section 1, United States Constitution; superseded by the Twelfth Amendment.

34.   David Hackett Fischer, The Revolution of American Conservatism (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), xi–xv, 10.

35.   James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, December 19, 1796, Writings of Jefferson, vol. 6, 296–300. 

36.   Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, April 27, 1795, in The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Henry A. Washington, 9 vols. (New York: Townsend MacCoun, 1884), vol. 4, 116–17 [hereafter, Works of Jefferson (Washington ed.)]. See also Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, December 28, 1796: “I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office,” in Works of Jefferson (Washington ed.), vol. 9, 154. To Madison in January 1797, Jefferson noted, “For I think with the Romans that the general of today should be a common soldier tomorrow if necessary.” Works of Jefferson (Washington ed.), vol. 9, 155.

37.   James Madison to James Monroe, September 29, 1796, in Irving Brant, James Madison, 1787–1800: The Father of the Constitution (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950), 444.

38.   Alexander Hamilton to [unknown], 1796, The Works of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Henry Cabot Lodge, 10 vols. (New York: 1886),