The Federalist: containing some strictures upon a pamphlet, entitled, "The pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency, examined, and the charges against John Adams, refuted." : Which pamphlet was first published in the Gazette of the United States, in a series of essays, under the signature of "Phocion."

The Federalist: containing some strictures upon a pamphlet, entitled, "The pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency, examined, and the charges against John Adams, refuted." : Which pamphlet was first published in the Gazette of the United States, in a series of essays, under the signature of "Phocion."

Table of contents

Title page

REMARK.

THE FEDERALIST, &c.

No. I. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

No. II. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

No. III. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

No. IV. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

No. V. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

No. VI. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

No. VII. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

No. VIII. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A CONCLUDING OBSERVATION.

§

§

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THE FEDERALIST: CONTAINING SOME STRICTURES UPON A PAMPHLET, ENTITLED, ‘The Pretensions of THOMAS JEFFERSON to the Presidency, examined, and the Charges against JOHN ADAMS, refuted.’

WHICH PAMPHLET WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE GAZETTE OF THE UNITED STATES, IN A SERIES OF ESSAYS, UNDER THE SIGNATURE OF "PHOCION."

PHILADELPHIA: RE-PUBLISHED FROM THE GAZETTE OF THE UNITED STATES, BY MATHEW CAREY, NO. 118, MARKET-STREET. November 1796.

REMARK.

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IT is extremely difficult to investigate political opinions and dispositions, without exciting suspicions of disrespect or enmity towards the person alleged to entertain them. There is some reason therefore to apprehend, that such motives may be imputed to the writer of the following pages. It is however solemnly affirmed, that he is entirely unconscious of any feelings of disrespect or ill will. Of the truth of this declaration no clearer proof can be afforded to discerning readers, than the manner and spirit in which, he trusts, the investigation is conducted. Desirous scrupulously to avoid all personal observations, it has been endeavored to keep the mind intent upon the great principle of representative government, yet firmly to apply to every opposite opinion or disposition, the test of reason.

THE FEDERALIST, &c.

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No. I. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Respectable Fellow Citizens,

WHATEVER may be the result of your approaching deliberations, the interests of this country cannot fail to have been promoted by many of the discussions to which this great occasion will have given rise. The numerous addresses to the people at large, to the state legislatures, and to yourselves, will often bring truth and reason into the public view, or expose to detection the improper measures, which passion or unworthiness have induced any of the parties to adopt.

It is plain, that those, who have necessarily reply, at a very late hour, have far the hardest task, though truth were admitted to be on their side, Nothing, which can be prepared, for example, to manifest all the errors of "Phocion,"* can possibly reach in time the distant electors.

[Page] The opinions of Mr. Adams in favour of an hereditary president and of an hereditary senate, and his desire to see them introduced among us, are the great objections to him, which prevail conclusively with all the friends of the federal constitution, who are opposed to his election. Hence we see, that though Mr. Pinckney is understood to be set up by the same persons, no objections whatever have been made to him. This gentleman gives rise to no alarms even among the friends of other candidates, because he is universally admitted to be attached to representative or elective government. Nay, even the papers characterized as anti-federal and jacobin, have not sounded any alarm concerning the republican Pinckney.

The friends and enemies of the federal constitution have been accustomed to believe, that GENERAL WASHINGTON is a lover of representative government. It has been a cause of devout thankfulness to Providence, in the minds of serious and anxious men, that this friend to republics was in the chair, when the combined powers associated to restore monarchy in France, in 1791; and particularly in 1793, when the king of Great-Britain issued, within the same week (Oct. 31, and Nov. 6, 1793) a public [Page]proclamation to suppress republican government in France, and secret orders hostile to the resources and naval organs of our unoffending republic. Here we might offer complete exculpatory remarks, concerning the dispositions, which a concurrence of circumstances like these, might naturally excite in the bosom of secretary Jefferson; indeed we might fully establish his merit on the occasion; but it is only necessary to our present argument to observe, that the friends of our republican constitution felt great comfort, at a moment so awfully eventful, in the knowledge, that our chief magistrate was an indisputable enemy to every modification of hereditary domination. If the friends of representative government cherished with thankfulness this comfortable truth, what will they now think and feel, if they behold the high presidential authority in the hands of one, who has no faith, no confidence in representative or elective government, who believes, with the jealous enemies of our constitution abroad, that a monarchical constitution is not only better than our federal constitution, but that a mixed monarchy is "the best of all possible governments." Ask yourselves, respectable, but highly responsible trustees of a deserving nation's peace, before it shall be too late, can the people of America be hoped to confide in such a constituted authority?

The letters of "Phocion" have been principally confined to the rejection of Mr. Jefferson. He says enough, it is true, to cover himself from the charge of neglecting Mr. Adams. Yet he certainly has not taken up and explained any of the passages, in favor of hereditary government, which a wise and zealous advocate would (if he could) have openly seized and refuted. This is a case in which the very horns of the adversary, if we may use the expression, should have been taken hold of with intrepidity. "Phocion," instead of reserving almost entirely [Page]for Mr. Jefferson a pen, which, alas, he has unconsciously steeped in the acidulated gall of felf-deceiving prejudice, should have explained the many passages like the following, which are to be found in Mr. Adams's three volumes.

In treating of the Lacedemonian government, which was hereditary in the kings and senators, in the two hundred and fifty-fifth page of the first volume, of the London edition, Mr. Adams writes the following words—

‘The Lacedemonian republic may then, with great propriety, be called monarchical, and had the three essential parts of the best possible government; it was a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.’ This passage is unequivocal and goes to the whole length of the principles in question. Mr. Adams does not merely say, that this mixed monarchy is not bad—not merely, that it is good— not merely that it is better than the existing constitution of Massachusetts or of New-York—not merely that it is better than such a constitution, as this federal constitution, under which a beneficent Creator has placed us, a second chosen people,—but Mr. Adams, without any, the least, qualification or reserve whatsoever, expressly says, that this Lacedemonian mixture of monarchy—aristocracy—and democracy, had "the three essential parts of the best possible government."* To frame a declaration of monarchical and aristocratical faith more unequivocal and explicit, all the words of our language, nay, all the ideas of the human mind, would be vainly applied.

A FEDERALIST.

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No. II. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Respectable Fellow Citizens,

THE philosophical talents of Mr. Jefferson are denied by Phocion, and yet they are represented by him as disqualifications for the office of President. Nothing can more clearly evince the perversion of Phocion's judgment, which his overweening prejudices have produced, than that a man of his manifest sense and knowledge should have given expression to such an opinion.

Permit me, gentlemen, to offer a few questions to your consideration.

Were the ordinary or assigned duties of the department of state ever procrastinated by philosophical avocations on the part of Mr. Jefferson? Was he not constantly attentive to his duties, as a commissioner for patenting discoveries, improvements, and learning? Did his philosophical talents disqualify him for those duties? Did the board of trustees of the sinking fund ever sit without his presence, when he was at the seat of government? Were the duties of the scientific Governor Bowdoin less punctually and firmly performed, in the insurrectional season of 1786, because he, like Jefferson, was a philosopher? Did the services of Franklin, as the agent of Massachusetts in England, or in France, as the American commissioner, sustain any diminution of their effect from philosophical abstractions? When both parties on his return to the distracted state of Pennsylvania, [Page]importuned the philosopher Franklin to accept the executive government, had they not been long taught by his exemplary punctuality, how a love of science and political duties may be united? Were Bolingbroke, Addison, Cicero, or Maecenas, less able politicians, because they cultivated learning or cherished learned men? Did Mr. Jefferson less ably perform the duties of an American minister in France, because he has rescued our unknown country from the misrepresentations of Buffon? Would a president of the United States relax with less propriety from his public labors, in a philosophical library, than in a theatre, or a ball room? Apologizing for the trouble, which has been given in obviating this preposterous objection to Mr. Jefferson, we may conclude with reminding the electors, that Frederick the second, the saviour of the protestant cause, the illustrious atchiever of military and civil prodigies, having for the last time reviewed the army, which guarded his capital, spent the remainder of the day in conversing with the foreign ministers resident at his court, upon the philosophical experiments of Spalanzani. The observations of Frederick, says the elegant Gillies, marked his philosophical turn of mind.

