American Aurora
Page 80
THADDEUS M’CARNEY sworn.
Ques.—Do your recollect being in church on Sunday week?
Ans.—Yes; I am a member of that congregation …
Ques.—Are you a citizen of the United States?
Ans.—No; I have been in the country only two years …
Ques.—Do you know whether it was or was not the desire of a number of the members of the congregation for the petition to be brought that day to obtain signatures?
Ans. I believe it was, because I for one would put my name to it …
The evidence on both sides being closed, Mr. Dallas rose on behalf of the accused, and addressed the court and jury.
May it please your Honours, Gentlemen of the Jury: …
[H]ow much astonished must you be to hear the evidence that has been produced … ! Who has not heard that a dark conspiracy has been formed to overthrow not alone the Constitution, but to subvert the very principles of our form of government? … [Y]ou have heard them called Jacobins! …
Is it possible that it should be said to be criminal to solicit signatures to a decent and dignified memorial for a redress of grievances? … Is this a ground for a charge of riotous proceedings? …
Mr. James Gallagher, jr. [i]ntoxicated with the phantasy of Jacobinism, his heart is struck upon seeing the walls contaminated with this Jacobinical notice and he valorously resolves to pull it down … [A]fter coming from the altar, his boiling zeal leads him to the most influential characters in the church who are successively alarmed … [F]orth he issues, foaming with political fury … These are the words of this young hero, “when he was down I kicked him three times.” This act … was perfectly consistent with the heroism of our temporary politics, for by kicking Dr. Reynolds three times while he was down, he became qualified to carry dispatches to France …
The jury retired, and in about half an hour entered in a letter, and sealed it, their verdict …1773
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
On Saturday, the 9th instant, expired the time for which Col. Matthew Lyon was sentenced to imprisonment … The reelection of Col. Lyon is a good comment of the people of Vermont on the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:
ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS
Mr. GALLATIN presented a petition from seven hundred and fifty-five inhabitants from the county of Chester [Pennsylvania] and another of seventy-eight inhabitants of Washington county … praying for a repeal of the alien and sedition laws.
Mr. BROWN presented petitions and remonstrances of the same nature from one thousand nine hundred and forty inhabitants of Montgomery county and from one thousand, one hundred inhabitants of Northampton county, both in the state of Pennsylvania.
Mr. McCLENACHAN presented a petition of the same kind from five hundred and eighty-seven inhabitants of the Northern Liberties of Philadelphia …1774
This morning, the jury’s verdict is unsealed. Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
THE SUNDAY RIOT
IT is not improbable but that our readers may be desirous to be acquainted with what legal proceedings have been taken in consequence of the riot that took place at St. Mary’s Chapel, on the Sunday before last … [T]he defendants were bound over … Mr. Thackery, engraver, was security for the appearance of William Duane … The Court proceeded to the trial of the defendants. The jury … brought in a verdict of not guilty.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
This city has been kept in a state of agitation during the whole of last and part of the present week by a transaction which, had it not undergone the form of a violent prosecution and a solemn, deliberate, fair, and open trial, could scarcely believed to have taken place in a society not utterly degenerated …
The persons implicated were Dr. James Reynolds, Robert Moore, Esq., William Duane, editor of the Aurora, and Samuel Cumming, printer. Two of them American citizens, all of them Irishmen or sons of Irishmen. They had been appointed a committee to receive the subscriptions of such natives of Ireland as might chuse to pray for a repeal of the Alien Bill. The memorial is already before the public, and in the peaceable and orderly act of receiving subscriptions, they were set upon by a number of persons and assaulted …
The four were each bound in 4000 dollars recognizances to stand trial. The trial took place on Wednesday, and the defendants were by the verdict of a jury found NOT GUILTY …
During the pendency of the trial, the papers called federal, including the English paper, let loose all the flood-gates of falsehood and malevolence … [H]ad the Aurora dared to repel this injustice, there would have been found some hungry minion to move the court.
But the verdict of an honest jury is the best reply to such unprincipled measures … To the honor of that jury, composed principally of frank Germans or their descendants, they gave a verdict of not Guilty to the utter confusion and shame of the authors of such a prosecution.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Lyon yesterday resumed his seat …
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Connecticut members [of Congress] are horribly alarmed by the encreasing number of the Aurora that passes into that State …
POLITICAL REFLECTIONS …
The French Republic has been, and still is, in a state of war and danger, and this state of war and danger have given to the [French] Executive an immense army to command, innumerable offices to bestow, a mighty mass of money to deal out, a control over the freedom of speech and of the press …
The usurped sway ascribed [by detractors] to the [French] Directory … cannot then be too much pondered and contemplated by Americans … They ought most generously to reflect on the evils of a state of war … to destroy the equilibrium of the departments of power by throwing improper weights into the Executive scale and to betray the people into snares which ambition may lay for their liberties …
It deserves to be well considered also that actual war is not the only state which may supply the means of usurpation. The real or pretended apprehensions of it are sometimes of equal avail to the projects of ambition …
[T]he fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad.
