Part 13

Meanwhile he was obliged to pay another visit to Holland to negotiate a new loan as a means of paying the interest on the Dutch debt. He was also engaged in a correspondence with his fellow-commissioner, Mr. Jefferson, then at Paris, on the subject of the Barbary powers and the return of the Americans held captive by them. But his most engrossing occupation at this time was the preparation of his "Defence of the American Constitution," the object of which was the justification of balanced governments and a division of powers, especially the legislative, against the idea of a single assembly and a pure democracy, which had begun to find many advocates, especially on the continent. The greater part, however, of this book--the most voluminous of his publications--consists of summaries of the histories of the Italian republics, which, by the way, was not essential to the argument.

Although it afterward subjugated the author to charges of monarchical and anti-republican tendencies, this book was not without its influence on the adoption of the federal constitution; during the discussion of which the first volume appeared. Great Britain not having reciprocated the compliment by sending a minister to the United States, and there being no prospects of his accomplishing any of the objects of his mission, Adams had requested a recall, which was sent to him in February, 1788, accompanied by a resolution of Congress conveying the thanks of that body for 'The patriotism, perseverance, integrity and diligence' which he had displayed in his ten years' experience abroad.

Immediately upon his arrival at home, Mr. Adams was RE-APPOINTED by Massachusetts as a delegate to the continental congress; but he never resumed his seat in that body, which was now just about to expire. When the new government came to be organized under the newly adopted constitution, as all were agreed to make Washington president, attention was turned to New England for a vice-president. This office was then held with much more regard than now. In fact, as the constitution originally stood, the candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency were voted for without any distinct specification as to rank, the second office falling to the person having the second highest vote. Out of sixty-nine electors, John Adams received the votes of thirty-four; and this being the second highest number, he was declared vice-president. The thirty-five votes were scattered upon some ten different other candidates.

By virtue of his new office he became president of the senate, a position not very agreeable to his active and leading temperament, being better fitted for debate; but one in which the close division in the senate, often resulting in a tie between the supporters and opponents of the new system, many times gave him a controlling voice. In the first congress, he gave no fewer than twenty deciding votes, always upon important organic laws, and always in support of Washington's policy.

Down to this time Adams had sympathized with Jefferson politically, with whom he had served both in congress and abroad. On the subject of the French revolution, which now burst upon the world, a difference of opinion arose between them. From the very beginning Adams, then almost alone, had argued that no good could come from that movement,--as the revolution went on and began to break out in excesses, others began to be of this opinion.

Adams then gave public expression to some of his ideas by the publication of his 'Discourses on Davila,' furnished to a Philadelphia paper, and afterward collected and published in one volume,--taking the history of nations, particularly Davila's account of the French civil wars, and the general aspects of human society as his texts.

Adams pointed out as the great springs of human activity,--at least in all that related to politics,--the love of superiority, the desire of distinction, admiration and applause; nor, in his opinion could any government be permanent or secure which did not provide as well for the reasonable gratification, as for the due restraint of this powerful passion. Repudiating that democracy, pure and simple, then coming into vogue, and of which Jefferson was the advocate; he insisted that a certain mixture of aristocracy and monarchy was necessary to that balance of interests and sentiments without which, as he believed, free governments should not exist. This work, which reproduced more at length and in a more obnoxious form the fundamental ideas of his 'Defence of the American Constitution,' made Adams a great bugbear to the ultra-democratic supporters of the principles and policy of the French revolutionists; and at the second presidential election in 1792, they set up as a candidate against him George Clinton, of New York, but Mr. Adams was re-elected by a decided vote.

The wise policy of neutrality adopted by Washington received the hearty concurrence of Adams. While Jefferson left the cabinet to become in nominal retirement the leader of the opposition. Adams continued, as vice-president, to give Washington's administration the benefit of his deciding vote. It was only by this means that a neutrality act was carried through the senate, and that the progress was stopped of certain resolutions which had previously passed in the House of Representatives, embodying restrictive measures against Great Britain, intended, or at least calculated, to counterwork the mission to England on which Mr. Jay had already been sent.

Washington being firmly resolved to retire at the close of his second presidential term, the question of the successorship now presented itself. Jefferson was the leader of the opposition, who called themselves republicans, the name democrat being yet in bad odor, and though often imposed as a term of reproach, not yet assumed except by a few of the more ultra-partisans. Hamilton was the leader of the federal party, as the supporters of Washington's administration had styled themselves.

