American Aurora
Page 24
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
LIBERTY OF THE PRESS … The French faction are working like devils to persuade the people that the federal government is acting against them with rigour and with partiality. I shall therefore remind the public …
As to [Tom Paine’s book against established religion,] AGE OF REASON, its publication by BACHE … is too notorious a fact to be for a moment dwelt on … Christianity is part of the law of the land… [T]o deride and blaspheme it is punishable by the common law …
BACHE, in his paper No. 1460, calls the Honourable John Jay … “that damned arch traitor JOHN JAY” … I could name here at least one hundred of the greatest and best men that this country ever produced who have been vilified by this reprobate descendant of Old Franklin, but … I shall forbear the enumerations and content myself with the instance of two of his attacks on the character of GENERAL WASHINGTON for which every good man, in every part of the world, must and will execrate the libeller and his supporters.
He published PAINE’S letter to the GENERAL of which he claimed an exclusive copyright … In this work, GENERAL WASHINGTON … is called, “the patron of fraud,”—an “impostor,” or an “apostate.”— Yet the vile printer was never “bound over.”
The day the GENERAL closed his public labours (the 4th of March, 1797), BACHE, after announcing his retirement from the office of President, says: “If there ever was a period for rejoicing, this is the moment …”
Yet, we are not all the worst: for on the 13th of March 1797, this viperous Grand Son of Old Franklin, accused the same eminent person of murder! brought forward a long, formal, and circumstantial charge of cool, deliberate assassination, “committed by GENERAL WASHINGTON, late President of the United States.”
SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Yesterday at 10 o’clock, Mr. Bache, attended by Messrs. Levy and Dallas as his counsel, appeared before Judge Peters at his chambers, when Mr. Rawle, the Attorney of the district, attended on behalf of the United States to support the warrant issued against Mr. Bache for publications alleged to be libellous in relation to the President and the Executive government of the United States. Mr. Bache’s counsel stated … that the Federal Courts had no common law jurisdiction in criminal cases … Judge PETERS observed that … his mind was confirmed … He proposed that Mr. Bache should give security in 2000 dollars himself, with two sureties in 1000 dollars each, to appear and answer. The security was immediately given.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Aurora, after having attacked both Presidents of the United States in succession, and the majorities of both Houses of Congress for several years past, pretending all the time to the most violent Republicanism, has at last attacked the whole American people. The following libel is proof in point and is copied from the Aurora of Thursday last.
“It is highly interesting to see a nation … opening, without any visible motive, a career of tyranny …”
SUNDAY, JULY 1, 1798
Tonight, congressional Federalists caucus at U.S. Senator William Bingham’s mansion at the corner of Spruce- and Third-streets in Philadelphia. The subject: a Declaration of War against France.488
MONDAY, JULY 2, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
(We are happy to lay the following speech of Mr. [Edward] Livingston on the third reading of the alien bill before our readers …)
Edward Livingston’s June 21st speech in Congress occupies most of the editorial space in today’s Aurora.
Today, President Adams informs the Senate,
I nominate George Washington, of Mount Vernon, to be Lieutenant-General and Commander in Chief of all the armies raised or to be raised in the United States.489
George Washington will lead America’s new federal army against our former French ally!
Today, Federalists caucus again on passing a formal Declaration of War against France.490
TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
John Fenno appears very angry because the friends of the Printer of the Aurora are tradesmen—mere simple men, none of your high-flying well borns … [T]hey are only plain, simple, unaffected Republicans, and this is indeed a heinous fault!
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
To the … Inhabitants of the town of Rutland, in … Vermont. GENTLEMEN, I THANK you for this address … The words “Republican Government” have imposed on many who had very imperfect ideas under them—as there are none in our language more indeterminate, they may be interpreted to mean anything …
JOHN ADAMS
To-morrow being the Anniversary of INDEPENDENCE, the next publication of this Gazette will not take place till Thursday.
The union of the People of the United States in support of their Independence and Government at the present crisis is greater than it was in the year 1775— and the preparations and provision to defend all that is dear and sacred much more extensive; and yet, monstrous impudence! a few desperadoes vomit thro’ the medium of the Aurora a perpetual cascade of abuse against the people, their government and its administration.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 4, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
This day will be celebrated as the Great Jubilee of Americans. We ask a Holiday; in consequence of which the next number of the AURORA will appear on Friday.
In a republican government, freedom of sentiments and a right to deliver such sentiments on every subject has been held essential to true liberty, but when that freedom is by whatever means restrained, despotism will most probably be the consequence.
