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House had already passed an act authorizing the continu- CHAPTER ance of Morgan's detachment at the scene of the late insurrection. For the payment of the expenses incurred 1794. by the expedition, the sum of $1,122,569 was appropriated, besides $100,632 for the support of Morgan's detachment. To fill up the void in the treasury, a temporary loan of two millions was authorized.

The subdued tameness of the opposition by no means came up to Jefferson's ideas. "With respect to the transactions against the Excise Law," so he wrote to Dec. 23. Madison, it appears to me that you are all swept away in the torrent of governmental opinions, or that we do not know what those transactions have been. We know of none which, according to the definitions of the law, have been any thing more than riotous. There was, indeed, a meeting to consult about a separation; but to consult on a question does not amount to a determination of that question in the affirmative, still less to the acting on such a determination; but we shall see, I suppose, what the court lawyers, and courtly judges, and wouldbe embassadors will make of it. The Excise Law is an infernal one. The first error was to admit it by the Constitution; the second, to act on that admission; the third and last will be to make it the instrument of dismembering the Union, and setting us afloat to choose what part of it we will adhere to. The information of our militia returned from the westward is uniform, that, though the people there let them pass quietly, they were objects of their laughter, not of their fear; that one thousand men could have cut off their whole force in a thousand places of the Allegany; that their detestation of the Excise Law is universal, and has now associated to it a detestation of the government; and that separation, which, perhaps, was a very distant and problematical IV.—L L

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CHAPTER event, is now near, and certain, and determined in the mind of every man. I expected to have seen some jus1794. tification of arming one part of the society against another; of declaring a civil war the moment before the meeting of that body which has the sole right of declaring war; of being so patient of the kicks and scoffs of our enemies, and rising at a feather against our friends; of adding a million to the public debt, and deriding us with recommendations to pay it if we can." - In the midst of all this sympathy for the whisky rebels, the cause of the clubs was not forgotten. "The denunciation of the Democratic societies is one of the extraordinary acts of boldness of which we have seen so many from the faction of monocrats. It is wonderful, indeed, that the president should have permitted himself to be the organ of such an attack on the freedom of discussion, the freedom of writing, printing, and publishing." "I have put out of sight the persons whose misbehavior has been taken advantage of to slander the friends of popu lar rights, and I am happy to observe that, as far as the circle of my observation and information extends, every body has lost sight of them, and views the abstract attempt on their natural and constitutional rights in all its nakedness. I have never heard or read of a single expression or opinion which did not condemn it as an inexcusable aggression."

It seems a little extraordinary that Jefferson and that circle of his political friends whose opinions he thus conveyed to Madison were not willing to allow to the President and Congress of the United States, the chosen and constitutional organs of the people, that same "freedom of discussion, of writing, printing, and publishing," claimed so zealously for the democratic societies. Those societies might say what they pleased, might denounce

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whom they pleased, might charge the president and Con- CHAPTER gress with designs no matter how atrocious, and those so denounced were to bear it all without any retort, lest, 1794. by warning the public against these societies, they should interfere with the right of public discussion! Had not Washington as much a right to denounce the Democratic societies as they had to denounce him and his cabinet? Was it not a reasonable retort, and a necessary means of self-defense?

But already these volunteer associations for the gov ernment of the country had experienced a blow more fatal than any that Washington could deal. The downfall of Robespierre had been speedily followed by the downfall of the Jacobin Club, the great instrument of his power. Not confining itself to denunciations merely, the Convention. had first cut off the connection between the Paris club and the affiliated branches, and when this did not sufficiently answer, had turned the members out and locked the doors. Monroe, who had lately arrived in Paris, and who saw in the Convention the grand exemplar of republican wisdom, hastened to vindicate their proceedings in this respect, which might otherwise have appeared a little arbitrary, by a long historical dispatch, going to show that the club had interfered with the business of the government, and that the real question had been, which should have the direction of affairs, the Jacobins or the Convention. This dispatch arrived very seasonably. It went entirely to confirm the views taken by Washington and the Federalists, and the government hastened to publish it, though without Monroe's name. Of course, the republican wisdom of the French Convention was not to be disputed by the other side, and the Democratic clubs soon sunk into discredit and obscurity.

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A project of Madison's for excluding foreign residents in America from an equal participation with citizens in 1794. commercial privileges, aimed against those British agents by whom a large part of the trade of the Southern States still continued to be carried on, resulted in a new naturalization act. A much larger stream of immigration was now setting into the United States than at any time since the Declaration of Independence. Many of the banished French nobility and many of the discontented Irish sought refuge there; and what with fear of foreign aristocrats and fear of foreign Democrats, both parties were willing to render naturalization more difficult. By the new act, the provisions of which still continue in force, the preliminary residence necessary to citizenship was extended to five years, a three years' previous declaration of intention to become a citizen being also required to be made in some court of record, and a residence for one year in the state where the naturalization should be had. The new citizen was also called upon to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince or state; and, if he had borne any title of nobility, he must also make an express renunciation of it.

When this latter provision was first suggested by Giles, it encountered, much to his disgust, a good deal of ridicule from some of the New England Federalists. Why require the renunciation of a mere title, which carried with it no privilege; a mere matter of courtesy which it might seem churlish to refuse, and especially so to require a formal renunciation of it from an unhappy exile who had lost at home, and, by the very act of becoming a citizen, renounced here all the privileges which his title might once have carried with it. The whole proceeding was at once nugatory and ridiculous. The very judge who administered the oath or pledge

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of renunciation might the next moment address the CHAPTER newly-admitted citizen as count, marquis, or my lord; and what was the help for it? Why not, said Dex- 1794. ter, require the new citizen to renounce his connection with the Jacobin Club, should he happen to be a member of it? Why not require him to renounce the pope ? Priestcraft he thought to be quite as dangerous as aristocracy.

By presently calling for the yeas and nays, Giles placed 1795. those who had thus ridiculed his proposition in an awk- Jan. 1. ward dilemma. They must now submit to the mortification of voting for it, or else allow themselves to be held up to the nation as friends of aristocracy and lovers of titles. As to this matter, Sedgwick and Dexter stood upon very delicate ground. Both represented districts in which parties were very equally divided. At a recent election there had been no choice, and new trials were soon to be had. By way of forcing Giles to abandon his call for the yeas and nays, Dexter moved an additional amendment, that in case the applicant for citizenship were a slave-holder, he should renounce, along with his titles of nobility, all his claim, right, and title as an owner of slaves. This motion produced a very great excitement among the Southern members. Rutherford objected to it that it went to wound the feelings and alienate the affections of six or eight states of the Union. He thought Giles's motion ought to be adopted, because it would highly gratify the people of America; but he was quite willing to give up the yeas and nays. M'Dowell of North Carolina declared the proposed amendment to be an indirect attack upon the Constitution and on those members who held slaves. It tended to irritate not only the Southern members, but thousands of good citizens in the Southern States, affecting, as it did, the property they

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