Youths particularly, who had been liberally educated, and who with strong passions, and feeble principles, were votaries of sensuality and ambition, delighted with the prospect of unrestrained gratification, and panting to be enrolled with men of fashion and splendour, became enamored of these new doctrines. The tenour of opinion, and even of conversation, was to a considerable extent changed at once. Striplings, scarcely fledged, suddenly found that the world had been involved in a general darkness, through the long succession of the precedingages; and that the light of wisdom had just begun to dawn upon the human race. All the science, all the information, which had been acquired before the commencement of the last thirty or forty years, stood in their view for nothing…. Religion they discovered on the one hand to be a vision of dotards and nurses, and on the other a system of fraud and trick, imposed by priestcraft for base purposes upon the ignorant multitude. Revelation they found was without authority, or evidence; and moral obligation a cobweb, which might indeed entangle flies, but by which creatures of a stronger wing nobly disdained to be confined.[188]
Youths particularly, who had been liberally educated, and who with strong passions, and feeble principles, were votaries of sensuality and ambition, delighted with the prospect of unrestrained gratification, and panting to be enrolled with men of fashion and splendour, became enamored of these new doctrines. The tenour of opinion, and even of conversation, was to a considerable extent changed at once. Striplings, scarcely fledged, suddenly found that the world had been involved in a general darkness, through the long succession of the precedingages; and that the light of wisdom had just begun to dawn upon the human race. All the science, all the information, which had been acquired before the commencement of the last thirty or forty years, stood in their view for nothing…. Religion they discovered on the one hand to be a vision of dotards and nurses, and on the other a system of fraud and trick, imposed by priestcraft for base purposes upon the ignorant multitude. Revelation they found was without authority, or evidence; and moral obligation a cobweb, which might indeed entangle flies, but by which creatures of a stronger wing nobly disdained to be confined.[188]
This somewhat theoretical view of the case was not unsupported by tangible evidence. The students of Yale were sceptical.[189]In the religious discussions of the lecture-rooms the cause of infidelity stood high in student favor.[190]Of seventy-six members of the class that graduated in 1802 only one was a professed Christian at the time of matriculation.[191]At the time President Dwight entered upon the leadership of the college, the college church was practically extinct.[192]Altogether the situation was highly alarming to the friends of Christianity.[193]
The condition of affairs at Harvard showed little if any improvement. When William Ellery Channing matriculated in that institution in 1794 he found the thought andprinciples of the students on a lower level than they ever before had reached.[194]The French Revolution, which generally throughout the country had shown itself to be contaminating, already had left its marks deep upon the life of the college. The old loyalties were shaken; conversation had become bold and daring in tone; the foundations upon which morals and religion had been built in the past were now believed to be seriously undermined.[195]
On the part of men who held themselves responsible for the education of youth, everywhere the feeling prevailed that a popular mood of skepticism had developed for which the precepts and example of the French were chiefly responsible.
With the clergy—and in their state of mind we are interested especially—this feeling was hardly less than an obsession. The special conservators of the moral and religious health of the people, they had long been concerned over the possible effects of radical French political and religious notions; and when they seemed to see the triumph of those notions in the excesses of the French Revolution, their sense of alarm was intense. It was, of course, the exhibition of violent hostility to organized Christianity in France which the Revolutionists were making, over which their hands were flung high in horror.
The clergy of New England, like the majority of their fellow-countrymen, in the beginning had not adopted an attitude of hostility toward the French upheaval. There was that in the earlier struggles of the French people to tear the yoke of despotism from their necks which appealed mightily to the sympathies of the clerical heart. It was not without some travail of spirit that clergymen arrived at theconclusion that their sympathy and enthusiasm for the French Revolution had been misplaced.[196]Two factors contributed to this result. In the first place, the changed complexion of the Revolution; in the second place, the new party alignments at home which brought the orthodox clergy, almost to a man, into the Federalist camp.
Which of these two factors was the more decisive in its power of control over the clerical mind, it would be difficult to say. As a matter of fact, the two influences were interrelated to an extraordinary degree. Political alignments, as we have seen, were interwoven closely with the question of foreign alliances. Conversely, the status of foreign affairs was bound to react strongly upon the judgments of clergymen with whom patriotic concerns were second in importance only to the interests of religion. Be that as it may, the years 1793 and 1794 saw the Federalist clergy in New England rapidly veering round to the fixed position of vehement antagonism to French principles. The following is a brief account of the course they pursued.
