SOURCE: Forman, Samuel E. “The Democratic Editor.” In The Political Activities of Philip Freneau, pp. 35-79. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1902.

[In the following excerpt, Forman discusses Freneau's position as editor of the National Gazette and the controversy that surrounded his work there.]

The plan and purposes of the new paper were published at considerable length. The Gazette was to appear every Wednesday and Saturday;¹ the subscription price was to be three dollars per annum; the news published was to be of national character, especial attention being promised to the doings of the national government; the columns of the Gazette were to be open to all original and interesting productions whether prose or verse; political discussion was to be conducted with perfect fairness and the greatest latitude; the debates of congress and reports of departments were to be printed; all important books were to be reviewed; advertisements were to be allotted a certain space and were not to encroach upon the columns intended for general reading matter.

The title of the paper, the “National Gazette,” suggests the aims of its founder. It was to be a paper for circulation in all parts of the union. It was to be an organ with national influence and a national constituency as opposed to those papers which appealed to local constituencies and which rarely found their way out of the neighborhood in which they were printed. This was the idea of the editor and his advisers, and every effort was made to keep the paper cosmopolitan and to get it into distant parts.

Freneau pushed forward the publication of the Gazette and the first number came from the press several days before it was announced to appear. In the first issues there was nothing to shadow forth that violent partisanship which later was to make its editor one of the best hated men in America. In one respect, indeed, it offended from the beginning the opinion of a large and influential element of the American people. It supported without reserve the principles of the French revolution. Its columns were filled with equality and fraternity, and Tom Paine and Rousseau. Aside from this undisguised endorsement of what was then to many minds, political heresy, its tone was mild, and its articles harmless and colorless. Its professed policy was broad and patriotic. It early maintained the doctrine that the union between the states should be social and commercial as well as political. “The interests of the northern and southern states are inseparable forever. It seems to have been the design of nature in her formation and distribution of that part of North America known by the name of the United States, that a mutual dependence should take place between the northern and southern inhabitants.”² But the tendency of the paper was unmistakable. It appealed to the common people as the true rulers of government. Its evident purpose was to evoke and energize the spirit of democracy.

Was there need for such a paper? Was the spirit of democracy flagging and the tide running toward a government, strong, centralized, and aristocratic? Was the constitution, as Jefferson says it was, galloping toward monarchy? We cannot understand Freneau and the part he played in public affairs until we have found answers to these questions, and to answer them we must try to get as clear a notion as possible of the state of political opinion in the United States in 1791.

To do this let us begin with the rulers. Let us interrogate those who were in the saddle at the time, and determine the direction they were galloping by the tendency of their thought; for as men think, so are they.

If we begin with the President, there can be no doubt of Washington's perfect loyalty to the constitution and to a republican form of government. In 1786, indeed, he recognized that times were changing, and that monarchy was in the air,³ but he deprecated with the utmost horror the progress of monarchical sentiment. Freneau has attested to the soundness of the great chief's republicanism in these lines:

Oh Washington, thrice glorious name!
What due rewards can man decree?
Empires are far below thy aim,
And sceptres have no charm for thee.
          Virtue alone has your regard,
          And she must be your great reward.

We pass from the President to the Vice-president. John Adams has written many hundreds of pages upon the subject of government, but human reason cannot fathom his meaning and what he really thought will never be known.⁴ Madison, open and above board, spoke of him to Washington as aiming at mixed monarchy,⁵ but Adams said he was not aiming at monarchy, and we must believe he knew his motives better than Madison knew them. We cannot get from his writings what Adams thought, but we can learn from them what he felt. He hated democracy, he loved a strong government. “Democracy,”⁶ he says, “never has been and never can be so desirable as aristocracy or monarchy, but while it lasts, is more bloody than either. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.” And again: “It is true and I rejoice in it, that our president has more power than the stadt-holders, the doges, the archons, or the kings of Lacedaemon.” He expresses his profound distrust of self-government in these words: “The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body. Individuals have conquered themselves; nations and large bodies never.”⁷ In a letter to his democratic cousin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, in a few inadvertent words, betrays his feelings towards popular liberty. Samuel Adams had advanced the proposition that the love of liberty is interwoven in the soul of man. John Adams, candidate for popular favor, replied: “So it is, according to La Fontaine, in that of a wolf.”⁸ Late in life, John Adams said that his political downfall was largely due to the writings of Philip Freneau.⁹ He would more justly have attributed his retirement to his own writings.

When we come to Washington's first cabinet we find a house divided against itself. Relying upon his own vast authority and the rectitude of his intentions, the president invited to assist him in governing, two men whose views upon government diverged as widely as possible. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, by every principle and implication of their being, were unfitted to work together, and Washington's attempt at a mixed cabinet failed. In a short time the imperious and imperial Hamilton dominated Washington and the administration, and Jefferson was forced to retire.

What were Hamilton's views upon government? If he could have had his will, what form of government would have been instituted? What was the tendency of our government when it was under his direction? To get an answer to this question, we may take the testimony first of a friend, then of an enemy. Gouverneur Morris, an intimate friend and co-worker in politics, said of Hamilton: “He hated republican government because he confounded it with democratic government. One marked trait of the general's character was his pertinacious adherence to opinions once formed. He never failed on every occasion to advocate the excellence of and avow his attachment to monarchical government.”¹⁰ Thomas Jefferson corroborates this language by putting the following words in Hamilton's mouth; words, Jefferson avers, which were written down almost immediately after they were spoken: “I own it is my opinion, although I do not publish it in Dan and Beersheba, that the present government is not that which will answer the ends of society by giving stability and protection to its rights, and that it will probably be expedient to go to the British form.”¹¹

Hamilton's correspondence is replete with lugubrious apprehensions that the government by the people might fail.¹² The people were to him “informe ingens, cui lumen ademptum.”¹³ In a letter to Theodore Sedgwick he speaks of democracy as a virulent poison, that was threatening to destroy the life of the nation.¹⁴ In 1802, when he had been unhorsed and Jefferson was in the saddle, he writes to his old friend and fellow-aristocrat, Morris, bitterly complaining of his fate: “Mine is an odd destiny. I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the curses of its foes for my reward. What can I do better than withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me.”¹⁵ At a banquet in New York, in reply to a toast Hamilton uttered these remarkable words: “Your people, sir, your people are a great beast.”¹⁶ But enough of quotations. Everybody knows now as well as Jefferson knew in 1791 that Alexander Hamilton hated democracy and that he had little faith in the government that he had helped to establish.

It is of interest to note also what the lesser lights, what senators and representatives and diplomats of the time thought of democracy. The young and eloquent Fisher Ames, the confidential friend of Hamilton and a leader in the house of representatives, declared democracy to be the isthmus of a middle state, nothing in itself. Like death it was the dismal passport to a more dismal hereafter. He thought our nation began self-government without education for it. “Like negroes,” he says, “freed after grown up to man's estate, we are incapable of learning and practicing the great art of taking care of ourselves.”¹⁷ He greets Hamilton's sympathetic ears with these words: “Our government is becoming a mere democracy which has never been tolerable or long tolerated.”¹⁸ And again, in an explosion of disgust and despair he cries: “Our country is too big for union, too sordid for patriotism, too democratic for liberty! What is to become of it, He who made it best knows.”¹⁹

Gouverneur Morris has answered for Hamilton and may now answer for himself on the subject of democratic government. Writing from Paris to Rufus King he says: “The people, or rather the populace—a thing which, thank God, is unknown in America—are flattered with the idea that they are under no restraint except such as might be inspired by magistrates of their own choice.”²⁰ This haughty lieutenant of Hamilton's having narrowly escaped the fury of that same Parisian populace, wished to check the power of the people in his own country by a strong government. He believed that a national law should repeal any state law, and was for a senate for life, appointed by the chief magistrate. The body should consist of men of wealth and of aristocratic spirit—one that would “lord it through pride.”

