Tuesday, March 31, 1801. Today, former President John Adams writes his former Navy Secretary, Benjamin Stoddert, about their Federalist party:
No party that ever existed knew itself so little or so vainly overrated its own influence and popularity, as ours. None ever understood so ill the causes of its own power or so wantonly destroyed them. If we had been blessed with common sense, we should not have been overthrown by … Duane, Callender, Cooper and Lyon, or their great patron and protector [Thomas Jefferson]. A group of foreign liars, encouraged by a few ambitious native gentlemen, have discomfited the education, the talents, the virtues, and the property of the country. The reason is, we have no Americans in America. The Federalists have been no more American than the Anties.2048
Thursday, April 16, 1801. Today, former President John Adams writes South Carolinian Christopher Gadsden:
What is the reason that so many of our “old standbys” are infected with Jacobinism? The principles of this infernal tribe were surely no part of our ancient political creed.
“Foreign meddlers,” as you properly denominate them, have a strange and mysterious influence in this country. Is there no pride in American bosoms? Can their hearts endure that Callender, Duane, Cooper and Lyon should be the most influential men in the country, all foreigners and all degraded characters? It is astonishing to me that the “tribes of law-followers” should adopt principles subversive of all law, should unite with the ignorant and illiberal against men of understanding and property.2049
Saturday, May 23, 1801. Today, President Jefferson writes me:
I asked if you could give me a list of the prosecutions of a public nature against you & over which I might have a controul; observing that whenever in the line of my functions I should be met by the Sedition law, I should treat it as a nullity. That therefore, even in the prosecution recommended by the Senate, if founded on that law, I would order a nolle prosequi [an order not to prosecute] … The trial on behalf of the Senate being postponed, you have time to explain your wishes to me, and if it be done on a consultation with Mr. Dallas, it may abridge the operations which shall be thought proper.
I accept with acknowledgment Mrs. Bache’s compliments & beg leave to tender her my sincere respect & to yourselves salutations & my best wishes …2050
President Jefferson will explain his policy to an outraged Abigail Adams:
I discharged every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition law, because I considered and now consider that law to be a nullity as absolute and as palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image … [The discharge] was accordingly done in every instance without asking what the offenders had done or against whom they had offended but whether the pains they were suffering were inflicted under the pretended sedition law. It was certainly possible that my motives … might have been to protect, encourage and reward slander; but they may also have been … to protect the Constitution violated by an unauthorized act of Congress. Which of these were my motives must be decided by a regard to the general tenor of my life. On this I am not afraid to appeal to the nation at large, to posterity, and still less to that Being who sees himself our motives, who will judge us from his own knowlege of them, and not on the testimony of Porcupine or Fenno.2051
Tuesday, September 15, 1801. Today, John Adams writes his son, Thomas:
Have a care that you do not let Captain Duane know that I am reading Cicero de Senectute [Cicero concerning Old Age] again, because he will immediately insert in his Aurora Borealis that I recollected those words in the 17th Chapter… [“nothing seems so royal as to engage in the pursuit of land cultivation”]. He will say that there is nothing in building stone walls or in collecting heaps of compost but the tang of royalty and monarchy which … attracts my esteem and affection, and all the Germans and all the Irish and all the Quakers and Anabaptists will say they believe him, and the Presbyterians will shake their heads and say it is too true … I do not recollect to have seen an Aurora since I became a monarch of stony fields, Count of Gull Island, Earl of Mt. Ararat, Marquis of Candlewood Hill, and Baron of Rocky Run …2052
Monday, October 25, 1802. Today, President Jefferson instructs his U.S. Attorney General, Levi Lincoln:
I shall take no other revenge than, by the steady pursuit of economy and peace and by the establishment of republican principles in substance and inform, to sink federalism into an abyss from which there shall be no resurrection for it.2053
Tuesday, December 21, 1802. Today, in Washington, Federalist William Plumer writes:
Soon after my arrival, I thought it my duty from the high office Mr. Jefferson holds, not from respect to him, to wait upon him … I was with other members introduced into the levee chamber. In a few moments, his lank majesty entered in a brown coat, red waistcoat, striped corduroy small clothes, injured by time & soiled with dirt, german hose & slippers without heels. I thought he was a servant, but a voice soon announced it was the President … I have never prized humility … I was soon roused from these reflections by beholding over the chimney piece an elegant portrait of the late illustrious Washington & family & on one side of the Hall [an oil painting of] the Apotheosis of that never to be forgotten man; but can you, if you can, believe me, at the other side of the same room sat Thomas Payne, the calumniator of the illustrious dead! Yes, he was there conversing & behaving with all the airs & familiarity of an equal with the President. There is too much truth to the adage, a man is known by his company.
