On 3 January 1793 Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State
wrote this to the Ambassador to France, William Short:
You have been wounded by the sufferings of your friends,
and have by this circumstance been hurried
into a temper of mind which would be extremely
disrelished if known to your countrymen.
The reserve of the President of the U.S. had never
permitted me to discover the light in which he viewed it, and
as I was more anxious that you should satisfy him than me,
I had still avoided explanations with you on the subject.
But your 113 induced him to break silence and
to notice the extreme acrimony of your expressions.
He added that he had been informed the sentiments
you expressed in your conversations were equally
offensive to our allies, and that you should consider
yourself as the representative of your country, and
that what you say might be imputed to your constituents.
He desired me therefore to write to you on this subject.
He added that he considered France as the sheet anchor
of this country and its friendship as a first object.
There are in the U.S. some characters of opposite
principles; some of them are high in office, others
possessing great wealth, and all of them hostile to France
and fondly looking to England as the staff of their hope.
These I named to you on a former occasion.
Their prospects have certainly not brightened.
Excepting them, this country is entirely republican, friends
to the Constitution, anxious to preserve it and to have it
administered according to its own republican principles.
The little party above mentioned have espoused it
only as a stepping stone to monarchy and have
endeavored to approximate it to that in its administration,
in order to render its final transition more easy.
The successes of republicanism in France
have given the coup de grace to their prospects,
and I hope to their projects.
I have developed to you faithfully the sentiments of
your country, that you may govern yourself accordingly.
I know your republicanism to be pure, and that it is no
decay of that which has embittered you against its
votaries in France, but too great a sensibility at the partial
evil by which its object has been accomplished there.
I have written to you in the style to which
I have been always accustomed with you,
and which perhaps it is time I should lay aside.
But while old men feel sensibly enough their
own advance in years, they do not sufficiently
recollect it in those whom they have seen young.
In writing too the last private letter which will probably
be written under present circumstances, in contemplating
that your correspondence will shortly be turned over
to I know not whom, but certainly to someone not in
the habit of considering your interests with the same
fostering anxieties I do, I have presented things
without reserve, satisfied you will ascribe what
I have said to its true motive, use it for your own best
interest, and in that fulfill completely what I had in view.1
Jefferson in January sent instructions to André Michaux for his exploration
of the western boundary along the Missouri River and streams to the Pacific Ocean.
On January 14 Jefferson wrote to the French Ambassador Jean Baptiste Ternant
in Philadelphia in response to his request for some money on account of the debt
to France, and Jefferson assured him that President Washington had approved that.
Jefferson asked for the favor of negotiating future
supplies in Philadelphia instead of in St. Domingo.
Secretary of State Jefferson had discovered in a Treasury report
on January 3 that the Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton was not
using revenues to pay down the United States debt to France.
On February 1 France declared war against England.
On February 15 Jefferson sent a circular letter to French minister Ternant,
Dutch minister Van Berckel, British minister Hammond,
and Spanish ministers Viar and Jaudanes.
On 23 February 1793 Jefferson’s friend
James Madison wrote to Edmund Pendleton:
You will have discovered from the Newspapers
that a pretty interesting scrutiny has been started
into the administration of the Treasury Department.
The documents furnished show that there has been
at least a very blamable irregularity & secrecy
in some particulars of it, and many appearances,
which at least require explanation.
With some suspicions are carried very far; others resolve
the whole that is wrong into favoritism to the Bank &c.
whilst the partisans of the Fisc either see nothing amiss,
or are willing to ascribe everything that is so
to venial if not laudable motives.
The January Packet has just arrived at New York.
Her budget is not yet fully opened to the public.
The Government of England it is said remains firm
in the saddle notwithstanding the spurs which
Mr. Payne has so vigorously applied to the people.
Whether a war is to be forced with France is still uncertain;
though the affirmative is most countenanced
by individual opinions.
The arms of France continue to maintain their reputation.
She is threatened with a further trial of them by
all the efforts that Austria & Prussia at least can make.
Spain is disposed to be neutral; but would fain
make the preservation of Louis a condition.
You will find by the enclosed paper that
his fate must ere this have been decided,
by an appeal to the judgment of the Nation.2
William Branch Giles had graduated from the College of New Jersey
and studied under Jefferson’s mentor George Wythe at William and Mary.
Giles was elected to the House of Representatives in 1790.
He supported Madison and Jefferson and opposed Hamilton.
On 28 February 1793 Giles began bringing resolutions
to censure Hamilton for financial corruption.
An Examination of the “Late Proceedings in Congress,
respecting the Official Conduct of the Secretary of the Treasury”
was published on March 8 and reprinted on October 20.
Years later John Adams wrote, “The Funding System and Banking systems,
which are the work of the Federalists, have introduced more corruption
and injustice, for what I know, than any other cause.”3
On March 10 the Cabinet gave this opinion on filibusters:
The intelligence from Kentucky and the territory
northwest of the Ohio was laid before them:
whereupon it was advised,
1. That a proclamation issue against the expeditions
understood to be prepared in Kentucky for the
invasion of the Spanish dominions.
2. That a representation be made to the Governor
of Kentucky upon the subject of his conduct and
giving information under proper guards of the steps
which have been taken by government to the Mississippi.
3. That a representation be also made to Congress: and
4. That General Wayne be instructed to post,
if compatible with his other operations,
a body of troops at Massac in order to intercept by force,
if necessary, any body of men which may descend
the river for the purpose of the invasion aforesaid.
From this fourth opinion the Secretary of State dissents.4
Jefferson on 12 March 1793 wrote to Gouverneur Morris, Minister to France,
I am sensible that your situation must have been
difficult during the transition from the late form of
government to the reestablishment of some other
legitimate authority, and that you may have been at
a loss to determine with whom business might be done.
Nevertheless when principles are well understood,
their application is less embarrassing.
We surely cannot deny to any nation that right whereon
our own government is founded, that every one may
govern itself according to whatever form it pleases,
and change these forms at its own will: and that it may
transact its business with foreign nations through whatever
organ it thinks proper, whether king, convention, assembly,
committee, president or anything else it may choose.
The will of the nation is the only thing
essential to be regarded.
On the dissolution of the late constitution in France,
by removing so integral a part of it as the king, the National
assembly, to whom a part only of the public authority had
been delegated, appear to have considered themselves as
incompetent to transact the affairs of the nation legitimately.
They invited their fellow citizens therefore
to appoint a national convention.
In conformity with this their idea of the defective state of
the national authority, you were desired from hence to
suspend further payments of our debt to France till new
orders, with an assurance however to the acting power
that the suspension should not be continued a moment
longer than should be necessary for us to see the
reestablishment of some person or body of persons
authorized to receive payment and give us a good acquittal;
(if you should find it necessary to give
any assurance or explanation at all.)
In the mean time we went on paying up the four millions
of livres which had been destined by the last
constituted authorities to the relief of St. Domingo.
Before this was completed we received information that a
National assembly had met with full powers to transact the
affairs of the nation, and soon afterwards the Minister of
France here presented an application for three millions
of livres to be laid out in provisions to be sent to France.
Urged by the strongest attachments to that country, and
thinking it even providential that monies lent to us in distress
could be repaid under like circumstances, we had no
hesitation to comply with the application, and arrangements
are accordingly taken for furnishing this sum at epochs
accommodated to the demand and our means of paying it.
We suppose this will rather overpay the instalments and
interest due on the loans of 18, 6, and 10 millions to the end
of 1792, and we shall certainly use our utmost endeavors to
make punctual payments of the instalments and interest
hereafter becoming exigible, and to omit no opportunity of
convincing that nation how cordially we wish to serve them.
Mutual good offices, mutual affection and similar principles
of government seem to destine the two nations for the
most intimate communion: and I cannot too much press
it on you to improve every opportunity which may occur
in the changeable scenes which are passing,
and to seize them as they occur, for placing our
commerce with that nation and its dependencies,
on the freest and the most encouraging footing possible.
Besides what we have furnished publicly for the relief
of St. Domingo, individual merchants of the U.S. have
carried considerable supplies thither, which have been
sometimes purchased sometimes taken by force, and bills
given by the administration of the colony on the minister
here, which have been protested for want of funds.