It was in vain, that Phocion attempted to excite against Mr. Jefferson the displeasure of the friends of the blacks in the city of Philadelphia, because he guardedly "advances a suspicion,"* that the negroes are inferior, either naturally or factitiously, in several particulars to the white race. It was known in Pennsylvania, that Mr. Jefferson had proposed for consideration an un-adopted article in the declaration of independence, censuring the kings of Great Britain for annulling the American laws to prohibit [Page]the slave trade. It was known too, that he had introduced a bill into the legislature of Virginia, at their first session after the declaration of independence, and that he had finally carried the most ancient law of these states abolishing that trade, though not to emancipate the slaves here. It is plain to every man who has preserved a calm judgment on the subject, that Mr. Jefferson's sentiments in favour of the unborn posterity of the blacks [for that is all he mentions] though never acted upon, from proper reasons, are evidences of his regard for them and for the general liberty of mankind, so much the stronger as he may think the blacks inferior to the whites. If he conceives this ill-fated description of men inferior to ourselves in the present powers of their minds, it is surely humane, it is surely magnanimous to have thought of proposing for their posterity, the elevating condition of political liberty, at a future day.

Phocion next endeavours to alarm the southern states upon the subject of their slaves. Mr. Jefferson's sentiments, so far as they were against the capacities of the blacks, had been just played upon, in order to deprive him of votes in Philadelphia and its vicinity. And, strange as it may appear in the same writer, Mr. Jefferson's dormant sentiments of kindness to the posterity of the blacks, were employed to injure him with the southern planters. It was forgotten by Phocion, that the state of Virginia began, in the earliest stages of the revolution, the abolition of the slave business, and that South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware, have all since followed her. Pennsylvania, and all north of her have also followed. How then could Phocion expect to render Mr. Jefferson obnoxious by a dormant proposition, draughted by a committee near twenty years ago, which has since been countenanced by all the state legislatures, but that of Georgia. To [Page]speak in the mildest terms, such unguarded conversions of the same argument, prove the writer to be under the influence of passions so bewildering, that the electors cannot safely confide in any of his representations.

Jefferson and Buffon are divided about the blacks. The latter rather believes them equal to the whites. —Jefferson doubts, but he qualifies all his observations like a circumspect philosopher, and a philanthropist. His words are (page 239, London edition) ‘I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify a general conclusion, requires many observations, even where the subject may be submitted to the anatomical knife, to optical glasses, to analysis by fire, or by solvents. How much more then where it is a faculty, not a substance, we are examining; where it eludes the research of all the senses; where the conditions of its existence are various, and variously combined; where the effects of those which are present or absent bid defiance to calculation; let me add too, as a circumstance of great tenderness, where our conclusion would degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may, perhaps, have given them?’ I challenge Phocion to adduce a superior example of philosophy, philanthropy, and religion.

When we consider the ameliorated state of man in the close of this eighteenth century—when we bear in mind the improvements in agriculture, in manufactures, in commercial operations, in navigation, in coinage and finance, in the ordering and appointment of the public force, in the fine and useful [Page]arts, in didactic institutions, in science, and in the sublime theories of social and religious duties, which distinguish the present generation, we necessarily conceive exalted ideas of the progression and capacities of the human species. But when we remember how generally the inventions and acquisitions enumerated, are diffused among the white nations, and how small a portion of them have been invented or acquired by the colored nations, from the common starting time of universal barbarism to this day of transcendent illumination, we may, without crime, entertain "the suspicion" of Mr. Jefferson, that the blacks are at present in a state of actual inferiority, whether natural or factitious.

Phocion has roundly asserted (page 5, lines 7, 8, and 9) that Mr. Jefferson ‘had once formed the extravagant project of emancipating all the slaves in Virginia.’ Such are Phocion's words. That idea, however, is not to be found in Mr. Jefferson's book, to which Phocion refers as his authority! The whole body of the slaves in Virginia, young as well middle-aged and old, were left, by the draught of the proposition, as the laws had placed them, in the hands of the owners, and the unimpaired property of those owners. It was only the future offspring, the posterity of the existing slaves, which this unreported draught of a proposition of the legislative committee, in the smallest degree, contemplated or included. Not one single person, who would be a slave, at the future date of the intended act was to be emancipated. Such children alone as should be born after the passing of a proposed law, were to take their chance of the proposition, if it should be offered to the legislature. But the proposition was never offered, for serious reasons. The committee kept it from the legislature. It was only historically related in Mr. Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia." The electors will consider, [Page]with a judiciary prudence and solemnity, the confidence they are to repose in the future testimony of the self-deceived Phocion. For our part, we impute not to him malignity or voluntary misrepresentation. We only affirm him to be completely blinded by aggravated prejudices.

In certain passages of Phocion's 5th, 6th, and 7th pages, and particularly in the last paragraph of his sixth page, he charges Mr. Jefferson with the design of having the slaves "transported"— "shipt off to some other country"—"shipt off, like a herd of black cattle, God knows where"—and even with the design of having them ‘suddenly seized, bound, packed on board vessels, and against their consent, exported to some less friendly regions, where they would be all murdered or reduced to a more wretched state of slavery.’ Let a faithful extract from Mr. Jefferson's book give you those unreported ideas of the committee, of which the transported Phocion has twice printed the above shocking misrepresentation. It should be premised, that the legislature had appointed Mr. Jefferson on a committee to revise the laws of Virginia, with a settled view, among other things, to such amendments as "republicanism" and consistency required. They were conscious that a new and solemn declaration of the equal birth-rights of men, was contained in the act of independence —the justificatory manifesto of the United States. This too they considered as the cause, at the awful issue of arms, between America and Great-Britain. They viewed it, no doubt, as the end for which the sword had been unsheathed, and as the cardinal maxim of that republicanism, to which they were appointed to conform the Virginia laws. Under these circumstances they sketched, not what the distempered imagination of Phocion has pictured to himself, but a clause for the proposed bill, which, if adopted, would go, as Mr. Jefferson states it, ‘to emancipate all slaves [Page]born after passing the act. The bill reported by the revisors (says Mr. Jefferson's Notes) does not itself contain this proposition; but an amendment containing it was prepared, to be offered to the legislature whenever the bill should be taken up, and further directing, that they should continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expense, to tillage, arts, or sciences, according to their geniuses, till the females should be 18, and the males should be 21 years of age, when they should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of household and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and independent people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired strength, and to send vessels at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements were to be proposed.’ In this statement by Mr. Jefferson, we find no expression or idea like "transportation," an odious term borrowed by Phocion (it is hoped without design) from the penal regulations of another country. Nor do we find any appearance of a design to "ship off" the postnati children of the colored people to less friendly regions. But, respectable electors, what shall be thought concerning the motives of Phocion, in charging Mr. Jefferson with the design of ‘suddenly seizing—binding—packing on board vessels —and against their wills, exporting the freed blacks to some less friendly regions, where they would be all reduced to a worse slavery or murdered?’ It is not our duty for ever to defend the well-informed Phocion from the emotions of disesteem, which his misrepresentations must excite in the serious minds [Page]of persons, so select, as are the presidential electors. After they shall have in vain searched the book of Mr. Jefferson for ‘transportation, exportation to less friendly regions, seizing, binding and packing on board vessels,’ and after they shall have looked in vain for a renewed and more bitter slavery or a general murder, in the probable issues of the contemplated plan of the committee, they would consider all apologies as charity misapplied, or moderation affected.

