CHAPTER VI.

THE DECLINE OF THE FEDERALIST PARTY

THE heat of the nation's wrath evoked by this conflict with France betrayed the Federalists in Congress into some pieces of tyrannical legislation. These were especially directed against refugees from France, lest they should attempt to re-enact here the bloody drama just played out there. Combinations were alleged, without proof, to exist between American and French democrats, dangerous to the stability of this Government.

A new naturalization act was passed, requiring of an immigrant, as prerequisite to citizenship, fourteen years of residence instead of the five heretofore sufficient. Next came three alien acts, empowering the President, at his discretion, without trial or even a statement of his reasons, to banish foreigners from the land; any who should return unbidden being liable to imprisonment for three years, and cut off from the possibility of citizenship forA "sedition act" followed, to fine in the sum of $5,000 each and to imprison for five years any persons stirring up sedition, combining to oppose governmental measures, resisting United States law, or putting forth "any false, scandalous, or malicious writings" against Congress, the President, or the Government.

ever.

To President Adams's credit, he was no abettor of these hateful decrees, and did little to enforce them. The sedition law, however, did not rest with him for execution, and was applied right and left. Evidently its champions were swayed largely by political motives. Matthew Lyon, a fiery Republican member of Congress from Vermont, had, in an address to his constituents, charged the President with avarice and with "thirst for ridiculous pomp and foolish adulation." He was convicted of sedition, fined $1,000, and sentenced to four months in prison. This impoverished him, as well as took him from his place in Congress for most of a session. Adams refused pardon, but in 1840 Congress paid back the fine to Lyons's heirs.

It is now admitted that these measures were unconstitutional, as invading freedom of speech and of the press, and assigning to the Federal Judiciary a common-law jurisdiction in criminal matters. But they were also highly unwise, subjecting the Federalist Party to the odium of fearing free speech, of declining a discussion of its policy, and of hating foreigners. The least opposition to the party in power, or criticism of its official chiefs, became criminal, under the head of " opposing" the Government. A joke or a caricature might send its author to jail as "seditious." It was surely a travesty upon liberty when a man could be arrested for expressing the wish, as a salute was fired, that the wadding might hit John Adams behind. Even libels upon government, if it is to be genuinely free, must be ignored-a principle now acted upon by all constitutional States.

But the Federalists were blind to considerations like these. As Schouler well remarks: "A sort of photophobia afflicted statesmen, who, allowing little for the good sense and spirit of Americans, or our geographical disconnection with France, were crazed with the fear that this Union might be, like Venice, made over to some European potentate, or chained in the same galley with Switzerland or Holland, to do the Directory's bidding. That, besides this unfounded fear, operated the desire of ultra-Federalists to take revenge upon those presses which had assailed the British treaty and other pet measures, and abused Federal leaders, and the determination to entrench themselves in authority by forcibly disbanding an opposition party which attracted a readier support at the polls from the oppressed of other countries, no candid writer can at this day question."

It was next the turn of the Republicans to blunder. In November, 1798, the Kentucky Legislature passed a series of resolutions, drawn up by John Breckenridge upon a sketch by Jefferson, in effect declaring the alien and sedition acts not law, but altogether void and of no force. In December the Virginia Legislature put forth a similar series by Madison, milder in tone and more cautiously expressed, denouncing those acts as

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palpable and alarming infractions of the constitution." A year after their first utterance, the Kentucky law-makers further "resolved that the several States who formed (the constitution), being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that

a nullification by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy." Virginia again declared it a State's right "to interpose " in such cases.

These resolutions were intended to stir reflection and influence opinion, and, if possible, elicit a concurrent request to Congress from the various States to repeal the obnoxious acts. They do not hint at the use of force. Their execration of the hated laws is none too strong, and their argument as a whole is masterly and unanswerable. But at least those of Kentucky suggest, if they do not contain, a doctrine respecting the constitution which is untenable and baneful, in kernel the same that threatened secession in Jackson's time and brought it in Buchanan's. The State, as such, is not a party to the Constitution. Still less is the Legislature. Nor is either, but the Supreme Court, the judge whether in any case the fundamental law has been infringed.

Procuring the resolutions, however, proved a crafty political move. The enormity of the despicable acts was advertised as never before, while the endorsement of them by federalist legislators went upon record. Petitions for repeal came in so numerous and numerously signed that the VIth Congress could not but raise a committee to consider such action. It reported adversely, and the report was accepted, the majority in the House, fifty-two to forty-eight, trying contemptuously to cough down every speaker lifting his voice on the opposite side.

This sullen obstinacy in favor of a miserable

experiment sealed the doom of Federalism. In vain did the party orators plead that liberty of speech and the press is not license, but only the right to utter "the truth," that hence this liberty was not abridged by the acts in question, and that aliens had no constitutional rights, but enjoyed the privileges of the land only by favor. The fact remained, more and more appreciated by ordinary people, that a land ruled by such maxims could never be free.

So a deep distrust of Federalism sprung up, as out of sympathy with popular government. It was furthered by the attachment of prominent Federalists to England. Several of them are on record as ready to involve the United States in an expedition planned by one Miranda, to conquer Spanish America in aid of Great Britain, Spain and ourselves being perfectly at peace. The federalist chieftains were too proud, ignoring too much the common voter. They often expressed doubt, too, as to the permanence of popular institutions. Federalism had too close affinity with Puritanism to suit many outside New England. And then-deadly to the party even had nothing else concurred-there was a quarrel among its leaders. Hamilton, the Essex Junto (Pickering, Cabot, Quincy, Otis), and their supporters were set against Adams and his friends. This rivalry of long standing was brought to a head by Adams's noble and self-sacrificing independence in accepting France's overtures for peace, when Hamilton, Pickering, King, and all the rest, out of private or party interest rather than patriotism, wished war.