American Aurora
Page 113
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Duane says that fifty persons who were under arms in the Legion on Monday had a share in the battle of Germantown—but he don’t say a word about whose army they were in; we know that many of them are recently from Britain and Ireland.
[ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA.] [I]t is evident that the French principle of liberty & equality have been [in]fused into the minds of the Negroes; and that the incautious and intemperate use of these words by some whites amongst us have inspired them with hopes of success …
By whom is the Aurora and the rest of the Jacobin Newspapers … conducted and supported? By men hostile to our liberties …; these are men who offer you an infidel for Chief Magistrate in preference to a virtuous and steadfast believer in God; these are the assassins who have assailed the character of our beloved Washington, accused him of the greatest of crimes; who have impiously attempted to blast his blushing honours and tarnish his immortal glory …VULCAN
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
THE COMMITTEES of the City and county of Philadelphia appointed to devise a plan for concentrating the votes of the republicans … are requested to meet … on Wednesday eve …
THE REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
For the City of Philadelphia … at the house of John Miller, sign of the Green Tree … THIS NIGHT at 7 o’clock
REPUBLICAN MEETING
THE Republican Citizens of the District of Southwark … at Crosby’s tavern … on business of importance
It is pleasing to see the old sentiments of America, after a deplorable eclipse, once more bursting from behind the clouds … [T]he address of the Republicans of Kent county [Pennsylvania] will exemplify these remarks—
“The old fashioned principles of ‘76—those principles which recognize the rights of man and the sovereignty of the people, principles on which the Declaration of Independence and our constitutions were predicated … have been outraged, ridiculed and attempted to be exploded … The memory of a FRANKLIN—of that Franklin who pleaded the cause of the new to the old world; whose transcendent genius gave popularity to American freedom in Europe; and whose philosophy, by disarming heaven of its terrors, lessens the chances of sudden death; has been assailed by a British caitiff [Porcupine] who, boasting the patronage of the clergy, tories and federalists, daily outraged decency … When death itself cannot shield from slander, and the malignant breath of envy blasts beyond the grave, the living cannot hope to escape; and the second magistrate of the United States, the incomparable Jefferson, has been the theme of incessant slander and abuse. The man who could pen the Declaration of Independence … has no Sedition Law to protect him. But like the waves that dash against the rock, the calumnies of his enemies serve only to [mark] his strength and recoil on their authors.”
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Paddy Duane is eternally prating about the patriotism of ‘76. We should be glad to hear from this vile foreign outcast where he was in ‘76?
It appears from the evidence given on the trials of the Negroes … that the most intensive plans of murder and desolation have been organized in the Southern States. That Frenchmen have been the projectors of these infernal plans. That in the massacre of the whites, Frenchmen alone were to have been spared; and it appears, from Duane’s publication of Wednesday, that the Aurora, a paper devoted to the furtherance of French measures, is already employed to palliate and to excuse these enormities … with auguries, drawn from the opinions heretofore delivered by Mr. Jefferson … to inspirit the Insurgents …
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
ANGLO-FEDERAL WISHES
[FOR A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORAL VOTE].
Jefferson Adams
1. Massachusetts, 0 16
2. N. Hampshire, 0 6
3. Rhode-Island, 0 4
4. Vermont, 0 4
5. Connecticut, 0 9
6. New-York, 12 0
7. New-Jersey, 0 7
8. Pennsylvania, 0 0*
9. Delaware, 0 3
10. Maryland, 0 10
11. Virginia, 21 0
12. North-Carolina, 8 4
13. South-Carolina, 8 0
14. Kentucky, 4 0
15. Georgia, 4 0
16. Tennessee, 3 0
* No vote. 60 63
It is easy to see why Federalists want to keep Pennsylvania’s fifteen presidential electoral votes away from Thomas Jefferson, even if that means preventing Pennsylvania’s participation in the presidential election!
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
GENERAL REPUBLICAN MEETING …
The Republicans of the City of Philadelphia are requested to convene at the State House at 6 o’clock on Wednesday evening, the 1st of October … The attempts which have been made by our adversaries to divide and deceive the republicans … must shew the necessity of decision and encrease rather than diminish the spirit of vigilance and union …
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[PARIS.] The negociation was opened on the part of the French Commissioners on the supposition that the treaty of 1778 was still in force … But the American Envoys were not authorized to renew this treaty … France waived this point in consequence of the assurances of the American envoys that they could not renew it …
Today, in Paris (where Tom Paine has remained since Britain outlawed him for his Rights of Man), Tom Paine writes Thomas Jefferson:
The [American] commissioners, Ellsworth and company, have been here about eight months, and three more useless mortals never came upon public business … I went to see Mr. Ellsworth … because I had formerly known him in Congress.
