warrant had been issued, for Barère did not sign the order for Paine's arrest or imprisonment.--_Editor._ Hérault Sechelles, an acquaintance of Mr. Jefferson, and a good patriot, was my _suppléant_ as member of the Committee of Constitution, that is, he was to supply my place, if I had not accepted or had resigned, being next in number of votes to me. He was imprisoned in the Luxembourg with me, was taken to the tribunal and the guillotine, and I, his principal, was left.
There were two foreigners in the Convention, Anarcharsis Clootz and myself. We were both put out of the Convention by the same vote, arrested by the same order, and carried to prison together the same night. He was taken to the guillotine, and I was again left. Joel Barlow was with us when we went to prison.
Joseph Lebon, one of the vilest characters that ever existed, and who made the streets of Arras run with blood, was my _suppléant_, as member of the Convention for the department of the Pas de Calais. When I was put out of the Convention he came and took my place. When I was liberated from prison and voted again into the Convention, he was sent to the same prison and took my place there, and he was sent to the guillotine instead of me. He supplied my place all the way through.
One hundred and sixty-eight persons were taken out of the Luxembourg in one night, and a hundred and sixty of them guillotined next day, of which I now know I was to have been one; and the manner I escaped that fate is curious, and has all the appearance of accident.
The room in which I was lodged was on the ground floor, and one of a long range of rooms under a gallery, and the door of it opened outward and flat against the wall; so that when it was open the inside of the door appeared outward, and the contrary when it was shut. I had three comrades, fellow prisoners with me, Joseph Vanhuele, of Bruges, since President of the Municipality of that town, Michael Rubyns, and Charles Bastini of Louvain.
When persons by scores and by hundreds were to be taken out of the prison for the guillotine it was always done in the night, and those who performed that office had a private mark or signal, by which they knew what rooms to go to, and what number to take. We, as I have stated, were four, and the door of our room was marked, unobserved by us, with that number in chalk; but it happened, if happening is a proper word, that the mark was put on when the door was open, and flat against the wall, and thereby came on the inside when we shut it at night, and the destroying angel passed by it.(1) A few days after this, Robespierre fell, and Mr. Monroe arrived and reclaimed me, and invited me to his house.
1 Painefs preface to the "Age of Reason" Part IL, and his Letter to Washington (p. 222.) show that for some time after his release from prison he had attributed his escape from the guillotine to a fever which rendered him unconscious at the time when his accusation was demanded by Robespierre; but it will be seen (XXXI.) that he subsequently visited his prison room-mate Vanhuele, who had become Mayor of Bruges, and he may have learned from him the particulars of their marvellous escape. Carlyle having been criticised by John G.
Alger for crediting this story of the chalk mark, an exhaustive discussion of the facts took place in the London Athenoum, July 7, 21, August 25, September 1, 1894, in which it was conclusively proved, I think, that there is no reason to doubt the truth of the incident See also my article on Paine's escape, in The Open Court (Chicago), July 26,1894.
