Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant Part 31

"How long will America submit to the operation of paying a heavy degrading tribute to a Spanish officer for a license (in his power even to deny) to proceed to sea with their vessels and produce and under restrictions of making such vessels Spanish bottoms * * *? If they wish to export their produce they must not only make use of the most humble solicitations but they are compelled besides to pay a very high duty for the permission of sailing out of the Mississippi under the colors of a foreign nation at war with our allies. How degrading such restrictions!

How humiliating to an American!"

In the same issue appeared certain resolutions of the Lexington Democratic Society: "* * * Resolved that the free and undisturbed use and navigation of the river, Mississippi, is the natural right of the Citizens of this Commonwealth; and is inalienable except with the soil; and that neither time, tyranny nor prescription on the one side nor acquiescence, weakness or non-use on the other can ever sanctify the abuse of this right."

Again this society on November 11, 1793, published in the Gazette an address giving its plan for forcing this issue: "* * * It will be proper to make an attempt in a peaceable manner to go with an American bottom properly registered and cleared into the sea through the channel of the Mississippi, that we may either procure an immediate acknowledgment of our right from the Spaniards or if they obstruct us in the enjoyment of that right, that we may be able to lay before the Federal Government such unequivocal proofs of their having done so, that they will be compelled to say whether they will abandon or protect the inhabitants of the Western Country."

The reply of Governor Shelby to a communication of Secretary of State Jefferson as to the matter, indicates sympathy with the movement. In part he says: "I have grave doubts even if they attempt to carry this plan into execution (provided they manage the business with prudence) whether there is any legal authority to restrain or to punish them, at least before they have actually accomplished it. For if it is lawful for any one citizen of this state to leave it, it is equally as lawful for any number of them to do it. It is also lawful for them to carry with them any quant.i.ty of ammunition, provisions and arms. And if the act is lawful in itself there is nothing but the intention with which it is done which can make it unlawful. But I know of no law which inflicts a punishment upon intention only or any criterion by which to decide what would be sufficient evidence of that intention * * much less would I a.s.sume power to exercise it against men whom I consider as friends and brothers, in favor of a man whom I view as an enemy and a tyrant. I shall also feel but little inclined to take an active part in punis.h.i.+ng or restraining my fellow citizens for a supposed intention only to gratify or remove the fears of the minister of a prince who openly withholds from us an invaluable right and who secretly instigates against us a most savage and cruel enemy."

On March 24, 1794, President Was.h.i.+ngton issued a proclamation: "Whereas I have received information that certain persons in violation of the laws have presumed, under color of a foreign authority, to enlist citizens of the United States and others within the State of Kentucky; and have there a.s.sembled an armed force for the purpose of invading and plundering the territory of a nation at peace with the said United States, * * * I have, therefore, thought proper to issue this proclamation, hereby solemnly warning every person not authorized by the laws, against enlisting any citizen or citizens of the United States for the purpose aforesaid or proceeding in any manner to the execution thereof as they will answer the same at their peril."

About this time the Girondists lost control of the French Government.

Citizen Genet was recalled and his acts repudiated. Believing that if he returned he would be guillotined, he went to New York, where he established his domicile, married the daughter of Governor Clinton and remained until his death in 1836.

The failure of the Genet Mission did not close the old controversy so vital to the Western Country-the control of the commerce of the Mississippi.

In Kentucky, no man has ever been so unpopular as John Jay. This feeling originated in 1785 because of his proposition to concede to Spain absolute control of the Mississippi river for twenty-five years for certain concessions which would only benefit the Atlantic coast states.

James Monroe, referring to this suggestion in a letter written to Governor Henry of Virginia, said: "The object of this is to break up the settlements on the western waters * * * so as to throw the weight of the population eastward and keep it there, to appropriate the vacant lands in New York and Ma.s.sachusetts."

Jay in 1794 was appointed as an envoy to England for the purpose of negotiating a treaty between that country and the United States.

Relations were strained because of British aggression against our commerce in retaliation for very open sympathy for France and a belief that a secret treaty existed between France and the United States.

While he was yet on the ocean, a great meeting was held at Lexington, on May 24, 1794, protesting against his appointment and mission and the following resolution was adopted and published:

"* * * That the inhabitants west of the Appalachian Mountains are ent.i.tled by nature and by stipulation to the free and undisturbed navigation of the river Mississippi.

"That we have a right to expect and demand that Spain should be compelled immediately to acknowledge our right or that an end be put to all negotiations on that subject.

