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2020-11-27 “Fire-Brands of Sedition”: The Democratic Societies of the

Carr, Chloe Madison

Carr, C. M. (2020). “Fire-Brands of Sedition”: The Democratic Societies of the 1790s (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112798 master thesis

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UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

“Fire-Brands of Sedition”: The Democratic Societies of the 1790s

by

Chloe Madison Carr

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY

CALGARY, ALBERTA

NOVEMBER, 2020

© Chloe Madison Carr 2020 ii

Abstract

The citizen-led Democratic-Republican or Democratic societies in the represented a new era of political discourse in the 1790s. Members of these societies, frustrated by their sense that the emerging Federalist executive branch of government was becoming dangerously elitist, and alienated by decision-making in Congress, met regularly to compose resolutions to publish in local and national papers and so make their concerns widely known.

Many Federalists, in and out of government, became wary of these societies and their increased presence in the public sphere. Federalists believed the political participation of ordinary citizens should be limited, and political demonstrations should either show support for governmental policy or exhibit bipartisan patriotism through parades and similar celebrations. As manifestations of political opposition by common citizens, the Democratic societies seemed threatening.

This thesis studies the organization of these societies, and their interactions with political opponents in the press and public sphere, to explore some long-held misconceptions about their participation in political debate in the 1790s. First, this thesis brings into question the role of

Democratic societies in the , initially described by Federalists and then repeated by generations of historians. The thesis then turns to similar misconceptions surround the timing and reasons for the societies’ demise. Many have argued, under the influence of

Federalist victory celebrations over the societies, that they withered away following President

Washington’s harsh condemnation of them in 1794, but some of them survived into the nineteenth century. Finally, this thesis examines the period between 1795 and 1800, and the

Democratic societies’ presence in the public sphere in spite of strict Federalist policies during

John Adams’ presidency. As the Federalists had long popularized the narrative which depicted iii the societies as impotent and seditious rebels, incorrect assumptions about their values and longevity have endured even until today. I argue, based on this evidence, that while the

Federalists were in an advantageous position during the Adams administration to legally suppress political dissent, and described themselves as utter victors over the societies, the

Democratic societies endured longer than previously believed, influencing political ideology as late as the 1820s.

iv

Acknowledgements

There have been many people who have helped me on my journey through the process of writing my thesis. My supervisor, Dr. Jewel Spangler, has been a mentor to me, and supported me through my degree in all matters of writing, research, and career. From the beginning, your incredible encouragement has supported me through this challenging and rewarding project. I will miss our conversations about historical fiction and our mutual appreciation for Patrick

O’Brian’s works. Thank you for your help and support, I could not have done this without you.

I would also like to extend my thanks to my defence committee, including Dr. Courtnay

Konshuh, Dr. Lyndsay Campbell, and Dr. Joshua D. Goldstein. To the Department of History administrative staff, thank you for your tireless work and for keeping our program running smoothly. Lori Somner, thank you for your welcoming presence, and indispensable work as

Graduate Program Advisor. Similarly, to Dr. David B. Marshall, thank you for your encouragement, and for your entertaining and enlightening lectures. Your classes gave me a new appreciation for Canadian history and the art of the biography. To my cohort and fellow students,

Xumeng, Blake, Amy, Stacey, and Sam, you have all been wonderful people who I could always trust. Thank you for your hard work and for making these years so enjoyable.

To my parents, you have encouraged me and helped me in more ways than I can express.

Thank you for taking care of me and supporting me both at home and abroad, for tolerating the mountains of books and papers throughout the house, and for providing feedback on all my work. To my sister, thank you for your patience and for lending an ear to a barrage of historical nonsense, and for being there whenever I’ve needed someone to talk to.

1

Table of Contents Abstract...... ii Table of Contents ...... 1 Introduction ...... 3 Historiography ...... 8 Chapter One: Forming the Democratic Societies in a Storm of Criticism ...... 16 The Democratic Societies ...... 19 and 1790s Political Climate ...... 27 Beginning of Partisan Press ...... 34 “Fire-Brands of Sedition” and Self Creation ...... 36 Jacobinism in the U.S...... 40 Citizen Genêt Affair ...... 42 Myth of Genêt ...... 48 Conclusion ...... 50 Chapter Two: The Whiskey Rebellion: Turning Point ...... 52 Excise Tax, Policy, and Rebellion ...... 53 The Mingo Creek Association ...... 59 ’s Condemnation ...... 67 Congressional Debates ...... 70 Federalist Response ...... 73 Historiography ...... 86 Conclusion ...... 81 Chapter Three: Sedition, Censure, and Decline of the Democratic Societies, 1795-1800 .... 83 Counting Democratic Societies ...... 87 Jay’s Treaty ...... 90 Public Response ...... 91 XYZ Affair ...... 98 Quasi-War and Widespread Paranoia ...... 102 Adams’ ...... 107 The Demise of the Democratic Societies, 1796-1800 ...... 111 Conclusion ...... 119 Conclusion ...... 124 2

Bibliography ...... 130 Primary Sources ...... 130 Secondary Sources ...... 132

3

Introduction

“Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? . . . When you're gone, who remembers your name? Who keeps your flame? Who tells your story?”1 These words, sung by the cast of Lin-

Manuel Miranda’s 2015 musical , echo the hopes and fears of people throughout known history. Motivating many written records and treatises is the desire to be remembered or to shape memory—and the fear of being forgotten or misrepresented. Ironically, while Hamilton: An

American Musical is meant to be a corrective to the flawed collective memory of the first

Secretary of the , his historical counterpart was very well aware of the importance of taking control over the historical narrative, often seizing the opportunity to control the public perception of his political opponents. In 1793, Federalists, the dominant political figures of the

1790s in Congress and the executive branch, and precursors to the party of , found themselves in opposition to a populist movement. Led by opponents to the Federalists, sometimes called the Jeffersonians, or the republicans (precursors to Jefferson’s party, the

Democratic-Republicans), this opposition movement threatened the order the Federalists had established following the Revolution. Men of all classes clamoured to participate in national political debates. In their efforts to counter this movement, Federalists in the 1790s attempted to control the public reaction toward its participants, often through rhetoric intended to misrepresent and undermine their targets.

The expansion of the public sphere in the 1790s, through the appearance of the partisan press and the emergence of these new Democratic societies, whose membership included men of the “middling sort,” challenged long-accepted notions about American citizens’ role in government and pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in public discourse. These

1 “Finale (Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story),” All Musicals, accessed Aug. 28, 2020, https://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/hamilton/finalewholiveswhodieswhotellsyourstory.htm. 4 societies first appeared in , quickly spreading in number across the states as they attracted supporters. They supported the movement and advocated for republicanism in

France. They also abhorred friendly diplomatic relations with Great Britain, and viewed the monarchy as tyranny. The societies’ resolutions and interactions with each other, and the public, provide insight into these political beliefs, as well as their sense of security as populist organizations often at odds with federal policy. Such publications also demonstrate the expansion of the public sphere during this period, and indicate public opinion among the literate.

In the 1790s, newspapers grew more political, reflecting the increasingly partisan nature of political debate in Congress. Publications and articles, written in response to the Democratic societies’ resolutions, were common across the states during this period, though most numerous in and Pennsylvania. The tendency of such articles to either show support for or to criticize the Democratic societies often depended on the political leaning of the newspaper in which they appeared. Benjamin Bache’s Aurora, for instance, published many articles indicating their support for the societies in the 1790s. In contrast, John Fenno’s Gazette of the United

States, a Federalist publication, often published articles criticizing the societies. Such critical response, at times fierce, often stemmed from Federalist ideals regarding citizens’ roles in politics. For instance, following the early 1790s debate regarding the appropriateness of peaceful dissent against the government, Federalists held that the Democratic societies’ conspicuous

Republican beliefs bordered on sedition and anarchy. In contrast, Federalists tolerated public displays of patriotism and town meetings in support of the government. However, they condemned similar displays that questioned the legitimacy of Congressional policy, or which demonstrated support for the French . 5

The Federalist response to such popular activities is significant and impacted first the

Democratic societies’ public image, and later their ability to express dissenting opinions conspicuously. During this era, public events and the press offered ordinary citizens places to voice their support or discontent in an unofficial yet legal manner. Historian Seth Cotlar notes that in not participating solely through “Federalist-approved” venues of public debate, such as town meetings, small political societies undermined the perceived authority by those who organized the forums, and that their participation diluted the important messages given to the people by Federalist lawmakers. Furthermore, Federalists held that citizens should only voice their support of government actions, so a public forum would theoretically be a place in which citizens came to support their representatives. However, to Federalists, “the Democratic-

Republican Societies articulated a degraded and partial version of [public opinion],” and so their conduct was inappropriate. In contrast, “the only legitimate expressions of public opinion,”

Cotlar writes, were “sporadically called town meetings and spontaneous gatherings to write and sign petitions.” Anyone who used these opportunities as a means to cause trouble and stir up resentment was acting improperly and outside of their assigned prerogative. 2 This implies that in theory, Federalists would consider silence as an acceptable sign of discontent, while those who voiced their concerns were acting improperly, and therefore their opinion would be invalid. After all, only those observing proper decorum displayed an aptitude for participating in government policy, and those that did not adhere to these expectations were uneducated outsiders.

The Democratic societies made no attempt to conceal their political leanings. Their resolutions declared support for contentious movements like Jacobinism and reaffirmed their right to speak freely, either in support for or against the government. During the early phase of

2 Seth Cotlar, Tom Paine’s America: The Rise and Fall of Transatlantic Radicalism in the Early (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011), quoted pages 193 and 194. 6 their existence, between approximately 1793 and mid-1794, the first Democratic societies were popular among Republicans and inspired the appearance of many similar societies across the country. After the Whiskey Rebellion, however, the widespread criticism took on a more severe tone of condemnation, as many Federalists considered the Democratic societies responsible for the insurrection. In late 1794, Washington publicly condemned the “self-created” societies as unregulated illegitimate organizations. Historians disagree about the impact that the Whiskey

Rebellion and Washington’s response had on public opinion and the eventual decline of the societies. Contemporary newspaper accounts demonstrate that Democratic societies, in contrast to modern historical analysis, did actively defend themselves and their allies against the wave of criticism that followed the insurrection. Despite public pressure, many societies survived the multitude of written attacks, and actively participated in the debate surrounding Jay’s Treaty the following year. However, because Federalist critics like Hamilton eagerly sought to blame the insurrection on the societies, their activities following the Whiskey Rebellion have often been overlooked, as historians have attributed their demise to Washington’s 1794 condemnation.

It is undeniable that the events following the Whiskey Rebellion had a direct impact on the societies’ ability to function and present themselves in the press as sympathetic defenders of liberty. While the debate demonstrated the determination of the Democratic societies to be involved in politics and the press, their participation and numbers were declining. During

Adams’ presidency, the Quasi-War and XYZ Affair, Francophobia, and widespread paranoia about immigration created an environment in which the values espoused by the societies were increasingly challenged and despised. Immigrant supporters of the societies, many of whom were

Irish Republicans, were threatened with prosecution under the Alien and Sedition Acts. The intensity of criticism against the societies increased, and the societies slowly lost allies as their 7 numbers dwindled under the pressure. Many high-profile supporters of the societies were indicted and fined, and a few were jailed for their dissent. However, a small number of

Democratic societies continued to meet and participate in the public sphere, albeit in a subdued manner and without producing formal publications, into the next century.

This thesis primarily focuses on the period between 1793 and 1800, and the rise and fall of the Democratic societies. I examine the contemporary events that affected the societies’ activities and publications. This includes the early 1790s political atmosphere and the nascent party alliances that influenced political debate. The Democratic societies emerged ready to engage in the debates that characterized the early Republic, and their members eagerly sought to establish a place as legitimate, if unconventional, voices in politics. In the middle of the decade, it became clear that grassroots dissenters, and their allies in the press, were adamant in voicing their opinions. This thesis also examines the role Federalists played in utilizing the press to their advantage, taking any opportunity to depict the Democratic societies negatively and hence control the way the societies were perceived, and treated, by policymakers and other contemporaries.

Historian Philip S. Foner’s 1976 sourcebook, a collection of publications by the

Democratic societies, formed a vital component of my research material.3 In this work, he compiled the resolutions, circulars, pamphlets, and letters written by the societies and their members. Each chapter, which organizes the societies’ writing based on their state, also includes some responses from the public to these publications. Some are supportive, while others are critical. However, this work focuses primarily on the societies’ own publications, and so I had to

3 Philip Sheldon Foner, ed., The Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800: A Documentary Sourcebook of , Declarations, Addresses, Resolutions, and Toasts (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976) (Hereafter cited as DRS). 8 look elsewhere for external sources which provided context regarding the public’s reception of the societies.

I supplemented Foner’s collection with keyword searches of digitized newspapers, something Foner did not have access to. My search through the newspapers on Genealogy Bank yielded an even broader discourse regarding the societies, and I was able to identify patterns of print engagement through the database’s keyword search function. Some examples of the keywords I searched included “democratic societies,” “Jacobin societies,” and “republican societies,” as well as names and terms often connected to the societies, such as “Genet” and

“antifederalist.” In contrast to Foner, who limited his primary source material between 1793 and

1800, I broadened the parameters of the search to include the 1780s, and first two or three decades of the .

Historiography

Historian Eugene Perry Link’s 1942 work, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, was one of the earliest in-depth studies of the Democratic societies. This is a comprehensive work that examines the notable societies in the 1790s, their demographics, geographical distribution, ideology, and popular criticisms both by members and their political opponents.4

Link’s text is a foundational analysis that influenced the work of many 20th and 21st century scholars of early American history. The question that Link sought to answer was simple, but until then overlooked: who were the Democratic societies? He defines the “popular associations” of the era as “any informal, unofficial group of citizens, convened without limitations of class, race, or creed, for the purpose of participating, through expression of their sentiments, in the decisions of their government.”5 In 1790s America, when participation in politics and certain

4 Eugene Perry Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942). 5 Link, 3. 9 other aspects of society was largely restricted by gender, class, and race, it would have been unusual to find any example of a truly “popular association” that fits this description. However, the Democratic societies threatened the accepted social order because they openly questioned restrictions on political participation, which had been long enforced by the elitist standards accepted by contemporaries.

Until the 1940s, historians held assumptions about the societies that were based more on

1790s criticisms than critical analysis. For instance, historians had considered the societies to be entities supported and established by foreign movements like French Jacobinism. Their support of, and by immigrants certainly caused concern for Federalists who were wary of radical foreign values.6 Link, however, recognized the uniquely American aspects of these societies and argued instead that while they were inspired by their European counterparts, they in and of themselves advocated for American political rights.7 Their staunch support of Jacobinism was not born of treason, but their desire to spread Republican ideology.8 Link also notes that until the time of writing his book, historians had been influenced, either consciously or not, by lingering

Federalist attitudes towards the societies. This was due in no small part to the attacks levelled during the 1790s by a partisan press and other Federalist-leaning authors. Link considered these kinds of prejudices “aristocratic” and “unfair” to the reputation of the societies.9 While Link’s work has some flaws, such as an occasionally simplistic depiction of the societies’ participation

6 Michelle Orihel, “‘ Mad’: The Democratic Society of and the Sectional Politics of Navigation Rights,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 114, no. 3 (2016): 402; Robert M. Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies, Subversion, and the Limits of Legitimate Political Dissent in the Early Republic,” Law Review, Law, Loyalty, and Treason: How Can the Law Regulate Loyalty Without Imperiling It?, 82, no. 5 (2004): 1574. 7 Introduction to DRS, 4. 8 Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, 19. 9 Link, 71. 10 in the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion, his work is a momentous piece of historical revisionism that reevaluates widely accepted, and inaccurate narratives about the Democratic societies.

Following Link’s work, historians began to reevaluate the Democratic societies’ identity and involvement in the public sphere, adding depth and focus through more detailed studies.

Historian Judah Adelson’s 1964 study of the Democratic societies built on Link’s analysis, and concurred that the Democratic societies were fundamentally different from their

Jacobin counterparts in that they were Americans who supported French republicanism, and not

French institutions.10 Roland Baumann’s 1970 dissertation examines the Democratic-Republican movement in Pennsylvania, with an analysis of the Democratic societies as participants in the movement. He too notes that it was not until relatively recently that historians had began to reject the aristocratic view of the societies that labeled them, in William Cobbett’s words, “butchers, tinkers, broken hucksters, and trans-Atlantic traitors.”11 The introduction to

Foner’s 1976 work delves deeper in the era and the societies’ actions and their place in American politics, offering a broader examination of their institutions. Foner’s work appears to be the most comprehensive study since Link’s text, and offers a collection of invaluable source material.

Other authors have sought to explore the Federalist mindset indicative of this era. Stanley

Elkins and Eric McKitrick’s 1993 study, The Age of Federalism, focuses on the behind-the- scenes activity among the Federalist members of Congress, and their efforts to combat what they saw as a dangerous populist movement.12 The Democratic societies had gained supporters and momentum through the press, and awareness had risen in the national debate as to what kind of

10 Judah Adelson, “The Vermont Democratic-Republican Societies and the ,” Vermont Historical Society 32, no. 1 ( 1964): 5. 11 William Cobbett, A Little Plain English Addressed to the People of the United States, (Philadelphia, 1795), 70, quoted in Roland Milton Baumann, “The Democratic-Republicans of Philadelphia: The Origins, 1776-1797” (PA, Pennsylvania State University, 1970), ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, page 448, 444-448. 12 Stanley M. Elkins and Eric L. McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 11 influence the average citizen should have over decision-making in government. The Age of

Federalism remains one of the most-cited analyses of the 1790s political movements and the growing rift between Federalists and Republicans. The book provides a detailed analysis of late

18th century American politics, while chapters seven through ten examine the Democratic societies and the growing rift in party politics. It is also a work that prioritizes the Federalist perspective, a perspective that has historically been critical of the societies. Perhaps as a result of this, Elkins and McKitrick sometimes overlook the societies’ significance, underestimating their longevity. The Age of Federalism is useful for researching the broader political trends and events of the era, However, the work sometimes over-simplifies its depiction of the societies’ participation in contemporary events. For instance, the text argues that the societies fell in popularity and number, withering away after the Whiskey Rebellion and as a direct result of

Washington’s ensuing condemnation. What effect this event had on the societies, and what role they took in politics after 1794, depended on their response to the widespread criticism from the press and from Congress. The Democratic societies did not disappear entirely in the latter half of the decade. However, mounting societal pressure to reject French ties, due to increasingly tense

Franco-American foreign relations, made it challenging for the Democratic societies to express their traditional support for .

In the 1990s and 2000s, another spate of work on Democratic societies moved beyond

Link’s arguments to consider some new questions. Much of this work touches on Jürgen

Habmermas’ description of the public sphere, a space in which citizens approach others as equals free from state intervention. This way of thinking about civic space often appears in conjunction with discussions regarding the Democratic societies beginning in the 1990s. The “public sphere,” characterized as an institution of the people, fundamentally functioned independently of the 12 authority of government, though not necessarily against it.13 At their foundation, such work argued, Democratic societies were at the forefront of a political grassroots movement that challenged Congressional ideas about the political roles of average citizens. The societies demanded that the government recognize and preserve their right to dissent either through peaceful congregation or through the circulation of publications. In the 1790s, the public sphere had expanded with the spread of newspapers and the growth of the partisan press. This was a new medium through which political figures and private citizens alike might anonymously exchange ideas and debate. Most historians who have studied the Democratic societies have focused on their participation in local politics in the form of conspicuous cultural activities.

However, while the Democratic societies might have advocated for policy and against authority they believed unjust, some recent historiography portrays them as victims of the Federalist impulse to quell unauthorized dissent. Such portrayals depict the societies as passive actors with little control over their role in the public sphere. Eugene Link’s text was a significant monograph that helped facilitate a change in perception of the Democratic societies, but still overlooks their legacy and ability to defend themselves against rampant Federalist opposition in the press.

A relatively new approach to late 18th-century culture considers the methods of unofficial political representation and discourse. Historians like Albrecht Koschnik, David

Waldstreicher and Simon P. Newman have emphasized the role of nationalistic public celebrations as indications of the nation’s political climate and methods in which ordinary citizens could publicly voice their opinion in a socially acceptable manner. These historians have examined the Democratic societies as examples of domestic organizations that took advantage of public celebration culture to further their cause and express their patriotism while navigating

13 Jurgen Habermas, Sara Lennox, and Frank Lennox, “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964),” New German Critique, no. 3 (Fall 1974): 49, n. 1, 2. 13

Federalist opposition. The Democratic societies pushed the boundaries of acceptable political discourse, often expressing unfavourable political views through these events. They fashioned a role, as Newman writes, around republicanism, while simultaneously countering the “attempts of leading Federalists to construct a partisan cult of Washington that would temper

American republicanism with a hierarchical government and society.”14 This inclination was correct—Federalists often mobilized public opinion against the societies in such a way that it was challenging to counteract. Conspicuous celebration culture, partisan discourse, and political societies were all components of what Habermas depicted as an expanding public sphere.

Threatened by this new entity, due in part to the insistence of the “middling sort” to partake in political debate or dissent, Federalists sought to regain control over the discourse by promoting their own narrative.

More recently, Robert W. T. Martin’s 2019 article explores the 21st-century historiographical trend in evaluating the citizens’ role in public discourse. The article analyzes the question of the nature of legitimate public dissent in the 1780s-90s, and the role of those who organize and consolidate the results of these debates. Similar to Link’s assertion regarding the societies’ domestic nature, Martin notes that the Republicans were part of a faction unlike their foreign counterparts, and even American predecessors, the Patriot movement. The societies themselves “were a response to a different situation and answered a different and unavoidable question: What is the role of the average citizen in the ordinary politics of a popular, representative system?” The emphasis on the public, approved venues, however, would detract from the legitimacy of smaller, less official debates, such as those made by the Democratic societies. In general, he writes, the 1790s “was a period when the American people worked

14 Simon P. Newman, Parades and the Politics of the Street: Festive Culture in the Early American Republic (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 54. 14 through, in fits and starts, the possible avenues for legitimate popular engagement in the first modern democracy.”15 The Democratic societies were an example of this process in action, and their actions and interactions through the press and public sphere demonstrate common obstacles associated with challenging accepted political methods in the late .

