Struggle for National Government

Jay's Treaty.

The British Government had accredited no minister to the United States, and it refused to make any com mercial treaty or to give up the forts in the western territory of the United States, through which its agents still exercised a commanding influence over the Indians. In the course of its war with France, the neutral American vessels, without the pro tection of a national navy, fared badly. A treaty negotiated in 1794 by Chief Justice John Jay settled these difficulties for the following 12 years. But, as it engaged the United States against any intervention in the war on behalf of France, was silent on the subject of the right of search, and agreed to irksome limita tions on the commercial privileges of the United States, the Republicans made it very unpopular, and the bitter personal attacks on Washington grew out of it. In spite of occasional Republican successes, the Federalists retained a general control of national affairs; they elected John Adams President in 1796, though Jefferson was chosen vice president with him ; and the national policy of the Federalists kept the country out of en tangling alliances with any of the European belligerents. To the Republicans, and to the French republic, this last point of policy was only a practical intervention against France and against the rights of man.

At the end of Washington's Administration the French Direc tory broke off relations with the United States, demanding the abrogation of Jay's treaty and a more pronounced sympathy with France. Adams sent three envoys, C. C. Pinckney, John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry, to endeavour to re-establish the former rela tions; they were met by demands for "money, a great deal of money," as a prerequisite to peace. They refused; their letters home were published, and the Federalists at last had the oppor tunity of riding the whirlwind of an intense popular desire for war with France. Intercourse with France was suspended by Con gress (1798) ; the treaties with France were declared at an end; American frigates were authorized to capture French vessels guilty of depredations on American commerce, and the President was authorized to issue letters of marque and reprisal ; and an Ameri can Army was formed, Washington being called from his retire ment at Mount Vernon to command it. The war never went be yond a few sea fights, in which the little American Navy did itself credit, and Napoleon, seizing power the next year, renewed the peace which should never have been broken.

Decline of the Federalists.

The reaction in Great Britain against the indefinite "rights of man" had led Parliament to pass an alien law, a sedition law suspending the writ of habeas corpus and an act giving wide and loosely defined powers to magistrates for the dispersion of meetings to petition for redress of griev ances. The Federalists were in control of a Congress of limited powers; but they were strongly tempted by sympathies and an tipathies of every sort to form their programme on the model fur nished from England. The measures which they actually passed

were based only on that construction of the Constitution which is at the bottom of all American politics; they only tended to force the Constitution into an anti-democratic direction. But it was the fixed belief of their opponents that they meant to go farther, and to secure control by some wholesale measure of political persecution.

The Alien and Sedition Laws.

Three alien laws were passed in June and July, 1798. The first (repealed in April, 1802) raised the number of years necessary for naturalization from five to 14. The third permitted the arrest or removal of subjects of any foreign power with which the United States should be at war.

The second, which is usually known as the Alien Law, was limited to a term of two years; it permitted the President to arrest or order out of the country any alien whom he should consider dangerous to the country. As many of the Republican editors and local leaders were aliens, this law really put a large part of the Republican organization in the power of the President. The Sedition Law (to be in force until March, 1801, and not renewed) made it a crime, punishable by fine and imprisonment, to publish or print any false, scandalous and malicious writings against the Government of the United States, either house of Congress, or the President, or to stir up sedition or opposition to any lawful act of Congress or of the President, or to aid the designs of any foreign power against the United States. In its first form the bill was even more sweeping than this and alarmed the opposition.

Most of the ability of the country was in the Federalist ranks; the Republicans had but two first-rate men—Jefferson and Madi son. In the sudden issue thus forced between individual rights and national power, Jefferson and Madison could find but one bulwark for the individual—the power of the States; and their use of it gave their party a pronounced list to State sovereignty from which it did not recover for years. They objected to the Alien Law on the grounds that aliens were under the jurisdiction of the State, not of the Federal Government ; that the jurisdiction over them had not been transferred to the Federal Government by the Constitution, and that the assumption of it by Congress was a violation of the Constitution's reservation of powers to the States; and, further, because the Constitution reserved to every "person," not to every citizen, the right to a jury trial. They objected to the Sedition Law on the grounds that the Con stitution had specified exactly the four crimes for whose punish ment Congress was to provide; that criminal libel was not one of them; and that the 1st amendment forbade Congress to pass any law restricting freedom of speech or of the press.