TO IRISH EMIGRANTS AND PARTICULARLY THAT CLASS DENOMINATED ALIENS—
A Bill respecting Naturalization is passed into a law. By this law, fourteen years residence in the United States are necessary to obtain the rights of citizenship … An alien bill is on its passage … By this law the President of the U.S. is vested with a discretionary power of seizing on, confining or transporting your persons beyond the territories of the United States …
The United States are largely indebted for their independence to the exertions of the Irish both in Europe and America. The Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware Lines were almost entirely composed of natives of Ireland … And what is the return they have met with? A Naturalization Law, an alien law, a sedition law topped off with the most opprobrious obloquy and abuse that ever disgraced a legislative body.
Today, America celebrates its independence. At Hartford in Connecticut, Thomas Day delivers an oration to Revolutionary War veterans on the dangers of faction (“party spirit”):
Among those means which are calculated to destroy a free government, none will be found more efficient than PARTY SPIRIT …
[T][he present Vice President of the United States … has ever been the great Manager of the Gallico-Anarchic-Democratic Force … [H]e has countenanced and recommended a Gazette Edited by Bache, teeming with all that is virulent and abusive against the government and its administration …491
Theodore Dwight addresses another Hartford audience:
Mr. Jefferson’s celebrated letter to Mazzei made its … first charge … that “a party has arisen … to impose on the people the substance of the British government.” This assertion has often been boldly made by the profligate printer of the Aurora …
[I]f the French Councils, by any means whatever, should gain an ascendency over our government … our Independence will be at an end.492
Augustus Pettibone speaks at Norfolk, Connecticut:
O Liberty! how has thy name been perverted by our Democratic disorganizers … May they, with Bache, that secret emissary, whose press has teemed with abuse and poured forth a flood of calumny against the guardians of our nation, be learnt and learn … that our federal soil will not nourish their felonious practices …
What nation, what kingdom, what empire, can boast of a better Executive Department than the United States of Ameri
ca? Great ADAMS, the illustrious Chief of that noble order, faires like a star of the first magnitude and may be justly compared with the Sun in the political world …493
At the Presbyterian Church in Newark, New Jersey, David Ogden speaks to an “Association of Young Men”:
Suspect the motives of those who would persuade you [the President] is not the friend of his country. Your fathers, in their glorious struggle for Independence, entrusted him with the management of some of their dearest interests.494
In Philadelphia, the “Young Men” of the Macpherson’s Blues parade. The Gazette of the United States reports:
The military assembled on the occasion consisted of some small detachments of a few of the militia companies, infantry and artillery, and of the whole body of newly formed volunteer corps in full uniform—These, with the several troops of horse, formed a most brilliant military procession.
From the center square, the whole marched down High-street and passed in review of the President of the United States, the officers paying the proper marching salute. The President appeared greatly delighted …
At noon a federal salute was fired by Guy’s Artillery. The bells of Christ Church were rung at intervals thro’ the day …495
Abigail Adams expresses her pleasure:
[A] Glorious sight … 400 Young Men all in uniform and 60 Grenadiers none of whom exceeded 22 years marching in review as volunteers whose services had been tendered to their Country in a free will offering to the Chief Executive … To the committee of young men … I presented a cockade in the middle of which is a small Silver Eagle, being the arms of the United States … [T]he whole volunteer corps have adopted them.496
There are disturbances. Porcupine’s Gazette:
[T]here were some turbulent malicious spirits … The splendid and military appearance of the Volunteer Horse and foot was what mortified them most. As a force ready to support government and to oppose all its intestine as well as foreign enemies, it was a galling spectacle to the eyes of a Jacobin.
Several fellows of this description, but two more particularly, attempted to insult the first troop of Light Horse, commanded by Capt. Dunlap, as they were returning up High-street in the evening. The horses were moving remarkably slow, four abreast, and of course filled most of the ground between the butchers shambles [of the covered market] and the foot pavement. One of the fellows had been daringly insolent, but both became outrageous … poured out torrents of abusive language, advanced up to the horsemen, flourished their bludgeons, and at length struck one of the horses several heavy strokes. This provoked one of the riders to draw and to strike the aggressor with the flat of his sword … I expected to see both of them cut down …497
At Williamsburg in Virginia, William and Mary College students burn John Adams in effigy. Peter Porcupine reports:
[T]he burning of the President’s effigy at Williamsburg was not the work of the mob, nor of the inhabitants of the place in general; but of the learned, polite, and patriotic students of William and Mary College. A precious seminary! I wonder who is at the head of it! Some bitter, factious, envious wretch, I will answer for it; if not some philosopher of the infamous tribe of the illuminati. One of the great objects of these plotting villains was to thrust their members into all places of education in order to be enabled to corrupt the youth. They have succeeded at William and Mary clear enough. I would sooner put a child of mine under the tuition of a common thief than send him amongst this rascally seditious crew.—I shall once more remind my readers that these base blackguards, who now insult their president, actually had the courage a few years ago to behead the statue of the founder of their college because he was an aristocrat.498