Theodore Sedgwick, speaker of the House of Representatives, had no faith in the manner of electing the president.²¹ John Jay, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, doubted whether the people could long govern themselves in an “equal, uniform and orderly manner.”²² Oliver Wolcott, Comptroller of the Treasury, and successor of Hamilton as Secretary, believed that our system of government would fail.²³ Chauncey Goodrich, a leader in politics wrote: “Our greatest danger is from the antagonism of levelism. What folly is it that has set the world agog to be all equal to French barbers?” George Cabot, senator from Massachusetts, held the belief that “Democracy in its natural operation is the government of the worst.”²⁴

Such was the faith, or rather lack of faith, of our federal fathers. Such were the avowed opinions regarding self-government held by those who were administering the government, making its laws, conducting its diplomacy, pronouncing its justice, at the period when Freneau set up his “National Gazette” in Philadelphia. Washington warned the federal leaders against their monarchical notions, reminding them that it was but a step from thinking to speaking and but another to acting.²⁵ And they did act as far as prudence would permit. Hamilton tried to hedge Washington around “with a divinity that did befit a King.” Titles and royal trappings were employed to dazzle and awe; measures were introduced into congress under Hamilton's doctrine of “implied powers” that made democrats like Maclay and Madison stand aghast. Hamilton and Hamiltonism ruled not only in the cabinet but in the legislature also. It was charged that the Treasurer in British fashion cracked his whip over congress,²⁶ and “converted the legislature into a committee of sanction,” and Washington himself was accused of “treading on the neck of the senate.”²⁷

The organ upon which the federalists relied to make public opinion for their cause was John Fenno's “Gazette of the United States.” This paper was started in New York but was moved to Philadelphia when the government was transferred to that place.²⁸ Fenno was completely under Hamilton's control and the columns of his Gazette were filled with the monarchical notions of his patron. The following extract, taken from the writings of “Tablet” who contributed, every week, something upon the subject of government, will give an idea of the spirit of Fenno's paper:

“Take away thrones and crowns from among men and there will soon be an end of all dominion and justice. There must be some adventitious properties infused into the government to give it energy and spirit, or the selfish, turbulent passions of men can never be controlled. This has occasioned that artificial splendor and dignity that are to be found in the courts of many nations. The people of the United States may probably be induced to regard and obey the laws without requiring the experiment of courts and titled monarchs. In proportion as we become populous and wealthy must the tone of the government be strengthened.”²⁹

Americans were invited to distrust their fitness for sovereignty, “for the experience of past ages proved that whenever the people have exercised in themselves the three powers, the democracy is immediately changed into anarchy. Violent orators agitate the multitude as the winds toss the waves, and the people agitated by demagogues have committed all excesses.” Titles were upheld as the essential features of a vigorous government. The argument for them was simple and cogent. There are differences in men, in talent, in wealth, in position; therefore, there should be titles to designate these differences.

Hamilton, the powerful patron of the Gazette, was the theme of its highest panegyric. “He is the highest jewel in Columbia's crown. As a pillar in the Federal building he seems to unite the solidity of the Doric order, the delicacy and elegance of the Ionic, and the towering beauty of the Corinthian.” In return for this subserviency, Fenno, as we shall presently see, merely demanded cash.

It was to furnish an antidote to the aristocratic and monarchical sentiments of Fenno's paper that Freneau's “National Gazette” was established, and the better we know the Gazette of the United States, the plainer does it become that an antidote was needed. The columns of Fenno's paper read like those of a journal of the court of St. James. A few paragraphs will illustrate: “The principal ladies of the city have with the earliest attention and respect paid their devoirs to the amiable consort of our beloved president, namely, the Lady of his Excellency, the Governor, Lady Stirling, Lady Mary Watts, Lady Kitty Duer, La Marchioness de Breham, the ladies of the Most Honorable Mr. Layton, the Most Honorable Mr. Dalton, the Mayoress, Mrs. Livingston of Clermont, Lady Temple, Madam de la Forest, Mrs. Houston, Mrs. Griffin, the Miss Bayards and a great number of other respectable characters.”

Again: “We are informed that the President, His Excellency, the Vice-President, His Excellency, the Governor of this State, and many other personages will be present at the theatre this evening.”

Again: “The Most Honorable Morris and Lady attended the theatre last evening.”

Such royal gibberish as this could not be reasoned with and Freneau did not attempt to reason with it, but he drove it out of Fenno's paper and out of the United States. He caused it to be laughed at, and that it could not endure. A bit of horse-play like the following was far more effective than any amount of abstraction could have been:—The writer, in imagination goes ahead of the time ten years and gives a page of news for the year 1801—

On Monday last arrived in this city in perfect health, His Most Serene Highness the Protector of the United States, who on Wednesday next will review the regular troops which compose the garrison.

Yesterday came on before the circuit court of the Protector, the trial of James Barefoot, laborer, for carelessly treading on the great toe of My Lord Ohio. The defendant was found guilty, but as the offense appeared quite accidental, and his lordship had already inflicted on him fifty lashes, the court fined him only 100 pounds and ordered him to be imprisoned six months. Considering the blood and rank of the prosecutor, the humanity of the sentence cannot be too highly extolled. His lordship's toe is in a fair way of recovery, although one of his physicians thinks the nail is in danger.

Yesterday was capitally convicted by a majority of the jury, John Misprision, for high treason, for lying with the mistress of the Protector's second son, the duke of Erie. Great efforts will be made to obtain a pardon, but it is feared that the enormity of the offense, with a suspicion of its being the third or fourth time he has taken this liberty with his Grace, will prevent their desired effect.

Sunday last, being the birthday of the Protector's lady, was celebrated in this city with becoming attention. No divine service was performed. The levee of her Highness was remarkably crowded. She looked uncommonly cheerful considering it is the ninth month of her pregnancy. In the evening the theatre was unusually brilliant in expectation of her Highness's company, who for the reason just mentioned was obliged to forego the pleasure.

It is said that Lady Champlaine, a maid of honor to her Highness the Protectoress, has had an intrigue with the Duchess of Rye's footman.

To remedy the inconveniences attending the election on the death of every protector, a bill will be brought in at the next session of Congress to make the office hereditary, and to increase his annual revenue from five hundred thousand to one million of dollars. It is certainly impossible for his Highness to support the dignity of his high station upon his present small allowance.

The hereditary council will meet in the future at the new palace in Philadelphia. This superb edifice cost the moderate sum of six hundred thousand dollars, ten cents and five mills, which exceeded the calculations of the first lord of the Treasury only by two dollars, three cents and one mill.

A few copies of the act to restrain the freedom of press may be had at this office.

Monarchy was not the only thing the “National Gazette” abhorred. Freneau, as a life-long democrat and consistent whig, detested the avowed principles of the federal party and there was no love in his heart for its leader, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton was therefore singled out and made the principal target for the anti-federal arrows that sped from Freneau's bow. It was upon the appearance of Hamilton's report on manufactures that Freneau's career as a publicist began. The Secretary of the Treasury announced the startling doctrine that it was the unquestionable meaning of the constitution that Congress had power to provide for any object that concerned the general welfare. The phrase “general welfare,” he contended, was susceptible neither of specification nor of definition. Every object which in its operations extends throughout the union concerns the general welfare and it was left to the discretion of the National Legislature to decide what shall be regarded as concerning the general welfare. The Secretary entertained no doubts that whatever concerned education, agriculture, manufacturing, or commerce was within the sphere of the action of the National Government.

Freneau, as a champion of strict construction, swooped down upon the doctrine of “implied power” with savage talons. “Is there,” the Gazette asks, “any object for which money is not necessary, or any object for which money may not be applied and brought under the object of congress? Under such a construction of the power of congress, what is to become of the word constitutional? Nothing henceforth would be unconstitutional. It would be the easiest thing in the world to conceive that religion is a matter of the general welfare; and then an ecclesiastical establishment supported by government would quickly follow. Besides, such a doctrine knocks down every boundary worth contending for between the general government and the state government. This doctrine of non-specification and non-limitation of the power of the constitution was subversive of liberty.”³⁰ The Secretary is charged with bad faith in attempting to promulgate such ideas. He is reminded that when he urged the adoption of the constitution, he taught the people that usurpation was not to be apprehended; that construction by implication was impossible, that the states had nothing to fear. Now, by a little refinement in politics, and by the legerdemain of fiscal operations, he was about to do all that he had promised would not and could not be done. The funding scheme, the bank scheme, the excise, were all contrary to himself, the constitution and American freedom.

Hamilton was unfitted by nature to brook opposition, and he met the opposition of Freneau in a most unfortunate manner. At first he left his defense in the hands of his editor Fenno, but Fenno was a heavy fellow and could do little but rave. He hurled invective against any who should dare to criticize a measure of government. The “National Gazette,” he said was the vehicle of party spleen and the opponent of the principles of order, virtue and religion;³¹ its editor was a “wretch,” “a spaniel,” “a fawning parasite,” “a black-guard,” “a grumbletonian,” “a crack brain,” “a Bedlamite,” “a jackal of mobocracy,” “a salamander.” Freneau reprinted in his own paper these courtly epithets, and kept calm. A few lines of doggerel was all the reply he would vouchsafe to his enraged adversary.

Since the day I attempted to print a gazette
This Shylock-Ap-Shenkin does nothing but fret;
Now preaching and screeching, then nibbling and scribbling
Remarking and barking and whining and pining
                              And still in a pet,
From morning 'till night with my humble Gazette.
Instead of whole columns our page to abuse,
Your readers would rather be treated with news;
While wars are a-brewing, and kingdoms undoing,
While monarchs are falling, and princesses squalling,
While France is reforming, and Irishmen storming—
In a glare of such splendor, what folly to fret
At so humble a thing as a poet's Gazette.
One Printer for Congress (some think) is enough
To flatter and lie, to palaver and puff,
To preach up in favor of monarchs and titles,
And garters and ribbands to prey on our vitals.