The discussion in the Athenoum elicited the fact that a tradition had long existed in the family of Sampson Perry that he had shared Paine's cell and been saved by the curious mistake. Such is not the fact. Perry, in his book on the French Revolution, and in his "Argus," told the story of Paine's escape by his illness, as Paine first told it; and he also relates an anecdote which may find place here: "Mr. Paine speaks gratefully of the kindness shown him by his fellow-prisoners of the same chamber during his severe malady, and especially of the skilful and voluntary assistance lent him by General O'Hara's surgeon. He relates an anecdote of himself which may not be unworthy of repeating. An arrêt of the Committee of Public Welfare had given directions to the administrators of the palace [Luxembourg] to enter all the prisons with additional guards and dispossess every prisoner of his knives, forks, and every other sharp instrument; and also to take their money from them. This happened a short time before Mr. Paine's illness, and as this ceremony was represented to him as an atrocious plunder in the dregs of municipality, he determined to avert its effect so far as it concerned himself. He had an English bank note of some value and gold coin in his pocket, and as he conceived the visitors would rifle them, as well as his trunks (though they did not do so by any one) he took off the lock from his door, and hid the whole of what he had about him in its inside. He recovered his health, he found his money, but missed about three hundred of his associated prisoners, who had been sent in crowds to the murderous tribunal, while he had been insensible of their or his own danger." This was probably the money (£200) loaned by Paine to General O'Hara (who figured at the Yorktown surrender) in prison.--_Editor._ During the whole of my imprisonment, prior to the fall of Robespierre, there was no time when I could think my life worth twenty-four hours, and my mind was made up to meet its fate. The Americans in Paris went in a body to the Convention to reclaim me, but without success. There was no party among them with respect to me. My only hope then rested on the government of America, that it would _remember me_. But the icy heart of ingratitude, in whatever man it be placed, has neither feeling nor sense of honour. The letter of Mr. Jefferson has served to wipe away the reproach, and done justice to the mass of the people of America.(1) 1 Printed in the seventh of this series of Letters.-- _Editor._.
When a party was forming, in the latter end of 1777, and beginning of 1778, of which John Adams was one, to remove Mr. Washington from the command of the army on the complaint that _he did nothing_, I wrote the fifth number of the Crisis, and published it at Lancaster, (Congress then being at Yorktown, in Pennsylvania,) to ward off that meditated blow; for though I well knew that the black times of '76 were the natural consequence of his want of military judgment in the choice of positions into which the army was put about New York and New Jersey, I could see no possible advantage, and nothing but mischief, that could arise by distracting the army into parties, which would have been the case had the intended motion gone on.
General [Charles] Lee, who with a sarcastic genius joined a great fund of military knowledge, was perfectly right when he said "_We have no business on islands, and in the bottom of bogs, where the enemy, by the aid of its ships, can bring its whole force against apart of ours and shut it up_." This had like to have been the case at New York, and it was the case at Fort Washington, and would have been the case at Fort Lee if General [Nathaniel] Greene had not moved instantly off on the first news of the enemy's approach. I was with Greene through the whole of that affair, and know it perfectly.
But though I came forward in defence of Mr. Washington when he was attacked, and made the best that could be made of a series of blunders that had nearly ruined the country, he left me to perish when I was in prison. But as I told him of it in his life-time, I should not now bring it up if the ignorant impertinence of some of the Federal papers, who are pushing Mr. Washington forward as their stalking horse, did not make it necessary.
That gentleman did not perform his part in the Revolution better, nor with more honour, than I did mine, and the one part was as necessary as the other. He accepted as a present, (though he was already rich,) a hundred thousand acres of land in America, and left me to occupy six foot of earth in France.(1) I wish, for his own reputation, he had acted with more justice. But it was always known of Mr. Washington, by those who best knew him, that he was of such an icy and death-like constitution, that he neither loved his friends nor hated his enemies.
But, be this as it may, I see no reason that a difference between Mr.
Washington and me should be made a theme of discord with other people.
There are those who may see merit in both, without making themselves partisans of either, and with this reflection I close the subject.
1 Paine was mistaken, as many others were, about the gifts of Virginia (1785) to Washington. They were 100 shares, of $100 each, in the James River Company, and 50 shares, of £100 each, in the Potomac Company. Washington, accepted on condition that he might appropriate them _to public uses_ which was done in his Will.--_Editor._ As to the hypocritical abuse thrown out by the Federalists on other subjects, I recommend to them the observance of a commandment that existed before either Christian or Jew existed: Thou shalt make a covenant with thy senses: With thine eye that it behold no evil, With thine ear, that it hear no evil, With thy tongue, that it speak no evil, With thy hands, that they commit no evil.
If the Federalists will follow this commandment, they will leave off lying.
Thomas Paine.
Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Nov. 26,1802.
LETTER IV.(1) 1 The National Intelligencer, Dec. 6th. 1802.--_Editor._.