We have already noticed the obligations, resulting from slavery in America and Virginia, under which the legislature of Virginia, Mr. Jefferson and his colleagues, all seemed to stand. That state probably contained at the time 200,000 slaves. These could be as well accommodated upon two millions of acres of land, as the white people of many farming counties of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and New England now are. The state of Virginia, even after the cession of the north-western territory, contained near seventy-eight millions of acres, besides their remote lands, then unceded, beyond the Ohio. To some of that remote, but fertile district, far beyond that western river, in the same latitude, with a more equable climate, the posterity of the slaves might have been "colonized," for that is the expression of Mr. Jefferson. It is manifest that no transmarine place, requiring them to be "packed in vessels" and "shipt off," could have been necessary or intended, because Virginia had immense tracts of distant and fertile lands on which they could have been "protected." She had no transmarine territory; nor could a state, without a navy, protect them in a transmarine situation. A similar plan, on a small scale, was formerly meditated in Pennsylvania, and it has many features of that plan, which THE PRESIDENT is now endeavouring to introduce among the Indian tribes. With a humane policy, [Page]he incessantly aims to promote among the American savages the pursuit of agriculture and the civilizing arts of peace. While WASHINGTON and JEFFERSON, cast by the acts of their progenitors and by the legislators of their infant days, into the situation of slave-holders, are ameliorating the condition of the colored races of men, let Phocion, unable to conceive the sublime philosophy by which they are both actuated, take full possession of the turnabout chair, and dwell upon "the impaling of a" fluttering "butterfly."

A FEDERALIST.

No. III. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Respectable Fellow Citizens,

AN unreserved declaration of Mr. Adams in favor of monarchy and nobility, was submitted to you in the close of my first paper. That declaration is predicated upon the Lacedemonian government —an ancient example. Permit me now to submit to you one equally unequivocal, of recent date. In his fifty-fourth letter, page 371, vol. I. London edition, Mr. Adams writes the following words:

‘The improvements to be made in the English constitution, lie entirely in the house of commons. If county-members were abolished, and representatives proportionally and frequently chosen in [Page]small districts, and if no candidate could be chosen, but an established, long-settled inhabitant of that district, it would be impossible to corrupt the people of England, and the house of commons might be an immortal guardian of the national liberty. Instead of projects to abolish kings and lords, if the house of commons had been attended to, wild wars would not have been engaged in, nor countless millions thrown away, nor would there have remained an imperfection, perhaps, in the English constitution!’

These are among Mr. Adams's general concluding observations, at the end of a volume which, though since called "the first," appears to have been then completed, as a distinct and entire work. He is not treating of England, but writing what he calls his "Conclusion" of the work. After having reviewed all the governments of ancient and modern times, (and England among them two hundred pages back) he again calls up and holds fast to that particular form, which he thinks perfect in the two hereditary branches, and best upon the whole. It is not a transitory sally in the career of composition. No. —It is a part of a concluding summing up, and definitive judgment upon all he had read, all he had written, all he had thought. He decidedly conveys the idea, by the fairest and most direct inference, that it is no fault in the English constitution to have an hereditary king—no fault to have an hereditary nobility —that all which it is possible to do to improve the English constitution, "lies entirely in the house of commons." He discountenances all desires and endeavours to abolish the kingly and noble powers, and clearly conveys it as his decided opinion, that if the house of commons could only be made a house of representatives, the king and the lords would be, not even "imperfections."

[Page] But as these unequivocal opinions, predicated upon the cases of an ancient and an existing hereditary monarchy and nobility, are capable of additions of a similar nature, let us ask of you, as just and patient judges, a little more attention to this important witness in the pending cause.

After speaking of the course of events, which preceded the establishment of the universal military despotism, which prevailed on the continent of Europe in 1786, in the twenty-third page of the preface to the first volume of the London edition, Mr. Adams warns all those nations not to adopt representative government in more than one branch, even tho' they should proceed by slow and gentle degrees, and after diffusing education and informing the public mind.