To criticise government and governors seemed to him a perfectly legitimate act and he exercised this right without any great perturbations of conscience. A squib from his paper furnishes the basis of a philosophy for the freedom of press:

Free government in any country naturally urges by imperceptible advances to tyranny, unless corrected by the vigilance of the people. Nothing but the perpetual jealousy of the governed has ever been found effectual against the machination of ambition. When this jealousy does not exist in some reasonable degree the saddle is soon placed upon the backs of the people and occupied by a succession of tyrants. There never was a government that had not its flatterers whose incense of adulation is always in readiness to be offered at the shrine of power, and whose abilities are prostituted to cover the abuse of office. Monarchies it is well known owe no small share of their disability to such support. Republics ought to be above it.³²

But it must not be inferred that Freneau abused the liberty of the press. The “National Gazette” was not a scurrilous or libellous sheet. It has an unsavory reputation in history, but we shall see before we have finished, that it does not deserve such a reputation, that scurrility and slander are not a feature of its pages. It was called atheistical and subversive of religion and morals, not because it denied the existence of God or attacked religion, for it let such subjects severely alone, but because it advocated democratic principles. In those days if a man was a democrat he was an atheist, and that was all there was to it. Compared with the Daily Advertiser, a republican contemporary, or with Fenno's paper, the “National Gazette” was a mild and decent sheet. The fear and hatred that it won for itself arose from the ability with which it was edited. It was supported by the best talent of the age. Hugh Brackenridge, Freneau's classmate at college, now eminent as a jurist, sympathized with the aims of the paper and contributed largely to its success by writing for its columns.³³ James Madison worked for it, talked for it, and wrote for it.³⁴ Jefferson could not have been more interested in it if his political life had depended upon its success. He was always writing about it to his friends, calling attention to its merits, and drumming up subscribers and subscriptions. He kept Freneau supplied with foreign newspapers, and thus enabled him to make his paper the source of the fullest information respecting the mighty movements and triumphs of democracy in Europe. By good management on the part of the editor and his friends, the paper prospered and became the power it was sought to make it. In May, 1792, Freneau published the following card in his paper: “Upward of six months being elapsed since the publication of this paper, and the subscriptions having succeeded beyond the editor's most sanguine expectations, he now begs leave to solicit the attention of the people of the United States to a publication which he trusts will at all times be found truly republican in its principles and tendency.”

The chief business of the Gazette was to destroy Hamilton, the one man in whom the hopes of the federalists lay. That the Secretary of the Treasury was the head and front of the federal party was clearly recognized by Jefferson. “Hamilton is really a colossus to the anti-republicans,” he writes to Madison. “Without numbers he is a host within himself. When he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. For God's sake take up your pen and give him a fundamental reply.”³⁵ Freneau, after the manner of editors generally, did not concern himself deeply about “fundamental replies.” His plan was to render Hamilton and his schemes odious and unpopular. Every utterance, every report, every recommendation of the Secretary was construed as having but one ultimate aim—the overthrow of the constitution and the establishment of a monarchy. His funding system, his national bank, his excise law, his love of titles, his advocacy of a perpetual public debt, his loose-construction notions, were all of the same cloth. If you want rules for the conversion of a limited republic into an absolute monarchy, said Freneau, here they are:

1. Get rid of constitutional shackles.
2. Confer titles of rank. If the principal magistrate should be particularly venerable in the eyes of the people take advantage of that fortunate circumstance.
3. If the principal magistrate is averse to titles, persevere in indoctrinating the people with the idea. Time will gain it respect.
4. Harp incessantly upon the dangers of the mob.
5. Let the great nostrum be a perpetual public debt. If a debt is not at hand assume one, and then swell it and stretch it in every possible way.
6. Interest the legislators in speculation and speculators in legislation.
7. Establish an incorporated bank by which those who are to inherit the kingdom that is preparing for them may be enriched.
8. Arrogate all power to the general government under the phrase “general welfare.”
9. Secure a rich manufacturing class by making laws in their interests.
10. Create a standing army.
11. Take England as a model.

Hamilton's doctrine that a public debt is a public blessing was resisted by the “National Gazette” with bull-dog ferocity. “Brutus,” who fulminated for months against the funding system ably supported these charges:

1. The funding system threw $50,000,000 into the hands of the wealthy.
2. It combined the money interest with the monopoly of the National Bank.
3. By its excise and impost offsprings it swallowed up by future payments the last resource of the country.
4. The certificates of indebtedness fell into the hands of speculators and foreigners.
5. It had diverted capital from its proper channels and turned it into speculation.
6. It created an immense body of revenue officials from the Secretary down to the tide-waiter, all bound together by common interests.

The editor's compassion was deeply moved for the soldier of the revolution who had been paid by certificates of indebtedness which had passed out of his hands at a discount into the hands of speculators, and which by Hamilton's law, had appreciated to several times their value. The theme caused the editor to drop into rhyme:

Public debts are public curses
In soldiers' hands; there nothing worse is!
In speculators' hands increasing,
A public debt's a public blessing.

Jonathan Pindar, who is Philip Freneau³⁶ in disguise, appears before Hamilton and other magnates as candidate for the position of poet-laureate. To further his chances of appointment he promised to swear—

The nation's debt's a blessing vast,
Which far and wide its general influence sheds,
From whence Pactolian streams descend so fast,
On their—id est—the speculators' heads.
That to increase this blessing and entail
To future time its influence benign,
New loans from foreign nations cannot fail
While standing armies clinch the grand design.
That taxes are no burthen to the rich,
That they alone to labor drive the poor—
The lazy rogues would neither plow nor ditch,
Unless to keep the sheriff from the door.

Freneau was a master of irony and frequently subjected Hamilton's sensitive nerves to this species of wit. The following piece is a sample of the fine satire that was constantly directed against the federalists and their chief:

A NEW POLITICAL CREED.

Whoever would live peaceably in Philadelphia, above all things it is necessary that he hold the federal faith and the federal faith is this, that there are two governing powers in this country, both equal and yet one superior; which faith unless one keep undefiledly without doubt he shall be abused everlastingly. The Briton is superior to the American and the American is superior to the Briton, and yet they are equal and the Briton shall govern the American.

The Briton while here is commanded to obey the American and yet the American ought to obey the Briton; and yet they ought not both to be obedient. For there is one dominion nominal of the American and another dominion real of the Briton. And yet there are not two dominions but only one dominion.

The American was created for the Briton and the Briton for the American, and yet the American shall be a slave to the Briton and the Briton the tyrant of the American.

The Britons are of three denominations, and yet only of one soul, nature, and subsistence: The Irishman of infinite impudence; the Scotchman of cunning most inscrutable; and the Englishman of impertinence altogether insupportable.

For the true faith is that we believe and confess that the government is fallible, and infallible: Fallible in its republican nature; and infallible in its monarchical tendency; erring in its state individuality and unerring in its federal complexity. So that it is both fallible and infallible; yet it is not twain but one government only, as having consolidated all state dominion in order to rule with sway uncontrolled. This is the true federal faith, which except a man believe and practice faithfully, beyond all doubt he shall be cursed perpetually.

Such reading was exceedingly painful to a proud and highly organized nature like Hamilton's. Fenno defended the Secretary as best he could, but Fenno was no match for Freneau. The “National Gazette” continued to pour forth its effective broadsides until Hamilton's patience gave way and he determined to break a lance in his own behalf. Freneau he affected to despise. In the editor and clerk who met his eyes daily in the office of government he saw only the servile instrument of Thomas Jefferson. Without evidence and without reason he cherished the notion that the “National Gazette” had been established by the Secretary of State, and that it was supported and directed by him, and that Freneau was a man of straw. With vision blurred and his facts all tangled, Hamilton rushed into print with an attack upon Jefferson. The chastisement, of course, had to be administered over Freneau's shoulders. In July, 1792, there appeared in Fenno's Gazette the following communication:

Mr. Fenno:

The editor of the “National Gazette” receives a salary from the government. Quaere: Whether this salary is paid for translations or for publications the design of which is to villify those to whom the voice of the people has committed the administration of our public affairs,—to oppose the measures of government and by false insinuation to disturb the public peace?

In common life it is thought ungrateful for a man to bite the hand that puts bread in his mouth, but if the man is hired to do it, the case is altered.

T. L.

“T. L.” was Alexander Hamilton. Freneau paid but little attention to the squib, doubtless because he did not suspect its high authority. He re-printed it in his paper and said it was beneath notice, and propounded this query by way of retort: “Whether a man who receives a small stipend for services rendered as French Translator to the Department of State and as editor of a free newspaper admits into his publication impartial strictures on the proceedings of the government, is not more likely to act an honest and disinterested part toward the public than a vile sycophant who, obtaining emoluments from the government far more lucrative than the salary alluded to, finds his interest in attempting to poison the mind of the people by propagating and disseminating principles and sentiments utterly subversive of the true interests of the country and by flattering and recommending every and any measure of government, however pernicious and destructive its tendency might be to the great body of the people?” The world is then called upon to judge between the motives of Freneau and those of Fenno.³⁷

The world probably took very little interest in the motives of either of the editors, yet it did take the greatest interest in the names that were soon involved in the controversy that ensued. A struggle between Hamilton and Jefferson was fraught with issues of the most profound significance. The triumph of Hamilton meant conservatism and the rule of the classes in America; the triumph of Jefferson meant radicalism and the rule of the masses. To be precise and just, we may say that Hamiltonism meant a strong central government administered in the English spirit, while Jeffersonism meant a light and easy central government that would respond readily to the will of the populace. Both Jefferson and Hamilton honestly wished to avoid a quarrel, yet a conflict between them was inevitable. Hamilton by a few inopportune strokes of the pen in a moment of irritation precipitated the contest. In reply to Freneau's retort he wrote for Fenno's paper, over the signature “An American,” a letter that made peace no longer possible.

