Now that he was free and could hold his head high in society, Callender wanted to be able to afford a decent suit of clothes and the price of a good meal for two at the best tavern in Richmond. He had never treated his late wife to that and regretted the years of denial he had inflicted on her. It had taken all his courage to invite Maria to join him at the dinner celebrating the republican triumph.
At the Price Tavern in Albemarle County, seat of the Monroe and Walker and Jefferson plantations, that dinner was held to hail both the new President’s ascension and his loyal editor’s release. Callender, embarrassed by the shabbiness of his clothes, escorted his well-dressed companion to their table in the tavern’s large hall. He was proud to see how the statuesque woman who went by the name of Maria Clement, her brunette tresses done up in what he assumed was the latest European fashion, turned more than a few heads of the Virginia gentry.
At the tables was that day’s edition of the Richmond Examiner with the new President’s inaugural address prominent on the front page. “Go ahead and read it,” the understanding Maria said, and struck up a conversation with the man to her left. Callender perused it avidly.
He was disappointed in the tone of Jefferson’s address. Instead of boldly charting a new course toward republican principles, it struck him as unduly conciliatory toward the routed Federalists. “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle,” Jefferson told a nation so recently riven by genuine disagreement about the form and extent of government. “We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists.”
Water-gruel pap! Callender told himself to calm down; Jefferson intended to avert disunion, not to abandon principle. The new President did have something to say in favor of liberty of the press and the diffusion of information, which the writer took to be an acknowledgment of his efforts, and in favor of freedom of religion, which he took to be a subtle slap at the militant Congregationalists and all those who slandered him as an atheist. But the overall tone of the address was to cool passions, not to set a new course; Callender hoped that did not augur ill for the republican cause. What would Hamilton have said if it were his inaugural? Surely not “we are all Republicans.”
In Jefferson’s home county, however, the mood was joyously partizan. Edward Moore, a plantation owner who had been a captain in General Washington’s army, rose to toast the guest of honor.
“To James Thomson Callender,” he said, glass of good red wine in hand, “who came to us from Scotland with all the fire and genius of lovers of freedom there—and who looks down on his persecutors with their merited contempt!”
The crowd of Virginians, rich and not so rich, came to their feet and applauded and cheered their imported champion. That had never happened to him; the only time he had moved a crowd was in Leesburg two years before, where a mob of ruffians beat him up.
“You have to respond,” Maria whispered to him.
“I haven’t written anything.”
“Say what you would write. But speak up, so all can hear.”
Callender forced his voice to speak loudly enough to be heard throughout the tavern. “To me, writing and printing form not only the business, but the pleasure of my life,” he said. That was not an especially stirring beginning, but the crowd, eager to show its appreciation for his sacrifice, applauded anyway. Warmed by the reception and the feeling of a glass of wine in his hand, Callender pressed on. “I would not, for all the money in the world, be divested of the elation I feel tonight—for having been able to go straight through this great national crisis, without looking back on one moment of trimming or flinching.”
That drew cheers. Not many of these hardy followers of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, he knew, counted themselves among the pleaders of compromise with the defeated Federalists. Encouraged, he plunged deeper: “You and I know there are some republicans who have shown the most wretched timidity and sycophancy over this past decade. They are the trimmers, trucklers, apostates”—derisive synonyms for moderation came easily to him—“turncoats, halfway hobblers, and water-gruel republicans. Let them make their peace now with their consciences, if they have any.”
Callender’s voice was giving out, but he was not to be stopped from giving the Federalists the back of his hand, and from urging a clean sweep of the Federal offices. “Those of us who have been the victims of the Federalists’ partizan zeal,” he said, just loudly enough to be heard, “will never forget the long nights in cold cells. Nothing can be an act of more exquisite justice than that, as the poet Thomson, my uncle, phrased it, ‘these tyrants should feel the pangs they gave’!”
“What will you do now, James?” she asked. Bundled in overcoats against the late-winter cold, they were riding with two other couples in the late coach back to Richmond.
“I will give the men of the new administration a week to find their new offices,” he said, still excited by the reception to his speech. He wished that Cobbett could have been there to hear it; that would have blunted a few of the Porcupine’s quills. The Scot had been pleased to hear at the dinner that the British lackey had been driven out of Philadelphia and had to seek the protective arms of Hamilton in New York, but he thought better of expressing that thought aloud in the crowded coach. “Then I shall go up to the District of Columbia, which hardly existed when I was sentenced, to pay a call on the new President.”
“Will you ask for a pardon? The Sedition Act lapsed when Adams left office, and it’s hardly fair that you should have a conviction against your good name.”
“Matt Lyon and I have been promised that,” he said, acutely aware of his leg pressing against hers in the tight carriage seat, “but I have two more important matters in mind.” Two hundred dollars and the postmastership in Richmond were not too much to expect for the years spent on the republican ramparts. The talent that ignited what Jefferson called “the flame of public opinion,” and the nine long months spent in solitary confinement helping to fan that flame into the blaze of victory, deserved the fine back and much more.