As Congress is on the point of meeting, the public papers will necessarily be occupied with the debates of the ensuing session, and as, in consequence of my long absence from America, my private affairs require my attendance, (for it is necessary I do this, or I could not preserve, as I do, my independence,) I shall close my address to the public with this letter.
I congratulate them on the success of the late elections, and _that_ with the additional confidence, that while honest men are chosen and wise measures pursued, neither the treason of apostacy, masked under the name of Federalism, of which I have spoken in my second letter, nor the intrigues of foreign emissaries, acting in concert with that mask, can prevail.
As to the licentiousness of the papers calling themselves _Federal_, a name that apostacy has taken, it can hurt nobody but the party or the persons who support such papers. There is naturally a wholesome pride in the public mind that revolts at open vulgarity. It feels itself dishonoured even by hearing it, as a chaste woman feels dishonour by hearing obscenity she cannot avoid. It can smile at wit, or be diverted with strokes of satirical humour, but it detests the _blackguard_. The same sense of propriety that governs in private companies, governs in public life. If a man in company runs his wit upon another, it may draw a smile from some persons present, but as soon as he turns a blackguard in his language the company gives him up; and it is the same in public life. The event of the late election shows this to be true; for in proportion as those papers have become more and more vulgar and abusive, the elections have gone more and more against the party they support, or that supports them. Their predecessor, _Porcupine_ [Cobbett] had wit--these scribblers have none. But as soon as his _blackguardism_ (for it is the proper name of it) outran his wit, he was abandoned by every body but the English Minister who protected him.
The Spanish proverb says, "_there never was a cover large enough to hide itself_"; and the proverb applies to the case of those papers and the shattered remnant of the faction that supports them. The falsehoods they fabricate, and the abuse they circulate, is a cover to hide something from being seen, but it is not large enough to hide itself. It is as a tub thrown out to the whale to prevent its attacking and sinking the vessel. They want to draw the attention of the public from thinking about, or inquiring into, the measures of the late administration, and the reason why so much public money was raised and expended; and so far as a lie today, and a new one tomorrow, will answer this purpose, it answers theirs. It is nothing to them whether they be believed or not, for if the negative purpose be answered the main point is answered, to them.
He that picks your pocket always tries to make you look another way.
"Look," says he, "at yon man t'other side the street--what a nose he has got?--Lord, yonder is a chimney on fire!--Do you see yon man going along in the salamander great coat? That is the very man that stole one of Jupiter's satellites, and sold it to a countryman for a gold watch, and it set his breeches on fire!" Now the man that has his hand in your pocket, does not care a farthing whether you believe what he says or not. All his aim is to prevent your looking at _him_; and this is the case with the remnant of the Federal faction. The leaders of it have imposed upon the country, and they want to turn the attention of it from the subject.
In taking up any public matter, I have never made it a consideration, and never will, whether it be popular or unpopular; but whether it be _right_ or _wrong_. The right will always become the popular, if it has courage to show itself, and the shortest way is always a straight line.
I despise expedients, they are the gutter-hole of politics, and the sink where reputation dies. In the present case, as in every other, I cannot be accused of using any; and I have no doubt but thousands will hereafter be ready to say, as Gouverneur Morris said to me, after having abused me pretty handsomely in Congress for the opposition I gave the fraudulent demand of Silas Deane of two thousand pounds sterling: "_Well, we were all duped, and I among the rest!_"(1) 1 See vol. I., chapters xxii., xxiii., xxiv., of this work.
Also my "Life of Paine," vol. I., ch. ix., x.--_Editor._ Were the late administration to be called upon to give reasons for the expence it put the country to, it can give none. The danger of an invasion was a bubble that served as a cover to raise taxes and armies to be employed on some other purpose. But if the people of America believed it true, the cheerfulness with which they supported those measures and paid those taxes is an evidence of their patriotism; and if they supposed me their enemy, though in that supposition they did me injustice, it was not injustice in them. He that acts as he believes, though he may act wrong, is not conscious of wrong.
