A Sovereign People by Carol Berkin

Author:Carol Berkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2017-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

2

“I have it much at heart to Settle all disputes with France.”

—John Adams to Henry Knox, March 1797

THE REJECTION OF Pinckney’s credentials was not the only issue with France facing Adams in his first months in office. On March 2, only two days before John Adams entered the presidency, France struck a serious blow against American commerce. On that day, the Directory issued a decree that ended France’s commitment to the principle of “free ships / free goods.” The decree made American vessels carrying goods to or from Britain vulnerable to capture and confiscation by the French navy and by French privateers. The Directory justified the change in policy as a response to the Jay Treaty, which they claimed forged a new alliance between Britain and the United States. The American minister to Great Britain, Rufus King, believed this was simply an excuse. The French, he said, had also demanded that Hamburg and Bremen suspend all commerce with England, and these powers “have made no late treaties with England.” John Quincy Adams, the American ambassador to the Netherlands at the time, also pointed out that “the neutrality of every other nation is as little respected by the French Government as that of the United States.” French contempt for weaker nations, whether allies or enemies, could be seen in the comment of Claude E. J. Pastoret, a member of the French Council of Five Hundred. “Are we not the sovereigns of the world?” he asked his fellow council members, adding, “Our allies, are they not then our subjects?”12

France had not only insulted Americans’ pride by rejecting their ambassador, it had also struck a blow against American independence and its economic linchpin, neutrality. The president thus decided that the French crisis was serious enough to merit a special session of Congress that May. His old friend Elbridge Gerry was pleased that Adams intended to put the French problem before the House as well as the Senate. It was always good policy, the former congressman from Massachusetts said, “to consult the representatives of the people,” for “they are the nerves of the body-politic.” Personally, however, Gerry was strongly against war with France. He feared that a successful war would plunge the nation into debt and stifle economic growth while an unsuccessful war would lead to the overthrow of the American government and the creation of a new one modeled on the French system, “& we should hereafter be meer [sic] French colonies.” Never an optimist, Gerry could see no positive outcome to the dilemma facing John Adams and the nation. In his reply to Gerry, Adams did not deny that there were high costs to both victory and defeat. Yet Adams argued that his friend could not deny France’s long history of abusing American sovereignty. “You know as well as any Man,” he wrote, “that france under all Governments from the Year 1776… down to this moment have invariably preserved a Course of Intrigue to gain an undue Influence in these states.—to make Us dependent upon her, and to keep up a quarrell [sic] with England.

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