American Aurora
Page 75
By carnage and plunder they subsisted there: in massacre and ravage they can be happy here … The scheme, in its rude outline, is to bring on a revolutionary state in America … They coalesced with the Jacobins (most of the leaders of whom have actually been admitted within the pale of the society) … Do I hear some one cry, “Name them! Name them!”
Lend me your patience and I will … They should have a dissemination as wide as the extent of the evil …
List of UNITED IRISHMEN …
Samuel Wiley, Teacher in the College; John Black, Ditto Thomas M’Adams, Schoolmaster; John O’Reilley, Ditto —– Moffat, Zachary’s Court —– Reynolds, Robert Bronston —– Duane, alias Jasper Dwight; Matthew Lyon of Vermont, … Andrew Magill; James T. Callender, Lloyd of Newgate; J[ohn] D[aly] Burke, late delegate from N. York …
Teachers and journalists are on the Gazette of the United States’ list of America’s enemies. I am on it. Other Aurora people are on it. Jimmy Callender, Jimmy Reynolds, and my most important friend and assistant Newgate Lloyd1723 all contribute to the Aurora.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Tories, when they find a man’s public conduct so steadfast in the cause of the Constitution and civil liberty as to wound their feelings,—resort to the stale trick of calling him an Alien or a Frenchman or an Irishman—the nature of these aspersions, it must be confessed, is rather flattering, considering whence they come and what is the cause of the assertion.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Our government is under a moral obligation to DECLARE WAR against France …
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
There is not an advocate for monarchy in this country who does not mingle professions of veneration for republican principles with the incessant efforts to subvert the constitution and to destroy liberty.
Today, from her home in Quincy, Abigail Adams writes her nephew, William Shaw, the President’s new private secretary:
I receive the papers regularly which will now become more interesting as Congress proceed in business … The Aurora shows that tho Bache is dead, he yet speaketh, or rather that the party which supported him are determined to have a press devoted to them. Whether the influence is foreign or domestick, or both together, it is of consequence that it should be made to keep within the bounds of decorum and … yeald to the laws. I expect we shall have to use some of the tribute [money] due to Talleyrand before the daring Spirit of Kentucky and its mother State will be quiet …1724
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Newspaper Jacobinism is in a hectic in the United States—The saffron-coloured Aurora, enveloped in murkey clouds and deceptive fogs, is now the only harbinger of delusive mock-suns. Old [New York] Argus, who once had pretensions to an hundred eyes, is now a cyclop with one and that blurry:—and the [Boston] Chronique—alas!—“sans wit—sans sense—sans sous.”
It’s true. The nation’s two other leading republican newspapers, the New York Argus (now managed by Thomas Greenleaf’s widow) and Boston’s Independent Chronicle (whose publisher, Thomas Adams, has been ill since his indictment under the Sedition Act) are fragile!
FRIDAY. DECEMBER 21, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TO THE FREEMEN … OF PHILADELPHIA
[Today] will be an election for a Representative in the [Pennsylvania] General Assembly. It is of importance that you should appear and give your suffrages,—and these should be given to a man who is a friend to your Liberties, to your Constitution, and to your peace … GEORGE LOGAN … Convince the world that you still love liberty, and that those who would rob you of it have your contempt and execration,—Peace ! Peace ! Peace !
Today, at noon, the majority of Pennsylvania’s Federalist-controlled House of Representatives delivers an “ADDRESS to John Adams, President of the United States:”
Sir, … We have seen … the unlimited ambition of the rulers of the French people—that the Atlantic itself gives no bounds to their projects of subjugation; and that the United States of America are threatened … not so much with open hostility … as with a division, by means of a dark and insidious policy, of the people from the government of their choice … That you, Sir, have been constantly aware of the effects of this policy … must be highly gratifying to the patriotic pride of every independent mind …1725
John Adams answers:
The insidious and malevolent policy [of France] of dividing people and nation from their government is not original; the French have not the credit even of the invention of it …
Candor must own that our country lies under a reproach … of producing individuals who are capable not only of dark interferences by usurpation in our external concerns, but also capable of forgetting or renouncing their principles, feelings and habits in a foreign country and becoming enemies to their own … Whether this is owing to a want of national character or a want of criminal law, a remedy ought to be sought.
The solemn pledge you give to co-operate with the general government in averting all foreign influence and detecting domestic intrigue is very important to the common welfare of our country and will give great satisfaction to the Union …1726
Tonight, Jack Ward Fenno in the Gazette of the United States:
UNITED IRISHMEN.
