seas were at once overrun with American ships, by which the French privateers were taken or driven from the coast. No actual engagement between national vessels, however, occurred, until the beginning of the following year, when Commander Truxtun, in the Constellation, forced the French frigate L'Insurgente to strike, (February, 1799.) Hostilities were continued chiefly by privateers, the profits to whose owners were the principal results of the war. Still it pleased the party by whom it was favored. glorious and triumphant war it was!" exclaimed Adams, in after years. "The proud pavilion of France was humiliated."

Strain

66 А

But against the deeds of battle must be set the upon the measures of government which disclose the real nation, strain upon the nation. To provide ways and means, stamp duties and taxes on houses and slaves were voted, besides the loans that were procured. To keep down party opposition, alien and sedition acts, as they were called, were passed. The first authorized the president to banish all aliens suspected of conspiracy against the United States. This was more of a party manœuvre than appears on the face of it; inasmuch as many of the most ardent spirits among the republicans, especially the democratic republicans, were aliens. The sedition act denounced fine and imprisonment upon all conspiracies, and even all publications, "with intent to excite any unlawful combination for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any lawful act of the president." It was at midsummer that party spirit rose so high as to demand and to enact these urgent laws, (June-July, 1798.) Both of them however, were to be but temporary.* The alien act was

*The alien to be in force for two years, the sedition until March 4, 1801, the end of Adams's administration.

never put in operation. But the sedition act was again and again enforced, and almost, if not altogether, invariably upon party grounds. It may safely be said that the nation was straining itself too far.

Nullifi

So thought the party opposing the administration cation. and the war. Strongest in the south and in the west, the republican leaders threw down the gauntlet to their opponents, nay, even to their rulers. The legislature of Kentucky, in resolutions drawn up for that body by no less a person than Vice President Jefferson, declared the alien and sedition laws "not law, but altogether void and of no force," (November, 1798.) The note thus sounded was taken up in the Virginia legislature, whose resolutions, draughted by James Madison, declared the obnoxious laws "palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution," (December.) Both sets of resolutions, as they came from the hands of their framers, were stronger still. Jefferson had written," Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the right remedy, and every state has a natural right, in cases not within the compact, [the Constitution,] to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits." Madison, after stating "that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the compact, the states, who are the parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for correcting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them," had made his resolutions declare the acts in question "null, void, and of no force or effect." But it was an early day for nullification; and neither Kentucky nor Virginia went the length prescribed for them. They went far enough, as has been seen, to excite very general opposition from their sister states,

especially those of the centre and the north, where legislature after legislature came out with strong and denunciatory denials of the right of any state to sit in judgment upon the national government.

Another

to France.

Things were in this seething state, when the mission president nominated as minister to France William Vans Murray, to whom he afterwards joined Oliver Ellsworth, then chief justice, and William R. Davie, as colleagues, (February, 1799.) The reason assigned for a fresh attempt at negotiation was the assurance that had been received through the minister at the Hague, of the willingness of the French government to treat with a new mission. The din upon these nominations was tremendous, particularly among the more active federalists, and even the principal members of the cabinet, Timothy Pickering and Oliver Wolcott. The president was suspected of urging the mission, in some degree, out of spite against the federalist party, by whom, or by whose extreme members, he considered himself badly used. "The British faction," he wrote afterwards, 66 was determined to have a war with France, and Alexander Hamilton at the head of the army, and then president of the United States. Peace with France was therefore treason." The envoys reached their destination in the beginning of the following year, (1800.) They found Napoleon Bonaparte first consul. With his government, after some difficulty, they concluded a convention, providing in part for mutual redress, but leaving many of the questions between the two nations for future settlement, (October.) When brought before the Senate of the United States, the convention was modified by cancelling the provision for additional negotiations. This was assented to in France, on condition that the claims for indemnities on either side should be abandoned. The effect was soon seen in claims for French spoliations pre

sented to the government of the United States. But the treaty sufficed to restore peace.

slavery

Mississippi Important events had occurred at home. The Territory: Mississippi Territory was formed, including at under de first the lower part of the present Alabama and bate. Mississippi, (1798.) This organization excited a debate concerning slavery, which, as the organizing act provided, was not to be prohibited in the territory. Here was no such plea as had existed in the case of the Territory South of the Ohio. No cession from a state, no conditions laid any restraint upon Congress. Yet but twelve votes were given in favor of an amendment proposed by George Thacher, of Massachusetts, prohibiting the introduction of slavery into the territory. The most that Congress would agree to, was to forbid the importation of slaves from abroad; a concession, inasmuch as the slave trade, it will be remembered, was still allowed by the Constitution. So, for the second time, and this time without its being required by terms with any state,* the decision of the national government was given in favor of slavery.

Territory

again.

But Congress took the other side, likewise. The of Indiana: Western portion of the North-west Territory soon slavery needed to be set off as the Territory of Indiana, embracing the present Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, (1800.) There slavery was already prohibited. But this went against the interests of the inhabitants, as they thought, and they petitioned Congress, within three. and again within seven years after the organization of the

*The part of the territory at this time organized was claimed by the United States as a portion of the old Florida domain. Georgia likewise claimed it as hers; and when she surrendered what was allowed to be hers, that is, the upper part of the present Alabama and Mississippi, she made it a condition that slavery should not be prohibited, (1802.)

territory, to be allowed to introduce slaves amongst them. Once a committee of Congress reported adversely; but twice a report was made in favor of the petition. Reports and petitions, however, were alike fruitless. Congress would not authorize slavery where it had been prohibited.

Death of

No domestic event compared in interest with Washing- the death of Washington, which occurred unexton. pectedly on the 14th of December, 1799. His last service had been the organization of the provisional army against France, of which one can hardly say that it was the crowning act of such a life. Party passions ran so high as to affect the serenity of his declining years, and it may not have been too soon for his peace or his fame that he was taken away. Beside his grave, his countrymen stood united for a moment, but no longer.

Fall of the federalists.

The presidential election of 1800 reduced the federalists to a hopeless minority. They had done more for the country than for themselves. During Washington's administration, they had sustained his great measures, and originated great measures of their own; but during Adams's, they had spent their strength in quarrelling with him or among themselves, and his defeat and theirs followed almost of course. Their fall was their own work, rather than that of their opponents. They had started as the more aristocratic party of the two, and every year had developed a distrust of the people which was sure to overthrow them at no distant day. The daughter of one of their most amiable and eminent leaders, Theodore Sedgwick, tells us that her father habitually spoke of the people as "Jacobins and miscreants," and he was by no means singular in his expressions. It seems strange that the party which may be said to have founded our government was not able to administer it; but the very