CHAPTER persevere in mine, and rest assured that no mistaken VIII. opinion of yours or resentment against me will prevent 1795, my having due respect for you-as a jury."

From public meetings and the newspapers, the discussion of the British treaty had been transferred into the arena of the state Legislatures. Shelby, governor of Nov. 4. Kentucky, in his speech to the Legislature, attacked the treaty as containing unconstitutional stipulations. The House, in their reply, seemed to agree with him, but the Senate evaded any decided committal. The House of Nov. 20. Delegates of Virginia, after electing James Wood as governor, adopted, one hundred to fifty, in spite of the efforts of Marshall and Charles Lee, both of whom had seats in that body, a resolution approving the conduct of their senators in voting against the treaty. A counter-resolution, declaring their undiminished confidence in the president, was lost, fifty-nine to seventy-nine. But this implied censure was partially qualified by another vote, seventy-eight to sixty-two, disclaiming any imputation on the president's motives. Another series of resolutions was also adopted, proposing to amend the Constitution of the United States by admitting the House of Representatives to a share in the treaty-making power; by reducing the senatorial term to three years; by depriving the Senate of the power to try impeachments; and by disqualifying judges of the Supreme Court of the United States from holding any other office. Yet this same Legislature so far abandoned one of the favorite topics of denunciation as to adopt a resolution in favor of the establishment within the state of a branch of the national bank.

The Maryland Legislature, stimulated thereto in no small degree by the eloquence of William Pinckney, then just rising into notice, unanimously passed a resolution expressing their "deep concern at a series of efforts, by

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indirect insinuation or open invective, to detach from the CHAPTER first magistrate of the Union the well-earned confidence of his fellow-citizens," and declaring "their unabated re- 1795. liance on his integrity, judgment, and patriotism." A declaration very similar was made by the Senate of Pennsylvania in their answer to the governor's speech. In answer to the speech of John Taylor Gilman, governor of New Hampshire for two years past, the Legislature of that state expressed "their abhorrence of those disturb- Dec. 5. ers of the peace who had endeavored to render abortive measures so well calculated to advance the happiness of the country." The North Carolina Legislature rejected Dec. 8. by a decided majority a series of resolutions after the Virginia model, reprobating the treaty, and thanking their senators for having opposed it. Resolutions having been introduced into the South Carolina Legislature declaring the treaty "highly injurious to the general interests of the United States," the friends of the treaty, finding themselves quite in the minority, refused to vote at all, on the ground that the Legislature had no business to interfere with a matter intrusted to the president and Senate; and in consequence of this refusal, the resolutions passed by a unanimous vote. But the House did not venture to send up their resolutions to the Senate. A resolution declaring the treaty unconstitutional, very warmly urged by Charles Pinckney, was opposed and defeated principally by the efforts of John Rutledge, Jun., a son of the new chief justice.

4

In Delaware, the opponents of the treaty, being in the 1796. minority, resorted to the same tactics employed by its Jan. 14 friends in Virginia. They endeavored to substitute for a declaration that "the president and Senate had merited the approbation of their fellow-citizens by a faithful discharge of their duty," a resolution that the matter

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CHAPTER did not properly fall under the cognizance of the Assembly. But this was voted down, and the resolution of 1796. approval passed. In his address to the General Court Jan. 15. of Massachusetts, Governor Adams spoke of the treaty

as "pregnant with evil." He suggested a conflict of authority, as the Constitution stood, between the treatymaking power of the president and Senate and the legislative authority of the House, and he seemed to think an amendment on that point worthy of consideration. He also transmitted to the Court the resolutions lately passed in Virginia on the subject of amendments; but neither those nor his own suggestions met with any favorable response. The Massachusetts Senate, declaring their concurrence in the belief avowed by the governor that the administration of the general government was in honest hands, expressed a unanimous opinion that it would be an interference with the power intrusted to that government for the state Legislatures to decide on the British treaty;" while the House, by a large majority, suggested "a respectful submission on the part of the people to the constituted authorities" "as the surest means of enjoying and perpetuating the invaluable blessings of our free and representative government." The Feb. General Court of Rhode Island expressed the opinion that the president and Senate, in their action on the treaty, had been solely actuated by regard to the peace and prosperity of their country; and in that state, as well as in New York and Massachusetts, the proposed Virginia amendments were rejected or laid on the table.