He observes to the Europeans, that ‘kings, nobles, and people, claimed the government in turn: and after all the turbulence, wars, and revolutions which composed the history of Europe for so many ages, we find simple monarchies (i. e. by kings alone) established every where. Whether the system will now become stationary, and last for ever, by means of a few further improvements in monarchical governments, we know not; or whether still further revolutions are to come. The most probable or rather the only probable change is, the introduction of democratical branches into those governments. If the people should ever aim at more," continues Mr. Adams "they will defeat themselves; and indeed if they aim at this, by any other than gentle means, and by gradual advances, by improvements in general education, and informing the public mind.’ Here Mr. Adams declares to the world, that if the people of Germany, France, Holland, Flanders, &c. should ever make a trial of such a president and senate as ours, or any substitute whatever, for their emperors, kings, stadtholders, and nobles, they will adopt a kind of government which [Page]cannot last—they will lose their labor—"they will defeat themselves"—They must combine, as he conceives, hereditary power with the representative principle. On this occasion it is important to remark (and the remark appears indeed very important) that this worthy citizen frequently falls into, and inculcates, the dangerous mistake, that an accurate and effectual separation of the distinct powers of government, involves the indispensable necessity of three "orders" among the members of the society. The Americans generally asserted and practised these three divisions of governmental powers, long before the commencement of Mr. Adams's work; and to this day there are no "orders" among the American people. Mr. Adams must believe, as a consistent politician, that in adopting an elective president and senate, we also are "to defeat ourselves," and in his opinion, yet to return to kings and nobles; or he must consider us as, in nature, different from the rest of men.—After thus emphatically giving the world his opinions in favor of the excellency and perfection of an ancient and a modern government, which are both hereditary in two branches, and after holding out to all the nations of Europe—the whole civilised world, that no state of individual education, or public illumination, could enable them to adopt and continue an elective chief magistrate or an elective senate, Mr. Adams proceeds, as far as any American could venture, in raising disconfidence, and in suggesting arguments, even against our own constitutions, of which his title-page promised "a defence." He quotes, as the text of his counter-arguments, this assertion of Marchamont Nedham, an European republican writer. Nedham, calmly according with the true spirit and nature of the constitution of the United States, had written above a century ago, ‘that it is but reason, that the people should see, that none be interested in the supreme [Page]authority, but persons of their own election, and such as must in a short time, return again into the same condition with themselves.’ Now, Mr. Adams, in what he calls defending the constitution of Massachusetts, and our other state constitutions, and with the present federal constitution before him (for this addition to his first and second books was published in 1788, and contains a copy of the existing constitution of the United States) I say, Mr. Adams, with these things before him, thus counter argues the truly federal and orthodox passage of Nedham, which has been just quoted. "The Americans," says Mr. Adams, "have agreed with this writer in the sentiment:" and he then quotes the above words of Nedham, as I have just transcribed them from his defence. But Mr. Adams then proceeds to say, "This hazardous experiment" (of interesting none in the supreme power, but of their own election) ‘they, the Americans, have tried; and if elections are soberly made, it may answer very well; but if parties, factions, drunkenness, bribes, armies, and delirium come in, as they always have done, sooner or later, to embroil and decide every thing, the people must again have recourse to conventions, and find a remedy. Neither philosophy nor policy has yet discovered any other cure, than by prolonging the duration of the first magistrate and senators. The evil may be lessened and postponed, by elections for longer periods of years, till they become for life; and if this is not found an adequate remedy, there will remain no other but to make them hereditary. The delicacy or the dread of unpopularity, that should induce any man to conceal this important truth from the full view and contemplation of the people, would be a weakness, if not a vice.’ This passage, together [Page]with the issue of our experiment which Mr. Adams inculcates by the force of all past examples, throws a perfect light upon his meaning, when he says that the people of the European governments "will defeat themselves" if they aim at more than one branch in the three divisions of power. For the evils of a chief magistrate and senate, that are elective, that is, which are not hereditary, Mr. Adams says, neither philosophy nor policy has yet discovered any other cure, than by prolonging the duration of the first magistrate and senators. It may prove that his cure is the greater evil. He omits all notice of the excellent federal plan of selecting electors from the mass of the nation by the legislatures, or by the people. He has conceded nothing to our rejecting all hot and ambitious young men, of however powerful connections, till thirty, from the senate; and till thirty-five from the presidency.* "The evils," says he, ‘may be lessened or postponed by elections for longer terms, or for life, and if this is not found an adequate remedy, there will remain no other, but to make them hereditary.’ But surely there does remain the above excellent mode in our federal constitution. It is very important to repeat that Mr. Adams published this volume in the year 1788, after he was possessed of the excellent federal constitution, under which we now live. It appears plainly that he did not treat our admirable mode of chasing electors of the chief magistrate, or that of electing federal senators by the state legislatures, as in any wise [Page]materially better than an election directly by the people, or as measures, which would do more than to "diminish" or ‘postpone the evils of a temporary president and senate.’ Conceding nothing to these invaluable ideas in the federal constitution, he passes over them to the object of his expectation and of his approbation, hereditary chief magistrates and senators. Seriously and perfectly conscious, that he was leading his countrymen on to the goal of hereditary power, Mr. Adams concludes with observing, ‘that the delicacy or dread of unpopularity, that should induce any man to conceal this important truth from the full view and contemplation of the people, would be a weakness, if not a vice.’ What Mr. Adams wishes to be the issue of our "hazardous experiment" of elective government, cannot be doubted, when we remember his unqualified and conclusive sentences in speaking of the Lacedemonian hereditary government, and of the British hereditary government, and of all the new governments, which may be produced by reform in Europe. As no man will impute to Mr. Adams a want of candor, it cannot be doubted, that he would declare himself not desirous to continue our present representative government. In the same vein of sapping our confidence in elective government and of inculcating the expectation and the inevitable coming of hereditary government, Mr. Adams has spoken in the two hundred and eighty-second page of the third London volume. The same Nedham had observed, that ‘the life of liberty and the only remedy against self-interest, lies in the succession of powers and persons.’ Although this remark of Nedham perfectly accords with the provisions of the federal constitution, which is printed in the volume, and with all our defended American constitutions, and though neither Nedham nor our federal constitution [Page]mentioned any such short terms for our public officers or senators, yet Mr. Adams opens his replication with suggestions concerning mere "annual elections," and then proceeds, from this least approved term of executive and senatorial election, to doubts and arguments of example, and to various alarms and suggestions against elective and in favor of hereditary governors and senators. Let his own words be taken.

‘If the life of liberty, and the only remedy against self-interest, lies in the succession of powers and persons,’ says Mr. Adams, thus repeating Nedham's words, ‘the United States of America have taken the most effectual measures to secure that life and that remedy, in establishing annual elections of their governors, senators, and representatives. This," he continues, "will probably be allowed to be as perfect an establishment of a succession of powers and persons, as human laws can make; but in what manner annual elections of governors and senators will operate, remains to be ascertained. It should always be remembered, that this is not the first experiment that was ever made in the world, of elections to great offices of state: how they have hitherto operated, in every great nation, and what has been their end, is very well known." "Mankind," says Mr. Adams, have universally discovered that chance was prefer-able to a corrupt choice, and have trusted Providence rather than themselves. First magistrates and senators had better be made hereditary at once, than that the people should be universally debauched and bribed, go to loggerheads, and fly to arms regularly every year. Thank heaven! Americans understand calling conventions; and if the time should come, as it is VERY possible it may, when hereditary descent shall become a less evil than annual fraud and violence, such a convention may [Page]still prevent the first magistrate from becoming absolute, as well as hereditary.’

It is very true, respectable electors▪ that this is not the first experiment ever made in the world, of elections to great offices of state, but it is likewise true, that ours are the first, that ever were made in genuine republican governments of equal birth-rights and of equal representation. It is also true, that the secretion, if we may so speak, of electors of the executive, from the mass of the nation, by the operation of legislative or popular choice, and the meeting of all the presidential electors on the same day in sixteen several places and boards, which cannot, by reason of this separation, be controled by a mob or an army, or inflame one another, have never before been tried. The excluding from the presidency, men who are too young to have manifested their characters, the obligation on the electors to select one person out of two, from another grand division of the empire, the excellent provisions for vacancies and vitiated elections through the vice-president, the president of the senate, and the speaker of the house of representatives; the strong interest, the duty, and the power of each of the state governments to protect their respective boards of electors from violence and interruption, are new guards and sureties.

Similar observations may be made in regard to our peculiar mode of electing senators. The rocks on which other nations had split, were fully in the view of the federal convention. It was a body wise, learned, experienced, inventive, patriotic, republican; august, no less in the qualities of its component members, than in its proper objects and its glorious issue. Hence these ten-fold guards of the tranquillity, the freedom, and the purity of our presidential elections.

[Page] Let me not be suspected of disrespect in observing, that Mr. Adams could do no good, by holding up in 1788, when the Massachusetts insurrection was just quelled, any eligibility in "chance" governors, as he unwarily, though correctly, calls hereditary magistrates. The argument, in regard to "mankind trusting Providence rather than themselves," appears to be a kind of religious sophism—a suggestion, which might rather have been expected from a person of a superstitious imbecility, than from one of a firm and illuminated piety. It is a very bad argument, however, because it proves too much. For, if we are bound by religious duty to trust Providence rather than ourselves (reviving the divine rights of civil rulers) in regard to presidents and senators, we must beware of taking our public concerns out of the hands of Providence, by electing representatives.

But it is very far indeed from true, that mankind have universally become subject to these "chance" rulers in consequence of their own discoveries and preferences of the superior eligibility of the present royal and aristocratical families, as Mr. Adams, in substance, alleges. Is it not rather true, that those imputed vices of popular government, "violence, corruption, and fraud," not annual, but diurnal, have been more frequently the means by which most of the present hereditary families of Europe have acquired all, or much, of their power. When the Prussian, Austrian, and Russian bayonets gave an hereditary sovereign to the unhappy Poles, a quantum of "corruption, fraud, and violence" was expended, which far exceeded the aggregate irregularities of all our popular elections, during the whole of our existence as independent states. Nay, to give an important and solemn truth its due weight, there must be a greater degree of ‘corruption, fraud, and violence’ to maintain, even under [Page]that most stupendous fabric, the British constitution, a government by about ten thousand hereditary and electing individuals,* over above two millions of adult free men, than has occurred in America from its earliest settlement.

A FEDERALIST.