We have no doubt that justice will be done
to these our citizens, and that without a delay
which would be ruinous to them.
We wish authority to be given to the minister of France
here to pay the just demands of our citizens
out of the monies he may receive from us.
During the fluctuating state of the Assignats of France,
I must ask the favor of you to inform me in every letter
of the rate of exchange between them and coin, this
being necessary for the regulation of our customhouses.
Congress closed its session on the 2d instant.
You will see their acts in the newspapers
forwarded to you, and the body of them shall
be sent as soon as the 8 vo. edition is printed.
We are to hold a treaty with the Western Indians in the
ensuing month of May, but not under very hopeful auspices.
You will perceive by the newspapers a
remarkable fall in the price of our public paper.
This is owing chiefly to the extraordinary
demand for the produce of our country,
and a temporary scarcity of cash to purchase it.
The merchants holding public paper are obliged
to part with it at any price to raise money.5
Jefferson on 23 March 1793 wrote letters to the Commissioners
Carmichael and Short in Spain, and here is the letter to both men.
The other to William Short was put mostly in cipher.
Gentlemen,—It is intimated to us, in such a way as to attract
our attention, that France means to send a strong force
early this spring to offer independence to the Spanish
American colonies, beginning with those on the Mississippi,
& that she will not object to the receiving those on the East
side into our confederation.
Interesting considerations require that we should keep
ourselves free to act in this case according to circumstances,
& consequently that you should not by any clause of treaty
bind us to guarantee any of the Spanish colonies
against their own independence.
Nor indeed against any other nation.
For when we thought we might guarantee Louisiana
on their ceding the Floridas to us, we apprehended
it would be seized by Great Britain who would thus
completely encircle us with her colonies & fleets.
This danger is now removed by the concert
between Great Britain & Spain:
And the times will soon enough give independence, &
consequently free commerce to our neighbors, without
our risking the involving ourselves in a war for them.6
On March 24 Jefferson wrote this letter to James Madison:
The idea seems to gain credit that the naval powers
combining against France will prohibit supplies
even of provisions to that country.
Should this be formally notified, I should suppose
Congress would be called, because it is a justifiable
cause of war, and as the Executive cannot decide the
question of war on the affirmative side, neither ought
it to do so on the negative side by preventing the
competent body from deliberating on the question.
But I should hope that war would not be their choice.
I think it will furnish us a happy opportunity of setting
another precious example to the world, by showing
that nations may be brought to do justice by appeals
to their interests as well as by appeals to arms.
I should hope that Congress instead of a denunciation
of war, would instantly exclude from our ports all the
manufactures, produce, vessels and subjects of the
nations committing this aggression during the continuance
of the aggression and till full satisfaction made for it.
This would work well in many ways, safely in all, and
introduce between nations another umpire than arms.
It would relieve us too from the risks
and the horrors of cutting throats.
The death of the king of France has not produced as
open condemnations from the Monocrats as I expected.
I dined the other day in a company
where the subject was discussed.
I will name the company in the order in which
they manifested their partialities beginning
with the warmest Jacobinism and proceeding
by shades to the most heartfelt aristocracy.
Smith (New York) Coxe. Stewart. T. Shippen.
Bingham. Peters. Breck. Meredith. Wolcott.
It is certain that the ladies of this city of the first circle
are all open-mouthed against the murderers of a sovereign,
and they generally speak those sentiments
which the more cautious husband smothers.
I believe it is pretty certain that Smith (S.C.)
and miss A. are not to come together.
Ternant has at length openly hoisted the flag of
monarchy by going into deep mourning for his prince.
I suspect he thinks a cessation of his visits to me
a necessary accompaniment to this pious duty.
A connection between him and Hamilton
seems to be springing up.
On observing that Duer was secretary to the old board
of treasury, I suspect him to have been the person who
suggested to Hamilton the letter of mine to that board
which he so tortured in his Catullus.7
Also on March 24 Jefferson wrote this in a letter to C. W. F. Dumas:
The scene in Europe is becoming very interesting.
Amidst the confusions of a general war which seem
to be threatening that quarter of the globe,
we hope to be permitted to preserve the line of neutrality.
We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country,
nor with the general affairs of Europe.
Peace with all nations, and the rights which that
gives us with respect to all nations are our objects.
It will be necessary for all our public Agents to exert
themselves with vigilance for securing to our vessels
all the rights of neutrality, and for preventing the
vessels of other nations from usurping our flag.
This usurpation tends to commit us with the
belligerent powers, to draw on those vessels truly ours,
rigorous visitations to distinguish them from the counterfeits,
and to take business from us.8
On April 7 Jefferson wrote this short letter to President Washington:
The accounts of the last week from Lisbon, announcing
an actual declaration of war by France against England &
Holland, when applied to the preceding note of the British
court ordering the French minister to leave London (which is
generally considered as preliminary to a declaration of war),
now render it extremely probable that those powers are
at actual war, and necessary in my opinion that we take
every justifiable measure for preserving our neutrality,
and at the same time provide those necessaries
for war which must be brought across the Atlantic.
The British packet is arrived, but as yet we hear
nothing further of the news she brings than that
war is declared, & this is only a rumor here as yet.
If any letters are come by her for me,
they are not yet received.
You will learn by this post that our intelligence
from the South as to the Indians is discouraging.
We met on Tuesday last on the subject of your
circular letter, and agreed in all points,
except as to the power of ceding territory, on which point
there remained the same difference of opinion
as when the subject was discussed in your presence.
We have no further news of Mr. Genêt.
Mr. Dupont leaves town for France on Wednesday next.
By him I shall send my dispatches for mister Morris.
Stocks are down @ 17/10.
We determined yesterday to lay out the interest fund
(about 25,000 Dollars) the only money at our disposal.9
On April 12 Treasury Secretary Hamilton and Jefferson
told President Washington that France had declared war
against Britain, Spain, and Holland.
On that day Washington wrote to Secretary of State Jefferson,
War having actually commenced between France
and Great Britain, it behooves the Government
of this Country to use every means in its power to prevent
the citizens thereof from embroiling us with either of those
powers by endeavoring to maintain a strict neutrality.
I therefore require that you will give the subject
mature consideration, that such measures
as shall be deemed most likely to effect
this desirable purpose may be adopted without delay;
for I have understood that vessels are already
designated as Privateers and preparing accordingly.
Such other measures as may be necessary for us
to pursue against events which it may not be
in our Power to avoid or control, you will also think of,
and lay them before me at my arrival in Philadelphia,
for which place I shall set out Tomorrow;
but will leave it to the advices which I may receive
tonight by the Post to determine whether it is to be
by the most direct Route, or by the one I proposed
to have come—that is, by Reading, the Canals between
the Rivers of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Carlisle &ca.10
Jefferson wrote to Gouverneur Morris in France on April 20:
No country perhaps was ever so thoroughly
disposed against war as ours.
These dispositions pervade every description of its citizens,
whether in or out of office.
They cannot perhaps suppress their affections
nor their wishes.
But they will suppress the effects of them
so as to preserve a fair neutrality.
Indeed we shall be more useful as neutrals
than as parties by the protection which
our flag will give to supplies of provision.
In this spirit let all your assurances be given
to the government with which you reside.11
On April 22 President Washington proclaimed that the United States
was neutral in regard to the war between France and Britain.
On 28 April 1793 Secretary of State Jefferson wrote his
Opinion on the French Treaties that includes quotations by
four experts in international law: Grotius, Puffendorf, Wolf, and Vattel.
This is the entire document:
I proceed in compliance with the requisition of the
President to give an opinion in writing on the general
Question, Whether the United States have a right
to renounce their treaties with France,
or to hold them suspended till the government
of that country shall be established?
In the Consultation at the President’s on the 19th inst.
the Secretary of the Treasury took the following
positions and consequences.
“France was a monarchy when we entered into treaties
with it: but it has now declared itself a Republic
and is preparing a Republican form of government.