A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES
James Madison contributed this morning’s “Political Reflections.”1775
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[LONDON.] “In consequence of the remonstrance of the American Minister” (says a late London paper …) “the state prisoners in the several gaols in Dublin received official notice … that they could not go to any part of the United States as had been proposed.” …
This is the first direct exercise of the powers given to the President by the unconstitutional, inhuman, Turkish law respecting aliens …
Recollect, fellow-citizens, that our ancestors emigrated to this country with the view of escaping from the fangs of power … [A]sk yourselves whether … the oppressed of all nations have not the same right and title to migrate to this country and enjoy liberty as ourselves …
Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:
Mr. GREGG [Republican, Pennsylvania] presented two petitions praying for a repeal of the alien and sedition laws …
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania] presented another petition …
Mr. LIVINGSTON [Republican, New York]: one of a similar nature, signed by 2,500 citizens of New York.
Mr. HEISTER [Republican, Pennsylvania]: one of the same kind, from 1,400 inhabitants of Berks county.
Mr. BAYARD [Federalist, Delaware]: one from the inhabitants of Newcastle county, State of Delaware, signed by between 700 and 800 persons …
On motion of Mr. GOODRICH [Fe
deralist, Connecticut], the House went into a Committee of the Whole on the report of a select committee on the petitions praying for a repeal of the alien and sedition laws … [T]he committee beg leave to report the following resolutions:
Resolved, That it is inexpedient to repeal the act passed the last session, entitled “An act concerning aliens.”
Resolved, That it is inexpedient to repeal the [sedition] act …
Mr. GALLATIN rose and spoke …
When Mr. GALLATIN had concluded, the question was taken and carried—yeas 52, nays 48.1776
Al Gallatin “rose and spoke,” yet no one heard him. The Federalists drowned out his words!
Today, President Adams names two additional peace envoys (neither of them in Europe) for the mission to France and preconditions their departure on his receiving assurances from French Foreign Minister Talleyrand that they will be well received.1777
Today, President Adams approves and signs into law:
AN ACT
For the augmentation of the Navy.
BE it enacted &c., That … in addition to the naval armament already authorized by law, there shall be built within the United States, six ships of war, of a size to carry, and which shall be armed with not less than, seventy-four guns each; and there shall be built or purchased with the United States, six sloops of war, of a size to carry, and each shall be armed with, eighteen guns each …; and a sum not exceeding one million of dollars shall be and is hereby appropriated …1778
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The committee appointed to report upon the petitions from various parts of the Union against the Alien and Sedition Bill, brought up their report yesterday, which caused a very animated debate. After which, on the question implicating the repeal of those laws, the vote for repeal were 48, noes 52. So that the laws remain unrepealed !
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes James Madison:
Yesterday [the President] … sent in the nomination of [two additional] … Envoys … but declaring the two … should not leave this country till they should receive from the French Directory assurance that they should be received with the respect due … etc. This, if not impossible, must at least put off the day … of reconciliation and leave more time for new projects of provocation. Yesterday witnessed a scandalous scene in the House of Representatives. It was the day for taking up the report of their committee against the Alien and Sedition laws, &c … Gallatin took up the Alien, & Nicholas the Sedition Law; but after a little while of common silence, [the Federalists] began to enter into loud conversations, laugh, cough, &c., so that for the last hour of these gentlemen’s speaking, they must have had the lungs of a vendue master [auctioneer] to have been heard … It was impossible to proceed. The question was taken & carried in favor of [retaining these laws] … 52 to 48 …1779
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[T]he gentlemen now nominated [as envoys to France] are not to proceed until the president shall have received from the government of France assurances that they shall be received … [T]ime is lost … sending to France and receiving the replies … The matter must be done circuitously … And after the most satisfactory answers shall have been received, we shall be then precisely at the point from which we may now directly set out. Our ministers will then have to sail from hence to France. So that there is a super-addition of delay … procrastination …
Tonight, William Cobbett in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
For several days past, there has been a good deal of grumbling … respecting my comments on the report which Duane and Mother Bache had circulated on the subject of the nomination … I denied that Mr. Murray was to go to Paris alone to make a treaty. I most positively denied that any Envoy or Envoys were to go … ’till THE PRESIDENT HIMSELF had assurances of their being honorably received; and, if we are to credit the new report … I was perfectly correct, for, they now tell us, that the President has nominated THREE ENVOYS and that they are not to go to France till the assurances are received BY HIMSELF.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Why all the war measures … when there exists a conviction that peace is at our will ? Are standing armies such an amusement to the people that they are willing to be drained of their hard earnings to enjoy the spectacle ?