The stage driver stopped his coach in front of the portico of the Richmond home of Dr. Mathew. Callender hopped out and offered his hand to Maria, who stepped down carefully, wincing a little. They walked up the steps to the door and he awkwardly shook her hand, not having thought beforehand what to say at parting.
She took off her hat and shook her hair free. Leaning forward, she kissed him lightly on the cheek and said she was his lonely friend and hoped he would call on her at teatime some afternoon soon. He swallowed and nodded vigorously, not wanting to ask what time teatime was.
Chapter 29
April 6, 1801
WASHINGTON , D . C .
Much as he found the profpect distafteful, James Madison could not avoid seeing Callender. The man Jefferson had just appointed Secretary of State had not originally been an advocate of faction—indeed, had thought excessive partizanship would be a threat to the comity necessary to the workings of good government. Although the emergence of what Jefferson liked to call Whig and Tory factions demonstrated the inevitability of political conflict, Madison clung to the hope that the clash of ideology in America would be moderated. To his mind, this Scottish immigrant Callender—as passionate for liberty as his English counterpart Cobbett lusted for order—represented much that was mean and vindictive in American democracy.
“I am here because Tom Jefferson wouldn’t see me,” Callender began by saying. Madison bridled at the editor’s calling the President of the United States by his first name. “He sent out his secretary, a Captain Lewis, to say he was busy with affairs of State.”
“I’m sure he is.” Madison knew Meriwether Lewis to be the former officer that Jefferson had in mind for a mapmaking study, perhaps leading to Western exploration. The man, a Virginia neighbor, was entirely trustworthy. As secretary to the President, he could be counted on to keep the likes of Callender at a distance from the Chief Magistrate.
“I marvel at Jeffe
rson’s ostentatious coolness and indifference,” said Callender.
“Not so indifferent as to fail to sign your pardon, Mr. Callender.” Madison noticed how the man’s hands and voice were trembling. Too much rum, he supposed; the editor, like so many of the Scottish and “wild Irish” radicals, had often been accused by Cobbett of being a hard drinker. “Pardoning you and Matthew Lyon were two of President Jefferson’s first acts in office, and I was pleased to countersign them.”
He went to a table stacked high with the “midnight appointments” that Adams had made of scores of Federal judges just before departing. The Senate had confirmed them just before adjournment, thereby hoping to pack the judicial branch with stalwart Federalists. But the Secretary of State would not sign their commissions nor would the new President administer the oath of office. The Federalist John Marshall had been sworn in as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the nick of time as Adams’s final insult to Jefferson.
Madison withdrew Callender’s pardon from the drawer under the table and presented the doubly signed document to the fully pardoned man. “You can truthfully say you have no stain on your record as a citizen of the United States. No man can call you a felon.” What stains there were on his record for sedition in his native Scotland, the Secretary of State did not add aloud, remained unpardoned.
Callender glanced at the parchment and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. “It is now seven weeks since I had a written message from Jefferson,” he said, “with his solemn assurance that he ‘would not lose one moment’ in remitting my fine. His cousin George read it to me and then threw the note in the fire, lest I have proof of the promise. The President took unusual pains to make his promise both explicit and guarded.”
Good for George Jefferson, the President’s reliable kinsman, thought Madison; discretion was important in these sensitive dealings.
“I happen to know,” added Callender, “that one week ago, Governor Monroe reminded Jefferson of his promise in Charlottesville. And still nothing.”
“The order was given to Marshal Randolph to remit your fine,” Madison reported. He knew that to be true; when the order would be carried out was another matter. Randolph was an Adams appointee and would probably do all he could to delay the repayment for months, perhaps years. If Callender had to wait, he would just have to learn to be patient.
“On the strength of Jefferson’s promise to return my money,” said Callender, “I wrote up to Mr. Leiper that I would send him two hundred dollars for the support of my boys. I do not want them to be sent off to a poorhouse or forced to work in the fields. I have now found it necessary to write him thus: ‘Mr. Jefferson has not returned one shilling of my fine. I now begin to know what ingratitude is.’ And I do.”
“Ingratitude or gratitude has nothing to do with this. The pardon included a remission of your fine. These things take time.”
“My story should reach the heart of a millstone,” said Callender bleakly, “but I might as well be speaking to Lot’s wife.” He drew a deep breath. “I am obliged to speak plain, for necessity has no law. Does the President reflect upon the premunire into which he may bring himself by the breach of an unqualified promise that he volunteered? Does he reflect how his numerous and implacable enemies would exult in knowing this piece of small history?”
Madison understood the writer’s reference to a premunire, or writ, in English law against one who procured charges against the crown. He thought Callender’s legal threat was absurd. Would this ardent republican dare to go to court and reveal Jefferson’s promise to repay his fine, and claim that promise was one of the inducements that caused him to attack President Adams? And yet, if he had it in writing from Jefferson, that might be awkward.
“Gentlemen do not make threats,” was all Madison said.