As it may issue in a Republic or a military despotism,
or in something else which may possibly render our alliance
with it dangerous to ourselves, we have a right of election
to renounce the treaty altogether, or to declare it suspended
till their government shall be settled in the form
it is ultimately to take; and then we may judge whether
we will call the treaties into operation again
or declare them forever null.
Having that right of election now, if we receive their
minister without any qualifications, it will amount to
an act of election to continue the treaties;
and if the change they are undergoing should issue
in a form which should bring danger on us,
we shall not be then free to renounce them.
To elect to continue them is equivalent to the making
a new treaty at this time in the same form,
that is to say, with a clause of guarantee;
but to make a treaty with a clause of guarantee
during a war is a departure from neutrality
and would make us associates in the war.
To renounce or suspend the treaties
therefore is a necessary act of neutrality.”
If I do not subscribe to the soundness of this reasoning,
I do most fully to its ingenuity.
I shall now lay down the principles which
according to my understanding govern the case.
I consider the people who constitute a society or nation
as the source of all authority in that nation,
as free to transact their common concerns by any agents
they think proper, to change these agents individually
or the organization of them in form or function
whenever they please; that all the acts done
by those agents under the authority of the nation
are the acts of the nation, are obligatory on them,
and enure to their use and can in no wise be annulled
or affected by any change in the form of the government
or of the persons administering it.
Consequently the Treaties between the US and France,
were not treaties between the US and Louis Capet,
but between the two nations of America and France,
and the nations remaining in existence, though
both of them have since changed their forms of
government, the treaties are not annulled by these changes.
The Law of Nations by which this question is to be
determined is composed of three branches.
1. The Moral law of our nature.
2. The Usages of nations.
3. Their special Conventions.
The first of these only concerns this question, that is to say
the Moral law to which Man has been subjected
by his creator, and of which his feelings or Conscience,
as it is sometimes called, are the evidence
with which his creator has furnished him.
The Moral duties which exist between individual and
individual in a state of nature accompany them into
a state of society, and the aggregate of the duties of all
the individuals composing the society constitutes the duties
of that society towards any other; so that between society
and society the same moral duties exist as did between
the individuals composing them while in an unassociated
state, their maker not having released them from
those duties on their forming themselves into a nation.
Compacts then between nation and nation are obligatory
on them by the same moral law which obliges individuals
to observe their compacts.
There are circumstances however which sometimes excuse
the non-performance of contracts between man and man:
so are there also between nation and nation.
When performance, for instance, becomes impossible,
non-performance is not immoral.
So if performance becomes self-destructive to the party,
the law of self-preservation overrules
the laws of obligation to others.
For the reality of these principles I appeal to
the true fountains of evidence, the head and heart
of every rational and honest man.
It is there Nature has written her Moral laws,
and where every man may read them for himself.
He will never read there the permission to annul
his obligations for a time or forever, whenever
they become “dangerous, useless, or disagreeable.”
Certainly not when merely useless or disagreeable,
as seems to be said in an authority
which has been quoted. Vattel. 2.197.
And though he may under certain degrees of danger,
yet the danger must be imminent and the degree great.
Of these it is true that nations are to be
judges for themselves, since no one nation
has a right to sit in judgment over another.
But the tribunal of our consciences remains,
and that also of the opinion of the world.
These will revise the sentence we pass in our own case,
and as we respect these, we must see that
in judging ourselves we have honestly done
the part of impartial and rigorous judges.
But Reason, which gives this right of self-liberation
from a contract in certain cases,
has subjected it to certain just limitations.
I. The danger which absolves us must be great,
inevitable and imminent.
Is such the character of that now apprehended
from our treaties with France?
What is that danger?
1. Is it that if their government issues in a military
despotism, an alliance with them
may taint us with despotic principles?
But their government, when we allied ourselves to it,
was a perfect despotism, civil and military.
Yet the treaties were made in that very state of things,
and therefore that danger can furnish no just cause.
2. Is it that their government may issue in a republic,
and too much strengthen our republican principles?
But this is the hope of the great mass of our constituents,
and not their dread.
They do not look with longing
to the happy mean of a limited monarchy.
3. But says the doctrine I am combating,
the change the French are undergoing may
possibly end in something we know not what,
and bring on us danger we know not whence.
In short it may end in a Raw-head
and bloody bones in the dark.
Very well: let Rawhead and bloody bones come, and then
we shall be justified in making our peace with him
by renouncing our ancient friends and his enemies.
For observe, it is not the possibility of danger
which absolves a party from his contract:
for that possibility always exists and in every case.
It existed in the present one
at the moment of making the contract.
If possibilities would avoid contracts,
there never could be a valid contract.
For possibilities hang over everything.
Obligation is not suspended till the danger is become real,
and the moment of it so imminent,
that we can no longer avoid decision
without forever losing the opportunity to do it.
But can a danger which has not yet taken its shape,
which does not yet exist, and never may exist,
which cannot therefore be defined, can such a danger,
I ask, be so imminent that
if we fail to pronounce on it in this moment,
we can never have another opportunity of doing it?
4. The danger apprehended, is it that,
the treaties remaining valid, the clause guaranteeing
their West India islands will engage us in the war?
But Does the Guarantee engage us to enter
into the war in any event?
Are we to enter into it before we are called on by our allies?
Have we been called on by them?
Shall we ever be called on?
Is it their interest to call on us?
Can they call on us before their islands are invaded
or imminently threatened?
If they can save them themselves,
have they a right to call on us?
Are we obliged to go to war at once,
without trying peaceable negotiations with their enemy?
If all these questions be against us,
there are still others behind.
Are we in a condition to go to war?
Can we be expected to begin before we are in condition?
Will the islands be lost if we do not save them?
Have we the means of saving them?
If we cannot save them,
are we bound to go to war for a desperate object?
Will not a 10 years forbearance in us to call them into
the guarantee of our posts, entitle us to some indulgence?
Many, if not most of these questions offer grounds of doubt
whether the clause of guarantee will draw us into the war.
Consequently if this be the danger apprehended,
it is not yet certain enough to authorize us in sound
morality to declare at this moment the treaties null.
5. Is the danger apprehended from the 17th article
of the treaty of Commerce, which admits French ships
of war and privateers to come and go freely with prizes
made on their enemies, while their enemies are not to have
the same privilege with prizes made on the French?
But Holland and Prussia have approved of this article
in our treaty with France by subscribing to an express
salvo of it in our treaties with them.
[Dutch treaty 22. convention 6. Prussian treaty 19.]
and England in her last treaty with France [art. 40.]
has entered into the same stipulation verbatim and placed
us in her ports on the same footing on which she is in ours
in case of a war of either of us with France.
If we are engaged in such a war, England must
receive prizes made on us by the French,
and exclude those made on the French by us.
Nay further, in this very article of her treaty with France
is a salvo of any similar article in any anterior treaty
of either party, and ours with France being anterior,
this salvo confirms it expressly.
Neither of these three powers then
have a right to complain of this article in our treaty.
6. Is the danger apprehended from the 22d. Art.
of our treaty of commerce, which prohibits
the enemies of France from fitting out privateers
in our ports or selling their prizes here.
But we are free to refuse the same thing to France,
there being no stipulation to the contrary,
and we ought to refuse it on principles of fair neutrality.
7. But the reception of a Minister from the Republic
of France without qualifications, it is thought will bring us
into danger: because this, it is said, will determine
the continuance of the treaty, and take from us
the right of self-liberation when at any time hereafter
our safety would require us to use it.
The reception of the Minister at all (in favor of which
Col. Hamilton has given his opinion, though reluctantly
as he confessed) is an acknowledgement of the legitimacy
of their government: and if the qualifications meditated
are to deny that legitimacy, it will be a curious compound
which is to admit and deny the same thing.
But I deny that the reception of a minister
has anything to do with the treaties.
There is not a word in either of them
about sending ministers.
This has been done between us under the common usage
of nations and can have no effect
either to continue or annul the treaties.
But how can any act of election have the effect to continue
a treaty which is acknowledged to be going on still?
For it was not pretended the treaty was void
but only voidable if we choose to declare it so.
