500

FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

[CHAP. VI.

of that clause of the Constitution which provides that persons held to service in one State, and escaping into another, shall be delivered up to the party to whom such service is due.

The law provided that the claimant, in such cases, might seize the fugitive, thus bound to service, and carry him before a judge or magistrate, and on proof of the facts, the magistrate might grant a certificate of the same, which was a warrant to take back the fugitive to the State from which he had fled. Any person obstructing the seizure or removal, or harboring the fugitive, incurred a penalty of eight hundred dollars.

This act continued in force until some years subsequently, when the feeling against slavery having greatly increased in strength, most of the non-slaveholding States, availing themselves of a decision made by the Supreme Court, that Congress had no power to impose duties on officers of the States, prohibited their magistrates from carrying the act of Congress against fugitives into execution. The consequence of which course was, that the law was unexecuted, and the claimants of fugitive slaves, under the provision of the Constitution, were without legal redress.

At the session of the Supreme Court of the United States in February, in a suit brought against the State of Georgia, the question was raised whether a State was liable to be sued; and all the judges, except one, decided that a State might be sued, in conformity with an express provision of the Federal Constitution.

This decision, supposed to be repugnant to the sovereignty of the States, and evidently mortifying to State pride, induced Mr. Sedgwick to propose an amendment to the Constitution taking away their liability to suits, which finally prevailed, and constituted the eleventh

1793.]

REVIEW OF THE FIRST CONGRESS.

501

amendment to the Constitution as framed by the Convention in 1787.

The claims of the continental officers of Massachusetts were, after a short debate, rejected by a large majority. The third of March put a constitutional end to the second Congress.

We may here pause to take a brief review of the progress and condition of the country during the lapse of four years since its present government went into operation.

In consequence of the powers vested in that government, justice to its creditors both at home and abroad had been vindicated, and so much confidence was felt as well in the ability as the good faith of the country to fulfil its engagements, that it found no difficulty in borrowing money in Europe on moderate terms, to the utmost extent of its wants. It had organized efficient systems for its treasury, its judiciary, its post-offices, its military forces, and its liberal and humane policy towards the aborigines of the country.

By the exercise of its power to regulate trade, in place of the rival and conflicting policy of different States, the injurious discriminations of other countries had been retaliated; a large and increasing revenue had been collected from the impost; and a spring having been thus given to navigation, to commerce, to manufactures, and to agriculture, the employment of four-fifths of the people had been proportionally benefited.

Opposition to the new government, once extending, in some of the States, to a moiety of their population, had gradually died away, and had now narrowed down to the spirit by which it was supposed to be administered, and even to a part of the individuals who composed the administration.

502

SALUTARY INFLUENCE OF PARTIES. [CHAP. VI.

If the rise of new parties, and an increasing bitterness between them, was some drawback, and indeed not a small one from the aggregate sum of national prosperity, it must be recollected that this evil is inseparable from the good of civil freedom, and that these party bickerings are not an uncompensated evil. They beget vigilance in one party, and circumspection in the other, by which much mischief is prevented, and occasionally their active rivalry produces a degree of positive good that would not otherwise exist.

The character of these parties, as we have seen, has its foundation in the principles of our common nature. They arise from the greater fear that some men have of the abuse of power when it is exercised by one or a few, and others have when it is exercised by multitudes. In the phases which these parties have exhibited in the United States, while cotemporaries find in one of them little to blame, and in the other little to commend, those who come after them, if they have the faculty of discrimination with candor, will occasionally meet with somewhat to commend and somewhat to censure in both. They will find suspicions to have been often unfounded, motives misrepresented, evil tendencies grossly exaggerated; and measures once supposed to threaten the welfare, or even safety of the community, to prove harmless and insignificant. What vestige now remains of the evils confidently predicted from either French or English influence? What of the corrupting tendencies of the Bank, or of the disloyalty to the Union of the Western States, formerly such fruitful themes of danger with political croakers?

Of those parties which prevailed during the administration of General Washington, it is probable that each contributed its part towards the public welfare. But

1793.]

SALUTARY INFLUENCE OF PARTIES.

503

for the republican jealousy of one party, the other might have attempted, and even have effected some changes in the government not in harmony with the genius and temper of the American people; and but for the Federalists, the General government might not have had that degree of power which subsequent experience has shown to be necessary. It might not have quelled, or attempted to quell the Pennsylvania insurrection, and the example of successful or unpunished resistance to the laws might have been followed by other States, and have led to more serious consequences.

If one party had possessed a greater preponderance, we might have been involved in the calamities of war, on the side of France; or, if the other had prevailed, we might have taken up arms against her. In either case, the wealth and prosperity of the country had probably been postponed ten or twenty years, to say nothing of the injury which might have resulted to its political institutions. Nay, in the short-sightedness of human wisdom, if Hamilton's party had entirely prevailed, their means of strengthening the government might have eventually led to that wild spirit of democracy which they dreaded; and, on the other hand, if Jefferson's policy had met with no counteraction, the undue power of the States and of popular resistance to salutary laws might, by a natural reaction, have led to a more energetic government, whose burdens and restraints men would have chosen to bear for the sake of the partial protection it afforded; and as the oak attains its most vigorous growth under alternate storms and sunshine, so to the clashing tendencies of those opposite parties, the United States owe the highest civil freedom which is compatible with the salutary restraints of law and order.

CHAPTER VII.

WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION.

SECOND TERM.

1793-1795.

THE administration, which had hitherto met with nothing to disturb its tranquillity but those party dissensions from which no people who are at once able to think and free to speak, are exempt, was soon to be put to more serious trials of its capacities and strength. At home it was about to encounter insurrection, and abroad it was threatened with the alternative of having its rights of navigation and commerce invaded by the belligerents of Europe, or of being subjected to the burdens and hazards of war.

Early in 1793, England, who had, until then, remained a quiet, if not an indifferent spectator of the popular excesses in France, partook of the general sympathy excited in behalf of the royal family; and, after the execution of Louis XVI., decided on war. But the French republic, aware of that purpose, determined to be beforehand with its great rival, and declared war as soon as the British government had withdrawn its minister from Paris, and ceased to recognize the French minister in England.

The President, who, as we have seen, was about to serve a second term, soon found that the war between France and England would give rise to important questions of policy in the United States, and that it would