Part 1065

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1792. Second Presidential Election.

George Washington re-elected with unanimity, receiving 132 votes of the Electoral College, John Adams, Vice President, receiving 77 votes, with 50 cast for George Clinton, 4 for Jefferson and 1 for Burr.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793. The First Fugitive Slave Law.

For some time after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, its provision relating to the rendition of persons "held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another" remained without legislation to execute it; "and it is a striking fact that the call for legislation came not from the South, but from a free State; and that it was provoked, not by fugitive slaves, but by kidnappers. … A free negro named John was seized at Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1791, and taken to Virginia. The Governor of Pennsylvania, at the instigation of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery, asked the return of the three kidnappers; but the Governor of Virginia replied that, since there was no national law touching such a case, he could not carry out the request. On the matter being brought to the notice of Congress by the Governor of Pennsylvania," a bill was passed which "became law by the signature of the President, February 12, 1793. … The act provided at the same time for the recovery of fugitives from justice and from labor; but the alleged criminal was to have a protection through the requirement of a requisition, a protection denied to the man on trial for his liberty only. The act was applicable to fugitive apprentices as well as to slaves, a provision of some importance at the time. In the Northwest Territory there were so-called negro apprentices, who were virtually slaves, and to whom the law applied, since it was in terms extended to all the Territories. Proceedings began with the forcible seizure of the alleged fugitive. The act, it will be observed, does not admit a trial by jury. {3306} It allowed the owner of the slave, his agent or attorney, to seize the fugitive and take him before any judge of a United States Circuit or District Court, or any local magistrate. The only requirement for the conviction of the slave was the testimony of his master, or the affidavit of some magistrate in the State from which he came, certifying that such a person had escaped. Hindering arrest or harboring a slave was punishable by a fine of five hundred dollars. The law thus established a system allowing the greatest harshness to the slave and every favor to the master. Even at that time, when persons might still be born slaves in New York and New Jersey, and gradual emancipation had not yet taken full effect in Rhode Island and Connecticut, it was repellent to the popular sense of justice; there were two cases of resistance 'to the principle of the act before the close of 1793. Until 1850 no further law upon this subject was passed, but as the provisions of 1793 were found ineffectual, many attempts at amendment were made."

_M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, 1619-1865 (Fay House Monographs, number 3), pages 17-19._

"The fugitive-slave clause in the Constitution is of course obligatory, but there is a wide distinction between the fugitive-slave clause and the fugitive-slave law. The Constitution gives no power to Congress to legislate on the subject, but imposes on the States the obligation of rendition. Chief-Justice Hornblower, of New York, and Chancellor Walworth, of New York, long since pronounced the fugitive law of '93 unconstitutional on this very ground."

_William Jay, Letter to Josiah Quincy (quoted in B. Tuckerman's "William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery")._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793. Popular sympathy with the French Revolution. Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality. Insolent conduct of the French minister, Genet.

"The French Revolution, as was natural from the all-important services rendered by France to the United States in their own revolutionary struggle, enlisted the warm sympathy of the American people. … As the United States were first introduced to the family of nations by the alliance with France of 1778, the very important question arose, on the breaking out of the war between France and England, how far they were bound to take part in the contest. The second article of the treaty of alliance seemed to limit its operation to the then existing war between the United States and Great Britain; but by the eleventh article the two contracting powers agreed to 'guarantee mutually from the present time and forever, against all other powers,' the territories of which the allies might be in possession respectively at the moment the war between France and Great Britain should break out, which was anticipated as the necessary consequence of the alliance. Not only were the general sympathies of America strongly with France, but the course pursued by Great Britain toward the United States, since the peace of 1783, was productive of extreme irritation, especially her refusal to give up the western posts, which … had the effect of involving the northwestern frontier in a prolonged and disastrous Indian war. These causes, together with the recent recollections of the revolutionary struggle, disposed the popular mind to make common cause with France, in what was regarded as the war of a people struggling for freedom against the combined despots of Europe. Washington, however, from the first, determined to maintain the neutrality of the country;" and, with the unanimous advice of his cabinet, he issued (April 22, 1793) a proclamation of neutrality. "This proclamation, though draughted by Mr. Jefferson and unanimously adopted by the Cabinet, was violently assailed by the organs of the party which followed his lead. … The growing excitement of the popular mind was fanned to a flame by the arrival at Charleston, South Carolina [April 9], of 'Citizen' Genet, who was sent as the minister of the French Republic to the United States. Without repairing to the seat of government, or being accredited in any way, in his official capacity, he began to fit out privateers in Charleston, to cruise against the commerce of England. Although the utmost gentleness and patience were observed by the executive of the United States in checking this violation of their neutrality, Genet assumed from the first a tone of defiance, and threatened before long to appeal from the government to the people. These insolent demonstrations were of course lost upon Washington's firmness and moral courage. They distressed, but did not in the slightest degree intimidate him; and their effect on the popular mind was to some extent neutralized by the facts, that the chief measures to maintain the neutrality of the country had been unanimously advised by the Cabinet, and that the duty of rebuking his intemperate course had devolved upon the secretary of state [Jefferson], the recognized head of the party to which Genet looked for sympathy."