To make it void would require an act of election,
but to let it go on requires only that we should do nothing.
And doing nothing can hardly be
an infraction of peace or neutrality.
But I go further and deny that the most explicit declaration
made at this moment that we acknowledge the obligation
of the treaties could take from us the right of
non-compliance at any future time when compliance
would involve us in great and inevitable danger.
I conclude then that few of these sources threaten
any danger at all; and from none of them is it inevitable:
and consequently none of them give us the right
at this moment of releasing ourselves from our treaties.
II. A second limitation on our right of releasing ourselves
is that we are to do it from so much of the treaties only
as is bringing great and inevitable danger on us,
and not from the residue, allowing to the other party
a right at the same time to determine whether
on our non-compliance with that part
they will declare the whole void.
This right they would have, but we should not. Vattel 2. 202.
The only part of the treaties which can really lead us
into danger is the clause of guarantee.
That clause is all then we could suspend in any case, and
the residue will remain or not at the will of the other party.
III. A third limitation is that when a party from necessity
or danger withholds compliance with part of a treaty,
it is bound to make compensation where the nature
of the case admits and does not dispense with it.
2. Vattel 324. Wolf. 270. 443.
If actual circumstances excuse us from entering into the war
under the clause of guarantee, it will be a question
whether they excuse us from compensation.
Our weight in the war admits of an estimate;
and that estimate would form the measure of compensation.
If in withholding a compliance with any part of the
treaties, we do it without just cause or compensation,
we give to France a cause of war,
and so become associated in it on the other side.
An injured friend is the bitterest of foes,
and France has not discovered either timidity
or over-much forbearance on the late occasions.
Is this the position we wish to take for our constituents?
It is certainly not the one they would take for themselves.I will proceed now to examine the principal authority
which has been relied on for establishing the right
of self liberation; because though just in part
it would lead us far beyond justice, if taken
in all the latitude of which his expressions would admit.
Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity
with the moral sense and reason of man.
Those who write treatises of natural law can only declare
what their own moral sense and reason dictate
in the several cases they state.
Such of them as happen to have feelings and a reason
coincident with those of the wise and honest part
of mankind are respected and quoted as witnesses
of what is morally right or wrong in particular cases.
Grotius, Puffendorf, Wolf, and Vattel are of this number.
Where they agree, their authority is strong:
but where they differ, and they often differ, we must appeal
to our own feelings and reason to decide between them.
The passage in question shall be traced through
all these writers, that we may see wherein they concur,
and where that concurrence is wanting.
It shall be quoted from them in the order in which
they wrote, that is to say, from Grotius first, as being
the earliest writer, Puffendorf next, then Wolf,
and lastly Vattel as latest in time.Grotius. 2.16.16. “Hither must be referred the common
question concerning personal and real treaties.
If indeed it be with a free people, there can be
no doubt but that the engagement is in its nature real,
because the subject is a permanent thing.
And even though the government of the state
be changed into a kingdom, the treaty remains,
because the same body remains, though the head
is changed, and as we have before said,
the government which is exercised by a king
does not cease to be the government of the people.
There is an exception when the object seems peculiar
to the government as if free cities contract a league
for the defense of their freedom.”Puffendorf. 8. 9. 6. “It is certain that every alliance
made with a republic is real in its nature and
continues consequently to the term agreed on
by the treaty, although the magistrates who
concluded it be dead before, or that the form of
government is changed, even from a democracy
to a monarchy: for in this case the people does not
cease to be the same, and the king in the case
supposed, being established by the consent of the
people, who abolished the republican government,
is understood to accept the crown with all the
engagements which the people conferring it had
contracted, as being free and governing themselves.
There must nevertheless be an Exception
of the alliances contracted with a view
to preserve the present government.
As if two Republics league for mutual defense against
those who would undertake to invade their liberty:
for if one of these two people consent afterwards
voluntarily to change the form of their government,
the alliance ends of itself, because the reason
on which it was founded no longer subsists.”Wolf. 1146. “The alliance which is made with a
free people or with a popular government
is a real alliance; and as when the form of government
changes, the people remains the same,
(for it is the association which forms the people
and not the manner of administering the government)
this alliance subsists, though the form of government
changes, unless as is evident, the reason
of the alliance was particular to the popular state.”Vattel. 2. 197. “The same question presents itself
in real alliances, and in general on every alliance
made with a state and not in particular with a king
for the defense of his person.
We ought without doubt to defend our ally
against all invasion, against all foreign violence,
and even against rebel subjects.
We ought in like manner to defend a republic against
the enterprises of an oppressor of the public liberty.
But we ought to recollect that we are the ally
of the state or of the nation and not its judge.
If the nation has deposed its king in form,
if the people of a republic has driven away
its magistrates and have established themselves free,
or if they have acknowledged the authority of
a usurper, whether expressly or tacitly,
to oppose these domestic arrangements,
to contest their justice or validity, would be to meddle
with the government of the nation and to do it an injury.
The ally remains the ally of the state,
notwithstanding the change which has taken place.
But if this change renders the alliance useless,
dangerous or disagreeable to it,
it is free to renounce it.
For it may say with truth, that it would not have
allied itself with this nation, if it had been
under the present form of its government.”The doctrine then of Grotius, Puffendorf and Wolf is that
“treaties remain obligatory notwithstanding any change
in the form of government, except in the single case where
the preservation of that form was the object of the treaty.”
There the treaty extinguishes, not by the election or
declaration of the party remaining in status quo; but
independently of that, by the evanishment of the object.
Vattel lays down in fact the same doctrine,
that treaties continue obligatory, notwithstanding a change
of government by the will of the other party,
that to oppose that will would be a wrong, and that
the ally remains an ally notwithstanding the change.
So far he concurs with all the previous writers.
But he then adds what they had not said, nor would say
“but if this change renders the alliance useless, dangerous,
or disagreeable to it, it is free to renounce it.”
It was unnecessary for him to have specified the exception
of danger in this particular case, because that exception
exists in all cases, and its extent has been considered.
But when he adds that, because a contract is become
merely useless or disagreeable, we are free to renounce it;
he is in opposition to Grotius, Puffendorf, and Wolf, who
admit no such license against the obligation of treaties,
and he is in opposition to the morality of every honest man,
to whom we may safely appeal to decide whether he feels
himself free to renounce a contract the moment
it becomes merely useless or disagreeable to him?
We may appeal too to Vattel himself in those parts
of his book where he cannot be misunderstood,
and to his known character, as one of the most zealous
and constant advocates for the preservation
of good faith in all our dealings.
Let us hear him on other occasions;
and first where he shows what degree of danger or injury
will authorize self-liberation from a treaty.
“If simple lezion,” (lezion means the loss sustained by
selling a thing for less than half value, which degree of loss
rendered the sale void by the Roman law)
“if simple lezion, says he, or some degree of disadvantage
in a treaty does not suffice to render it invalid,
it is not so as to inconveniences
which would go to the ruin of the nation.
As every treaty ought to be made by a sufficient power,
a treaty pernicious to the state is null
and not at all obligatory: no Governor of a nation having
power to engage things capable of destroying the state
for the safety of which the empire is trusted to him.
The nation itself, bound necessarily to whatever its
preservation and safety require, cannot enter into
engagements contrary to its indispensable obligations.”
Here then we find that the degree of injury or danger
which he deems sufficient to liberate us from a treaty,
is that which would go to the absolute ruin or destruction
of the state; not simply the lesion of the Roman law,
not merely the being disadvantageous or dangerous.
For as he says himself §.158.
“Lezion cannot render a treaty invalid.
It is his duty, who enters into engagements,
to weigh well all things before he concludes.
He may do with his property what he pleases;
he may relinquish his rights, renounce his advantages,
as he judges proper: the acceptant is not obliged to inform
himself of his motives nor to weigh their just value.
If we could free ourselves from a compact because
we find ourselves injured by it,
there would be nothing firm in the contracts of nations.
Civil laws may set limits to lezion and determine
the degree capable of producing a nullity of the contract.
But sovereigns acknowledge no judge.
How establish lezion among them?