My research led me to reconsider the demise of the Democratic societies, and the widely accepted reasons for their termination. My thesis takes another look at these associations and their values, and re-evaluates the common misconceptions that have followed them for generations. Given their popularity and prevalence across the states, it seemed reductive to attribute their disappearance to Washington’s 1794 denunciation. I sought to understand why they died out, at what rate, and whether there was evidence of continued activity following their supposed disappearance. I traced the Federalist propensity to misrepresent the societies from the early Anti-Federalist debates, through Whiskey Rebellion, to the Quasi-War. There was an evident pattern. The Democratic societies encroached, multiple times, on traditional political participation. Federalists, in response, used public opinion to their advantage to portray the societies’ actions as inappropriate, and to denounce their members as incapable of contributing to political debates in any meaningful way. This narrative became popular, and continues to shape historical analyses of the Democratic societies, whose story had been seized and told by their political opponents. This thesis makes an attempt to counter this imbalance.

15 Robert W. T. Martin, “A ‘Peaceable and Orderly Manner’: Town Meetings and Other Popular Assemblies in the American Founding,” Town Meeting Politics in the United States: The Idea and Practice of an American Myth, 15, no. 2 (2019): 19, 10, 1, 13, quoted pages 9 and 10. 15

I have always been a firm federalist, and in all … I have warmly opposed the

Republican and Democratic Societies, because I was told that they intended to pull down the government.16

—“The Old Bear,” Letter to the Editor

16 The Old Bear, letter to the editor, Centinel of Freedom, (Newark, NJ), , 1797, Genealogy Bank. 16

Chapter One: Forming the Democratic Societies in a Storm of Criticism

The emergence of Democratic societies in Pennsylvania and New York the early 1790s was a new phenomenon in American political life that promoted political participation among the traditionally disfranchised.1 To some, especially those with memories of the political crisis that turned into the , the idea of a populist movement rising so soon after the creation of the nascent government was a cause of concern. In the view of many officeholders, this sort of populism threatened to produce anarchy, which could, ironically, cause the dissolution of the very government the fought so hard to make possible.

On the other hand, members of the societies and their sympathizers recognized in the new government (as Federalists embodied it) seeds of potential tyranny, and feared a return to a monarchy at their hands. They viewed the creation of the Democratic societies and a citizen’s active participation in politics as necessary for the function of a healthy republic.

The newly forming societies helped to foster a national debate over the role of government and the nature of legal dissent that played itself out in the press. The societies and their critics contributed to the emergence of the partisan press, which became a popular medium of public debate. The societies endured severe criticism from contributors to some papers,

1 The societies used several names to describe themselves, but I will use the term “Democratic society” for the sake of consistency and brevity. Other names included “Madisonian,” “Franklin,” and “Patriotic,” and “Democratic- Republican,” and my capitalization of the “D” follows from this convention. Their political opponents most commonly referred to them as “Democrats” or “Jacobins.” Another term I will be using is “Republican,” as even though the official political party had not yet appeared, it was a common enough adjective recognized by contemporaries, and modern historians, and accurately encompasses the emerging ideologies of the members of the societies as well as opponents of Federalist ideology who desired for a more inclusive political arena. See Michelle Orihel, “‘Mississippi Mad’: The Democratic Society of Kentucky and the Sectional Politics of Navigation Rights,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 114, no. 3 (2016): 401, n. 3; Matthew Schoenbachler, “Republicanism in the Age of Democratic Revolution: The Democratic-Republican Societies of the 1790s,” Journal of the Early Republic 18, no. 2 (1998): 238; Eugene Perry Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), 15; and Robert M. Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies, Subversion, and the Limits of Legitimate Political Dissent in the Early Republic,” North Carolina Law Review, Law, Loyalty, and Treason: How Can the Law Regulate Loyalty Without Imperiling It?, 82, no. 5 (2004): 1531. 17 though they also enjoyed the support of others. Ultimately, Federalist and Republican-leaning papers became fixed and well known for their political positions. These debates give insight into how the Democratic societies helped form the expectations of citizens’ role in shaping public policy. At the same time, the growing ideological rift between Federalists and Republicans made many fear the possibility of a two-party politics, while even members of ’s disagreed with one another as to the legitimacy of these “self-created societies” and their claims to speak for the people.

Inspired by elements of the French Revolution, the societies pushed for a continued effort to separate from the type of monarchical tyranny so many remembered from the era of British rule. They also warned against complacency, as it was easy for the public to become comfortable with the promise of security after such a period of social turmoil and allow coercive or elitist political structures to be built around them. In the early 1790s, both Federalists and the emerging

Republican movement feared a return to some form of monarchy or similarly autocratic government. The Democratic societies, as proponents of responsible, small government, believed the U.S. should align itself with the French Revolution and in doing so, help ease France’s transition from monarchy to republic.

Federalists, on the other hand, believed that the growing transatlantic Jacobin movement could result in a disastrous sort of populist tyranny in the United States. The Jacobins, known to the Democratic societies as protectors of freedom, only presented the Federalists with the possibility of illegal, and even violent, anarchy. While the overseas Jacobin movement remained primarily concerned with French liberty, a concerning number of Jacobin sympathizers were gaining prominence in the United States. They supported the French Revolution, even going as far as to celebrate French military victories and some of the violent acts performed by followers 18 of Robespierre. Many, if not most, Americans initially felt sympathy towards the movement, especially in its early phase between 1789 and 1792. However, it was still a polarizing event, especially after the movement’s violent tendencies became apparent.2 Many members of

Democratic societies considered themselves American allies to the French Jacobins, and the content of many of their published resolutions demonstrate that they invariably supported the

French Revolution. This association would be the cause of much criticism, as suspicion grew that the societies were un-American, foreign entities that had no loyalty to the United States. A somewhat more tenuous connection could be made between the societies and Ambassador

Edmund Charles Genêt. He arrived shortly after the execution of Louis XVI and during increased French political tensions. Genêt’s mission was to garner official U.S. support for

France, and while Congress was reluctant to fuel this ambition, American Jacobins conspicuously proclaimed their support for France, and eagerness to participate in the movement.

In sum, the emergence of Democratic societies was fraught. From their founding they were objects of suspicion, criticism, and even suppression. Federalists who feared American society’s devolution into tyranny viewed the societies as symptoms of uncontrollable populism.

As such, the societies’ own unapologetic support for an unstable, even dangerous foreign movement seemed to confirm these suspicions. Using the influence of the press, Federalists seized any opportunity to denounce or undermine the societies because of this association. Thus, in the early 1790s, the most common and enduring criticisms of the societies first appear, though some have more credence than others.

2 Philip Sheldon Foner, ed., introduction to The Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800: A Documentary Sourcebook of Constitutions, Declarations, Addresses, Resolutions, and Toasts (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), 17 (hereafter cited as DRS). 19

The Democratic Societies

The Democratic societies grew in influence throughout the 1790s, interacting with and influencing popular debate through their meetings and publications. Some trailed behind the success and popularity of the first societies, but the number of societies spread quickly, and their deliberations impacted both Federalist and Republican discourse. In his comprehensive work,

Eugene Link identifies many of the societies that appeared beginning in 1793. He lists a total of

42 organized by 1798, though he allows for the likelihood of the existence of others.3 Some died soon after their creation, particularly in 1794, while others flourished for years, enduring some of the harshest criticism in the press at that time.

The societies often drew upon one another for inspiration and support, maintaining public networks with one another, and publishing such communications in the press. One practice involved adopting another society’s as one’s own, changing only the name of the city and the organization.4 They were often in contact with one another across state lines, collaborating and publishing joint-led works to advocate for a common cause. In one of their pamphlets, circulated in 1794, the Democratic Society of the City of New York addressed the

Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, reiterating their devotion to values espoused by the

American Revolution, cautioning against a “blind attachment to [British] principles.” Later, the members declared “that too much power is incompatible with the principles of republican government,” and requested that members of the Democratic societies across the nation have the right to participate in the meetings of other societies so as “to increase their active influence in furthering the welfare and happiness of their common country.”5

3 Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, 16. 4 Orihel, “‘Mississippi Mad,’” 406. 5 Melancton Smith et al., “Circular Letter to the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, 1794,” (New York, 1794) in DRS, 186-191, quoted pages 188, 189, and 190. 20

One of the first Democratic societies to appear was the German Republican Society of

Philadelphia. Their 1793 public address was not their first, but it was their first reported public display of partisanship. It is apparent that they were active as a society since at least 1787, perhaps as early as 1780. Until then, the society did not habitually publish resolutions aside from short reports of meetings, but began to do so when its members addressed the public through the

National Gazette. This published address put forward a sound defence against any anticipated criticism, including a paragraph describing the “hue and cry” that had met the society’s formation. The short letter claims that its critics had misrepresented the society’s purpose and that this address would put to rest any doubts about its meaning.6 This first public circulation and its reception represented the prevailing ideology found across the societies and the type of the public debate that was to follow. The address asserts the society’s right to assemble and promote the best interests of American citizens. The members also assert that “it is therefore of essential moment that political societies should be established in a free government, that a joint operation may be produced” between the two entities in the interest of cooperation. However, with it comes a warning. The society also emphasizes the necessity of keeping a close watch on federal power, as “there [was] a disposition in the human mind to tyrannize when cloathed [sic] with power” and that those “who are entrusted with it, should be watched with the eye of an eagle to prevent those abuses which never fail to arise from a want of vigilance.”7 Immediately, the

6 “PHILADELPHIA: A BILL to Incorporate the German Society, Contributing for the Relief of Distressed Germans in the State of Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Gazette, Jan. 12, 1780, Genealogy Bank. This article refers to a charitable organization designed to welcome immigrants. It is likely that this society began as an apolitical association, and sometime in the early 1790s grew partisan to represent the ideology of the members. Vice-president Henry Kammerer’s name appears frequently in these early reports; “Domestic Intelligence,” Freeman’s Journal: or North- American Intelligencer, (Philadelphia), Dec. 7, 1785, Genealogy Bank; “Philadelphia, 29,” Independent Gazetteer, (Philadelphia), Dec. 29, 1787, Genealogy Bank; “Philadelphia, January 1,” Independent Gazetteer, (Philadelphia), Jan. 1, 1791, Genealogy Bank; Henry Kammerer, letter to the editor, National Gazette, (Philadelphia), April 13, 1793, in DRS, 53-55, quoted page 53; Schoenbachler, “Republicanism in the Age of Democratic Revolution,” 237. 7 Kammerer, letter to the editor, in DRS, 53-55, quoted page 54; Schoenbachler, 237. 21 society established itself as an unofficial check on potential abuses of governmental authority.

Others followed suit, developing a uniquely Democratic voice that supported the rights of citizens to participate in politics, if even unofficially.

There were a number of well-known Democratic societies, but the largest and most recognized society among contemporaries was located in the capital of the nation. The

Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, founded in Philadelphia, featured a membership from across all classes and vocations. One notable member was Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, and editor of the Philadelphian newspaper, the General Advertiser and

Aurora.8 Both the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania and the German Republican Society had a significant local influence. In one instance, both societies organized a festival early in 1794 celebrating “the late glorious successes of the French Republic,” where a reported 800 attended.9

Aside from the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania’s advantageous location in the capital, it also had a broader reach of influence than the others, as it was considered the “mother society” even by its critics. Partly because it was the first to gain national traction, and partly because other societies used its model as inspiration, its constitution was also the most published among all Democratic societies.10 In New York, there was a plethora of small political and non-political associations, one of which was The New York Tammany Society, another of the more vocal and active Democratic societies. The Tammany Society’s inception preceded the other Democratic societies, but nonetheless only began to consistently promote Republican ideology and establish itself as a Democratic society after the Pennsylvanian club gained fame.11

8 Introduction to DRS, 7; Koschnik, “Democratic Societies of Philadelphia,” 620. 9 Article from Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser, (Philadelphia), , 1794, quoted in Albrecht Koschnik, “The Democratic Societies of Philadelphia and the Limits of the American Public Sphere, circa 1793-1795,” The William and Mary Quarterly 58, no. 3 ( 2001): 622. 10 Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, 10, 12. 11 Alfred F. Young, The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins, 1763-1797 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1967), 392, 398-99; “Society of Tammany, or Columbian Order records 1791- 22

In particular, it was the Pennsylvanian society that was contemporarily recognized as the most controversial of the Democratic societies, though this has less to do with their activities than to their exposure in the public sphere. Even today, historians have brought much attention to the society since it seemed to attract more controversy than the others. During the time it was active among the public, it attracted more notice for several reasons. One reason was that

Congress, at the time, held its headquarters in the city. Eugene Link optimistically writes that as

Congress’s presence in the city made it “necessary for representatives from every state in the union to gather there, [the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania] was in a position to inspire and lead a great social movement.”12 This is plausible as the society did garner much attention during its active years, but this attention was not always positive. The local Federalist-run Gazette of the

United States published a letter in early 1794 claiming that “the mystery of the Democratic

Society is suspicious: They are so jealous they suspect themselves.”13 Another Philadelphia publication, in 1795, claims that not only were the Democratic societies “unnecessary,” but they were also “dangerous.”14 Regardless, the society became a popular topic for Congressional discussion and the centre of controversy across the nation.

The membership of the Democratic societies represented a broad spectrum of white,

American men. Philip Foner provides a list of the entire membership of the Pennsylvanian

Society, which demonstrates a large percentage of men traditionally excluded from formal politics, particularly officeholding, though this is not exclusive. For instance, the membership was comprised of the economic “middling sort,” including merchants, manufacturers, land

1898, 1916,” Archives and Manuscripts, The New York Public Library, Accessed Aug. 19, 2020, http://archives.nypl.org/mss/2946; Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, 17-18. 12 Orihel, “‘Mississippi Mad,’” 402; Link, quoted page 10. 13 “From Correspondents,” Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), Feb. 11, 1794, Genealogy Bank, https://www.genealogybank.com. 14 Wm. Willcocks, “To the DEMOCRATIC, and Republican Societies, through the United States,” Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser, Jan 28, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 23 owners, labourers, and elite.15 Some members were immigrants from Ireland or France. The president of the society in 1794, David Rittenhause, was a well-educated scientist and Director of the United States , and President of the American Philosophical Society. His successor,

Blair McClenachan, was an Irish-born merchant, while the society’s treasurer, Israel Israel was an innkeeper who would later run as a Pennsylvanian senator in 1797. French-born abolitionist and lawyer Pierre Etienne Du Ponceau held the position of Secretary in 1794.16 The membership also included labourers, and skilled artisans and tradesmen such as tailors, carpenters, printers, many of whom also held positions of esteem in the society.

In general, the composition and activities of the societies were similar across the states.

The members would meet regularly, often on a weekly or bi-monthly schedule, typically in the evenings in public places like taverns and halls after their daily work was finished. There, they discussed current politics. The meetings presented opportunities for regular citizens to participate in popular politics in a manner and with a formal structure unfamiliar to many.17 As political theorist Robert W. T. Martin writes, “In a world still colored by deference to gentlemen, organizations formed for ongoing political discourse by common men were a powerfully democratizing force.”18 In 1794, the Democratic Society of the City of New York published details of their membership hierarchy in their constitution. The established roles included a president, two vice presidents, treasurer, and two secretaries. The constitution included provisions for expulsion in the event a member should commit a serious crime. To avoid unnecessary elitism, there were to be “no TITLES used or allowed in this society, except those

15 Appendix A in DRS, 439-441, 414, n. 26, 413, n. 18, 413, n. 19. 16 DRS, 412-13, n. 16, 441, 17 Robert W. T. Martin, “A ‘Peaceable and Orderly Manner’: Town Meetings and Other Popular Assemblies in the American Founding,” Town Meeting Politics in the United States: The Idea and Practice of an American Myth, 15, no. 2 (2019): 9; Koschnik, “Democratic Societies of Philadelphia,” 621. 18 Martin, “‘Peaceable and Orderly Manner,’” 10. 24 which [were] descriptive of some office actually held in it; to which title … the general name of

Citizen [should] be prefixed.” Their membership agreed to meet monthly, and the secretary would record the minutes during each session.19

During such meetings, Democratic societies would draft resolutions that addressed contemporary events and issues about which the members felt strongly, emphasizing their active role in politics. These resolutions would then be published in the local press, the editor of which was sometimes a member of the local society. Benjamin Bache was in an advantageous position as the editor of the Aurora, a paper that often vocally defended the Democratic societies’ activities. He later advanced to be a more partisan critic of the administrations of both

Washington and John Adams. Often, the societies would plan festivals commemorating events and patriotic celebrations. For instance, in 1794, the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania held a

July 4th celebration at a local hotel. According to their announcement of the festivities published several days later, members of the society and general public drank a total of fifteen toasts to everything from independence in America to the success of the “Sans Culottes of France,” and

“the Jacobin Clubs of America.”20

Such attention on France was not unique to the Democratic societies. Nor were the toasts themselves impulsive declarations of emotion, as they actively sought to shape their public image as patriots who supported Republicanism domestically and overseas.21 There was intention behind what image each society desired to present, something that is evident in their

19 “Constitution, 1794,” New York Journal, Feb. 19, 1794 in DRS, 151-153, quoted page 153, 152. Very few records of meeting minutes have survived to present day. Regarding the use of the title “Citizen,” this was a trend common to all the Democratic societies, and it is for this reason that the “Citizen Genêt Affair” was so named. 20 “Toasts Drunk at the Eighteenth-Anniversary Celebration of American Independence, July 4, 1794,” American Daily Advertiser, (Philadelphia), July 7, 1794 in DRS, 106-108, quoted page 107. 21 David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapel Hill, NC.: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 114-115. Between 1792 and 1797, it was a popular trend among partisan newspapers to publish toasts sent to them by celebrators, who had in turn planned each declaration before the event itself. 25 publications throughout the 1790s. This support of France, however, gave them much negative attention from Federalists who were wary of the developing French Jacobin movement, and considered it anarchy. Their meeting habits also invited comment—a common critique of their supposedly clandestine practices expressed concern about their secret meetings, often held after hours. Washington himself described the societies as operating “under the shade of Night in a conclave,” and Federalists viewed such secrecy as just more evidence of the societies’ decentralized, anarchist tendencies. Secretary of State Edmund Randolph, in a 1795 essay, offers a similar accusation of secrecy, bemoaning the fact that even the names of the members “are shrouded in darkness, except indeed when they mean to strike as a society, & even then they exhibit their President and Seceretary [sic] only.”22

Both the societies and the Federalists desired the same result—that is, to avoid a return to tyranny. However, their vision for how to prevent this from occurring was a different matter entirely. Federalists believed that a strong, central political power made up of the educated upper class would keep the government from anarchical ruin. Property restrictions for voting, for instance, were one such vetting system that reflects the Federalist desire to uphold a reasonably wealthy, and thus likely educated, voting class. The Democratic societies’ political participation threatened this ideal, and so Federalists would have to take any opportunity to demonstrate the danger the societies presented to the Republic. Much of what Federalists based their critique on comes from the societies’ self-expressed support of Jacobinism, though often exaggerated to depict the societies as enemies of the peace. Accusations of anarchy were harder to substantiate,

22 “George Washington to Burges Ball, 25 1794,” quoted in Jeffrey S. Selinger, “Rethinking the Development of Legitimate Party Opposition in the United States, 1793–1828,” Political Science Quarterly 127, no. 2 (2012): 276; Koschnik, “Democratic Societies of Philadelphia,” 633; Seth Cotlar, Tom Paine’s America: The Rise and Fall of Transatlantic Radicalism in the Early Republic, (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011), 193; Germanicus, “From the American Daily Advertiser: GERMANICUS. LETTER XIII—AND LAST,” Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), April 3, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 26 as the societies never expressed admiration for the philosophy, although critics eager to discredit them cared little.23

In contrast, the Republicans of the Democratic societies clung to pre-revolutionary liberal ideas and recognized the importance of independent checks on government. This was a theme among the societies’ debates, which asserted, “republican citizens possessed the right to watch over their representatives between elections. If representatives violated the popular will, the people had the right to depose that government.”24 Their organizations served as a “[means] to combat, with the weapons of reason…all abuses in government, all attempts of any faction in it to abridge the liberty of the citizen,” wrote one correspondent in Philadelphia, 1794.25 This often included a somewhat unorthodox support of foreign, radical , and controversial figures. For instance, the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania issued an address which not only outlined the purpose of the society in an official constitution but whose preamble extolled the virtues of the American and French Revolutions, both of which were necessary “to erect the

Temple of LIBERTY on the ruins of Palaces and Thrones.”26 As another example, at a meeting held January 1, 1794, the Republican Society in Ulster County published in their Constitution a resolution that stated: “that is entitled to the gratitude of every republican and philanthropist, for his invincible productions, in support of the liberty and dignity of man.”27

23 Saul Cornell, The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828. (Williamsburg, VA: North Carolina Press, 1999), 197. 24 Orihel, “‘Mississippi Mad,’” 407. 25 “FROM CORRESPONDENTS,” General Advertiser, (Philadelphia), May 16, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 26 “Principles, Articles, and Regulations, Agreed upon, Drawn, and Adopted, , 1793,” (Philadelphia, 1793) in DRS, 64-66, quoted page 64. 27 John Nicholson and Elias Winfield, “At a Meeting of a Number of Citizens of the County of Ulster […],” New York Journal, Jan. 18, 1794 in DRS, 235-36, quoted page 236. 27

Paine again was toasted in the 20 celebration of the capture of by one of the New

York societies in 1794, among “all who are friends of the .”28

1780s and 1790s Political Climate

Constitution-era tensions that predated the Democratic societies, rooted in the anxiety surrounding the adoption of the new government and Constitution, offer more context for the fears motivating Federalists in the early 1790s. Historian Richard E. Ellis makes the case that the conflict between the emerging ideologies in the 1790s was influenced by the Federalist and Anti-

Federalist debate regarding the ratification of the Constitution. The Anti-Federalist movement, broad and diverse as it as, had been generally neglected by historians or declared to be an irrelevant and impotent crusade with little connection to the political tensions in the following decade.29 While the movement’s relevance was tied closely with the Constitution and creation of the Bill of Rights, this dissenting movement created a measure against which the Democratic societies would later be judged. In the 1790s, some Federalists who had traditionally supported the Constitution continued to use the same rhetoric against their political opponents, the

Democratic societies. This demonstrates some continuity in the Federalist narrative, used consistently against opponents of varying ideologies.

