Public opinion in Philadelphia, 1789-1801 ...

Contents

PAGE

Preface 5

CHAPTER I Newspapers and Editors 7

1. The Existence of a Party Press 7

2. The FederaHst Press 11

3. The Republican Press 20

4. Miscellaneous - 31

CHAPTER H

The Financial System 36

1. Nature of the Criticisms 36

2. The Funding of the Public Debt 38

3. The Assumption of State Debts 54

4. The Excise - 57

5. The Bank 60

CHAPTER HI

Foreign Relations 64

1. Neutrality - 64

2. The Jay Treaty 82

3. Troubles With France 90

CHAPTER IV

Political Parties 97

1. The Origin of Parties 97

2. Constitutional Interpretation 100

3. Political Issues 105

(a) The Seat of Government 106

(b) Democratic Societies and the Whiskey Rebellion Ill

(c) Titles 120

(d) Election Methods and Political Campaigns 123

Conclusion 130

Biblioraphy 133

Preface

Since the publication of the first volume of Professor Mc- Master's epoch-making History of the American People, in 1883, the newspaper and the pamphlet have come into their own. They have been made the basis of many books, monographs and articles, the most important perhaps being Mr. Rhodes's clever analysis of public opinion in the United States from 1850 to 1877. In spite of this activity a large part of the field still remains unworked. A thorough analysis of the newspaper and pamphlet literature of the Federalist Period (1789-1801) should throw light upon our political and constitutional development during those important formative years and should also make available some very useful social and economic material.

The newspapers and pamphlets of those days were undoubtedly important factors in shaping public opinion. Their tone was always vigorous and they were either decidedly for or against the measures of the government. Examples of letters which appeared first in newspapers and later as pamphlets, and which exerted a great influence, were the articles of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay in the Federalist, and Hamilton's Camillits letters written in support of the Jay Treaty. Some good examples taken from an earlier period are to be found in Dickinson's Farmer's Letters and Paine's Common Sense.

A series of local studies of this type of literature ought to be useful as a basis for a general history of public opinion which is yet to be written. In such a series, Pennsylvania deserves special consideration because Philadelphia was the seat of the federal government and the chief center of political intrigue. The names of four or five Philadelphia editors stand out as particularly important during the period. Philip Freneau of the National Gazette, Benjamin Franklin Bache and William Duane of the Aurora were the greatest of the Anti-

Federalist editors, while John Fenno of the Gazette of the United States and William Cobbett of Porcupine's Gazette always upheld the policy of the government. These were the newspapers which exerted the most influence and which the leading men of the time used as vehicles for communicating their views to the public. Margaret Woodbury.

CHAPTER I

Newspapers and Editors

/. The Existence of a Party Press

At the close of the eighteenth century, Philadelphia had more newspapers than any other city in the United States. They were, as a rule, well edited, according to the standards which then prevailed, and they compared favorably with the best of their contemporaries in New York, Boston, Baltimore and London. As purveyors of news they were far behind the press of a later date, but they were probably more influential in the field of politics. Even when the editors were known to be political hacks and bound by ties of gratitude to support their party programme, they were important factors in shaping public opinion.

The newspapers of this early period were much smaller than those of the present day, the average size being about four pages of seventeen by twenty-one inches. There was little or no system in the arrangement of the news. Usually the first and last pages were given up to advertisements, such as notices of the sale of real estate and merchandise ; departure and arrival of vessels ; notices of runaway slaves ; schedules of stage coaches ; announcements of various educational institutions and of the publication of books and pamphlets. The second and third pages were usually devoted to communications from foreign sources and to the activities of Congress, together with comments of the editor upon questions of the hour and contributions from the subscribers. There was nothing corresponding to our present day editorial page.

So far as national issues were concerned, there was no distinctly partisan press in Philadelphia until 1791. In the issue of the Aurora for October 23, 1790, the editor comments as follows on the scarcity of news : "As to domestic politics, no party disputes to raise the printer's drooping spirits ; not a legislature sitting to furnish a few columns of debates, not even so much as a piece of private abuse to grace a paper — Zounds, people now have no spirit in them. . . . Now not even an accident, not a duel, not a suicide, not a fire, not a murder, not so much as a single theft worthy of notice. O ! tempora, O ! mores."

