The Jacobin Phrenzy: The Menace of Monarchy, Plutocracy, and Anglophilia, 1789–1798

InTheFolklore of our national past the Federalist Period is often thought of as a golden age of demigods, who were almost infallible. The noisy dissent from the program of the Federalist administrations has been regarded as only a temporary deviation from the true American tradition.

The most frequently read accounts of the period — especially in college textbooks and other short works of synthesis — have generally tended to reduce the political events of that age to a chapter in the history of the “Age of Reason” and have thereby done some damage to our understanding. Casual readers of the story of this age seem to finish their reading with a mental summary in which the emphasis is on the intellect and logic — in short, on reason. An excellent example of this image as it occurs in the lore of even the learned is a recent comment on Senator J. William Fulbright by Senator Paul Douglas: “He's a child of the eighteenth century, a throwback to that age of enlightenment, trust in reason, temperate argument, and slightly aristocratic tendencies. That, I think, explains why he seems a little aloof, a little different from the rest.”

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Type: Research Article
Information: The Review of Politics , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 1959 , pp. 239 - 258

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S003467050002204X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1959

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References

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²⁹ Link, , Democratic-Republican Societies, pp. 186–200Google Scholar, gives many other instances of Federalist provocations and intimidations. The Republicans may be similarly indicted for their behavior during the fall of Genêt and the debate over the Jay Treaty.

³⁰ Hamilton to Washington, 8 Nov. 1794, Hamilton, , Works, VI, 456Google Scholar; Jefferson to Madison, 28 Dec. 1794, ed. Washington, IV, 111; Brant, , Madison, p. 417Google Scholar; Madison, to Jefferson, 21 12 1794Google Scholar, Madison, , Writings, VI, 230Google Scholar; Baldwin, Leland D., Whiskey Rebels: The Story of a Frontier Uprising (Pittsburgh, 1939), p. 262CrossRef Google Scholar (hereafter cited: Baldwin, Whiskey Rebels).

³¹ Simms, Henry H., Life of John Taylor (Richmond, 1932), pp. 49–50Google Scholar (hereafter cited: Simms, Taylor); Channing, , United States, IV, 160n.Google Scholar; Henry Lee to Madison, 8 Jan. 1792, Madison, , Writings, VI, 82n.Google Scholar, 17 Jan. 1792, ibid., VI, 85n. For the quotation on Hamilton's fiscal mystery: Jefferson to Madison, 6 March 1796, ed. Washington, IV, 131.

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³³ Jefferson, , “The Anas,” ed. Lipscomb, , I, 318–319Google Scholar.

³⁴ Ibid., I, 345; Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, 3 Feb. 1794, ed. Washington, IV, 101; Jefferson to Madison, 3 April 1794, ed. Lipscomb, IX, 282–283.

^³⁵ For one Republican's financial views see Simms, , Taylor, pp. 52–56Google Scholar; Brant, , Madison, p. 381Google Scholar; Jefferson to Monroe, 12 June 1796, ed. Lipscomb, IX, 337–338; Jefferson to Taylor, 26 Nov. 1798, ed. Washington, IV, 259–260.

³⁶ Link, , Democratic-Republican Societies, pp. 130–131Google Scholar.

³⁷ Morison, Samuel Eliot, “Elbridge Gerry, Gentleman-Democrat,” By Land and By Sea, Essays and Addresses (New York, 1954), p. 192Google Scholar; Darling, Arthur B., Our Rising Empire (New Haven, 1940), pp. 299–300Google Scholar.

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⁴⁰ Jefferson to Washington, 9 October 1792, ed. Washington, III, 463; Brant, , Madison, pp. 415–422Google Scholar; Jefferson to Burr, 17 June 1797, ed. Lipscomb, IX, 404, Jefferson to Monroe, 12 June 1796, ibid., IX, 337.

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⁴² Pickering, Timothy, A Review of the Correspondence between the Hon. John Adams … and the Late William Cunningham, Esq. (Salem, 1824), p. 38Google Scholar.

