American Aurora
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Peter Porcupine:
This bill amounted to a disbanding of the army; because it was well known that Adams, who was now laying in a provision of popularity against the ensuing election for President, would issue orders for disbanding the moment the Congress adjourned …1970
John Adams will reflect:
[T]he army was as unpopular as if it had been a ferocious wild beast let loose upon the nation to devour it. In newspapers, in pamphlets and in common conversation they were called cannibals. A thousand anecdotes, true or false, of their licentiousness were propagated and believed.1971
Jimmy Callender:
It was as clear as evidence could make it that Mr. Adams himself was the prime mover of all those military outrages which had occurred in the annals of his inestimable army. Who flogged Schneider the German printer? Soldiers in the pay of the president … Of whom did the gang consist that attacked the printer of the Aurora? They were an attachment of the same corps.1972
Today, in the Senate of the United States, the Annals of Congress report:
MR. BINGHAM presented an additional remonstrance and petition of a number of citizens of … Philadelphia, “praying the Senate to reconsider the resolutions by them adopted on the subject of privilege in the case of William Duane.”
And on motion that the remonstrance be read, it passed in the negative—yeas 7, nays 12 …
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate be and he is hereby, authorized to pay to James Mathers, acting as Sergeant-at-Arms to the Senate, out of the contingent fund the sum of one hundred and forty dollars, for extra services [in seeking the arrest of William Duane] …
On motion that it be
Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to instruct the proper law officer to commence and carry on a prosecution against William Duane, editor of the newspaper called the Aurora, for certain false, defamatory, scandalous, and malicious publications in the said newspaper … tending to defame the Senate of the United States …
It passed in the affirmative—yeas 13, nays 4 …
Ordered, That the Secretary lay an attested copy of the foregoing resolution before the President of the United States …
The PRESIDENT [of the Senate], agreeably to the joint resolution of the 12th instant, adjourned the Senate to meet again on the third Monday of November next, as the law provides.1973
Three to four thousand people have signed petitions to the United States Senate on my behalf.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
That wretched vehicle of vulgar rage and ignorance, the Aurora, exults loudly in what is deemed, by the starveling scribblers in that Gazette, a scene of delicious confusion …
Duane says his Aurora is the Government paper and that he is going to the City of Washington. He might be employed at Washington, after a manner level to his talents, in carrying hods of bricks and mortar up a ladder, but, as to printing the government paper, it is impossible that a man of his modesty and independence of spirit could seriously think of such a thing.
THE Editor of this Gazette is happy to inform his Subscribers that he has made arrangements as to be able to continue the publication of the Gazette of the United States with encreased activity and exertion.
Sensible of the important influence of Newspaper upon the public opinion, it will be studied to make this paper the vehicle of constant and steady opposition to the liberticidal designs of aspiring and restless demagogues …
The Editor and his associates will “intermit no watch against the wakeful foe” …
In pursuing their opposition to the vile faction which would place at the head of affairs an atheist and a traitor to his country, they hope to receive … the support and countenance generally of all true friends to the commonwealth as it stands …
THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
FENNO AGAIN
The Gazette of the United States is to live a little longer—the despair of its supporters has excited another effort, and Fenno who appears doomed to be the sport of an annual exhaustion and resuscitation, comes now forth with perfect gravity and tells his twenty-six quires [paper sets of twenty-four sheets each] of readers that he is “sensible of the importance of newspapers upon public opinion” … [&c.]
WHAT HAS THE AURORA SAID ? …
Timothy Pickering has been dismissed, James M’Henry has resigned—Alexander Hamilton has received a hint that his services will be no longer required … A motion was made by Mr. Harper in the house of representatives for the disbanding of the standing army …
Mr. [Samuel] Dexter has been nominated to the office of Secretary of the War Department … Mr. Dexter very candidly confesses that he is as well qualified for the office of feeder of the Chinese Emperor’s crocodiles as for that of Secretary at War.
Today, John Adams issues orders to his departing Secretary of War:
I request you to transmit copies of the law for reducing the twelve regiments, which passed yesterday, to Major-Generals Hamilton and Pinckney, and also to the commandants of brigades, with orders to make immediate arrangements for reducing those regiments on the fourteenth of June …1974
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Senate, previous to their adjournment yesterday afternoon, passed a resolution requesting the President of the United States to direct the Attorney General to institute a process against William Duane, Editor of the Aurora.
The Vice President of the United States left town yesterday morning.