On the occasion of the annual fast in Massachusetts, April 11, 1793, the Reverend David Tappan, professor of divinity in Harvard College, preached a sermon that indicated the trend of a clerical mind.[197]In language not unmarked by vagueness, he called upon his hearers to bear witness to the present corrupted state of religion, due to the bold advance and rapid diffusion of “sceptical, deistical, and other loose and pernicious sentiments.” Waxing more confident, he continued: “May I not add that a species of atheistical philosophy, which has of late triumphantly reared its head in Europe, and which affects to be the offspringand the nurse of sound reason, science, and liberty, seems in danger of infecting some of the more sprightly and free-thinking geniuses of America.”[198]
Something more than a year later, a pulpit deliverance was made at Medford, Massachusetts, on the occasion of the annual state Thanksgiving, which supplied ample evidence that clerical fears were rapidly gathering force. Medford’s minister, the Reverend David Osgood,[199]was heard in a vigorous discussion of the leading political and religious concerns of the day.[200]First taking occasion to eulogize theFederal government by way of atonement for the failure of Governor Samuel Adams to make reference to the same in his Thanksgiving proclamation, the reverend gentleman thereupon launched into a vehement denunciation of the Democratic Societies,[201]because of their subservience to foreign emissaries, and because of the outrageous activities of Minister Genet. Not content with this, he proceeded to lay heavy emphasis upon the ferocious zeal and desperate fury which the French were manifesting in their attacks upon the institutions of religion, the far-reaching import of which, he declared, was already apparent in the fact that, under the power of their blind devotion to the French cause, not a few American citizens were casting off their allegiance to the Christian religion.[202]
The notes of warning sounded by Osgood in this sermon were both clear and loud. They fell on numerous sympathetic and responsive ears. Committed promptly to type, the sermon passed rapidly through six editions, a sufficient proof of the extent of the sensation which it produced. Its author’s reputation was established; but beyond this, and what is more to the point, the shibboleths of future clerical pronouncements had been uttered. Henceforth the publicutterances of the Federal clergy were to be characterized by a violent antagonism to the French Revolution and the spread of French influence in America.[203]
The chorus of clerical complaint on account of the dangers that threatened the cause of religion, either because of the progress of the Revolution abroad or the overt and secret diffusion of infidel principles at home, grew steadily in volume. One or two added instances of this type of pulpit utterance will suffice.
Tappan was again heard from, in February, 1795, on the day set for the observance of the national thanksgiving.[204]He dealt with the political situation at length, and emphasizedparticularly the destructive effects of French influence. Before his sermon was committed to the hands of the printer, Tappan was made acquainted with the fact that the minister of Rowley, the Reverend Ebenezer Bradford, had made certain apologetic comments, on the occasion of the national thanksgiving, respecting the importance of French success to the peace and tranquility of America, and the propriety of seeking the reason for the recent insurrection in western Pennsylvania in “impolitic laws” rather than in French influence exerted through Democratic Clubs,[205]as Federalists had made bold to claim.[206]To these observations Tappan made the following sharp retort:
The destructive effects of them [i. e., secret political clubs] in France have been noticed in the preceding discourse. Their unhappy influence in this country is sufficiently exemplified in that spirit of falsehood, of party and faction, which some of them, at least, assiduously and too successfully promote, and especially in the late dangerous and expensive western insurrection, which may be evidently traced, in a great degree, tothe inflammatory representations and proceedings of these clubs, their abettors and friends.[207]
The destructive effects of them [i. e., secret political clubs] in France have been noticed in the preceding discourse. Their unhappy influence in this country is sufficiently exemplified in that spirit of falsehood, of party and faction, which some of them, at least, assiduously and too successfully promote, and especially in the late dangerous and expensive western insurrection, which may be evidently traced, in a great degree, tothe inflammatory representations and proceedings of these clubs, their abettors and friends.[207]
Medford’s minister acquitted himself with something more than his customary fiery earnestness on the occasion of this same national festival. Mounting his pulpit, he pictured to his hearers “the reign of a ferocious and atheistical anarchy in France,” whose authors had “formed the design of bringing other nations to fraternize with them in their infernal principles and conduct.”[208]Their emissaries, Osgood argued, have spread themselves abroad and entered into every country open to them. In Geneva these abandoned creatures have been “horribly successful in overthrowing a free government but lately established, and in bringing on, in imitation of what had happened in their own country, one revolution after another.” The same identical agents have found their way into the United States and have begun here their poisonous fraternizing system.[209]The sermon as a whole could scarcely have been more violent in tone. It is very clear that Osgood had resolved to do what he could to rouse the country.
As a direct result of this kind of pulpit utterance—a result that doubtless had much to do with persuading the clergy that an alarming decline of religion was under way in New England—the charge of “political preaching” rapidly developed into one of the standing accusations of the day. The bitterness of party strife grew apace. Opposition to Federalist measures of government, such as Jay’s Treaty and the handling of diplomatic relations with France,mounted steadily higher. In consequence, the Federal clergy found themselves drawn farther and farther into the maelstrom of political discussion. Out of this developed the sentiments entertained by the opposition that the clergy were the tools of the Federalists, and that public occasions were eagerly pounced upon by them and used to promote the cause of party advantage.
