Fallen Founder
Page 18
It is just as clear that the Republicans intended to make use of the showcase trial as a means to dramatize Gallatin’s victimization. This way, even if the Federalists voted to oust Gallatin, the administration’s critics might still win over the general public. In any event, Aaron Burr was expected to steal the stage, and at the same time be the voice that rang out for a new and broader conception of political participation; he was, consciously, it seems, speaking for more than one man’s right to a Senate seat.11
The main thrust of Burr’s argument was that citizenship came from consent. Drawing on his favorite writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Burr defended the basic premise of the social contract: citizens were not born, but made, through their participation in civil society. Gallatin had arrived in America in 1780, and during the next three years, while a resident of Massachusetts, he had owned property, taken up arms, and voted. These actions, as Burr saw things, revealed an “intention,” Gallatin’s “tacit consent” to act, as well as to be recognized, as a member of the social compact.12
Burr’s theory was genuinely radical and enlightened: referencing the time of the Revolution, he removed the distinction between British and non-British. Gallatin was just like any British subject (whether born in the colonies or elsewhere) whose residence and support of the patriotic cause qualified him for American citizenship. Anglo-American heritage, prized by Federalists as a crucial apprenticeship to full citizenship, Burr dismissed as irrelevant. It was consent—not descent—that made citizens, a phenomenon never more true than at the moment of America’s creation.13
In 1800, Burr would again make this argument, when Gallatin’s appointment to Jefferson’s cabinet was opposed because of his alien birth. The objection was “frivolous and absurd,” he would write Maryland Republican Samuel Smith at that time, adding: “Why was it not made against Hamilton . . . and a score of others.” Burr’s point was obvious: If Hamilton, born in the British West Indies, held high office, then so could Gallatin; they were equally aliens—Hamilton’s British heritage did not change that fact.14
So, in February 1794, senators voted along strict party lines, and by 14 to 12 declared Gallatin’s election void. Without undue pleasure at the results, Vice President John Adams praised the hearings for the “learning, eloquence, and reasoning of some of the senators.” He undoubtedly had Burr in mind as much as his fellow Federalists. Still, some Republicans wanted revenge. A month later, James Monroe contested the appointment of Delaware senator Kensey Johns. By a 1-vote margin, Johns lost his seat, and the Federalists were denied the company of one of their own.15
As always, personal ties raised the political stakes. Burr had both personal and political reasons for supporting Gallatin. In the months leading up to the Senate hearings, the Pennsylvanian had courted and married Hannah Nicholson, daughter of Commodore James Nicholson, a close friend of Burr’s who was influential in Republican circles. Nicholson was a founder of the New York Democratic Society, and Hannah, as Gallatin described his wife, was a “pretty good Democrat.”16
A genuine affinity had developed between Burr and Gallatin, based in part on their common search for balance between the life of the mind and financial security. Gallatin had spent much of his early life as a western adventurer, traveling along the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers, buying up land and speculating freely. But he was no less an accomplished scholar, having received his early training in the elite schools of Geneva. Burr later described Gallatin as the “best head” in the United States, a compliment that meant a great deal given the many, more memorable founders associated with thought. It may well have been Gallatin who introduced Burr to the work of the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Impressed with the precepts of Utilitarianism, Burr regarded Bentham as “second to no one, ancient or modern, in profound thinking, in logical and analytical reasoning.” After meeting Burr in 1808, Bentham would return the compliment, describing him as an expert in military matters and the management of parties, and “better qualified to pursue my ideas, as well as better disposed for it than any man I have yet met with, or ever expect to meet with.” It is well worth adding that Gallatin, like Burr, admired women for their intellectual attainments.17
