American Aurora
Page 66
THOMAS KENNEDY, THOMAS BEALE [&c.]
Like Benjamin Franklin, the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 will soon be gone.
Wednesday, April 15, 1789. Today, in New York City, John Fenno publishes his first issue of his Federalist newspaper, the Gazette of the United States.1558
Tuesday, April 21, 1789. Today, at the opening session of the new United States Senate, Vice President John Adams addresses the members, including:
It is with satisfaction that I congratulate the people of America on the formation of a National Constitution … on the acquisition of a House of Representatives chosen by themselves, of a Senate thus composed by their own State Legislatures, and on the prospect of an executive authority in the hands of one whose portrait I shall not presume to draw.1559
Friday, May 1, 1789. Today, in the U.S. Senate, Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay objects to the way John Adams refers to the President as “His most gracious …” William Maclay:
I must speak or nobody would. “Mr. President [of the Senate, John Adams], we have lately had a hard struggle for our liberty against kingly authority … The words [you have] prefixed to the President’s speech [“His most gracious speech”] are the same that are usually placed before the speech of his Britannic Majesty. I know they will give offence … I therefore move that they be struck out …”
Mr. Adams rose in his chair and expressed the greatest surprise that anything should be objected to on account of its being taken from the practice of that [British] Government under which we had lived so long and happily formerly … that, for his part he was one of the first in the late contest [the American Revolution] and, if he could have thought of this, he never would have drawn his sword …
The unequivocal declaration that he would never have drawn his sword, etc. has drawn my mind to the following remarks: That the motives of the actors in the late Revolution were various can not be doubted. The abolishing of royalty, the extinguishment of patronage and dependencies attached to that form of government, were the exalted motives of many … Yet there were not wanting a party whose motives were different. They wished for the … creation of a new monarchy in America, and to form niches for themselves in the temple of royalty.
This spirit manifested itself strongly among the officers at the close of the war … This spirit they developed in the Order of the Cincinnati, where I trust it will spend itself in a harmless flame and soon become extinguished. That Mr. Adams should, however, so unequivocally avow this motive … 1560
Tuesday, May 5, 1789. Today, outside Paris, a French monarch addresses representatives of the common people (the Third Estate) for the first time in nearly three centuries. Twelve hundred deputies of the three Estates General of France (the clergy, nobility, and common people) are assembled for the opening ceremony at the Hall of Menus in the Versailles Palace. France’s middle class, through its representatives, must face the national debt which, as King Louis XVI explains, was accumulated “in an honorable cause.”1561
WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1789
The Pennsylvania Gazette
NEW-YORK, May 1 …
Yesterday [April 30] at two o’clock was solemnly Inaugurated into office, our ILLUSTRIOUS PRESIDENT.
The ceremony was begun by the following procession from the Federal State-House to the President’s house, viz.
Troop of Horse.
Assistants.
Committee of Representatives.
Committee of Senate.
Gentlemen to be admitted in the Senate Chamber.
Gentlemen in coaches.
Citizens on foot.
On their arrival, the President joined the procession in his carriage and four, and the whole moved through the principal streets to the State-House …
When the van reached the State-House, the troops opening their ranks formed an avenue, through which, after alighting, the President advancing to the door, was conducted to the Senate Chamber, where he was received by both branches of Congress, and by them accompanied to the balcony or outer gallery in front of the State-House, which was decorated with a canopy and curtains of red interstreaked with white for the formal occasion. In this manner the oath of office required by the constitution was administered by the Chancellor of this state, and the illustrious WASHINGTON thereupon declared by the said Chancellor PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Today, May 6th, in Paris, Thomas Jefferson advises the Marquis de Lafayette, who is participating in the meeting of the Estates General, to disregard fellow noblemen and to serve the common people (the Third Estate):
Your principles are decidedly with the tiers etat [third estate], and your instructions against them … You will in the end go over wholly to the tiers etat, because it will be impossible for you to live in a constant sacrifice of your own sentiments to the prejudices of the Noblesse [nobility] …1562
Saturday, May 9, 1789. Today, in the United States Senate, Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay records debate concerning a title for America’s chief executive:
At length the committee came in and reported a title—His Highness, the President of the United States of America and Protector of the Rights of the Same.
Mr. Few had spoke a word … I got up and expressed my opinion … Mr. Reed got up … Mr. Strong spoke … Mr. Dalton, after some time, spoke … Mr. Izard … was for a postponement. I could see that the President [of the Senate, John Adams] kindled at him …
Up now got the President [of the Senate, John Adams], and for forty minutes did he harangue us from the chair … On he got on his favorite topic of titles, and over the old ground of the immense advantage, of the absolute necessity of them.
Gentlemen [he said], I must tell you that it is you and the President that have the making of titles …1563
John Adams will lead the Senate (the “aristocratic chamber”) to seek titles, but the House of Representatives (the “democratical chamber”) will oppose them. Following a deadlock of the two houses,1564 no legislation for special titles will be adopted.