Before the president had succeeded in supplying the vacancies in his cabinet, and pending these demonstra1795. tions of opinion in the states, the fourth Congress had Dec. 7. already met. Among those who had heretofore been members, there appeared in the House, Ames, Goodhue,

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Sedgwick, Thatcher, Dearborn, and W. Lyman, of Mas- CHAPTER sachusetts; Tracy and Hillhouse, of Connecticut; Dayton, of New Jersey; Hartley, Kittera, F. A. Muhlenburg, 1795. Findley, and Gregg, of Pennsylvania; Murray and Smith, of Maryland; Madison, Giles, Nicholas, Page, and Parker, of Virginia; Macon, of North Carolina; Smith, of South Carolina, and Baldwin, of Georgia. Among the new members were Joseph B. Varnum, of Massachusetts, who had defeated Dexter after a violent and protracted struggle; Roger Griswold, of Connecticut; Edward Livingston, representing the city of New York; Samuel Sitgreaves, Albert Gallatin, and John Swanwick, of Pennsylvania, the latter chosen by the opposition, over the head of Fitzsimmons, to represent the city of Philadelphia; Gabriel Duvall, of Maryland, afterward a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States; and Wade Hampton and Robert G. Harper, of South Carolina. Harper, by profession a lawyer, born in Maryland, of humble parentage, had been chosen from one of the upper districts of South Carolina as an opponent of the policy of the administration. His political zeal had, indeed, been so great, that, a year or two before, he had solicited admission into the Democratic club of Charleston. He saw reason, however, to change his opinions, and presently became a conspicuous champion of the Federal party. Dayton was chosen speaker over Muhlenburg by a vote of forty-six to thirty-one. This, however, was no test of the strength of parties. All the Federalists voted for Dayton, as the only person at all connected with their party who had the slightest chance of success; while Dayton's personal influence, his former zeal for the sequestration of British debts, and the belief that he would hardly sustain a treaty, one of the articles of which seemed leveled at his motion on that subject, secured him the votes of many IV. O o

CHAPTER opponents of the administration. The old clerk, Bexley, VIII. was re-elected by a majority as large as Dayton's, though 1795. he was opposed by the Federalists as being devoted to

Dec. 3.

the opposition, and was even strongly suspected as the author of certain recent articles in the Aurora signed "a Calm Observer," in which Washington was charged with having drawn from the treasury money on account of his salary to which he was not entitled.

By the rules as revised and adopted, to the two standing committees on Elections and Claims, two others were added, one on Commerce and Manufactures, the other on Unfinished Business. A standing committee of Ways and Means, consisting, as in the last Congress, of one member from each state, was presently added, on motion of Gallatin.

The president, in his opening speech, in announcing the conclusion of peace with the Northwestern Indians, the treaty with Algiers, and the prospect of a treaty with Spain-for the news of its actual conclusion had not yet arrived congratulated Congress on a state of public affairs, and a prosperity of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures beyond former example. He also officially announced his ratification of the British treaty, except the West India article, and promised, as soon as the result on the part of the British government should be known, to place the whole subject before Congress. He suggested a remodeling of the military establishment; pressed anew an efficient organization of the militia; and urged, with emphasis, the adoption of measures to protect the Indians against the violence of the lawless part of the frontier inhabitants-the only means of securing peace with the Indians, and thus preventing a constant series of retaliations shocking to humanity, and an enormous drain on the treasury of the Union. "To enforce upon