Gallatin matters greatly. It is nearly impossible to describe the practical progress of liberal republicanism in early America without focusing on Albert Gallatin, yet in virtually all narratives involving the founders, he never seems to be more than a supporting player. He would become, under Jefferson and Madison, the longest serving treasury secretary in American history. His relationship with Burr in the 1790s tells us much about the coalescence of the northern Republican element: both Burr and Gallatin favored an independent economy (free from foreign, especially British, dependence), supporting commercial growth and western expansion. Influenced by the Enlightenment, they fashioned themselves as rational Republicans, social liberals, independent thinkers. They saw politics as a thinking person’s game, in which rational planning was essential to partisan victory. His greatest political strength, as Gallatin said about himself, was the intensive research he conducted into political-constitutional issues—such as he and Burr displayed when they defended his right to be in the Senate. Cut from the same intellectual cloth, Burr and Gallatin were natural allies.18
Despite his removal from the Senate, Gallatin was immediately chosen to serve in the House in 1795. There he joined forces with James Madison and Edward Livingston; known familiarly as “beau Ned,” Livingston was the younger brother of the chancellor; but it was his radical credentials as a member of the New York Democratic Society—not his family name—that got him elected as a Republican congressman from New York City. As a friend of Burr’s, Livingston would later find himself in position to play a pivotal role in the 1800 election.19
At the time Burr was defending Gallatin’s seat in the Senate, the British were assaulting American commercial vessels. In an effort to keep the French from capitalizing on American neutrality, the British had seized perhaps 150 American ships. In the House, Madison had introduced a series of retaliatory measures against the old enemy. While talk of war filled the air, Federalists searched for a way to outmaneuver their opposition, and proposed that a special envoy be dispatched immediately to England to smooth over problems. President Washington selected John Jay of New York for the delicate mission, submitting his name to the Senate for approval in April 1794.20
Burr continued to frustrate the Federalists in the Senate. In concert with Virginians James Monroe and John Taylor of Caroline, he led the charge against Jay’s nomination. In the minds of many Republicans, Jay was far too friendly to the British, and hardly the best choice to negotiate a treaty that would protect American interests or honor. But Burr did not seethe with partisan rage; rather, he framed his criticism broadly, on constitutional grounds. In a resolution he drafted, Burr argued that Jay, as a Supreme Court justice, should not hold “any other office or employment . . . at the pleasure of the Executive.” To do so was “contrary to the spirit of the Constitution,” exposing him “to the influence of the Executive,” which was “mischievous and impolitic.” Simply put: having a justice at the beck-and-call of the president undercut the balance of power between the executive and the judiciary branches. Jay’s appointment improperly augmented the power of the presidency. Instead of entrusting Congress to determine an appropriate response to British harassment, it would be a sitting judge who shaped foreign policy, in Burr’s words, “at the pleasure of the Executive.”21
Burr’s resolution was shot down, and Jay left for London in May. On the other hand, James Monroe had just received his appointment from President Washington as minister to France, and sailed in June. With Monroe abroad, Burr assumed a more visible leadership role among Republicans in the Senate. In constant communication with Monroe, he forwarded newspapers and gossip, keeping the Virginian abreast of the latest developments on the national political scene. As he had with Gallatin, Burr strengthened his personal ties to Mon
roe when he offered the services of his stepson, John Bartow Prevost, to act as Monroe’s personal secretary in France. Perhaps Burr’s most important duty, though, was shoring up the Republican ranks in the Senate. In 1794, after the departure of the Virginians Monroe and Taylor, Henry Tazewell and Stevens Thomson Mason became the new pairing from that state. Though both were devoted to the Republican Party, they were not party leaders. Burr worked closely with the newcomers, especially Tazewell, who was Monroe’s personal friend. Thus Burr consolidated the ranks, and took charge of managing the anti-administration wing of the Senate.22
Negotiations with the British Ministry were completed in November 1794, but both the Senate and the general public remained in the dark about Jay’s activities for seven more months. By that time, Republicans were absolutely furious at the Federalists’ repeated attempts to shroud the treaty’s provisions in secrecy. Through procedural technicalities at the time of Jay’s confirmation, Federalists made it impossible for Republicans to have any say in the negotiations. With instructions crafted by Hamilton, Jay was given full discretionary power to carry out his mission; he neither had to inform the Senate of his progress nor submit his instructions for their advice or judgment. When Jay finally sent the treaty to President Washington in March 1795, the cagey chief executive refused to disclose its contents until he had called a special session of the Senate on June 8. Even then, Federalists took the unusual step of placing an injunction of secrecy on the senators, insisting that the treaty could not be discussed outside its closed chambers.23