But though there was no danger, no thanks are due to the late administration for it. They sought to blow up a flame between the two countries; and so intent were they upon this, that they went out of their way to accomplish it. In a letter which the Secretary of State, Timothy Pickering, wrote to Mr. Skipwith, the American Consul at Paris, he broke off from the official subject of his letter, to _thank God_ in very exulting language, _that the Russians had cut the French army to pieces_. Mr. Skipwith, after showing me the letter, very prudently concealed it.
It was the injudicious and wicked acrimony of this letter, and some other like conduct of the then Secretary of State, that occasioned me, in a letter to a friend in the government, to say, that if there was any official business to be done in France, till a regular Minister could be appointed, it could not be trusted to a more proper person than Mr.
Skipwith. "_He is_," said I, "_an honest man, and will do business, and that with good manners to the government he is commissioned to act with.
A faculty which that BEAR, Timothy Pickering, wanted, and which the BEAR of that bear, John Adams, never possessed_."(2) 2 By reference to the letter itself (p. 376 of this volume) it will be seen that Paine here quotes it from memory.-- _Editor._ vol III-- In another letter to the same friend, in 1797, and which was put unsealed under cover to Colonel Burr, I expressed a satisfaction that Mr. Jefferson, since he was not president, had accepted the vice presidency; "_for_," said I, "_John Adams has such a talent for blundering and offending, it will be necessary to keep an eye over him_." He has now sufficiently proved, that though I have not the spirit of prophecy, I have the gift of _judging right_. And all the world knows, for it cannot help knowing, that to judge _rightly_ and to write _clearly_, and that upon all sorts of subjects, to be able to command thought and as it were to play with it at pleasure, and be always master of one's temper in writing, is the faculty only of a serene mind, and the attribute of a happy and philosophical temperament. The scribblers, who know me not, and who fill their papers with paragraphs about me, besides their want of talents, drink too many slings and drams in a morning to have any chance with me. But, poor fellows, they must do something for the little pittance they get from their employers. This is my apology for them.
My anxiety to get back to America was great for many years. It is the country of my heart, and the place of my political and literary birth.
It was the American revolution that made me an author, and forced into action the mind that had been dormant, and had no wish for public life, nor has it now. By the accounts I received, she appeared to me to be going wrong, and that some meditated treason against her liberties lurked at the bottom of her government. I heard that my friends were oppressed, and I longed to take my stand among them, and if other times to _try mens souls_ were to arrive, that I might bear my share. But my efforts to return were ineffectual.
As soon as Mr. Monroe had made a good standing with the French government, for the conduct of his predecessor [Morris] had made his reception as Minister difficult, he wanted to send despatches to his own government by a person to whom he could confide a verbal communication, and he fixed his choice on me. He then applied to the Committee of Public Safety for a passport; but as I had been voted again into the Convention, it was only the Convention that could give the passport; and as an application to them for that purpose, would have made my going publicly known, I was obliged to sustain the disappointment, and Mr.
Monroe to lose the opportunity.(1) When that gentleman left France to return to America, I was to have gone with him. It was fortunate I did not. The vessel he sailed in was visited by a British frigate, that searched every part of it, and down to the hold, for Thomas Paine.(2) I then went, the same year, to embark at Havre. But several British frigates were cruizing in sight of the port who knew I was there, and I had to return again to Paris. Seeing myself thus cut off from every opportunity that was in my power to command, I wrote to Mr. Jefferson, that, if the fate of the election should put him in the chair of the presidency, and he should have occasion to send a frigate to France, he would give me the opportunity of returning by it, which he did. But I declined coming by the _Maryland_, the vessel that was offered me, and waited for the frigate that was to bring the new Minister, Mr. Chancellor Livingston, to France. But that frigate was ordered round to the Mediterranean; and as at that time the war was over, and the British cruisers called in, I could come any way. I then agreed to come with Commodore Barney in a vessel he had engaged. It was again fortunate I did not, for the vessel sank at sea, and the people were preserved in the boat.
