American Aurora
Page 112
Our revolution has obliterated these impious institutions. [T]he New England states alone support intolerance. In Virginia, Mr. Jefferson has been the author and mover of those laws which put down the national church there and abolished tythes [taxes on the general population to support the church]. This is a sin for which those who deal in tythes will never forgive him; this is Mr. Jefferson’s crime in their eyes … [T]he Roman Catholics are now building a Church in Norfolk, Virginia … From this happy state of toleration, the furious zealots for the British government would bring us back to our former condition …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Extract of a letter from New England. “I understand from some of the newspapers that Mr. Abercrombie, one of your Episcopal Clergymen … has drawn down the vengeance of all the Jacobins and, among the rest, their redoubtable champion, Duane. Why Mr. Abercrombie should be attacked more than other Clergymen I cannot conceive …”
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
FORGERY
A PROP FOR PARSON ABERCROMBIE
In the Philadelphia Gazette of Friday, there appeared a letter of which the following is an exact copy.
“Having heard that there were several objections to Mr. Jefferson for his disbelief in the importance of Christianity, I gave myself little trouble on a subject which, as a follower of Moses and the Old Testament, I had little to do. But since the abuse offered to Mr. Abercrombie, I have examined the merits and find that Mr. Jefferson … by making a belief of twenty Gods or even NO GOD unimportant, has struck at all religion! Therefore, Mr. Abercrombie will be considered in a COMMON CAUSE … [W]e all abhor the very name of an Atheist.
MOSES S. SOLOMONS,
Second Street, Philadelphia”
Upon the first perusal of this article, we perceived its imposture. No person of the Jewish church could object to a man who was the avowed advocate of universal toleration! No Hebrew could be hostile consistently to a man who, in the very introduction to the Declaration of Independence, declared all men equal and implores a Divine Providence. Upon examination, no person of the name of Moses S. Solomons was found in Second Street. Recourse was then had to the Hebrew church in Cherry Alley ! No such person was known there! … The Editor then applied to one of the Hebrew congregation … [T]he following certificate was obtained …
I have been for several years a Parnass (or president) to the Hebrew congregation … [N]o such man as Moses S. Solomon has ever been or is now a member of a Hebrew congregation of this city.
A MEMBER OF THE HEBREW CHURCH …
Such are the means employed by Parson Abercrombie and his gang to prop up their hypocritical profess[ion]s of religion!
Benjamin Nones (whose letter appeared in the August 13th Aurora) provided the certificate.2004
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
That “Gentleman of the first reputation” DUANE, who receives letters “admiring the ability with which L’Aurora is conducted” … has become seriously alarmed at the encreasing circulation of the Gazette of the United States. He attempts to impose a belief on his gaping readers that it has but five hundred subscribers!!! If the Advertisement for a thousand Rheams of paper per year gives him such qualms as lately discovered, we would publish a list of subscribers which should … “shake his gall bladder.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
VICTORY
Franklin declares all power to be in the people when the servants violate their duties or when they violate the constitution.
B. F. BACHE, EDITOR,
AURORA GENERAL ADVERTISER, 1790-17982005
[T]he American Revolution … attempted to overturn tyranny but only half completed its design. The party who at present hold the government … have now taken the ground and doctrines of George the third.
JAMES THOMSON CALLENDER,
SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY OF AMERICA (1798)2006
In 1798 and 1799, monarchy openly exulted, and democracy was a term of bitterest reproach. The execrable planners of this dangerous and desperate system, thanks to the freedom of the press, are now fallen; fallen, we sincerely hope, to rise no more.
WILLIAM DUANE, EDITOR,
AURORA GENERAL ADVERTISER, 1798-18222007
[T]he energy of [William Duane’s Aurora], … its unquestionable effect in the revolution produced in the public mind … arrested the rapid march of our government towards monarchy …
THOMAS JEFFERSON,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1801-1809 2008
FIRST ARTICLE: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
FROM THE BILL OF RIGHTS OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
God grant that not only the love of liberty, but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man, may pervade all Nations of the Earth, so that a Philosopher may set his Foot anywhere on its Surface, and say, “This is my Country.”
DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN2009
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Did not a person holding a public office under the present administration say that if Jefferson should be elected president, the records of the department of state ought never to be suffered to go into his hands?