This shaft struck home; and yet not so much in the nature of a personal affront as an added proof that a state of deep impiety had settled down upon the land. Well might the clergy lament, not that they had been so foully slandered, but that they were called upon to reckon with a people who had drifted out so far upon the sea of irreverence and disrespect. To illustrate: The Reverend Jeremy Belknap was before the convention of the clergy of Massachusetts, in May, 1796, to preach the convention sermon. His mind turned to this new burden which had lately fallen on the already heavily-laden shoulders of the ministry. Thus he sought to mollify the wounded feelings of his brethren:
Another of the afflictions to which we are exposed, is the resentment of pretended patriots, when we oppose their views in endeavoring to serve our country. There is a monopolizing spirit in some politicians, which would exclude clergymen from all attention to matters of state and government; which would prohibit us from bringing political subjects into the pulpit, and even threaten us with the loss of our livings if we move at all in the political Sphere. But, my brethren, I consider politics as intimately connected with morality, and both with religion. … How liberal are some tongues, some pens, and some presses, with their abuse, when we appear warm and zealous in the cause of our country! When we speak or write in support of its liberties, its constitution, its peace and its honor, we are stigmatized as busy-bodies, as tools of a party, as meddling withwhat does not belong to us, and usurping authority over our brethren.[210]
Another of the afflictions to which we are exposed, is the resentment of pretended patriots, when we oppose their views in endeavoring to serve our country. There is a monopolizing spirit in some politicians, which would exclude clergymen from all attention to matters of state and government; which would prohibit us from bringing political subjects into the pulpit, and even threaten us with the loss of our livings if we move at all in the political Sphere. But, my brethren, I consider politics as intimately connected with morality, and both with religion. … How liberal are some tongues, some pens, and some presses, with their abuse, when we appear warm and zealous in the cause of our country! When we speak or write in support of its liberties, its constitution, its peace and its honor, we are stigmatized as busy-bodies, as tools of a party, as meddling withwhat does not belong to us, and usurping authority over our brethren.[210]
A couple of years later another staunch clerical supporter of Federalist policies, the Reverend John Thornton Kirkland, minister of the New South Church in Boston, came somewhat closer to the main point. The spirit of the times, he urged, had greatly changed, and that for the worse. Clergymen now were being severely censured for what only a few years earlier they had been warmly commended for as constituting a peculiar merit. The leaders of the American Revolution, for example, had praised the clergy for throwing the weight of their influence into the political scale, recognizing that there exists a moral and religious as well as a civil obligation on the part of ministers to warn the people of the dangers which threaten their liberty and happiness. But now, however, at a time when the dearest interests of religion and patriotism, of church and state, are fiercely assailed and imperiled, the clergy are met with calumny and insult when they venture to speak out. Only the debasement of morals and piety could explain so lamentable a transformation.[211]
A growing sensitiveness to the objections of Republican partisans that they were stepping aside from the legitimate responsibilities of their calling and prostituting the functionsof their sacred office to unworthy ends, is apparent on the part of the clergy;[212]but when the very slander and abuse which they suffered supplied added evidence, if that were needed, that the institutions of religion and of government were being rapidly undermined, there could be no damping of their spirit nor turning back from the performance of a service, however unappreciated, to which by tradition and by present necessity they believed themselves bound.
Thus matters stood with the clergy of the Standing Order in New England at the close of the eighteenth century. Whether they were mistaken or not, a state of general irreligion seemed to them to have been ushered in. On all sides the positions of traditional orthodoxy were being called in question. The cause of revealed religion had found new enemies, and the cause of natural religion new agencies for its promotion. The French Revolution had given a terrifying exhibition of what might be expected to happen to a nation in which radical and sceptical opinions were allowed to have complete expression. As for the progress of impiety at home, the youth of the land were contaminated, the state of public morals was unsound, opposition to measures of government was increasing in power and virulence, the institutions of religion were commanding less and less respect, the clergy were treated with a coldness and criticalness of spirit they had never faced before. Seeking for thecauses of this baneful condition of affairs, the clergy believed they were to be found mainly in the dissemination of revolutionary opinions issuing from France, but in part also in native tendencies to exalt reason and throw off the restraints of government in church and state.
Before taking leave of the subject, a few final illustrations may be considered by way of fixing upon the mind the strength of this general impression which the New England clergy entertained.
On the occasion of the general fast, May 4, 1797, at West Springfield, Massachusetts, the Reverend Joseph Lathrop preached a sermon to which he gave the expressive title,God’s Challenge to Infidels to Defend Their Cause.[213]The inspiration of the discourse was drawn from the conviction that “this is a day when infidelity appears with unusual boldness, and advances with threatening progress, to the hazard of our national freedom and happiness, as well as to the danger of our future salvation.”[214]According to this interpreter of the signs of the times, the dissemination of infidelity was to be regarded as the outstanding fact in the life of America, as well as in the life of the world.
