“You mentioned my toast tonight. There will be fifteen other toasts,” Harper said. “How do I make mine stand out?”
Cobbett had been thinking about that. “The most important moment Marshall recounted in his dispatches was Pinckney’s exclamation when he rejected the bribe solicitations. He cried, ‘No, no, not a sixpence!’ There is much to be made of that. Your run-of-the-mine laborer understands such language more than any high-flown declarations of dull policy. Let me work on that.”
“We’ll meet in the barroom just before the dessert is served.”
Harper was seated near the guest of honor at the head table. Marshall, the returned envoy, was a low Federalist, moderate as Adams but far less excitable. He was not in favor of war unless the French invaded the Carolinas or came up through the port of New Orleans. He also told those at the head table he was doubtful that Americans were prepared to pay the taxes that raising an army and building a navy would bring. Harper, on the other hand, was a high Federalist, hot for Hamilton and energy in the Executive, and eager to ride the wave of resentment that most members of his faction felt surging in their voters at home. He slipped out to pass what he heard to Cobbett and to get his idea for what he should say.
Thus, when it came his turn to raise his glass in a toast to John Marshall, it was Robert Goodloe Harper who came up with the rallying cry that reverberated in the room and would be carried around the nation by the press and shouted at parades in the coming weeks: “Millions for defense—but not one cent for tribute!”
June 25, 1798
PHILADELPHIA
“The press is the engine.” Monroe had never heard Jefferson more certain of the best way to regain republican momentum and cool the war fever.
Monroe had ridden through the Virginia heat up to Francis’s Hotel at Jefferson’s request. He had been at his Virginia plantation writing his memoir justifying his years representing Washington in Paris, and was somewhat fearful of the news of a new onset of the summertime yellow fever in Philadelphia. But a summons from his leader at a critical time for the cause was not to be ignored.
James Madison joined them in a council of anti-war. The little former Congressman from Virginia (Monroe thought of him as little, though at five feet six, he was no shorter than John Adams) had been properly credited with fathering the Constitution nearly a decade before. Now he deferred to Jefferson as his political chief. Too much so, Monroe thought; with Jefferson always preferring to operate behind the scenes, there was a need for Madison to be more publicly engaged in public affairs. Fortunately, there was Albert Gallatin to take the leadership in pressing the republican cause in Congress. Though the Senate was hopelessly in the hands of Federalists, Monroe was pleased with the way Gallatin unified his minority of anti-Federalists in the House.
After some small talk about the time and money Madison spent on remodeling his home, Montpelier—and after he ordered 100,000 nails from Jefferson’s home nail factory—they came to the subject endangering the Republic.
“The XYZ dispatches account for a state of astonishment in the public mind,” Madison reported. “Its inevitable effect is to blast every chance of accommodation with France.”
“Adams’s message arming our merchant vessels is insane,” Jefferson said. “Any resistance from our democratic societies?” These local political groups were modeled on the Jacobin clubs in revolutionary France, to resist the concentration of power in Philadelphia. Alexander Hamilton had written a message for George Washington denouncing such “self-created societies,” but Jefferson, even while serving as Washington’s Secretary of State, had encouraged them.
“In several places the people have turned out with protests,” Madison replied, “against the war measures urged by the Executive. In our county in Virginia, a petition is to be handed about—”
“Not enough,” said the Vice President.
Monroe said he thought Jefferson was being alarmist, and indeed used that French term, alarmiste. In his view, the Talleyrand request was just an experiment in swindling that did not represent France’s policy, and he agreed with what Callender had written in his farewell appearance in the Aurora: that the horror registered by Marshall in his report would ultimately bring derision on our naïve envoys. As Jefferson’s successor as Minister to France, Monroe had seen much petty corruption. When he arrived there, he had been shocked at the arrangement made by his predecessor as American envoy, Gouverneur Morris, to share Talleyrand’s mistress in what was called a ménage à trois. Monroe assumed this new example of Gallic amorality—Talleyrand’s bribe request—was merely an extension of such private corruption, and surely had not been approved by the four-man ruling Directory. Jefferson waved that excuse aside as unacceptable to an aroused American public.