1 The correspondence is in my "Life of Paine," vol. ii., pp. 154-5.--_Editor._ 2 The "Dublin Packet," Captain Clay, in whom Paine, as he wrote to Jefferson, "had no confidence."--_Editor._ Had half the number of evils befallen me that the number of dangers amount to through which I have been pre-served, there are those who would ascribe it to the wrath of heaven; why then do they not ascribe my preservation to the protecting favour of heaven? Even in my worldly concerns I have been blessed. The little property I left in America, and which I cared nothing about, not even to receive the rent of it, has been increasing in the value of its capital more than eight hundred dollars every year, for the fourteen years and more that I have been absent from it. I am now in my circumstances independent; and my economy makes me rich. As to my health, it is perfectly good, and I leave the world to judge of the stature of my mind. I am in every instance a living contradiction to the mortified Federalists.
In my publications, I follow the rule I began with in _Common Sense_, that is, to consult nobody, nor to let any body see what I write till it appears publicly. Were I to do otherwise, the case would be, that between the timidity of some, who are so afraid of doing wrong that they never do right, the puny judgment of others, and the despicable craft of preferring _expedient to right_, as if the world was a world of babies in leading strings, I should get forward with nothing. My path is a right line, as straight and clear to me as a ray of light. The boldness (if they will have it to be so) with which I speak on any subject, is a compliment to the judgment of the reader. It is like saying to him, _I treat you as a man and not as a child_. With respect to any worldly object, as it is impossible to discover any in me, therefore what I do, and my manner of doing it, ought to be ascribed to a good motive.
In a great affair, where the happiness of man is at stake, I love to work for nothing; and so fully am I under the influence of this principle, that I should lose the spirit, the pleasure, and the pride of it, were I conscious that I looked for reward; and with this declaration, I take my leave for the present.(1) 1 The self-assertion of this and other letters about this time was really self-defence, the invective against him, and the calumnies, being such as can hardly be credited by those not familiar with the publications of that time.--_Editor._ Thomas Paine.
Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Dec. 3, 1802.
LETTER V.(1) 1 The National Intelligencer, Feb., 1803. In the Tarions collections of these Letters there appears at this point a correspondence between Paine and Samuel Adams of Boston, but as it relates to religious matters I reserve it for the fourth volume.--_Editor._.
It is always the interest of a far greater part of the nation to have a thing right than to have it wrong; and therefore, in a country whose government is founded on the system of election and representation, the fate of every party is decided by its principles.
As this system is the only form and principle of government by which liberty can be preserved, and the only one that can embrace all the varieties of a great extent of country, it necessarily follows, that to have the representation real, the election must be real; and that where the election is a fiction, the representation is a fiction also. _Like will always produce like_.
A great deal has been said and written concerning the conduct of Mr.
Burr, during the late contest, in the federal legislature, whether Mr.
Jefferson or Mr. Burr should be declared President of the United States.
Mr. Burr has been accused of intriguing to obtain the Presidency.
Whether this charge be substantiated or not makes little or no part of the purport of this letter. There is a point of much higher importance to attend to than any thing that relates to the individual Mr. Burr: for the great point is not whether Mr. Burr has intrigued, but whether the legislature has intrigued with _him_.
Mr. Ogden, a relation of one of the senators of New Jersey of the same name, and of the party assuming the style of Federalists, has written a letter published in the New York papers, signed with his name, the purport of which is to exculpate Mr. Burr from the charges brought against him. In this letter he says: "When about to return from Washington, two or three _members of Congress_ of the federal party spoke to me of _their views_, as to the election of a president, desiring me to converse with Colonel Burr on the subject, and to ascertain _whether he would enter into terms_. On my return to New York I called on Colonel Burr, and communicated the above to him. He explicitly declined the explanation, and _did neither propose nor agree to any terms_."
How nearly is human cunning allied to folly! The animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call _cunning_, know always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning, he blunders and betrays.