An unusually lugubrious view of the situation was that taken by the Reverend Nathan Strong, in the sermon which he preached, April 6, 1798, on the occasion of the Connecticut state fast. In the eyes of this modern Jeremiah, the situation was desperate almost beyond remedy:
There are dark and ominous appearances. I do not mean the wrath and threatening of any foreign nations whatever, for if we please God and procure him on our side, we may blesshis providence, and hear human threatenings without emotion. But the dark omens are to be found at home. In our hearts, in our homes, in our practice, and in a licentious spirit disposed to break down civil and religious order. In affecting to depend on reason in the things of religion, more than the word of God; so as to reject all evangelical holiness, faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the ministrations of the spirit in the heart. In substituting anarchy and licentiousness, in the room of rational and just liberty. In supposing that freedom consists in men’s doing what is right in their own eyes; even though their eyes look through the mist of wicked ambition and lust. Here is our real danger, and these are the omens that augur ill to us.[215]
There are dark and ominous appearances. I do not mean the wrath and threatening of any foreign nations whatever, for if we please God and procure him on our side, we may blesshis providence, and hear human threatenings without emotion. But the dark omens are to be found at home. In our hearts, in our homes, in our practice, and in a licentious spirit disposed to break down civil and religious order. In affecting to depend on reason in the things of religion, more than the word of God; so as to reject all evangelical holiness, faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the ministrations of the spirit in the heart. In substituting anarchy and licentiousness, in the room of rational and just liberty. In supposing that freedom consists in men’s doing what is right in their own eyes; even though their eyes look through the mist of wicked ambition and lust. Here is our real danger, and these are the omens that augur ill to us.[215]
Far less subjective in its analysis was the sermon which the now celebrated minister of Medford, the Reverend David Osgood, preached not many days later, on the occasion of the national fast.[216]Once more the eyes of his hearers were invited to contemplate the horrible spectacle abroad. It had now become certain that the legislators of France had abolished the Christian religion. Preposterous indeed was the idea of those who supposed that they were engaged in anything so beneficent as “stripping the whore of Babylon, pulling down the man of sin, destroying popery,”[217]andmaking way for the introduction of the millennium. That which they had set their hearts upon was to bring it to pass that Christ and His religion should no longer be remembered upon the earth. The French republicans were so many infernals who had broken loose from the pit below.[218]Their profession of principles of liberty and philanthropy were deceptive in the highest degree. They sought to fraternize with other nations merely to seduce them. Their emissaries employed the arts of intrigue and corruption, they were charged to stir up factions, seditions, rebellions, so as to disorganize established governments and make them more readily the prey of the infamous French government.[219]
That these were not the pulpit utterances of men of peculiarly morbid dispositions, who stood apart from the main currents of thought and life in their day, would seem to be proved by the following instances of formal declarations issued by associations of churches.
On the 17th of May, 1798, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, then in session in the city of Philadelphia, issued an address to the members of its various congregations scattered throughout the country, urging attention to the extraordinarily gloomy aspect of affairs. The situation was interpreted as follows:
The aspect of divine providence, and the extraordinary situation of the world, at the present time, indicate that a solemn admonition, by the ministers of religion and other church officers in General Assembly convened, has become our indispensable duty. When formidable innovations and convulsions in Europe threaten destruction to morals and religion; when scenes of devastation and bloodshed, unexampled in the history of modern nations, have convulsed the world; and when our own country is threatened with similar calamities, insensibility in us would be stupidity; silence would be criminal. The watchmen on Zion’s walls are bound by their commission to sound a general alarm, at the approach of danger. We therefore desire to direct your awakened attention, towards that bursting stream, which threatens to sweep before it the religious principles, institutions, and morals of our people. We are filled with a deep concern and an awful dread, whilst we announce it as our real conviction, that the eternal God has a controversy with our nation, and is about to visit us in his sore displeasure. A solemn crisis has arrived, in which we are called to the most serious contemplation of the moral causes which have produced it, and the measures which it becomes us to pursue.[220]
The aspect of divine providence, and the extraordinary situation of the world, at the present time, indicate that a solemn admonition, by the ministers of religion and other church officers in General Assembly convened, has become our indispensable duty. When formidable innovations and convulsions in Europe threaten destruction to morals and religion; when scenes of devastation and bloodshed, unexampled in the history of modern nations, have convulsed the world; and when our own country is threatened with similar calamities, insensibility in us would be stupidity; silence would be criminal. The watchmen on Zion’s walls are bound by their commission to sound a general alarm, at the approach of danger. We therefore desire to direct your awakened attention, towards that bursting stream, which threatens to sweep before it the religious principles, institutions, and morals of our people. We are filled with a deep concern and an awful dread, whilst we announce it as our real conviction, that the eternal God has a controversy with our nation, and is about to visit us in his sore displeasure. A solemn crisis has arrived, in which we are called to the most serious contemplation of the moral causes which have produced it, and the measures which it becomes us to pursue.[220]
As to the “moral causes” referred to, the address proceeds to define them as “a general defection from God and corruption of the public principles and morals,” the evidences whereof are such as a general dereliction of religious principle and practice, a departure from the faith and simple purity of manners for which the fathers were remarkable, a visible and prevailing impiety, contempt for the laws and institutions of religion, and “an abounding infidelity.”[221]
The same year, on May 31, the Congregational clergy ofMassachusetts, assembled in annual convention, “without a dissenting vote” adopted an address to their churches, wherein they expressed their deep sorrow and concern on account of “those atheistical, licentious and disorganizing principles which have been avowed and zealously propagated by the philosophers and politicians of France; which have produced the greatest crimes and miseries in that unhappy country, and like a mortal pestilence are diffusing their baneful influence even to distant nations.”[222]A year later the same body of clergy, again assembled in their annual convention, formulated and later published an address similar in tone, but strongly emphasizing the American aspects of the case. The growing disbelief and contempt of the Gospel are loudly lamented; the lack of exemplary piety and morality even among the members of churches, and the dissipation, irreligion, and licentiousness prevalent among the youth of the day, are accounted to be of so much weight as to constitute a national apostasy. “The voice of God to us in these events,” continues the address, “is emphatically this: Come out of the infidel, antichristian world, my people; that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”[223]
To a very considerable number of earnest lovers of religion in New England and elsewhere throughout the nation, the century’s sun seemed to be setting amid black and sullen clouds of the most ominous character.