In the years following the Constitution’s ratification, controversies over its early amendments caused considerable conflict among and within states. Anti-Federalists were dissatisfied with the Constitution, and believed it should include a Bill of Rights that ensured various American liberties by limiting governmental power.30 , though an ardent

28 “Toasts Drunk at a Celebration on the Recapture of Toulon, , 1794,” New York Journal, , 1794 in DRS, 168-69, quoted page 169. 29 Richard E. Ellis, “The Persistence of Antifederalism after 1789,” in Beyond Confederation: Origins of the Constitution and American National Identity, ed. Richard Beeman, Stephen Botein, and Edward C. Carter II (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 295-97. 30 Ellis, “Persistence of Antifederalism,” 297. 28 supporter of the Constitution and a Federalist Papers author, was one such Congressman. He supported further adjustments to the Constitution, believing it to be the most effective way to appease all the states and to avoid another constitutional convention in the future, wherein the potential changes might be even more drastic.31 Those who would call themselves Anti-

Federalists in the Constitutional fight were typically regarded both by their contemporaries and modern historians as “tradition-oriented people who distrusted change and who desired to live in a society and under a government that was as simple and immediately under their control as was possible.”32 Federalists perceived the movement as a danger to the cohesion of the nascent government. As a result, calling one’s peer an Anti-Federalist was the same as calling him an

“[Enemy] to the constitution and government.”33 The members of the Democratic Society of the

City of New York published a letter addressing this issue in great depth, denying any connection to the Anti-Federalist movement, yet maintaining that following the 1787 convention,

All parties agreed, that a new constitution was necessary, but those stiled anti-federalists said, Let us first make certain amendments, and then adopt it …. That amendments were absolutely necessary, as the anti-federalists insisted on, cannot now be rendered disputable, for they have been actually adopted in sundry important instances.—What, then, is the charge against the anti-federalists?34

In 1795, the Democratic Society of the County of Chittenden, in response to persistent accusations that they were Anti-Federalists, wrote the following: “Though we are not antifederalists, though we were once warm opposers to men of that description, we find so many of them friends and supporters of government, upon true republican principles, that we not only most sincerely wish, that the term was obliterated from the memory of every American, but are

31 Ellis, “Persistence of Antifederalism,” 298. 32 Ellis, quoted pages 299-300. 33 James Nicholson and T. Wortman, “Address to the Republican Citizens of the United States, , 1794,” New York Journal, , 1794, in DRS, 171-181, 174, quoted in Cornell, Other Founders, 198. 34 Nicholson Wortman, “Address to the Republican Citizens,” in DRS, 171-181, quoted page 174. 29 well convinced that it cannot be brought so often into public view, and with such malicious inveteracy, but for some sinister and insidious purposes.”35 The epithet had gained negative connotations and became a popular smear against one’s political opponents. Despite this, by the early 1790s, most were generally at a consensus about the necessity of the controversial amendments and the resulting Bill of Rights.36

While some Democratic societies denied an official connection to the Anti-Federalists, there were some similarities between the two movements, and these similarities would have provided some credence to Federalist critique. In spite of New York society’s denunciation of the movement, Melancton Smith, one of their members, was a prominent Anti-Federalist.37 Two concepts promoted by some Anti-Federalists were the freedom of the press and the right to petition.38 These two notions were inseparable from the Democratic societies’ Republican values, as the right to voice dissent through print and to rally support through petitions was necessary for the societies’ existence. As representatives of the Democratic Society of

Pennsylvania wrote,

Freedom of thought and a free communication of opinions by speech or thro’ the medium of the press, are the great safe guard of our liberties. … By the freedom of opinion cannot be meant the right of thinking merely; for of this right the greatest tyrant cannot deprive his meanest slave; but it is freedom in the communication of sentiments, by by [sic] speech or thro’ the press. … This liberty is an imprescriptible right, independent of any constitution or social compact.39

By the time the Democratic societies grew in popularity, however, the Anti-Federalist movement had already lost its momentum and relevance, as many of its concerns regarding the Constitution

35 Stephen Pearl and William Coit, “Resolutions of the Democratic Society of the County of Chittenden, State of Vermont, Jan. 8th, 1795: Accusation I.,” Spooner’s Vermont Journal, (Windsor), Feb. 9, 16, and Vermont Gazette, (Bennington), Feb. 20, 27, 1795, in DRS, 311-318, quoted page 313. 36 Cornell, Other Founders, 197-98. 37 Melancton Smith et al., “Circular Letter,” in DRS, 186-191; Ellis, “Persistence of Antifederalism,” 305. 38 Ellis, “Persistence of Antifederalism,” 297. 39 Blair McClenachan and Robert Bailey, “The Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, Established in Philadelphia,[…],” Herald, (New York), Dec. 27, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 30 had been addressed in the form of the first ten amendments in 1791.40 Between 1793 and 1794, the societies had established themselves as participants in an independent movement, although

Federalists remained determined to frame their activities as simply a continuance of Anti-

Federalist malcontent. As a result, though there was little overlap in identity between the

Democratic societies, and those who opposed the ratification of the Constitution, Federalists continued for years to label them as such as a means of discrediting them.

The Democratic societies of the early 1790s, then, would find themselves in an awkward position. By nature of their ideology, they had to defend the right of the Anti-Federalists to voice their concerns and to bring about what they deemed to be a necessary change in government.

They had to defend themselves from being labelled Anti-Federalists by their critics.41 To publicly dissent, to have opposed the ratification of the Constitution, or to advocate for its amendments, meant becoming a target by Federalists who were dissatisfied with the general public’s participation in national politics. The dissent of this nature threatened the peace and order of the new government, and so Federalists saw no difference between the dissent of the

Anti-Federalist advocates and that of the new Democratic societies. Federalists held a particular notion of what form public discourse and dissent should take, and the view of the emerging

Republicans took a different form. As one publication from the Democratic Society of

Pennsylvania states, “why it should be deemed improper that political societies should exist among us, is not easy for an ingenuous mind to conceive; for any measure or regulation, which seeks to avoid the eye of the people’s scrutiny, must create a suspicion, that less than public good is the object.”42 Beginning in the early 1790s, and growing during the Jay Treaty debate in 1795,

40 Cornell, Other Founders, 197-98. 41 Cornell, 197-198. 42 Henry Kammerer, “To the President and Members of the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, 20, 1794,” General Advertiser, (Philadelphia), March 10, 1794 in DRS, 57-58, quoted page 57. 31 any sign of dissent against the government was treated at the very least with suspicion and often derision. This was as much a result of classist ideology among the powerful aristocracy as it was a legitimate fear of national collapse and by so the unthinkable return to the “tyrannical” monarchy of the 18th century. However, at a grassroots level, Americans of the middling sort wrangled with the concept of their class roles and the nature of the citizen’s right to participate in national politics as guaranteed by the Constitution. As a result, a disconnect rose between what those in government believed their role to be, and what citizens thought it should be. As

Koschnik writes, “Federalists did not distinguish between public sphere and government, in their visions of the public, mediation—in the form of organized political action, or even opposition— had no place.”43 Federalists and Republicans were ultimately forced to contend with the looming threat of party politics, and it was these public controversies and disillusionment among

American citizens with traditionally revered members of Congress due to their punitive response to the emerging movement, which threatened peace within the young government. However, it was increasingly challenging to avoid a party system.

The Federalist response to the Democratic societies was influenced by their belief that the political role of common American citizens should be narrow, and that their participation in the political sphere should be confined to the polls. Encouraging a shift away from “mobocracy” and towards voting was particularly crucial in keeping the peace between the people and government.44 Discontentment would be reflected in voting, and the results of the vote were actual indicators of citizens’ desires.45 One 1794 critique of the societies put it this way: “The

43 Koschnik, “Democratic Societies of Philadelphia,” 625. 44 Schoenbachler, “Republicanism in the Age of Democratic Revolution,” 254; Johann N. Neem, “Freedom of Association in the Early Republic: The Republican Party, the Whiskey Rebellion, and the Philadelphia and New York Cordwainers’ Cases,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 127, no. 3 (July 2003): 265, n. 15. 45 Cotlar, Tom Paine’s America, 189. 32 present government of the United States being instituted by the people, and dependent upon them, no man can reasonably justify such self-created clubs in this country,” he writes. “Of what use can they be? Is it their design to controul, [sic] or intimidate government, whose proceedings are the voice of the people? Or do they wish to throw every thing [sic] into anarchy and confusion? The real Democratic Societies in America, are the people legally assembled in town meetings.”46 Unofficial, or illegal displays of dissent created the potential for violent revolt or anarchy. Such a threat merited legal opposition.

Simultaneously, multiple events occurred internationally and domestically in the 1790s that both political sides had to contend with. The French Revolution was well underway, and had become increasingly violent. At the same time, Americans had to find their own identity among international actors. The U.S.’s alliance with France during the Revolution, and subsequent naval quarrel-turned-treaty with Britain in 1795 created more tensions between the three nations.

Bonaparte’s rise in power and military aggression across Europe created more tension between

Federalists, who despised what they interpreted as French anarchy, and Republicans who championed the Jacobin movement and celebrated exploits like the . All of this occurred in a short period following the creation of the Constitution, an event already rife with controversy and debate. Cut off from the traditional monarchical system of government, and faced with the uncertainty of the new Republic, Americans found themselves directionless in a nation vulnerable to inside dispute.47

Federalist anxieties, already fueled by these foreign affairs, turned to the growing domestic populist movement. Historians Elkins and McKitrick note what they call a “populist

46 A Watchman, letter to the editor, Columbian Centinel, (), Dec. 27, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 47 Richard R. Beeman, The Varieties of Political Experience in Eighteenth-Century America, Early American Studies (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 291; Miller, “‘Proper Subjects for Public Inquiry,’” 103. 33 impulse” that arose in the Constitution’s nascent years, which formed the democratic process well into the early 19th century.48 Indicative of this early movement were the Democratic societies, who were aware of their position in this national debate. Many chose the very name

“Democratic,” a pejorative term at the time used to denote a “mob-rule” system of governance, as a means of reclaiming the term and establishing themselves as political actors.49 Critics questioned the legitimacy of these populist clubs, along with the phrase “self-created,” which some took to mean that “people [required] intermediary guides betwixt them and the constituted authorities,” as a perturbed writer wrote for the New York Daily Gazette in 1794.50 In essence, the typical Federalist motivation behind this critique was that the membership of the societies was unfit to make political decisions. Although the general membership fees excluded those from lower classes, the societies represented a relatively large segment of Americans, larger than the established and tight-knit sphere belonging to those in the upper, political ruling class.51 To

Federalists, like , this was unacceptable. Ames was a zealous critic of the societies.

Conscious of the Anti-Federalist movement in the 1780s, and wary of the growing French

Jacobin movement, he considered the Democratic societies to be the “corrosive” and corrupt result of uncontrolled populism.52 Furthermore, he equated the three movements with each other, claiming that their own “excesses” would lead to their downfall.53 To advocate for political change was one matter. To claim an intercessor status between the government and the public was another, especially as an unelected body.

48 Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 451. 49 Martin, “‘Peaceable and Orderly Manner,’” 10. 50 A Friend to Good Government, “’A Friend to Good Government’ to Mr. M’lean, , 1794,” New York Daily Gazette, February 21, 1794, 154 in DRS, quoted in Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 460. 51 Koschnik, “Democratic Societies of Philadelphia,” 620. 52 Cornell, Other Founders, 197. 53 Cornell, 197. 34

Beginning of Partisan Press

While some Federalists were inclined to criticize the populist movement, other

Congressmen recognized with approval the fact that the inclination to participate in politics had manifested in the print sphere. Twentieth-Century German economist Karl Bücher made the important observation that:

Newspapers changed from mere institutions for the publication of news into bearers and leaders of public opinion—weapons of party politics. This transformed the newspaper business. A new element emerged between the gathering and the publication of news: the editorial staff. But for the newspaper publisher it meant that he changed from a vendor of recent news to a dealer in public opinion.54

There was a growing significance in the ever-present print culture that had the power to shape public opinion like never before. In the new United States this was just that much more the case after the passage of the Post Office Act of 1792, which removed postage fees for printers distributing their papers to other print shops. This resulted in a “decentralized press structure” that favoured a string of “national newspaper networks” over a single monopoly.55

Rather than dissuade partisan printers from expressing their ideas in the press,

Congressmen like Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison recognized the necessity of political representation through newspapers and ultimately participated themselves, sometimes anonymously. Promoted by Hamilton, editor John Fenno’s Federalist-leaning Gazette of the

United States grew in prominence. Following suit, Madison and Jefferson recruited Philip

Freneau in 1791, placing him at the helm of a new Republican-leaning newspaper, the National

Gazette. At first, the partisan press was a medium through which both Republicans and

54 Karl Bücher, quoted in Jurgen Habermas, Sara Lennox, and Frank Lennox, “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964),” New German Critique, no. 3 (Autumn 1974): 53. 55 Jeffrey L. Pasley, “The Tyranny of Printers”: Newspaper Politics in the Early Republic (United States: University Press of Virginia, 2001), 48-49, quoted page 50. 35

Federalists could argue anonymously about the 1789 constitutional amendment controversies.56

It soon grew to be a political battleground on which political opponents might trade insults and try to sway public opinion, either conspicuously or anonymously. Freneau’s National Gazette was short-lived, but Benjamin Bache’s General Advertiser, later to adopt the name Aurora, was a suitable Republican-leaning replacement.57 Bache’s name grew in popularity, and his paper was one of the leading supporters of the Democratic societies. This medium, utilized more and more effectively by the end of the 1780s, became the foremost method through which Americans learned about the societies’ activities and read their resolutions. While this meant the societies were enabled to speak to the public on their own behalf directly, it also opened their organizations up to criticism and misinformation, sometimes tainting their image.

While in theory, the act of voting would be enough for citizens to voice discontent, the reality was that few Americans met the requirements to cast a ballot. Suffrage largely depended on property requirements, and before the revolution, the percentage of adult men (excluding

Catholics, Blacks, and Indigenous people, among others) who met these standards varied across the colonies. Generally, historians have agreed that this percentage ranged from around 40 to 80 percent of white men, depending on the locale. Coastal, and some frontier cities and towns represented the lower end of the spectrum. In the early Republic, such restrictions carried over to the new government. As historian Alexander Keyssar writes, after 1787, the percentage of enfranchised white men had risen somewhat across the states, but “the shift was hardly dramatic, in part because changes in the laws were partially offset by socioeconomic shifts that increased the number of propertyless men.” Historians place the average of suffrage in 1790 at around 60 to 70 percent of white men. While property requirements in some states were dismissed in this

56 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1532-33. 57 Chesney, 1533, n. 25. 36 decade, being a taxpayer was another economic measure of legitimacy, particularly in the states admitted into statehood after 1790. This requirement “preserved the link between a person’s financial status and his right to vote.”58 Given this data, it is plausible, given the range of class and vocations in the membership of the Pennsylvanian Democratic society (taken as a representative sample of the other societies), that there would have been men with and without the franchise in their number.

Though Federalists might defend voting restrictions by noting that the vote was given to those with the highest wealth, education, and esteem and, therefore, best suited to make political decisions, they must also account for the time between elections, when public representatives supported policies that had a real effect on everyday life but “the people” had little ability to respond or weigh in. It was in these intermediate periods when political societies and partisan press could potentially sway opinions outside of official policy. Because these unofficial avenues had a real effect, then, Federalists saw a need to categorize them as illegal political actors. While

Federalists would have the opportunity to legally do so in 1798 under President Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts, between 1793 and 1797, Federalists turned to the press as a means of publicly discrediting their political opponents, often through vicious criticism.

“Fire-Brands of Sedition” and Self Creation

Historian John Brooke notes that “in a time when the organized pursuit of power was highly suspect, the voluntary associations usually acted indirectly, to influence through the construction of culture rather than to control through the pursuit of power.”59 This helps to

58 Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 7, 9, 13, 29, quoted pages 24 and 25. 59 John Brooke, “Ancient Lodges and Self-Created Societies: Voluntary Association and the Public Sphere in the Early Republic,” in Launching the Extended Republic, ed. Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville, VA: 1996), 283. 37 illustrate the balance such societies must strike between an official, conspicuous role in government, and a self-created, unofficial role. However, even the latter attracted criticism. The notion of self-creation, in particular, was a contentious one among Federalists. Many operated under the premise that these citizen-led, private organizations were overstepping their boundaries in pretending to speak for the American people. This would remain a common criticism in the

Federalist press in the mid-late 1790s. In 1795 the American Minerva published an editorial which describes the Federalist view on such self-created organizations and their role in politics.

It asserts that “the constituted authorities of the country are the only organs of the national will,” and that the Democratic societies, despite their claims to be intermediaries, did not represent this

“national will.” Furthermore, “every attempt of towns or small bodies of men to influence the representatives of the nation, is an attempt to make a part govern the whole.”60 The issue with the idea of self-creation was that Federalists regarded such societies as made up of unelected, ambitious men with little regard for democratic ideals, with the threat of anarchy and eventual dissolution of governmental structure.

On the other hand, clubs composed of people whose purpose was to promote charity or humanitarian aid to society through altruistic measures were better tolerated.61 Most striking was

George Washington’s logic regarding the distinction between “self-created societies” and simple associations. The latter he supported, as the association was symbolic of the Bill of Rights’ guarantee under the First Amendment, but self-creation demonstrated “political purposes” outside of a citizen’s allotted purview.62 Washington’s seemingly inconsistent position created resentment among the accused. Condemning him of hypocrisy for supposedly showing

60 Editorial from Phenix; or, Windham Herald (CT), Aug. 8, 1795, quoted in Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, pages 140-41. 61 Koschnik, “Democratic Societies of Philadelphia,” 627-28. 62 Brooke, “Ancient Lodges and Self-Created Societies,” 323. 38 preferential treatment for one type of society while denouncing the other, the Democratic Society of the City of New York published this statement in 1795: “Is our being ‘self created’ reckoned among the charges of proscription? By whom then ought we to be constituted? … Was it thought necessary to obtain a special act of legislative power for the exclusive creation of the Society of

Cincinnatus of which our first executive magistrate, is, or was the presiding officer, or is that society ‘self created?’”63 To be fair, Washington was originally receptive to the Society of the

Cincinnati’s political associations, but he gradually grew more suspicious of any citizen-led political club to the point of dissuading his nephew from creating his own

Federalist Patriotic Society in 1788.64 One of the President’s biggest qualms, however, was his belief that the Democratic societies, in their promotion of policy, purported to speak for the people as an intermediary for the government. 65 As a result, the distinction between the two was primarily left to interpretation, as of course, both types of societies could regard themselves as necessary to a functioning democratic society. However, as undeniably political entities, the

Democratic societies would draw the ire of those who feared an anarchical dissolution of governmental structure.

A popular refrain among their critics was the accusation of anarchy. According to Ames, refusing to comply with Washington’s words would be detrimental to American political unity, as it would “rekindl[e] the fire-brands of sedition,” emboldening “the demon of anarchy.”66 At this point, many Federalists in Congress had determined that the best course of action was to censure the societies as illegitimate political actors.67 To allow unregulated, “self-created” bodies

63 David Gelston and Jacob De La Montagnie, “Address to ‘Fellow Freemen,’ , 1795,” General Advertiser, (Philadelphia), Jan. 26, 1795 in DRS, 192-98, quoted page 194. 64 Brooke, “Ancient Lodges and Self-Created Societies,” 322-23. 65 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1558, n. 162. 66 4 Annals of Congress, 922 (Statement of Representative Ames), quoted in Chesney, 1564. 67 Chesney, 1564. 39 to exist was to risk the nation’s devolution into anarchy. One Kentucky Federalist described the

Democratic societies as a “horrible sink of treason” and “hateful synagogue of anarchy.”68

Another anonymous publication agreed. “We have no clandestine meetings to manage opinions

.… We reprobate all such practices. You, on the other hand … form yourselves into a private club,” the article says, “you attempt to influence men and measures that I perhaps approve and that without my consent.”69 Public town meetings were acceptable means through which to articulate opinions, while unofficial channels, like the seemingly secretive meetings of private clubs, were not.70 However, Federalists had already established that to criticize elected representatives was to speak out of turn, except in rare situations, and only through positive reinforcement of federal legislation. In the instances when citizens opposed such legislation, they were to remain silent.71 With this logic, Federalists were free to only accept support as valid, and were forever justified in condemning any dissent as illegitimate.

Washington’s distinction between self-creation and association approaches a reconciliation of this paradox. However, Washington further suggested that self-created political societies, regardless of their political leanings, should not be allowed to exist, even in the form of support for the government.72 One explanation he gave for making the distinction between unregulated, anarchical dissent and proper political participation comes from a letter written to

Burges Ball in September 1794 following the Whiskey Rebellion. In it, he demonstrates that it is the permanence of the dissenting societies with which he objected. The societies had

68 Article from Kentucky Gazette, (Lexington), Aug. 31, 1793, quoted in Schoenbachler, “Republicanism in the Age of Democratic Revolution,” 258. Link attributes this quote to a woman signed “Xantippe,” a rare example of (known) female commentary on this subject. Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, 175. 69 A Federal Republican, “To the Great and Mighty Democratic Society of New-York,” American Minerva, (New York), 5, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 70 Cotlar, Tom Paine’s America, 193-94. 71 Cotlar, 194. 72 Brooke, “Ancient Lodges and Self-Created Societies,” 323. 40

[formed] themselves into permanent Censors … resolving that acts of Congress which have undergone the most deliberate, & solemn discussion by the Representatives of the people…[attempting] to form their will into Laws for the government of the whole; I say, under these circumstances, for a selfcreated [sic], permanent body, (for no one denies the right of the people to meet occasionally, to petition for, or remonstrate against, any Act of the Legislature) to declare that this act is unconstitutional… & that all who vote contrary to their dogmas are actuated by selfish motives, or under foreign influence; nay, are pronounced traitors to their Country—is such a stretch of arrogant presumption to be reconciled with laudable motives.73

Again, Washington echoes Federalist belief that dissent must be made through proper means.

Washington strays from popular Federalist opinion in that he did support citizens’ rights to voice their grievances on occasion, but like Ames, Hamilton, and Adams, he still viewed the organized opposition clubs to be seditious “traitors to their Country.”

Jacobinism in the U.S.