Monday, May 11, 1789. Today, in the United States Senate, John Adams suffers some embarrassment from the harangue he delivered Saturday on titles. Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay:
[S]undry gentlemen of the Senate [were] dissatisfied with our Vice-President … His grasping after titles has been observed by everybody. Mr. Izard, after describing his air, manner, deportment, and personal figure in the chair, concluded by applying the title of [His] Rotundity to him.1565
Saturday, May 23, 1789. Today, U.S. Congressman James Madison of Virginia writes his friend, Thomas Jefferson, in Paris:
J. Adams espoused the cause of tides with great earnestness … The projected title was—His Highness the President of the U.S. and protector of their liberties. Had the project succeeded it would have … given a deep wound to our infant government.1566
Thursday, June 4, 1789. Today, Dr. Benjamin Rush writes his friend John Adams:
I find you and I must agree not to disagree, or we must cease to discuss political questions …
Why should we accelerate the progress of our government towards monarchy? Every part of the conduct of the Americans tends to it. We shall have but one deliverer, one great, or one good man in our country. For my part, I cannot help ascribing the independence and new government to thousands …
I shall add … that I am as much a republican as I was in 1775 and 6, that I consider hereditary monarchy and aristocracy as rebellion against nature, that I abhor titles and everything that belongs to the pageantry of government …1567
Tuesday, June 9, 1789. Today, John Adams writes Benjamin Rush,
No! you and I will not cease to discuss political questions …
That every Part of the Conduct and Feelings of the Americans tends to that species of Republick called a limited Monarchy I agree. They were born and brought up in it …
I also am as much a Republican as I was in 1775. I do not “consider hereditary Monarchy or Aristocracy as Rebellion against Nature.” On the contrary, I
esteem them both as Institutions of admirable wisdom and exemplary Virtue in a certain stage of Society in a great nation. The only Institutions that can possibly preserve the laws and Liberties of the People, and I am clear that America must resort to them as an asylum during discord, Seditions and Civil War, and that at no very distant period of time. I shall not live to see it—but you may. I think it therefore impolitick to cherish prejudices against Institutions which must be kept in view as the hope of our Posterity. I am by no means for attempting any such thing at present. Our country is not ripe for it in many respects, and it is not yet necessary, but our ship must ultimately land on that shore or be cast away.
I do not abhor Titles, nor the Pageantry of Government. If I did I should abhor Government itself, for there never was, and never will be, because there never can be, any government without Titles and Pageantry.1568
Wednesday, June 17, 1789. Today, in France, representatives of the Third Estate (the common people) refuse to recognize a second “upper chamber” of nobility and clergy to veto their decisions. They declare that they constitute the sole National Assembly, that they fully represent the general will of the nation, that existing taxes are null and void until ratified by their assembly, and that the nobility and clergy must join them. As I write in my history,
From the moment of this event … may justly be dated the commencement of the revolution—when privileged orders and feudal distinctions—the stupendous fabric of ecclesiastical authority and the magnificence and power of the hoary monarchy of France, crumbled into ruin beneath the breath of a nation awakened into action …1569
Friday, June 19, 1789. Today, John Adams writes Benjamin Rush,
What do you mean … by Republican systems? … You seem determined not to allow a limited monarchy to be a republican system, which it certainly is, and the best that has ever been tryed …
How can you say that Factions have been few in America? Have they not rendered Property insecure? … have not Majorities voted property out of the pocketts of others into their own with the most decided Tyranny?1570
Today, John Adams also writes Major General Benjamin Lincoln:
Tho I cannot say that there is no Colour for the objection against the Constitution that it has too large a proportion of Aristocracy in it, yet there are two checks to the Senate evidently designed and prepared, The House of Representatives on one side and the President on the other. Now the only feasible remedy against this danger [of too much Aristocracy] is to compleat the Equilibrium by making … the President [with a full veto] as independent of the other Branches as they are of him. But the Cry of Monarchy is kept up in order to deter the People from succoring to the true Remedy and to force them into … an entire reliance on the popular branch and a rejection of the other two.1571
Friday, June 26, 1789. Today, John Adams writes that government leaders must have titles:
Why will you afflict the modesty of any gentlemen by expecting that they will give themselves titles[?] They expect that you their creators will do them honor. They … will not be offended if you assert your own majesty by giving your own representatives in the executive authority the title of majesty. Many … think Highness not high enough, among whom I am one …1572
Sunday, July 5, 1789. Today, Vice President John Adams writes Benjamin Rush,
You say you “abhor all titles.” … There is no person and no Society to whom Forms and Titles are indifferent … [W]e shall find national Titles essential to national Government … It is to make offices and laws respected; and not so much by the virtuous parts of the Community, as by the Profligate, the criminal and abandoned, who have little reverence for Reason, Right or Law, divine or human. They are overawed by Titles frequently, when Laws and Punishments cannot restrain them …1573