POLITICALENTANGLEMENTS ANDHYSTERIA
Party history in New England, as elsewhere throughout the Union, began with the inauguration of the new government in 1789.[224]Such differences of opinion concerning matters of public policy as had previously existed were confined to unorganized groups whose leaders depended chiefly on the devotion of their personal following to mould popular opinion. But the setting up of the Federal government and the fixing of national standards brought to light issues which challenged fundamental conceptions and interests, and a definite rift in public sentiment was not long in appearing. By 1793 the main line of political cleavage was plainly visible. The Federalists, who stood for the importance of a strong central government, found themselves confronted with an organized opposition to which in time the terms Anti-Federalists, Republicans, and Democrats were applied.[225]
In 1793 the war between England and France came into American politics, providing issues for party controversy for years to come. The sympathies of the Federalists, whonumbered in their ranks the conservative and aristocratic elements in the population, inclined strongly toward England; whereas the sympathies of Republicans, who attracted to their standard the radicals of the country concerned in the democratization of government, were disposed with equal warmth toward France.
The promulgation of the Neutrality Proclamation[226]of President Washington, April 22, 1793, seemed to settle the question of foreign alliances before the matter had become acute. On the whole, the response which New England gave to the President’s proclamation was gratifying. Messages of cordial approval came pouring in from many quarters.[227]The majority of the people rejoiced in the course of prudence and foresight which the national government had been led to pursue.
Still New England was not wholly satisfied. The sentiments of all her people had not been served. An opposition of respectable proportions developed. The columns of the public press carried numerous articles[228]voicing various degrees of hostility to the President’s cause of neutrality and affording ample evidence that instead of solidifying the sentiments of the people on the subject of foreign alliances, the proclamation had the effect of widening the breach between the political forces of the country.
This aspect of the case was much aggravated by two important circumstances, one of which developed simultaneously with the publication of the proclamation of neutrality, and the other came to light soon after. These twocircumstances were the coming of Genet and the rise of the Democratic Societies.
In no part of the country was the news of the arrival of the French minister received with less suspicion than in New England.[229]Republican newspapers were, of course, loud in their exclamations of satisfaction over the word that came out of the south concerning the arrival and subsequent activities of the amazing French diplomat, so young, so ardent, so eloquent, and so absurd. Editors of Federalist journals, while in no mood to be swept off their feet by the latest excitement of the hour, yet showed no disposition to cavil or express distrust.
Such, however, were the exceptional performances of this altogether exceptional diplomat, who insisted on comporting himself more like a ruler of the people of this nation than an accredited representative to their government, that the day of revulsion and deep resentment could not long be postponed.[230]
The stir created by the activities of Genet, great as it was, soon was swallowed up in the excitement produced by the sudden emergence of a new factor in American politics;viz., indigenous political organizations that were secret. Coincident with the arrival of Genet, and with a view to capitalizingthe state of public feeling that his arrival and reception brought to a head, there sprang up in various parts of the country a group of organizations devoted to the propagation of ultra-democratic ideals. These Democratic Societies, or Clubs, were destined to exert a degree of baneful influence upon political feeling out of all proportion to their actual number and weight.[231]Needless to say, the excited state of public feeling, together with the total unfamiliarity of American citizens with political agencies of a secret character, were responsible for this result. The embarrassments under which the French cause in America momentarily suffered on account of reports concerning the multiplied atrocities of the Reign of Terror and the swelling tide of popular resentment because of the indiscretions of Minister Genet, might induce the judgment that the times were unpropitious for the development of organizations whose sympathy for the principles of the French Revolution was notorious.[232]But there was another side to the situation. The heated public discussions provoked by Madison’s Commercial Resolutions, Clark’s Non-Intercourse Resolution, and the appointment of John Jay as Minister Extraordinary to Great Britain, set free such a torrent of anti-British feeling that the spirit of republicanism lifted its head with renewed vigor and stimulated a public sentiment decidedly favorable to the rapid formation and spread of the new organizations. From the day that the first of these sinister Societies was established,and its statement of principles blazoned forth in a multitude of newspapers throughout the country,[233]the public mind found itself wrought upon by a new species of excitement, by suggestions of tricks and plots, by appeals to passion and unreasoning fear, all conspiring to inject into the national spirit an element of haunting suspicion from which it was not soon to be cleared.