The public criticisms of the societies which associated them with Jacobins were particularly vitriolic, though they were not always unsubstantiated. It was a common occurrence for the societies to organize events where members would make toasts to the success of the

French Jacobin cause both in France and in the U.S.74 For instance, toasts to , the

“glorious victories” of France, and the rebellious “patriots of Ireland” appeared in a New York meeting in 1797, and there was no limit to similar controversial statements.75 At one meeting, the

Democratic Society in Wythe County drank a Fourth of July toast to “The —May it have an attractive virtue to draw despots to it.”76 Their political opponents often took such statements as an opportunity to propagate exaggerations or outright misinformation. For years,

73 “From George Washington to Burgess Ball, 25 September 1794,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-16-02-0492; Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1558. 74 Koschnik, “Democratic Societies of Philadelphia,” 632-33. 75 NEW-YORK: MONDAY, —1797,” Time Piece and Literary Companion, (New York), July 10, 1797, Genealogy Bank. 76 John Montgomery, “Toasts Drunk, July 4, 1794,” American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), Aug. 2, 1794 in DRS, 354-55, quoted page 354. For an account of this and similar toasts and events, see Schoenbachler, “Republicanism in the Age of Democratic Revolution,” 254, n. 25. 41 the label “Jacobin” persisted among critics in describing the societies, used to diminish them to mere “rabble” or rioters. The works of William Cobbett, an Englishman who had recently immigrated to the U.S., offer examples of the widespread criticisms of the time. Cobbett’s text,

History of the American Jacobins, includes claims of incidents during which Republicans in D.C. regularly set up mock “twenty or thirty times every day” to execute Louis XVI in effigy (events which, in Cobbett’s admission, appeared nowhere in the local papers).77

Similarly, John S. J. Gardiner’s Jacobiniad uses grandiose prose to describe a fictitious meeting between the Republicans of a Boston society, during which they attempt to put their minds together to defend against the defamation of the text of the satirical Jacobiniad itself.78

Their mock resolution reads “the libertys off our cuntry are much endanger from aristokratical prinsipuls beeing spred amung uss,” and continues to condemn the “prezidant” and his caucus.

After labouring for two hours to put together the proper “varse” with which to defend their name, the members only arrive at “you scoundrel, rascal, author of all lies—,” a phrase that breaks off in confusion. Their cumulative mental effort spent, they retire for the evening with the promise that “no member of that society should suffer any one of his children to learn, either to read or write!” Another portion of the book describes the visit of a French officer, who gave a speech in broken English while condemning the aristocracy as enemies of America, and Washington as an antagonistic tyrant determined to suppress their assembly.79

77 William Cobbett, History of the American Jacobins, Commonly Denominated Democrats. By Peter Porcupine, Philadelphia. Being a Supplement to the History of Jacobinism (Philadelphia, 1797), Gale Primary Sources: The Making of the Modern World, quoted page 24. According to Cobbett, Jacobins were “a sort of flesh flies, that naturally settle on the excremental and corrupted parts of the body politic,” quoted page 6. He goes on to imply that the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania received thousands in French as bribes from France, page 16. 78 John Sylvester John Gardiner, Remarks on the Jacobiniad, vol. 1 (Boston, 1795), https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31822038205324; For a similar work, see Lemuel Hopkins and William Cobbett, The Democratiad, a Poem, in Retaliation, for the “Philadelphia Jockey Club,” 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 1795), Gale Primary Sources: Eighteenth Century Collections Online. 79 Gardiner, 22-23, quoted pages 31, 38, and 39. 42

Such satire was common, and invariably depicted the Democratic societies as illiterate and without class, dismissing their concerns about elitism as irrational, while ironically confirming them. It is easy to disregard such texts as satire. However, charges of Jacobinism were more challenging to counteract, especially given the societies’ conspicuous toasts to the

French cause, public celebrations of French military victories, and close association with public figures like French Ambassador Edmond-Charles Genêt.80 Genêt had been invited by the

German Republican Society of Philadelphia to attend one of their meetings as a guest of honour and had been the one to recommend that they use the word “Democratic” for their name instead of “The Sons of Liberty.”81 Genêt even credited himself at least in part for their creation. It was an appealing narrative. Even if the Federalists, especially those in Congress, might have been more skeptical of Genêt’s actual influence, the coincidence between his arrival, popularity, and the societies’ appearance was too much an opportunity to ignore. Labelling the societies and their members as Jacobins would permanently associate them with the French Revolution and, by extension, the violent acts of anarchy that pervaded the .82

Citizen Genêt Affair

Upon its creation, the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania drew attention from its association with Edmund Charles Genêt, Girondist French ambassador and representative to the

Jacobin cause in France. It was, in fact, during a meeting at which he was a guest of honour that

Genêt proposed the society use the word “Democratic,” a term that Federalists considered insulting and base.83 The Philadelphian press published an exchange between the German

80 Koschnik, “Democratic Societies of Philadelphia,” 633. 81 Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 335-56; Koschnik, 619; Schoenbachler, “Republicanism in the Age of Democratic Revolution,” quoted page 243; Koschnik, 630, n. 58. 82 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1537, n. 51. 83 Schoenbachler, “Republicanism in the Age of Democratic Revolution,” 243. 43

Republican Society and Genêt in which they welcomed him with “heartfelt joy,” and he responded with warm gratitude.84 However influential Genêt was in the naming of the societies, it stands to note that he had little influence over their ideology and actions in the subsequent years, if he ever did at all. While Genêt’s visit appeared, to Federalists, to have inspired the creation of numerous Democratic societies in 1794, the French minister’s contribution was likely minimal at best. The societies had always held a high opinion of French Republicanism; Genêt did not create that enthusiasm. However, following the commonly denoted “Citizen Genêt

Affair” that same year, the society and its counterparts drew unwanted attention due to their

Jacobin sympathies, due in part to their association with Genêt. Both the Democratic societies and Genêt would receive accusations of treason for decades.

The 1793 political controversy surrounding Citizen Genêt, his supporters, and the Jacobin cause had far-reaching implications for the Republican societies, giving their critics fodder in the years to come. Though there was technically truth behind some of the accusations, Federalists keen on diminishing the influence of the societies were not interested in the distinction between whether the societies had merely associated with Genêt or whether he had directly created them intending to influence American sentiment towards the French Revolution. Though the latter was false, the societies would find themselves continually defending both their legitimate support for

French independence and their dependence from foreign interference.85 The Citizen Genêt

Affair, as historians commonly refer to it, also demonstrates the effective use of the press by members of Congress who recognized the power of public opinion. It was this mix of gossip, rumour, and truth that would impact future perceptions of the Republican societies. Even until

84 Henry Kammerer et al., “To Citizen Genêt and His Reply, , 1793,” American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), , 1793 in DRS, 55-56, 56, quoted page 55. 85 Albrecht Koschnik, “Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together”: Associations, Partisanship, and Culture in Philadelphia, 1775-1840 (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2007), 35. 44 the early 20th century, historians commonly regarded the societies as foreign organizations. As

Michelle Orihel notes, it was not until Eugene Link published his ground-breaking work on the societies that he began a new historiographical trend of regarding the societies as domestic-led organizations, and not “foreign imports.”86

Several events occurred early in 1793. First of all, the increasingly radical Jacobin movement in France had taken a violent turn that culminated with the execution of King Louis

XVI by guillotine on . Soon after, the War of the First Coalition took a new turn as

France declared war on Britain and the less than two weeks later. The United States was now in a unique position, as previously, France had sent troops to aid in the American

Revolution. The Treaty of Alliance, signed in 1778, had guaranteed mutual support between the

Americans and French in the case of British aggression.87 Though the American Revolution had long passed, participants in the French conflict still hoped the treaty’s sentiment would remain.

As if on cue, on , Edmond-Charles Genêt arrived in as the Girondin ambassador from France. He was intent on convincing the Americans to send troops to aid

France. Armed with “blank letters of marque and military commissions to distribute where they would be most effective,” he was prepared to summon as many American volunteers as was possible to fight overseas.88 He immediately went to work, building interest for the French cause.

This was not a difficult task. Even upon his arrival in Charleston, he was met with a rush of public interest. A large crowd met his ship upon its landing, and he was invited to meet with local Governor William Moultrie, who (approaching the boundaries of his purview) encouraged

86 Orihel, “‘Mississippi Mad,’” 402. 87 Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 333-34; “Treaty of Alliance Between the United States of America and His Most Christian Majesty,” Article. 1, American Memory, Library of Congress, https://memory.loc.gov/cgi- bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=008/llsl008.db&recNum=19. 88 Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 333. 45

Genêt to begin recruiting privateers immediately. Moultrie even gave him letters of recommendation on behalf of individuals useful to the mission. Overjoyed, Genêt commissioned four privateers and began to make his way by land to Philadelphia. There was no reason to expect a less-enthusiastic response, and he was correct. He was met by “thundering welcomes all along the way—banquets, addresses, bells, cannon—and when he arrived at Philadelphia on May

16, the city gave itself over to transports of joy.”89 However, he was to become quickly disillusioned. The grand public welcome was one thing. The official attitude of the American government and those in Congress was another.

In early 1793, the immediate official American response towards news of war in Europe had been neutrality, a fact that “outraged Republicans, as they generally favored a distinctly pro-

French benevolent neutrality, if not an open alliance with France.”90 The Neutrality

Proclamation, signed by George Washington , warned citizens to maintain “a conduct friendly and impartial towards the belligerent powers [‘, , , Great Britain, and the United Netherland … and France’]” Furthermore, anyone who “render[ed] himself liable to punishment of forfeiture under the law of nations, by committing, aiding, or abetting hostilities against any of the said powers…[would] not receive the protection of the United States against such punishment or forfeiture.”91 This was written in direct response to the potential of privateers or smugglers to transport goods to aid the French military effort illicitly. By the time

Genêt arrived in Philadelphia, he was almost a month too late to hope for a warm reception in

Congress.

89 Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 335-36, quoted page 336. 90 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1535, n. 39. 91 and James Madison, Letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the Proclamation of Neutrality of 1793, (Washington DC, 1845), 4. 46

Congress was divided by the presence of the French ambassador. Years later, John

Adams would write of the “[t]errorism, excited by Genet,” claiming that thousands gathered daily during that period “threaten[ing] to drag Washington out of his House, and effect a

Revolution in the Government, or compell [sic] it to declare War in favour of the French

Revolution, and against .”92 Jefferson wrote in a letter to Madison that “it is impossible for anything to be more affectionate, more magnanimous than the purport of [Genêt’s] mission.”93 However, Congress had already determined the best course of action was neutrality.

Stymied at every attempt to press his agenda, Genêt finally approached Alexander James Dallas,

Secretary of the Commonwealth under Governor Thomas Mifflin and member of the Democratic

Society of Pennsylvania, and threatened to appeal to the American people to bypass governmental interference. Dallas reported this admonition to Jefferson and Mifflin, the latter of whom relayed the event to Hamilton.94 This placed both Jefferson and Dallas in a difficult position, as both desired to encourage the Republican societies’ political activities, and their association with Genêt would incriminate them as colluders with possible treasonous actions.

Historians have been in doubt as to how this occurred, but Jefferson’s private correspondence removed all doubt of the matter. In a letter written to Madison, he admitted that he had, in fact, firsthand knowledge of the event, and confirmed Genêt’s oversight and appeal to Washington.95

Although aware of the effect his silence may have on his reputation, Jefferson delayed drafting a formal response to the Genêt affair; supposedly because were he to confirm the rumours to be

92 “John Adams to , June 30, 1813,” in Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters: Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, vol. 2, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 346-47, quoted in Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1536, n. 44. 93 “Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, May19, 1793,” Manuscript/Mixed Material, Library of Congress, Accessed Aug. 19, 2020, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib007412. 94 Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 93. 95 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1552, Letter to Madison from TJ, in Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 97. 47 accurate, he would be condemning the Republican movement to Federalist gossip. Instead, he kept his explanation vague, writing in a memorandum that Genêt had meant to appeal to

Congress rather than the people, and given his unfamiliarity with American politics, was unaware of the implications of his actions.96 He wrote privately to Madison, however that

“[Genêt] will sink the republican interest if they do not abandon him…. Genet has been fully heard on his most unfounded pretentions under the treaty. His ignorance of everything written on the subject is astonishing. I think he has never read a book of any sort in that branch of science.”97 Even with Jefferson’s public defence, however, the damage had been done, and the

Federalists had made the best of the situation to turn the public against Genêt.

As soon as he was made aware of Genêt’s blunder by Governor Mifflin, Hamilton jumped on the opportunity to undermine Genêt publicly and rally the people to the Federalist cause. Following the Neutrality Proclamation, he had initially published several essays under the pseudonym “Pacificus” to nurture support for the proclamation.98 Now signing his letters “No

Jacobin,” he gave an account of Genêt’s failed mission from the moment he arrived in the United

States. “Instead of coming immediately on to the seat of Government, as in propriety he ought to have done; he continued at that place, [Charleston] and on the road so long, as to excite no small degree of observation and surprize.” Hamilton also described the privateers Genêt had commissioned, and the continued “breaches of decorum” throughout his journey.99 Another letter

96 Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 97. 97 “Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, , 1793, Partly Cipher,” Manuscript/Mixed Material, Library of Congress, Accessed Aug. 19, 2020, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib007810. 98 Eran Shalev, “Ancient Masks, American Fathers: Classical Pseudonyms during the American Revolution and Early Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic 23, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 169. 99 No Jacobin, “From the American Daily Advertiser,” Daily Advertiser, (New York), Aug. 16, 1793, Genealogy Bank. Jefferson also noted this change in topic, writing to Madison that “Pacificus has now changed his signature to ‘No Jacobin.’ Three papers under this signature have been publd [sic] in Dunlap. I suppose they will get into Fenno,” in “Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, August 11, 1793,” Manuscript/Mixed Material, Library of Congress, Accessed Aug. 19, 2020, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib006902. 48 concluded that “the people of the United States can now be at no loss to determine, that they have been insulted and affronted by this foreign Agent, in the person of their Chief

Magistrate.”100 To make matters worse, Genêt was not cooperating with Jefferson’s attempts to exonerate him. He persisted in appealing to the public’s desire for French independence, even publishing broadsides in Philadelphia calling for “able bodied seamen who are willing to engage…in the service of the French Republic.”101

Myth of Genêt

On , 1794, the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania assembled for their weekly meeting. After the members had finished, they signed off on the minutes from the day, which included several resolutions. One in particular maintained “that the friendly conduct of the french nation towards the United States forms a strong and lively contrast to that of the powers who are at war with her.”102 In another resolution, they wrote the following:

we find ourselves called upon highly to reprobate all attempts that have been and may be made, by spreading false and calumnious reports, by indecent strictures and news paper publications and by others as unwarentable [sic] means to traduce and vilify a foreign Minister, to excite suspicion against him in the minds of the people, and a jealousy in their public officers, with a view to render his cause unpopular and his situation amongst us irksome and disagreeable…103

Genêt, the foreign minister in question, had withdrawn from foreign politics. In December of

1793, Washington had formally requested that the French minister be recalled.104 As it was inadvisable for a Girondin to return to France during the height of the Reign of Terror, he found

100 No Jacobin, “For the American Daily Advertiser,” Dunlap’s American Daily Advertiser, (Philadelphia), Aug. 28, 1793, Genealogy Bank. 101 Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 94. 102 “Manuscript Minutes, July 3, 1793, to January 1, 1795: Thursday the 9th of January,” (1794) in DRS, 68-71, quoted page 70. 103 “Manuscript Minutes,” (1794) in DRS, 68-71, quoted page 70, 413, n. 22. 104 Michael L. Kennedy, “A French Jacobin Club in Charleston, South Carolina, 1792-1795,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 91, no. 1 (January 1990): 16. 49 refuge and settled down in the United States.105 However, the myth surrounding his legacy had remained a strong topic for debate among Federalists and Republicans. Nearly a year after his arrival, and many months after his controversial actions, his supporters were still eager to stand at his defence. Anyone who was perceived to be an enemy of Genêt was discarded. As a result, the event somewhat affected Jefferson’s reputation among some societies, who viewed Genêt as a kind of ambassador for freedom, and blamed Jefferson for his political demise.106 At the same time, Federalist critics took every opportunity to bring up Genêt’s political blunders as a means to discredit the societies. On both sides of the political debate, Genêt had become a symbol of either idealistic freedom or naïve ignorance.

Genêt himself also seems to have believed the tale of the intrepid French ambassador who came to America and incited the people to rally and fight for the cause of justice and equality. Under the impression that he was the figurehead of a popular movement, he viewed the societies and their sudden growth as indicative of his influence. He was impressed with the suddenness with which they appeared, seemingly in response to his presence. He wrote that they were being created “as if by magic from one end of the continent to the other.”107 He also had little reason to believe that members of Congress who had welcomed him so warmly upon his arrival had a lukewarm opinion of his mission. He was genuinely deceived as to the Americans’ intent and acted as reasonably as anyone would with his experience.108 Given the precedent for positive American-French relations, he had no reason to believe Washington would reject his proposal. As Foner describes during the aftermath of the controversy, Genêt always bore a

105 Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 92. 106 Introduction to DRS, 20, 46 n. 85. 107 Alexander DeConde, Entangling Alliance: Politics and Diplomacy Under George Washington, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1958), 252, quoted in Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1537, n. 51. 108 Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 341. 50 grudge towards Jefferson, as he thought Jefferson had “led him on,” causing Genêt to perceive an interest in the French cause that Jefferson did not have.109

Conclusion

To conclude, the Democratic societies belonged to a significant Republican political movement that would later develop into a second party at the federal level. Partisanship was on the rise as a result of debates among politicians and citizens in the early Republic. The early

1790s were influenced by the 1780s political debates regarding the ratification of the

Constitution and the subsequent creation of the Bill of Rights. This was because a movement, the

Anti-Federalists, had arisen in favour of constitutional amendments. Some of their demands were met in 1791 with the drafting of the Bill of Rights. Still, a stigma persisted in broader society against the Anti-Federalists, and many considered members of the movement to be anti-

American. The Democratic societies, who had little connection to the Anti-Federalists, defended their right to express opposition to the Constitution. As a result, their critics associated the societies with the Anti-Federalists and declared dissent to be synonymous with treason. The critique against the societies would take this form throughout the 1790s—Federalist writers often found connections between the societies and contemporary events or issues. They often exploited the association between the Democratic societies and Anti-Federalists and Jacobins as a means to undermine the societies’ concerns. Genêt’s visit to the U.S. and his subsequent blunders reflected poorly on the societies, and affected their public image for years afterwards. Although the societies’ conspicuous Jacobin sympathies were undeniable, they were not created by Genêt as a foreign influence, as many contemporaries and modern scholars argued as a result. The reason the societies were so contentious among Federalists, in particular, was because their existence

109 Introduction to DRS, 46, n. 85, quoted page 20. 51 and participation in public activities contradicted the Federalist belief that ordinary citizens’ role in the federal and states government should be restricted to voting, or sporadic petitions.110

Ideally, elected representatives would act on behalf of the people, a select few of whom would voice their discontentment at the polls. This was not a realistic expectation in the Republicans’ opinion, as the government’s response to some national issues gave an appearance of exclusion and lack of transparency.

The social tradition that would drive much of the debate at a national level was the notion of self-creation, and what function citizen-led associations should take to stay within the proper parameters of political representation. Over time, Washington grew suspicious of any social club that promoted a political agenda. Societies that claimed to be an intermediary between the people and government threatened to contribute to a growing populist movement made up of uneducated, poor “rabble” who the Federalists believed were not fit for political decision- making. Criticisms in print against the societies often took the form of insulting the members’ intelligence and diminishing their efforts as disorderly and anarchic. However, both sides used the press to their advantage, and during this era, both Federalist and Republican publishers gained prominence in the public sphere. More partisan newspapers appeared, providing the

Democratic societies with a means to voice their concerns, notify the public of their activities, and gain support for their events and meetings. This same press allowed for more transmission of both critique and defence of the societies, and the ensuing debate would put significant pressure on individual members, especially those more involved with the publication process itself.

110 Cotlar, Tom Paine’s America, 193. 52

Chapter Two: The Whiskey Rebellion: Turning Point

The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 had a significant and enduring impact on the Democratic societies and how they were perceived by the public for the rest of the decade. The Rebellion, a violent response to the federal taxation of spirits, occurred in the western counties of

Pennsylvania and made that region a centre of public concern. As the federal government met in

Philadelphia during this period, it was almost inevitable that the Pennsylvanian societies would be on the minds of congressmen, generating the most debate, or drawing the most criticism. The direct participation of numerous society members in the violent Whiskey Rebellion was an immediate cause for congressional concern. The political tensions in the region in response to federal authority, and the local perpetuation of a “malleable” government, susceptible to organized resistance, would both be critical factors in understanding the context behind the

Whiskey Rebellion and the motivations of the rebels.1

Complicating matters was the contested identity of some societies in the West.

Federalists like Hamilton tended to conflate the rebellious western societies with the Democratic societies as a whole and the Republican movement more broadly. At the same time, soon-to-be

Republicans desired to distance themselves and the societies from the perpetrators of the violent insurrection. Reactions to the Mingo Creek Association are a case in point. This Association, comprised of several hundred men who had a history of aggressive, extralegal activities and strong ties to the local , was a primary instigator of the violence in the Whiskey Rebellion.

Many of their contemporaries, and some twentieth-century historians, maintain that they were a

1 James Patrick McClure, “The Ends of the American Earth: and the Upper Valley to 1795” (Michigan, University of Michigan, 1983), ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 562, quoted page 563. McClure’s dissertation remains the only version of his work, which to my knowledge has never appeared elsewhere as a published monograph. 53

Democratic society and that their violent acts and extremism were indicative of the entire movement. I argue that this inclination is incorrect and that the false equivalency created by

Federalists in Congress damaged their political opponents’ momentum, tainting their image in the eyes of the American public. Unwittingly, the Democratic societies became a scapegoat for the conflict. A conflation between the violent offenders and the societies would justify any official censure towards the “self-created societies.” During this period, the various reactions to the crisis are evidence of an opportunistic struggle between political opponents to portray the rebellion in a manner advantageous to their cause. This struggle had deep ramifications on the

Democratic societies’ public image.

Excise Tax, Policy, and Rebellion

The insurrection in the summer of 1794 is the most recognizable expression of dissatisfaction following from the federal passage of the so-called “whiskey tax.” The excise tax on whiskey production was part of a series of measures implemented at the behest of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, following his appointment in 1789. Under the direction of his reports and recommendations, Congress approved a series of excise taxes between 1790 and

1791, including the so-called Whiskey Tax.2 Following the revolution, the United States government had accrued a debt of over $75 million, much of which had been owed to France and had gone unpaid.3 Hamilton intended the new fiscal system to fund the government and to ease the financial burden on both state and federal levels through a “properly managed national debt.”

