Albert Beveridge - The Life of John Marshall (Volume 2 of 4)

Paine's essay, issued in two parts, was a torch successively applied to the inflammable emotions of the American masses. Most newspapers printed in each issue short and appealing excerpts from it. For example, the following sentence from Paine's "Rights of Man" was reproduced in the "Columbian Centinel" of Boston on June 6, 1792: "Can we possibly suppose that if government had originated in right principles and had not an interest in pursuing a wrong one, that the world could have been in the wretched and quarrelsome condition it is?" Such quotations from Paine appeared in all radical and in some conservative American publications; and they were repeated from mouth to mouth until even the backwoodsmen knew of them – and believed them.

"Our people … love what you write and read it with delight" ran the message which Jefferson sent across the ocean to Paine. "The printers," continued Jefferson, "season every newspaper with extracts from your last, as they did before from your first part of the Rights of Man . They have both served here to separate the wheat from the chaff… Would you believe it possible that in this country there should be high & important characters 27 27 Compare with Jefferson's celebrated letter to Mazzei ( infra , chap. vii). Jefferson was now, however, in Washington's Cabinet. who need your lessons in republicanism & who do not heed them. It is but too true that we have a sect preaching up & pouting after an English constitution of king, lords, & commons, & whose heads are itching for crowns, coronets & mitres…

"Go on then," Jefferson urged Paine, "in doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword, … and be assured that it has not a more sincere votary nor you a more ardent well-wisher than … Tho ṣJefferson." 28 28 Jefferson to Paine, June 19, 1792; Works : Ford, vii, 121-22; and see Hazen, 157-60. Jefferson had, two years before, expressed precisely the views set forth in Paine's Rights of Man . Indeed, he stated them in even more startling terms. (See Jefferson to Madison, Sept. 6, 1789; ib. , vi, 1-11.)

And the wheat was being separated from the chaff, as Jefferson declared. Shocked not more by the increasing violence in France than by the principles which Paine announced, men of moderate mind and conservative temperament in America came to have misgivings about the French Revolution, and began to speak out against its doings and its doctrines.

A series of closely reasoned and well-written articles were printed in the "Columbian Centinel" of Boston in the summer of 1791, over the nom de guerre "Publicola"; and these were widely copied. They were ascribed to the pen of John Adams, but were the work of his brilliant son. 29 29 Writings, J. Q. A. : Ford, i, 65-110. John Quincy Adams wrote these admirable essays when he was twenty-four years old. Their logic, wit, and style suggest the writer's incomparable mother. Madison, who remarked their quality, wrote to Jefferson: "There is more of method … in the arguments, and much less of clumsiness & heaviness in the style, than characterizes his [John Adams's] writings." (Madison to Jefferson, July 13, 1791; Writings : Hunt, vi, 56.) The sagacious industry of Mr. Worthington C. Ford has made these and all the other invaluable papers of the younger Adams accessible, in his Writings of John Quincy Adams now issuing.

The American edition of Paine's "Rights of Man" was headed by a letter from Secretary of State Jefferson to the printer, stating his pleasure that the essay was to be printed in this country and "that something is at length to be publickly said against the political heresies which have sprung up among us." 30 30 Jefferson to Adams, July 17, 1791; Works : Ford, vi, 283, and footnote; also see Jefferson to Washington, May 8, 1791; ib. , 255-56. Jefferson wrote Washington and the elder Adams, trying to evade his patronage of Paine's pamphlet; but, as Mr. Ford moderately remarks, "the explanation was somewhat lame." ( Writings, J. Q. A. : Ford, i, 65; and see Hazen, 156-57.) Later Jefferson avowed that "Mr. Paine's principles … were the principles of the citizens of the U. S." (Jefferson to Adams, Aug. 30, 1791; Works : Ford, vi, 314.) To his intimate friend, Monroe, Jefferson wrote that "Publicola, in attacking all Paine's principles, is very desirous of involving me in the same censure with the author. I certainly merit the same, for I profess the same principles." (Jefferson to Monroe, July 10, 1791; ib. , 280.) Jefferson at this time was just on the threshold of his discovery of and campaign against the "deep-laid plans" of Hamilton and the Nationalists to transform the newborn Republic into a monarchy and to deliver the hard-won "liberties" of the people into the rapacious hands of "monocrats," "stockjobbers," and other "plunderers" of the public. (See next chapter.) Publicola called attention to this and thus, more conspicuously, displayed Jefferson as an advocate of Paine's doctrines. 31 31 Writings, J. Q. A. : Ford, i, 65-66.

All Americans had "seen with pleasure the temples of despotism levelled with the ground," wrote the keen young Boston law student. 32 32 Although John Quincy Adams had just been admitted to the bar, he was still a student in the law office of Theophilus Parsons at the time he wrote the Publicola papers. There was "but one sentiment… – that of exultation." But what did Jefferson mean by "heresies"? asked Publicola. Was Paine's pamphlet "the canonical book of scripture?" If so, what were its doctrines? "That which a whole nation chooses to do, it has a right to do" was one of them.

Was that "principle" sound? No! avowed Publicola, for "the eternal and immutable laws of justice and of morality are paramount to all human legislation." A nation might have the power but never the right to violate these. Even majorities have no right to do as they please; if so, what security has the individual citizen? Under the unrestrained rule of the majority "the principles of liberty must still be the sport of arbitrary power, and the hideous form of despotism must lay aside the diadem and the scepter, only to assume the party-colored garments of democracy."

"The only genuine liberty consists in a mean equally distant from the despotism of an individual and of a million," asserted Publicola. "Mr. Paine seems to think it as easy for a nation to change its government as for a man to change his coat." But "the extreme difficulty which impeded the progress of its [the American Constitution's] adoption … exhibits the fullest evidence of what a more than Herculean task it is to unite the opinions of a free people on any system of government whatever."

The "mob" which Paine exalted as the common people, but which Publicola thought was really only the rabble of the cities, "can be brought to act in concert" only by "a frantic enthusiasm and ungovernable fury; their profound ignorance and deplorable credulity make them proper tools for any man who can inflame their passions; … and," warned Publicola, "as they have nothing to lose by the total dissolution of civil society, their rage may be easily directed against any victim which may be pointed out to them… To set in motion this inert mass, the eccentric vivacity of a madman is infinitely better calculated than the sober coolness of phlegmatic reason."

"Where," asked Publicola, "is the power that should control them [Congress]?" if they violate the letter of the Constitution. Replying to his own question, he asserted that the real check on Congress "is the spirit of the people." 33 33 Writings, J. Q. A. : Ford, i, 65-110. John Marshall had said the same thing in the Virginia Constitutional Convention; but even at that early period the Richmond attorney went further and flatly declared that the temporary "spirit of the people" was not infallible and that the Supreme Court could and would declare void an unconstitutional act of Congress – a truth which he was, unguessed at that time by himself or anybody else, to announce with conclusive power within a few years and at an hour when dissolution confronted the forming Nation.