The fact that at least five of these Democratic Societies were located in New England strongly suggests the immediate concern which the people of that section were bound to have because of these unexpected and ominous secret political associations.[234]The creation of the Boston Society became at once the occasion of virulent opposition and infuriated comment. Organized in the late fall of 1793[235]under the innocent title, the Constitutional Club, the principles and alliances of the organization became quickly known, with the result that the already agitated waters of local party feeling were disturbed beyond all previous experience. Citizens whose sympathies were fully with the conduct of affairs under the Federalist régime were quick to believe that henceforth they might expect to be threatened, brow-beaten, and checkmated in a ruthless and scandalous fashion because of the activities of this pernicious Club.[236]They anticipatedan amount of secret and dastardly political interference on the part of the Club, because of which the lives of their public officials would be filled with distraction and the minds of decent men aspiring to public office would be thrown into a state of disinclination and repugnance.
Nor in this did they prove to be false prophets. Newspaper innuendoes, sharp and poisonous as deadly arrows, were let fly with abandon; town meetings were disturbed and the opponents of democracy and French republicanism put to rout; the public mind was so altered that Democrats who sought to deprive Federalists of their hold upon the “Boston Seat” in the legislature were completely successful in their efforts. In these and similar ways the citizens of Boston were given tangible proofs of how effective an instrument of political action such an organization as the Constitutional Club could be.[237]
The address which President Washington delivered before both houses of Congress, November 19, 1794, wherein he traced a causal connection between the Democratic Societies and the Whiskey Rebellion, characterizing the former as “self-created societies” which had “assumed a tone of condemnation” of measures adopted by the government, being actuated by “a belief that, by a more formal concert” they would be able to defeat those measures,[238]proved to be a mortal blow to these secret organizations, and in New England, as elsewhere throughout the country, had consequences beyond the disappearance of the Clubs. Eagerly and with unconcealed joy, Federalist editors and orators seized upon the President’s denunciation and turned it to immediate political account.[239]A flood of condemnation and answering vituperation was instantly released. The champions of Federalism were at pains to secure publication of the discussions which took place in the national congress respecting the precise character of the response to be made to the President’s address, with special reference to his condemnation of the Democratic Clubs.[240]They were at equal pains, also, to lay hold of the President’s pregnant phrase, “self-created societies,” and turn it to account: that phraseshould be regarded as a designation equally applicable to the odious Jacobin Clubs of France.[241]Henceforth the whole democratic faction might reasonably be expected to work under cover “to unhinge the whole order of government, and introduce confusion, so that union, the constitution, the laws, public order and private right would be all the sport of violence or chance.”[242]
Mortified and discomfited Republican editors made such response as they could. The members of the Clubs were declared to be independent citizens who were acting within their rights in so banding together. They were “proceeding in the paths of patriotic virtue with a composure and dignity which become men engaged in such important and timely services”;[243]whereas their opponents were men who hungered for the loaves and fishes of the government and who shared the secret fear that they would be discovered or have their plans deranged.[244]
The continual harping of the Federalist press on the phrase “self-created societies” particularly touched the raw. Was not the Society of the Cincinnati self-created? And are not many of the members of that organization war-worn soldiers of the American Republic? In a state of society in which we see such veterans toiling for their daily sustenance, while other men, enjoying the hard-earned property of the former, riot in all the luxuries of life, how can one but exclaim,O Tempora! O Mores![245]The national congress, moreover, might well be expected to be engaged in muchmore serious and timely business than to be burdening its sessions with discussions respecting the affairs of private societies.[246]
The hostile attitude that the Federalist clergy took toward the Democratic Societies gave special irritation to the editors of theIndependent Chronicle. Because he ventured in his thanksgiving sermon of November 20 (1794) to denounce all Constitutional Societies, the rector of the Episcopal congregation in Boston was held up to ridicule in the columns of theChronicleas a “ci-devantlawyer” and “a certain Episcopalian ‘thumper of the pulpit drum,’” whose pastoral care many of his substantial members had already renounced because of his injection of political discussion into the sacred sphere of the pulpit; while others had given evidence of their disposition to follow the example of the more courageous members of the flock, “if virulence is to take the place of religion.”[247]But the Reverend David Osgood, Medford’s “monk,” on account of his more extended and violent treatment of the Democratic Societies in his thanksgiving day sermon,[248]gave much deeper offence. That he should have represented these organizations as controlled by the same principles as the incendiary French Jacobin Clubs, and as set to watch the Federal government and plot its overthrow through the support of pernicious and inveterate faction, was more than ardent democratic patriots could endure. “A Friend to the Clergy and an Enemy to Ecclesiastical Presumption,” together with “A Friend of Decency and Free Inquiry,” sought entrance to the willing columns of theChroniclein order to express their contempt for “a Rev. gentleman” who could lend himself to thepeddling of such illiberal sentiments and could show himself capable of acting in a manner unbecoming the character of a Christian and a gentleman, and also in order to draw conclusions derogatory to his reputation as a scholar.[249]The castigations of “Stentor” were not less caustic. The red-hot anathemas of the Reverend Parson Osgood, whining preacher of politics that he was, had no other effect than to singe and sear the reputation of their author. “On the Constitutional Society their influence has been as small as though they had been issued in the form of a BULLfrom the Chancery of the Pope.”[250]
Thus were protracted for a time the frantic efforts of Democratic editors and scribblers to repair the damage which “the clownish Bishop of Medford”[251]and his clerical confederates were supposed to have effected.[252]But the main injury had by no means come from that quarter. Such was the veneration for the name and person of the great Washington throughout New England that few men had the hardihood to launch their resentment and abuse against him; yet it was his hand, and none other, that wrote the wordIchabodacross the brow of these secret politicalassociations. From the day that his address reproaching them was made, their doom was sealed. That doom might tarry for a season, but it could not long be averted. The apologists and defenders of these organizations which the presidential censure had made odious, might fiercely exert themselves to show how innocent they were of the offences charged and how unimpaired in usefulness they remained after the thrust had been made. This was but whistling to keep up their courage. The prestige of the Societies had been effectually destroyed by the President’s denunciation; in a surprisingly short time these ambitious and troublemaking organizations sank into desuetude and were lost to view.