_E. Everett, Life of Washington, chapter 8._

A demand for "Genet's recall was determined on during the first days of August. There was some discussion over the manner of requesting the recall, but the terms were made gentle by Jefferson, to the disgust of the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of War [Hamilton and Knox], who desired direct methods and stronger language. As finally toned up and agreed upon by the President and cabinet, the document was sufficiently vigorous to annoy Genet, and led to bitter reproaches addressed to his friend in the State Department. … The letter asking Genet's recall, as desired by Washington, went in due time, and in the following February came a successor. Genet, however, did not go back to his native land, for he preferred to remain here and save his head, valueless as that article would seem to have been. He spent the rest of his days in America, married, harmless, and quite obscure. His noise and fireworks were soon over, and one wonders now how he could ever have made as much flare and explosion as he did."

_H. C. Lodge, George Washington, volume 2, pages 155-156._

ALSO IN: _H. S. Randall, Life of Jefferson, volume 2, chapter 4._

_J. T. Morse, Life of Hamilton, volume 2, chapter 3._

_American State Papers, volume 1, pages 140-188, 243-246, and 311-314._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793. Whitney's Cotton-gin and the series of inventions which it made complete. Their political effect. The strengthening of the Slave Power, and the strengthening of Unionism.

"Some English artisans, who, about the middle of the last century, were obtaining a scanty living by spinning, weaving and other such occupations, turned their inventive talent to the improvement of their art. {3307} Paul and Wyatt introduced the operation of spinning by rollers; Highs, or Hargreaves, invented the jenny, by which a great many threads could be spun as easily as one. Paul devised the rotating carding-engine; Crompton the mule; Arkwright the water-frame, which produced any number of threads of any degree of fineness and hardness. These ingenious machines constituted a very great improvement on the spindle and distaff of ancient times, and on the spinning-wheel, originally brought from Asia, or perhaps reinvented in Europe. At length one spinner was able to accomplish as much work as one hundred could have formerly done. While the art of producing threads was undergoing this singular improvement, Cartwright, a clergyman, invented, in 1785, the power-loom, intended to supersede the operation of weaving by hand, and to make the production of textile fabrics altogether the result of machinery. After some modifications, that loom successfully accomplished the object for which it was devised. As these inventions succeeded, they necessarily led to a demand for motive power. In the first little cotton factory, the germ of that embodiment of modern industry, the cotton-mill, a water-wheel was employed to give movement to the machinery. The establishment was, therefore, necessarily placed near a stream, where a sufficient fall could be obtained. The invention of the steam-engine by Watt, which was the consequence of the new and correct views of the nature of vapors that had been established by Dr. Black, supplied, in due time, the required motive power, and by degrees the water-wheel went almost out of use. Textile manufacture needed now but one thing more to become of signal importance—it needed a more abundant supply of raw material. … Cotton, the fibre chiefly concerned in these improvements, was obtained in limited quantities from various countries; but, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, not a single pound was exported from the United States. What was grown here was for domestic consumption. Every good housewife had her spinning-wheel, every plantation its hand-loom. The difficulty of supplying cotton fibre in quantity sufficient to meet the demands of the new machinery was due to the imperfect means in use for separating the cotton from its seeds—a tedious