alliance with France, against Great Britain, under Washington's administration, the same position which she afterwards took under Madison's, and publicly advertised, while resisting the embargo, that she would take under Jefferson's, if he dared to go to war with England. Her position became less dangerous to the Union just in proportion as meeting it was postponed, while the West grew. There was no man then, who entertained a doubt of the right of a State to withdraw from the Union. At any rate, Washington would have felt, as Jefferson afterwards confessed that he felt, "the foundations of the government shaken under his feet by the action of the New England Townships." Moreover, even if we had gone through the war successfully and unitedly, we were then so hampered in our finances, that we would have emerged temporarily bankrupt, or if not that, at least after the issue and depreciation of another immense mass of paper money. The results were happy for the civilized world, too, because, if, at that early date, before England — always, like ourselves, "an unready nation" had organized her fighting strength, we had kept a part of her navy busy on this side of the Atlantic, it is possible, though not certain, that the great Napoleon might have realized his dream of world-empire. Notwithstanding all this, however, it will be seen that those, who denied the right of the Executive to issue a declaration of neutrality, forestalling the action of Congress and violating the written provisions of the French treaties, were not nearly so clearly wrong, as the respect and the reverence of the American people for the character and memory of George Washington have led them easily ance to believe. The argument that France had done all she did for us, not really out of love for us, but out of hatred of Great Britain, although an argument founded on fact, is not a valid one. We accepted her assistknowing her motive accepted her guarantees in the treaty, as the reciprocals of ours and as safeguards of our national existence and independence, when we were in our very infancy, and thought that we needed safeguards, whether we did or not. However, we were relieved from the awkwardness of our situation very much by the fact that Genet, who succeeded Ternant, when officially presented, said to Jefferson, Secretary of State: "we know, that, under present circumstances, we have a right to call upon you for the guarantee of our islands. But we do not desire it. We will wish you to do nothing but what is for your own good, and we will do all in our power to promote it. Cherish your own peace and prosperity." It was at this time, and not later when Genet had turned fool that Jefferson expressed to Madison his oft-quoted appreciation in these words: "It is impossible for anything to be more affectionate, more magnanimous, than the purport of his [Genet's] mission,' and added in another part of the letter: "In short he offers everything and asks nothing." Jefferson was all the more gratified at Genet's highflown, though short-lived, magnanimity, because he had evidently expected him to call upon us to comply at once with our treaty obligations. This is my inference, but I hazard it, because at the very beginning of Genet's queer doings in America, while he was being welcomed in Philadelphia with enthusiasm, after his equally enthusiastic welcome at Charleston, Jefferson wrote to Monroe: "I wish that we may be able to repress the people within the limits of a fair neutrality." This shows that he was that early determined on neutrality, and afraid that the hand of the administration might be forced by the popular enthusiasm for France, with which he then sympathized. Mr. Foster, in his "Century of American Diplomacy," writes with a distinct Federalistic and antiJeffersonian bias-"leads up" - as Mark Twain said he did to one of his poetical quotations to injurious things he wants to say about Jefferson. Many of them are purely personal, like his laborious lugging in of Tom Moore's false couplet, which had naught to do with a history of "Diplomacy." It will be noted that Jefferson, to whom the real credit is due for setting forth, in the ablest State paper ever written in a way so masterly that it has never been improved on-the whole doctrine of neutrality and its special advantages to us, is not given the credit by Mr. Foster. The truth is that, as far as our foreign relations under Washington are concerned, they were, for the most part, an expression of Jefferson's policies. In proof of what I say here, read the unequalled statement by Mr. Jefferson as President of the duties of a neutral: "Let it be our endeavor, as it is our interest and desire, to cultivate the friendship of the belligerent nations by every act of justice and of innocent kindness; to receive their armed vessels with hospitality, from the distresses of the sea, but to administer the means of annoyance to none; to establish in our harbors such a police as may maintain law and order; to restrain our citizens from embarking individually in a war in which their country takes no part; to punish severely those persons, citizens or aliens, who shall usurp the cover of our flag for vessels not entitled to it, infecting thereby with suspicion those of real Americans, and committing us into controversies for the redress of wrongs not our own; to exact from every nation the observance, towards our vessels and citizens, of those principles and practices which all civilized nations acknowledge; to merit the character of a just nation, and maintain that of an independent one, preferring every consequence to insult and habitual wrong.” And these further lines, where he tells how neutral conduct especially redounds to the interest of this country and its people: "Separated by a wide ocean from the nations of Europe, and from the political interests which entangle them together, with productions and wants which render our commerce and friendship useful to them, and theirs to us, it cannot be the interest of any to assail us, nor ours to disturb them. We should be most unwise, indeed, were we to cast away the singular blessings of the position in which nature has placed us, the opportunity she has endowed us with, of pursuing, at a distance from foreign contentions, the paths of industry, peace and happiness; of cultivating general friendship; and of bringing collisions of interest to the umpirage of reason rather than of force. How desirable, then, must it be, in a government like ours, to see its citizens adopt, individually, the views, the interests, and the conduct, which their country should pursue, divesting themselves of those passions and partialities which tend to lessen useful friendships, and to embarras and embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe. Confident, fellow citizens, that you will duly estimate the importance of neutral dispositions towards the observance of neutral conduct, that you will be sensible how much it is our duty to look on the bloody arena spread before us, with commiseration, indeed, but with no other wish than to see it closed, I am persuaded that you will certainly cherish those dispositions in all discussions among yourselves, and in all communications with your constituents." And yet, "history-writers," as the children call them, of the Federalistic type, represent him as having been "forced to a system of neutrality by the President." The truth is that, although the bulk of Jefferson's party were carried off their feet temporarily by sympathy with France and though her people had his heart-felt good wishes, he never permitted his gaze to be deflected from the interests of his own country. When Genet carried things entirely too far and threatened to "appeal from the President to the people," and all that, the question arose in the Cabinet, as to what should be done, and here again Jefferson kept his head. Knox wanted to send Genet out of the country "by a public order without ceremony." Hamilton, who was an astute party manager, wanted to publish the correspondence on both sides, accompanied by a statement on the part of the Government of its proceedings, in order to arouse popular feeling against France- rightly counting that the people would not, in their anger at Genet's treatment of Washington, distinguish between France and her Minister. Jefferson coolly advised that the usual course be pursued, which was that we send an account of the affair to the French Government, and demand the recall of Genet. George Washington, cool-headed himself on this occasion, and on most occasions - though not on all — sided with Jefferson. The complaint and the demand were made. They were acceded to. Genet recalled, and that tempest in a tea-pot became comparatively a calm. was In Jefferson's communication to the American Commissioners at Madrid, on June 30th, he uses this |