“I mean not,” said I, “to press you with any questions, or to engage you in any conversation upon the business you are come upon, but I will nevertheless candidly say … [t]he [Jay] treaty with England lies at the threshold of all your business. The American Government never did two more foolish things than when it signed that treaty and recalled Mr. Monroe …”
Mr. Ellsworth put on the dull gravity of a judge and was silent. I added, “… the principle that neutral ships make neutral property must be general or not at all.” I then changed the subject … and inquired after Samuel Adams (I asked nothing about John), Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Monroe and others of my friends …
I know that the faction of John Adams abuses me pretty heartily. They are welcome. It does not disturb me …
I suppose you have seen or have heard of the Bishop of Llandaff’s answer to my second part of “The Age of Reason.” … [A]s soon as the clerical Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge knew of my intention to answer the Bishop, they prosecuted, as a society, the printer … to prevent that answer appearing …
Remember me with much affection to my friends and accept the same to yourself.
THOMAS PAINE2012
War … Today, in the French West Indies, the twelve-gun, seventy-man U.S. Navy schooner Experiment seizes a French merchantman bound for France. U.S. Navy Lieutenant Charles Stewart reports:
We cruized to windward of St. Bartholomews till the 1st of October, which day we fell in with and captured the French armed (three masted) schr. Diana, out two days from Guadaloupe, laden with sugar, coffee, and cotton bound to France under convoy of a brig of 16 nine pounders and 150 men. This schr. mounted 8 nine pound canonades (6 of which they threw overboard in the chace) and 45 men …2013
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
THE HAND-BILLS
DUANE pretends to disown the Hand Bills which have been circulating among his party … It is worthy of remark that the strictures in the Aurora upon this subject are headed by no less than four different notices to the united Republicans to convene in several places for as many different purposes;—There is the committee of Concentration, the committee of Important B
usiness—the committee of Selection, and the committee for promoting the Republican Interest.
It is very well known that the whole squad … are striving hard to bring about a coalition … Duane undertakes to act the mediator …
Extract of a letter from Virginia. The slave holders in our county will no longer permit the Aurora and other Jacobin papers to come into their houses as they are convinced the late insurrection is to be attributed entirely to this source and to incendiary handbills and pamphlets from the same presses.
From the Charleston City [South Carolina] Gazette … [To the Editors]. A LETTER copied from the [August 28th] Aurora … signed JOHN ADAMS … wherein are contained some comments on my appointment as minister-plenipotentiary to the court of Great-Britain … is a forgery … To my fellow-citizens of South Carolina … I should deem it unnecessary to urge a syllable of justification …
THOMAS PINCKNEY
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
It will be remembered that the Editor of this paper was indicted at Norristown in this state, under the Sedition Law, for publishing a declaration of Mr. Adams that British influence had been used … Upon an offer of the editor by his counsel to produce that Letter in Court, some confusion was manifested and some legal pantomime was played off [so] the trial was postponed. But the Indictment was withdrawn by order of the President … We think it proper to republish Mr. Adams’ letter …
Quincy, May, 1792.
DEAR SIR, … [O]ur new ambassador [Thomas Pinckney] has many old friends in England … [which] contributed to limit the duration of my commission [as ambassador to Britain] to three years … [S]uspecting as I do much British influence in the appointment, were I in any executive department, I should take the liberty to keep a vigilant eye upon them …JOHN ADAMS
During the last sitting of Congress in this city, many members had expressed doubts of such a letter written by Mr. Adams; and some of them [were] apprehensive that some imposition had been practiced to bring [the Editor] into the power of those who had manifested a disposition to destroy this paper and the editor.