No. IV. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Respectable Fellow Citizens,

MERE verbal disputes have been often the causes of the greatest confusion, danger, and injury. Verbal sophisms have frequently dishonored and injured the most interesting topics of business, politics, and science, and are peculiarly dangerous on constitutional subjects. It is therefore of no small importance to take some notice of the manner in which the term "republic," is used, throughout ‘The Defence of the American Constitutions.’ Whatever may be the sense in which a few book-politicians have occasionally used the word, in mere discussions upon paper, the public style of Great-Britain, for example, has always been to call itself a kingdom. A British [Page]minister, who should have presented to the king a draught of a proclamation, or other official act, terming that government "a republic," or, "a commonwealth," would certainly be exposed to very serious consequences. A member of their legislature, who should move an address to the king, or a bill for consideration, styling Great-Britain "a commonwealth," or "a republic," would be very fortunate, particularly in these times, if he escaped with being called and compelled to order. Some writers, who have used the word "republic," since the restoration of the second Charles, have been treated with the most acrimonious criticism; and the house of commons, even on the opposition side, has been the public theatre of sarcasms and denunciations against "republics." The members of the minority itself, have repelled the charge of "republicanism," as a damning imputation. It is the appropriate name for the most extreme hostility to the British constitution.

Mr. Adams perfectly well knows the sense in which the practical and theoretical politicians of America, and, at least, the practical politicians of England, understand and use the words republican and republic. They all consider "a republic" and "a monarchy" as diametrically opposite. In England a published book, approving of, and persuading to, a republican form of government, would be considered not only as highly offensive, but seriously punishable.

When our learned and enlightened convention framed our federal constitution, they certainly considered an hereditary limited monarchy, as no republic. They meant representative and elective government, and not hereditary government. In this intention truly, and in no other, the people adopted the constitution. An opposite assertion would have been fatal to the instrument itself.

[Page] It is sincerely and faithfully in the representative and elective sense, that the federal constitution promises, that it will guarantee to every state in the American union, a republican form of government. As no such act of guarantee has been yet considered or accomplished, it is of consequence to observe, that in the 15th page of the American edition, and in the 22d of the London edition, in the preface to volume I. Mr. Adams expressly affirms that ‘a limited monarchy, especially when limited by two independent branches, an aristocratical and a democratical power in the constitution, may, with strict propriety, be called by that name," viz. a republic.’ Hence it will clearly follow, that if an attempt should be made, in future, to convert the several states into hereditary governments, with kings and nobles, Mr. Adams would deem such a measure "strictly, properly, and in truth" within the meaning of the terms of the constitution. In the 34th letter, he exemplifies this general assertion, too plainly to be misunderstood, by an existing favorite example, for he affirms that ‘the constitution of England is, in truth, a republic, and has ever been so considered by foreigners, and by the most learned and enlightened Englishmen, although the word commonwealth has become unpopular and odious, since the unsuccessful and injudicious attempts to abolish monarchy and aristocracy between the years 1640 and 1660.’ (See page 208, London edition.)

Considering how ingenious, bold, and tenacious the possessors of power often are, we cannot but see in those two kindred and connected assertions of Mr. Adams, an ample foundation for a serious, dangerous, and fatal verbal sophism, by which the high and strong barrier against hereditary power, contained in that part of the constitution, may be got over, without the trouble of breaking it down.

[Page] This thirty-fourth letter merits very particular attention. Mr. Adams begins by saying, he had promised to state the ideas of Sir Thomas Smith, concerning the mutability of governments. Sir Thomas had published, in the remote reign of queen Elizabeth, a book, entitled, " The Commonwealth of England." But after a few lines, which have not the least relation to the promised statement of the mutability of governments, Mr. Adams dismisses Smith's work, with these words; ‘But as there is nothing remarkable, either in favor of our system, or against it, I should not have quoted the book in this place, but for the sake of its title.’ And Mr. Adams then goes on to say, ‘the constitution of England is in truth a republic!’ Here we see Mr. Adams purposely introduces an author's mere title page, though he mentions that his book has nothing in it of any consequence to his "defence" (on purpose, it must be again said) to have an opportunity of giving a good name, the name of republic, to his favorite government. Surely Mr. Adams cannot expect the world to believe, that the British constitution is either like ours, because it was called "a commonwealth," in the title page of an antique book, written two hundred and twenty years before; or, that it is in any degree the better, in substance, because that name was then given to it; or, that we ought to consider as less, the immense difference between our representative governments, and that real and indisputable compound of aristocracy in two-thirds, and of monarchy in one-third, unmixed with even a virtual representation of the people.

This statement of the British government is forced upon us by every volume, by the whole scope and spirit of Mr. Adams's work. It was wished to avoid the remarks here made, and those in the close of our last paper, but it is impossible to do justice [Page]to this deeply interesting discussion, without treating explicitly of that government, which is erroneously held up as the great exemplar for America and mankind, as ‘the most stupendous fabric of human invention’—as the political magnum bonum, matured by time upon the tree of knowledge.

What then are truly the political functionaries under the British constitution. They are,

I. A king holding, hereditarily, the monarchical third of the compound, we have mentioned.

II. A house of lords holding, hereditarily, one of those thirds of the compound, which we have called aristocratical.

III. A house of commons, as it is constitutionally denominated, which is completely independent of the people in a clear and efficient majority, and is truly an aristocracy of gentry, and of the clients of the lords, holding its powers on the foundation of landed estates, which descend as hereditarily to a single person, as the estates of the lords, or as the crown itself. There are some occasional exceptions, when great and wealthy purchasers, still clearly of the aristocratical quality, buy with coin the fee-simple of a decayed borough, together with the appurtenant seat in the house of commons, or purchase, at the election market-fairs, the votes which are for sale. To such a number do this kind of members amount, that the largest house of commons, which had ever assembled before the American war, was returned from places, the majorities of whose whole number of electors were no more than five thousand seven hundred and twenty-three, in a kingdom with about eleven millions and an half of inhabitants. If the whole of the voters in those places (both the majority and minority) were eleven thousand five hundred persons, they would only be about the two-hundredth part of the adult males! For a nation [Page]of eleven and an half millions of persons, contains about two millions three hundred thousand males of lawful age.

After this review, which is believed to be neither materially incorrect nor uncandid, we may safely affirm, that the house of commons is a true and absolute aristocracy, principally of hereditary wealth, and partly of pecuniary riches. Besides, the aristocratic influence of many rich and powerful families, commands the seats for some entire counties, and divides others.

It results, unanswerably, as we humbly conceive, that the British house of commons are not the representatives of the people; that its powers are wielded by persons who have no elective relation to 199-200th parts of the freemen of Britain, but an interest as aristocratical and as opposite, as that of the lords.

Is then ‘the constitution of England truly a republic?’ Is it preferable to ours? Is that constitution, which is hereditary in two branches, and a fluctuating aristocracy in the third, like ours, which is representative and elective throughout? If it has preserved liberty better than the despotisms of the European continent, are we prepared to abandon for it our federal constitution?

It is to us the most astonishing of all facts, that because the British and Americans have made three divisions of power, we should be considered as having governments of three orders, like the king, the noble, and unnobled aristocracies, which have wrested from the unrepresented people, the whole government of Britain. As well might we represent a pedestal, resting upon THREE iron columns, as similar to one supported by THREE non-electric pillars. The whole congeniality depends on the magical influence of the monosyllable THREE. In reason, they are opposites.

[Page] But the sequel of the same thirty-fourth letter of Mr. Adams, remains to be reviewed, and well deserves the serious consideration of the electors.

A FEDERALIST.