⁴³ Channing, , United States, IV, 166–167Google Scholar; For examples see: Madison to Jefferson, 13 July 1791, 2 Sept. 1793, to Monroe, 15 Sept. 1793, Madison, Writings, VI, 57n., 197; Monroe to Jefferson, 18 Nov. 1795, Monroe, Writings, II, 421; Jefferson to Madison, 27 March 1796, ed. Washington, IV, 135–136, to E. Rutledge, 30 Nov. 1795, ibid., IV, 124; Jefferson to Monroe, 5 May 1793, ibid., III, 548.

⁴⁴ Jefferson to Gilmer, 15 Dec. 1792, ibid., III, 494; Jefferson to Giles, 27 April 1795, ed. Lipscomb, IX, 305.

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⁴⁹ Madison to Jefferson, 27 August 1793, to Stuart, 1 Sept. 1793, to Jefferson, 2 Sept. 1793, Madison, , Writings, VI, 179, 189, 193Google Scholar. The last letter lists other correspondents of these seven days.

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⁵³ McMaster, John Bach, A History of the: People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War (New York, 1883–1926), II, 213n., 225n.–226n.Google Scholar; Bailey, Thomas A., A Diplomatic History of the American People, 2d ed. (New York, 1942), p. 63Google Scholar; Freneau, Philip, “Parody, On the Attempt to Force the British Treaty on the People of the United States,” Poems, ed. Pattee, Fred L. (Princeton, 1902–1907), III, 133Google Scholar (hereafter cited: Freneau, Poems); Jay, , Jay, I, 362Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Jefferson to Page, 30 Aug. 1795, to Rutledge, 30 Nov. 1795; ed. Washington, IV, 120, 124.

⁵⁵ Madison to Livingston, 10 Aug. 1795, to Monroe, 20 Dec. 1795, Madison, , Writings, VI, 235, 259–260Google Scholar; Brant, , Madison, p. 425Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Monroe to Madison, 8 Sept. 1795, 24 Oct. 1795, Monroe, , Writings, II, 354, 403–404Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Brant, , Madison, pp. 452–453Google Scholar; Madison to Jefferson, 29 Jan. 1797, Madison, , Writings, VI, 307Google Scholar; Monroe to Jefferson, 12 Feb. 1798, Monroe, , Writings, III, 101Google Scholar.

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⁵⁹ Brant, , Madison, p. 455Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Madison to Jefferson, 10 June 1798, Madison, , Writings, VI, 323–325Google Scholar.

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⁶⁸ “Camillus,” No. 22 (1795)Google Scholar, Hamilton, , Works, V, 467–468Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Howard, , Wits, pp. 319–321Google Scholar; Parton, James, The Life and Times of Aaron Burr (New York, 1858), pp. 222–223Google Scholar; Link, , Democratic-Republican Societies, p. 99Google Scholar; Maclay, , Journal,[5 06 1789] p. 68Google Scholar; Jefferson to Washington, 8 May 1791, ed. Washington, III, 258.

⁷⁰ Monaghan, Frank, John Jay, Defender of Liberty (New York, 1935), pp. 309–310Google Scholar.

⁷¹ King, , Life and Correspondence, II, 37Google Scholar (quoting Richard Hildreth), Hamilton to King, 14 Dec. 1795, King to Hamilton, 16 Dec. 1795, ibid., II, 36, 37.

⁷² Freneau, , Poems, III, 240Google Scholar; G. D. H. Cole, Cobbett's biographer, saw no reason to believe that Cobbett was the recipient of a British subsidy. Cobbett, William, Letters ‥ to Edward Thornton ‥ 1797 to 1800, ed. Cole, G. D. H. (London, 1937), p. xxivGoogle Scholar.

⁷³ Jefferson to Madison, 13 May 1793, ed. Washington, III, 557.

⁷⁴ Monroe to Pickering, 10 March 1796, Monroe, , Writings, II, 465Google Scholar.

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The Jacobin Phrenzy: The Menace of Monarchy, Plutocracy, and Anglophilia, 1789–1798

Volume 21, Issue 1
Marshall Smelser
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S003467050002204X

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