“Mr. Freneau,” he said in this letter—thinking and caring nothing about Freneau—“Mr. Freneau should not escape with the plea that his hostility toward the measures of government was only a mark of independence and disinterestedness.” The whole truth in regard to the “National Gazette” should be known. That truth for the enlightenment of the world and the discomfiture of Jefferson is then set forth in these paragraphs:

Mr. Freneau, before he came to Philadelphia, was employed by Childs and Swaine, printers of the Daily Advertiser, in New York, in the capacity of editor or superintendent. A paper more devoted to the views of a certain party, of which Mr. Jefferson is the head than any to be found in this city was wanted. Mr. Freneau was thought a fit instrument; a negotiation was opened with him which ended in the establishment of the National Gazette under his direction.

Mr. Freneau came here at once editor of the National Gazette and clerk for foreign languages in the department of Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State; an experiment somewhat new in the history of political manœuvres in this country; a newspaper instituted by a public officer and the editor of it regularly pensioned with the public money in the disposal of that officer, an example which could not have been set by the head of any other department without having long since been rung through the United States. [By the National Gazette, of course.]

Mr. Freneau is not, then, as he would have it supposed, the independent editor of a newspaper who though receiving a salary from the government has firmness enough to express its maladministration; he is the faithful and devoted servant of the head of a party from whose hands he receives the boon. The whole complexion of this paper exhibits a decisive internal evidence of the influence of that patronage under which he acts. Whether the services rendered are equivalent to the compensation he receives is best known to his employer and himself; there is, however, some room for doubt. It is well known that his employer is himself well acquainted with the French language, the only one of which Mr. Freneau is the translator and it may be a question how often his aid is necessary.

It is somewhat singular too, that a man acquainted with but one language, engaged in an occupation which it may be presumed demands his whole attention—the editor of a newspaper—should be the person selected as the clerk for foreign languages in the department of the United States for foreign affairs. Could no person be found acquainted with more than one foreign language? and who in so confidential a trust could have been regularly attached to, in the constant employ of the department and immediately under the eye of the head of it?³⁸

Hamilton then turns from Freneau to Jefferson and hauls that gentleman over the coals for divers political iniquities. At the time of Hamilton's attacks, Jefferson was in Virginia designing geometrical wheelbarrows and mould-boards of least resistance. He does not seem to have entered into the mêlée but was content to let Freneau and Hamilton fight it out for themselves. Many writers rushed to his defense, but his own hand was stayed, and the hand of Freneau even is not apparent in the replies to Hamilton's attack. Moreover the champions of Jefferson had their articles printed not in the “National Gazette” but in the “Daily Advertiser of Philadelphia”.

If the reader has recalled the facts connected with Freneau's coming to Philadelphia he will have seen that Hamilton's charges were nothing more than assumptions. These charges Freneau met in a characteristic way. He went before the Mayor of Philadelphia and duly swore:

That no negotiation was ever opened with him by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State for the establishment or institution of the National Gazette; that the deponent's coming to the city of Philadelphia as a publisher of a newspaper was at no time urged, advised or influenced by the above officer, but that it was his own voluntary act; that the Gazette or the Editor thereof was never directed, controlled or attempted to be influenced in any manner either by the Secretary or any of his friends; that not a line was ever directly or indirectly written, dictated or composed for it by that officer, but that the editor had consulted his own judgment alone in the conducting of it—free, unfettered and uninfluenced.”³⁹

This solemn and explicit denial by a man whose character was above reproach would have caused a less pertinacious and a more sagacious man than Hamilton to let the matter drop. But his feelings now had the whip hand of his judgment and he could not stop. He rushed further into the blind encounter. He now came forward with the insinuation that Freneau had sworn to a lie. This he said, would be just what a pensioned tool would do. How, he would like to know, was Mr. Freneau able to swear that Mr. Jefferson never wrote a line for his paper. No editor who does not himself write every line for his paper can make any such affirmation as that. Facts were against Mr. Freneau. He then opens his artillery of facts:

It is a fact, Mr. Freneau, that you receive a salary as clerk for foreign languages, and yet you can translate but one language.

It is a fact that you left New York to become the editor of the National Gazette.

It is a fact that your appointment was antecedent to the commencement of your paper.⁴⁰

It is a fact that Mr. Jefferson was in the beginning opposed to the constitution.

It is a fact that that officer arraigns the principal measures of government.

From these facts the inferences which are to be drawn are irresistible. If you had previously been the conductor of a newspaper in this city—if your appointment had been any considerable time subsequent to the institution of your paper, there might have been some room for subterfuge. But as matters stand you have no possible escape.

It makes no difference, Mr. Freneau, whether there was a preliminary negotiation or not; there are many facts to presuppose that such a negotiation did occur, and these facts will be brought out, sir, if scruples of family connection or the dread of party resentment do not forbid. And the evidence adduced will be incontestable. Any honest man must conclude that the relations that subsist between you and Mr. Jefferson are indelicate, unfit, and suspicious. Your apology that the meagre compensation provided renders it necessary for the translator to engage in some other occupation is inadmissible, for a competent clerk could have been employed at a full salary, and if his work as a translator did not occupy all this time, he could have used his surplus time at some other kind of work in the department. If there had been difficulty in finding such a man, undoubtedly, you, the editor of a newspaper should not have been selected, and the fact that you were selected is a proof of sinister design. The fact that your predecessor, Mr. Pintard, received but two hundred and fifty dollars a year and was a newspaper man is not to the point; the employment of that gentleman was a natural consequence of a particular situation. These strictures involve you, Mr. Freneau, but it is confessed that they are aimed at a character of greater importance in the community.⁴¹

Nothing could be more flimsy and illogical than the above, and it is strange that an intellect like Hamilton's should have expressed itself in such a way. It was due doubtless to the fact that he had begun the controversy in a mental fog and could not find his way out. He had got the cart before the horse. On Aug. 11, 1792, he made the charge that Madison had conducted an unworthy negotiation with Freneau, and two days after wrote to Elias Boudinot for an authentication of the charge. “If I recollect right,” Hamilton says to Boudinot, “you told me, that this, if necessary, could be done; and if practicable it is of real importance that it should be done. It will confound and put down a man who is continually machinating against public happiness.” (Not Freneau but Jefferson is meant.)

“You will oblige me in the most particular manner by obtaining and forwarding to me without delay the particulars of all the steps taken by Mr. Madison—the when and the where—with the liberty to use the name of the informant. His affidavit to the facts, if obtainable would be of infinite value.”

But behold! “the when and the where” and the “affidavit of infinite value,” to meet Freneau's affidavit did not materialize. Boudinot informs him that there is no direct evidence of a negotiation available; that the gentleman upon whom he relied for information was more attached to Freneau than he had supposed and would say nothing; that there was nothing but hearsay upon which to base the charge, although he (Boudinot) would do all he could to get together some evidence.⁴² Hamilton also wrote to Jonathan Dayton for “the when and the where” of the alleged negotiation, but that gentleman, although desirous of frustrating the designs of a particular party, could not comply with his request.

Freneau called for the proof that was promised, declining to answer charges of a personal nature unless they were supported by the declarations of persons. But proof there was none, and Hamilton was driven to the miserable confession “that the secret intentions of men being in the repositories of their own breasts it rarely happens and is therefore not to be expected that direct and positive proof of them can be adduced. Presumptive facts and circumstances must afford the evidence.”⁴³

After this graceless acknowledgment that his charges against Freneau were without proof, Hamilton spared the editor and applied his bad names to Jefferson direct. The bringing of Freneau into this quarrel was most unfortunate to Hamilton's cause and reputation. He stood before the country convicted of an unwarranted attempt to injure an innocent private citizen in order that he might punish a political enemy. And the country did not forgive him. “He lost something,” says Parton, “which is of no value to an anonymous writer in a presidential campaign, but is of immense value to a public man—Weight.” His query in Fenno's paper calling in question Freneau's honor was the beginning of his political downfall. Besides, viewed from the standpoint of private morality, Hamilton's attack upon Freneau was very low, for he was himself doing precisely what he accused Jefferson of doing. He was supporting a partisan paper by means of the patronage of his department. Freneau did not fail to bring out the fact that Fenno was exclusive printer to the treasury department, and that his emoluments in that direction were twenty-five hundred dollars per annum.⁴⁴ And candid history brings out another fact still more damaging, to wit, that Fenno was at times the direct beneficiary of Hamilton's private purse. Not long after the attack upon the editor of the “National Gazette,” Fenno wrote to Hamilton stating that he was in financial straits and that if the hand of benevolence and patriotism were not speedily extended to him his career as a printer would be over.⁴⁵ Hamilton upon the receipt of the letter wrote to his friend Rufus King as follows:

My Dear Sir:

Inclosed is a letter just received from poor Fenno. It speaks for itself.