2 Stanley M. Elkins and Eric L. McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 226, 463. 3 Cynthia L. Krom and Stephanie Krom, “The Whiskey Tax of 1791 and the Consequent Insurrection: ‘A Wicked and Happy Tumult,’” Accounting Historians Journal 40, no. 2 (December 2013): 92. 54

Still, the tax was unpopular with many citizens.4 Small farmers and distillers, particularly in the western Pennsylvania counties, believed this excise tax on spirits placed undue strain on them, and some perceived it to benefit the wealthier participants in the industry unfairly. The use of an excise tax to increase the government’s finances had been controversial within Congress even when Hamilton proposed it. The debate among congressmen over whether or not he and other Federalists were genuinely loyal to the nascent government was an early indicator of emergent party politics and grounds for an informal “incipient loyal opposition movement,” which would eventually lead to the dual-party split under Jefferson’s presidency.5 Before the official split, this debate manifested among American citizens directly impacted by the excise tax, many of whom were keen to directly act against the federal policy, often in a forceful and even extralegal manner.

The existence of any federal tax was likely to be challenging to implement in a nation built upon the notion of rejecting such taxes. More confounded than anything by Hamilton’s proposal, a massive array of pages and graphs, politicians found themselves in disagreement as to whether or not the national government should assimilate states' debts and how to do so. A whiskey tax, in particular, would allow the government more than enough income to cover this extra debt.6 Some, like Madison, considered such “sin taxes” necessary for a functioning and moral society. However, those most affected by the tax had no love for the program and its

4 Terry Bouton, Taming Democracy: “The People,” the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2007), 882; Krom and Krom, “Whiskey Tax of 1791,” quoted page 95. 5 Robert M. Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies, Subversion, and the Limits of Legitimate Political Dissent in the Early Republic,” North Carolina Law Review, Law, Loyalty, and Treason: How Can the Law Regulate Loyalty Without Imperiling It?, 82, no. 5 (2004): 1531-32. 6 William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2006), chap. 3, Books. 55 architect, Alexander Hamilton.7 In theory, a tax imposed by the American federal government would be a drastic improvement from the British monarchy’s taxation before the revolution.

However, in reality, the popular sentiment still regarded taxes, especially excise taxes, as the

“devil’s remedy.”8 The article by Krom and Krom effectively communicates the effect the tax had on western Pennsylvanians. It was more cost-effective for grain farmers to convert their product into whiskey for both local and eastern consumption, given that access to the Mississippi

River as a shipping route was then restricted by ’s control of the river’s mouth. The cost of overland transportation was prohibitively high to ship grain to eastern markets, but distilled spirits could still be profitable. As there was relatively little specie in circulation in the West, whiskey itself was also used as a form of currency, and it would then be a great challenge for those distillers to acquire enough Federal currency to pay the tax. The legislation was no small deal. It simultaneously created both a flat, annual tax per gallon, and a tax calculated based on the liquor’s proof, and levied severe penalties, such as foreclosure, for those who failed to pay the tax. Another disadvantage was that because many farmers were illiterate, it would be nearly impossible for them to perform the daily record-keeping required by the tax.9 As a result, the tax impeded the ability of small, local distillers to compete in the market, and they recognized this as an unfair burden on them. Western Pennsylvania was known for its whiskey production, and in

1791 Pennsylvanians were the nation’s leading producers.10 Considering the profitable impact whiskey had in small communities, this tax was particularly egregious. Rural areas in the West

7 Madison believed the tax would curb the “disease and untimely deaths” brought upon by the liqueur. Krom and Krom, “Whiskey Tax of 1791,” 96; Saul Cornell, The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828. (Williamsburg, VA: North Carolina Press, 1999), 200. 8 Martin, “A ‘Peaceable and Orderly Manner,’” 6. 9 Krom and Krom, “Whiskey Tax of 1791,” 97, 101, 98, 99, 97, 99–100; Library of Congress, “American Memory: A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation; U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates 1774 – 1875,” First Congress, Session III, Ch. 15, Sec. 21, 15, 1791, 204, 203, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi- bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=327. 10 Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 469. 56 relied on distilling whiskey as a primary yield for their grain crops, and it seemed unnecessary for one of their most significant sources of revenue to be targeted to such an extent.11

At first, payment of the tax was enforced on an informal basis, allowing many rural taxpayers to intimidate tax collectors into avoiding imposing the tax. Some standard techniques included supporting prosecuted farmers by conducting auctions on foreclosed properties and asserting displeasure by burning effigies of tax collectors. Other means of resistance took the form of physical intimidation such as tarring and feathering. However, despite widespread western opposition to the tax, debt accumulated among producers, and prices rose through the supply chain from farmer to storekeeper to customer.12 In the summer of 1791, some western

Pennsylvanians made a habit of meeting to air their grievances, and at one point resolved “to treat all excisemen ‘with contempt, and absolutely refuse all kind of communication or intercourse’ with the officers, and to withhold from them ‘all aid, support, or comfort.’”13 Four counties in Western Pennsylvania, in particular, struggled against this tax, and tensions rose in response to increasingly strict measures by government officials.14 In 1791, excise official

Robert Johnson, under the employment of the newly-appointed Inspector of Excise for the

Fourth Survey, John Neville, was “waylaid, tortured, and humiliated” for his participation in law enforcement. Sent by proxy to serve warrants to Johnson’s attackers, elderly farmer John Connor too was mobbed, whipped raw, and abandoned in the wilderness covered in tar and feathers.15

While such forms of civil disobedience and violent protest were successful early in the 1790s,

11 Robert W. T. Martin, “A ‘Peaceable and Orderly Manner’: Town Meetings and Other Popular Assemblies in the American Founding,” Town Meeting Politics in the United States: The Idea and Practice of an American Myth, 15, no. 2 (2019): 6. 12 Martin, 6; Cornell, Other Founders, 200; Bouton, Taming Democracy, 859-60; Krom and Krom, “Whiskey Tax of 1791,” 101. 13 Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 462. 14 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1556. 15 Hogeland, Whiskey Rebellion, chap. 5. 57 eventually, the government had had enough. The federal response to these events was rigorous, and soon usual avenues of informal, illegal dissent would no longer be an effective deterrence.16

Another point of contention in the western counties was the leadership under which the tax was enforced. General Neville, in early 1791, had been appointed “inspector of the revenue for the fourth survey of what was now termed, for purposes of federal excise collection, the district of Pennsylvania.” The wealthy businessman, whiskey distiller, and plantation owner had served as a captain during the revolution in 1775, and was “an Episcopalian, [who] eschewed both low-church grimness and religious enthusiasm.”17 Neville’s family, having secure martial connections, also had a stake in the legal, large-scale sale of whiskey. Enforcing the tax on smaller, local distillers would leave him with a monopoly in the sale of whiskey to nearby military forts, which were prominent customers. He would quickly grow unpopular among local

Pennsylvanians for his strict adherence to federal law, apparent exploitation of the system, and his duty of exacting overdue tax from local distillers.18 However, at this point, the government believed it had no options left but to enforce a no-tolerance policy on tax evasion and intimidation tactics, and believed that Neville was the man who would get the job done.

While incidents of violence, such as those involving Johnson and Connor, were largely isolated in the early 1790s, Neville’s activities eventually stirred up a more organized negative response among locals. This broke the “tenuous peace” that marked the beginning of the decade.19 Local resistance and frustrations would all culminate in mid-July, 1794. After several increasingly tense confrontations between Neville and local dissidents, he was threatened in his own home in the middle of the night by a group of armed militiamen from Mingo Creek on July

16 Martin, “A ‘Peaceable and Orderly Manner,’” 6. 17 Hogeland, Whiskey Rebellion, chap. 5. 18 Hogeland, chap. 5. 19 Cornell, Other Founders, 200. 58

16. The confrontation took a turn for the worse when Neville fatally shot one of the dissidents,

Oliver Miller. The others began to retaliate in kind, and Neville’s property was filled with exchanges of gunfire. Wary of a violent response from those inside his home, the rebels refrained from storming the building, while Neville and his family fired at them from the cover of their home.20 The rebels retreated, but hours later, hundreds of men, martially organized and marching to drums, returned to Bower Hill seeking Neville, who had escaped the property and gone into hiding. Protected by ten local soldiers from Fort Pitt, his family too escaped. Sources are unclear as to the number of casualties, but it is certain that at one point, Major James McFarlane was shot dead by one of the men tasked with escorting Neville’s family to safety. McFarlane, a

Revolutionary war veteran, was popular among the local militia. Enraged at his death, his men sacked and set fire to Neville’s property.21 This seems to have been the end of the violence, although, on , a group of 7,000 men gathered outside Pittsburgh in Braddock’s Field in protest of McFarlane’s death.22

A few days later, Hamilton sent President Washington a lengthy account of the rebellion, describing both the recent violence and the history of unrest and resistance earlier in the decade.

He described the “certain Meetings of malcontent persons who entered into resolutions calculated at once to confirm inflame and systematize the spirit of opposition,” referring to the

Western Pennsylvanian resolve to condemn the excise tax and the coercion leading up to the

Battle of Bower Hill.23 Hamilton himself believed that the Mingo Creek Association and the

20 Hogeland, Whiskey Rebellion, chap. 7. 21 Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 177-180; Marco M. Sioli, “The Democratic Republican Societies at the End of the Eighteenth Century: The Western Pennsylvania Experience,” Pennsylvania History 60, no. 3 (July 1993): 296-97. 22 Sioli writes that the march was “orderly” and demonstrated their “self-control.” Sioli, 297. In contrast, Elkins and McKitrick describe the event as “a menacing display of massed force” that nonetheless dispersed without violence. Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 463. 23 “From Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, [5 August] 1794,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-17-02-0017. 59

Democratic societies were of the same ilk, as he later admitted in a letter to Thomas

Fitzsimons.24 Convinced of the need to act, Washington immediately decided to involve the federal government. He organized a collection of various state from outside Western

Pennsylvania, with a total of 13,000 troops. Following a short-lived and ineffective peace commission with the Pennsylvanians, he led the militia to Philadelphia, following their early

October deployment. However, when his troops arrived in the West later than month, the rebels had already disbanded.25

The Mingo Creek Association

The Mingo Creek Association was a Western Pennsylvanian society that was primarily responsible for organizing the Rebellion. There has been some misunderstanding among historians as to the nature of the societies in the western counties, and their level of engagement with the Rebellion. Elkins and McKitrick identify two Democratic societies situated in Western

Pennsylvania in 1794; the Mingo Creek Association (of which Major McFarlane had been the first chairman) and the Democratic Society of the County of Washington.26 Link notes the existence of a third, the Republican Society at the Mouth of Yough, though their chapter had a less-official presence, as it was intended to be a smaller division of the Mingo Creek

24 William Miller, “The Democratic Societies and the Whiskey Insurrection,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 62, no. 3 (July 1938): 342. 25 Martin, “A ‘Peaceable and Orderly Manner,’” 7; Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 463; Historian Wythe Holt writes of the peace commission that it “[consisted] of three Pennsylvanians [who were] sent to the Pittsburgh area, but the Hamilton faction was in charge, the commission was a sham, and war preparations had begun before the commission’s report and recommendations arrived in the nation’s capital, Philadelphia.” Wythe Holt, “The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794: A Democratic Working-Class Insurrection,” on file with the Fordham Law Review, , 2004, 11. 26 Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 462; Eugene Perry Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790- 1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), 145. There are some inconsistencies among these sources as to the spelling of McFarlane’s name, as the spelling “McFarland” sometimes appears, though they are undoubtedly one and the same. 60

Association.27 Marco Sioli, in his article, which examines the Western Pennsylvanian societies in great depth, considers the Mingo Creek Association one of the three Democratic societies established in the region in 1794.28 Some historians, however, argue that the Association does not fit the description typical of a Democratic society. Their actions and beliefs reflected a regionally-established interest in uniting the western counties and establishing a “frontier” independence from the eastern states, both economically and socially.29 The area had seen decades of violent conflict between Indigenous groups and settlers, and there had been a short- lived movement by the stateless west to create a separate region called “Westsylvania,” a proposal that was later rejected by the federal government. However, as historian Thomas P.

Slaughter writes, this rebuff “did not kill desires for a new state. The same grievances that provoked the initial request continued to plague Western Pennsylvanians. They still felt abused by unfair taxes, lack of protection from Indians, uncertain boundaries… and lack of accessible markets for their produce.”30 In the 1790s, an unofficial, gradual detachment from federal jurisdiction would be achieved by organizing an informal, citizen-led judiciary society in each western county, “with representatives elected from each colonel’s district in the respective counties.”31 The Mingo Creek Association and its sister Republican Society at the Mouth of

Yough would fulfill this purpose.32 Nonetheless, the society’s involvement in the Whiskey

27 Sioli, “Democratic Republican Societies,” 300, n. 12; Jeffrey A. Davis, “Guarding the Republican Interest: The Western Pennsylvania Democratic Societies and the Excise Tax,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 67, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 44; Bouton, Taming Democracy, 881-82. Also known as the Republican Society at the Mouth of the Youghiogheny. There was talk of incorporating societies in the counties Westmoreland, Allegheny, Fayette, and Washington. 28 Sioli, 290. 29 Hogeland, Whiskey Rebellion, notes: “Writers on the Whiskey Rebellion”; Sioli, 292; Link, Democratic- Republican Societies, 1790-1800, 67-69. 30 Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 28-31, quoted page 36. 31 Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, 147. 32 Sioli, “Democratic Republican Societies,” 296; McClure, “Ends of the American Earth,” 584-590, 822, n. 30, 580. The Mingo Creek Association is sometimes referred to as the Mingo Creek Society of United Freemen. Before the signing of its constitution in early 1794, it was also known as Hamilton’s District society. The manifesto declaring 61

Rebellion, reputation for violence and intimidation, and their similarities with the other

Democratic societies were enough to cause the Federalists in Congress to conflate the two movements, and lay the blame on both for the insurrection.33 For this reason, the importance of examining the Association’s unique history and ideology cannot be underestimated.

The Mingo Creek Association was a belligerent group of 500 or so men with roots in revolutionary-era ideology, whose members had been unofficially active in the opposition of the excise tax since the early 1790s.34 While the Democratic Society of the County of Washington benefitted from wealthy sponsorship and higher social esteem in the eyes of locals, the Mingo

Creek Association was formed by farmers from the lower classes, who were more affected by the excise tax. The disparity between their situations is partly evident in the number of their members who took part in the rebellion. While seven members of the Washington society were active in the revolt, the entire Mingo Creek membership was present during the uprising. It was also the latter of the two that, in February of that year, had emphatically expressed their opposition to the tax, and “resolved that excisemen who seize whisky [sic] must be prosecuted.”35 There had been an established distaste, if not outright hostility, towards the excise tax and those who enforced it, and the Mingo Creek Association had made their position clear in the months leading up to the rebellion. However, even before their official creation, their members had expressed support for the aforementioned “frontier” independence, a movement that had been popular in the region for years prior.

this title is undated, and the name refers to Justice of the Peace David Hamilton, whose property held the polling station for that district. 33 See McClure, 820-21 n. 22 for a concise summary of the historiography and misconceptions surrounding this topic. 34 Hogeland, Whiskey Rebellion, chap. 6. 35 Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, 145-46, quoted page 147. 62

It is this early-90s independence movement that gives context to the intentions and actions of the members of the Mingo Creek Association. In the opinions of supporters, this independence movement required gradual emancipation from the official governing authorities.

The district’s militia presence and support would theoretically allow them the power to do so.

James Patrick McClure’s dissertation is one of the only sources that offer insight into the

Association, their formation, and the unique political tensions of the western counties. The

Association was also heavily involved with the local militia under Colonel John Hamilton, which gave them ample opportunity to carry out extralegal activities without fear of consequence. It was not only this legal immunity the membership desired. However, it was a side effect of their original motivation, which was to organize the local districts in a decentralized legal structure.

McClure writes:

The framers of the Hamilton’s District society realized that the militia system, which already encompassed most of the adult male population in an organizational structure from the local level on up to the county level, could play a key role in the organization of the region’s population along the lines suggested by earlier committees.36

This would potentially give them the freedom necessary to conduct informal and extralegal activities.37 After their creation, the association was known for strong-arming excisemen, organizing boycotts of goods from the East, maintaining a network of allies in Virginia and

Kentucky, and intimidating those who aided tax collectors. For instance, in 1792, Captain

William Faulkner was threatened repeatedly by a group of men, one of whom, Benjamin

36 McClure, “Ends of the American Earth,” 583-84, quoted pages 580-81. Early primary sources regarding the aforementioned Hamilton’s District association are sparse, but it is certain that they were a precursor title to the Mingo Creek Association, and directly responsible for the drafting of the latter’s constitution. They are identified by Captain William Faulkner in 1792. 37 McClure, 590-91, 589. As to whether or not there was talk among the Association about secession, is unclear. There were different opinions among the more moderate members and those who leaned more radical. While the language in the Yough Society Constitution clearly indicates an avoidance of official legal channels, it seems that this had more to do with opposing the excise tax and less to do with official independence from Pennsylvania, or the federal government. 63

Parkinson, would later become the president of the Mingo Creek Association. Faulkner had initially expressed interest in renting his tavern to Neville to be used as an office. The pressure proved too high, and Faulkner revoked Neville’s rental agreement.38

There has been little consensus among historians regarding the Mingo Creek

Association’s relationship with the Democratic societies. Some historians make the argument that the Mingo Creek Association was not a Democratic society because of their relatively excessive critique of the excise tax. For instance, Foner notes the conspicuous absence of references to the excise tax in other societies’ publications, finding only that the Philadelphian society spoke against taxing other household items apart from whiskey.39 Link believed that because the association “objected to the same prevailing practices of the Federalist administration as did all the others…[urging] the formation of similar societies in other districts to promote constitutional knowledge and to guarantee the rights of man to all people,” they were, in essence, the same.40 This, while a tempting explanation, does not account for the society’s unique origins and local history. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, who later wrote a detailed, if self- exonerating account of the insurrection, was adamant they were not the same, describing in his

1795 book the noted “democratic” nature of the Mingo Creek Association in comparison to the

Democratic Society of the County of Washington, which was built “on the same principles…with societies of the same denominations, in New-York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.” Furthermore, he claimed to have identified nothing in the Washington society’s

38 Hogeland, Whiskey Rebellion, chap. 6; McClure, “Ends of the American Earth,” 582-86. 39 Introduction to Philip Sheldon Foner, ed., The Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800: A Documentary Sourcebook of Constitutions, Declarations, Addresses, Resolutions, and Toasts (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), 29 (hereafter cited as DRS). 40 Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, 61, 15-16, quoted page 62; McClure attributes Link’s belief to the fact that he erroneously associated the name “Society of United Freemen” with the contemporary Western Pennsylvanian Society of the United Irishmen, believing them to be a derivative of latter. McClure, “Ends of the American Earth,” 822, n. 30. 64 proceedings that mentioned the excise law.41 McClure, however, exploring the Association’s past activities and motivations offers the most convincing argument that the Association’s actions do not directly correlate to those of the Democratic societies.

McClure’s evidence that the Mingo Creek Association’s aims were fundamentally different from the other societies from their conception is persuasive. He demonstrates that they were an oppositional group focused on local concerns from their inception.42 McClure describes the region’s contention with the excise tax and a perceived disinterest by Congress with western affairs. This malcontent was well-established by the mid-1790s. In the late 1780s, a group of eleven westerners created “a general Patriotic Convention,” pledging not only to boycott eastern liquor manufacturers, but also to make “resolutions [addressing] the problem of the region’s lack of specie and [expressing] dissatisfaction with the state and national governments’ policies regarding taxation, the navigations of the Mississippi, the state liquor excise, and restrictions on the use of certificates for land payments.”43 Later, a manifesto written sometime between 1793 and early 1794 describes more grievances, which McClure writes “were thought at least equal to those of the colonies in 1774 and 1775, and were ‘but symptoms of that mortal disease which

Corrodes the vitals of our Constitutions, and Leaves to the people in their own government, but

41 It is likely that, in light of Brackenridge’s disapproving view of the Mingo Creek Association, that he is using the term “democratic” for its negative connotations. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Incidents of the Insurrection in the Western Parts of Pennsylvania, in the Year 1794, vol. 3 (Philadelphia: 1795), 25. However, his assertion that the Washington society never addressed the excise tax is incorrect. In a public remonstrance addressed to Washington in which they published resolutions demanding “free enjoyment of the navigation of the river Mississippi,” they allude to western “poverty” in comparison to the eastern states and state that “it is unreasonable from such poverty to exact contributions.” Note the rhetoric which is similar to those who desired to unite the western counties in response to eastern economic tyranny. “To George Washington from Citizens West of the Allegheny Mountains, December 1793,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-14-02-0411; James Marshel and W. M’Cluney, “Remonstrance to the President and Congress on Opening Navigation of the Mississippi River, , 1794,” Pittsburgh Gazette, , 1794 in DRS, 127-29; Chesney, “Democratic- Republican Societies,”1554-55; DRS, 419, n. 90. Note that Brackenridge himself helped found the Democratic Society of the County of Washington. 42 Hogeland, Whiskey Rebellion, notes: “Chapter Six; Tom the Tinker.” 43 McClure, “Ends of the American Earth,” 568-71, 573-74. Quoted page 568. 65 the Shadow of a name.’” Addressing these issues would require “’a complete and radical reform of the representation of the People in the legislature.’”

Thus, the signatories declared the formation of the “’society of united freemen of

Hamiltons [sic] district of Washington County Pennsylvania.’”44 Soon after, between February and March of 1794, the same members met to draft a constitution in the presence of eight representatives from Hamilton’s militia. During the proceedings, three of them were replaced by

Allegheny County envoys. With everyone in agreement, a constitution was drafted. In it, some stipulations directly connected the Association with the local militia, granting the captains access to the Association’s documentation.45 The constitution’s formatting and content are similar to

Democratic society charters in the sense that they both stipulate meeting frequencies, member hierarchy, and other such regulations. Still, other aspects indicate a desire for greater engagement in governance. For instance, article one, section eight grants power to the society “to nominate and recommend such persons as in their opinion will be capable to represent us in the government of this state and the United States…To make all bye-laws, which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the Society.”46 This demonstrates not only a desire to act as unofficial local representatives on behalf of the people but to also gradually shift legal jurisdiction from the government to the Association. Section 10 of the constitution states that “all matters in variance, and dispute…shall be laid before the society; and no district, or citizen

44 McClure, “Ends of the American Earth,” 583-84, 822, n. 30, quoted page 584. The manifesto exists only at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, “Rawle Family Papers,” I: 138, http://www2.hsp.org/collections/manuscripts/r/rawle536.htm 45 McClure, 585-86. 46 See Samuel Wilson and Matthew Jamison, “Constitution, April 15, 1794,” Pittsburgh Gazette, , 1794 in DRS, 123-26, quoted page 124, for the constitution of the sister Republican Society at the Mouth of the Yough. McClure describes the Mingo Creek Association’s charter as “essentially the same constitution as that proposed as a means of organizing the four counties as a whole by battalion districts in spring 1794.” McClure, “Ends of the American Earth,” 586-89, 823, n. 31, quoted page 821, n. 25. 66 within the district, shall sue or cause to be sued before a single justice of the peace, or in any court of justice, a citizen…before they first apply to the society for redress.”47 Given the Mingo

Creek Association’s penchant for violent coercion, this would likely be enforced aggressively.

Contrast this with the constitution of the German Republican Society of Philadelphia, as described in chapter one. The German Republican Society maintained from the beginning the importance of a “joint operation” between political societies and the state, a partnership that was

“necessary to the preservation of civil liberty.”48 In contrast, the intention disclosed in the Mingo

Creek constitution, as well as the history of the Association, is more indicative of a focused local, isolationist agenda than the broader aims of the Democratic societies.

In light of this evidence, it is clear that while contemporaries labelled the Democratic societies as instigators of the insurrection, this was not the case. Their ability to survive the storm of public opposition in the following years would then depend on their ability to defend their reputations and distance themselves from the actions of the Mingo Creek Association. Like the

Democratic societies, the Association did indeed object to federal policy, but for reasons stemming from local history and ideologies, and only in an official capacity when it would be most beneficial to their cause in fighting the excise tax, acting as an organized extralegal body with militia support.49 By that time, the Republicans had a more substantial presence in print culture, and so likely had an influence on the Mingo Creek Association’s organization, and it is these similarities which have caused confusion between their identities. While the mainstream

Democratic societies sometimes drew attention to local issues, such as free trade on the

Mississippi, their raison d’etre was general dissatisfaction with Federalist elitism, and they

47 Wilson and Jamison, “Constitution,” in DRS, 123-26, quoted page 125. 48 Henry Kammerer, letter to the editor, National Gazette, (Philadelphia), April 13, 1793, in DRS, 53-55, quoted page 54. 49 McClure, “Ends of the American Earth,” 586-89. 67 desired a more transparent government and broader citizen involvement in politics. The Mingo

Creek Association might have styled themselves after Democratic societies, following specific trends and conventions that became popular with their increasing publications across the country.

The Mingo Creek Association, and its satellite societies in Allegheny county and the Mouth of the Yough, was created to unite the Western Pennsylvanian counties in the aforementioned manner, independent and sometimes independent of federal law enforcement, and they intended to lead a new frontier expansion that prioritized western interests.50 The Western Pennsylvanian tradition informed these actions such as resisting excise taxes, and a general desire to prioritize western goods to boost the local economy. Such established local issues directly informed the

Mingo Creek Association’s formation and activities, and it is this difference that lies between them and the Democratic societies.

Washington’s Condemnation

The Democratic societies had occupied a portion of Washington’s mind since 1793 during the Citizen Genêt affair. Genêt’s blunders and his widespread popularity among

Republicans had made their presence challenging to ignore. When the Democratic Society of the

County of Washington sent Washington an antagonistic letter in early 1794 demanding access to free trade on the Mississippi River, publishing their assertions in the Pittsburgh Gazette, they only fuelled his distaste for the Democratic societies across the country.51 Reluctant to give

50 Sioli, “Democratic Republican Societies,” 300, n. 12. 51 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1554-55; The society declared that “if the general government will not procure [access to the Mississippi] for us, we shall hold ourselves not answerable for any consequences that may result from our own procurement of it.” Understandably, this incendiary language is explanation enough of Washington’s poor opinion of the society. Marshel and M’Cluney, “Remonstrance to the President,” in DRS, 127- 29, quoted page 128; “To George Washington from Citizens,” Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-14-02-0411. Hamilton and Henry Knox, who were privy to the documents, agreed that the society’s actions were unacceptable. They hinted, furthermore, at a legal investigation by Attorney General Bradford regarding the society’s potentially criminal actions, although Bradford cautioned against this: Chesney, 1555. 68 credence to their demands through an official response, Washington passed the letter along to

Edmund Randolph, commenting that “the first fruit of the Democratic Society begins, more and more, to unfold itself.” Randolph suggested that Congress ignore the remonstrance and treat the matter with “silent contempt.” 52 Already exasperated by the societies’ demands and petitions, and apparent intent to stymie his every move, Washington was little-inclined to receive their defence following the Whiskey Rebellion. At one point, following similar demands made by the

Democratic Society of Kentucky, he was noted to remark that “There must exist a pre- disposition among them to be dissatisfied under any circumstances and under every exertion of government…to promote their welfare.”53

It was an opportune time for Washington to address the rebellion and the societies’ involvement. The proximity of his annual address meant that he would be able to give formal attention to the crisis before the House, as per Randolph’s advice, without delay. He did so on

November 19, justifying his response to the Whiskey Rebellion, careful to mention the “certain self created societies,” which had, leading up to the insurrection, made a habit of demonstrating displeasure towards the government’s activities.54 Most Americans, he explained, were cooperative, raising “scarcely an objection” in response to the 1790 decision to raise excise taxes. Those that expressed concern initially were brought to sense through “reason and patriotism.” However, it was the societies located in the western counties of Pennsylvania where

“a prejudice, fostered and embittered by the artifice of men who labored for the ascendancy over

52 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1554; “Letter from Secretary of State Edmund Randolph to Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General William Bradford” (April 14, 1794), quoted in Chesney, page 1555. 53 George Washington to Charles Mynn Thruston, , 1794, Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-16-02-0376, quoted in Orihel, “‘Mississippi Mad,’” 425, 426, n. 40. 54 4 ANNALS OF CONG. 891 (1794) (statement of President George Washington), 788, quoted in Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1559-61. 69 the will of others…produced symptoms of riot and violence.” Washington also alluded to the

“intelligence” provided to him “by those who were not inclined to exaggerate the ill-conduct of the insurgents.”55 This is likely a reference to Hamilton’s evidence provided in his August letter to the President. Given Hamilton’s conflation of the Democratic societies with the Mingo Creek

Association, and his position as a confidant and adviser to Washington, it is likely that

Washington agreed with Hamilton’s assessment, though he was careful not to be too specific in his blame. Nonetheless, given Washington’s popularity and eminence in the nation, the speech held unique sway and power. It would be difficult to refute without attracting unfavourable attention, although that did not stop some in Congress and the societies from challenging his words.

The basis of Washington’s decision to denounce the Democratic societies following the insurrection lay in his own negative experience with the organizations. The Mingo Creek

Association historically had little in common with the Democratic societies. However, because it was this Association that was mostly responsible for the violence of the rebellion, its actions subsequently created a stigma for other societies. Historians may now appreciate that it is inaccurate to treat the societies as a monolith with a single purpose. Given our current understanding of these societies’ nature and purpose, and the ability to observe the nuance of the event, Washington’s understanding of the organizations seems reductive and inaccurate.

However, given the information related to him through Hamilton, and his own experience with the societies, he had good reason to regard them as troublemakers. To him, the supposedly anarchic, Jacobin-supporting Democratic societies were extremists capable of violent insurrection. Most grievous to the Republican cause was the perception of the actions of

55 George Washington, “Philadelphia, Nov. 19 […] ADDRESS,” Dunlap and Claypool’s American Daily Advertiser, (Philadelphia), Nov. 20, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 70 associations like the Mingo Creek membership and the Washington County society, which undeniably affected the opinions of Washington and other Federalist members of the government. These actions created the impression upon both contemporaries and future historians that the societies did act as a single entity in opposition to the excise tax. From

Washington’s perspective, it had seemed that the Democratic societies had caused no end to his grief. The resulting Federalist response to the rebellion and subsequent conflation of all the societies as instigators of the violence had lasting effects on the societies’ ability to participate in the public sphere. It also affected the way they would be perceived for years to come.

Congressional Debates

Much debate in the House of Representatives arose from the drafting of their official response to Washington. It was a matter that left no room for error, and numerous Congressmen believed it apparent that the Democratic societies were at least partially at fault for the insurrection. The nuances of the region, too, went overlooked, as the Mingo Creek Association became the face of the Democratic societies. When the House met in late November 1794 to determine the tone that their response should take, there was a clear divide between the

Republican and Federalist congressmen. Madison preferred to keep the response vague, avoiding addressing any particular “minutiae” of Washington’s speech.56 His initial draft, produced with the aid of two congressmen, Federalist Theodore Sedgwick and Republican Thomas Scott, was

“conspicuously silent regarding the societies.” In refusing to acknowledge Washington’s pointed terminology, Madison’s draft would have diplomatically avoided endorsing a censure.

56 “House Address to the President, [24 November] 1794,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-15-02-0300. 71

In contrast, Federalists, including Sedgwick, preferred to condemn the societies outright.

On November 24th, Federalist Thomas Fitzsimons moved to reject the vague first draft, proposing it be amended to denounce the societies.57 The next day, Federalist Representative

William Murray objected to the wording in Madison’s draft because “the conduct of the democratic clubs…appeared to [Washington] to have been instrumental” to the rebellion, and that if this was true, Murray “knew no notice…which ought to restrain us at this period from saying that we believed it, and from lamenting it.” Deferring to Washington’s authority on the matter, he noted that “if the President had not thought some of the societies instrumental to the late calamity, they would not have attracted his notice, nor that of the house.”58 There was no reason to defend the Democratic societies, who were so clearly implicated by Washington’s words, and their similarities to the Mingo Creek Association.

Federalist opinion of the censure varied. Murray’s views regarding the societies were more sympathetic than the President’s. During an earlier session, he admitted that while it was necessary to condemn the acts of those involved in the rebellion, and by extension the societies’ undeniable role in “fomenting the late insurrection,” he also made it clear that “if a law were proposed for the abolition of these societies, he would oppose it.”59 Randolph, in contrast, immediately realized an opportunity following the Whiskey Rebellion, writing to Washington in

October, “I never did see an opportunity of destroying these self- constituted bodies, until the fruit of their operations was disclosed in the insurrection of Pittsburg [sic].... They may now, I believe, be crushed. The prospect ought not to be lost.” Before the proceedings, Randolph

57 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1562, quoted page 1563. 58 “CONGRESS: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,” Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), Nov. 27, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 59 “Tuesday, ,” Dunlap and Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser Extra, (Philadelphia), Nov. 29, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 72 himself had drafted Washington’s address and followed the President’s instructions to denounce the societies explicitly. As for the House debates and their effect on the societies, it was, “at best,

…a draw.”60

The debate turned to the issue of censure, and the implications of condemning the

Democratic societies. Censure seemed a natural response to Federalists who associated the violent actions of the Mingo Creek Association with the rest of Pennsylvania’s Democratic societies. On , Hamilton wrote to Thomas Fitzsimmons, a fellow House Federalist, demonstrating the popular Federalist belief: “It is true that the opposition to the Excise laws began from causes foreign to Democratic societies, but it is well ascertained by proof in the course of Judiciary investigations that the insurrection immediately is to be essentially attributed to one of those Societies sometimes called the Mingo Creek Society—sometimes the Democratic Society.”61 Randolph, in particular rigorously defended Washington’s words, writing thirteen essays between January and April of 1795 under the pseudonym

“Germanicus.”62 “I now impeach ‘the apologies offered by the Societies, as militating against the holy interests of Republicanism,’” he wrote in his final essay:

[The insurgents] had every reason to conclude, that the societies would co-operate with them so far atleast, [sic] as to palliate the enormity of the opposition, by virulent censures of the excise….In this, the insurgents were not altogether disappointed. For in the midst of the convulsion, the excise was described and execrated by the societies, as the corner stone of corruption and tyranny.63

60 Letter from Secretary of State Edmund Randolph to President George Washington (Oct. 11, 1794), microformed on THE GEORGE WASHINGTON PAPERS, Series 4, Reel 106 (Library of Congress, 1964), in Chesney, “Democratic- Republican Societies,” 1527, 1560, quoted page 1530, n. 11. 61 John Church Hamilton, History of the Republic of the United States (7 Vols, Philadelphia, 1864), VI. 123, quoted in Miller, “Whiskey Insurrection,” 342. 62 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1570-72. 63 “From the American Daily Advertiser: GERMANICUS. LETTER XIII—AND LAST,” Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), April 3, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 73

Randolph and many other Federalists shared the same belief that either the societies had colluded with the rebels, or else they were directly responsible for the insurrection. It was a difficult accusation to counter, especially, as Randolph stated, the societies’ apologies and defence were suspect and deemed disingenuous. Furthermore, now in the inescapable grasp of public scrutiny, their personal history and association with the French were acting against their best interests.

Federalist Response

Many Federalists perceived the violent rebellion as an inevitable result of widespread

Jacobinism, the roots of which they believed to be found in Genêt’s popularity. “The Societies have been defended as being made of better clay than the Jacobins,” Randolph writes with some skepticism, “but they cannot now undertake for their own conduct, when they shall be agitated by strong passions in the hour of tumult.”64 Cleves makes the point that across the Atlantic, the

London Times speculated first during the Genêt affair as to what kind of alliance would be created between France and the United States. The following year, after the Whiskey Rebellion, they gloated gleefully over what they considered the natural consequences of consorting with

Jacobins.65 To others, the conflict was born of the Anti-Federalist movement of the late 1780s.

One article, published late 1794 in Fenno’s then Philadelphia-based Gazette, makes this comparison between the “opposition clubs” and the Anti-Federalists, claiming that “the active campaign…wherein it was attempted to force the strong lines of the government… [opened]… immediately after the landing of Genet in Charleston, and to have closed with the rendezvous of

64 “From the American Daily Advertiser: GERMANICUS. LETTER XIII—AND LAST,” Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), April 3, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 65 Rachel Hope Cleves, “‘Jacobins in This Country’: The United States, Great Britain, and Trans-Atlantic Anti- Jacobinism,” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 8, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 425. 74 the militia army at the foot of the Allegheny mountain in October last.”66 Such criticism was widespread. While much debate regarding the societies’ active involvement in the insurrection occurred in and around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, criticism of the societies was not just confined to Pennsylvania. Three of the most active states were , New York, and

Pennsylvania, the latter of which hosted Fenno’s Gazette during this period. Though the paper occasionally published contrary opinions defending the societies, Fenno’s publications made a significant contribution to the widespread criticism.

As time went on, the debate surrounding the insurrection spread across the states. Word had spread among the major publications of the details of the insurrection, and the noise from such widespread critique would prove beneficial to the Federalists, who desired to ensure the end of the societies. They also saw no reason not to attribute the violence to the Democratic societies, and Federalists saw no reason to defend the societies, as doing so would give credence to the violence. Instead, it was in the best interests of Federalists to either avoid refuting these rumours through omission or otherwise encourage them, and by doing so, exert control over the popular narrative. One prominent example is Hamilton’s detailed letter to Washington, which was publicized in late August. This letter was one of the first comprehensive contemporary accounts of the rebellion. However, there were consequences to this, having been such an early contemporary analysis, and for its wide circulation through the press. A Boston paper reported on the insurrection, laying blame on “opposers of the excise.”67 However, several days later,

Fenno’s Gazette explicitly linked the insurrection and the “branch of that evil tree of which the

66 An American Observer, “For the Gazette of the United States,” By this Day’s Mail, Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), Dec. 19, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 67 “PITTSBURG INSURRECTION,” American Apollo, (Boston), Aug 21, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 75

Jacobin clubs are the root.”68 One day after that, the Salem Gazette reprinted a letter that accused not only the “wild Irish,” but Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Albert Gallatin, and even British

General John Simcoe as either having fomented the rebellion or sided with the rebels.69 It was unrestrained sensationalism.

Immediately following the rebellion, the rebels had been poorly regarded by the general populace, in part due to their treatment. After the violence had ceased, the had marched the prisoners through Philadelphia in a visual display of suppression, forcing the men to wear white paper cockades, a symbol of aristocratic counter-revolution. While some onlookers were offended by the unnecessary act, the damage had already been done.70 Encouraged by this event and Hamilton’s letter, the image of treasonous, malcontent Democrats became a trope used to condemn the societies. At the same time, the federal volunteer militia was praised for its due diligence and quick action.71 This appearance of contrasting character would endure well past the rebellion, and affect the public’s perception of the Democratic societies. The Federalist narrative, which relied on incriminating specific societies and people as instigators of the violence, quickly became prominent. The Mingo Creek Association and its members became known across the country yet another example of Democratic conspiracy and Jacobin rebelliousness.72

68 Massachusetts Farmer, letter to the editor, Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), Aug. 25, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 69 “PITTSBURG INSURRECTION,” Salem Gazette, (MA), Aug. 26, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 70 Albrecht Koschnik, “Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together”: Associations, Partisanship, and Culture in Philadelphia, 1775-1840 (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2007), 109-110; Albrecht Koschnik, “Political Conflict and Public Contest: Rituals of National Celebration in Philadelphia, 1788-1815,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 118, no. 3 (1994): 237-239; “Extract of a Letter from Guadalupe, Dated 30th September, to a Merchant of this City,” City Gazette, (Charleston), Nov. 20, 1792, Genealogy Bank; “.,” Dunlap and Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser, (Philadelphia), Jan. 24, 1794, Genealogy Bank; Holt, “Whiskey Rebellion of 1794,” 73-74. 71 Koschnik, Common Interest, 110-12. 72 Davis, “Guarding the Republican Interest,” 50-51. 76

The result of the rebellion was that from that time, the Democratic societies were directly associated with the violent revolt. Whether or not this was entirely true was irrelevant, as the sensationalist publications that endured in the press offered ammunition to the societies’ political opponents. A similarity in the organization between the societies and the Mingo Creek rebels also gave critics a rhetorical edge against the Republicans, and it made little difference when such societies tried to distance themselves from the violence, often actively praising

Washington’s timely martial response to the rebellion. Some members of the federal militia, who were called in to quell the riots, were members of the societies as well.73 However, this mattered little to critics determined to portray the societies negatively.

The societies, acutely aware of their portrayal in the press, were hard at work to guard their public image. Many denounced the whiskey rebels, and these publications often appear in response to an increase of unrelenting and particularly vindictive Federalist attacks during the summer.74 One example of note is the Philadelphian society, which officially praised the federal response to the Whiskey Rebellion, though their decision to do so was not a straightforward one.

The society met on and drafted three resolutions in response to the insurrection.

The first and second resolutions respectively praised the Pennsylvanian Governor’s “moderate prudent and republican conduct” and his preference of “appeal to the reason”; and an

73 Seth Cotlar, Tom Paine’s America: The Rise and Fall of Transatlantic Radicalism in the Early Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011), 186; “Manuscript Minutes, July 3, 1793, to January 1, 1795: Thursday, September 11th 1794” and “Thursday, October 9th 1794,” (1794) in DRS, 91-96, 93; Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1557, many societies also criticized the excise tax, but did not condone the violence of the uprising; Koschnik, Common Interest, 92, 99. Notably, the militia had become increasingly political in the 1790s as the militia took a larger part in public ceremonies and parades. Federalist members in particular, attracted to the large celebrations of national holidays, played a large role in this conspicuous partisanship. This caused contention with Republican members, one of whom was Blair McClenachan who left the service and later joined the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania as president. Thomas Leiper, another member, also marched with the militia that summer. 74 Todd Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, Public Opinion, and the Evolution of Early American Political Culture, Political Development of the American Nation: Studies in Politics and History (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006), 62. 77 endorsement of force should the former fail.75 In essence, the society was content with the

Governor’s response and acknowledged the necessity of martial force during the uprising. The third resolution was controversial, however, as it directly condemned the rebels, who represented

“an enmity to the genuine principles of freedom, and that such an outrage upon order and democracy, so far from entitling them to the patronage of Democrats, will merit the proscription of every friend to equal liberty.”76 Upon reading the third resolution, an argument broke out among the membership, and president Blair McClenachan left the premises, taking with him twenty-eight members. The remaining thirty, under the provisional direction of Benjamin Bache, voted to withdraw the third resolution. As a result, only the first two resolutions ever appeared to the public in the press.77 It is evident from this heated debate that the question of defence and the idea of whether or not the Whiskey rebels were indeed Democrats was polarizing even among the Democratic societies. Furthermore, without the third resolution in print, there was no official condemnation of the rebellion from the Philadelphian society, which was yet another opportunity of attack which Federalists might seize. While Federalist opponents might disregard such a statement of denunciation as disingenuous, the absence of such a statement would have been equally, if not more damning.

From June 1794 and through 1795, there was a stir of activity among defenders and critics of the societies. One contributor wrote in a New Jersey paper that “All Democratic

Societies must consider themselves at least accessories to all the crimes lately committed in the western counties of Pennsylvania…and as the most wicked and diabolical societies called

Democratic Societies have for a long time been spawning about the country…no doubt they will

75 Introduction to DRS, 30; “Manuscript Minutes,” in DRS, quoted page 92, 93. 76 DRS, 92. See Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, 147-48 for more information. 77 “Manuscript Minutes,” in DRS, 92, 416 n.50. 78 all be crushed in the shell.”78 An editorial appeared in a Massachusetts paper, declaring that “one thing is certain, that the members, to a man, of the Pittsburgh ‘Democratic Society,’ were fomenters and leaders in the business!”79 Some became involved as well, sometimes using their platform to preach to their congregations the dangers of the societies. A

“Correspondent,” late 1794, writes of such an occasion when “a certain Episcopalian ‘thumper of the pulpit drum’ not more remarkable for his sagacity than for his pretended political knowledge…endeavored to entertain his audience with what he termed politics.”80 The

Episcopalian in question, Reverend David Osgood, had delivered a “fiery” sermon on

Thanksgiving that was circulated and promoted by Federalist publishers.81 In it, he denounced the societies as a tyrannical “aristocracy established over their brethren” and “that the democratic clubs in the United States…are attempting to establish precisely the same

[aristocratic] influence under a different name.”82 Others tried to distance themselves from the violence they considered anarchy and the collapse of law and order. Feeling that Washington’s vague and incriminating statement was unjust, and perhaps in an effort vindicate their organization, the Massachusetts Constitutional Society wrote in a public address in early 1795 that “the charge is so indefinite in its language, that we are at a loss to determine whether all or which of the multifarious self-created Societies in the United States were intended to be implicated.”83 An excerpt from a similar letter appeared in the Weekly Register. The writer noted that in contrast to Pennsylvania, in Virginia, there was “great alacrity in turning out to support

78 Minippus, “MISCELLANEOUS,” Wood’s Newark Gazette, (NJ), Feb. 4, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 79 Letter to the editor, Andrew’s Western Star, (Stockbridge, MA), Oct. 14, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 80 “From a Correspondent,” Independent Chronicle, (Boston), Nov. 24, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 81 Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1570. 82 David Osgood, The Wonderful Works of God are to Be Remembered. […], , 1794, (Boston, 1795), No. 53, ed. 3, 24-28, quoted page 27. 83 Wm. Cooper and Samuel Hewes, “AN ADDRESS FROM THE Massachusetts Constitutional Society,” Independent Chronicle, (Boston), Jan. 5, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 79 the government and its laws,” and that Virginians “will be ruled by a Majority, and not by factions of Democratic Societies.”84 This also represents a broader question that appeared after the rebellion and would continue into the following year, of whether or not the Democratic societies had the right to exist and claim to represent Americans as unofficial mediators to the government.

Some criticism reflected more of an emotional response than logical. Osgood’s charge of

“aristocracy” is inaccurate, as even by Federalist standards, the Democratic societies were viewed as anarchists or Jacobins. A contributor to the Greenfield Gazette in September of 1794 offers a different perspective to the debate over the societies’ legality. He examines the societies’ apparent dislike of the aristocracy, noting that if the aristocracy were such a threat to liberty as

Republicans would have others believe, only then would it be appropriate to “return thanks for their virtuous and spirited exertions.” He argues, however, against their premise, writing that the societies tended to overlook their privileged position of freedom in comparison to other nations:

“I shall not enter into the controversy respecting the strict constitutionality of these societies; much less shall I call in question the uprightness of the characters and intentions of many of the members,” he writes, but continues to say that “had [the “Son of Freedom”] been cast in France instead of America, and had he there insinuated against the French Constitution, the tenth part of what he has openly expressed against [the American] government…he would before this time have been a head shorter.”85 Unfortunately, newspapers often lacked rational expressions of criticism, such as this. The vast majority simply denounce the societies without addressing their concerns. Thus, much of the contemporary critique was indefensible, though it appealed to readers already determined to censure the Democratic societies.

84 “WINCHESTER, Sept. 1,” Weekly Register, (Norwich, CT), Sept. 16, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 85 “For the GREENFIELD GAZETTE,” Greenfield Gazette, (MA), Sept. 18, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 80

Madison wrote to Jefferson in late November, describing what he considered the clever, yet malicious tactics, which were part of a broader Federalist strategy to undermine the

Republican movement. “The insurrection was universally & deservedly odious. The Democratic

Societies were presented as in league with it. The Republican part of Congs. were to be drawn into an ostensible, patronage of those Societies, and into an ostensible opposition to the

President.”86 The “ostensible” association between congressional Republicans and the

Democratic societies was not a fabrication, but it was not necessarily as strong as Federalists would have liked to believe. While there were attempts by congressmen like Madison to temper the initial federal response to the societies, the societies were mostly responsible for their own defence. In December, the Republican Society of Baltimore published a long and public defence of their institution, explicitly denying the President’s accusations against their fellow societies.87

Signed by Secretary Robert Mickle, the publication went even further than the Philadelphian society by denouncing the insurrection and all those involved, emphasizing their obedience to

“the call of the executive to arms.”88 They were not without support. An anonymous observer in a letter published in the Aurora General Advertiser noted that while resistance to the excise tax had been a known characteristic of Western Pennsylvania, the practice had preceded the appearance of the societies. Furthermore, “most of the Democratic Societies, as soon as they heard of the violent opposition … entered into resolutions pointedly disapproving their conduct.”89 While still abstaining from denouncing the whiskey rebels, McClenachan published another piece on behalf of his society. In it, he reaffirmed their right to speak freely, and

86 Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, 63; “From James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 30 November 1794,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-15-02-0303. 87 Estes, 65; Robert Mickle, “Address to the Government and People of the United States, , 1794,” General Advertiser, (Philadelphia), in DRS, 339-43. 88 Mickle, in DRS, 340. 89 “Extract of a Letter […],” Aurora General Advertiser, (Philadelphia), Dec. 13, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 81 defended the other societies from false accusations of anarchy and rebellion, declaring his membership blameless.90 This network of allies was invaluable in a time when few others would come to their defence—however, as time passed, and fewer societies continued to exist, this network crumbled and significantly impacted the societies’ abilities to defend themselves publicly.

Conclusion

This chapter has explored the significant events of 1794 and 1795 that had a direct impact on the Democratic societies, their public perception, which drew large amounts of attention from both Federalists and Republicans in Congress. The Whiskey Rebellion, given its violence and the national attention it received, generated debate among citizens and congressmen alike. The connection between the local Democratic societies and the rebels caused lasting damage to the movement, as the association directly involved with the violence, the Mingo Creek Association, was considered by many to be a Democratic society. Although there are similarities between the two, as indicated by their hierarchy and constitution, the Mingo Creek Association was born of conflicts unique to the area, and its members formed the association with the intent to develop

“frontier independence,” a reactionary movement that prioritized western interests over those of the East. This distinction has been overlooked by many historians, though McClure’s dissertation provides critical information regarding the Association’s formation. The Association’s constitution, while similar in composition to published works characteristic of Democratic societies, includes proposals for a distancing from federal laws, especially those enforcing excise taxes, and a shift towards decentralized, unofficial local law enforcement. This enforcement

90 Blair McClenachan and Robert Bailey, “The Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, Established in Philadelphia,[…],” Herald, (New York), Dec. 27, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 82 would be made possible through the Association’s strong ties to the local militia’s eight divisions. This connection was made more apparent during the Whiskey Insurrection, when the rebels sought the local militia’s aid during the Battle of Bower hill. Just before the Association’s official formation, a manifesto was signed by the members that expressed contempt for the federal government, and the need for a revolutionary transformation of official representation.

Given the information gathered from these sources, I concur with McClure that the Mingo Creek

Association was not a Democratic society, though many contemporary Federalists still conflated the two. The Federalist narrative endured in part because of the high-profile statements by

Washington and his cabinet that directly blamed the Democratic societies for the insurrection.

These publications and criticisms would reach to the highest levels of government.

Washington, mistaken in his evaluation of the Democratic societies, nonetheless had good reason to suspect them, as he had been harassed earlier that year by aggressive petitions from the societies. Before then, the Citizen Genêt affair had also created a precedent that, in his view, indicated a destructive malcontent among the societies with the government, and a tendency to undermine Congress’s authority. The Whiskey Rebellion served to confirm these suspicions, and

Washington’s official condemnation of “self-created societies” in late 1794 had a widespread effect on public discourse.

83

Chapter Three: Sedition, Censure, and Decline of the Democratic Societies, 1795-1800

The final years of Washington’s administration and the John Adams years brought new challenges to the Democratic societies. The Whiskey Rebellion and the weight of President

Washington’s negative response impacted their public image, and threatened their existence.

Many historians have considered Washington’s post-rebellion message as the societies’ death knell. Their participation in the Jay Treaty debate, however, suggests they were able to continue their activities the following year and did not simply dissolve under harsh criticism. After a period of relative quiet through the 1796 , another major threat to their existence emerged during the Adams administration and the undeclared Quasi-War with France. It was during this period that the Federalists could legally charge dissenters with sedition, thus preventing the Democratic societies from participating in political debates and influencing popular opinion.

Some societies ceased operations during and after the 1794 crisis, but others remained influential in the public sphere and print until at least 1800.1 The societies became publicly active and visible again just a few months later in response to the Jay Treaty. During this time, they vehemently opposed the treaty and made their stance known in print. Evidence from their interactions under Adams’ presidency also demonstrates their activity in the print sphere. It was not Washington’s condemnation that contributed to their end. While his words undoubtedly had a demoralizing effect, the societies by that point were accustomed to defending their honour

1 Based on data from Foner’s work, there was indeed a drop in numbers among the Democratic societies, but not all can be attributed to the Whiskey Rebellion, as a number of societies ceased meetings before the rebellion. Furthermore, the decline occurred more gradually. They did not simply disappear between 1794 and 1795, and some lasted until at least 1800. Several members went on to re-create their own societies and act in a similar capacity in the first two decades of the 19th century. 84 against criticism. They were not afraid to do so even when such slander came from the

Commander in Chief, and their activity during the Jay Treaty debate is further evidence of the danger of taking the critical Federalist narrative at its word.

Jay’s Treaty of 1795 promised to ensure peace between Americans and the British, but it was immediately controversial. Republicans across the nation spoke out against the treaty, viewing it as yet another Federalist endeavour that prioritized Great Britain over Franco-

American relations. Some resented an alliance with the corrupt empire that would leave them disadvantaged. Those who supported France recognized that such a treaty would harm the U.S.’s relationship with the French. This period was challenging for the Democratic societies, who reaffirmed their right to participate in the public debate, fighting to defend themselves against increasing criticism. Such publications and affirmations created more opportunities for

Federalists to condemn the societies in the same way they did other Republicans who spoke out against the treaty they believed would inevitably cause the termination of peaceful relations between France and the U.S.

Left to pick up the pieces in 1797, Adams took drastic and controversial measures to prevent a war between France and the U.S. following a collapse in diplomatic relations. He was partially successful in that there were no violent land confrontations between their armies. Still, the undeclared Quasi-War between the nations’ navies and the encroachment on American merchant freedoms by France were causes of continual contention in foreign relations. Though their numbers dwindled, the remaining Democratic societies and leading Republicans challenged

Adams’ leadership through persistent political activities. However, Federalists had begun to slowly assert a narrative that depicted foreigners, particularly the French, and Irish immigrants, 85 as enemies to the peace. As a result, anyone who showed support for, or belonged to these demographics, became targets of the Federalists’ ire.

Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts were born of this struggle, exacerbating the poor relationship between the Federalists and Republicans. As a result of frequent accusations and charges of sedition, it would soon become less and less tenable to express Republican ideas in the print sphere. At the same time, a widespread prejudice among Americans targeted Irish and

French immigrants and labelled them as instigators of a potential rebellion. The XYZ Affair only encouraged anti-French sentiments. This, along with Federalist fears of a civil war, created a climate in which immigrants and their supporters were viewed with deep suspicion. The

Illuminati, a mysterious organization that threatened to overturn the Bavarian government, and the United Irishmen, a radical revolutionary movement for Irish rights, were additional causes for paranoia against such secret and potentially dangerous political organizations. The

Democratic societies, as political clubs that drew membership and support from European immigrants, bore the brunt of both types of suspicion. Those that survived the summer of 1794, and lived to engage in the Jay Treaty debate, contended with the increasing societal pressure to cut ties with France and avoid partisan expression that would risk accusations of sedition.

My newspaper searches for this period demonstrated the levels of engagement of the

Democratic societies in the press and public sphere, and provide a good sample of public opinion regarding their values. While in 1793-94, there was generally an equal volume of publications between political opponents, the ratio changed after this period. As time went on, the numbers of articles critical of the Democratic societies rose, while any defence of these groups became scarce to the point of being negligible. However, while the Democratic societies gradually ceased their practice of publishing resolutions and circulars to their countrymen and allies, there 86 is evidence that they continued to meet and to take action. This continued activity has been overlooked by most historians, and demonstrates that while the Whiskey Rebellion, Jay Treaty, and especially the Alien and Sedition Acts affected their ability to openly criticize federal policy in print, the Democratic societies lasted longer than has been previously recognized. While it appears that their activities largely came to a close by 1800, there is further evidence that a few

Democratic societies existed even in 1810, inspired by the previous generation and emboldened to publish their resolves once more as the Federalist influence on government had collapsed.

Historiography

Many historians are in agreement as to the effect Washington’s post-rebellion condemnation had on the societies’ existence and operations. Elkins and McKitrick argue that the public criticism by Washington led to their eventual downfall and that following

Washington’s speech, many “recoiled in pained protest” to be associated with the violent rebellion.2 Similarly, they argue that in all likelihood, the societies were not as secure in their position as their resolutions had claimed, which also led them to cave under pressure after the intense public scrutiny of 1794.3 While Robert W. T. Martin suggests the societies did have an enduring impact during the Jay Treaty debate, he claims that “they quickly faded” in response to

Washington’s speech and ensuing public outcry, and had disappeared by the time of the negotiations with England in 1795.4 Other historians have made similar claims, including

Matthew Schoenbachler. He argues that after the Federalists took advantage of the Whiskey

Rebellion to quash and undermine dissenters, the societies were unable to withstand the pressure.

2 Stanley M. Elkins and Eric L. McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 487. 3 Elkins and McKitrick, 854, n. 127. 4 Robert W. T. Martin, “A ‘Peaceable and Orderly Manner’: Town Meetings and Other Popular Assemblies in the American Founding,” Town Meeting Politics in the United States: The Idea and Practice of an American Myth, 15, no. 2 (2019): 15. 87

He writes that their demise arose from the “societies’ ultimate inability to justify their existence and thus to fully ward off attack.” By 1795, “the societies ceased to exert any meaningful influence upon national affairs.”5

Similarly, Albrecht Koschnik argues that the termination of most of the Democratic societies arrived early in 1795, while Chesney attributes their silence to Federalist accusations and Washington’s denunciation following the Whiskey Rebellion.6 The consensus is that the

Whiskey Rebellion was a significant trial that most societies did not survive due to their unstable position among public dissenters. The Jay Treaty debate the following year only reaffirmed this fact and destroyed any chance the societies might have of enduring through the decade. While on the surface these conclusions are not false, they overlook the relevant regional history in

Pennsylvania preceding the rebellion and the societies’ role in popular debates in 1795.

However, it is untrue that 1795 was the coup de grace for the Democratic societies. Several societies survived, and appeared, between 1796 and 1800. Their active participation in the Jay

Treaty debate is proof of their endurance, and it was only in the years that followed, during

Adams’ presidency, that they lost the support they needed to defend themselves from malicious attacks in the press. This chapter challenges such long-accepted beliefs and the original

Federalist narrative which successfully promoted them.

Counting Democratic Societies

To explore the less studied period in the history of Democratic societies after 1795, I conducted keyword searches of the substantial collection of digitized newspapers made available

5 Matthew Schoenbachler, “Republicanism in the Age of Democratic Revolution: The Democratic-Republican Societies of the 1790s,” Journal of the Early Republic 18, no. 2 (1998): 254, quoted page 256. 6 Albrecht Koschnik, “The Democratic Societies of Philadelphia and the Limits of the American Public Sphere, circa 1793-1795,” The William and Mary Quarterly 58, no. 3 (July 2001): 634; Robert M. Chesney, “Democratic- Republican Societies, Subversion, and the Limits of Legitimate Political Dissent in the Early Republic,” North Carolina Law Review, Law, Loyalty, and Treason: How Can the Law Regulate Loyalty Without Imperiling It?, 82, no. 5 (2004): 1528–29, n. 9. 88 by genealogybank.com. For the 1796-1800 period, I searched the most commonly used terms for these societies, in the broadest manner possible.7 To cite just one example of how I employed this approach, a search with the keywords “democratic societies” produced 271 results, the vast majority of which were editorials critical of the societies and which exhibited some form of

Francophobia, including disparaging remarks about Genêt and Jacobin influence in the U.S. In contrast, the same search conducted between 1790 and 1795 yielded 1,129 results.8 From this simple example it is apparent that in the latter half of the decade, Democratic societies were still relevant, but less frequently part of the public political discussion. Further, defence of or by the societies was nearly non-existent in the later period, and the percentage of the hits that were critical of these organizations noticeably increased beginning in 1796. The societies were also strangely silent during the 1796 election. This may indicate a lack of interest, but more likely was due to the fact that in 1796, the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania had dissipated, and prior to their resurgence as the True Republican Society of Pennsylvania in May 1797, only four others remained. This simple lack of numbers and thus alliance against rising criticism, and the loss of the “mother society,” might have influenced their silence regarding such a significant

7 The newspapers which published these notices are: Albany Centinel (NY); Albany Gazette (NY); Argus (Putney, VT); Aurora General Advertiser (Pennsylvania); Baltimore Daily Advertiser (MD); Centinel of Freedom, (Newark, NJ); Commercial Advertiser (New York); Connecticut Courant, (Hartford); Courier of New Hampshire (Concord); Daily Advertiser (New York); Dartmouth Gazette (Hanover, NH); Diary or, Loudon’s Register (New York); Eastern Herald (Portland, ME); Federal Galaxy (Brattleboro, VT); Gazette of the United States (Philadelphia); Greenleaf’s New York Journal and Patriotic Register, (New York); Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, MA); Impartial Herald, (Newburyport, MA); Independent Chronicle (Boston); J. Russel’s Gazette, Commercial and Political (Boston); Massachusetts Mercury (Boston); Minerva, & Mercantile Evening Advertiser, (New York); New-York Gazette (New York); Newburyport Herald, (Newburyport, MA); Norwich Courier, (CT); Oracle of the Day (, NH); Philadelphia Gazette; Porcupine’s Gazette, (Philadelphia); Rural Repository (Leominster, MA); Rutland Herald (Rutland, VT); Spectator (New York); Spooner’s Vermont Journal (Windsor); Springer’s Weekly Oracle (CT); Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy or, the Worcester Gazette, (MA); Time Piece and Literary Companion, (New York); Weekly Museum, (New York); Western Star (Stockbridge, MA). 8 Genealogy Bank, “Genealogy Bank,” accessed , 2020, https://www.genealogybank.com/. A summary of the results per year are as follows: 1793, 26; 1794, 547; 1795, 546; 1796, 97; 1797, 47; 1798, 64; 1799, 45; 1800, 18. Note also that this does not account for reprints and copies of articles, of which there are many. The notable difference in number of publications is evident enough of the societies’ relevance with the public consciousness through the decade. 89 event. However, reports of events, parades, and lists of toasts continued to appear until the end of the century. Some of these toasts to France and condemnations of American-British relations demonstrate the societies’ continual aversion to Federalist policy. In total, however, relatively few publications by the societies themselves appeared during Adams’ presidency, and these publications seem to decrease sharply during 1796. As a result, some of my research regarding their continued activities relies on opponents’ accounts, which were openly critical of the societies. For instance, following the dissolution of The Democratic Society of Pennsylvania sometime between 1795 and early 1796, one article notes, not without some satisfaction, that “as this has been considered the Mother Club in this country, there is reason to conclude that the various germs which have sprouted from that root of anarchy, will wither and die.”9

I noted the dates of the societies’ final publications, most of which appeared in papers in

1794.10 This includes the German Republican Society of Philadelphia, whose last address appeared in the local paper on December 29.11 However, that finding is misleading. Of those last publications from 1794, 11 of the 18 occur in the months before the events at Bower Hill between -17, and cannot be attributed to either the Whiskey Rebellion or Washington’s denunciation. Of these, six societies only published a single resolution or constitution. These societies either only appeared briefly before vanishing once again, likely aping the better- established and more popular societies, but unable to maintain regular activities, or else simply did not prioritize publishing in newspapers as part of their activities. A majority of those

9 “Notice of Dissolution, , 1796,” American Mercury (Hartford, CT), Jan. 25, 1796, in DRS, 110. 10 Philip Sheldon Foner, ed., The Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800: A Documentary Sourcebook of Constitutions, Declarations, Addresses, Resolutions, and Toasts (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976) (hereafter cited as DRS). Excluding the Republican Society at the Mouth of Yough, 18 societies circulated their final publications in 1794, 9 in 1795, and a total of 6 between 1796-1800, including the True Republican Society of Philadelphia, the direct descendant of the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania. 11 Henry Kammerer and Andrew Geyer, “Address to the Free and Independent Citizens of the United States, December 29, 1794,” Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser, (Philadelphia), Dec. 29, 1794, in DRS, 59-63, 59. 90 societies that did survive the Whiskey Rebellion and continue to publish works took an active part in the Jay Treaty debate, and many of these reduced their publications immediately afterwards. There were some brief mentions in the press of their participation in processions that do not appear in Foner’s sourcebook. These rare articles demonstrate the names and locales of the societies that continued to participate in the public sphere outside of print, helping to confirm their activity through Adams’ presidency.

Jay’s Treaty

The Jay Treaty debate began in March of 1795. The societies’ active participation in the public sphere despite this controversy demonstrates they remained, to some degree, a voice among the public and lawmakers in 1795, even after the fierce opposition in response to the

Whiskey Rebellion. The congressional decision to send John Jay as an envoy to England to secure a treaty with Britain, as well as the terms of the treaty, caused a heated debate in the press.

At the helm of the movement were Republican editors and publications keen on exposing what they considered to be a lack of federal accountability, if not corruption. There was more than enough fodder for a widespread public debate, in which many Democratic societies took part.

There was a sense of unease felt by Federalists after the Whiskey Rebellion. Historian

Todd Estes writes that even after Washington condemned the societies, there was still a “need for eternal vigilance to guard against usurpations of the constituted authorities.”12 Hamilton, in a letter to Rufus King in October 1794, accurately noted that despite their efforts to promote stability in the western counties, “the next storm will be infinitely worse than the present one.”13

12 Todd Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, Public Opinion, and the Evolution of Early American Political Culture, Political Development of the American Nation: Studies in Politics and History (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006), 69. 13 Alexander Hamilton to Rufus King, October 30, 1794, in Papers of Hamilton, 17:348-49, quoted in Estes, Jay Treaty Debate, 70. 91

Around the same time, there was a new development regarding foreign relations, and Congress recognized a need to determine the next course of action. The “storm” of controversy surrounding Jay’s Treaty was well-anticipated. This controversy stemmed in part from the apparent lack of transparency on the part of congressmen involved with the process, as well as the treaty’s apparent partiality to Great Britain.

Divided, Congress eventually resolved that the Jay Treaty, named for Chief Justice John

Jay, the ambassador sent to Britain earlier in 1794, would aid in repairing relations between the two countries following the Revolution. The divisiveness of the treaty proved Hamilton’s fears to be legitimate. The broader debate during this period, which endured through 1795, indicates that though Washington’s condemnation might have disheartened the Democratic societies, they did not react with sustained passivity. Contrary to many historians’ assertions, while many societies were unable to withstand the pressure of controversy in 1794, others took the opportunity to defend their activities, and to reiterate their right to voice their opinions and express support for

France.