It is interesting to contrast this article with one which appeared in the Gazette of the United States less than two years later. 1 A correspondent relates a conversation which he had with a friend who had traveled extensively in Europe and who made the following observations on the bitter factions now existing in this country, lamenting the way in which the newspapers took part in the quarrels : "Factions are almost harmless in England — and as our language is the same and our form of government nearly similar, we are apt to conclude that factions will be harmless also in this country. A great many persons seem to like the bustle of wrangling parties, and the Printers think their Gazettes insipid and in danger of losing custom, if they refuse to mix a portion of gall with their ink. Accordingly, we see the government bespattered and the heads of departments and members of Congress blackened ; and all the arts of insinuation and deception put in practice to make the people as angry as the writers seem to be.

"We are told that the measures of government have done but little good, and that little was not intended — that, however, they have done infinite mischief which zvas intended and is a part of a plan of iniquity contrived by those who administer the ofifices of the government. This evil, they tell us, is still spreading and will be fatal to the property rights and liberty of the many, in order by their plunder to aggrandize the few. That all these consequences are the more to be dreaded and are the more certain, as the country is too extensive to be subject to one free government, and the constitution has not made a

proper definition and a due separation of its powers

Inflammatory addresses to the passions of men have a tendency to create disturbances and convulsions in all countries — but they are pecviliarly alarming in our country from the nature of our government and the temper of our citizens. . . Our government is too new and too feeble, and its powers too much divided with the state governments to bear the convulsion of vindictive factions."

The following quotation from a pamphlet of 1794 leaves no doubt of the existence of a party press at that time : "I will examine a little further the uses that are made by the faction in promoting their plan through the instrumentality of newspapers and pamphlets. This art is not original ; it has been successfully employed by all the corrupt courts of Europe. I have already mentioned that a new courtly Gazette started up at the commencement of the government. This and others in several principal towns have been industriously employed in proclaiming the praises of the fiscal administration and ascribing all the prosperity the country has experienced from the enjoyment of peace, increased population, industry, and a good government to the revenue system and through that system to the Secretary who originated and the speculating members who support it. . . .

"The courtly Gazette and others of the same stamp, supported by the speculators and anonymous pamphlets, were not only employed in publishing eulogies on the secretary and the fiscal measures but also in endeavoring to divert public confidence from all those who opposed or censured them. Hence members who disliked the measures were induced to support them from an apprehension that the opposition did not arise from true patriotism but from an anti-federal enmity to the government itself. This impression though its efifect will be but temporary, has been sufficiently lasting to support the ministerial influence in the House in the second Congress and to render it formidable in the present.

"The artful cry of the danger of anti-federalism is gradually ceasing to have its effect. The more the people examine, the more they are convinced that no body of anti-federalists exists in the United States and that no design for overturning the government has been entertained since the commencement of its operation, . . . The monarchical party are the only anti-federaHsts in the United States and by them only the Federal-Republican principles of government are in danger of being overturned." 1

The following extracts from the letters of Washington and Adams constitute a reluctant tribute to the influence of the Republican press. "The publications in Freneau's and Bache's papers are outrages on common decency and they progress in that style, in proportion as their pieces are treated with contempt and are passed by in silence, by those at whom they are aimed. The tendency of them, however, is too obvious to be mistaken by men of cool and dispassionate minds and in my opinion, ought to alarm them ; because it is difficult to prescribe bounds to the effect. "2 "Our anti-federal scribblers are so fond of rotation, that they seem disposed to remove their abuse from me to the President. Bache's paper, which is nearly as bad as Freneau's, begins to join in concert with it to maul the President for his drawingrooms, levees, declining to accept of invitations to dinners and tea parties, his birthday odes, visits, compliments, etc. I may be expected to be an advocate for a rotation of objects of abuse and for equality in this particular. I have held the office of libelleegeneral long enough. The burden of it ought to be participated and equalized according to modern republican principles." ^ "The causes of my retirement are to be found in the writings of Freneau, Markoe, Ned Church, Andrew Brown, Paine, Callender, Hamilton, Cobbett and John Ward Fenno and many others, but more especially in the circular letters of members of Congress from the southern and middle states. Without a complete collection of all these libels, no faithful history of the last twenty years

^ "A citizen," A Review of the Revenue System, Letter XIII. Philadelphia, 1794.