"That the injuries and insults done and offered by Great Britain to America call loudly for redress and that we will to the utmost of our abilities support the General Government in any attempt to obtain redress.

"That the recent appointment of the enemy of the Western Country to negotiate with that nation and the tame submission of the General Government, when we alone were injured by Great Britain, make it highly necessary that we should at this time state our just demands to the President and Congress. * * *"

Jay succeeded in his mission; a treaty was made, followed in May, 1796, by the surrender of the British forts in the Northwest Territory; which finally relieved Kentucky from British accessorial influence in the Indian aggressions.

In 1795, Governor Carondelet, of Louisiana, renewed the efforts inst.i.tuted by Miro and Wilkinson to separate Kentucky from the Union. As Wilkinson at the time was a general in the United States army and no longer a resident of Kentucky, his chief agent in Kentucky was Judge Sebastian. Carondelet's agents soon discovered that the people of Kentucky no longer cared to surrender their interest in the Union in exchange for Spanish commercial privileges.

On October 25, 1795, a treaty was entered into between Spain and the United States by Article IV of which it was stipulated that: "His Catholic Majesty has likewise agreed that the navigation of the said river in its whole breadth from its source to the ocean shall be free only to his subjects and the citizens of the United States unless he should extend this privilege to the subjects of other powers by special convention." On August 2, 1796, this treaty became operative by presidential proclamation.

So far as known, after the adoption of the treaty, Spain made no effort to procure the withdrawal of Kentucky from the Union until 1797. Then Governor Carondelet's agent, Thomas Power, came to Kentucky with a letter to Sebastian in which it was suggested that Kentucky was "* * *

to withdraw from the federal union and form an independent western government."

After Power had conferred with Judge Sebastian he visited Wilkinson, at the time a major general in the United States army and stationed at Detroit. Wilkinson was much put out by the visit and told Power he had been instructed to arrest him. He did not do this but sent him under guard to Fort Ma.s.sac, from which point he was permitted to go to New Madrid and from there returned to New Orleans.

Power reported to Carondelet that Wilkinson received him ungraciously and said: "We are both lost without deriving any benefit from your journey. * * * The project is chimerical, as the western country has obtained by the treaty of 1795 all she wants. Spain had best abide by the treaty which has overturned all my plans and rendered ten years'

labor useless."

As is known, the Jay treaty came very near causing war between France and the United States. Many Kentuckians felt that France had good reason for declaring war. Her charge against this government was that by the concessions made to Great Britain, America had disregarded her commercial and defensive allegiance with France.

From the organization of the Union Virginia, and, after Kentucky was carved from it, Kentucky were anti-federal states, championing state rights and declaring in no uncertain terms that the Federal Government was a creature of the states.

The Federal Government and the State of Kentucky kept close watch upon each other; the State jealously guarding her rights and the Federal Government ever suspicious of the separatist spirit of Kentucky; though a reference by vote of the people would have disclosed that only a small though influential minority advocated such a policy.

Just preceding the pa.s.sage by Congress of the alien and sedition laws, political conditions in Kentucky were such as to at last make the Federal Government popular. Indian outrages had been suppressed; free navigation of the Mississippi had been procured; the British forts of the Northwest had been surrendered; but a storm of protest against the centralizing tendencies of the government swept Kentucky upon the enactment of these laws; though their purpose was to curb the anti-federalist spirit.

They thought but little of the alien law, providing for the expulsion of foreigners, but were greatly incensed at the sedition statute which made it a high misdemeanor to abuse the president or congress. Their protest was not evidence of sedition but a well developed sensitiveness against the danger of over-government.

They contended, the object of the Revolution had been to secure local government and in recognition of this purpose, the convention had refrained from providing means whereby the states could be coerced into submission.

As a counter attack the Kentucky legislature pa.s.sed certain resolutions in which there was an element of sedition; but the resolutions were justified by the alien and sedition laws.

Mr. Jefferson is chargeable with the authors.h.i.+p of the Kentucky resolutions. At a conference held at Monticello, he was asked to and drafted the resolutions, which somewhat modified were presented by Mr.

Breckenridge to the Kentucky Legislature on November 8, and adopted November 10, with but one dissenting vote, Mr. Murray, in the House, and unanimously by the Senate.