Who will determine the degree sufficient
to invalidate a treaty?
The happiness and peace of nations require manifestly
that their treaties should not depend on
a means of nullity so vague and so dangerous.”
Let us hear him again on the general subject
of the observance of treaties §.163.
“It is demonstrated in Natural law that he who promises
another confers on him a perfect right to require the thing
promised, and that consequently not to observe a perfect
promise is to violate the right of another; it is
as manifest injustice as to plunder any one of their right.
All the tranquility, the happiness and security
of mankind rest on justice, on the obligation
to respect the rights of others.
The respect of others for our rights of domain and property
is the security of our actual possessions;
the faith of promises is our security for the things
which can not be delivered or executed on the spot.
No more security, no more commerce among men,
if they think themselves not obliged to preserve faith,
to keep their word.
This obligation then is as necessary as it is natural
and indubitable among nations who live together
in a state of nature and who acknowledge no superior
on earth to maintain order and peace in their society.
Nations and their governors then ought to
observe inviolably their promises and their treaties.
This great truth, although too often neglected in practice,
is generally acknowledged by all nations:
the reproach of perfidy is a bitter affront among sovereigns:
now he who does not observe a treaty
is assuredly perfidious, since he violates his faith.
On the contrary nothing is so glorious to a prince and his
nation, as the reputation of inviolable fidelity to his word.”
Again §.219. “Who will doubt that treaties
are of the things sacred among nations?
They decide matters the most important;
they impose rules on the pretensions of sovereigns:
they cause the rights of nations to be acknowledged;
they assure their most precious interests.
Among political bodies, sovereigns, who acknowledge
no superior on earth, treaties are the only means of
adjusting their different pretensions, of establishing a rule,
to know on what to count, on what to depend.
But treaties are but vain words if nations do not consider
them as respectable engagements, as rules, inviolable for
sovereigns, and sacred through the whole earth. 18 §.220.
The faith of treaties, that firm and sincere will,
that invariable constancy in fulfilling engagements,
of which a declaration is made in a treaty, is then holy and
sacred among nations, whose safety and repose it ensures;
and if nations will not be wanting to themselves,
they will load with infamy whoever violates his faith.”
After evidence so copious and explicit of the respect
of this author for the sanctity of treaties, we should
hardly have expected that his authority would have been
resorted to for a wanton invalidation of them whenever
they should become merely useless or disagreeable.
We should hardly have expected that,
rejecting all the rest of his book,
this scrap would have been culled and made the hook
whereon to hang such a chain of immoral consequences.
Had the passage accidentally met our eye,
we should have imagined it had fallen from the author’s pen
under some momentary view, not sufficiently developed
to found a conjecture what he meant: and we may certainly
affirm that a fragment like this cannot weigh against the
authority of all other writers, against the uniform and
systematic doctrine of the very work from which it is torn,
against the moral feelings and the reason of all honest men.
If the terms of the fragment are not misunderstood,
they are in full contradiction to all the written and unwritten
evidences of morality: if they are misunderstood,
they are no longer a foundation for the doctrines
which have been built on them.
But even had this doctrine been as true as it is
manifestly false, it would have been asked, to whom is it
that the treaties with France have become disagreeable?
How will it be proved that they are useless?
The conclusion of the sentence suggests a reflection
too strong to be suppressed.
“For the party may say with truth that it would not have
allied itself with this nation, if it had been
under the present form of its government.”
The Republic of the United States allied itself with France
when under a despotic government.
She changes her government, declares it shall be
a Republic, prepares a form of Republic extremely free,
and in the meantime is governing herself as such.
And it is proposed that America shall declare
the treaties void, because “it may say with truth that
it would not have allied itself with that nation,
if it had been under the present form of its government”!
Who is the American who can say with truth that he would
not have allied himself to France if she had been a republic?
Or that a Republic of any form would be as disagreeable
as her ancient despotism?
Upon the whole I conclude:
That the treaties are still binding, notwithstanding
the change of government in France:
that no part of them, but the clause of guarantee,
holds up danger, even at a distance, and
consequently that a liberation from no other part
could be proposed in any case:
that if that clause may ever bring danger, it is
neither extreme nor imminent nor even probable:
that the authority for renouncing a treaty,
when useless or disagreeable, is either misunderstood,
or in opposition to itself to all other writers
and to every moral feeling:
that were it not so, these treaties are in fact
neither useless nor disagreeable:
that the receiving a Minister from France at this time
is an act of no significance with respect to the treaties,
amounting neither to an admission nor denial of them,
forasmuch as he comes not under any stipulation in them:
that were it an explicit admission, or were an express
declaration of their obligation now to be made,
it would not take from us that right which exists at all times
of liberating ourselves when an adherence to the treaties
would be ruinous or destructive to the society:
and that the not renouncing the treaties now is so far
from being a breach of neutrality, that the doing it would
be the breach by giving just cause of war to France.12
Americans did not learn that France’s King Louis XVI
had been executed until after George Washington’s
second inauguration as President on March 4.
Jefferson in his Autobiography wrote later about what happened in France:
And here again was lost another precious occasion of
sparing to France the crimes and cruelties through which
she has since passed, and to Europe, & finally America the
evils which flowed on them also from this mortal source.
The king was now become a passive machine in the hands
of the National assembly, and had he been left to himself,
he would have willingly acquiesced in whatever
they should devise as best for the nation.
A wise constitution would have been formed,
hereditary in his line, himself placed at its head,
with powers so large as to enable him to do all the good of
his station, and so limited as to restrain him from its abuse.
This he would have faithfully administered,
and more than this I do not believe he ever wished.
But he had a Queen of absolute sway over his weak mind,
and timid virtue; and of a character
the reverse of his in all points.
This angel, as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of the
Rhetor Burke with some smartness of fancy, but no sound
sense was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all
obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and
firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in their wreck.
Her inordinate gambling and dissipations with those of the
Count d’Artois and others of her clique had been a sensible
item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into
action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition
to it her inflexible perverseness and dauntless spirit,
led herself to the Guillotine & drew the king on with her,
and plunged the world into crimes & calamities
which will forever stain the pages of modern history.
I have ever believed that had there been no queen,
there would have been no revolution.
No force would have been provoked nor exercised.
The king would have gone hand in hand with the wisdom
of his sounder counsellors, who guided by the increased
lights of the age wished only with the same pace
to advance the principles of their social institution.
The deed which closed the mortal course of these
sovereigns, I shall neither approve nor condemn.
I am not prepared to say that the first magistrate of a nation
cannot commit treason against his country, or is
unamenable to its punishment: nor yet that
where there is no written law, no regulated tribunal,
there is not a law in our hearts, and a power in our hands,
given for righteous employment in maintaining right
and redressing wrong.
Of those who judged the king, many thought him
willfully criminal, many that his existence would
keep the nation in perpetual conflict with
the horde of kings, who would war against
a regeneration which might come home to themselves,
and that it were better that one should die than all.
I should not have voted with this portion of the legislature.
I should have shut up the Queen in a Convent,
putting harm out of her power, and placed the king
in his station, investing him with limited powers,
which I verily believe he would have honestly exercised,
according to the measure of his understanding.
In this way no void would have been created,
courting the usurpation of a military adventurer,
nor occasion given for those enormities which demoralized
the nations of the world and destroyed and is yet
to destroy millions and millions of its inhabitants.
There are three epochs in history signalized
by the total extinction of national morality.
The first was of the successors of Alexander,
not omitting himself.
The next the successors of the first Caesar,
the third our own age.
This was begun by the partition of Poland,
followed by that of the treaty of Pilnitz;
next the conflagration of Copenhagen;
then the enormities of Bonaparte partitioning the earth
at his will and devastating it with fire and sword;
now the conspiracy of kings, the successors of Bonaparte,
blasphemously calling themselves the Holy Alliance,
and treading in the footsteps of their incarcerated leader,
not yet indeed usurping the government of other nations
avowedly and in detail, but controlling by their armies
the forms in which they will permit them to be governed;
and reserving in petto the order and extent
of the usurpations further meditated.
