Jefferson. Yet it was in Pennsylvania, which had always gone with New England, but which now, with one exception, voted for Jefferson and Burr, that the Federalists received the hardest blow. It could not be claimed here, as in New York, that it was only momentary and accidental causes which had produced this result. A great revolution in opinion had begun among the rural population of the northern states, and in Pennsylvania the change was completed, in consequence of various local causes, sooner than anywhere else. The impression produced by the meeting of the Philadelphia convention had disappeared by degrees, while the angry hate excited against England, and the opposition to commercial interests, had for a considerable time been preparing the way for the approximation of the small land-owners of the northern to the planters of the southern states.

All these elements combined suggested the thought that the victory of the Federalists was only a victory like that of Pyrrhus. The Republicans had good reason to congratulate themselves, and to look upon their partial success as a happy omen of an early and complete triumph. In proportion as they worked out of the position of a party of opposition to the policy of the Federalists and lost their excessive and ignorant enthusiasm for the French Revolution, they became a consolidated organization. The rhetoric of the doctrinarians did not exert over them any longer the same charm as in former years; but simultaneously with the abatement of their aimless enthusiasm, their reveries and vague theories began to assume a positive form. Both their relative moderation and the gradual

1 We may here cite one example to illustrate the strange manner in which it was sometimes attempted to apply the theories of the doctrinarians to practical politics. Tennessee had of her own accord separated herself from the territorial government, projected a state constitution without the authority of congress, and then pretended to be ipso facto a state. Chauncey Goodrich writes, in relation thereto, to the elder Wolcott:

RISE OF THE REPUBLICANS.

137

transition from mere negation to a positive policy, had strengthened them internally and made proselytes to them. The instincts of the great body of the people had been in ・ sympathy with them from the first, and they remained in the minority only because by their fervor of denial they recklessly abandoned all restraint, in consequence of which the conflict between the material interests of the country and the negative ends of their ideal policy appeared in too bold a light.

It may be that the Republicans would have even now obtained the upper hand if they had not been so unwise as to allow the questions of external politics to occupy foreground to such an extent that they might be considered the main point of their policy. It did not escape the observation of those who saw deeper, that these questions were in reality but the points of support accidentally afforded for the gradual evolution of the essential differences, founded in the internal state of affairs. It has been already frequently remarked with what energy, even now and on the most various occasions, it was pointed out, that these differences divided the country into two geographical sections. It was reserved, however, for questions of foreign politics, to give rise to the occasion which should bring this fact out in such bold relief, that the abyss which yawned under the Union might be discerned for a moment.

"One of their spurious senators has arrived, and a few days since went into the senate and claimed his seat by virtue of his credentials from our new sister Tennessee, as she is called, and the rights of man." Gibbs, Mem, of Wol., I., p. 338.

CHAPTER IV.

NULLIFICATION. THE VIRGINIA AND KENTUCKY RESOLU

TIONS.

Washington's presence made Adams's inauguration a moving spectacle. Adams remarked that it was difficult to say why tears flowed so abundantly. An ill-defined feeling filled all minds that severer storms would have to be met, now that the one man was no longer at the head of the state, who, spite of all oppositions, was known to hold a place in the hearts of the entire people. The Federalists of the Hamilton faction gave very decided expression to these fears, and Adams himself was fully conscious that his lot had fallen on evil days.3

It was natural that the complications with France should for the moment inspire the greatest concern. The suspicion that France was the quarter from which the new administration was threatened with greatest danger was soon verified by events.

I Gibbs, Mem. of Wolcott, I., pp. 461, 462. The elder Wolcott writes: Mr. Adams will judge right if he considers the present calm no other than what precedes an earthquake. He can only contemplate, as far as respects himself, whether he will meet a storm which will blow strong from one point or be involved in a tornado, which will throw him into the limbo of vanity. That he has to oppose more severe strokes than as yet it has been attempted to inflict on any one, I am very sure of, in case our affairs continue in their present situation, or shall progress to a greater extreme." Ibid, I., p. 476.

Adams writes in the account of the inauguration which he sen. his wife: "He [Washington] seemed to me to enjoy a triumph over me. Methought I heard him say: 'Ay! I am fairly out, and you fairly in; see which of us will be the happiest.'" Life of J. Adams, II., p. 223.

RUPTURE WITH FRANCE.

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The inaugural address touched on the relations between France and the United States only lightly. Adams had contented himself with speaking of his high esteem for the French people, and with wishing that the friendship of the two nations might continue. The message of May 16, 1797, on the other hand, addressed to an extraordinary session of congress, treated this question exclusivesively.1 The president informed congress that the directory had not only refused to receive Pinckney, but had even ordered him to leave France, and that diplomatic relations between the two powers had entirely ceased. In strong but temperate language he counseled them to unanimity, and recommended that "effectual measures of defense" should be adopted without delay. It is necessary "to convince France and the world that we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority, fitted to be miserable instruments of foreign influence, and regardless of national honor, character and interest." At the same time, however, he promised to make another effort at negotiation.

Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry were chosen to make an effort to bring about the resumption of diplomatic relations, and the friendly settlement of the pending difficulties. Their efforts were completely fruitless. The directory did not indeed treat them with open discourtesy, but met them in such a manner that only new and greater insults were added to the older. Gerry, for whom Adams entertained a feeling of personal friendship, was most acceptable to the directory, because he was an anti-Federalist. Talleyrand endeavored to persuade him to act alone. There can be no doubt whatever that Gerry had no authority to do so. Partly from vanity, and partly from fear of the consequences of a complete breach, he went just far

1 American State Papers, II., p. 387, etc.; Statesman's Man., I., p. 107, etc.

enough into the adroitly-laid snares of Talleyrand to greatly compromise himself, his fellow-ambassadors, and the administration. The want of tact was so much the greater, as Talleyrand, by three different mediators, gave the ambassador to understand that the payment of a large sum of money was a condition precedent of a settlement. In the early part of April, 1798, the president laid before the house of representatives all the documents bearing on this procedure. If, even before his administration had begun, the general feeling of the country had been constantly turning against France, now a real tornado of ill-will broke forth.

4

The anti-Federalists would willingly have given currency to the view that the ambassadors had been deceived by

'Charles F. Adams says in his biography of his grandfather: "Mr. Gerry, though he permitted the directory to create invidious and insulting distinctions, gave them no opening for advantage over himself." Life of J. Adams, II., p. 232. The facts do not justify this assertion. The president was himself very much offended by Gerry's conduct. And even the personal explanations afterwards made could only weaken, but not efface, the unfavorable impression which the president had received. It was not until Adams had begun to waver in his position on the French question, and had thus enlarged the differences between himself and his cabinet into a breach, that he found nothing to reproach Gerry with. In this case, as in many others, the judgment of Charles Francis Adams has been influenced by the desire to make his grand. father appear in the most favorable light possible. As, besides, his sources are almost never given, and the reader must be satisfied with the general assurance that they have been used conscientiously and exhaustively, this biography, on the whole a most excellent one, must be read with great care, especially in what relates to the actions and motives of Hamilton. Gerry appears in a somewhat too unfavorable light in Gibbs, Memoirs of Wolcott.

2

The secretary of state, Pickering, suppressed their names in his communication to congress, and designated them as X., Y., Z.; the whole affair was, therefore, called the "X. Y. Z. correspondence."

Am. State Papers, III., pp. 169–218.

◄ Gibbs, Mem. of Wolcott, I., pp. 493, 497, 499, 533, 542.