^ Washington to Henry Lee, July 21, 1793, Washington's Writings, vol. XII, pp. 310-311.

^ Adams to Mrs. Adams, January 2, 1794, Adams's Works, vol. I, pp. 460-461.

can ever be written nor any adequate account given of the causes of my retirement from public life."'*

Adams had a theory that the hostility of the Aurora to him was largely due to the posthumous influence of Franklin. The following letter refers to the controversy between Adams and Franklin at the time of the peace negotiation in 1782. "Dr. Franklin's behavior had been so excessively complaisant to the French ministry and in my opinion had so endangered the essential interests of our country, that I had been frequently obliged to differ from him and sometimes to withstand him to his face ; so that I knew he had conceived an irreconcilable hatred of me and that he had propagated and would continue to propagate prejudices, if nothing worse, against me in America from one end of it to the other. Look into Benjamin Franklin Bache's Aurora and Duane's Aurora for twenty years and see whether my expectations have not been verified."^

2. The Federalist Press

Until the establishment of Porcupine's Gazette by Cobbett in 1797, the Gazette of the United States was the leading Federalist organ. Very little is known about the life of John Fenno, the founder of the Gazette. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, August 12, 1751. He was well educated and for several years was a teacher in the Old South Writing School. The Gazette was started in New York in 1789, and was transferred to Philadelphia in October, 1790, when the seat of the government was removed to that city. It was published on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 69 Market Street, and the subscription price was three dollars a year. Fenno died in Philadelphia of yellow fever, September 14, 1798; and the paper was then published by his nineteen-year old son, John Ward Fenno, until May, 1800, when it was taken over by the owner, Caleb P. Wayne. ^

■* Adams to Skelton Jones, March 11, 1809, Adams's Works, vol. IX, p. 612.

^ Adams to Dr. Benjamin Rush, April 12, 1809, Adams's Works, vol. IX, p. 619.

°J. T. Scharff and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1884, vol. Ill, pp. 1968-1969.

The Fennos were zealous admirers of Hamilton, and always supported his political views as well as his financial and foreign policies. In fact, their paper came to be regarded as Hamilton's official organ, and the charge was freely made that it received a subsidy from the treasury department.

The aristocratic tone of the Gazette was especially obnoxious to Jefferson and Madison ; and, as we shall see later, it was largely through their efforts that Philip Freneau was induced to establish the National Gazette as a counterbalancing influence. In Jefferson's correspondence we find frequent references to Fenno and his paper. A few copies of Paine's Rights of Man, the famous answer to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, arrived in Philadelphia about the beginning of May, 1791. On the 8th of May, Jefferson wrote to Washington as follows: "Paine's answer to Burke's pamphlet begins to produce some squibs in our public papers. In Fenno's paper they are Burkites, in the others Painites."'^ In a letter to William Short, written July 28, 1791, Jefferson also says: "Paine's pamphlet has been published and read with general applause here. It was attacked by a writer under the name of Publicola, and defended by a host of republican volunteers. None of the defenders are known. I have desired Mr. Remsen to make up a complete collection of these pieces from Bache's papers, the tory-paper of Fenno rarely admitting anything which defends the present form of government in opposition to his desire of subverting it to make way for a king, lords and commons."^ Jefferson's disapproval of Fenno was likewise expressed in a letter to Thomas Mann Randolph : "I inclose you Bache's as well as Fenno's papers. You will have perceived that the latter is a paper of pure Toryism, disseminating the doctrines of monarchy, aristocracy and the exclusion of the influence of the people."^

Fenno's Gazette and Porcupine's Gazette both supported

'Jefiferson to Washington, May 8, 1791, Jefferson's Writings, vol. V, p. 328.