FRIDAY, MAY 16, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
CAUCUSES
WERE held on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings … at which Timothy Pickering [attended] … One measure … appears to have been a necessary consequence of this meeting, the continuation of Fenno’s paper … Fenno is again afloat, and after a simpering, sniveling course of farewell palavers about higher interests calling him to other purposes, he has come out again with the irascibility of a cat after castigation and spits forth malice with redoubled virulence and acrimony …
[Adv] REPUBLICAN GREENS.
CONFORMABLE to the resolution of the 12th instant— the corps will parade out of uniform for exercise at 6 o’clock on Monday morning next and each succeeding Monday until further orders.
WILLIAM DUANE, Captain.
Today, John Adams writes identical letters to the United States Attorney General and to the U.S. District Attorney for Pennsylvania:
I transmit to you a copy of the resolution of the Senate of the United States, passed in Congress on the 14th of this month, by which I am requested to instruct the proper law officers to commence and carry on a prosecution against William Duane, editor of a newspaper called the Aurora for certain false, defamatory, scandalous, and malicious publications in the said newspaper of the 19th of February law past, tending to defame the Senate of the United States and to bring them into contempt and disrepute and to excite against them the hatred of the good people of the United States. In Compliance with this request, I now instruct you, Gentlemen, to commence and carry on the prosecution accordingly.
[JOHN ADAMS]1975
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Duane gives us a pleasant list of Books … As he is to be the Government Printer, if we may believe himself … let there be procured for the use and behoof of said scapegrace;—Meditations on a Prison-life by a Convict … Gallows in Pennsylvania; the Arts of Knocking off Fetters and Escaping Dungeons … ; an essay on the best means of eluding justice; an improved plan for a gin distillery; the Liar’s vade mecum …
SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Philadelphia Prison, May 16.
TO THE EDITOR.
Sir, I HEARD some days ago that my FEDERAL friends … are promoting a Petition to the President to procure a remission of my sentence …
I am not so attached to my present lodgings but I should be very glad to q
uit them … but I will not leave the place under the acceptance of a favor from the President Adams. Nor will I be the voluntary cats-paw of electioneering clemency. I know the late events have wonderfully changed the outward and visible signs of the politics of the [Federalist] party … But all sudden conversions are suspicious, and I hope the REPUBLICANS will be upon their guard …
THOS: COOPER.
WE understand that the President of the United States has signaled to the Executive offices that it will be necessary for them to be in the City of Washington by the 15th of June next. The President, we learn, will proceed to the City of Washington immediately.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RAT-CATCHER
Love of Power and the Love of Money … have in many minds the most violent effects. Place before the Eyes of such Men a Post of Honour that shall at the same time be a Place of Profit, and they shall move Heaven and Earth to obtain it … dividing the Nation, distracting its Councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and mischievous Wars … But this Catastrophe, I think, may be long delay’d if, in our propos’d System, we do not sow the Seeds … by making our Posts of Honour Places of Profit …
DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
AT THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION,
PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 2, 17871976
WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
If Mr. Pickering has done anything which may have injured the country, as a public officer, he ought to be brought to an exemplary account …
The Editor pledges himself to the public that he is possessed of information of a highly important nature and that the present article is written expressly with a view to call the attention of the President and the public to the question; the President that he may discharge his duty by scrutiny, and the public that they may see whether justice is done.
If these things are done by the constituted authorities, then the editor will remain silent. If they are not done, then will the editor conceive himself bound to publish the facts—the substantial and damning facts—of which he is possessed.
The public will remember that no promise of this kind has ever been made in this paper which has not been duly fulfilled—that matters which no man unconcerned in public affairs could have conceived have been discovered by the Aurora—and many wicked measures frustrated by the timely interposition of this free Press.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The prospect of a French revolution gives new activity and virulence to those propagandists—Duane hisses from his retreat—Cooper, of Birmingham [England], howls a dismal threat from his den of Felons. In the opinion of Mr. Cooper, the PRESIDENT ought to ask his pardon!
THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A vote was taken in the Senate of the United States on the subject of a petition and remonstrance, presented by a very respectable number of citizens of Philadelphia, in the cause of the editor of the Aurora; and as it appeared that the members of the Senate were equally divided, Mr., Jefferson, president of that body, gave the casting vote in favor of the petition and remonstrance being read … [W]e are indebted to the patriotic firmness of Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, for this important decision … Americans, is it possible that you can hesitate for one single moment who shall be your President? Jefferson gives his casting vote in favour of the rights of the people to petition for redress of grievances, and Adams praises the British monarch.