No. V. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Respectable Fellow Citizens,

THE sequel of the thirty-fourth letter of Mr. Adams, remains to be considered. We have seen that in commenting upon certain republican sentiments of Marchamont Nedham, Mr. Adams did by no means seize the occasion to panegyrize representative or elective government. He says it may answer very well, but that it is a hazardous experiment, that such experiments have been made before, and are known always to have ended in one way, that is, in monarchy, for that mankind have "universally" preferred "chance," or hereditary rulers, to such as they have procured by their past elective experiments. Thus, in truth, does Mr. Adams throw clouds over our prospects under elective governments, when discoursing upon the opinions of republican theorists. Thus does he abandon the defence of the cardinal principle of our constitutions, and thus, under the cover of a defence of three divisions of power, does he run into the paths that lead [Page]to the opposite principle of hereditary dominion. This is no tortured misrepresentation of the passages referred to. We should despise ourselves for such treatment of respectable men, or of important subjects.

But how differently does Mr. Adams conduct his discourses, when he is observing upon writers who are not, in the American sense, republican authors. He states the ideas of Polybius and Plato, who both contemplated hereditary power, as parts of their systems. He gives the precise conceptions of Polybius, in the following decisive words:— ‘It is customary to establish three sorts of governments: kingly government, aristocracy, and democracy: upon which one may very properly ask them, whether they lay these down as the only forms of government, or, as the best; for in both cases they seem to be in an error, since it is manifest, that the best form of government is that which is compounded of all three. This is founded, not only in reason, but in experience, Lycurgus having set the example of this form of government, in the institution of the Lacedemonian commonwealth.’ The electors will remember that this Lacedemonian commonwealth was the very same mixed monarchy noticed in the close of our first paper.

After having thus briefly and precisely stated the political creed of Polybius, and after giving that of the diffusive Plato in a more diffusive manner, Mr. Adams says, in his thirty-fourth letter, ‘let us proceed then to make a few observations upon the discourses of Plato and Polybius.’ "Plato," says Mr. Adams (page 209, Philadelphia and London editions) ‘has sufficiently asserted the honor of the laws, and the necessity of proper guardians of them; but has no where delineated the various orders of guardians, and the necessity of a [Page]balance between them: he has, nevertheless, given us premises, from whence the absolute necessity of such orders and equipoises may be inferred; he has shewn how naturally every simple species of government degenerates.* The aristocracy, or ambitious republic, becomes immediately an oligarchy—what shall be done to prevent it? Place two guardians of the law to watch the aristocracy; one, in the shape of a king [not a chief magistrate like our president] on one side of it; another, in the shape of a democratical assembly, on the other side. The aristocracy, become an oligarchy, changes into a democracy—how shall it be prevented? By giving the natural aristocracy, in society, its rational and just weight, and by giving it a regal power to appeal to, against the madness of the people. Democracy becomes a tyranny—how shall this be prevented? By giving it an able independent ally in an aristocratical assembly, with whom it may unite against the unjust and illegal designs of any one man.’

Here we see that Mr. Adams, having got a royal theme to discourse upon, does not run into doubts and prophecies about hereditary governments, as he had before done in regard to our elective governments. These royal governments must then appear to him free from all cause of doubt. He does not throw out the smallest caution or alarm against them. But indeed he takes pains to shew, that the regal and aristocratical powers are proper and necessary checks upon what he calls the madness of the people.

Let us ask ourselves, however, where and when such a government has been exhibited. Where [Page]and when were a king and nobles, each having a negative on the laws, combined with a real representation of the people? No where, we affirm, but in books. How then can it be thus decidedly asserted, from unexecuted theories, that the three would work so well together, as our excellent government has done? For a new government, organized in a storm, in a country half wilderness, placed over a various people, in a time of unexampled and extreme difficulties, amidst a belligerent and infuriated world, having to struggle with the arrearages of many years, embarrassed by disputes with two neighbouring powers, and by Indian wars, to carry us through, with safety and prosperity, is more than any mixed monarchy ever accomplished.

Let it be here well remembered, that ours is the first genuine representative government the world had seen in 1789. Human affairs do not appear to admit of more success and advantages under any form of government, even in the calmest times. This ought to operate as the most encouraging inducement to persevere on our present ground. We ought not to discourage or alarm the people, by committing the most dangerous and tempting situation to any who doubt or disbelieve the practicability of our system, and who may incline to realize the favorite theory of their maturest years, in themselves and their descendants.

A FEDERALIST.

[Page]

No. VI. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Respectable Fellow Citizens,

WE have taken the liberty to submit to you a series of proofs from Mr. Adams's own writings, of his disposition to hereditary power. Since the establishment of the federal government, a course of essays have appeared in our gazettes, under the title of "Discourses upon Davila," the European writer upon the ancient revolutions of France. These papers have been generally and publicly ascribed to Mr. Adams, who resided, during the time of their publication, at the seat of government, where they were addressed to the American nation.

In the fourth number of he "Discourses upon Davila," the writer treats of Mr. Adams's favorite topic, "Distinctions in civil Society." He first proposes some questions, as from an opponent to orders and distinctions, in the following words: [Discourse IV.]

"Is there any thing in birth" (says some supposed republican) ‘however illustrious or splendid, which should make a difference between one man and another? If, from a common ancestor, the whole human race is descended, they are all of the same family. How then can they distinguish families into the more or the less ancient? What advantage is there in an illustration of an hundred or [Page]thousand years? Of what avail are all the histories, pedigrees, traditions, &c.? But this advantage must be derived from his father and mother chiefly, if not wholly. Of what importance is it then, in this view, whether the family is twenty generations upon record, or only two?’ To these questions from the opponent to hereditary distinctions and orders, the writer gives, as from himself, this reply:

‘The mighty secret lies in this.—An illustrious descent attracts the notice of mankind. A single drop of royal blood, however illegitimately scattered, will make any man or woman proud or vain. Why? Because, although it excites the indignation of many, and the envy of more, it still attracts the attention of the world.’ Thus does the writer of the Discourses upon Davila view even the unlawful "scatterings" of royal loins.—How incongenial are these sentiments, with the spirit of our defended constitutions? Again—The author of these Discourses next represents the manner, in which various nations, have severally established royalty, nobility, orders, and distinctions, and then says— ‘Other nations have united all those institutions [or modes of royalizing and ennobling:] connected lands, offices, and families—made them all descend together, and honor, public attention, consideration, and congratulation along with them. This has been the policy of Europe:’ and, says our author, fully explaining himself, ‘it is to this institution which she [Europe] owes her superiority, in war and peace, in legislation and commerce, in agriculture, navigation, arts, sciences, and manufactures, to Asia and Africa.’

Respectable electors, we entreat you to read once more this bold and explicit assertion of the writer of the Discourses. To what does it amount? No less, than that the hereditary union and descent of [Page]landed estates, legislative and executive power and rank in the families of emperors, kings, and nobles, unbalanced as we have shewn by even a virtual representation of the people, have producced all the civilization existing among mankind—all the sublime ameliorations of the human character—Neither the powerful and continual influences of tonic climates, nor the divine power of the Christian religion itself, according to our author, have had any effect in giving energy or dignity to man. It amounts also to an explicit declaration, that the constitution and government of our country must have the most deteriorating influence upon the devoted Americans, unless we hasten to make our president and senate hereditary, to give large portions of landed estate and power and rank to them, and to such elder children as they may "chance" to have, ‘trusting Providence rather than ourselves,’ after the manner of the happy Germans, Russians, and Poles, over whose favored countries enlightening monarchs reign.—But, to be serious, permit us to offer for your consideration and comparison, the situation of America, as it stood on the adoption of representative government, twenty years ago, and at the present day; and suffer us then to ask your calm determination, whether the American people are inferior at this time to those of 1776, in the various arts of peace—in military knowledge and practice— in legislation, both constitutional and ordinary—in commerce and navigation—in agricultural skill and industry—in manufactures and the useful arts, and in the whole circle of the sciences?