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
MR. EDITOR … I was a Democrat and was fully intent upon voting for Tom Paine, pshaw, I mean Tom Jefferson at the next election; but by the salutary counsel of my Friends … I have now become (I hope) a good Federalist … I have been accustomed to read the Aurora (by the advice of Duane) every morning … but … Mr. Worthy, the schoolmaster … said, “what, have you also degraded yourself so far as to become a subscriber for that infamous and abandoned paper; a paper constantly teeming with the greatest scurrility against every good man; from whose shaft of Malice even Washington was not exempted and which, not content, now seeks to undermine the throne of God himself?” …
DICK VULCAN
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
NEW JERSEY …
FELLOW CITIZENS … It is true, citizens of New Jersey, you cannot exercise a direct voice in the appointment of electors for president and vice president. You have respectfully petitioned for this privilege … [Y]our last two legislatures … declared that you are unworthy … and it remains for you to decide, at the approaching election, whether those who deprive you of an invaluable right … yet retain your confidence … Your united and decisive voice will remove the grievances … The powerful states of Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York have nobly led the way. You have witnessed the effects of those republican triumphs.—You have seen the confusion of the cabinet, the dissolution of any army which had cost you millions, and the whole system of terror staggering under the strokes. Arouse then …
Federalist-controlled state legislatures in the crucial mid-Atlantic states (Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey) have denied their citizens the right to vote for presidential electors, retaining that right for the legislators to exercise themselves. But, in May, New Yorkers reconstituted their state legislature with a Republican majority, so the state’s twelve presidential electoral votes will go to Jefferson. Might New Jersey do the same? Might Pennsylvania?
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Liberty, Equality, and the rights of Man
On the authority of several letters, we state that twenty unfortunate negroes were to be executed near Richmond for being concerned in the holy right of Insurrection!!
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
THE PUBLISHING OFFICE of the Aurora is removed from No. 112, Market street, to the apartment underneath the Printing Office in Franklin Court, between 106 and 108, Market street.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
A FAVORITE BEER-HOUSE SONG …
There came a saucy Irishman, from somewhere near Killarney,
A scurvy cunning Jacobin, and very full of blarney …
He kiss’d poor Benny Bache’s wife; he lied for Coxe and Dallas
’Till by the rules of honesty, he well deserved the gallows;
He feed our pliant lawyers to put off each fair trial;
Thus tho’ by fifty he was sued—yet still he did defy all;
O! was not he an arch knave, this cunning Will Duane O,
To dupe both law and justice too, as well as Tom M’Kean O
George Washington he call’d a Knave, the President a Rogue, Sir
And treated every honest man, as if he had the brogue, Sir …
Extract of a letter from New Jersey … “From the most accurate calculations … a large majority of our next legislature will be federal, consequently Mr. Jefferson will have no votes in New Jersey …”
New Jersey will be lost! Will Pennsylvania hold the key to the presidency?
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
BUCKS COUNTY [PENN.]
At a large and respectable meeting of the REPUBLICAN CITIZENS of Bucks county, held (pursuant to public notice) at the house of Josiah Addis in Buckingham Township, on Saturday, the 13th of September, the following resolutions were adopted, viz …
Whereas … the republican part of our Legislature have done their utmost to secure to Pennsylvania her constitutional voice in the election of the next President by proposing to renew the law under which we have hitherto acted and prospered, but were prevented by a majority of the Senators [who] … ought, as soon as possible to be replaced …
Resolved, That we will individually exert ourselves … to promote the election of the said [Republican] William Rodman [to the Pennsylvania state Senate] …
Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting be given to that distinguished, persecuted, yet still triumphant republican William Duane, for his attendance and valuable communications to this meeting, long may he continue in the advance guard of republicans, and the phalanx of aristocracy fall before the awakened spirit of American freedom.
THOMAS LONG, Chairman
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Duane has been attending the Jacobin meetings in different parts of the State. At one held in Bucks county, a Resolution of Thanks was passed for his attendance and valuable communications, &c. That Duane should be there is natural, and he will go wherever the whiskey circulates …
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
John Adams is no Democrat. Doctor Franklin was one … And one of his political axioms was that all rights were derived from the people and in a democracy must revert to them at certain stated periods, agreeably to the terms of the constitutional compact.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
That “Gentleman of the First Reputation,” Duane, is going about the country and stopping at every Jacobin Tavern keeper’s, where he assembles two or three of the Ostlers [stablemen]. These, with two or three United Irishmen who accompany him, he calls a meeting; one of his companions then produces a string of resolutions written by Duane in which a number of the inhabitants who are 7, 8, and 10 miles off are named as a committee. Among these resolutions, there is always one expressing thanks for his attendance, his republican firmness, his patriotism, and regret at his persecution—he gets these agreed to by the drunken fellows present and then publishes them in the French Gazette. This is the way so many meetings are accounted for. He goes in the country with his pockets full of resolutions. He is a modest man!!!