When the senators finally were permitted to review the terms of the treaty, Republicans were appalled, and even a number of Federalists privately confessed their dissatisfaction. The treaty read like a list of humiliating concessions. The only privilege Jay secured for American commerce was permission to resume trade with the West Indies; and even here, the tonnage restrictions were so severe that, as Madison mockingly noted, it was like having the right to trade in canoes. Southerners were doubly angry because Jay had ignored instructions to secure compensation for their loss of slaves, lured away or captured by the British during the Revolution. The treaty was a retreat from the policy of neutrality, insulting to America’s French allies, and there was no provision protecting American seamen from impressment into the British navy either. Americans were denied use of several waterways and ports within Canada, while British ships were given few restrictions, plying the Mississippi alongside American vessels. Significantly, too, the British refused to pay the United States monetary damages stemming from their failure to abandon frontier posts in the Northwest for thirteen years, though they were meant to have done so immediately after signing the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The list of embarrassments went on. Jay’s Treaty seemed like a complete capitulation.24
A two-thirds majority was needed in the Senate to ratify the treaty, and there were just enough Federalists to clinch the vote, if all sided with the administration. The only chance Burr and the other Republicans had to defeat Jay’s Treaty was to lure away a few Federalists who might be wavering. So the Republicans tried a few tactics, such as lifting the secrecy injunction in the hope of generating a public outcry sufficient to exert pressure on a few Federalists. But even the motion to take the debate beyond the walls of the Senate failed, and vigorous debate continued—away from the public eye. At this tense moment, Burr made a direct appeal to President Washington, writing for an audience, so that they could “converse”—amicably—and come to some terms. There is no indication that Washington even replied. Burr returned to the Senate. According to Gallatin, “Burr made a most excellent speech,” summarizing the treaty’s most glaring flaws. He proposed that ratification be postponed until several offending articles were renegotiated—it was Burr’s intention to send the treaty back to the drawing table. But again the motion failed, by the same predictable 20-to-10 vote that a few days later would officially convey Senate approval of the treaty.25
In spite of their defeat in the Senate, the Republicans carried the fight into the streets. Newspapers were already railing against the veil of secrecy: “If the people have the right and capacity to govern themselves,” a writer in the New York Argus contended, then “they are certainly entitled to a knowledge of their own affairs.” One correspondent sarcastically regretted “that the Treaty cannot be kept secret after as well as before it was ratified.” Another angry critic charged that the senators’ behavior was unconstitutional as well as unrepublican, by comparing the rule of secrecy to the debauched and despotic “darkness of a conclave or a seraglio.”26
Loath to keep the treaty a secret any longer, Senator Stevens Thomson Mason of Virginia sent a copy to the Philadelphia Aurora, probably the most radically Republican of all American presses. As he set it in type, editor Benjamin Bache (grandson of Benjamin Franklin) forwarded the text to sister papers across the country. Thomas Greenleaf published it in the Argus on July 4, and it appears that Burr had already circulated his copy among his constituents. Heralding Burr for his critical stand against Jay’s treaty, Greenleaf published the treaty alongside “two IMPORTANT MOTIONS, one by MR. BURR and the other by MR. TAZEWELL.”27
For Republicans in New York, Burr was a voice of reason against the treaty, and a galvanizing force. At this critical moment, three prominent civic groups—the Democratic Society, Tammany Society, and Mechanic Society—all drank toasts to the “ten virtuous, wise, and independent Senators,” the “Patriotic Ten,” who had “refused to sacrifice their country’s commerce, rights, and honor.”28
“MAD AMBITION IN HIS BOSOM BURN”