Mr. Ogden's letter is intended to exculpate Mr. Burr from the charge of intriguing to obtain the presidency; and the letter that he (Ogden) writes for this purpose is direct evidence against his party in Congress, that they intrigued with Burr to obtain him for President, and employed him (Ogden) for the purpose. To save _Aaron_, he betrays _Moses_, and then turns informer against the _Golden Calf_.
It is but of little importance to the world to know if Mr. Burr _listened_ to an intriguing proposal, but it is of great importance to the constituents to know if their representatives in Congress made one.
The ear can commit no crime, but the tongue may; and therefore the right policy is to drop Mr. Burr, as being only the hearer, and direct the whole charge against the Federal faction in Congress as the active original culprit, or, if the priests will have scripture for it, as the serpent that beguiled Eve.
1 In the presidential canvas of 1800, the votes in the electoral college being equally divided between Burr and Jefferson, the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. Jefferson was elected on the 36th ballot, but he never forgave Burr, and between these two old friends Paine had to write this letter under some embarrassment. The last paragraph of this Letter shows Paine's desire for a reconciliation between Burr and Jefferson. Aaron Burr is one of the traditionally slandered figures of American history.
--_Editor._ The plot of the intrigue was to make Mr. Burr President, on the private condition of his agreeing to, and entering into, terms with them, that is, with the proposers. Had then the election been made, the country, knowing nothing of this private and illegal transaction, would have supposed, for who could have supposed otherwise, that it had a President according to the forms, principles, and intention of the constitution.
No such thing. Every form, principle, and intention of the constitution would have been violated; and instead of a President, it would have had a mute, a sort of image, hand-bound and tongue-tied, the dupe and slave of a party, placed on the theatre of the United States, and acting the farce of President.
It is of little importance, in a constitutional sense, to know what the terms to be proposed might be, because any terms other than those which the constitution prescribes to a President are criminal. Neither do I see how Mr. Burr, or any other person put in the same condition, could have taken the oath prescribed by the constitution to a President, which is, "_I do solemnly swear (or affirm,) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States_."
How, I ask, could such a person have taken such an oath, knowing at the same time that he had entered into the Presidency on terms unknown in the Constitution, and private, and which would deprive him of the freedom and power of acting as President of the United States, agreeably to his constitutional oath?
Mr. Burr, by not agreeing to terms, has escaped the danger to which they exposed him, and the perjury that would have followed, and also the punishment annexed thereto. Had he accepted the Presidency on terms unknown in the constitution, and private, and had the transaction afterwards transpired, (which it most probably would, for roguery is a thing difficult to conceal,) it would have produced a sensation in the country too violent to be quieted, and too just to be resisted; and in any case the election must have been void.
But what are we to think of those members of Congress, who having taken an oath of the same constitutional import as the oath of the President, violate that oath by tampering to obtain a President on private conditions. If this is not sedition against the constitution and the country, it is difficult to define what sedition in a representative can be.
Say not that this statement of the case is the effect of personal or party resentment. No. It is the effect of _sincere concern_ that such corruption, of which this is but a sample, should, in the space of a few years, have crept into a country that had the fairest opportunity that Providence ever gave, within the knowledge of history, of making itself an illustrious example to the world.
What the terms were, or were to be, it is probable we never shall know; or what is more probable, that feigned ones, if any, will be given. But from the conduct of the party since that time we may conclude, that no taxes would have been taken off, that the clamour for war would have been kept up, new expences incurred, and taxes and offices increased in consequence; and, among the articles of a private nature, that the leaders in this seditious traffic were to stipulate with the mock President for lucrative appointments for themselves.
But if these plotters against the Constitution understood their business, and they had been plotting long enough to be masters of it, a single article would have comprehended every thing, which is, _That the President (thus made) should be governed in all cases whatsoever by a private junto appointed by themselves_. They could then, through the medium of a mock President, have negatived all bills which their party in Congress could not have opposed with success, and reduced representation to a nullity.