AMERICAN CITIZEN
The three citizens who were condemned under an extraordinary stretch of legal construction of the doctrines of Treason, [Pennsylvania tax protesters] Messrs. [John] Fries, Hainey and Getman, were yesterday reprieved by the President and immediately liberated …
We cannot now refrain from expressing our abhorrence of the whole proceeding in the case of these unfortunate men, a case which … flowed from the extravagant measures which gave occasion to lay an unpopular tax … The acrimony of judge Chase … does no honor to our judiciary …
John Adams’ decision to pardon John Fries and Pennsylvania’s other war-tax protesters is one more concession to the popular feeling against his war measures.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Government Offices, it is expected, will be removed in all next week …
Duane … has been so successful of late in discovering the intentions of the President … he has a strong title to credit.
FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
No public event, during the administration of Mr. Adams, has excited such universal attention, or given birth to so many and various conjectures, as … the dismission of Timothy Pickering from the office of secretary of state and of James M’Henry as secretary at war …
Some suppose that altho’ (as they say) no suspicion can attach to either of the displaced secretaries of improper dispositions of the immense public sums that have passed thro’ their hands … their known, open, and manifest predilection for British interests … may have awakened the president’s suspicions …
Others … say that the President’s conduct is the stern effect of peevish despair on the result of the New York elections, fearing that he could not be again elected to office.
The following … copied from Fenno’s gazette of yesterday evening … [has] a degree of candor in it which induces us to suspect that the Moon has already begun to operate on the young man and that before the end of the week, we shall again hear of his intending to resign.
“Duane … has been so successful of late in discovering the intentions of the President … he has a strong title to credit.”
We wish to put a question to Jonathan Dayton [formerly Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and now] a member of the Senate … Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, do you or do you not hold in your possession thirty thousand dollars, the property of the good people of the United States—which was advanced to you for public purposes but which you have never returned to the proper owners for more than two years ?
Messrs. Fries, Hainey and Getman were yesterday congratulated in the public streets by hundreds of humane citizens and … by many men who have been heretofore most violent against the sinners of Democracy …
Fenno asserts that Messrs. Fries, Hainey and Getman repented before they were reprieved. The fact, however, is otherwise, for they never were guilty, much less conceived themselves so to be.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Duane in this morning’s Aurora daringly asserts in the most explicit manner that Fries, Hainey and Getman NEVER WERE GUILTY and thereby charges the Judges, Jurors, and Witnesses with the intention of committing the horrid crime of MURDER!! The sentence which was this day to be executed on Fries, Hainey, and Getman is stiled in the Aurora a PUBLIC MURDER!!!!!!!
Dr. Benjamin Franklin asked, “To put a man to Death for an offence which does not deserve Death, is it not Murder?”1977
SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The war with Britain, which commenced in the year ‘75, had for its object, on the part of this country, the most pointed recriminations of monarchy. The declaration was made upon the most firm and republican ground; and its author, Mr. Jefferson, must stand in high estimation with the citizens of the United States, so long as they believe the power of the people to be superior to that of kings …
Can all this be said with truth of J. Adams? does he love liberty and genuine republicanism? does he hate monarchy and standing armies? No … in his book entitled “the Defence of the American Constitutions,” he declares the British monarchy to be the most stupendous fabric of human invention … If Adams is a lover of monarchy, [as is] to be deduced from the principles of the book, he certainly ought not to be president of the United States. If, on the contrary, Jefferson is a republican, as appears by all his writings and by all his votes in public life, he certainly deser
ves the public suffrage …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The close confinement of the culprits, Cooper and Duane, by affording them more leisure to scratch, has for some time past increased if possible the venom of that paper …
Mr. [James] Callender has announced, in a late number of the [Richmond, Virginia] Examiner, his intention to travel … [Probably] he designs paying a visit to the Philosopher of Monticello [Jefferson] in order to regale him … with the perusal of the second volume of the “Prospect before us.” … The following precious morceaux are extracted from that work … “The wretched timidity of Mr. Washington … had invited depredations on our shipping. His abject tameness to England, and his gross duplicity to France, had ensured the contempt of the one and the detestation of the other. It ought to have been the policy of Mr. Adams to retrace the mistakes of his predecessor …”
Tonight, a warrant issues in Virginia for the arrest of Jimmy Callender under an indictment charging that The Prospect Before Us contains a seditious libel against the President of the United States.1978
SUNDAY, MAY 25, 1800
Today, Virginia Governor James Monroe writes Thomas Jefferson,
The G[rand] Jury, of w[hi]ch McClurg was for’man, presented Callender under the Sedition Law, & [Judge] Chase drew the warrant & dispatched the Marshal instantly in pursuit of him. This was yesterday at 12, since w[hi]ch we have not heard of either … Will it not be proper for the Executive [Magistrate of Virginia] to employ counsel to defend him, and, supporting the law, give an éclat to a vindication of the principles of the State ?1979