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
LEGIONARY ORDERS …
The militia legion will display in line in Monday the 22d inst. At 9 o’clock in the morning at Germantown. The corps from the City, Southwark, and the Northern Liberties will march from their respective parades at 6 o’clock …
JOHN SHEE, Commandant
REPUBLICAN GREENS
YOU muster for an inspection of arms THIS row evening, at 5 o’clock, in Franklin Court—And on Monday morning, punctually at 6 o’clock, ready for march …
WM. KANE, Secretary
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Dated Richmond [Virginia]. September 12, 1800. “… One Thomas Prosser, a young man who had fallen heir, some time ago, to a plantation within six miles of the city, had behaved with great barbarity to his slaves. One of them named Gabriel, a fellow of courage and intellect above his rank in life, laid a plan of vengeance. Immense numbers immediately entered into it … [R]ain made the passage impracticable … Five fellows were hung this day; and many more will share the same fate. Their plan was to massacre all the whites …”
Today, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Insurrection of the Negroes in the southern states, which appears to be organized on the true French plan, must be decisive with every reflecting man in those States of the election of Mr. Adams …
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes Dr. Benjamin Rush:
I promised you a letter on Christianity …
The delusion into which the X, Y, Z plot shewed it possible to push the people; the successful experiment made … on the clause of the constitution which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity thro’ the U.S.; and, as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for its own, but especially the Episcopalians & Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they believe that any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.2010
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
It is well known that Mr. Jefferson, among the other matters of complaint, inserted … in his draft of the Declaration of Independence one article … [against] the British king … withholding his assent from laws passed in Virginia and other colonies prohibiting the importation of Africans as slaves. This clause in the Declaration of Independence was struck out of the draft on the motion of an eastern [New England] member of Congress …
In Wayne’s Gazette [of the United States] of yesterday evening, the insurrection of the Negroes in Virginia and Carolina is thus treated—“The Insurrection of the Negroes in the southern states, which appears to be organized on the French plan, must be decisive with every reflecting man in those states of the election of Mr. Adams …”…
We augur better things from this unhappy but, thank God, partial revolt.—We augur from it the effectual stoppage of the African trade. We augur from it measures for a gradual emancipation of the offspring of those who now exist in slavery upon the same plan long since suggested by Dr. Franklin and which Mr. Jefferson endeavored without effect to accomplish. We augur from it, not bloodshed nor massacre by military execution or the gibbet, but the election of that man whose whole life has been marked by measures calculated to procure the emancipation of the blacks and to ameliorate the condition of those whom the fatal policy of the British has entailed us.
Benjamin Franklin was president of America’s first antislavery society, the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.2011
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Monday the twenty-second day of September, the Shee [Republican] Legion of this city paraded and marched to Beggars town—for what—to drink gin with Duane—eat a Bull at Logan’s—or was it to celebrate the coronation of King George the III?
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBE
R 25, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Republican legion of this City had a day of military exercise at Germantown, the 22d instant … on [what] was formerly a British camp where the myrmidons of George III assembled …; there were more than fifty persons under arms in the Legion on Monday who had a share in the battle of Germantown. The honest German citizens cheered at the sight of the assemblage of a body of Republicans, whose military parades are conducted without breaking the peace of the city …
TO THE ELECTORS OF PENNSYLVANIA …
Our annual election is now at hand … [O]n the political complexion of the next Legislative Body of the State, very much indeed must depend …
The Constitution of the United States has provided that “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors …” Such electors have been three times chosen in Pennsylvania [so that] … the whole number of electors of President and Vice President was voted for by individuals duly qualified throughout the state, in one ticket.
The republican members of the present legislature, in their last session, proposed a similar law … But those inimical to the appointment of Republican candidates … insisted on an election by districts and those so modified and arranged as totally to preclude a true manifestation of the will of the State. This unfair, as well as unprecedented mode of appointing the electors of Pennsylvania, could not be conscientiously acceded to …
But, surely, Pennsylvania will not submit to a total disenfranchisement … The Constitution of the United States directs that “each state shall appoint,” &c.—We have, therefore, one resource left … The LEGISLATURE may themselves appoint the electors … It is, fellow citizens, within the compass of a probability that upon the vote of a single member of the Senate of this State may rest the decision of the mighty contest which is now agitating the mind of every American citizen …