The twelfth number of the Discourses upon Davila, contains but a dozen lines of prose. The rest is made up of poetical extracts from one whom the writer compliments, as "the Great Master of Nature," and as "a great teacher of morality and politics."

[Page] The following passage, extracted from our author's poetical selections, at once proves his own consistency, and shews that he admires the writer of the poetry for the politics he teaches:

— "Oh when degree is shak'd,

"Which is the ladder to all high designs,

"The enterprize is sick! how could communities,

"Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,

"The primogeniture and due of birth,

"Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,

"But by degree, stand in authentic place?"

Poetry does not afford an example of more ardent declamation in favor of monarchy. But the electors are aware that poetry is the region of fiction and fancy—not of truth and reason. We trust it will require more sober prose, than can be written in the eighteenth century, to persuade the people of the United States to abandon the principles of our state and federal constitutions.

By some accident the thirteenth number of the Discourses is also marked as the twelfth. In that paper our author explicitly proposes, that ‘it shall be left to the contemplation of our state physicians, to discover the causes and the remedy of that fever, whereof our power is sick. One question only [says he] shall be respectfully insinuated: whether equal laws, the result only of a balanced government, can ever be obtained and preserved without some signs or other of distinction, and degree.’ The author requires no commentator on the passage just quoted. He says immediately afterwards, ‘We are told that our friends, the National Assembly of France, have abolished all distinctions. But be not deceived, my dear country-men impossibilities cannot be performed! &c. &c. Have the French officers who served in America, [...] their eagles, and torn their ribbons?’

[Page] Our author in the fourteenth Discourse reiterates to France, who had begun her revolution, what Mr. Adams had said to Europe in general, when he advised them only to aim at one branch, deriving its power from the people, and to preserve their kings and nobles. "The national assembly of France," says he, ‘is too enlightened a body, to overlook the enquiry, What effect on the moral character of the nation would be produced, by destroying, if that were possible, all attention to families, and setting all the passions on the pursuit of gain. Whether universal venality, and an incorrigible corruption in elections, would not be the necessary consequence.’ [But even the election of the two thirds has not been deemed venal] "It may be relied on, however," says our author, ‘that the intentions of that august and magnanimous assembly, are misunderstod and misrepresented. Time will develope their designs, will shew them to be more judicious than to attempt impossibilities so obvious, as that of the abolition of all distinctions.’ Yet our own nation and government acknowledge none. George Washington has not made a worse president, because he was plainly called so, by our first legislature.

We shall give one more assertion of the author of the Discourses, which is round indeed, and fully explains the writer's meaning. He observes, ‘That there is already a scission, in the national assembly, like all others, past, present, and to come, is most certain. There is an aristocratical party, a democratical party, an armed neutrality, and, most probably, a monarchical party; besides another division, who must finally prevail, or liberty will be lost —I mean a set of members, who are equal friends to monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, and wish for an equal independent mixture of all three in their constitution.’

[Page] We shall not trouble the electors with any observations on this explicit passage, nor with further quotations or remarks upon the Discourses upon Davila. It is repeated, that it is generally believed that Mr. Adams was the writer. We fully credit the assertion, because we never heard of the slightest denial or counter suggestion, and because of the perfect coincidence between those Discourses, and his books, concerning the American constitutions.

A FEDERALIST.

No. VII. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Respectable Fellow Citizens,

IT has been remarked by some, that Mr. Adams's book was written in 1786, or 1787, and therefore that he could not mean to object to our present constitution. It is true that the preface of the first volume is dated in January 1787, but it is a fact that the third volume was published after he was possessed of the federal constitution, which is annexed to that volume; and that it contains, as we have shewn, some of the passages, which are most opposed to that instrument in principle. The Discourses upon Davila, too, are the most forcible corroborations of this opposition, and upon the strong [Page]presumption, that they are the work of Mr. Adams, they amount to an active unfriendliness to the essential and cardinal principle of all our constitutions, both of the states and of the union. They tend, at this time to invite the interposition of the foreign monarchies in our affairs, however different were certainly the views, with which they were written.

It has been also observed that Mr. Adams's book was written before his two elections, and yet that the people had confided in him as vice-president. It is, however, true, that the third volume, being published in London in 1788, could not be for sale in the American book-stores before the measures were taken for the first election. But what is much more important, and is absolutely true, the books were not read, much less studied in America; for books intended to display great historical events and relating to the principles of government, are not to be perused, like a summer's tale—an amusing fable for an August day. By the writer of these papers the second and third volumes had never been seen, except so far as their outsides in the library of some other person. And though the first volume had been actually purchased, from sentiments of respect to Mr. Adams's character and station, it is a truth, that other vocations and other books had occasioned it never to be either studied or perused. Its contents and principles were not known till within a year or two last past, when other circumstances, of the nature of the book, rendered Mr. Adams's work an object of attention to many. Phocion says he has seen much of America and its inhabitants, and that he has never heard a wish for any other form of government than a republic. The specimens he has given of re-statements, even of the written opinions and desires of others, cannot inspire the electors with confidence in his accuracy, in regard to [Page]what may have been orally delivered before him. He too, like Mr. Adams, may consider a limited monarchy as properly a republic, and he may deem a wish for a constitution like that of Great Britain, to be only a desire of having another "form" of a republic, which Mr. Adams unequivocally asserts the constitution of England in truth to be. It is our unshaken opinion, that the establishment of the bank of the United States was very much to be desired— that neither this nor any other civilized nation can avoid the use of the excise mode of revenue, sooner or later—that the funding of public debts, which cannot be paid off when due, is as much a matter of simple justice, of prudence, and of natural course, as the giving of a common bond and securing it by mortgage, for a private debt—that the check given to Mr. Genet, by the executive, was perfectly justifiable and necessary, and, in short, that many acts for which this government has been blamed, were subjects of merited approbation. But with these sentiments, it is a solemn truth, that we have felt serious anxieties at the existence and growth of the anti-constitutional doctrine of hereditary power, which we have actually perceived. We have been explicit, in regard to this subject, on account of the declaration of Phocion, that he has heard no wishes for any but republican government—We know them to exist, and we wish it were only in common minds, and in persons of little influence. It is the true cause of the present respectful address to the understandings and patriotism of the electors.

It is particulary necessary to remark, that there have been several partial and general editions of Mr. Adams's work. The first volume was published in Philadelphia, by Hall and Sellers, and the whole three volumes were printed in London. Other editions have been printed, it is believed in the Eastern states. The size of the paper, types, and paging, have [Page]differed more or less. The preface in the Philadelphia duodecimo copy, occupies seventeen pages, but in the London edition it covers twenty-six pages.— Sometimes it appears, that the preface is meant to be referred to by writers in the gazettes, when, however, they express themselves so, that the reader supposes it is the main body of the work. No volume is numbered on the back, as the first, because, when the first volume was published in Europe and in America, it is manifest that the author delivered it to the world as an entire work, without any intimation of publishing a second and third volume. The main body of the work, in this first volume, is contained in a little more than 389 pages in the Philadelphia copy, and occupies 392 pages in the London edition. These remarks upon the different editions and pagings, and upon the preface and the main work, are recommended to particular attention, because they will obviate some dissatisfaction which has been excited by the idea of designed misquotations. Two examples will be given. Time does not admit of stating more. A writer from Henrico, in Virginia, animadverts with feeling, upon some opponent of Mr. Adams, for quoting a passage, as from the 8th page of his work, and says, he has read that page, and can find no such sentence in it, as was given by the writer he is opposing. Now it is found, on examination, that the passage referred to is, substantially, in the seventh page of Hall and Sellers's Philadelphia edition, and in the ninth page of the London edition. It is not in the eighth page of either of those editions, so that the quoter must have had another copy. But further, it is in the preface, and not in the main body of the work. The passage is material, and is fairly given to the world as Mr. Adams wrote it.—That gentleman had mentioned "monarchy" in the close of the preceding paragraph, and then gave the following words, except the word monarchy, which is now put into a [Page]parenthesis, and not in Italics, for the sake of strict accuracy.—

‘The objection to these governments (monarchy) is not because they are supported by nobles and a subordination of ranks: for all governments, even the most democratical, are supported by a subordination of offices, and ranks too.’