Though Hamilton's zeal and energy had made him, even while like Jefferson in nominal retirement, the leader of his party, he could hardly be said to hold the place with the Federalists that Jefferson did with the Republicans. Either Adams or Jay, from their age and long diplomatic service, were more justly entitled to public honor and were more conspicuously before the people. Hamilton, though he had always spoken of Adams as a man of unconquerable intrepidity and incorruptible integrity, and as such had already twice supported him for vice-president, would yet have much preferred Jay.

The position of Adams was, however, such as to render his election far more probable than that of Jay, and to determine on his selection as candidate of the Federalist party. Jay, by his negotiation of the famous treaty which bears his name, had for the moment called down upon himself the hostility of its numerous opponents. Adams stood, moreover, as vice-president, in the line of promotion, and was more sure of the New England vote, which was absolutely indispensible to the success of either.

As one of the candidates was taken from the North, it seemed best to select the other from the South, and the selection of Thomas Pickney, of South Carolina, was the result of this decision. Indeed, there were some, Hamilton among the number, who secretly wished that Pickney might receive the larger vote of the two, and so be chosen president over Adams' head. This result was almost sure to happen,--from the likelihood of Pickney's receiving more votes at the South than Adams, as he really did,--could the northern federal electors be persuaded to vote equally for Adams and Pickney, which Hamilton labored to effect.

The fear, however, that Pickney might be chosen over Adams led to the withholding from Pickney of eighteen New England votes, so that the result was not only to make Jefferson Vice-President, as having more votes than Pickney, but also to excite prejudices and suspicions in the mind of Adams against Hamilton, which, being reciprocated by him, led to the disruption and final overthrow of the Federal party.

It had almost happened, such was the equal division of parties, that Jefferson had this time been elected President. The election of Adams, who had 71 votes to Jefferson's 68, only being secured by two stray votes cast for him, one in Virginia, and the other in North Carolina, tributes of revolutionary reminiscences and personal esteem. Chosen by this slender majority, Mr. Adams succeeded to office at a very dangerous and exciting crisis in affairs. The progress of the French revolution had superinduced upon previous party divisions a new and vehement crisis.

Jefferson's supporters, who sympathized very warmly with the French Republic, gave their moral, if not their positive support, to the claim set up by its rulers, but which Washington had refused to admit, that under the provisions of the French treaty of alliance, the United States were bound to support France against Great Britain, at least in defense of her West India possessions. The other party, the supporters of Adams, upheld the policy of neutrality adopted by Washington.

At the same time that Washington had sent Jay to England, to arrange, if possible, the pending difficulties with that country; he had recalled Morris who, as Minister to France, had made himself obnoxious to the now predominent party there, and had appointed Monroe in his place. This gentleman, instead of conforming to his instructions, and attempting to reconcile France to Jay's mission, had given them assurance on the subject quite in contradiction of the treaty as made, both the formation and ratification of which he had done his best to defeat. He, in consequence, had been recalled by Washington shortly before the close of his term of office, and C. C. Pickney, a brother of Thomas Pickney, had been appointed in his place. The French authorities, offended at this change, and the ratification of Jay's treaty in spite of their remonstrances, while they dismissed Monroe with great ovations, refused to receive the new embassador sent in his place, at the same time issuing decrees and orders highly injurious to American interests.

Almost the first act of Mr. Adams, as President, was to call an extra session of Congress. Not only was a war with France greatly to be dreaded and deprecated on account of her great military and naval power, but still more on account of the very formidable party which, among the ultra-Republicans, she could muster within the States themselves. Under these circumstances, the measure resolved upon by Adams and his cabinet was the appointment of a new and more solemn commission to France, composed of Pickney and two colleagues, for which purpose the President appointed John Marshall of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.

Instead of receiving and openly treating with those commissioners, Talleyrand, lately an exile in America, but now Secretary of Foreign Affairs to the French Government, entered into intrigue with them, through several unaccredited and unofficial agents, of which the object was to induce them to promise a round bribe to the directors and a large sum of money to fill the exhausted French treasury, by way of purchasing forbearance. As Pickney and Marshall appeared less pliable than Gerry, Talleyrand finally obliged them to leave, after which he attempted, though still without success, to extract money, or at least the promise of it, from Gerry.