If you can without delay raise 1000 dollars in New York, I will endeavor to raise another thousand at Philadelphia. If this cannot be done we must lose his services and he will be the victim of his honest public spirit.

Yours truly,

A. Hamilton.

“Poor Fenno” continued to publish his Gazette, hence it is tolerably certain that the “hand of benevolence and patriotism” was in some way extended.

Either a consciousness of his innocence or his stubborn nature prevented Freneau from offering an elaborate defense against Hamilton's charges. His biographer therefore is not called upon to dwell long upon his exculpation. As we have seen, Jefferson kept out of the quarrel. His name as far as possible was kept out of the “National Gazette.” He was attacked in Fenno's paper and defended in the Daily American Advertiser, a paper which was as violent in its republicanism as Freneau's paper. In one of the articles in the Advertiser in behalf of Jefferson is the following incidental defense of Freneau:

Mr. Freneau has the following well-authenticated claim for the office of Translator. A native of the Middle States, he had been liberally educated at Princeton. To an accurate knowledge and a refined taste in the English language, he had added a similar acquirement in the French, the nation with whom we have the most intimate relations and whose language has become in a great measure throughout Europe the general medium of political negotiation. Through life his morals were without blemish and his conduct in the revolution was that of a sound whig and republican. Perhaps his sufferings as a prisoner of war may have excited additional sympathy in his favor. [In the matter of getting an appointment.] To what trait in his character, to what defect in his qualification does “American” [Hamilton] object? To his occupation? and if so, to occupations in general or to printing in particular? The low rate of pay made it necessary to get one engaged in some other business. Is printing less honorable, less beneficial to mankind than all others? Does “American” come forward to traduce it and lessen it? Vain and unworthy effort! Whether he had already set up a press or was about to set up one,—for “American” can have it either way—is a matter of indifference. He could not take the clerkship without the aid of the press. The objection in the point of influence, if the characters in question were capable of it, is scarcely worthy of notice. The office was created by law and a salary attached to it. If the person appointed performs these duties, what other claim can the principal have upon him? Degraded indeed would be the condition of a freeman, if an appointment to an office carried with it low subservience to the Superior. It is treasonable to infer that any such subservience exists between a superior and his subordinate and a great injustice has been done both Jefferson and Freneau by ‘American.’⁴⁶

We cannot let the Hamilton-Freneau-Jefferson quarrel drop without giving Jefferson's version of the affair. Washington had called his two secretaries to task for their bickerings and implored them in the name of the country to cease from their strife. Jefferson answered at considerable length the charge that he had set up the “National Gazette” and that Freneau was his hireling:

While the government was at New York I was applied to on behalf of Freneau to know if there was any place within my department to which he could be appointed. I answered there were but four clerkships, all of which I found full and continued without any change. When we removed to Philadelphia, Mr. Pintard, the translating clerk, did not choose to remove with us. His office then became vacant. I was again applied to there for Freneau and had no hesitation to promise the clerkship to him. I cannot recollect whether it was at the same time or afterwards, that I was told he had a thought of setting up a paper there.⁴⁷ But whether then or afterwards, I considered it a circumstance of some value, as it might enable me to do what I had long wished to have done, that is to have the material parts of the Leyden Gazette brought under your eye, and that of the public, in order to possess yourself and them of a juster view of the affairs of Europe, than could be obtained from any other public source. This I had ineffectually attempted through the press of Mr. Fenno, while in New York, selecting and translating passages myself at first, then having it done by Mr. Pintard, the translating clerk, but they found their way too slowly into Fenno's paper. Mr. Bache essayed it for me in Philadelphia, but his being a daily paper did not circulate sufficiently in other states. He even tried, at my request, the plan of a weekly paper of recapitulation from his daily paper, on hopes it might go into the other States, but in this, too, we failed. Freneau as translating clerk and the printer of a periodical paper likely to circulate through the states (uniting in one person the parts of Pintard and Fenno) revived my hopes that they could at length be effected. On the establishment of his paper, therefore, I furnished him with the Leyden Gazettes with an expression of my wish that he could always translate and publish the material intelligence they contained, and have continued to furnish them from time to time as regularly as I have received them. But as to any other direction or any indication of my wish how his press should be conducted, what sort of intelligence he should give, what essays encourage, I can protest in the presence of Heaven that I never did by myself or any other, or indirectly say a syllable nor attempt any kind of influence. I can further protest in the same awful presence, that I never did by myself or any other, directly or indirectly write, dictate, or procure any one sentence or sentiment to be inserted in his or any other gazette, to which my name was not affixed or that of my office. I surely need not except here a thing so foreign to the present subject as a little paragraph about our Algerian captives, which I once put into Freneau's paper.

Freneau's proposition to publish a paper having been about the time that the writings of Publicola and the discourses of Davilla had a good deal excited the public attention, I took for granted from Freneau's character, which had been marked as that of a good whig, that he would give free place to pieces written against the aristocratical and monarchical principles these papers had inculcated. This having been in my mind, it is likely enough I may have expressed it in conversation with others, though I do not recollect that I did. To Freneau I think I could not, because I still had seen him but once and that was at a public table, at breakfast at Mrs. Elsworth's, as I passed through New York the last year. And I can safely declare that my expectations looked only to the chastisement of the aristocratical and monarchical writings, and not to any criticism on the proceedings of government. Colonel Hamilton can see no motive for any appointment but that of making a convenient partizan. But you, sir, who have received from me recommendations of a Rittenhouse, Barlow, Paine, will believe that talents and science are sufficient motives with me in appointments to which they are fitted, and that Freneau as a man of genius, might find a preference in my eye to be a translating clerk and make a good title to the little aids I could give him as the editor of a Gazette by procuring subscriptions to his paper as I did some before it appeared, and as I have done with pleasure for other men of genius. Col. Hamilton, alias ‘Plain Facts,’ says that Freneau's salary began before he resided in Philadelphia. I do not know what quibble he may have in reserve on the word ‘residence.’ He may mean to include under that idea the removal of his family; for I believe he removed himself before his family did to Philadelphia. But no act of mine gave commencement to his salary before he so far took up his abode in Philadelphia as to be sufficiently in readiness for his duties of his place. As to the merits or demerits of his paper they certainly concern me not. He and Fenno are rivals for the public favor. The one courts them by flattery, the other by censure, and I believe it will be admitted that the one has been as servile as the other severe. No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will.⁴⁸

This solemn and semi-official history of the establishment of the “National Gazette” agrees perfectly with the facts as they have hitherto been related in these pages. It agrees with the account given by James Madison,⁴⁹ with the sworn statement of Freneau, and it must stand as true history until evidence is produced to shake it. Freneau was the independent editor of an independent paper.

The charge of perjury with which Hamilton tried to blacken Freneau's character, aroused the resentment of the poet and excited the editor to the fullest exercise of his license.⁵⁰ If the federalists had heretofore been scourged with whips, they were now scourged with scorpions. Every phase of their policy was assailed in the “National Gazette” most bitterly, most fearlessly, and with a persistence that was as relentless as fate. The senate held its sessions with closed doors. The Gazette attacked these doors with a crow-bar. Appealing to Hamilton's “great beast”—the people—it says:

A motion for opening the doors of the senate chamber has again been lost by a considerable majority—in defiance of instruction, in defiance of your opinion, in defiance of every principle which gives security to free men. What means this conduct? Which expression does it carry strongest with it, contempt for you or tyranny? Are you freemen who ought to know the individual conduct of your legislators, or are you an inferior order of beings incapable of comprehending the sublimity of senatorial functions, and unworthy to be entrusted with their opinions? How are you to know the just from the unjust steward when they are covered with the mantle of concealment? Can there be any question of legislative import which freemen should not be acquainted with? What are you to expect when stewards of your household refuse to give account of their stewardship? Secrecy is necessary to design and a masque to treachery; honesty shrinks not from the public eye.

The Peers of America disdain to be seen by vulgar eyes, the music of their voices is harmony only for themselves and must not vibrate in the ravished ear of an ungrateful and unworthy multitude. Is there any congeniality excepting in the administration, between the government of Great Britain and the government of the United States? The Senate supposes there is, and usurps the secret privileges of the House of Lords. Remember, my fellow citizens, that you are still freemen; let it be impressed upon your minds that you depend not upon your representatives but that they depend upon you, and let this truth be ever present to you, that secrecy in your representatives is a worm which will prey and fatten upon the vitals of your liberty.⁵¹

Freneau could be trusted to keep the “truth ever present” before the mind of the public, and after little more than a year of agitation the doors of the senate were opened to the public and secrecy no longer preyed upon the vitals of liberty. His hostility to Hamilton's National Bank scheme was equally pronounced. To a “Truly Great Man” (Washington) he addresses these lines:

George, on thy virtues often have I dwelt,
And still the theme is grateful to mine ear,
Thy gold let chemists ten times even melt
From dross and base alloy they'll find it clear.
Yet thou'rt a man—although perhaps, the first,
But man at best is but a being frail;
And since with error human nature's curst,
I marvel not that thou shouldst sometimes fail.
That thou hast long and nobly served the state
The nation owns, and freely gives thee thanks,
But, sir, whatever speculators prate,
She gave thee not the power to establish Banks.