There came last night to my House two ruffians, one of whom lurked about the porch, while the other, as I stood at my own door, struck me on the head with a bludgeon. Amazed at such baseness, I turned into my office to seize a stick, instead of pressing on the assailant, whereby I might have promptly punished his audacity … I went after the nocturnal assassin this morning to return his domiciliary visit. A woman came forward to say he was not at home. He will not, however, pass unpunished … and if these Dagger-Men choose to push things to extremities, they will find me better prepared.JOHN WARD FENNO.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1798
Today, Abigail Adams writes her nephew, Presidential Secretary William Shaw:
You sent me two Auroras one of which containd a most insolent comment upon the president’s speech. A Friend also sent me the [Boston Independent] Chronicle. It certainly has not taken its lesson …1727
MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Friday evening the election of a member to the seat … in the Pennsylvania Legislature closed, when upon counting up the votes in the several districts … the numbers appeared to be
Total for George Logan 1,256
For F. A. Muhlenberg 769
Majority for Logan 487
The election of Dr. Logan is the best reply which could have been given by the people to the President.
Franklin declares all power to be in the people when the servants violate their duties or when they violate the constitution.
Today, in Richmond, Virginia, the Virginia state senate concurs in resolutions passed three days ago by the Virginia House of Delegates, including:
First. Resolved, That the General Assembly of Virginia doth unequivocally express a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States …
Fourth. That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret that a spirit has in sundry instances been manifested by the Federal Government to enlarge its powers … the obvious tendency and inevitable result of which would be to transform the present republican system of the United States into an absolute, or, at best, a mixed monarchy.
Fifth. That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infraction of the Constitution in the two late cases of the “Alien and Sedition Acts,” passed at the last session of Congress …
Sixth. That this State … by its convention which ratified the Federal Constitution expressly declared, among other essential rights, “the liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be canceled, abridged, restrained, or modified by any authority of th
e United States” …
Seventh. That the good people of this Commonwealth … doth hereby declare that the acts aforesaid are unconstitutional …1728
James Madison drafted these resolutions for Virginia, just as Thomas Jefferson drafted similar resolutions for Kentucky. Together, they’ll be known as the “Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.”
Tonight, William Cobbett in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Madame Bache is constantly congratulating her jacobinic horde on the inestimable blessings resulting from the late embassy of the notorious Logan: to him she says they may look as their saviour … They say this Logan has effected the raising of the embargo; that he has induced the Directory to cause a momentary suspension of depredations on our commerce, &c … I do believe he was the envoy of Jefferson and Co … but it is not to Doctor Logan nor Thomas Jefferson that we are indebted; it is to the energetic measures of our government—which they opposed and would have prevented had it been in their power …
UNITED IRISHMEN …
I did regret that Mr. Fenno brought his list of disaffected Irish forward so soon; but it seems to have produced a most excellent effect. It has awakened the attention of every body in the city, and there is good reason to believe that it will have the same effect in distant places. All that is wanted to crush the enemies of government is to make them well known …
Every discovery, every fact … is an eulogium on the wisdom of Congress in passing the Alien and Sedition Laws …
To return to the United Irishmen … [T]heir views in both countries were and are the same; to excite a rebellion to be supported by France.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1798
[CHRISTMAS DAY]
Today, from Mount Vernon, George Washington answers a letter from the French hero of the American Revolution the Marquis de Lafayette:
It is equally unnecessary for me to apologize to you for my long silence …
To give you a … view of the politics and situation … a party exists in the United States, formed by a Combination of Causes, which oppose the Government and are determined (as all their Conduct evinces), by Clogging its Wheels, indirectly to change the nature of it and to subvert the Constitution … The friends of Government, who are anxious to maintain its neutrality and to preserve the country in peace and adopt measures to produce these, are charged by them as being Monarchists, Aristocrats, and infractors of the Constitution … [T]hey arrogated to themselves … the sole merit of being the friends of France … denouncing those who differed in opinion, whose principles are purely American …
You have expressed a wish … that I would exert all my endeavors to avert the Calamitous effects of a rupture between our Countries … But France … whilst it was crying peace, Peace and pretending that they did not wish us to be embroiled in their quarrel with great Britain, they were pursuing measures in this Country so repugnant to its sovereignty and so incompatible with every principle of neutrality, as must inevitably have produced a war with the latter. And when they found the Government here was resolved to adhere steadily to its plan of neutrality, their next step was to destroy the confidence of the people in and to separate them from it; for which purpose their diplomatic agents were specially instructed; and in the attempt were aided by inimical characters among ourselves, not … because they loved France … but because it was an instrument to Facilitate the destruction of their own Government …
After my valedictory address to the people of the United States, you would no doubt be surprised to hear that I had again consented to Gird on the Sword … I could not remain an unconcerned spectator …1729
Even were it true that France’s “diplomatic agents” (such as its first Minister to the U.S., Edmond Genět) were “pursuing measures in this Country so repugnant to its sovereignty and so incompatible with every principle of neutrality,” how would this have been different from what Ben Franklin did in France in 1777 to end France’s declared neutrality and to force her into America’s war with Britain? And Franklin had no alliance to justify his behavior! Has Washington forgotten ?