Hamilton in his feud with Adams during the settlement of the troubles with France. Writing in defence of his peace policy, Adams says : "A great clamor was raised among the members of the House of Representatives, and out of doors, and an abundance of squibs, scoffs and sarcasm, in what were then called the federal newspapers, particularly Cobbett's Porcupine and John Ward Fenno's United States Gazette.^^

Porcupine's Gazette first appeared March 4, 1797. Its editor was William Cobbett who always signed himself "Peter Porcupine." On September 6, 1799, the paper was changed from a daily to a weekly and continued at Bustleton, Pennsylvania, because of the yellow fever in Philadelphia. The Country Porcupine was a tri-weekly mailing edition of Porcupine's Gazette, which contained all the news matter but omitted the advertisements in order to save postage. In a communication to the public, soon after its establishment, the editor says : "I wish my paper to be the rallying point for the friends of government." He went on to say that the subscribers already numbered 1,000 and that some hundreds of names had not yet reached the publisher, and that the paper had more subscribers at Baltimore, New York, and other towns of note, than any other two papers published in Philadelphia.

Cobbett's chief object in conducting the paper apparently was to carry on a propaganda in favor of Great Britain. Incidentally he supported the domestic programme of the federal government, or at least that part of it with which Hamilton was most closely associated. As the influence of the Gazette of the United States declined, after the death of John Fenno, September 14, 1798, Porcupine's Gazette became for a time the leading Federalist paper in Philadelphia. The pacific attitude of President Adams toward France, however, aroused the hostility of Cobbett ; and accordingly Noah Webster's Nezv York Minerva became the official organ of the administration.

Cobbett's life has already been fully treated by Lewis T.

' Adams's Works, vol. IX, p. 248. See also p. 612.

Melville ;ii consequently the chief events of his career may be passed over hastily in order that more space may be devoted to his controversy with Dr. Benjamin Rush, all the material available for that episode not having been used by Mr. Melville.

William Cobbett was born March 9, 1763, at Farnham, Surrey, England. His father was a small farmer who taught his son the rudimentary education that he himself possessed. Cobbett worked upon his father's farm until he was twenty years old, when he went to London and secured a position as clerk in an attorney's office. He found the confinement very irksome, however, and left this position, going to Chatham and enlisting in the 54th Regiment of Infantry, which was then serving in Nova Scotia. He devoted much of his time while in the army to self -improvement, and took up the study of English grammar for the first time. In December, 1791, he received an honorable discharge from the army, the purpose of his retirement being to bring certain of his officers to court-martial because of their misconduct in office. The War Office put every obstacle in the way of the court-martial and the decision rendered was that his charges were unfounded.

After his marriage with Anne Reid, February 5, 1792, Cobbett went to France. The gathering war clouds making it necessary for him to leave, he came to America in the autumn of 1792, and settled in Philadelphia. He soon became the most influential political pamphleteer in America. Between 1794 and 1800 he published twenty pamphlets, in most of which he supported the Federalist party, denounced France, and advocated an alliance with Great Britain. On March 5, 1797, he issued the first number of P or cu pine's Gazette, founded as he said, "with the intention of annihilating, if possible, the intriguing, wicked and indefatigable faction which- the French had formed in this country." In the autumn of 1797 he was sued for libel by Dr. Rush and the decision was rendered in December of 1799 in favor of the plaintiff. The judgment of $5,000, together with

" L. T. Melville, The Life and Letters of William Cobbett in England and America. Two vols., London, 1913.

$3,000 damages, ruined Cobbett financially, and he returned to England in June, 1800. In London he became a book-seller and journalist. His Weekly Political Register, established in January, 1802, he continued to publish until his death. He prospered, and purchased for himself a country estate where he spent much of his time.