Probably to no other influence was the final downfall of the National Bank more directly traceable than to the hatred for it which was inspired in the minds of the people by the “National Gazette.” Freneau was now the leading editor in America. He was the oracle for all editors of humble democratic sheets. In the south, where there were but few newspapers, it was the only paper that had a general circulation.⁵² The leaders of the republican party left no stone unturned to get it among the people, and the fifteen hundred copies of its circulation were sent where they would do the most good. In the small papers of the country extracts from it were published as coming from a sacred source. Examine a democratic paper of the time and the chances are that you will find in it a clipping from the “National Gazette” and when the extract is found, the chances are still great that it is an attack upon the National Bank.⁵³ Public opinion was in a formative state when Freneau attacked the bank scheme, and the seeds of enmity to it which he sowed fructified in its destruction.

The strength of the paper, however, is to be found in its democracy and in its perpetual harping upon the theme of federal enmity to republican government and federalist love of monarchy. There may have been no intention in the minds of the federal leaders to abandon republican forms of government as soon as expedient, yet Freneau believed there was and made the people believe there was; and that was all that was necessary for the success of democracy.

Jefferson, as we shall see, could not be induced even by Washington to forsake Freneau, and we are not surprised at his loyalty, for Freneau was a thorough Jeffersonian, and in the Gazette Jefferson's opinions were reflected as in a mirror. We can imagine the pleasure of the great democrat in the little sentiments from Paine and Rousseau which sparkled in the columns of the Gazette; or this morsel of an epitaph for the tomb of Frederick the Great:

Here lies a king, his mortal journey done,
Through life a tyrant to his fellow-man;
Who bloody wreaths in bloody battles won—
Nature's worst savage since the world began.(54)

In January, 1793, “Louis Capet lost his caput”—as the irreverent Boston Argus put it—and France was declared a republic. In May of the same year, citizen Genet, the ambassador of the new republic after an almost triumphal journey northward from Charleston, arrived in the city of Philadelphia amid the roar of cannon and the acclamations of a noisy populace. War had just been declared by France against England and the ebullient minister was sent by his government to awaken the sympathy and secure the aid of America in behalf of France. His mission began with the brightest prospect of success. Farmers and merchants offered him provisions at a lower price than they would sell them to the agent of any other nation. Six hundred thousand barrels of flour were at his disposal.⁵⁵ When he passed through a city, enthusiastic lovers of France crowded the avenues shouting for the liberty of the nation that had helped America to secure her own freedom. At Philadelphia three thousand went out to Dobb's Ferry to meet the representative of the sister republic; while a counter demonstration, gotten up by the lovers of England, numbered barely three hundred. Genet was banqueted on every possible occasion and toasted sometimes when a toast to Washington was forgotten. Men put on the tri-colored cockade, joined Jacobin clubs, and restricted the form of salutation to “citizen.”

Citizen Freneau was with the French heart and soul. The French cause was dear to him for sentimental reasons as well as for political, for, as De Lancey says, “although he belonged to the third generation of his family in America, he was as thorough a Frenchman as if he had been born under the sunny skies of Provence or had drawn his first breath amid the Bordelais or beneath the lofty tower of an ancient chateau of historic Normandy.”⁵⁶ With the warmth of a Frenchman and the boldness of an American he threw the influence of his paper upon the side of the French party. The interests of America became in his mind identical with the interests of France. He believed with John Dickinson that if “France did not succeed in her contest every elective republic upon earth would be annihilated and that the American republic would be crushed at once.” As between France and England it was impossible for Freneau's fervid and positive mind to profess neutrality. “When of two nations the one has engaged herself in a ruinous war for us, has spent her blood and money for us, has opened her bosom to us in peace and has received us on a footing almost with her own citizens, while the other has moved heaven and earth and hell to exterminate us in war, has insulted us in all her councils, in peace shut her doors to us in every port where her interest would admit it, libelled us in foreign nations, endeavored to poison them against the reception of our most precious commodities: to place these two nations on an equal footing is to give a great deal more to one than to the other, if the maxim be true that to make unequal quantities equal you must add more to one than to the other. To say in excuse, that gratitude is never to enter into the notions of national conduct is to revive a principle which has been buried for centuries, with its kindred principles of the lawfulness of assassination, perjury and poison.”⁵⁷ That is the way the matter appeared to Jefferson; Freneau's feelings upon the subject were still stronger.

But the president decided that it was no time for gratitude and declared by proclamation that the United States should pursue an impartial course and should grant nothing to France that was not granted to England also. A storm of disapproval burst upon the president's head when this proclamation was published. Of all the voices that were lifted up against his policy, none was louder and none was more distinctly heard by the president or gave him more discomfiture than the voice of Freneau. “Sir,” said the editor to the president, “Sir, let not, I beseech you, the opiate of sycophancy, administered by interested and designing men, lull you into a fatal lethargy at this awful moment. Consider that a first magistrate in every country is no other than a public servant whose conduct is to be governed by the will of the people.”⁵⁸

When Genet had brought upon himself the united opposition of the administration and had alienated many of his supporters by his high-handed actions and by his boast that he would appeal from the president to the people, Freneau stood by him and supported him to the last. “Why all this outcry,” he said, “against Mr. Genet, for saying he would appeal to the people? Is the president a consecrated character that an appeal from him must be considered criminal? What is the legislature of the union but the people in congress assembled? And is it an affront to appeal to them? The minister of France, I hope will act with firmness and with spirit. The people are his friends, or rather the friends of France, and he will have nothing to apprehend, for as yet the people are sovereign in the United States. Too much complacency is an injury done his cause, for as every advantage is already taken of France (not by the people) further condescension may lead to further abuse. If one of the leading features of our government is pusillanimity, when the British lion shows his teeth, let France and her minister act as becomes the dignity and justice of their cause and the honor and faith of nations.”⁵⁹

This was strong language and it affected Washington powerfully. Before this French interference he had never been crossed in his policy, and criticism went hard with him. “By God,” he said in one of those passions that sometimes took possession of him, “By God that he had rather be in his grave than in his present situation. That he had rather be on his farm than to be made emperor of the world; that that rascal Freneau, sent him three copies of his paper every day, as if he thought he would become the distributor of his paper; that he could see nothing in this but an impudent design to insult him.”⁶⁰

Washington was so sensitive and fretful upon the subject of Freneau that he intimated to Jefferson that it would be agreeable to him if the secretary would withdraw Freneau's appointment as translating clerk. “But I will not do it,” said Jefferson. “His paper has saved our constitution which was galloping fast into monarchy, and has been checked by no one means so powerfully as by that paper. It is well and universally known that it has been that paper which has checked the career of the monocrats and the president has not with his usual good sense looked upon the efforts and effects of that free press and seen that though some bad things have passed through it to the public, yet the good have preponderated immensely.”

Jefferson could have discharged Freneau but he could not have silenced him. The sturdy editor had taken up the French cause for its own sake and without regard to consequences. His perfect independence in the management of his paper is attested to indirectly by Jefferson in a letter written to Madison after Genet had been abandoned by the more discreet republicans. Speaking of Genet, Jefferson says in this letter: “He has still some defenders in Freneau's and Greenleaf's papers. Who they are I do not know.”⁶¹ This was written after Jefferson had abandoned Genet. Does the language imply subserviency upon the part of Freneau? If the “National Gazette” had been under the control of Jefferson would it have continued to support a cause after its master had withdrawn his support from the cause?

Besides being its greatest literary champion, Freneau was in other ways a conspicuous figure among the promoters of the French cause. His editorial office was a rendezvous for French sympathizers; he solicited and collected funds to be sent to France, acting as agent for the “French Society of Patriots of America.”⁶² At the notable civic feast given in Philadelphia in honor of Genet an ode in French was read, and Citizen Freneau was requested to translate it into English. This the poet did in an uncommonly careless and unhappy fashion.