The publication of the dispatches in which these discreditible intrigues were disclosed, an event on which Talleyrand had not calculated, produced a great excitement in both America and Europe. Talleyrand attempted to escape by disavowing his agents, and pretending that the American ministers had been imposed upon by adventurers. Gerry left France, and the violation of American commercial and maritime rights was pushed to new extremes. In America the effect of all of this was to greatly strengthen the Federal party for the time being.

The grand jury of the federal circuit court for Pennsylvania set the example of an address to the president, applauding his manly stand for the rights and dignity of the nation. Philadelphia, which under the lead of Mifflin and McKean, had gone over to the Republicans, was once more suddenly converted as during Washington's first term to the support of the federal government. That city was then the seat of the national newspaper press. All the newspapers, hitherto neutral, published there, as well as several others which had leaned decidedly toward the opposition, now came out in behalf of Adams.

Besides an address from five thousand citizens, the young men got up an address of their own. This example was speedily imitated all over the country, and the spirited replies of the president, who was now in his element, served in their turn to blow up and keep ablaze the patriotic enthusiasm of his countrymen. These addresses, circulated everywhere in the newspapers, were collected at the time in a volume, and they appeared in Adams' works, of which they form a characteristic portion. A navy was set on foot, the old continental navy having become extinct. An army was voted and partly levied, of which Washington accepted the chief command, and merchant ships were authorized to protect themselves.

The treaty with France was declared at an end, and a quasi war with France ensued. It was not, however, the policy of France to drive the United States into the arms of Great Britain. Even before Gerry's departure, Talleyrand had made advances tending toward reconciliation, which were afterward renewed by communications opened with Van Murray, the American minister to Holland. The effect of the French outrages, and the progress of the French revolution had been to create in a part of the federal party, at least, a desire for an absolute breach with France--a desire felt by Hamilton, and by at least three out of the four cabinet officers whom Adams had chosen and kept in office.

In his message to congress, announcing the expulsion of Pickney and Marshall, Adams had declared that he would never send another minister to France without assurance that he would be received. This was on the 21st of July, 1798. Therefore, when on the 18th of February following, without consulting his cabinet or giving them any intimation of his intentions, he sent into the senate the nomination of Van Murray as minister to France, the act took the country by surprise, and thus hastened the defeat of the federal party, his actions being so contrary to his avowed intentions. Some previous acts of Adams, such as the appointment of Gerry, which his cabinet officers had striven to prevent, and his disinclination to make Hamilton second in command, until vehemently urged into it by Washington, had strengthened the distrust entertained of Adams by Hamilton.

Adams, in his attempt to reopen diplomatic intercourse with France, was accused of seeking to reconcile his political opponents of the Republican party, and thus secure by unworthy and impolitic concessions, his own re-election as president. The opposition to Van Murray's nomination prevailed so far that he received two colleagues, Ellsworth of Connecticut and Davies of North Carolina; but the president would not authorize the departure of Ellsworth or Davies until he had received explicit assurances from Talleyrand that they would be duly received as ministers. On arriving in France they found the Directory superseded by Napoleon Bonaparte who was first counsel, with whom they managed to arrange the difficulty.

But, however beneficial to the country, this mission proved very disastrous to Adams personally, and to the political party to which he belonged. He justified its appointment on the ground of assurances conveyed to him through a variety of channels that France desired peace, and he excused himself for his not having consulted his cabinet by the fact that he knew their mind without asking it--to be decidedly hostile, that is, to any such attempt as he had decided to make.

The masses of the federalists, fully confident of Adams' patriotism, were well enough disposed to acquiesce in his judgment; but many of the leaders were implacable. The quarrel was further aggravated by Adams' dismissal of his cabinet officers and the construction of a new cabinet.

The pardon of Fries, who had been convicted of treason for armed resistance to the levy of certain direct taxes in Pennsylvania, was regarded by many at that time as a piece of misplaced lenity on the part of Adams, dictated, it was said, by a mean desire of popularity in a case where the severest example was needed. But Adams can hardly suffer with posterity from his unwillingness to be the first president to sign a death warrant for treason, especially as there was room for grave doubts whether the doings of this person amounted to treason as defined by the constitution of the United States.

In this divided condition of the Federal party the presidential election came on. Adams was still too popular with the mass of the party to think of dropping him altogether, and the malcontents reduced to the old expedient of attempting, by secret understanding and arrangements, to reduce his vote in the electoral college below that of C. C. Pickney, the other candidate on the federal ticket.