Cobbett was always the foe of corruption and the advocate of a more liberal constitution. Such views were obnoxious to the British government and he was frequently prosecuted for libel. In 1816, he established his Twopenny Trash, a newspaper which advocated reform and had a wide circulation among the working classes. The powerful influence which this paper had among the poor increased the hostility of the government towards Cobbett. Fearing imprisonment, he decided to come back to America. He spent two years in this country, 1817-1819, but took no active part in politics. On returning to England he continued his agitation for reform. His great desire to sit in the House of Commons was at last realized in 1832, but he was seventy years old at the time and did not exercise much influence. He died July 18, 1835, at his country home at Farnham.i^

The origin of the quarrel between Dr. Benjamin Rush and William Cobbett is thus told by Dr. Rush himself i^^ "For many years after I settled in Philadelphia, I was regulated in my practice by the system of medicine which I had learned from the lectures and publications of Dr. Cullen. But time, observations and reflections convinced me that it was imperfect and erroneous in many of its parts ... I read, I thought, and I observed upon the phenomena of diseases . . . and at length a few rays of light broke in upon my mind upon several diseases. . . . The system I adopted was not merely a speculative one. It led to important changes in the practice.

"The propagation of my new opinions had an immediate influence upon my business. It lessened it by precluding me

" Ibid., passim.

"Benjamin Rush, A Memorial Containing Travels Through Life or Sundry Incidents in the Life of, pp. 61-74.

from consultations, for most of my brethren in Philadelphia were devoted to Dr. CuUen's system of medicine and opposed to the least deviation from it. It would be improper to ascribe my exclusion from consultations wholly to the influence of my new opinions. The part I took in favor of my country in the American Revolution had left prejudices in the minds of the most wealthy citizens of Philadelphia against me, for a great majority of them had been loyalists in principle and conduct. . .

"Other things contributed to offend my medical brethren besides the novelty of my opinions and practice. I had declared medicine to be a science so simple that two years' study, instead of four or more, were sufficient to understand all that was true and practical in it. I had rejected a great number of medicines as useless and had limited the materia medica to fifteen or twenty articles and in order to strip medicine still further of its imposture, I had borne a testimony against enveloping it in mystery or secrecy by Latin prescriptions and by publishing inaugural dissertations in the Latin language in the medical school of Philadelphia. . . . The success which attended the remedies which it pleased God to make me the instrument of introducing into general practice in the treatment of the fever in 1793, produced a sudden combination of all who had been either publicly or privately my enemies and the most violent and undisguised exertions to oppose and discredit those remedies.

"To prevent the recurrence of the fever, I early pointed out its domestic origin. In this opinion I was opposed by nearly the whole College of Physicians, who derived it from a foreign country and who believed it to be a specific disease. They were followed by nearly all the physicians of Philadelphia. ... A number of cases of yellow fever occurred in the summer and autumn of 1794 and a few in the same season in 1795 and 1796. . . . In the year 1797, the yellow fever became again epidemic.

"Soon after the fever appeared, Dr. Griffiths published, without his name, some plain and sensible directions to the citizens for the treatment of the fever. This pubHcation was ascribed to me in Fenno's paper and a most virulent invective against me connected with it. It was soon afterwards followed by torrents of abuse in a paper conducted by one Cobbett, an English alien who then resided in Philadelphia. The publications in these two daily papers were continued for nearly six weeks against my practice and character, particularly against my political principles which were those of the federal republic of our country. . All these different attacks upon my character and practice were well received by many of my fellow citizens. Some of them considered them as a just punishment for my political principles, while many more acquiesced in them as the probable means of destroying the influence of a man who had aimed to destroy the credit of their city, by ascribing to it a power of generating yellow fever.

"Their design proved successful. They lessened my business and they abstracted so much of the confidence of my patients as to render my practice extremely difficult and disagreeable among them. To put a stop to their injurious effects upon my business and the lives of my patients, I commenced civil action against both the printers."