“I never hinted a word of this to any human being but yourself,” Callender said sharply. “Notwithstanding the occasional rattle of my tongue, I can keep a secret as well as anybody. Jefferson has repeatedly told me that my services were considerable; that I made up the best newspaper in America.” He shook his head in wonderment. “I had no more idea of such mean usage of me by him now that he is in power than that the mountains were to dance a minuet.”
Madison observed silently that the man spoke as colorfully as he wrote.
“But you, Excellency—you say I am not a gentleman.”
“I never said—”
“I am not, to be sure, very expert in making a bow,” said Callender in sarcasm, “or at supporting the sycophancy of conversation. I speak and write what I think; God made plain speech a part of my constitution.” He left his chair and placed his knuckles on Madison’s table, staring him close in the face. “But Mr. Jefferson and you should recollect that it is not by beaux, and dancing masters, or by editors who would look extremely well in a muslin gown and petticoat, that the battles of freedom are to be fought and won.”
“You are unduly upset, my good man.” He motioned for his visitor, whose face had turned ashen, to resume his seat. Madison, dressed as was his custom in silk stockings and black breeches and with powdered hair, did his best in surveying the disheveled Callender to conceal his repugnance. “But you must consider the propriety of repaying the debt to you here in Washington. That is a matter to be handled locally.”
“Payments to me were never made on the basis of geography. Jefferson paid me in Philadelphia and Jefferson sent money to me in Richmond. Now you say no payment can be made in this holy capital? Can it be, sir, that you now disdain support of the member of the press who has most loyally supported you?”
“My views about the liberty of the press are unchanging.” Madison restated them for this troublesome upstart: “I have said often that it is to the press alone—chequered as it is with abuses—the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”
“I had not heard you say it with that qualifying clause before,” said Callender with discomfiting accuracy. “How little you complained of ‘abuses’ when they were directed at Hamilton and Adams.”
Madison had to concede that point and it irritated him. Porcupine, Duane, Callender and the lot of them kept referring to him in print as “Little Madison.” He stood five feet six inches, exactly the same as John Adams, and few called Adams “Little.”
Callender’s defiance suddenly dissolved. “I have gone to such desperate lengths to serve the party.” Madison, glad that his coolness had produced a good effect, nodded agreement; he acknowledged that the editor’s trial and jail service had indeed rallied support for republicans. “But I believe your friend designs to discountenance me,” Callender pleaded. “I fear that he and you intend to sacrifice me as a kind of scapegoat to political decorum and as a compromise to Federalist feelings.”
Madison could not respond to that with more than a shake of the head because he knew it to be true. It was not in his nature to dissemble.
“It’s hard to believe,” the distraught writer went on. “Surely a wiser man than Jefferson does not exist. His probity is exemplary. His political ideas are, to the minutest ramification, precisely mine.”
“Perhaps not precisely,” said Madison carefully, “at least in terms of party spirit. You are, you must agree, far more of a passionate partizan.”
“I read his Inaugural Address,” said Callender, anger surging back. “One line was unforgettable. ‘We are all Federalists; we are all Republicans.’ Is that his new political philosophy? You and he now see no difference between Tories and Whigs, or between the farmers in Richmond and the bankers in Boston? How do we stand in war between France and Great Britain—are we foursquare for both?”
“The newspapers, unfortunately, capitalized words that led to a misimpression,” Madison informed him. “I can assure you that in President Jefferson’s own handwriting, the words ‘federalist’ and ‘republican’ were not capitalized. He was referring to the principles of federalism, about which Hamilton and Jay and I wrote many p
apers in support, and to republicanism, the nature of our government.”
“Ah, now there are three of us who understand that nicety. But the message to the rest of the country is that there is no difference between those who stood for tyranny and sedition with Adams and those who fought for the rights of man with Jefferson.”
Madison gave him what he hoped would be taken as a look of cold disdain.
“I can remember Jefferson saying that the cherishment of the people was our principle, and the fear and distrust of the people was the principle of the other party.”
Madison squirmed in his chair and could not dispute the point. Who knew what Jefferson might have said to this man? That may have been said in the heat of a political contest; but in governing, civility and accommodation were more appropriate.
“It forms one of the topicks of Mr. Jefferson’s self-approbation,” Callender said, “that in his whole life he never wrote a single article for a newspaper.”
“That’s true. President Jefferson is proud of that.” Madison sensed the irony in his admission. In the pseudonymous newspaper harangues early in the Washington Administration, it was Madison who had to counter the potent pen of Hamilton; Jefferson could never bring himself to take on the task, even under a pen name. Madison understood where Callender’s argument was headed.
“Jefferson’s duty, then, is to be thankful to the persons who did write for the public in his behalf. For four years, with a sinecure salary as Vice President of five thousand dollars a year, he chose to stand neuter. Like Nero, he fiddled while Rome burned. Today, ensconced at the center of all power, he should at least have the decency to thank those more adventurous citizens who rushed to defend the ramparts of liberty.”
Scandalmonger: A Novel Page 32