“Public sentiment,” Madison said with certitude, “is unquestionably opposed to every measure that may increase the danger of war.”
Monroe sadly shook his head; he knew that to be wishful thinking. So did Jefferson, who looked at his intellectual partner and political acolyte as if he were living on another planet. “The irritation pouring in from the great towns is becoming unbearable,” the Vice President pointed out. “Party passions are high. I receive daily proofs of it from angry people who never saw me, nor know anything of me but through Porcupine.”
At Jefferson’s mention of Cobbett’s newspaper, Monroe placed a copy of Porcupine’s Gazette on the table. “He’s discovered you gave a passport to Paris to your friend George Logan. Claims it’s proof of a Jacobin plot, led by you, to conduct foreign policy behind the back of the government.”
Jefferson winced. “Dr. Logan’s personal and unofficial venture was dictated by his own enthusiasm for peace, without consultation with me. But Porcupine gives me a principal share in it.” He added, lest his friends think he was a regular reader of the sheet that most effectively kept republicans on the defensive, “I was told that. I never read his paper.”
Monroe read aloud Cobbett’s twist on Logan’s trip: “ ‘Watch, Philadelphians, for the couteau at your throats: when your blood runs down the gutters, don’t say you weren’t forewarned of danger.’ No wonder the people are panic-stricken. Memories of the guillotine are too recent.”
Madison stopped trying to put a hopeful face on the disastrous turnaround against France in public sentiment. “The success of the war party,” he admitted, “in turning the XYZ dispatches to their inflammatory views, is mortifying. It suggests that the character of our citizens may not be enlightened.” His face bore a sour expression as he rumpled the ruffles on his shirt.
Monroe had to smile at what to Madison was a terrible admission of his misplaced faith. Madison was brilliant, sometimes even inspired, when it came to drafting a Bill of Rights, but hopeless as a political realist. He had been dead wrong in his Federalist paper on the need for organized political opposition, and he was equally blind to this day in his trust in the serene sagacity of the public.
“To be realistic,” Monroe countered, “let us assume we are not able to stem the tide toward war. That means President Adams would have to raise an army. That in turn means someone would have to be chosen to command that army who has the absolute confidence of all the people. Do you remember the last time that happened?”
“The Whiskey Rebellion of ’94,” said Madison instantly. The farmers around Pittsburgh wouldn’t pay Hamilton’s tax on grain they sold to make alcohol. When President Washington raised 12,000 troops, he brought his revolutionary aide-de-camp, Colonel Hamilton, back to be his second-in-command. “Washington and Hamilton scared off the Western farmers.”
“And made good republicans out of them,” Jefferson remembered. “That’s why we carried Pennsylvania, and why I hold this curious office today.”
“Put yourself in Adams’s shoes now,” Monroe went on, “and you saw how this war hysteria was making you popular for the first time in your life. You would not want the fever to end. To whom would you turn to head a costly army?”
“George W
ashington, again, of course,” said Madison, looking worried at the prospect. “And though reluctant to leave his retirement at Mount Vernon, he is too much a patriot not to do his duty. He would surely bring back Hamilton again.”
Jefferson was not so certain. “Adams would not want to do that. He wants so badly to be his own man.”
“Surely he fears Hamilton as a challenge within the Federalist ranks,” Monroe granted, “and he must know that most of his Cabinet gets their guidance from Hamilton. But Adams has no choice. If he is to maintain his popularity as defender of the national pride—if he is to ride the tide of war sentiment—then he must recruit Washington and suffer the public rise of Hamilton.” A thought occurred to Monroe to bolster his analysis: “Perhaps that’s why Hamilton suggested to Adams this trio of envoys in the first place. He was counting on them to fail in France so that he could get back in the saddle. I’ll bet he’s behind the ‘Day of Fasting and Humiliation’ next week. That’s intended to whip up more hatred and fear of foreigners in our midst.”
