History of the City of New York, Volume 2 by Martha Griffith Browne

Author:Martha Griffith Browne [Browne, Martha Griffith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-07-19T22:00:00+00:00

treaty, still under discussion in the Senate, with closed doors, to the editor of a Philadelphia newspaper, who prematurely printed it in full. A pile of combustibles was ready for the torch, composed of French emigrants devoted to their cause, general malcontents who were persuaded that a war with England would be a relief, Western settlers who wanted the navigation of the Mississippi, Pennsylvanians who were seeking the abolition of the excise laws, refugees of every class from all nations, who through their crimes or desperate fortunes " had taken refuge in patriotism," and men and classes disappointed in ambitious projects, and who were aggrieved, or fancied themselves so, by the operation of various measures, and an explosion immediately followed. A mob collected in Philadelphia on the 4th of July, and paraded the streets bearing aloft the effigy of John Jay, with a pair of scales in his hand, labeled on one side " American Liberty and Independence," on the other " British gold," while from the mouth of the figure proceeded the words, " Come up to my price and I will sell you my country," which was publicly burned. Meetings were held in every part of the country denouncing the treaty. In New York one was convened in the open air in Wall Street, and Hamilton and Rufus King upon the balcony of Federal Hall undertook its defense. A shower of stones was leveled at them by the exasperated multitude. " These are hard arguments to encounter," said Hamilton, smiling. The party, after adopting violent resolutions against the treaty, marched with the American and French colors flying to the Bowling Green, in front of the new government house, the residence of Governor Jay, and with demoniac shouts burned the treaty. At an adjourned meeting a committee of fifteen, with Brockholst Livingston, Mrs. Jay's brother, chairman, reported twenty-eight condemnatory resolutions. A counter-current led to a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, of which Comfort Sands was the president, where resolutions of approval were adopted.

Jay entered into no defense of either himself or his treaty. " God governs the world," he said, " and we have only to do our duty wisely, and leave the issue to him." On the 11th he responded to a letter from Major-General Henry Lee, saying: " The treaty is as it is; and the time will certainly come when it will universally receive exactly that degree of condemnation or censure which, to candid and enlightened minds, it shall appear to deserve." Hammond writes, " It would be unjust to accuse the great body of reflective republicans of participating in or even approving the outrages that were perpetrated." But Fisher Ames declared that the passions of the crazy multitude were scarcely more deadly to public order than the theories of philosophers. " Our Federal ship is near foundering in a mill-pond," he wrote on the 9th.

When the treaty was conditionally ratified by the Senate, a howl was raised against the Constitution, because it provided that senators should hold place six years.

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