Senate Federalists want to associate the sedition act with the nation’s independence and, therefore, to pass a bill today. Republican Senator Stevens T. Mason of Virginia:
[T]here seemed to be a particular solicitude to pass it on that day … The drums, Trumpets and other martial music which surrounded us drown’d the voices of those who spoke on the Question. The military parade so attracted the attention of the majority that much the greater part of them stood with their bodies out of the windows and could not be kept to order. To get rid of such a scene of uproar and confusion, an attempt was made at adjournment and then of a postponement of that question. These were both overruled and the final decision taken …499
Today, with Senator Theodore Sedgwick (Federalist, Massachusetts) acting as U.S. Senate president for the absent Thomas Jefferson and with more than one third of Republican senators also absent, the United States Senate passes a sedition bill, 18 ayes to 6 nays, including a provision,
That if any person shall, by … writing, printing, publishing, or speaking … create a belief [that] … the said Legislature, in enacting any law, was induced thereto by motives hostile to the Constitution … the person so offending … shall be punished by a fine, not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.”500
Later today, the sponsor of the Senate’s sedition bill, U.S. Senator James Lloyd (Federalist, Maryland), writes George Washington:
Sir … You will have heard before this reaches you that you were … by the unanimous vote of the senate, appointed Lieutenant General & Commander in Chief of the Armies of America …
The packet for Bache, sealed with the seal of the minister of foreign relations fell into the hands of Government and I believe it is pretty certain [that it] did not contain Talleyrand’s letter to our Envoys. Whether he received it immediately from Talleyrand or from Letombe, the consul [general of France at Philadelphia], or from one of our French-Americans is uncertain.
Your Excellency has probably seen in the papers a bill which was introduced into the Senate, to define & punish the crimes of Treason & Sedition. This bill … passed the Senate … 18 to five, & will certainly pass the ho. of Representatives. I enclose the bill as amended …
I fear that Congress will close the session without a Declaration of War, which I look upon as necessary to enable us to lay our hands on traitors …501
Today, George Washington writes President John Adams:
[The French] have been led to believe by their Agents and Partisans amongst Us that we are a divided People, that the latter are opposed to their own Government, and that a show of a small force would occasion a revolt, I have no doubt; and how far these men (grown desperate) will further attempt to deceive and may succeed in keeping up the deception is problematical …502
Today, George Washington also writes Secretary of War James McHenry:
[My principles] would not suffer me in any great emergency to withhold any services I could render, required by my Country, especially in a case where its dearest rights are assailed by lawless ambition … with obvious intent to sow thick the Seeds of disunion for the purpose of subjugating the Government and destroying our Independence and happiness …503
Today, another Federalist caucus on a Declaration of War.504
It was Poor Richard who wrote,
The Golden Age never was the present age.505
THURSDAY, JULY 5, 1798
[As announced yesterday, there is no edition of the Aurora.]
Today, the House of Representatives considers the sedition bill that the Senate passed yesterday. The Annals of Congress report:
PUNISHMENT OF CRIME
A bill was received from the Senate …
Mr. ALLEN [Federalist, Connecticut]. Let gentlemen look at certain papers printed in this city and elsewhere, and ask ourselves whether an unwarrantable and dangerous combination does not exist to overturn and ruin the Government by publishing the most shameful falsehoods …
In the Aurora of the 28th of June last, we see this paragraph “It is a curious fact, America is making war with France for not treating, at the very moment the Minister for Foreign Affairs fixes upon the very day for opening a negotiation with Mr. Gerry. What do you think of this, Americans!”
Such paragraphs need but little comment …
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I will take the liberty of reading to the House another paragraph from the same paper [on July 2d] … published as the speech of the same gentleman (Mr. [Edward] LIVINGSTON) when we were discussing the Alien bill … “If there is, then, any necessity for the system now proposed, it is more necessary to be enforced against our own citizens than against strangers; and I have no doubt that either in this, or some other shape, this will be attempted. I now ask, sir, whether the people of America are prepared for this? … Whether they are ready to submit to imprisonment or exile, whenever suspicion, calumny or vengeance, shall mark them for ruin? No sir, they will, I repeat it they will resist this tyrannic system! …”
Sir, is this a just picture? The gentleman attempted, in this instance, to persuade the people … that opposition to the laws, that insurrection is a duty whenever they think we exceed our constitutional powers …
In the Aurora of last Friday, we read the following:
“The period is now at hand when it will be a question difficult to determine, whether there is more safety to be enjoyed at Constantinople or Philadelphia!”
This, sir, is … announcing to the poor deluded readers of the factious prints the rapid approach of Turkish slavery in this country …
At the commencement of the Revolution in France those loud and enthusiastic advocates for liberty and equality took special care to occupy and command all the presses in the nation; they well knew the powerful influence to be obtained on the public mind by that engine; its operations are on the poor, the ignorant, the passionate, and the vicious … The Jacobins in our country, too, sir, are determined to preserve in their hands the same weapon; it is our business to wrest it from them …