Today, George Washington also writes U.S. Minister in The Hague William Vans Murray:
The Alien and Sedition Laws are not the desiderata in the opposi-[t]ion … [S]omething there will always be for them to torture and to disturb the public mind with their unfounded and ill favored forebodings.1730
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The people of France, after centuries of slavery, altered their form of government from a monarchy to a republic. This certainly was not a new project, for we had only eleven years before … done the very same things but with the difference of six or seven centuries less of provocation.
On Tuesday evening arrived in town the author of the Declaration of American Independence—Thomas Jefferson, Vice President of the United States.
The results of the election in the country is galling to the tories … notwithstanding every artifice and calumny which could be devised to render Dr. Logan odious to the eyes of the people …
Matthew Lyon [of Vermont] we understand has obtained a majority of 664 votes in the recent election for member of the next Congress. The good man Roger [Griswold, Federalist Congressman from Connecticut] has undertaken to wipe the saliva off the face of the odious Sedition Billit is the misfortune of some folks to be always employed upon dirty work.
George Washington refuses to shake hands with George Logan, yet Pennsylvanians elect George Logan to their state assembly! John Adams jails Matthew Lyon for sedition, but Vermonters reelect Matthew Lyon to Congress! Flickers of hope!
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Mr. FENNO, The very judicious observations of a writer in your paper on the tenor of the Aurora advertisements also accounts for an odd circumstance which occurred a few days ago. Upon an order for the publication of a Bankrupt’s notice, application was made to the court to point out some medium for publication. “Extremely well thought of,” said his honor: “it is highly proper that the court should direct in such as case; suppose we say Claypoole’s, Bradford’s or—or—or—The Aurora.” …
[I]t must on all hands be allowed “highly proper” that those who find themselves already bankrupted by jacobinism can no where else so appropriately figure as in a Gazette the principles of which tend to bankrupt the whole community.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
AN ADMONITION TO YOUNG FENNO
It ought to be remembered that Fenno deceas’d was an insolvent in Boston before he became printer …
Before the young gentleman consigns to infamy all the unfortunate, he should wipe away the stain which equally belongs to his own family.
[H]ow just must the President’s observation be that we have persons among us of no character—but is it the nation or administration to whom this best applies ?
The United Irishmen stand precisely in the same odious circumstances with relation to England that John Adams stood 20 years ago—they consider George III an intolerable tyrant now, as he did then.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Extract of a letter from Northampton County, state of Pennsylvania, dated December 17th, 1798.
“As to politics, they run very high here; and there is much disturbances among the people of Northampton county in particular in regard to the taxation. They have plainly told the assessors, on the peril of their lives, not to pretend to execute the orders of assessment, in consequence of which the assessors have returned their warrants to the commissioners … How far this matter will be carried God only knows.”
MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The farmers of Pennsylvania have generally become alarmed by the attempt made by the federal assessor to feel the depth of their pockets … for war money !
The farmers suspect that the executive administration is somewhat extravagant when it asks for
a house tax … at a time when their apprehensions of a war with the French Republic have ceased …
Before the designs … to do away [with] the concern of every individual in the freedom and peace of his country can be accomplished, there must be a gag bill to stop the press and voice and a standing army to dragoon us to obedience … [W]e must be as destitute of virtue, the love of liberty, of republican government, and of everything that gives us a national character;—but we are told we have not a character,—there is some consistency at least in the projects of some people.
Today, John Adams writes Abigail:
Logan’s election to the legislature will give the Jacobins a triumph … Logan seems more fool than knave. It is thought the V. P. stays away from very bad motives. I am told he is considered here as the Head of the opposition to Government both in the old Dominion [Virginia] and Kentucky. He is certainly acting a part that he will find hard to justify …1731
Today, an Episcopal Minister, John Cosens Ogden, presents John Adams with a petition from three or four thousand Vermonters who beg a presidential reprieve for their reelected congressman, Matthew Lyon.1732 John Adams responds to the Rev. Ogden that, “penitence must precede pardon” and warns, “as for you, sir, your interference in this business will prevent your receiving any favours from me.”1733