The specific accusations made by Dr. Rush against Cobbett are set forth in the charge which Judge Shippen delivered to the jury when he dismissed it to deliberate upon the case. They are as follows :^^ "That he (the defendant) repeatedly calls the plaintiff a quack, an empyric, charges him with intemperate bleeding, injudiciously administering Mercury in large doses in the yellow-fever; puffing himself off, writing letters and answering them himself, stiling him the Samson in Medicine; charging him with murdering his patients and slaying his thousands and tens of thousands."

In his remarks to the jury it is very evident that the sympathies of the Judge were with the plaintiff : "The counts laid in

^* A Report of an action for a Libel brought by Dr. Benjamin Rush against William Cobbett, in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, December term, 1799, for certain defamatory publications in a newspaper entitled Porcupine's Gazette, Philadelphia, 1800.

the declaration," he says, "are full proved by the publications which are certainly libellous. In what manner do the defendant's counsel repel these proofs? Not by justifying the truth of the matters charged against Dr. Rush, which on the contrary they have repeatedly acknowledged to be false, but by analyzing the several allegations in the newspapers and from thence drawing a conclusion that no intentional personal malice appears, which they say is the essence of the offence. If the defendant has done that to your satisfaction you will acquit him; but as this is chiefly founded on the allegation that the attack was meant to be made on Dr. Rush's System and not upon the man, it unfortunately appears that not the least attempt is made to combat the Doctor's arguments with regard to the System itself, but the attack is made merely by gross scurrilous abuse of the Doctor himself : added to this, one of the witnesses proves a declaration made by the defendant, that if Dr. Rush had not been the Man he should never have meddled with the System. "Another ground of defence is of a more serious nature, as

it leads to an important question on our constitution — it is said that the subject of dispute between the plaintiff and defendant was a matter of public concern, as it related to the health and lives of our fellow-citizens and that by the words of our constitution, every man has a right to discuss such subjects in print. The liberty of the press, gentlemen, is a valuable right in every free country, and ought never to be unduly restrained, but when it is perverted to the purposes of private slander, it then becomes a most destructive engine in the hands of unprincipled men. . .

"Every one must know that offences of this kind have for some time past too much abounded in our city ; it seems high time to restrain them — that task is with you, gentlemen. To suppress so great an evil, it will not only be proper to give compensatory, but exemplary damages ; thus stopping the growing progress of this daring crime — at the same time, the damages should not be so enormous as absolutely to ruin the offender."

The declaration of the plaintiff contained certain extracts from Cobbett's paper, Porcupine's Gazette, which were considered hbellous and were the basis of the accusations. One article was entitled "Medical Puffing" i^^

" 'The times are ominous indeed,

When quack to quack cries purge and bleed.'

"Those who are in the habit of looking over the Gazettes which come in from the different parts of the country, must have observed, and with no small degree of indignation, the arts that our remorseless Bleeder is making use of to puff off his preposterous practice. He has, unfortunately, his partisans in almost every quarter of the country. To these he writes letters, and in return gets letters from them ; he extols their practice and they extol his ; and there is scarcely a page of any newspaper that I see which has the good fortune to escape the poison of their prescriptions — Blood, blood ! still they cry more blood ! . . . Dr. Rush in that emphatic style which is peculiar to himself calls Mercury 'the Samson of medicine.' In his hands and in those of his partisans it may indeed be justly compared to Samson ; for, I verily believe they have slain more Americans with it than ever Samson slew of the Philistines. The Israelite slew his thousands, but the Rushites their tens of thousands."

Another article appeared in the same paper a week later and was entitled "'Another Puff."i® "In Brown's paper ^'^ of last evening appeared another of our potent Quack's barefaced puffs. It was 'a letter from Dr. Rush to a correspondent in Newberry Port,' giving his own account of the yellow fever and concluding with a dragged-in compliment to a Mr. Coates. . . . . All this bustle of letters and address and prescriptions, in the name of Dr. Rush, is intended to make the duped world believe that he is the Oracle at Philadelphia and that all the other physicians are mere glister-pipe Dicks under him — It is a cheap mode of acquiring fame, which he learned from the crafty old hypocrite Franklin."