operation, for the picking was done by hand. Eli Whitney, a native of Massachusetts, by his invention of the cotton-gin in 1793, removed that difficulty. The fibre could be separated from the seeds with rapidity and at a trifling cost. There was nothing now to prevent an extraordinary development in the English manufactures. A very few years showed what the result would be. In 1790 no cotton was exported from the United States. Whitney's gin was introduced in 1793. The next year about 1½ million of pounds were exported; in 1795, about 5¼ millions; in 1860, the quantity had reached 2,000 millions of pounds. The political effect of this mechanical invention, which thus proved to be the completion of all the previous English inventions, being absolutely necessary to give them efficacy, was at once seen in its accomplishing a great increase and a redistribution of population in England. … In the United States the effects were still more important. Cotton could be grown through all the Southern Atlantic and the Gulf States. It was more profitable than any other crop—but it was raised by slaves. Whatever might have been the general expectation respecting the impending extinction of slavery, it was evident that at the commencement of this century the conditions had altogether changed. A powerful interest had come into unforeseen existence both in Europe and America which depended on perpetuating that mode of labor. Moreover, before long it was apparent that, partly because of the adaptation of their climate to the growth of the plant, partly because of the excellence of the product, and partly owing to the increasing facilities for interior transportation, the cotton-growing states of America would have a monopoly in the supply of this staple. But, though mechanical invention had reinvigorated the slave power by bestowing on it the cotton-gin, it had likewise strengthened unionism by another inestimable gift—the steam-boat. At the very time that the African slave-trade was prohibited, Fulton was making his successful experiment of the navigation of the Hudson River by steam. This improvement in inland navigation rendered available, in a manner never before contemplated, the river and lake system of the continent; it gave an instantaneous value to the policy of Jefferson, by bringing into effectual use the Mississippi and its tributaries; it crowded with population the shores of the lakes; it threw the whole continent open to commerce, it strengthened the central power at Washington by diminishing space, and while it extended geographically the domain of the republic, it condensed it politically. It bound all parts of the Union more firmly together. … In the Constitution it had been agreed that three fifths of the slaves should be accounted as federal numbers in the apportionment of federal representation. A political advantage was thus given to slave labor. This closed the eyes of the South to all other means of solving its industrial difficulties. … To the cotton-planter two courses were open. He might increase his manual force, or he might resort to machinery. … It required no deep political penetration for him to perceive that the introduction of machinery must in the end result in the emancipation of the slave. Machinery and slavery are incompatible—the slave is displaced by the machine. In the Southern States political reasons thus discouraged the introduction of machinery. Under the Constitution an increased negro force had a political value, machinery had none. The cotton interest was therefore persuaded by those who were in a position to guide its movements, that its prosperity could be secured only through increased manual labor."

_Dr. J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, section 3, chapter 16 (volume 1)._

See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1794. Resistance to the Excise. The Whisky Insurrection in Pennsylvania.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1794.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1794-1795. Threatening relations with Great Britain. The Jay Treaty.