After repeated representations of this kind, the Editor saw the necessity of satisfying them … The Editor was informed that Mr. Adams did not deny the authenticity of the letter; but that he endeavored to give it an explanation different from its apparent tenor by endeavoring to shew that it was not [South Carolinian Federalist] Mr. Thomas Pinckney who was alluded to but [South Carolinian Republican] Charles Pinckney, now of the senate … The election comes on in South Carolina, it is believed, the second Monday in October …
It is nearly eighteen months since the prosecution was commenced against the Editor for publishing Mr. Adams’ letter … to prove that British Influence had been practiced … When the federal court at Norristown deferred the trial, the court contrary to right and to law enjoined the Editor not to publish the proceedings there. Judge Peters expressly told the editor if he published, he should be obliged to take notice of it! The Editor could not but smile at the imprimatur, but knowing the strong ground upon which he stood suffered the matter to go over. The indictments were withdrawn … To shew the public that no imposition was attempted, the editor published the letter of Mr. Adams; suspecting that the withdrawing of the suit was intended to produce the suppression of the letter altogether …
Fellow Citizens, … [C]ertain essays under the signature of Publicola … have been since republished in London … The title runs thus; “Answer to Paine’s Rights of Man by John Adams, esquire, originally printed in America.” … This book was read by the Council for the King in Mr. [Thomas] Paine’s trial … It is not stated or admitted by the writer that there are any defects inherent in the [British] constitution, though hereditary … with a christian hierarchy to aid them …
If one were to propose to change our [American Constitution, from a] single quadrennial executive chosen by the board of electors, into an executive council of seven, chosen yearly by the joint votes of the members of the federal Senate and House of Representatives—If the same person were to propose annual Senators instead of a senate for the present term … he would be … an enemy of the federal constitution. On the other hand, if, instead of an executive council chosen by the legislature, … an hereditary king be indicated, foretold, represented as inevitable, and “insinuated,” and if, instead of annual elections, the deviation from our present mode of appointing Senators be also in the opposite extreme, and a corps of hereditary nobles … are recommended … do not such persons insensibly betray … hostility to the constitution of the United States & to our present tranquillity? Let the books of Mr. Adams senior and junior be candidly and prudently explained with these reflections in our minds …
A CONSTITUTIONALIST
Are the Duke of Braintree and the bespectacled ghost at the Philadelphia Aurora both enemies to the American Constitution? John Adams wanted the monarchical and aristocratical constitution of Great Britain. Ben Franklin would have preferred the democratic constitution of Pennsylvania in 1776 or the constitution of the French Republic in 1793.2014
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[T]he friends of peace will vote for Jefferson—the friends of war will vote for Adams …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
DUANE takes new degrees every day in the School for Scandal. In bad English, nay in bad Irish, he calumniates the government and religion of this country. His acrimony is so excessive that it defeats its own purpose, and the sober and steadfast unite now in exclaiming, with DRYDEN,
Let him rail on—let his invective Muse,
Have four and twenty letters to abuse—
Which, if he jumble to one line of sense,
Indict him of a capital offence.
FEDERALISM. WHEN THE RULERS ARE WISE,
THE PEOPLE ARE HAPPY
ELECTORS are to vote in the last month of the present year for a President of the Union. The interest of America is deeply at stake …
America, in seventeen hundred and seventy six, stood tremulous in a perilous condition … Washington and Adams, with a band of worthies, appeared, repelled the foe, & founded the American empire. Characters who erected an empire are suitable to rule a nation … Washington and Adams made no treaty with France: for they knew she would have observed none …POLYBIUS
MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Gazette of the United States is fond of asking questions—one good turn deserves another, we solicit answers to the following questions: Why is not John Adams’s letter [on British influence] published in that paper? … Why is Mr. Abercrombie about to remove to New York? Why did Fenno remove thither? Why did Porcupine remove thither? …
JOHN ADAMS’s POLITICAL OPINIONS …
We now take up Mr. Adams’s answers to the memorable addresses of the reign of terror in 1798 when Mr. Adams exposed himself to the condemnation of history by his Fast Day and the farious denunciation of his fellow citizens; when he exulted religion while he breathed War—and forgot the duty he owed to his country … The addresses form a phenomenon in politics … No. 1—“I cannot profess my attachment to the principles of the French Revolution … An anxiety for the establishment of a government in France on the basis of the equal rights of mankind, as far as such a government is practicable, I feel in common with you.” Fenno, June 1, 1798. No. 2—“The words republican government … may be interpreted to mean anything …” Fenno, July 3, 1798 …
So what does “republican government” mean? Thomas Jefferson:
[I]nstead of saying, as has been said, “that it may mean anything or nothing,” we may say with truth and meaning that republican governments are more or less republican as they have more or less of the element of popular election or control in their composition; and believing … that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am
a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient …2015
[A] pure republic is a state of society in which every member of mature and sound mind has an equal right of participation, personally, in the direction of the affairs of the society. Such a regimen is obviously impracticable beyond the limits of an encampment or of a small village. When numbers, distance, or force oblige them to act by deputy, then their government continues republican in proportion only as the functions they still exercise in person are more or fewer and, as in those exercised by deputy … for more or fewer purposes, or for shorter or longer terms.2016
In the General Government, the House of Representatives is mainly republican; the Senate scarcely so at all, as not elected by the people directly and so long secured [by six-year terms] against those who do elect them; the Executive more republican than the Senate from its shorter [four-year] term … If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism … it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected … And this I ascribe … to a submission of true principle to European authorities, … to … fears of the people …2017