Saturday, July 11, 1789. Today, from Paris, U.S. Minister to France Thomas Jefferson sends Tom Paine news of the French Revolution:
A conciliatory proposition from the king having been accepted by the Nobles … the Commons [Third Estate] voted it to be a refusal and proceeded to give a last invitation to the clergy and nobles to join them … This done, they declared themselves a National Assembly, resolved that all the subsisting taxes were illegally imposed … The aristocratical party made a furious effort … The Common chamber (that is the Tiers [Third Estate] and the majority of clergy who joined them) bound themselves together by a solemn oath never to separate till they had accomplished the work for which they met. Paris and Versailles were thrown into tumult and riot … 48 of the Nobles left their body and joined the common chamber … [T]he next day the king wrote a letter with his own hand to the Chamber of Nobles and the minority of the Clergy, desiring them to join immediately the common chamber. They did so, and thus the victory of the Tiers [Third Estate] became complete … The National Assembly then (for this is the name they take) … are now in complete and undisputed possession of the sovereignty. The executive and aristocracy are now at their feet: the mass of the nation, the mass of the clergy, and the army are with them. They have prostrated the old government and are now beginning to build a new one from the foundation.1574
Tuesday, July 14, 1789. Today, in an act of violence that will come to symbolize the French Revolution, a throng of ordinary French citizens seize Paris’ old arsenal and prison (the Bastille), kill its guards, and release its prisoners. Henceforth, the French Revolution will be celebrated annually on July 14th (“Bastille Day”).1575
Thursday, July 16, 1789. Today, Paris delegates to the French Assembly proclaim the hero of the American Revolution the Marquis de Lafayette as “commander of the militia” (now the National Guard).1576 Lafayette has designed a new emblem of democracy for his militiamen, the king, and everyone else to wear. It’s a tricolored cockade. Colors are red, white, and blue.1577
Friday, July 17, 1789. Today, Thomas Jefferson writes Tom Paine:
The people of Paris forced the prisons of St. Lazare, where they got some arms. On the 14th, they took the Invalids, and Bastille … The city committee is determined to embody 48,000 Bourgeois and named the Marquis de la Fayette commander in chief.1578
Friday, July 24, 1789. Today, in the United States, John Adams writes Benjamin Rush:
I deny that there is or ever was in Europe a more free Republic than England or that any liberty on earth ever equalled English liberty … I agree with you that hereditary Monarchy and hereditary Aristocracy ought not yet to be attempted in this Country—and that three balanced Branches ought to be at stated Periods elected by the People. This must and will and ought to continue till intrigue and Corruption, Faction and Sedition shall appear in those elections to such a degree as to render hereditary Institutions a Remedy against a greater evil …
The Nation ought not to degrade its conductor by too low a Title … I totally deny that there is any Thing in Reason or religion against Titles proportioned to Rank and Truth, and I affirm that they are indispensably necessary to give Dignity and Energy to Government …
The most modest Title you can give [your national Conductor] in any reasonable Proportion to the wealth, Power, and population of this Country and to the constitutional authority and Dignity of his office is “His Majesty, the President.” This is my opinion, and I scorn to be hypocrite enough to disguise it.1579
Wednesday, July 29, 1789. Today, from Paris, Thomas Jefferson answers James Madison’s letter of May 23rd:
The [American] President’s title as proposed by the senate was the most superlatively ridiculous thing I ever heard of. It is a proof the more of the justice of the character given by Doctr. Franklin of my friend [John Adams]: “Always an honest man, often a great one, but sometimes absolutely mad.” I wish [John Adams] could have been here [in Paris] during the late scenes. If he could then have had one fibre of aristocracy left in his frame, he would have been a proper subject for bedlam.1580
Tuesday, August 4, 1789. Tonight, two noblemen, the Viscount Louis-Marie-Antoine de Noailles (Lafayette’s brother-in-law, who volunteered with him in
the American Revolution) and the Duc de La Rochefoucauld (president of the Constituent Assembly, who first translated and published Ben Franklin’s Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 in France), both admirers of Franklin and America, lead the French Constituent Assembly to end feudalism and attendant seignorial privilege in France. Property will no longer create special rights or personal servitudes.1581 As I write in my history,
several of the nobility … offered, as a sacrifice on the altar of liberty, those privileges the late declaration had left them; declaring that they considered the title of a citizen of France as the most honourable dignity they could possess.1582
Sunday, August 9, 1789. Today, in Paris, Thomas Jefferson passes on to William Carmichael, former assistant to the American commissioners, some news Jefferson received from America:
The Senate and Representatives differed [and deadlocked] about the title of the President … I hope the terms of Excellency, Honor, Worship, Esquire forever disappear from among us from that moment. I wish that “Mr.” would follow …
Congress were to proceed … to propose amendments to the new [U.S. federal] constitution. The principal would be the annexing a Declaration of Rights to satisfy the minds of all on the subject of their liberties …
To detail you the events of this country … The [French] legislature will certainly have no hereditary branch, probably not even a select one (like our Senate) … [V]ery many are for a single house, and particularly the Turgoists … Their representation will be an equal one, in which every man will elect …1583