"The daily increasing 'love-frenzy for France,' and the intemperate language of the Democratic press, naturally emphasized in England that reaction against America which set in with the treaty of peace. On the other hand, the retention of the frontier posts in violation of that treaty was a thorn in the side of the young Republic. In the course of the war England had adopted, by successive Orders in Council, a policy ruinous to the commerce of neutral nations, especially of the United States. {3308} In the admiralty courts of the various British West India islands hundreds of ships from New England were seized and condemned, for carrying French produce or bearing cargoes of provisions chartered to French ports. The New England fishermen and shipowners were vociferous for war, and the Democratic clubs denounced every British insult and celebrated every French victory. On March 26, 1794, an embargo against British ships was proclaimed for thirty days, and then extended for thirty days longer. The day after the embargo was laid, Dayton, of New Jersey, moved in Congress to sequester all moneys due to British creditors, and apply it towards indemnifying shipowners for losses incurred through the Orders in Council; and on April 21st the Republicans moved a resolution to suspend, all commercial intercourse with Great Britain till the western posts should be given up, and indemnity be paid for injuries to American commerce in violation of the rights of neutrals. The passage of such an act meant war; and for war the United States was never more unprepared. … Peace could be secured only by immediate negotiation and at least a temporary settlement of the causes of neutral irritation, and for such a task the ministers at London and Washington were incompetent or unsuited. … In this crisis Washington decided to send to England a special envoy. Hamilton was his first choice, but Hamilton had excited bitter enmities." On Hamilton's recommendation, John Jay, the Chief Justice, was chosen for the difficult mission, and he sailed for England in May, 1794, landing at Falmouth on the 8th of June. Within the succeeding five months he accomplished the negotiation of a treaty, which was signed on the 19th of November. "The main points that Jay had been instructed to gain were compensation for negroes [carried away by the British armies on the evacuation of the country in 1783], surrender of the posts, and compensation for spoliations; in addition, a commercial treaty was desired. When Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Jay had argued that the negroes, some 3,000 in number, who, at the time of the evacuation, were within the British lines, relying on proclamations that offered freedom, and who followed the troops to England, came within that clause of the treaty of peace which provided that the army should be withdrawn without 'carrying away any negroes or other property.' Lord Grenville, however, insisted upon refusing any compensation. Once within the British lines, he said, slaves were free for good and all. … From any point of view the matter was too insignificant to wreck the treaty upon it, and Jay waived the claim. As to the western posts [Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, Mackinaw, etc.], it was agreed that they should be surrendered by June 12, 1796. But compensation for the detention was denied on the ground that it was due to the breach of the treaty by the United States in permitting the States to prevent the recovery of British debts." For the determination and payment of such debts, it was now provided that a board of five commissioners should sit at Philadelphia; while another similar board at London should award compensation for irregular and illegal captures or condemnations made during the war between Great Britain and France. "Under this clause American merchants received $10,345,000. … The disputed questions of boundaries, arising from the construction of the treaty of peace, were referred to joint commissioners: properly enough, as the confusion was due to ignorance of the geography of the Northwest. British and American citizens holding lands at the time respectively in the United States and in any of the possessions of Great Britain were secured in their rights; a clause much objected to in America, but which was obviously just. A still more important provision followed, a novelty in international diplomacy, and a distinct advance in civilization: that war between the two countries should never be made the pretext for confiscation of debts or annulment of contracts between individuals. In the War of 1812 the United States happened for the moment to be the creditor nation, and the millions which this provision saved to her citizens it would be difficult to estimate. … It was the commercial articles which excited the most intense hostility in America. … To unprejudiced eyes, after the lapse of a hundred years, considering the mutual exasperation of the two peoples, the pride of England in her successes in the war with France, the weakness and division of the United States, the treaty seems a very fair one. Certainly one far less favorable to America would have been infinitely preferable to a war, and would probably in the course of time have been accepted as being so. The commercial advantages were not very considerable, but they at least served as 'an entering wedge,' to quote Jay's expression, and they were 'pro tanto' a clear gain to America. … The treaty was not published till July 2d. … Even before its contents were known, letters, signed 'Franklin,' appeared abusing the treaty; and in Philadelphia an effigy of Jay was placed in the pillory, and finally taken down, guillotined, the clothes fired, and the body blown up. It was clear, then, that it was not this particular treaty, but any treaty at all with Great Britain, that excited the wrath of the Republicans. On July 4th toasts insulting Jay or making odious puns on his name, were the fashion. … On June 24th the treaty was ratified by the Senate, with the exception of the article about the West India trade. On August 15th it was signed, with the same exception by Washington."

_G. Pellew, John Jay, chapter 11._

"The reception given to the treaty cannot be fully explained by the existing relations between the United States and England. It was only in consequence of its Francomania that the opposition assumed the character of blind rage."

_H. von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 1, page 124._

ALSO IN: _H. S. Randall, Life of Jefferson, volume 2, chapters 4-6._

_W. Jay, Life of John Jay, volume 1, chapters 8-10 and volume 2, pages 216-264._

_American State Papers, volume 1, pages 464-525._

_J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, volume 2, chapter 9._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1796. Admission of Tennessee to the Union.

See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785-1796.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1796. Washington's Farewell Address.