The deep impression they had made upon the public mind was, however, much less readily effaced. That impression resolved itself into a memory most unpleasant and disturbing. For us the significance of these organizations is found chiefly in the fact that, appearing at a time when the two great opposing political parties were developing, and having vehemently espoused the cause of France in a rabidly democratic spirit, they consequently added enormously to the passion and the suspicion of the day. To the Federalists they were dangerous intruders, groups of unprincipled demagogues organized for unpatriotic purposes, working in the dark, ashamed to stoop at nothing in the way of duplicity and subterfuge, of deception and intrigue, if by any means the vicious designs of their hearts could be furthered. Thus they not only helped to make the strife of parties vituperative and bitter; in addition they made familiar to the thought of a great body of citizens in America the idea that the intrigues of secret organizations must needs be reckoned with as one of the constant perils of the times. Henceforth it would be easier to fill the public mind with uneasiness and gloomy forebodings on account of the supposed presence ofhidden hostile forces working beneath the surface of the nation’s life. Should inexperienced and unsuspecting souls profess their incredulity, the appeal to the example of the Democratic Societies might be expected to go far toward dissolving all indifference and trusting unconcern.[253]
To trace in detail the increasingly bitter party strife in New England would not only call for the canvassing of material already well known, but would lead us far afield from the special object of this investigation. Only the main features of the case need to be noted.
The temporary check the Democrats suffered on account of the suppression of the secret political clubs was soon removed by the wave of anti-British sentiment that swept the country upon the publication of the treaty which John Jay negotiated between Great Britain and the United States, late in the autumn of 1794.[254]
The truth is, nothing less than a howl of rage went up from the throats of the people of the United States, and the voices of the men of New England were by no means lost in the chorus.[255]Nothing that could have been said to inflamethe blind and passionate anger of the people was omitted. The United States, it was asserted, had been resolved back into the colonies of Great Britain.[256]The Senate had bargained away the blood-bought privileges of the people for less than the proverbial mess of pottage. It had signed the death-warrant of the country’s trade and entailed beggary on its inhabitants and their posterity forever.[257]The people’s cause had been most perfidiously betrayed. The trading class, whose pecuniary interests would be jeopardized if England were to be left free to prey upon our commerce, especially if the way should remain open for the two countries to drift into actual war, might show itself disposed to make a choice of the lesser of two evils and accept the treaty; but the great mass of the people were indignantly hostile, it must be added, to the point of unreason.[258]
The promulgation of the treaty by Washington, February 29, 1796, as the law of the land, had the effect of bringing to a close a period of agitation which deeply affected the national life.[259]For one thing, the violence of party spirithad been so augmented that henceforth there were to be no limits to which men would not go in the expression of their antipathies and prejudices. Even the great Washington had not been able to escape the venom of the tongue of the partisan in the controversy which had raged over the treaty.[260]A condition of the public mind which not only permitted but supported the burning in effigy of its public servants; which consented to brutal campaigns of newspaper calumniation, so unrestrained and indecent that the reader looks back upon them with shame; to the circulation of incendiary handbills and scurrilous pamphlets; to participation in lawless gatherings in which riotous utterances of the most violent character were freely made and disgraceful actions taken[261]—this could not possibly make for a wholesome discipline of the passions of the people.[262]
For another thing, the spirit of devotion to the cause of France had been greatly refreshed and quickened by the agitation over the treaty. From the moment that information concerning the nature of the treaty began to circulate, the cry of “British faction” was taken up by the Democrats and used with telling effect. That the treaty was an infamous instrument arranged for no other purpose than to injure the French cause was generally believed.[263]From beginning to end, Democrats could find nothing in the treaty which had not been directly inspired by hostility to France. Apart from the damage that would ensue to American commerce, the treaty would work for the elevation of monarchical and the undoing of republican principles.[264]Once again George the Third had become the master of the citizens of America, and thus the great accomplishments of the American Revolution had been made to count for nought. British gold had succeeded in effecting the betrayal of the republican cause in this country, and thus had worked itself into a strategic position where it could more easilystrangle the life out of the spirit of republicanism in Europe, now so sorely beset in France.[265]
One other by-product of the agitation that arose over the treaty has been dwelt upon at length in another connection, but it should be adverted to briefly here. It was inevitable that a discussion so vital, so heated, and so protracted as that of which we have just been taking account, should draw into it those guardians of morals and mentors of public spirit in New England, the Federalist clergy.[266]The disturbance of the public mind over the treaty had been marked by two features full of grave import in the clerical view: vicious attacks upon the officers and measures of the existing government, and a reinvigorated crying-up of French political and religious notions.