A momentous development occurred at this time—momentous, at least, in Burr’s political career. In 1795, he found himself the object of two devastating satires published in the nation’s capital of Philadelphia. For the first time, and in what would become a constant refrain in later years, Burr was depicted as an intriguer. The attacks were highly personal, criticizing his private life, his manners, and his physical appearance. The first poem, the anonymous Democratiad (1795), devoted one long section to the “courtly Burr.” It made light of the senator’s “piercing look, and ever varying mien,” mocking, too, his small stature, and belittling his “well known name.” Burr did not deserve the fame that his worthy ancestry afforded him. Echoing what Hamilton had already whispered in private, the satirist painted him as a creature of intrigue and disguise, a man of overblown pride and irregular passions. He displayed “haughtiness and scorn”; and beneath his courtly veneer, the poet claimed, did “mad ambition in his bosom burn.”29
The unknown author of the second satire, a poem entitled Aristocracy, displayed an intimate knowledge of his subject’s life. Though not mentioned by name, Burr was identified through clues that closely paralleled his personal history. There was his rejection of his family’s religious faith, his absence from the Constitutional Convention, and his daring experiment in training his daughter according to the precepts of Mary Wollstonecraft. Recognized as a prominent leader of the Republican Party, second only to Jefferson at this juncture (according to the poem), Burr was a target. Even his talents as a party manager were chided: as the consummate political manipulator, he employed “art superior,” that is, a creative yet disruptive knowledge, and he capitalized crudely on partisan alliances to advance his ignoble career.30
The Federalists were on the warpath. Aristocracy associated Burr with treason in the form of a secret pact with the pushy, power-hungry Citizen Genet. Wining and dining the French envoy at his home, Burr appears unctuous, a scheming courtier, teaming up with the dangerous Jacobin foreign minister. In a long “confession,” Burr is made to admit that his relentless ambition stems from jealousy of Hamilton. Only by winning the presidency could he ostensibly eclipse Hamilton’s undiminished fame. This mock-Burr explains:
Then might I hope the Empire’s highest seat;
Then see my rival humbled at my feet;
The utmost object of my vows be found;
And pride, ambition, and revenge, be crown’d.31
Both of these satires underscored Federalists’ growing concern with Republican success in attracting a popular following. In 1795, Burr was increasing in stature just as Hamilton had decided to step down as Washington’s influential secretary of the treasury. To most Federalists, the Genet Affair, the Whiskey Rebellion, and the Jay Treaty all pointed to treasonous behavior. They were the poisonous fruit of one tree: the democratic societies. Hamilton’s successor at the treasury, Federalist Oliver Wolcott, received a telling letter from his father, who confidently wrote in February 1795 that the “democratical, or as some call them, demoniacal societies,” were “nurseries of sedition.” In Aristocracy, as Burr plotted with Genet, the democratic interest attracted an adoring “throng.” With satanic glee, the conniving Burr promoted disorder throughout the land.32
Continuing protests against the Jay Treaty added to these fears. Town meetings took place not only in the South but in Federalist strongholds in the Northeast as well. In Boston, Jay’s portrait was burned in effigy; and a copy of the treaty was set afire on the streets of New York. At a meeting organized by that city’s Democratic Society on the Fourth of July, Hamilton himself was pelted with stones while he tried to defend the treaty. Later that day, after he had impulsively challenged the fifty-nine-year-old Commodore James Nicholson to a duel, Hamilton turned and invited a group of democrats to engage in a bare knuckle fistfight, claiming he was ready to fight the “whole detestable faction” one at a time. The “self-created societies,” which Washington had blamed for the Whiskey Rebellion, were now accused of inciting mob violence over the treaty.33
The democratic societies did oppose the Jay Treaty. Recall that the New York Democratic Society had toasted Burr as one of the “Patriotic Ten” who opposed the treaty in the Senate. Although we do not know if he was a member of the society in 1795 (he definitely was in 1798), some of his closest allies, such as Commodore Nicholson, David Gelston, and Melancton Smith, were. And Burr had gone on record defending them. He had opposed the Senate’s censure of the New York Democratic Society in November 1794. And when drafting the Senate’s response to the president’s address before Congress, Burr had tried to excise the passage in which the Senate endorsed Washington’s harangue against “self-created societies.”34