Today, President Adams approves and signs into law:
AN ACT
Concerning French citizens that have been or may be captured and brought into the United States.
BE it enacted …, That the President of the United States be and is hereby authorized to exchange or to send away from the United States to the dominions of France … all French citizens that have been or may be captured …1780
Today, Federalists in President Adams’ home state of Massachusetts undertake another effort to disable America’s second-largest Republican newspaper, the Independent Chronicle of Boston, whose publisher, Thomas Adams, has been ill since his federal indictment in October under the Sedition Act (his trial is set for June). This time, Federalists use the Massachusetts common law of criminal libel to indict not only Thomas Adams but also his younger brother and business manager, Abijah Adams, for a February 18th article that criticizes Massachusetts for failing to adopt the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. Use of state law means that defendants can’t claim truth as a defense and that prosecutors don’t have to wait for a federal court to reconvene. There will be an immediate trial. It’s a serious threat. Thomas Adams is too sick to attend. The jailing of his younger brother threatens the paper’s very existence.1781
FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Yesterday in the Senate, Mr. Jefferson gave notice that, inasmuch as the law seemed to require the retirement of the Vice President of the United States from the duties of President of the Senate before the close of the Session, in order that the Senate might elect a President pro tem; he gave notice that he should on the next day retire in order that a President of the Senate, pro tem. might be chosen.
The Federalist majority in the U.S. Senate will choose Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate and ultra-Federalist U.S. Senator James Ross to be the President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate.
Today, in Boston, Independent Chronicle business manager Abijah Adams goes on trial for seditious libel. (The publisher of the Chronicle, Thomas Adams, is too ill to stand trial.) Judge Francis Dana presides. The verdict: guilty. The sentence: imprisonment of the Chronicle’s manager for thirty days, payment of all prosecution costs, and a $500 one-year surety bond. What will become of the Chronicle?1782
SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
(COPY.) … [French] Minister of Foreign Relations [Talleyrand] to Citizen Pichon, Secretary of Legation of the French Republic [in The Hague] …
I HAVE received successively, Citizen, your letters … to detail to me your conversation with Mr. Murray [U.S. Minister at The Hague, Netherlands] …
[W]hatever plenipotentiary the government of the United States might send to France to put an end to our differences would be undoubtedly received with the respect due to the representative of a free, powerful and independent nation …
CH. MAU. TALLEYRAND
Adams has a copy of this letter but insists Talleyrand’s assurances be given directly to him. Is Adams stalling?
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
A gentleman with a horse-whip in his hand observed, the other day, a filthy, squalid and villainous looking wretch, muffled up in a great cloak, fleeing before him like a thief from the hands of justice. From the description, it was very probably [Jasper] Dwight, one of the editors of the Lucifer. Conscience frequently knocks thus at the hearts of villains and even visits them inwardly with those terrors which a sense of guilt infallibly produces.
FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
“The common practice of all nations” is resorted to by the committee who reported on the petitions for a repeal of the Alien and Sedition Laws as an argument why the Alien Law is right …
If the common practice of all nations is to legitimate the same practice here, we may next expect to hear that John Adams is a King; for it is the common tho’ not universal practice of nations to have a King; and therefore HE must be a King !
Today, from Quincy, Abigail Adams writes the President’s secretary, William Shaw, in Philadelphia:
If you see Fenno and are acquainted with him, tell him I say that I see the Death of his Father in many of his papers. I regret his loss and that of the public …1783
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States, Jack Fenno makes an amazing announcement:
I have always looked upon this [federal] government in the light in which it appears to have been viewed by General Washington and the Convention who framed it—a mere substitute for a better … [T]he reins of government are too lax … [The tendency of every amendment [each amendment being part of the Bill of Rights] has been to contract its means and impair its wholesome energies …
In the right of inserting a paltry piece of paper into the ballot boxes once or twice a year … I behold but a despicable substitute for that security and repose which I shall in vain look for … [L]iberty, nominal liberty … exists [as] a magnificent nothing in the stead of security and peace. At this moment indeed, it has given way to a more absurd and unmeaning substitute, Republicanism …