But I will return from a digression, anticipated too in time,
into which I have been led by reflection on the criminal
passions which refused to the world a favorable occasion
of saving it from the afflictions it has since suffered.13
The flamboyant French minister Edmond Charles Genêt arrived at
Charleston, South Carolina in a French frigate Embuscade on 8 April 1793,
and the Governor Moultries and people welcomed him.
He commissioned two ships as privateers to attack British vessels.
Jefferson in a letter to James Madison on April 28 wrote,
Cases are now arising which will embarrass us
a little till the line of neutrality be fairly understood
by ourselves and the belligerent parties.
A French frigate is now bringing here, as we are told,
prizes which left this but 2 or 3 days before.
Shall we permit her to sell them?
The treaty does not say we shall, and it says
we shall not permit the like to England?
Shall we permit France to fit out privateers here?
The treaty does not stipulate that we shall,
though it says we shall not permit the English to do it.
I fear that a fair neutrality will prove a disagreeable
pill to our friends, though necessary to keep us
out of the calamities of a war.14
Jefferson persuaded President Washington to receive Genêt.
Jefferson and Republicans favored France while Hamilton
and Federalists were partial to England.
Jefferson in a letter to James Madison on May 19 explained the situation:
I dare say you will have judged from the pusillanimity
of the proclamation from whose pen it came.
A fear lest any affection should be discovered
is distinguishable enough.
This base fear will produce the very evil they wish to avoid:
for our constituents seeing that the government does not
express their mind, perhaps rather leans the other way,
are coming forward to express it themselves.
It was suspected that there was not a clear mind
in the President’s counselors to receive Genêt.
The citizens however determined to receive him.
Arrangements were taken for meeting him
at Gray’s ferry in a great body.
He escaped that by arriving in town with the letters
which brought information that he was on the road.
The merchants i.e. Fitzsimmons & Co. were to present
an address to the President on the neutrality proclaimed.
It contained much wisdom but no affection.
You will see it in the papers enclosed.
The citizens determined to address Genêt.
Rittenhouse, Hutcheson, Dallas, Sergeant &c.
were at the head of it.
Though a select body of only 30 was appointed to present it,
yet a vast concourse of the people attended them.
I have not seen it:
but it is understood to be the counter address.
Ternant’s hopes of employment in the French army
turn out to be without grounds.
He is told by the minister of war expressly that
the places of Marechal de camp are all full.
He thinks it more prudent therefore to remain in America.
He delivered yesterday his letters of recall,
and Mr. Genêt presented his of credence.
It is impossible for anything to be more affectionate,
more magnanimous than the purport of his mission.
“We know that under present circumstances we have a right
to call upon you for the guarantee of our islands.
But we do not desire it.
We wish you to do nothing but what is for your own good,
and we will do all in our power to promote it.
Cherish your own peace and prosperity.
You have expressed a willingness to enter into a more
liberal treaty of commerce with us; I bring full powers
(and he produced them) to form such a treaty
and a preliminary decree of the National convention
to lay open our country and its colonies to you
for every purpose of utility without your participating
the burthens of maintaining and defending them.
We see in you the only persons on earth
who can love us sincerely and merit to be so loved.”
In short he offers everything and asks nothing.
Yet I know the offers will be opposed
and suspect they will not be accepted.
In short, my dear Sir, it is impossible for you to conceive
what is passing in our conclave: and it is evident
that one or two at least under pretense of avoiding
war on the one side have no great antipathy to run
foul of it on the other, and to make a part
in the confederacy of princes against human liberty.
The people in the Western parts of this state have been
to the excise officer and threatened to burn his house &c.
They were blacked and otherwise disguised
so as to be unknown.
He has resigned, and Hamilton says there is
no possibility of getting the law executed there,
and that probably the evil will spread.
A proclamation is to be issued and another instance
of my being forced to appear to approve what I have
condemned uniformly from its first conception.15
On 18 May 1793 President Washington received the new French Minister
Genêt and with “cold caution” objected to what Genêt was trying to do in Charleston.
Genêt disregarded the advice of Washington, and Jefferson advised him that
he would not be allowed to recruit Americans to support France’s war against the British.
Senator John Taylor of Virginia was a friend of Jefferson, and he wrote
a pamphlet criticizing Hamilton in May that was published in Freneau’s National Gazette.
Jefferson wrote this manuscript on the Cabinet opinion on Creek Indians on May 19:
The President of the United States having assembled
the heads of the respective departments and the
Attorney General, laid before them for their advice thereon,
sundry communications from the Governor of Georgia,
and others relatively to the recent alarming depredations
of the Creek Indians upon the State of Georgia.
Whereupon after the subject was maturely considered
and discussed, it was unanimously advised:
That the Governor of Georgia be informed that
from considerations relative to foreign powers,
and the pending treaty with the Northern Indians,
it is deemed advisable for the present,
to avoid offensive expeditions into the Indian Country.
But from the nature of the late appearances,
it is thought expedient to increase the force
to be kept up for defensive purposes.
The President therefore authorizes the calling into and
keeping in service in addition to the troops heretofore
stationed in Georgia, one hundred horse and
one hundred infantry to be employed in repelling inroads
as circumstances shall require.
As it does not yet appear that the whole nation
of the Creeks is engaged in hostility, it is confided that
this force will be sufficient for the object designated.
The case of a serious invasion of the territory of Georgia
by large bodies of Indians must be referred to
the provisions of the Constitution.
The proceeding with efficacy in future requires absolutely,
that no unnecessary expense should be
incurred in the meantime.
The above corps of horse to be raised for any period
of time not exceeding twelve Months as may be found
most practicable, subject to be dismissed at any time
sooner as the government may think fit.
The infantry to be called into service according to
the course of the militia Laws endeavoring to secure
their continuance in service for the like time.
That General Pickens be invited to repair
to the seat of Government for the purpose of
information and consultation; a proper compensation
for his expenses and loss of time to be allowed.
That a further supply of one thousand arms
with correspondent accoutrements
be forwarded to the state of Georgia.
Arms and accoutrements, for the cavalry
to be also provided and forwarded.
That an agent be sent to the Creeks to endeavor
to adjust the surrender of those Indians who have lately
committed murders on the citizens of Georgia; to conciliate,
and secure such of the Indians as may be well disposed
to the United States; in the event of a war with the Creek
nation, and if possible to prevent that extremity.16
On 31 May 1793 Jefferson wrote this letter to
Carmichael and Short, the US Commissioners to Spain:
In my letters of October 14 and November 3, 1792
I communicated to you papers and Observations on the
conduct of the Spanish Officers on our South Western
frontier and particularly of the Baron de Carondelet,
the Governor of New Orleans.
These made it evident that he had industriously
excited the Southern Indians to war against us
and had furnished them with Arms and Ammunition
in abundance for that express purpose.
We placed this under the view of the Commissioners of
Spain here, who undertook to communicate it to their Court,
and also to write on the subject to the Baron de Carondelet.
They have lately made us communications from both these
Quarters; the aspect of which, however, is by no means
such as to remove the causes of our dissatisfaction.
I send you these communications, consisting of Treaties
between Spain, the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and
Cherokees, handed us by express order from their Court,
a Speech of Baron de Carondelet, to the Cherokees, and
a letter from Messrs. de Viar and Jaudenes, covering
that Speech and containing in itself very serious matter.
I will first observe to you that the question stated in that letter
to have been proposed to the Cherokees,
“What part they would take in the event of a war between
the United States and Spain?” was never proposed
by authority from this Government.
Its instructions to its agents have, on the contrary, been
explicitly to cultivate with good faith the peace between
Spain and the Indians: and from the known prudence
and good conduct of Governor Blount, to whom it is
imputed, it is not believed to have been proposed by him.
This proposition then you are authorized to disavow
to the Court of Madrid in the most unequivocal terms.
With respect to the treaties, the Speech, and the letter,
you will see that they undertake to espouse the concerns
of Indians within our limits; to be mediators of boundary
between them and us; to guaranty that boundary to them;
to support them with their whole power; and hazard to us
intimations of acquiescence to avoid disagreeable results.
They even propose to extend their intermeddling
to the northern Indians.