Historians have the habit of abusing Freneau for the part he played in the French incident and they are especially severe when they animadvert upon his opposition to Washington. It is difficult to see why this habit has not been laid aside. Freneau as a partisan of France had for company the greatest and wisest of the land, patriots and statesmen and scientists. The heart of America, its generosity, its justice, its pride, its gratitude were all on the side of giving assistance to the French. Policy alone dictated neutrality. Freneau, knowing nothing of policy, and failing to appreciate the wisdom of Washington's course, resisted the government in its effort for neutrality. Washington as the head of the government could not escape criticism, and Freneau did not spare him. Yet Freneau's part in the widespread and violent opposition to Washington has been grossly misrepresented. After reading the story of the French episode as it is usually told, one would expect to find the “National Gazette” filled with scandalous and scurrilous attacks upon the president. As a matter of fact one will find there nothing of the kind. There are some pretty sulphurous passages in that paper, and no wonder. There were blows to give as well as blows to take. When Fisher Ames spoke of those who supported the French cause “as salamanders that breathed only in fire, as toads that sucked in no aliment from the earth but its poison, as serpents that lurked in their places the better to concoct their venom,”⁶³—when a federalist talked that way about French democrats in America, we can scarcely expect the reply of the democrat to be as gentle as the cooing of a dove. But the savage passages in the “National Gazette” are not directed against Washington. The most offensive paragraph that can be found in Freneau's paper is, unquestionably, one that comments upon the president's proclamation of neutrality. It reads: “I am aware, sir, that some court satellites may have deceived you with respect to the sentiment of your fellow citizens. The first magistrate of a country whether he be called king or president seldom knows the real state of a nation, particularly if he be so buoyed up by official importance as to think it beneath his dignity to mix occasionally with the people. Let me caution you, sir, to beware that you do not view the state of the public mind at this critical moment through a fallacious medium. Let not the little buzz of the aristocratic few and their contemptible minions of speculators, tories and British emissaries, be mistaken for the exalted and generous voice of the American people.” The ugliest and coarsest sentence that Freneau published against Washington is to be found in the paragraph just quoted. It was most certainly not written by Freneau, yet he must be held responsible for it. When it is examined and compared with other pasquinades of the time it must be admitted that its tone was mild and decent. It is equally mild and decent when compared with editorial utterances of our own day.

Personally Freneau shared the general regard and reverence for Washington, and he let no opportunity slip for paying tribute to the great man. If placed together, the verses written by Freneau in Washington's praise would make a comfortable little volume. Even when the French trouble was at its height, he could see the greatness of the man, for, in June, 1793, when Washington was probably the most unpopular man in America, the poet forgot his partisanship far enough to publish in his Gazette a graceful and inspiring ode written in the president's praise.

Yet Freneau did not make an idol of Washington. His working hypothesis was that the president was a man after all, and he had but little patience with those who affected to see in Washington a god. It was the fashion in high federal circles to twist every anti-federal sentiment or movement into treason to Washington. “Would to God this same Washington were in heaven,” cried Senator Maclay, disgusted with what he thought was Washington-worship. “We would not then have him brought forward as the constant cover to every unconstitutional and irrepublican act.”⁶⁴ When soon after Washington's death extravagant and even blasphemous encomiums appeared from every quarter, Freneau thus rebuked their fulsomeness:

One holds you more than mortal kind,
One holds you all ethereal mind,
This puts you in your Savior's seat
That makes you dreadful in retreat.
One says you are become a star,
One makes you more resplendent far;
One sings that when to death you bowed
Old mother nature shrieked aloud.
We grieve to see such pens profane
The first of chiefs, the first of men;
To Washington—a man who died—
Is “Abba, father,” well applied!
He was no god, ye flattering knaves,
He “owned no world,” he ruled no waves,
But—and exalt it if you can—
He was the upright Honest Man.

In the autumn of 1793, Philadelphia was stricken by a deadly plague. A putrid yellow fever broke out in the city and thousands of victims perished. Half of the population fled into the country. Government offices were closed and business came to a standstill. In the general depression that accompanied the pestilence Freneau suffered with others. His list of talents did not include a talent for business and the finances of his paper were badly managed. Subscribers though often dunned failed to remit; and it was upon subscriptions that the paper chiefly depended, for the editor scrupulously refused to allow advertisements to encroach upon the space allotted to reading matter.

On the 26th of October, the following notice was inserted in the Gazette:

With the present number (208) conclude the second volume and second year's publication of the National Gazette. Having just imported a considerable quantity of new and elegant type from Europe, it is the editor's intention to resume the publication in a short time—at the opening of the next congress.

Please send in subscriptions.

Printers of newspapers may no longer send in exchange until further notice.

About the time of the discontinuance of the newspaper, Jefferson resigned his office, and Freneau was compelled to resign his clerkship in the department of state. It is not absolutely certain that a bankruptcy wound up the affairs of the Gazette. The yellow fever may have driven out Freneau as it drove out thousands of others. Jefferson writing to Randolph said: “Freneau's paper is discontinued. I fear it is the want of money. I wish the subscribers in our neighborhood would send in their money.”⁶⁵ In a letter to Wm. Giles, Freneau says: “Several unfavorable circumstances have determined me to a final discontinuance of the National Gazette.”⁶⁶ Precisely what the unfortunate circumstances were we do not know. Three causes for abandoning the Gazette are suggested by the facts: Shortage in subscription money, the prevalence of the yellow fever, and the loss of government patronage and of his clerkship through Jefferson's resignation. The publication of the paper was never resumed. Freneau as an editor had done his work.

What was that work? What was the mission of the National Gazette? What was its influence upon American politics and upon the American mind?

We have considerable material from which we may draw answers to these questions, for politicians have expressed themselves freely regarding the National Gazette. For Hamilton's opinion of the paper we are prepared: “As to the complexion and tendency of that Gazette a reference to itself is sufficient. No man who loves the government or is a friend to tranquility but must reprobate it as an incendiary and pernicious publication.”⁶⁷ And again: “If you have seen some of the last numbers of the Gazette you will perceive that the plot thickens and that something very like a serious design to subvert the government discloses itself.” To Hamilton's mind, then, the Gazette was a most dangerous foe to the government—which happened to be the federalist party.

The testimony of John Adams regarding the influence of Freneau is interesting. “We Federalists,” he wrote to Benjamin Stoddard, “are completely and totally routed and defeated. If we had been blessed with common sense we would not have been overthrown by Freneau, Duane, Callendar or their great patron and protector.”⁶⁸ In a letter to Thomas Jefferson,⁶⁹ Adams says: “What think you of terrorism, Mr. Jefferson? I shall investigate the motive, the incentive to these terrorisms. I shall remind you of Philip Freneau, Lloyd, Ned Church,” etc.—naming other partisan writers. Late in life the aged statesman said: “The causes of my retirement are to be found in the writings of Freneau, Markoe, Ned Church”⁷⁰—and other troublesome newspaper men.” It will be seen that when Adams begins to name the writers that have injured his political fortunes, he always puts Freneau at the head of the list. The Editor of the National Gazette seems to have lain like an incubus upon his life. For the year 1791 there is but one entry in his diary and that is a jotting respecting the National Gazette. In writing to Tristam Dalton in 1797 Adams says: “I have ever believed in his [Jefferson's] honor, integrity, love of country and friends. I may say to you that his patronage of Paine and Freneau is and has long been a source of inquietude and anxiety to me.”⁷¹ When it assailed Washington, Adams rejoiced, saying that he himself had held the post of libellee-general long enough. The following verses are a sample of the writings that Adams found so destructive of his peace:

TO A WOULD-BE GREAT MAN.

CERTAT TERGEMINIS TOLLERE HONORIBUS.

          Daddy vice, Daddy vice,
          One may see in a trice
The drift of your fine publication;
          As sure as a gun,
          The thing was just done
To secure you—a pretty high station.
          Defenses you call
          To knock down your wall
And shatter the State to the ground, sir,
          So thick was your shot,
          And hellish fire-hot
They've scarce a whole bone to be found, sir.
          When you tell us of kings,
          And such petty things,
Good Mercy! how brilliant your pages!
          So bright in each line
          I vow now you'll shine—
Like—a glow worm to all future ages.
          On Davilla's(72) page
          Your Discourses so sage
Democratical numskulls bepuzzle
With arguments tough
          As white leather or buff,
(The republican Bull-dog to muzzle).

Fisher Ames expressed his view of Freneau's paper as a factor in politics in these words: “The manifestoes of the National Gazette indicate a spirit of faction that must soon come to a crisis. Every exertion is made through their (the republicans') Gazette to make the people as furious as themselves.”⁷³

Timothy Dwight of Hartford, “the Metropolitan see of Federalism,” upon reading the Gazette was moved to express himself thus: “Freneau your printer, linguist, etc., is regarded here as a mere incendiary and his paper is a public nuisance.”⁷⁴

Oliver Wolcott was not quite so severe but he hits the nail pretty squarely on the head when he said that it was the settled purpose of the National Gazette to destroy the popularity of the leading men of our country.⁷⁵

Rufus King complained that the censures of the National Gazette were creating a dissatisfaction with the government.⁷⁶

Freneau's friends have not placed on record as much evidence of the great influence of the Gazette as his enemies have left; yet they have not been silent. We have already seen that Jefferson estimated the Gazette as being one of the strongest influences in American politics. In his judgment, it was the Gazette that saved the United States from drifting into monarchy. The great democrat watched the paper with an anxious eye and its success brought him the highest satisfaction. “Freneau's paper,” he wrote to a friend, “is getting into Massachusetts under the patronage of Hancock and Samuel Adams, and Mr. Ames the colossus of the monocrats, will either be left out or have a hard run. The people of that state are republican, but hitherto they have heard nothing but the hymns and lauds of Fenno.”⁷⁷

James Madison was also gratified at the work which his old friend was doing in the cause of democracy. “Freneau's paper,” he said, “justifies the expectations of his friends and merits the diffusive circulation they have endeavored to procure it.”⁷⁸

From the contemporaries of the National Gazette, we may glean some matter that will enable us to form a judgment as to the part it played in the propaganda of democratic doctrine. In the unfriendly Connecticut Courant we find this tribute to its influence: “From the National Gazette whence in streams pure and smoking like a drain from a whiskey distillery it is conveyed to reservoirs established in every part of the community.”⁷⁹

In the friendly Independent Chronicle, of Boston, we read: “As the friends of civil liberty wish at all time to be acquainted with every question which appears to regard the public weal, a great number of gentlemen in this and neighboring towns have subscribed for Mr. Freneau's National Gazette.”⁸⁰

The Halifax Journal of North Carolina attributes the defeat of Mr. Adams in that state to the discussion of his career in the columns of Freneau's paper. The South Carolina Gazette was so enraged by Freneau's opposition to the measures of government, that it called for his punishment.

