in misleading our fellow citizens in the scene of CHAP. VIII. insurrection."

The address proceeded to express the most decided approbation of the conduct of the president in relation to the insurgents; and, after noticing the different parts of the speech, concluded with saying....

"At a period so momentous in the affairs of nations, the temperate, just, and firm policy that you have pursued in respect to foreign powers, has been eminently calculated to promote the great and essential interest of our country, and has created the fairest title to the public gratitude and thanks."

To this unequivocal approbation of the policy adopted by the executive with regard to foreign nations, no objections were made. The clause respecting democratic societies was seriously opposed; but the party in favour of the administration had been strengthened in the senate by recent events, and the address reported by the committee was agreed to without alteration.

In the house of representatives, the same spirit did not prevail. In that branch of the legislature, the opposition party continued to be the most powerful, and the respect of their leaders for the person and character of the chief magistrate was visibly diminishing. His interference with a favourite system was not forgotten, and the mission of Mr. Jay still rankled in their bosoms.

The address prepared by the committee, to whom the speech was referred, omitted to notice those parts which respected self created societies,

1794

CHAP. VIII. the victory of general Wayne, and the policy 1794. observed by the executive in its intercourse with foreign nations. On a motion being made by Mr. Dayton to amend it, by inserting a clause which should express the satisfaction of the house at the success of the army under general Wayne, Mr. Madison said, that it had been the wish of the committee who framed the address, to avoid the minutia of the speech: but as a desire was manifested to amplify particular parts, it might not be amiss to glance at the policy observed towards foreign nations. He therefore moved to amend the amendment by adding the words, "solicitous also as we are for the preservation of peace with all nations, we cannot otherwise than warmly approve of a policy in our foreign transactions, which keeps in view as well the maintenance of our national rights, as the continuance of that blessing." Mr. Hillhouse wished the word your to be substituted for the article a, that the answer might point, not to an abstract policy, but to that of the executive, and thus have a direct application to the speech. This motion produced a warm discussion, which terminated in a request that Mr. Madison would withdraw his amend ment; the friends of the administration being of opinion, that it was more eligible to pass over that part of the speech in silence, than to answer it in terms so equivocal as those to which alone the house seemed willing to assent.

A proposition was then made by Mr. Fitzsimmons to introduce into the address, a clause declaring, that "in tracing the origin and pro

1794.

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HOUSE

*OXFORD;

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gress of the insurrection, they (the house of CHAP. VIII.
representatives) entertain no doubt that certain
self created societies and combinations of men,
careless of consequences, and disregarding truth,
by disseminating suspicions, jealousies, and accu-
sations of the government, have had an influence in
fomenting this daring outrage against the princi-
ples of social order, and the authority of the laws."
This attempt to censure certain organized
assemblages of factious individuals, who, under
the imposing garb of watchfulness over liberty,
concealed designs subversive of all those prin-
ciples which preserve the order, the peace, and
the happiness of society, to effect which they
were unceasingly issuing resolutions machinated
in their nocturnal meetings, for the disturbance
of the public repose, was resisted by the whole
force of the opposition. A very eloquent and
animated debate ensued, which terminated in the
committee, by striking out the words "self created
societies;" forty-seven voting for, and forty-five
against expunging them. The question was re-
sumed in the house; and, the chairman of the
committee being opposed in sentiment to the
speaker, who was now placed in the chair, the
majority was precisely changed, and the words
were re-instated. This victory, however, if it
may be termed one, was soon lost. A motion for
confining the censure to societies and combina-
tions within the four western counties of Pennsyl-
vania and the adjacent country, succeeded by the
casting vote of the speaker, upon which, the
friends of the amendment gave it up, and the

CHAP. VIII. address was voted without expressing any senti. ment on the subject.

1794.

This triumph over the administration revived for a moment the drooping energies of these pernicious societies. But it was only for a moment. The agency ascribed to them by the opinion of the public, as well as of the president, in producing an insurrection which was generally execrated, had essentially affected them; and while languishing under this wound, they received a deadly blow from a quarter whence hostility was least expected.

Rendered desperate by the ferocious despotism of the jacobins, and of the sanguinary tyrant who had made himself their chief; perceiving that the number of victims who were immolated as his caprice might suggest, instead of satiating, could only stimulate his appetite for blood; the remnant of the French convention had at length sought for safety by boldly confronting danger, and succeeding in a desperate attempt to bring Robespierre to the guillotine, had terminated his reign of terror. The colossian power of the clubs, which had been abused to an excess that would give to faithful history the appearance of fiction, fell with that of their favourite member, and they sunk into well merited disgrace. The means by which their political influence had been maintained were wrested from them, and in a short time their meetings were prohibited. Not more certain is it that the boldest streams must disappear, if the fountains which fed them be emptied, than was the dissolution of the demo

cratic societies of America, when the jacobin CHAP. VIII, clubs were denounced by France. As if their 1794destinies depended on the same thread, the political death of the former was the unerring signal for that of the latter; and their expiring struggles, incapable of deferring their fate, only attested the reluctance with which they surrendered their ill gotten power.

Notwithstanding the disagreement between the executive and one branch of the legislature concerning self created societies, and the policy observed towards foreign nations, the speech of the president was treated with marked respect; and the several subjects which it recommended, engaged the immediate attention of the legisla ture. A bill was passed authorizing the president to station a detachment of militia in the four western counties of Pennsylvania; provision was made to compensate those whose property had been destroyed by the insurgents, should those who had committed the injury be unable to repair it and an appropriation exceeding one million one hundred thousand dollars was made to defray the expenses occasioned by the insurrection.

Many of the difficulties* which had occurred in drawing out the militia were removed, and the president was enabled to employ them without the previous certificate of a judge, in cases where

In the debate on this bill, the power of congress to annex penalties to a refusal on the part of militia men to perform the duty required of them was denied: but this attempt to narrow the construction of the constitution was too extravagant to be maintained by the whole party.