These are pretensions, so totally inconsistent
with the usages established among the white nations
with respect to Indians living within their several limits,
that it is believed no example of them can be produced
in times of peace; and they are presented to us
in a manner which we cannot deem friendly.
The consequence is that the Indians and particularly the Creeks,
finding themselves so encouraged, have passed without
the least provocation on our part from a state of peace,
which appeared to be well settled, to that of serious hostility.
Their Murders and Depredations, which for some months
we were willing to hope were only individual aggressions,
now assume the appearance of unequivocal War.
Yet such is our desire of courting and cultivating the peace
of all our Indian neighbors, that instead of marching at once
into their Country and taking satisfaction ourselves,
we are peaceably requiring punishment of the individual
Aggressors; and in the meantime are holding ourselves
entirely on the defensive.
But this state of things cannot continue.
Our Citizens are entitled to effectual protection;
and defensive measures are at the same time
the most expensive and least effectual.
If we find then, that peace cannot be obtained
by the temperate means we are still pursuing;
we must proceed to those which are extreme
and meet all the consequences of whatever nature
or from whatever quarter they may be.
We have certainly been always desirous to avoid
whatever might disturb our harmony with Spain.
We should be still more so, at a moment when
we see that nation making part of so powerful a
confederacy as is formed in Europe, and under particular
good understanding with England, our other neighbor.
In so delicate a position therefore instead of expressing
our sense of these things by way of answer to
Messrs. Viar and Jaudenes, the President has thought it
better that it should be done to you, and to trust to
your discretion the moment, the measure, and the form
of communicating it to the Court of Madrid.
The actual state of Europe at the time you will receive this,
the solidity of the confederacy and especially as between
Spain and England the temper and views of the former,
or of both towards us, the state of your negotiation,
are circumstances which will enable you better to decide
how far it may be necessary to soften or even perhaps to
suppress the expressions of our sentiments on this subject.
To your discretion therefore it is committed by the President
to let the Court of Spain see how impossible it is for us to
submit with folded arms to be butchered by these Savages
and to prepare them to view with a just Eye the more
vigorous measures we must pursue to put an end to
their atrocities if the moderate ones we are now taking,
should fail of that effect.
Our situation on other accounts
and in other quarters is critical.
The President is constantly anxious to know
the state of things with you: and I entreat you
to keep him constantly and well informed.17
On June 5 Jefferson responded to a letter by Genêt writing,
In a conversation which I had afterwards the honor of
holding with you, I observed that one of those armed vessels,
the Citizen Genêt, had come into this Port with a prize;
that the President had thereupon, taken the case into further
consideration, and after mature consultation and deliberation
was of opinion that the arming and equipping vessels in the
Ports of the United States to cruise against nations with whom
they are at peace, was incompatible with the territorial
sovereignty of the United States; that it made them
instrumental to the annoyance of those nations and thereby
tended to compromit their peace, and that he thought
it necessary as an evidence of good faith to them,
as well as a proper reparation to the Sovereignty
of the Country, that the armed vessels of this description
should depart from the ports of the United States.18
President Washington and his Cabinet agreed that the Genêt issues
are
related to treaties and that they should consult the United States Supreme Court.
On 17 June 1793 Jefferson wrote to the French Minister Genêt:
I have received and laid before the President,
your letter of the 14th instant, stating that certain judiciary
Officers of the United States, contrary to the law of nations,
and to the treaties subsisting between France and the United
States, had arrested certain vessels and Cargoes taken by a
French armed vessel and brought into this port, and desiring
that the authority of the President might be interposed to
restore the prizes with damages for their detention.
By the laws of this Country every individual
claiming a right to any Article of property may
demand process from a court of Justice,
and a decision on the validity of his claim.
This is understood to be the case,
which is the subject of your letter.
Individuals claiming a right to the prizes
have attached them by process from the
court of Admiralty, which that Court was not free
to deny because justice is to be denied to no man.
If at the hearing of the cause it shall be found
that it is not cognizable before that court,
you may so far rely on its learning and integrity
as to be assured it will so pronounce of itself.
In like manner if having jurisdiction of the cause,
it shall find the right of the claimants to be null,
be assured it will pronounce that nullity; and
in either case the property will be restored; but
whether with damages or not the court alone is to decide.
It happens in this particular case that the rule of decision
will be not the municipal laws of the United States but the
law of nations, and the law maritime as admitted and
practiced in all civilized countries; that the same sentence
will be pronounced here that would be pronounced in the
same case in the Republic of France or in any other
country of Europe; and that if it should be unfavorable to the
captors, it will be for reasons understood and acknowledged
in your own Country, and for the justice of which we might
safely appeal to the Jurists of your own Country.
I will add that if the seizure should be found contrary to the
treaties subsisting between France and the United States,
the Judges will consider these treaties as constituting
a conventional Law for the two Nations, controlling
all other law and will decree accordingly.
The functions of the Executive are not competent to the
decision of Questions of property between Individuals.
These are ascribed to the Judiciary alone, and when
either persons or property are taken into their custody,
there is no power in this country which can take them out.
You will therefore be sensible, Sir, that though the President
is not the Organ for doing what is just in the present case,
it will be effectually done by those to whom the Constitution
has ascribed that duty; and be assured that the interests,
the rights and the dignity of the French nation will receive
within the Bosom of the United States all the support which
a friendly nation could desire and a neutral one yield.19
On June 30 Jefferson wrote a long letter to the US Commissioners to Spain
Carmichael and Short about the United States policy of neutrality and the effort
to persuade the Indian tribes near Spanish territory to also “remain strictly neutral.”
He defended the United States against six charges made against them.
Genêt in July was outfitting a ship to make it the privateer Little Democrat,
and he was also working to organize Democratic societies.
On July 12 Jefferson wrote this to the controversial
French Minister Edmond Charles Genêt:
The President of the United States, desirous of having
done what shall be strictly conformable to the treaties
the United States and laws respecting the
several representatives received from yourself,
and the minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain
on the subject of vessels arming or arriving within our ports,
and of prizes has determined to refer the questions
arising thereon to persons learned in the laws.
As this reference will necessitate some delay,
he will expect from both parties that in the meantime
the Little Sarah or Little Democrat, the ships Jane and
William in the Delaware, the Citoyen Genêt, and her
two prizes, the Lovely Lass and Prince William Henry,
and the brig Fanny in the Chesapeake, do not depart
until his ultimate determination shall be made known.
You may be assured, sir, that the delay will be
as short as possible, and the object of it being
to obtain the best advice possible on the sense
of the laws and treaties respecting the several cases;
I am persuaded you will think the delay well compensated.20
On 18 July 1793 Jefferson wrote to the Chief Justice
and Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States,
The war which has taken place among the powers of Europe
produces frequent transactions within our ports and limits,
on which questions arise of considerable difficulty,
and of greater importance to the peace of the US.
These questions depend for their solution on the
construction of our treaties, on the laws of nature and
nations, and on the laws of the land; and are often
presented under circumstances which do not give a
cognizance of them to the tribunals of the country.
Yet their decision is so little analogous to the ordinary
functions of the Executive, as to occasion much
embarrassment and difficulty to them.
The President would therefore be much relieved
if he found himself free to refer questions of this
description to the opinions of the Judges of the
Supreme Court of the US whose knowledge of the subject
would secure us against errors dangerous to the peace of
the US and their authority ensure the respect of all parties.
He has therefore asked the attendance of such of the judges
as could be collected in time for the occasion, to know,
in the first place their opinion Whether the public may with
propriety be availed of their advice on these questions?
and if they may, to present for their advice the abstract
questions which have already occurred or may soon
occur from which they will themselves strike out
such as any circumstances might in their opinion
forbid them to pronounce on.21
Jefferson sent with the letter to the Supreme Court a
comprehensive list of questions for the judges.
Jefferson wrote to Genêt again on July 24 that included 14 questions
for belligerents and eight rules for governing belligerents.
Then one week later Jefferson begged Washington in a letter
to let him retire at the end of September.
On August 7 Jefferson wrote to Charles Genêt again.