These utterances of friends and foes ought to give us a fairly correct notion of Freneau's place in the history of our politics. They teach us that he was hated and feared as the greatest editor of the democratic party. His paper was published in the seed-time of democracy in America. The soil of party politics was virgin and Freneau sowed with a lavish hand. To the federalist mind it seemed that the seeds he was sowing were dragons' teeth which would one day spring up as giants and destroy society and government. Society and government were not injured by the principles advocated by the editor, but the federalist party was.

The part Freneau played in the making of democratic sentiment may be summed up as follows:

1. He was the ablest champion of what is known as “Jeffersonian simplicity.” The war which he waged upon titles, distinctions, and court-like ceremonies was successful and decisive.
2. Through his paper the strongest opposition to Hamilton's centralizing schemes found expression. If Freneau had not early checked Fenno, it may be that loose construction would have run away with the constitution.
3. Freneau's paper did much to give a French coloring to our political philosophy. The doctrines of liberty, fraternity, equality, of equal rights to all and special privileges to none, was unwelcome to many American minds in Freneau's day, yet this was the keynote of all Freneau's writings. The editor of the National Gazette was the schoolmaster who drilled Jeffersonian or French Democracy into the minds—willing or unwilling—of the American people.

Freneau's place in the history of journalism is distinct and eminent. He is the prototype of the partisan editor. A recent student of the history of American journalism thus speaks of him:

Next to Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton, one figure assumes a prominence superior to that of all others engaged in the political contest, not so much perhaps by the weight of his intellect as by his versatility and vivacity and the keenness and the readiness of the weapons he brought to the contest. We refer to Philip Freneau. What Tyrtaeus was to the Spartan was Freneau to the republicans or anti-federalists. In all the history of American letters or of the United States press there is no figure more interesting or remarkable, no career more versatile and varied than that of Philip Freneau.⁸¹

Notes

1. It was actually published every Monday and Thursday.

2. National Gazette, November, 1791.

3. [Jared] Sparks' Life and Writings of Washington, vol. ix, p. 187.

4. An English reviewer of the day thought he understood Adams: “The great and leading idea which runs through the ingenious and learned works of Mr. Adams is that a mixture of the three powers, the regal, the aristocratical and the democratical, properly balanced, comprises the most perfect form of government.” American Daily Advertiser, Nov., 1792. Such an interpretation must have been based upon such statements as these: “The English Constitution is the only scientifical government.” John Adams' Works, vol. vi, p. 118. “A hereditary first magistrate would perhaps be preferable to an elective one.”

5. In a conversation with the President in 1792, [Hunt, Galliard] Writings of Madison, vol. i, p. 558.

6. John Adams' Works, vol. vi, p. 483.

7. [Adams, Charles Francis] Works of John Adams, vol. i, p. 587.

8. Works of Samuel Adams.

9. Works of John Adams.

10. Sparks' Gouverneur Morris, Life and Works, vol. iii, p. 260.

11. Ford's “Jefferson's Writings,” vol. i, p. 169.

12. See Hamilton's Works, vol. v, p. 441; vol. vi, p. 54; vol. iii, p. 260.

13. Ibid., vol. vi, p. 540.

14. Ibid., vol. vi, p. 568.

15. Hamilton's Works, vol. vi, p. 530.

16. Adams' History of the United States, vol. i, p. 85.

17. Works of Fisher Ames, vol. i, p. 224.

18. Hamilton's Works, vol. vi, p. 201.

19. Ames' Works, vol. i, p. 327.

20. Life of Rufus King, vol. i, p. 432.

21. Hamilton's Works, vol. vi, p. 511.

22. Gill's “Administration of Washington and Adams,” vol. i, p. 390.

23. Ibid., p. 88.

24. Lodge's Cabot, p. 341.

25. Sparks' “Life and Writings of Washington,” vol. ix, p. 187.

26. Mercer in a speech in congress said: “I have long remarked in this house that the executive, or rather the treasury department, was really the efficient legislature of the country. The House of Representatives is converted into a committee of sanction.”

27. Maclay's Journal, p. 131.

28. Hudson's Journalism in America, p. 18.

29. Gazette of the United States, March, 1790.

30. National Gazette, 1792.

31. Gazette of the United States, Aug. 2, 1792.

32. National Gazette, 1791.

33. Brackenridge, Francis Hopkinson, and Freneau are admitted by critics to be the three greatest American prose writers of the eighteenth century. Freneau's prose writing is characterized by Moses Coit Tyler as “delightful, easy, sinewy, touched with a delicate humor, crisp and keen edged.” Lit. Hist. American Revolution, vol. ii, 275.

34. “I used occasionally to throw in an article with a view chiefly to contrast the monarchical spirit which characterized Fenno's paper.” Randall's “Thomas Jefferson,” vol. ii, p. 74.

35. Jefferson's Works, vol. iv, p. 122.

36. Jefferson says these “Probationary leaders,” as they were called, were written by St. George Tucker and not by Freneau. They were, at any rate, saddled on the editor. Ford's Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. vi, p. 328.

37. National Gazette, July, 1792.

38. Gazette of the United States, Aug., 1792.

39. Gazette of the United States, Aug., 1792.

40. Freneau's appointment was made Aug. 3, 1791. The first number of the Gazette appeared Oct. 31, 1791.

41. Gazette of the United States, Aug., 1792; Hamilton's Works, vol. v, p. 518.

42. Hamilton's Works, vol. v, p. 520.

43. Parton's Life of Jefferson, p. 447.

44. National Gazette, Sept., 1793.

45. Life of Rufus King, vol. x, p. 502.

46. American Daily Advertiser, Oct., 1792.

47. We cannot gather from the correspondence whether it was before or afterwards. The offer was made Feb. 28, 1791. A letter from Madison, May, 1791, reads as if Jefferson was aware of Freneau's intention.

48. Writings of Jefferson, vol. vi, pp. 106-108.

49. Writings of Madison, vol. i, pp. 569-570.

50. Fenno continued to cast discredit upon Freneau's oath. “Enquirer” wanted to know if Freneau took the oath reverently, if he kissed the holy evangel in a pious manner. The correspondent suspects that instead of kissing the Bible he saluted with reverence a copy of Jefferson's “Notes on Virginia.” A doubting rhymester thus delivered himself:

    To many a line in humble prose
    Thy voice is wont to swear,
    And once to shame thy patron's foes
    Didst lie before the mayor.

    Gazette of the United States, Aug., 1792.

51. National Gazette, Feb., 1792.

52. In Virginia, in 1791, there were nine newspapers; in South Carolina, three; in North Carolina, two; and in Georgia, two. National Gazette, Nov., 1791.

53. One of the charges against the Gazette was that it was circulated in every state. National Gazette, March 27, 1792.

54. Freneau's Poems.

55. National Gazette, May, 1793.

56. Edward F. De Lancey in Proceedings of the Huguenot Soc.

57. Jefferson's Works, vol. iii, p. 98.

58. National Gazette, June, 1793.

59. National Gazette, July, 1793.

60. Jefferson's Works, vol. i, p. 231.

61. Jefferson's Works, vol. i, p.——.

62. National Gazette, July, 1793.

63. Fisher Ames' Works, vol. ii.

64. Maclay's Journal, p. 351.

65. Jefferson's Works, vol. vi, p. 428.

66. From a letter in the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Association.

67. Hamilton's Works, vol. vii, p. 32.

68. John Adams' Works, vol. viii, p. 514.

69. John Adams' Works, vol. ix, p. 582.

70. John Adams' Works, vol. iii, p. 414.

71. Ford's Writings of Jefferson, vol. vii, p. 108.

72. Adams' Discourses of Davilla—a treatise defending strong government.

73. Fisher Ames' Works, vol. i, p. 128.

74. Gibbs' Washington's and Adams' Administration, vol. i, p. 109.

75. Ibid.

76. Life and Correspondence of Rufus King.

77. Jefferson's Works, vol. iii, p. 491.

78. Madison's Works, vol. iv, p. 543.

79. Connecticut Courant, 1792.

80. Boston Independent Chronicle, 1793.

81. Magazine of American History, vol. xvii, p. 121.