The offices of government were all, or nearly all, in the hands of Federalists. This being the case, their occupants were doomed to be the chief targets of resentment and villification by men who found such a measure of government as Jay’s Treaty obnoxious in the extreme. But if officers of government were to be pilloried in the stocks of public slander and abuse, how then was the government itself to command the respect and obedience of its citizens? The Federalist clergy of New England saw the pathway of duty shining clear: they must hold up the hands of government at any hazard. Hence it happened that the outcry against “political preaching” grew rapidly in volume from 1795 on.[267]
As for the renewed zeal of the Democrats in the interests of French revolutionary ideals, that found a special point of interest and concern for the Federalist clergy in the prominence which the rapid growth of republicanism secured for Thomas Jefferson. An ardent friend of the French Revolution, a lover of French philosophy, the enemy of religiousintolerance, in personal faith a deist—were not these sufficient to damn the man as an unbeliever and an atheist in the eyes of New England clergymen, to whom the faintest breath of rationalism was abhorrent and the very notion of toleration suspect? Accordingly the New England clergy launched a fierce attack upon him as the arch-apostle of the cause of irreligion and free-thought.[268]In language carefully guarded, his name usually being omitted, Jefferson was pointed out as the leader of the hosts of infidelity whose object was the extermination of the institutions of religion and the inauguration of an era wherein every man should think and do that which was right in his own eyes.[269]
Very few of the events in our national affairs which link together the history of the last decade of the eighteenth century are significant for our purpose. Having sought to discover the chief occasions for the apprehension and distress which weighed upon the minds of the citizens of New England, we may now proceed to focus attention exclusively upon the last three years of the century, within which developed that special disturbance of the public mind with which we are primarily concerned.
And first let it be said, we are approaching a period of as intense strain and nervous excitability as this nation in all its history has known. When Thomas Jefferson, in November, 1796, wrote Edward Rutledge of his deep personalsatisfaction that he had escaped the presidency, he may have been influenced by unworthy but certainly not by imaginary constraints. “The newspapers,” so his letter runs, “will permit me to plant my corn, peas, &c., in hills or drills as I please … while our Eastern friend will be struggling with the storm which is gathering over us; perhaps be shipwrecked in it. This is certainly not a moment to covet the helm.”[270]Never has a defeated candidate for the presidency had more solid grounds for the justification of his fears, or shall we say, his hopes? The severe strain of domestic strife was about to be enormously augmented by a series of untoward and alarming events in the field of foreign relations, certain of which must receive our particular attention.
The complete change in the character of the relations between the United States and France is for us a matter of the first importance. The publication of the treaty negotiated between the United States and Great Britain by Jay produced definitive results as respects the attitude of France. With some reason that instrument was interpreted as inimical to the interests of the latter country, and the government and people of this nation were not long left in doubt of the fact.[271]By the employment toward her former ally of apolicy of coercion, of which two chief instruments were the destruction of American commerce upon the high seas and the overbearing and insolent conduct of diplomatic negotiations, France speedily addressed herself to the task of attempting to gain by pressure what she conceived she had lost in the way of prestige and material advantage. The result was, to the discomfiture and disgrace of the Democrats in particular and to the alarm of the country in general, that the United States was made aware of the fact that its government was being driven into a corner from which, as far as a human mind could foresee, the only avenue of honorable escape would be recourse to arms.
The damage which American commerce sustained at the hands of French privateers is rendered appreciable when the following circumstances are taken into account. Within the year following the publication of the extraordinary decrees against the commerce of neutral nations, which the French Directory promulgated, beginning with June, 1796, something over three hundred American vessels had been captured. The crippling blow to American commerce was by no means the sole consideration in the case. In numerous instances the crews of captured vessels were treated in such an outrageous and brutal manner as to inflame and gall the American spirit beyond endurance. On account of abuses which American shipping and commerce had suffered previously, by virtue of methods adopted by England and France to gain control of the seas, the strain imposed upon the nation had been severe; but now that a sweeping and utterly ruthless policy of commerce-destruction had been inaugurated by the French, forbearance was no longer possible. In his maiden speech in the national congress, Harrison Gray Otis, Massachusetts’ gifted young representative, put the case with dramatic eloquence: