Читать книгу The American Eloquence - Various Author - Страница 14

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Constitutional government in the United States began, in its national phase, with the inauguration of Washington, but the experiment was for a long time a doubtful one. Of the two parties, the federal and the anti-federal parties, which had faced one another on the question of the adoption of the Constitution, the latter had disappeared. Its conspicuous failure to achieve the fundamental object of its existence, and the evident hopelessnesss of reversing its failure in future, blotted it out of existence. There was left but one party, the federal party; and it, strong as it appeared, was really in almost as precarious a position as its former opponent, because of the very completeness of its success in achieving its fundamental object. Hamilton and Jefferson, two of its representative members, were opposed in almost all the political instincts of their natures; the former chose the restraints of strong government as instinctively as the latter clung to individualism. They had been accidentally united for the time in desiring the adoption of the Constitution, though Hamilton considered it only a temporary shift for something stronger, while Jefferson wished for a bill of rights to weaken the force of some of its implications. Now that the Constitution was ratified, what tie was there to hold these two to any united action for the future? Nothing but a shadow—the name of a party not yet two years old. As soon, therefore, as the federal party fairly entered upon a secure tenure of power, the divergent instincts of the two classes represented by Hamilton and Jefferson began to show themselves more distinctly until there was no longer any pretence of party unity, and the democratic (or republican) party assumed its place, in 1792–3, as the recognized opponent of the party in power. It would be beside the purpose to attempt to enumerate the points in which the natural antagonism of the federalists and the republicans came to the surface during the decade of contest which ended in the downfall of the federal party in 1800–1. In all of them, in the struggles over the establishment of the Bank of the United States and the assumption of the State debts, in the respective sympathy for France and Great Britain, in the strong federalist legislation forced through during the war feeling against France in 1798, the controlling sympathy of the republicans for individualism and of the federalists for a strong national government is constantly visible, if looked for. The difficulty is that these permanent features are often so obscured by the temporary media in which they appear that the republicans are likely to be taken as a merely State-rights party, and the federalists as a merely commercial party.

To adopt either of these notions would be to take a very erroneous idea of American political history. The whole policy of the republicans was to forward the freedom of the individual; their leader seems to have made all other points subordinate to this. There is hardly any point in which the action of the individual American has been freed from governmental restraints, from ecclesiastical government, from sumptuary laws, from restrictions on suffrage, from restrictions on commerce, production, and exchange, for which he is not indebted in some measure to the work and teaching of Jefferson between the years of 1790 and 1800. He and his party found the States in existence, understood well that they were convenient shields for the individual against the possible powers of the new federal government for evil, and made use of them. The State sovereignty of Jefferson was the product of individualism; that of Calhoun was the product of sectionalism.

On the other hand, if Jeffersonian democracy was the representative of all the individualistic tendencies of the later science of political economy, Hamiltonian federalism represented the necessary corrective force of law. It was in many respects a strong survival of colonialism. Together with some of the evil features of colonialism, its imperative demands for submission to class government, its respect for the interests and desires of the few, and its contempt for those of the many, it had brought into American constitutional life a very high ratio of that respect for law which alone can render the happiness and usefulness of the individual a permanent and secure possession. It was impossible for federalism to resist the individualistic tendency of the country for any length of time; it is the monument of the party that it secured, before it fell, abiding guaranties for the security of the individual under freedom.

The genius of the federalists was largely practical. It was shown in their masterly organization of the federal government when it was first entrusted to their hands, an organization which has since been rather developed than disturbed in any of its parts. But the details of the work absorbed the attention of the leaders so completely that it would be impossible to fix on any public address as entirely representative of the party. Fisher Ames' speech on the Jay treaty, which was considered by the federalists the most effective piece of oratory in their party history, has been taken as a substitute. The question was to the federalists partly of commercial and partly of national importance. John Jay had secured the first commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1795. It not only provided for the security of American commerce during the European wars to which Great Britain was a party, and obtained the surrender of the military posts in the present States of Ohio and Michigan; it also gave the United States a standing in the family of nations which it was difficult to claim elsewhere while Great Britain continued to refuse to treat on terms of equality. The Senate therefore ratified the treaty, and it was constitutionally complete. The democratic majority in the House of Representatives, objecting to the treaty as a surrender of previous engagements with France, and as a failure to secure the rights of individuals against Great Britain, particularly in the matter of impressment, raised the point that the House was not bound to vote money for carrying into effect a treaty with which it was seriously dissatisfied. The speech of Gallatin has been selected to represent the republican view. It is a strong reflection of the opposition to the Treaty. The reply of Ames is a forcible presentation of both the national and the commercial aspects of his party; it had a very great influence in securing, though by a very narrow majority, the vote of the House in favor of the appropriation.

There is some difficulty in fixing on any completely representative oration to represent the republican point of view covering this period. Gallatin's speech on the Jay Treaty together with Nicholas' argument for the repeal of the sedition law may serve this purpose. The speech of Nicholas shows the instinctive sympathy of the party for the individual rather than for the government. It shows the force with which this sympathy drove the party into a strict construction of the Constitution. It seems also to bear the strongest internal indications that it was inspired, if not entirely written, by the great leader of the party, Jefferson. The federalists had used the popular war feeling against France in 1798, not only to press the formation of an army and a navy and the abrogation of the old and trouble-some treaties with France, but to pass the alien and sedition laws as well. The former empowered the President to expel from the country or imprison any alien whom he should consider dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States. The latter forbade, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, the printing or publishing of any "false, scandalous, or malicious writings" calculated to bring the Government, Congress, or the President into disrepute, or to excite against them the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition. It was inevitable that the republicans should oppose such laws, and that the people should support them in their opposition. At the election of 1800, the federal party was overthrown, and the lost ground was never regained. With Jefferson's election to the presidency, began the democratic period of the United States; but it has always been colored strongly and naturally by the federal bias toward law and order.