It is said that Mr. Payne frequently dines with the President … The federalists believe the President will have cause to rue the day in which he invited this man to return to this country …
Duane is another of the Great man’s associates. This man who a few years since branded the Senate of the United States with the epithet of rascals is now their official printer. In times like these, posts of honour are private life …2054
Thursday, March 8, 1804. Today, I write twelve-year-old Franklin Bache (oldest of Benny’s four sons and now one of mine):
I know very well that when you read your lessons, you will compare the good and the bad actions of the Romans with those of men in America—it is fit you should. Every American is bound to do it, and you have a particular obligation in you to do so from your name in every respect. Your Great Grandfather is properly thought the father of American liberty—he it was who formed the American mind and character for more than fifty years to become what America now is, one of the greatest and the only free nation in the world …
You have therefore not only to pursue the path which your ancestor prepared for you but [also] that in which your own father walked with equal virtue, taking into view the shortness of his life. It is my particular ambition, my dear boy, that you should be worthy of both—
By a singular fortune, your Great Grandfather has been for more than thirty years of my life the constant idol of my affections as a politician—he has been my hero—and it is a felicity to me that I am so nearly connected with his posterity as to stand in the relation of father to you and to be loved by you and your brothers and mother, to see us all so happy and fond of each other—and growing up in prosperity as you grow up in years …
Love your brothers and sisters, and love and honor your parents and relatives, and you can in no manner more gratify me, unless in realizing the hope of seeing you one day distinguished as an ornament to your country, a true Franklin, and … I shall partake of the honor of being your guardian guide and to stand in the relation of father to you.2055
Sunday, July 7, 1805. Today, former President John Adams writes Dr. Benjamin Rush:
I have not seen an Aurora a long time, but last night I was told that, in the late papers of Mr. Duane, he or his writers are elaborately answering my Defence [of the Constitutions of Government of the United States] and recommending a government of one assembly … There is a body of people in every state in the union who are both in heart and head of this sect. This tribe will always be courted by the seekers of popularity and opposers of a good systematic government. They are properly the sans-culottes of this country.2056
Tuesday, March 10, 1807. Today, my wife, Peggy, writes her brother, Peter Markoe:
[M]y orphan children … are all fast approaching that Time of life that requires a little assistance to put them forward in the world. Now only conceive, my dear Brother, what I must feel when I reflect that I have four Boys who are educated and supported by Mr. Duane. There are very few fathers in law [stepfathers] that would have acted as Mr. D. has done. He has a large family & children of his own; however, he says he glories in protecting Benjamin’s children.2057
Saturday, March 30, 1811. Today, former President Thomas Jefferson writes:
This paper [the Philadelphia Aurora] has unquestionably rendered incalculable services to republicanism through all its struggles with the federalists, and has been the rallying point for the orthodoxy of the whole Union. It was our comfort in the gloomiest days and is still performing the office of a watchful sentinel.2058
Wednesday, December 4, 1811. Today, former President John Adams writes Dr. Benjamin Rush:
We have seen advertised in the Aurora … Dr. Franklin’s works and especially his journal in France …
I am told, too, that Colonel Duane has announced his intention to take me in hand for what I have published concerning Dr. Franklin. He is welcome. I have published my proofs as well as complaints. Let the world judge.2059
Sunday, October 19, 1823. Today, former President Jefferson writes President James Monroe:
[T]he energy of [William Duane’s Aurora], when our cause was laboring and all but lost under the overwelming weight of its powerful adversaries, its unquestionable effect in the revolution produced in the public mind … arrested the rapid march of our government towards monarchy …2060
Thursday, July 29, 1824. Today, former Secretary of State Timothy Pickering writes:
[I]t was important to maintain, during the revolution, the popular opinion in [Washington’s] favour. Accordingly, there was no public disclosure … These early impressions in favor of Washington remain on the minds, generally, of his surviving contemporary fellow-citizens, and have passed, naturally, into the minds of the succeeding generation. Hence to question the reality of those imputed excellencies is deemed little short of treason. But is it proper that the truth should forever be concealed?2061
1927. This year, yet another edition of the Rev. Mason Locke Weems’ book A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington, first published in 1800, just a few months after Washington’s death, appears in bookstores throughout the United States:
“George,” said his father, “do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree in the garden?” This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, “I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie …”2062
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