So, again, in the 22d page of the London preface, and in the 15th of the preface of Hall and Sellers's edition, it is said, that a limited monarchy may, with strict propriety, be called a republic.

These observations and examples will be sufficient to explain this necessary point.

A FEDERALIST.

No. VIII. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Respectable Fellow Citizens,

COLLATERAL circumstances are often powerful corroboratives of direct evidence. It is therefore of consequence to state, that an accident has recently brought under view a passage in one of the papers, written with every apparent exertion against Mr. Jefferson, in 1792, just before the last election of a president, when it was uncertain whether General Washington would serve again. The writer, though an explicit and industrious opponent of Mr. Jefferson, admits that Mr. Adams entertains what he ingeniously calls ‘speculative doubts concerning the probable success of the republican theory.’ Practical politicians always aim to realize their mental speculations. That paper was the first of a series of essays, published under the signature [Page]of Catullus, in the Gazette of the United States. Who was the writer of Catullus, does not appear, but it is certain that the letters of Phocion (since published in a pamphlet, October, 1796, without that signature) contain entire passages of the essays of Catullus, without the usual inverted commas ["] or any other marks of quotation. The presumption, that Phocion and Catullus are the same person or persons, appears to be perfectly fair and irresistible. —There is no essential difference (except on a point we shall mention) between the entire contents of Catullus, and an equal quantity of the essays of Phocion. Matters, subsequent to the publications of Catullus, are found, it is true, in Phocion and in the pamphlet made up of what was first given in the gazettes, under that signature. They contradict each other only as to Mr. Adams. Catullus admits that Mr. Adams may doubt the probable success of the republican theory. Phocion and the pamphlet declaim a little about Mr. Adams's republicanism, and then quote a few passages, which only tend to render his books something less imprudent, but so far as they go, also render them absolutely and palpably inconsistent. But the essays of Phocion (and the revised pamphlet-copy of part of his essays) do not explain away any of the hereditary passages of Mr. Adams's books, nor do they answer the serious matters from those books, and from the Discourses on Davila, which have been respectfully submitted to you. Phocion, whoever he may be, is a man of pretty ready talents, and he does not want zeal, time, or industry, for he has already published twenty-four long essays. Whether he cannot satisfactorily explain Mr. Adams, and countervail the evidences of the monarchical and aristocratical principles of that gentleman, or whether he is unwilling to do so from a similarity of principles, or from some other views, are questions before the electors and the world.

A FEDERALIST.

Notes

*

Phocion, after publishing about eighteen essays under that signature, in the Gazette of the United States, has republished his papers, without the signature of Phocion, in a pamphlet, entituled "The Pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency, examined; and the Charges against John Adams refuted," &c. October, 1796. The division, by numbered essays, under the signature of Phocion, as first published, is abandoned in the pamphlet. The secret reasons for this change are unknown. No reason is given by the author, nor is there any trace of his first form of publication. The ancient Phocion, on his death bed, ordered his family to forgive his enemies. The modern Phocion seems to have discovered the extreme impolicy of his annexing that generous signature to essays written in the spirit of his papers. It cannot have been meant to cause the electors to believe that there were two extensive publications against Mr. Jefferson. It is however necessary, that the electors be apprized that the numbered essayist, Phocion, is, alias, the anonymous Pamphleteer.

↵

*

Not our division of powers, but the three variant, different, opposite essences, or essential parts, viz. monarchy, &c.

↵

*

"I advance it, therefore, as a suspicion only," are the words of Mr. Jefferson. Page 239, London edition.

↵

*

A senate of members who have been nine years in private and public business, and who have passed the "hey-day of the "blood," are a safer and more natural aristocracy than the British house of lords. The senate of the United States is superior to the British senate, considering numbers, and the means of public education in this country. Perhaps it might be said, considering numbers only.

↵

*

See the number of electors of the British house of commons, who chuse the majority, stated at less than 5,800 persons, in the next paper. The king and the lords, together, are but a few hundreds—The nation contains 11 or 12 millions of persons.

↵

*

This nobody in America now doubts, and there was established in Pennsylvania, in 1778, a society to overturn its first constitution, on account of the unity of the legislature.

↵

A CONCLUDING OBSERVATION.

[Page]

IT is very plain, that time does not admit of the present submission of any further strictures upon the mistakes or misrepresentations of Phocion, or of the pamphlet of sixty-four pages [called in the end, THE FIRST PART] in which most of Phocion's essays have been reprinted without that signature or name, and without any appearance of the original division into a numbered series of newspaper essays. If time did admit, we trust that we should be perfectly able to give unanswerable evidences of that prejudiced, not to say, deceptive manner of treating other parts of Mr. Jefferson's character and conduct, which we trust we have proved in regard to the subjects of our second number. We could also greatly reinforce the numerous evidences, positive and presumptive, by which we have supported our assertion, that Mr. Adams really cherishes expectations, hopes, and desires for hereditary power in the United States, contrary to the design and to the provisions of our federal constitution, contrary to the earnest wishes and fixed determination of the American people, and contrary to their internal peace, their true interests, and their equal birth-rights.

To elect as the representative president of the United States, a citizen of such political opinions, however meritorious in other respects, appears to us to be alarmingly fraught with numerous inconveniences, and tremendous evils. Conscientious convictions of the inevitable production of those distracting evils, the result of deliberate observation and reflexion, have been the real impulses to this publication. It is respectfully submitted to the electors and to their deeply in-interested constituents throughout the union.

END OF THE FIRST PART.

Information about this book

Title statement

The Federalist: containing some strictures upon a pamphlet, entitled, "The pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency, examined, and the charges against John Adams, refuted." : Which pamphlet was first published in the Gazette of the United States, in a series of essays, under the signature of "Phocion."

Coxe, Tench, 1755-1824.

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI :

Date

2011-05.

ID [DLPS]

N22943

ID [TCP]

N22943

ID [STC]

Evans 30293

ID [NOTIS]

APW6438

ID [IMAGE-SET]

30293

ID [EVANS-CITATION]

99012574

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This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal. The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Series

Early American Imprints, 1639-1800 ; no. 30293.

Notes

(Evans-TCP ; no. N22943)

Transcribed from: (Readex Archive of Americana ; Early American Imprints, series I ; image set 30293)

Images scanned from Readex microprint and microform: (Early American imprints. First series ; no. 30293)

Source

— The Federalist: containing some strictures upon a pamphlet, entitled, "The pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency, examined, and the charges against John Adams, refuted." : Which pamphlet was first published in the Gazette of the United States, in a series of essays, under the signature of "Phocion.", Coxe, Tench, 1755-1824..

Extent

48 p. ; 24 cm. (8vo)

Re-published from the Gazette of the United States, by Mathew Carey, no. 118, Market-Street.,. Philadelphia: :: November 1796.. (Attributed to Tench Coxe by Evans.) (Contains numbers I-VIII. At foot of p. 48: End of the first part.)

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