But Madison remained hopeful about Washington. “It is said, and I believe it, that the hot-headed proceedings of Mr. Adams are not well relished in the cool climate of Mount Vernon.”
Jefferson shook his head; Monroe’s dire forecast apparently made more sense to him. “Washington was fortunate to leave office just as the bubble is bursting, leaving others to hold the bag.”
“In raising a standing army, the voice will be the voice of Washington,” Monroe said, allowing himself a biblical paraphrase, “but the hand will be the hand of Hamilton.”
Jefferson pulled himself out of his overstuffed hotel-room chair and, on his feet, addressed his lieutenants. “We cannot allow events to run such a calamitous course.” The man Monroe knew to be essentially contemplative was being forced into action. “Though not one twenty-fifth of the nation, the Federalists command three-fourths of its newspapers.”
Monroe tried to explain that was because most commercial newspapers, often titled “advertisers,” were published in seaports and large towns interested in promoting trade with England and the kind of banking system Hamilton preached. The predominance of Federalist papers was a commercial outcome, not a political conspiracy.
Jefferson nodded and went right on. “We must marshal our support in the press. Bache’s paper, and also Carey’s and Cooper’s, totter for want of subscriptions. We must really exert ourselves to procure it for them, for if these papers fail, republicanism will be entirely browbeaten.”
The Vice President cited an example of previous support for the republican press: “As you know, I gave the State Department printing to Freneau when I was Secretary, but now his National Gazette is out of business.” Jefferson had been criticized at the time for subsidizing an editor critical of his own administration, but had refused to cut him off. “His paper saved our Constitution, which was galloping fast into monarchy, and was checked by no one means so powerfully as by that paper.”
Monroe hoped that in the future more gentlemanly editors could be found than those now being subsidized by republicans. Callender, Bache, William Duane and Thomas Cooper were as savage and low-class as the vulgar Cobbett was on the Federalist side. He knew that well-bred journalists like Samuel Smith wanted to establish a National Intelligencer; that was the sort of stable person to give a regular source of Federal income, if and when the time came.
Jefferson turned to Madison, who had returned to Virginia and all but abandoned public life, with a half-appeal, half-order. “Take up your pen against Hamilton.” Writing under the pen name of “Marcellus,” that all-too-brilliant New York lawyer was writing a series of articles in the Federalist press, giving an underpinning of intellect to the emotional anti-immigrant outbursts, thereby striking at the very heart of the republican popular support. Immigrants voted republican. “Hamilton’s life has been a tissue of machinations against the liberty of his country. But he is a legion, a host in himself. You know the ingenuity of his talents and there is no one but you who can foil him.”
He stood over the seated Madison, who leaned far back in his chair to look up at him. “For heaven’s sake, take up your pen and do not desert the public cause altogether. ”
“Perhaps if someone of your eminence—” Madison began, but had no chance to finish.
“At a very early period of my life,” Jefferson said, “I determined never to put a sentence into any newspaper. I have religiously adhered to the resolution through my life, and have great reason to be contented with it. Newspapers are a bear-garden scene into which I will enter on no provocation. But you two should. Now what about Callender?”
“He was the one who brought all this down on us—” Monroe started to say, but Jefferson motioned him to forget about the editor’s well-meaning misjudgment. Because the Vice President did not explicitly mention financial support for Callender, Monroe guessed that he had assumed that burden himself, which was fortunate because both he and Madison were financially strapped. Though Callender surely deserved sustenance for his large family after all he had done as the Jeffersonians’ conduit to bring down Hamilton, the fugitive from Scotland struck Monroe as undisciplined. Remembering what trouble that note of transmission to Reynolds had caused Hamilton, he hoped that Jefferson was using the utmost discretion in helping Callender. He had already suggested the sending of banknotes only through a trusted intermediary, without committing anything to writing.
“Our Scottish friend is in a sorry state,” said Madison. “When he came to importune me, he quoted Ossian, ‘I am alone in the land of strangers.’ Evidently an educated man, but guided by passion. And he’s worried about the Alien bills.” Federalists led by Harper proposed to give the President the power to deport aliens in peacetime as well as during a war. “There’s a monster of legislation that must forever disgrace its parents.”
“That’s a detestable thing,” Jefferson agreed, “worthy of the eighth or ninth centuries.”
They were all aware that Callender was a fugitive from a sedition prosecution in Scotland. If the Alien bill passed, he was sure to be deported, then tried in English courts and probably imprisoned for a long time. Prime Minister William Pitt was cracking down on sedition as never before.
“Impress on Gallatin the need to moderate that Alien bill in the House,” Jefferson directed Madison. “Callender is the main object of it, just as Gallatin himself is the target of the naturalization bill.” Harper and his fellow anti-immigrants were also proposing to change the waiting time for an alien to become a citizen from the present two years to fourteen years. Worse, they wanted to make the rule retroactive; that would remove Gallatin from Congress.
Monroe observed that Federalist leaders were aiming the current wave of hatred not just at the French living in America but at all foreigners, especially “the wild Irishmen” and Scottish opponents of Britain. “Spittin’ Matt Lyon,” fortunately, had been a soldier in the Revolution and was beyond the punitive bills’ fourteen-year reach, but Gallatin and Callender were not. Monroe knew that although Virginia aristocrats and political philosophers led the republican cause, they relied for popular support on immigrants in the north recently escaped from tyranny abroad, and on farmers in the west resentful of taxes. Small wonder that the Federalists wanted to cut off the immigrant flow and to deny a vote to those already here.
“This is the season for systematic energies and sacrifices,” Jefferson said. “The engine is the press,” he repeated, looking hard at Madison. “Every man who believes as we do must lay his purse and his pen under contribution. As to the money, I may be obliged to assume something. As to the pen, let me pray and beseech you to set apart a certain portion of every post day to write what may be proper for the public. Send it to me here, and when I go to Virginia I will let you know to whom you may send it, so that your names will be sacredly secret.”
Jefferson went to the window, hands clasped behind his back, and looked at the muddy street below. “There is now only wanting a Sedition bill,” h
e predicted, “which we shall certainly soon see proposed. The object of that is the suppression of our Whig presses. We must resist that mightily.”
“Perhaps there is enough virtue remaining in the public mind,” Madison suggested in his optimistic way, “to make arbitrary attacks on the freedom of the press recoil on their wicked authors.”
Virtue in the public mind? Monroe was less sanguine; people were more inclined to read the licentious press than to defend it. The United States under Adams, he feared, was entering its own Reign of Terror, perhaps without the guillotine, but similarly intended to repress all opposition to those in power. He saw coming the times, as Thomas Paine had written during an earlier American crisis, to try men’s souls.
Chapter 10
July 7, 1798
PHILADELPHIA
The shame at having helped make John Adams popular was the least of James Callender’s worries. More immediate was the yellow fever that had struck Philadelphia again and afflicted his wife. The epidemic struck every summer, seemingly heralded by the croaking of the frogs in the swamps around the town. This year, remembering the terrifying scourge of 1793, more than 1,500 families had fled the city. The Federal government was again moving to Trenton.
Like so many others, including women and children, Callender had taken to smoking cigars; the smoke was said to ward off the disease. The same preventive benefit was attributed to garlic. He bought two bulbs a day and carried cloves of the odoriferous plant in his pockets and every morning stuffed one in each of his shoes. Like everyone else determined to protect himself, he never went outside without a sponge impregnated with camphor and vinegar to wet his face and hands. The combination of smells was horrendous at first, but one got used to it, especially since it was the common practice. He had no idea if the smoke and the smell of garlic, camphor, vinegar and cigars protected anyone from the disease, but at least it discouraged the onslaught of the annoying mosquitoes.
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