The resolution charged Congress with usurpation of power in enacting the Alien and Sedition laws and defined and declared for state rights: to the effect that when a state deemed a federal law unconst.i.tutional or oppressive, if Congress refused to repeal it, the state had the right to declare it inoperative within her boundaries and to protect her citizens against penalty for its violation.

Virginia was the only other state siding with Kentucky in the controversy, which it did by milder resolutions.

These resolutions gave birth to the new Democratic party and raised a great political question, state rights, which for more than three score years, continued a national issue.

The alien law fixed the period of residence before naturalization at fourteen years and gave to the president power to expel all aliens whom he judged dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.

The sedition act, in the face of const.i.tutional provisions guaranteeing freedom of speech and of the press, made it a crime "for any person unlawfully to combine and conspire to oppose or impede any governmental measure or to intimidate any person holding a public office or to incite insurrection, riot or unlawful a.s.sembly or to print or publish any false, scandalous and malicious writing against the Government or either house of congress or the president with intent to defame them or bring them into contempt or disrepute or to excite against them hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition or with intent to excite any unlawful combination therein for opposing or resisting any law-or to aid, abet or encourage any hostile design of any foreign nation against the United States."

Mr. Jefferson, called the father of the new Democratic Party, wrote Mr.

S. T. Mason: "For my part I consider these laws as only an experiment on the American mind, to see how far it will bear an avowed violation of the const.i.tution. If this goes down, we shall immediately see attempted another Act of Congress, declaring that the President shall continue in office during life, reserving to another occasion the transfer of the succession to his heirs, and the establishment of the Senate for life *

Many speeches were made in the summer and fall of 1798 to arouse and organize sentiment against these laws. As Kentucky was in sympathy with France and anti-federalist in politics the sentiment against the laws was almost unanimous.

A great Democratic meeting was held at Lexington and was addressed by George Nicholas. More than a thousand men were a.s.sembled around the wagon from which he spoke.

Reverend Calvin Campbell, who at the time was a.s.sisting Father Rice in a protracted meeting at the Presbyterian Church, stood on the sidewalk within convenient distance of the speaker and appeared greatly interested in the speech, though he did not agree with what Mr. Nicholas had to say. His experiences with Wilkinson and his dupes and accomplices had made of him an ardent supporter of the Federal Union.

Nicholas, who was instructor in the law department of Transylvania University, was a very able lawyer, a logical debater, a man of good character and fine attainments. His speech impressed all his hearers. He dwelt at length upon the great debt the United States owed to France; a.s.sailed the Jay treaty as a most selfish policy and the desertion of the truest ally a country ever had; and finally congress for having usurped power and disregarded the const.i.tution by the enactment of the alien and sedition laws.

Yet Calvin Campbell felt that the speaker knew that it was the duty of every Kentuckian to stand by his government even in her mistakes and as a matter of policy it was all Kentucky could do. He felt sure that such a lawyer as Nicholas knew that if each state reserved to itself power to say what laws of congress it would or would not regard, that the Union must of necessity fail and Kentucky end by surrendering her liberty to decadent Spain for a mess of pottage.

He felt that he could answer every argument made by Nicholas, and in such a way as to gain his hearers from him; and wondered if others were affected as he had been: Though he acknowledged the strength of the speaker's argument, instead of being persuaded, his sense of opposition had been accentuated.

The crowd was beginning to disperse when several began calling for Henry Clay. In answer to these calls, a tall, slender and delicate looking young man, little more than twenty-one, climbed into the wagon and began to speak.

For several minutes, the majority of the crowd hesitated whether to go or remain. The speaker had an excellent voice, an earnest manner and, they soon found out, something to say and knew how to say it. He spoke upon the sole theme of federal usurpation and his speech was so remarkably good, his manner so earnest and the impression he made so unexpected that his hearers were captivated and convinced. Even Calvin Campbell felt his opposition disintegrating. The arguments his mind had framed against what Nicholas had said seemed losing their potency; not so much by what the speaker said as by the magnetic way in which he said it. He seemed to put into words the thoughts of your own mind. Yet Calvin Campbell after he recovered from the influence, said to himself: "That speech would not read well," and this impression was confirmed when in later years he read many speeches of the Great Commoner.

When Clay finished there was a moment of absolute silence, then a great burst of applause.

First Mr. Murray, then Mr. McLean, Federalists, attempted to respond but the people would not hear them. Mr. McLean said something that incensed the crowd. In a high state of excitement many rushed at him and he would have suffered bodily harm had not Nicholas, Clay and Calvin Campbell prevented it.