The country has been imposed upon, and the real culprits are but few; and as it is necessary for the peace, harmony, and honour of the Union, to separate the deceiver from the deceived, the betrayer from the betrayed, that men who once were friends, and that in the worst of times, should be friends again, it is necessary, as a beginning, that this dark business be brought to full investigation. Ogden's letter is direct evidence of the fact of tampering to obtain a conditional President. He knows the two or three members of Congress that commissioned him, and they know who commissioned them.
Thomas Paine.
Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Jan. 29th, 1803.
LETTER VI.(1) 1 The Aurora (Philadelphia).--_Editor._.
Religion and War is the cry of the Federalists; Morality and Peace the voice of Republicans. The union of Morality and Peace is congenial; but that of Religion and War is a paradox, and the solution of it is hypocrisy.
The leaders of the Federalists have no judgment; their plans no consistency of parts; and want of consistency is the natural consequence of want of principle.
They exhibit to the world the curious spectacle of an _Opposition_ without a _cause_, and conduct without system. Were they, as doctors, to prescribe medicine as they practise politics, they would poison their patients with destructive compounds.
There are not two things more opposed to each other than War and Religion; and yet, in the double game those leaders have to play, the one is necessarily the theme of their politics, and the other the text of their sermons. The week-day orator of Mars, and the Sunday preacher of Federal Grace, play like gamblers into each other's hands, and this they call Religion.
Though hypocrisy can counterfeit every virtue, and become the associate of every vice, it requires a great dexterity of craft to give it the power of deceiving. A painted sun may glisten, but it cannot warm. For hypocrisy to personate virtue successfully it must know and feel what virtue is, and as it cannot long do this, it cannot long deceive.
When an orator foaming for War breathes forth in another sentence a _plaintive piety of words_, he may as well write hypocrisy on his front.
The late attempt of the Federal leaders in Congress (for they acted without the knowledge of their constituents) to plunge the country into War, merits not only reproach but indignation. It was madness, conceived in ignorance and acted in wickedness. The head and the heart went partners in the crime.
A neglect of punctuality in the performance of a treaty is made a _cause_ of war by the _Barbary powers_, and of remonstrance and explanation by _civilised powers_. The Mahometans of Barbary negociate by the sword--they seize first, and ex-postulate afterwards; and the federal leaders have been labouring to _barbarize_ the United States by adopting the practice of the Barbary States, and this they call honour.
Let their honour and their hypocrisy go weep together, for both are defeated. Their present Administration is too moral for hypocrites, and too economical for public spendthrifts.
A man the least acquainted with diplomatic affairs must know that a neglect in punctuality is not one of the legal causes of war, unless that neglect be confirmed by a refusal to perform; and even then it depends upon circumstances connected with it. The world would be in continual quarrels and war, and commerce be annihilated, if Algerine policy was the law of nations. And were America, instead of becoming an example to the old world of good and moral government and civil manners, or, if they like it better, of gentlemanly conduct towards other nations, to set up the character of ruffian, that of _word and blow, and the blow first_, and thereby give the example of pulling down the little that civilization has gained upon barbarism, her Independence, instead of being an honour and a blessing, would become a curse upon the world and upon herself.
The conduct of the Barbary powers, though unjust in principle, is suited to their prejudices, situation, and circumstances. The crusades of the church to exterminate them fixed in their minds the unobliterated belief that every Christian power was their mortal enemy. Their religious prejudices, therefore, suggest the policy, which their situation and circumstances protect them in. As a people, they are neither commercial nor agricultural, they neither import nor export, have no property floating on the seas, nor ships and cargoes in the ports of foreign nations. No retaliation, therefore, can be acted upon them, and they sin secure from punishment.
But this is not the case with the United States. If she sins as a Barbary power, she must answer for it as a Civilized one. Her commerce is continually passing on the seas exposed to capture, and her ships and cargoes in foreign ports to detention and reprisal. An act of War committed by her in the Mississippi would produce a War against the