In a letter of June 5th I had the honor to inform
you that the President, after reconsidering at your
request the case of vessels armed within our ports to
commit hostilities on nations at peace with the United States,
had finally determined that it could not be admitted
and desired that all those which had been so armed
should depart from our ports.
It being understood afterwards, that these vessels either
still remained in our ports or had only left them to cruise
on our coasts and return again with their prizes,
and that another vessel, the Little Democrat, had been
since armed at Philadelphia, it was desired in my letter
of the 12th of July that such vessels with their prizes
should be detained till a determination should be had
of what was to be done under these circumstances.
In disregard, however, of this desire the Little Democrat
went out immediately on a cruise.
I have it now in charge to inform you that the President
considers the United States as bound, pursuant to positive
assurances, given in conformity to the laws of neutrality,
to effectuate the restoration of or to make compensation for
prizes, which shall have been made of any of the parties
at war with France subsequent to the fifth day of June last
by privateers fitted out of our ports.
That it is consequently expected that you will cause
restitution to be made of all prizes taken and brought
into our Ports subsequent to the abovementioned day
by such privateers in defect of which the President
considers it as incumbent upon the United States
to indemnify the Owners of those prizes—
the indemnification to be reimbursed by the French nation.
That besides taking efficacious measures to prevent the
future fitting out of Privateers in the Ports of the United
States, they will not give asylum therein to any which
shall have been at any time so fitted out, and will cause
restitution of all such prizes as shall be hereafter
brought within their Ports by any of the said Privateers.
It would have been but proper respect to the
authority of the country had that been consulted
before these armaments were undertaken.
It would have been satisfactory, however, if their sense
of them, when declared, had been duly acquiesced in.
Reparation of the injury to which the United States
have been made so involuntarily instrumental,
is all which now remains, and in this your compliance
cannot but be expected.
In consequence of the information given in your letter
of the 4th instant that certain citizens of St. Domingo,
lately arrived in the United States, were associating
for the purpose of undertaking a military expedition
from the territory of the United States against that Island,
the Governor of Maryland, within which State the
expedition is understood to be preparing, is instructed
to take effectual measures to prevent the same.22
On August 16 Jefferson wrote a very long letter to the US Minister
to France Gouverneur Morris in which at the end of 37 pages he concluded,
That friendship, which dictates to us to bear with his conduct
yet awhile, lest the interests of his nation here should suffer
injury, will hasten them to replace an agent, whose
Dispositions are such a misrepresentation of theirs,
and whose continuance here is inconsistent with order,
peace, respect, and that friendly correspondence,
which we hope will ever subsist between the two nations.
His government will see too that the case is pressing;
that it is impossible for two sovereign and
independent authorities to be going on within
our territory at the same time without collision.
They will foresee that if Mr. Genêt perseveres in his
proceedings, the consequences would be so
hazardous to us, the example so humiliating and
pernicious, that we may be forced even to suspend his
functions before a successor can arrive to continue them.
If our citizens have not already been shedding
each other’s blood, it is not owing to the moderation
of Mr. Genêt, but to the forbearance of the Government.
It is well known that if the authority of the laws
had been resorted to, to stop the Little Democrat,
its officers and agents were to have been resisted by the
crew of the vessel consisting partly of American citizens.
Such events are too serious, too possible,
to be left to hazard or to what is worse than hazard,
the will of an agent whose designs are so mysterious.
Lay the case then immediately before his government.
Accompany it with assurances, which cannot be stronger
than true, that our friendship for the nation is constant and
unabating; that faithful to our treaties, we have fulfilled
them in every point to the best of our understanding;
that, if in anything, however, we have construed them
amiss, we are ready to enter into candid explanations,
and to do whatever we can be convinced is right; that
in opposing the extravagancies of an agent, whose
character they seem not sufficiently to have known,
we have been urged by motives of duty to ourselves &
justice to others, which cannot but be approved by those
who are just themselves; and finally, that after
independence and self-government there is nothing we
more sincerely wish than perpetual Friendship with them.23
Jefferson in August persuaded James Madison to counter the arguments
of Treasury Secretary Hamilton who was publishing using the name “Pacificus.”
Madison chose to write as “Helvidius,” a Stoic philosopher in the first century
who had promoted demokratia and was exiled by the Roman Emperor Nero
in 66 CE and banished again and then eventually
executed by Emperor Vespasian (69-79).
In August a severe yellow fever epidemic erupted in Philadelphia
that caused almost half the inhabitants to flee from the city.
Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox departed,
and Hamilton caught the fever on August 6.
Jefferson stayed to prevent a panic and to stabilize the government.
About 5,000, which was ten percent of the population, died.
Jefferson wrote to Gouverneur Morris on September 11:
The North Western Indians have refused to meet our
Commissioners unless they would agree to the Ohio
as our boundary by way of preliminary article;
and this being impossible on account of the army locations
and particular sales on that side the river, the war will go on.
We may shortly expect to hear that
General Wayne is in motion.
An infectious and mortal fever is broke out in this place.
The deaths under it the week before last
were about 40, the last week about 80.
This week they will probably be about 200, and it is increasing.
Everyone is getting out of the city who can.
Col. Hamilton is ill of the fever but is on the recovery.
The President, according to an arrangement of
some time ago, set out for Mt. Vernon yesterday.
The Secretary at War is setting out on a visit to Massachusetts.
I shall go in a few days to Virginia.
When we shall reassemble again may perhaps
depend on the course of this malady, and on that
may depend the date of my next letter.24
On October 11 Freneau notified Jefferson that he was resigning
from his translator position in the State Department.
Jefferson had already noticed that the
National Gazette was no longer being published.
Their adversary Fenno was in financial trouble, and Hamilton asked
Rufus King to raise a $1,000 in New York.
Hamilton also raised money in Philadelphia, and the
Gazette of the United States resumed publication.
President George Washington on 14 February 1791 had written a message
to a House of Representatives committee who informed Secretary of State
Jefferson to prepare a report on how to improve commerce and navigation.
On 16 December 1793 Jefferson submitted his
“Report on the Privileges and Restrictions on the Commerce
of the United States in Foreign Countries” which begins,
The countries with which the United States have their
chief commercial intercourse are Spain, Portugal, France,
Great Britain, the United Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden,
and their American possessions; and the articles of export,
which constitute the basis of that commerce with their
respective amounts are (listed).25
Those nations listed in order of the amount of trade with each nation
were Great Britain, France, United Netherlands,
Spain, Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden.
Here are the products listed in order of their amounts:
grains and bread, Tobacco, Rice, Wood, Salted fish,
Pot and pearl ash, Foreign goods, Salted meats,
Indigo, Horses and mules, Whale oil, Flax seed,
tar and turpentine, and live provisions.
Based on tonnage of vessels the list is
France, United Netherlands, Great Britain,
Portugal, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden.
Jefferson described the five principles based on
reciprocity that is just and causes no complaint.
Jefferson described trade with these nations
and then made recommendations.
Notes
1. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1004-1006.
2. From James Madison to Edmund Pendleton, 23 February 1793 (Online)
3. Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty by Dumas Malone, p. 29.
4. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VII ed. Paul Leicester Ford, p. 257.
5. Ibid., p. 258-261.
6. Ibid., p.267-268.
7. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1006-1007.
8. From Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, 24 March 1793 (Online)
9. To George Washington from Thomas Jefferson, 7 April 1793 (Online)
10. Washington Writings, p. 837.
11. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VII, p. 281-282.
12. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 422-434, 434.
13. Ibid., p. 92-94.
14. The Life of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 2 by Henry S. Randall, p. 128-129.
15. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 1008-1009.
16. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VII, p. 347-348.
17. Ibid., p. 348-352.
18. From Thomas Jefferson to Edmond Charles Genet, 5 June 1793 (Online)
19. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VII, p. 401-403.
20. Ibid., p. 445-446.
21. Ibid., p. 451-452.
22. Ibid., p. 468-470.
23. Ibid., p. 505-507.
24. From Thomas Jefferson to Gouverneur Morris, 11 September 1793 (Online)
25. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume VIII, p. 98-100.
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