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

Marshall states, more clearly, perhaps, than any one else, American conservative opinion of the time: "The circumstances under which the abolition of royalty was declared, the massacres which preceded it, the scenes of turbulence and violence which were acted in every part of the nation, appeared to them [American conservatives] to present an awful and doubtful state of things… The idea that a republic was to be introduced and supported by force, was, to them, a paradox in politics."

Thus it was, he declares, that "the French revolution will be found to have had great influence on the strength of parties, and on the subsequent political transactions of the United States." 42 42 Marshall, ii, 251-52.

As the French storm increased, its winds blew ever stronger over the responsive waters of American opinion. Jefferson, that accurate barometer of public weather, thus registers the popular feeling: "The sensations it [the French Revolution] has produced here, and the indications of them in the public papers, have shown that the form our own government was to take depended much more on the events of France than anybody had before imagined." 43 43 Jefferson to T. M. Randolph, Jan. 7, 1793; Works : Ford, vii, 207. Thus both Marshall and Jefferson bear testimony as to the determining effect produced in America by the violent change of systems in France.

William Short, whom Jefferson had taken to France as his secretary, when he was the American Minister to France, and who, when Jefferson returned to the United States, remained as chargé d'affaires , 44 44 Mass. Hist. Collections (7th Series), i, 138. had written both officially and privately of what was going on in France and of the increasing dominance of the Jacobin Clubs. 45 45 Typical excerpts from Short's reports to Jefferson are: July 20, 1792: "Those mad & corrupted people in France who under the name of liberty have destroyed their own government [French Constitution of 1791] & disgusted all … men of honesty & property… All the rights of humanity … are daily violated with impunity … universal anarchy prevails… There is no succour … against mobs & factions which have assumed despotic power." July 31: "The factions which have lately determined the system … for violating all the bonds of civil society … have disgusted all, except the sans culottes … with the present order of things … the most perfect & universal disorder that ever reigned in any country. Those who from the beginning took part in the revolution … have been disgusted, by the follies, injustice, & atrocities of the Jacobins… All power [is] in the hands of the most mad, wicked & atrocious assembly that ever was collected in any country." August 15: "The Swiss guards have been massacred by the people & … streets literally are red with blood." October 12: "Their [French] successes abroad are unquestionably evils for humanity. The spirit which they will propagate is so destructive of all order … so subversive of all ideas of justice – the system they aim at so absolutely visionary & impracticable – that their efforts can end in nothing but despotism after having bewildered the unfortunate people, whom they render free in their way, in violence & crimes, & wearied them with sacrifices of blood, which alone they consider worthy of the furies whom they worship under the names of Liberté & Egalité !" August 24: "I sh ḍ not be at all surprized to hear of the present leaders being hung by the people. Such has been the moral of this revolution from the beginning. The people have gone farther than their leaders… We may expect … to hear of such proceedings, under the cloak of liberty, égalité & patriotism as would disgrace any chambre ardente that has ever created in humanity shudders at the idea." (Short MSS., Lib. Cong.) These are examples of the statements to which Jefferson's letter, quoted in the text following, was the reply. Short's most valuable letters are from The Hague, to which he had been transferred. They are all the more important, as coming from a young radical whom events in France had changed into a conservative. And Jefferson's letter is conclusive of American popular sentiment, which he seldom opposed. Perhaps no more trustworthy statement exists of the prevailing American view of the French cataclysm than that given in Jefferson's fatherly letter to his protégé: —

"The tone of your letters had for some time given me pain," wrote Jefferson, "on account of the extreme warmth with which they censured the proceedings of the Jacobins of France. 46 46 Almost at the same time Thomas Paine was writing to Jefferson from Paris of "the Jacobins who act without either prudence or morality." (Paine to Jefferson, April 20, 1793; Writings : Conway, iii, 132.) … Many guilty persons [aristocrats] fell without the forms of trial, and with them some innocent:… It was necessary to use the arm of the people, a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree…

"The liberty of the whole earth," continued Jefferson, "was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated.

"Were there but an Adam & an Eve left in every country, & left free, it would be better than as it now is," declared Jefferson; and "my sentiments … are really those of 99 in an hundred of our citizens," was that careful political observer's estimate of American public opinion. "Your temper of mind," Jefferson cautions Short, "would be extremely disrelished if known to your countrymen.

"There are in the U.S. some characters of opposite principles… Excepting them, this country is entirely republican, friends to the constitution… The little party above mentioned have espoused it only as a stepping stone to monarchy… The successes of republicanism in France have given the coup de grace to their prospects, and I hope to their projects.

"I have developed to you faithfully the sentiments of your country," Jefferson admonishes Short, "that you may govern yourself accordingly." 47 47 Jefferson to Short, Jan. 3, 1793; Works : Ford, vii, 202-05. Short had written Jefferson that Morris, then in Paris, would inform him of French conditions. Morris had done so. For instance, he wrote officially to Jefferson, nearly four months before the latter's letter to Short quoted in the text, that: "We have had one week of unchecked murders, in which some thousands have perished in this city [Paris]. It began with between two and three hundred of the clergy, who would not take the oath prescribed by law. Thence these executors of speedy justice went to the Abbaye, where the prisoners were confined who were at Court on the 10th. Madame de Lamballe … was beheaded and disembowelled; the head and entrails paraded on pikes through the street, and the body dragged after them," etc., etc. (Morris to Jefferson, Sept. 10, 1792; Morris, i, 583-84.)

Jefferson's count of the public pulse was accurate. "The people of this country [Virginia] … are unanimous & explicit in their sympathy with the Revolution" was the weather-wise Madison's report. 48 48 Madison to Jefferson, June 17, 1793; Writings : Hunt, vi, 133. And the fever was almost as high in other States.

When, after many executions of persons who had been "denounced" on mere suspicion of unfriendliness to the new order of things, the neck of Louis XVI was finally laid beneath the knife of the guillotine and the royal head rolled into the executioner's basket, even Thomas Paine was shocked. In a judicious letter to Danton he said: —

"I now despair of seeing the great object of European liberty accomplished" because of "the tumultuous misconduct" of "the present revolution" which "injure[s its] character … and discourage[s] the progress of liberty all over the world… There ought to be some regulation with respect to the spirit of denunciation that now prevails." 49 49 Paine to Danton, May 6, 1793; Writings : Conway, iii, 135-38.