Republican op The grounds of the Republican opposition to the creation of a naval force were clearly stated by William Branch Giles of Virginia. The policy of position to it. creating a navy "involved a complete dereliction of the policy of discharging the principal of the public debt. . . . To increase her navy and decrease her debt . . . exceeded the ability of any nation. . . It was the most expensive of all the means of defence, and the tyranny of governments consists in the expensiveness of their machinery. . . . The system of governing by debts he conceived the most refined system of tyranny. . . . There is no device which facilitates the system of expense and debts so much as a navy"; and he declared that he should value his liberty at a lower price than he now did if this policy should obtain. This was orthodox Republican doctrine; whether it was in harmony with the best interests of the country, the history of the War of 1812 will show. Foreign-enlistment Act. Perhaps the most important act of this session was the Neutrality or Foreign-enlistment Act, which was passed June 5, 1794, to furnish a basis upon which the judiciary could act in preventing the citizens of the United States from violating neutrality. It is gratifying to American pride to know that, though it was the first act of the kind that was ever passed, it has since been imitated in the legislation of most European states. CHAPTER XV. JAY'S TREATY. 'LEVEN years after the acknowledgment of the independence of the United States, England continued Summary of to occupy American posts, and exercise sovereignty over American territory; in violation of the treaty of 1783, she had carried away American property and had made no compensation for it; she was capturing American ships on the ground that we had no right to trade with the colonies of France in time of war, since we did not have that right in time of peace; she was impressing American seamen; and she was preventing by force American vessels from carrying provisions to French ports. It was to demand redress for these grievances that Jay was sent to England. To have submitted to them under any circumstances would have been galling; to submit to them when, in violation of our treaties, submission was equivalent to taking England's part against our old ally was humiliating; to submit to them when England was fighting on the side of the combined despots of Europe against France was, in the opinion of the Republicans, to be guilty of a base crime against the human race, and to make our professions of devotion to liberty an idle mockery. Fisher Ames said that "if a treaty left to King George his island it would not answer, not if he stipulated to pay rent for it."* There was truth in his assertion. To make any sort of treaty with England was to be on friendly terms with her, and that, the Republicans believed, was to be guilty of disloyalty to the noblest of causes. Concession of But when the humiliating truth became known that the representative of the United States had signed a treaty which left England free to continue Jay's treaty. impressing American sailors and compel them to fight against France; which left her free to continue making us a party to her attempts to starve out the people who had so recently helped us with their money and their blood; which left her free to prevent by force any American trade with the ports of the colonies of France; which gave her the right to confiscate French goods on American vessels, when our treaty with France did not give to France the right to confiscate English goods on American vessels; which contained no provision for compensation for the negroes carried away by British armies at the close of the Revolution-when all this became known, one can faintly imagine how hundreds of thousands of American cheeks mantled with shame, and hundreds of thousands of American hands clenched in impotent rage. * Annals of Congress, 1795-6, 1249. The only grievance of the United States which the treaty promised to terminate was England's occupancy of American territory. But as the treaty The only griev of 1783 had stipulated for the withdrawal ance which it promised to terminate. of British troops from American territory with "all convenient speed, speed," what assurance was there that the new stipulation-that the frontier posts should be evacuated on or before June 1, 1796- would be any more faithfully observed? Moreover, no compensation was allowed for the injuries inflicted upon the United States by their previous detention. Provisions especially offensive of France. Besides the provisions which ought to have made the treaty odious to Americans of all parties, there were some which made it peculiarly offensive to the partisans of France. In every disputed to the partisans point it made the French interpretation of the treaties between France and the United States impossible to the American government. Genet had maintained that those treaties gave France the right to fit out privateers, and sell prizes in American ports; this treaty provided that privateers of an enemy of the United States or of England should not be allowed to arm their ships or sell their prizes in the ports of the other, but that ships of war of either power should be hospitably received in the ports of the other, and permitted to sell their prizes there. Genet had maintained that the treaties between his country and ours gave him the right to furnish Americans with commissions against England; Jay's treaty provided that Americans should not accept commissions from the enemies of England against England, nor Englishmen commissions from the enemies of the United States against the United States, and that citizens of either country accepting such commissions were to be regarded as pirates. This rule would have made pirates of the Frenchmen who came to this country to take part in the Revolutionary War against England, before war was declared between France and Great Britain! The treaty did indeed provide that none of its clauses should be construed contrary to previous treaties with other nations. But what satisfaction could that provision give to the partisans of France when they knew that the Federalist interpretation of the treaties with France was the one that was to prevail? Provisions as to trade. Other clauses of the treaty were hardly less offensive to the Republicans. Although Jay had been instructed to sign no treaty which did not to some the West India degree open to us the West India trade, his treaty opened that trade only to American vessels of seventy tons or less. This apparent concession was bought by accepting it under conditions which deprived it of all value. British ships of any tonnage were to be admitted into the ports of the United States for West India commerce, but American vessels were not to be allowed to carry to any foreign country cotton, coffee, sugar, or molasses. |