Public Response

The contentions the Democratic societies and Republicans had with this decision were threefold. First, the decision was made by Congress seemingly behind closed doors and without consultation with the public. The Treaty was signed on and went into effect

February, 1796. During this time, Americans had little indication that Congress had been involved with such deliberations. Secondly, many Republicans loathed a trade alliance with

England, given Britain’s adherence to monarchy. If Genêt’s relative popularity with the people were any indication, it was that Americans favoured Republican France over Britain, even in light of the violent revolution, and an amicable commerce agreement with the country’s largest 92 enemy would betray that tenuous yet historical alliance. Lastly, Republicans did not want to enter into an unequal relationship with Great Britain that would leave them dependant and at a disadvantage. They preferred to err on the economically-conservative side, avoiding undue reliance on Britain’s economy, while favouring the domestic American agricultural industry.

These cautious measures would allow the U.S. more economic leverage in future international relations.

Furthermore, as Estes explains, Republicans feared a “surrender of virtue” to the

“pernicious influence” of British “debauchery and corruption,” something they believed economic independence would allow Americans to avoid.14 Simultaneously, Federalists believed the treaty to be essential in preventing martial conflict. The negotiations were conducted under less-than-ideal circumstances, as the U.S. lacked any real bargaining power. The bickering in

Congress between the Treaty’s supporters and opponents had led Washington to create a delicate compromise that sought to preserve a Franco-American alliance, despite Hamilton’s insistence on a complete break in relations. Jefferson, on the other hand, aimed not only to strengthen an alliance with France but to take advantage of their war with Britain to gain economic leverage over the Empire.15As historian Nathanial Green writes, “the debate over the Jay Treaty revealed a partisan divide that was years in the making.”16 It also exacerbated the debate in the press, already a battleground of libel and accusations following the Whiskey Rebellion.

The apparent secrecy of Congress was the most damning in the eyes of the Republicans.

Rumours of the treaty appeared in March of 1795; until then, there had been little indication among the public of the ongoing negotiations, excepting Jay’s appointment as ambassador in

14 Estes, Jay Treaty Debate, 19. 15 Estes, 27, 17. 16 Nathaniel C. Green, “‘The Focus of the Wills of Converging Millions’ Public Opposition to the Jay Treaty and the Origins of the People’s Presidency,” Journal of the Early Republic 37 (Fall 2017), 434-35. 93 early 1794, which was controversial in its own right. One farcical poem from 1795 describes in retrospect Jay’s negotiations with King George and his advisors. The writer depicts both Jay and the monarch as incompetent and untrustworthy fools.17 Even at the time of negotiations,

Republicans expressed their apprehension. In late May, the German Republican Society of

Philadelphia sent a notice of resolutions to the Philadelphia club, describing Jay’s appointment as

“an unconstitutional and dangerous measure.”18 Around the same time, another newspaper contributor, expressing concern about the possibility of war and anticipating the Republican response to a treaty, declared that the Republican efforts to “[obstruct] the business of the Envoy to London, will be, I believe and hope, fruitless.”19 In January 1795, the Democratic Society of the County of Chittenden, Vermont, reaffirmed their opposition to Jay’s appointment as ambassador to Great Britain, calling the decision unconstitutional.20 After the treaty was leaked to the public, the newspapers were filled with a mix of complaints, attacks on Republicans, and support for the treaty. In-person debates took place as well across the country in the form of town meetings.21 The reaction was severe, ranging from ad hominem attacks on Jay to satirical denunciations. A piece of graffiti appeared in Boston, reading “Damn John Jay! Damn everyone

17 Jonathan Pindar, “For the Aurora: A Trip to St. James, 1794,” Aurora General Advertiser, (Philadelphia), Dec. 22, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 18 Henry Kammerer, “To the President and Members of the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania,” Daily Advertiser, (New York), June 19, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 19 “From the Columbian Centinel: Congress,” American Herald of Liberty, or Exeter Gazette, (NH), June 3, 1794, Genealogy Bank. 20 Stephen Pearl and William Coit, “RESOLUTIONS of the DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY of the County of Chittenden, State of VERMONT, Jan. 8th, 1795: Accusation I.,” Spooner’s Vermont Journal, (Windsor), Feb. 9, 16, and Vermont Gazette, (Bennington), Feb. 20, 27, 1795, in DRS, 311-18, 312-13. 21 Green, “‘The Focus of the Wills of Converging Millions,’” 437. There is some dispute as to who leaked the Treaty. Green attributes the circulation of the pamphlet to two Republican members of congress, Pierce Butler and Thompson Mason; Michael F. Conlin, “The American Mission of Citizen Pierre-Auguste Adet: Revolutionary Chemistry and Diplomacy in the Early Republic,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 124, no. 4 (October 2000): 495. Michael Conlin writes that it was French Ambassador Pierre-Auguste Adet who received the Treaty from Edmund Randolph, after which he sent the copy to Benjamin Bache to be reprinted in the Aurora. This placed Randolph in a difficult position, as he had given his only copy of the Treaty to Adet, so when Washington directed Randolph to “terminate the policy of secrecy” and send the Treaty to the press, Randolph could not do so. As a result, the Treaty was first received and reproduced by its greatest critics, and Federalists had little control over its reception. 94 that won’t damn John Jay! Damn everyone that won’t put lights in his windows and sit up all night damning John Jay!”22 In a perhaps apocryphal story, Jay was reported to declare “that he could have found his way across the country by the light of his burning effigies.”23

The press burned with criticism from both sides. One writer refers to the “ignorance of the envoy” and that his “too small” stature exempted him from performing his duty effectively.24

Others disparage the Republicans’ response, as evidenced by a colourful article from late July

1795, signed “Atticus,” who took on the farcical persona of a Republican unable to pronounce long words, and utterly ignorant of Jay’s purpose:

You [Jay] mistook your errand surrah; you were sent to—to—to—Jonathan what was he sent to do? Why to make a trade for us of our navigation and commerce—Yes, Sir, you were sent to make a trade of our navigation and commerce for us; and you were sent for—for—Jonathan what else was he sent for? ... Your business was to make a bargain on the broad basis of Re-ce-pro-ci-a-ti-on, a mutual concession, accession recession and ACQUISITION—(what d—d long words for we hurrying, bustling, hasty democrats to be obliged to go over.)”25

Meanwhile, in the office of the Aurora, Bache put his printer to work, circulating copies of the treaty wherever he could. Republicans organized demonstrations and town halls to protest the treaty.26 One article writer claimed to have witnessed the leader of a Democratic society, likely

Irish-born Blair McClenachan, greet two ships from Ireland, “interspersed with about 50

French.” He supposedly exclaimed “’I have one more motion to make to my fellow-countrymen,

22 Kelsie J. Jackson, “‘Such a Tornado’: The Life and Times of James Thomson Callender, Scandalmonger” (PhD diss. University of Houston, 2013), ProQuest LLC, quoted pages 35-36. 23 William Pencak, “From ‘Salt of the Earth’ to ‘Poison and Curse’? The Jay and Adams Families and the Construction of American Historical Memory,” Early American Studies 2, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 235. 24 Jonathan, “From the New-York Daily Advertiser: The Alarm!—IX,” Columbian Herald, (Charleston), Nov. 11, 1795, Genealogy Bank. The writer continues to describe a proper envoy’s capabilities: “He should have been able to take a knock with Mendoza or Big Ben,” and should “wear high heels and a large wig, with a swaggering walk” in order to make a greater impression on the British. Jonathan continues in a separate article to accuse Jay of being unintelligent and lacking proper education. 25 Atticus, “From the Columbian Mirror,” Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), Aug. 10, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 26 Estes, Jay Treaty Debate, 76-77. 95 and that is, that you kick this damned treaty to hell.’” Following this statement, those present took a copy of the treaty and burned it.27 Partisan newspapers varied on their representation of such demonstrations, arguing over whether they were, in fact, peaceful or not.28 Toasts drunk in a New Jersey celebration, later published in the Greenleaf’s New York Journal and Patriotic

Register, include a condemnation of “Mr. Jay’s treaty with Great Britain” to the effect that it should “never be ratified by our government if its purport is inconsistent with the independence of our country, or prejudicial to its union with France.” The next toast celebrated the Democratic societies and wished that “their temporary silence burst in patriotic thunder.”29

Since the summer of 1794, the societies had been pushed into a defensive position in their publications. However, far from being intimidated by Washington’s admittedly disheartening condemnation, in 1795 the societies actively opposed the treaty and defended themselves fiercely from an onslaught of what seemed like an increase of existential attacks against their right to assemble. The Jay Treaty debate only exacerbated these arguments, a debate that would endure throughout the year. As with the criticism immediately post-rebellion, much of this discussion comes from Pennsylvania and New York, though there are instances of such discussion elsewhere. In January of 1795, a widely circulated article published by the German Republican

Society asserted that “the right to associate in Democratic Societies has been questioned by some, but if we have not this privilege, by what constitutional text will other associations be justified?”30 In the same month, an emphatic address from the Patriotic Society of the County of

New-Castle appeared in the Delaware Gazette, declaring that “silence in us on such an occasion,

27 “PHILADELPHIA … July 28,” City Gazette & Daily Advertiser, (Charleston), Aug. 22, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 28 David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 138-39. 29 “Extracts from Toasts, Drank on the 4th inst.,” Greenleaf’s New York Journal and Patriotic Register, , 1795, Genealogy Bank. 30 Henry Kammerer and Andrew Geyer, “Miscellany: German Republican Society,” Oracle of the Day, (Portsmouth, NH), Jan. 14, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 96 might have been construed into an admission of a doctrine highly erroneous.” The resolution continues, describing similar instances in London in 1792 when multiple political societies drew criticism from the government for seditious activities.31 Quoting British statesman Charles James

Fox’s admonition to the House of Commons, the New-Castle society continues:

“We are to arraign a man for his secret thought and punish him because we choose to believe him guilty! ... you neglect in your conduct the foundation of all legitimate government—the rights of the people; the rights of man.” These many arguments and observations delivered in a despotic clime, certainly apply with additional force in this free country.32

The Democratic Society of the County of Chittenden published a lengthy defence against the common accusations they had experienced, defending and reasserting their support for France, denouncing any involvement in the Whiskey Rebellion.33 Later that year, one member of the

Democratic Society of Canaan made a speech that was published in New York. “My censure is not by any means aimed at all those who have been, in any degree, opposed to our Democratic

Societies,” he said. Instead, “my censure is merely aimed at those who betray a systematic opposition to the free exercise of that right in any form.”34

After the existence of the treaty became public knowledge, the Democratic Society of the

City of New York, in March, asserted that “the treaty, said to have been concluded between

Great-Britain and the United States, is of two [sic] high importance not to call for our attention.

Should our commerce, our western posts, and our national honor, be the price of a commercial treaty, we should abandon the stake we have in the government to be silent.” While they agreed

31 William Edward Hartpole Lecky, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. 6 (London, UK, 1887), 77- 78, https://archive.org/details/cu31924087998963. 32 James M’Cullough and J. Bird, “The Address of the Patriotic Society of the County of New-Castle, State of Delaware; To the People of the United States of America,” Dunlap and Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser, (Philadelphia), Jan. 28, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 33 Pearl and Coit, “Resolutions,” in DRS, 311-18, 311, 314. 34 “For the New-York Journal, &c.: Citizen Greenleaf,” Greenleaf’s New York Journal and Patriotic Register, Oct. 14, 1795, Genealogy Bank. 97 to “suspend any opinion” before they read the treaty, they concluded that “if it contains principles in hostility with our interests and our rights, we trust the democratic societies will have but one sentiment on the subject.”35 After copies of the addresses were circulated among the states, others expressed their opposition to the treaty. According to the Franklin, or Republican

Society of Pendleton County, it was a “ruinous treaty proposed and signed by John Jay, the

American ambassador, with his Britannic Majesty—a treaty, as detestable in its origin, as contemptable in its event!—a treaty which can never be enforced but by the bayonet!”36

Taken aback by the tremendously negative response, and “particularly galled by the lack of response from pro-treaty advocates,” Federalists like Hamilton and Fisher Ames went to work to mitigate the influence of the critics and halt the spread of anti-treaty rhetoric.37 Under the pseudonym “Camillus,” Hamilton wrote a total of twenty-eight essays in support of the treaty.

Noah Webster, the editor of the New York-based American Minerva and Herald, also took up the mantle, writing twelve essays defending the treaty.38 Relying on citizens to spread the message, Federalists recruited the help of clergymen across denominations, funding and publishing sermons containing rhetoric condemning the societies and associating them with

Jacobins.39 Much of this reactionary literature serves as more evidence that the societies did not simply die out in response to harsh criticism. The presence of such tracts and books like William

Cobbett’s A Bone to Gnaw, published in 1795, John Lowell’s 1797 The Antigallican, as well as many other examples of newspaper activity into the late 1790s indicates a prevailing need for

35 “Letter from the Corresponding Committee to the Committee of Correspondence of the Democratic Society of the City of New York, March 25, 1795,” New York Journal, March 25, 1795, in DRS, 108-110, quoted pages 109-10. 36 Samuel Lofton, J. Miller, Ed. Tate M’Clure, “Resolutions Adopted on Jay’s Treaty, , 1795,” City Gazette, (Charleston), Oct. 28, 1795, DRS, 400-09, quoted page 400. 37 Estes, Jay Treaty Debate, 78. 38 Estes, 83, 87. 39 Eugene Perry Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), 197-98; Chesney, “Democratic-Republican Societies,” 1570. 98

Federalist writers to continue to condemn the societies’ activities and existence well after 1794.40

Indeed, in the same year Lowell’s Antigallican was published, the Democratic Society of the

City of New York attended a celebration during which they sang a “death song” to “the British treaty,” declaring it “an awful lesson how to trust to the ‘justice and magnanimity’ of those who ever have, and still do, seek the ruin of our commerce and the destruction of our liberty.”41 In

1797 the New York society was one of the five active societies remaining.42 In spite of their dwindling numbers, however, the societies enthusiastically defended themselves during the Jay

Treaty debate. Their publications, even as they decreased in number, demonstrate that the societies were not silent. They also serve to show the trends common among such criticisms, which questioned the legality of the societies and their activities, and whether or not they had a right to exist.

XYZ Affair

The societies also attracted criticism because of events in France over which they had no control. The Quasi-War, an undeclared war with France manifested in naval conflict, and a diplomacy crisis that lasted from 1798 to 1800. The French government was particularly slighted by Jay’s Treaty with Great Britain, which seemed to firmly entrench the U.S. into an alliance with France’s enemy. In retaliation, French privateers began a habit of capturing American merchant ships, acts they justified “as just reprisal and as indemnity for injuries” incurred by

40 William Cobbett, A Bone to Gnaw, for the Democrats […] 2nd ed., (Philadelphia, 1795), Eighteenth Century Collections Online; John Lowell, The Antigallican; or, The Lover of His Own Country […], (Philadelphia, 1797), Eighteenth Century Collections Online. 41 “Celebration of the Anniversary of the French Alliance, February 6, 1797,” Argus, (New York), Feb. 7, 1797, in DRS, 198-200, quoted page 199. 42 Based on the publications that appear in DRS. 99

Washington’s terms in the treaty.43 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a South Carolinian Federalist sent by Washington to Paris before the end of his presidency, was refused an audience with the

French Directory, and forced to flee the city. Adams, who intended to restore relations between the two nations, sent another peace commission comprised of three representatives, Pinckney,

Elbridge Gerry, and . They were not well-received. Refusing to meet with the

Americans, the Foreign Minister to France, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, sent four agents demanding that the American government promise France a loan of 32,000,000 in guilders, and 50,000 pounds for Talleyrand’s coffers. The diplomats, taken aback and insulted by the demands, refused.44 Known afterwards as the XYZ Affair, for the redactions of the French agents’ names, these negotiations caused a further rift between the two countries, as Congress refused to submit to what was clearly extortion. Insulted, Adams declared that he would “never send another Minister to France without assurances, that he will be received, respected, and honored, as the representatives of a great, free, powerful and Independent Nation.”45 The XYZ

Affair proved to be the ammunition the Federalists needed. David Waldstreicher points out that later New England dissent before and during the “would have been unthinkable without the prior experience of Francophobic, anti-Republican mobilization during the Quasi

War of 1797-1799.”46 This nationalism would take the form of aggressive policies towards outsiders and those who would consort with them.

43 Christopher Kingston, “Marine Insurance in Philadelphia During the Quasi-War with France, 1795–1801,” The Journal of Economic History 71, no. 1 (March 2011): 170, 171; Alexander DeConde, The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France 1797-1801 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966), 9-10, quoted page 9. 44 DeConde, 16, 11-13, 49; William Stinchcombe, “The Diplomacy of the WXYZ Affair,” The William and Mary Quarterly 34, no. 4 (October 1977): 598. 45 “From John Adams to , 21 June 1798,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-2630. 46 Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 262. 100

In March 1798, Adams delivered an address to Congress with the hope that his discretion would avoid war with France. Earlier that year, negotiations with the nation had ended. As he had suspected from Bonaparte’s increasingly aggressive activities in Europe, his envoys,

Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry had been spurned, and his entreaties for peace ignored. He received letters from the envoys early in March, 1798, which described Talleyrand’s refusal to meet with them and the demands of the four French agents who had approached them. These agents also demanded that Adams apologize for past rhetoric which supposedly disparaged

France. Knowing that the poor treatment of American envoys by the French would provoke anger from Congress, Adams avoided any mention of ill dealings in his address. However, the response was still negative, from both Federalists and Republicans. Surely Adams had overreacted. There could only be one reason that Adams would withdraw the envoys from negotiations—he must be planning to start a war with France. Federalists and Republicans alike demanded that he release the documents describing the envoy’s reception. Adams did so, only censuring the names of the French agents by replacing them with the letters “W, X, Y, and Z.”

The publications caused a “fire storm” among the press, which gave rise to severe anti-French sentiments.47 There was a wave of protest among young Federalists, who rallied in the streets wearing black cockades, singing songs like “’Hail Columbia’ and ‘Adams and Liberty,’” while children acted out play battle scenes against the French.48

Attention turned to France’s most ardent supporters, the Democratic societies.

“AMERICANS!” wrote William Willcocks, in an impassioned article. “Have you read these dispatches? Read them again: Then swear … have you any patriotic blood within your veins?

47 John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (Knoxville, Tenn: University of Press, 1992), 351-53, 355, quoted page 354. 48 Thomas M. Ray, “‘Not One Cent for Tribute’: The Public Addresses and American Popular Reaction to the XYZ Affair, 1798-1799,” Journal of the Early Republic 3, no. 4 (1983): 390. 101

Then swear … that you will hold in eternal abhorrence those Rulers of the French, who for all your submission, moderation, and services, have treated you with insolence, contempt, and injury.” He concluded the article with the denunciation, “I view [the Democratic societies] as most dangerous, if not illegal associations. I fear, like the concealed, silent worm, they are sapping the foundation of the tree of liberty.”49 He expressed similar sentiments in a separate article:

The first lesson which the French have impressed upon the multitude … has invariably been, to treat all magistrates with insolence and contempt; well perceiving that the deluded people could be soon led to destroy, that which they have learnt to despise. This citizens, is even a part of the written constitution of this society illuminati, which was the fire of the Jacobin Societies in France and the grand fire of the Jacobin Societies in America. These societies ought to be held in greater detastation [sic] than the present unprincipled Directory of France. Indeed they ought by law to be prohibited.50

Francophobia and the Democratic societies’ relationship with Jacobins had been perpetuated among Federalists long before the XYZ Affair. It was a common trope to revive the name of

Genêt, as this writer did in 1797:

While Genet was in New York, he found that the friends of our constitution and the advocates of neutrality, neglected him … He was encouraged to hope, from the popularity of the French cause, to gain partizans [sic] enough to divide the people from the government, and thus drag the United States into the war. Thus began an alliance between antifederalism and gallacism, or Frenchism, which has and still does threaten the tranquillity of our country … One of his most effectual steps to create and extend his influence, was to organize or recommend the establishment of Democratic Societies, which were to be and actually have been and still are so many American corps enlisted under the banners of the French agents.51

49 Wm. Willcocks, “For this Gazette: To the People of the United States,” New-York Gazette, May 3, 1798, Genealogy Bank. 50 Wm. Willcocks, “From the New York Gazette, &c.: To the People of the United States,” Spooner’s Vermont Journal, (Windsor), Aug. 28, 1798, Genealogy Bank. 51 “Politics: From the New York Minerva: To the People of the United States. No. II.,” Rural Repository, (Leominster, MA) Jan. 19, 1797, Genealogy Bank. For similar critiques, see “The Hampshire Gazette: The Elector. No. II.,” Hampshire Gazette, (Northampton, MA), , 1796, Genealogy Bank.; “The Gazette, &c.: For this Gazette: The Anti-Revolutionist, No 1.,” New-York Gazette, , 1799, Genealogy Bank. 102

Though derision existed for the French and Jacobins prior to Talleyrand’s demands, it grew in strength in 1798. Days before the Fourth of July preparations, one writer to the Spectator expressed disdain for the “enrolled soldiers of France, belonging to the Democratic societies,

[that they] might not be permitted to associate with the friends and defenders of our independence.”52 Another wrote “that France had it in contemplation to reduce these states under her dominion so early as the year 1756,” and “whether we dive into the records of those pistiferous [sic] instruments for hers, the Democratic Societies … deep and damning circumstrnces [sic] stare us in the face.”53

Quasi-War and Widespread Paranoia

Foner notes that despite what Federalists would have liked to believe, the societies continued to be quite active after the Jay Treaty debate. In his words, “Federalist papers exultingly printed ‘epitaphs,’ and in September 1796 the Gazette of the United States gleefully proclaimed that ‘the Demo societies are dead.’ For corpses, however, a number of the

Democratic-Republican societies continued to show a surprisingly active life years after they were supposedly interred.”54 Foner identifies the undeclared Quasi-War as an era “of open hostility toward republican France.” He also notes Federalist paranoia resulting from belligerent or mysterious foreign societies like the United Irishmen and Illuminati, both of which incurred much criticism in American papers. The Illuminati was a secret Bavarian organization, created in

1776 by Adam Weishaupt. Its commitment, the leading cause of concern to Federalists, was to

“infiltrate and assert control over the government, thereby wrestling public institutions free from

52 “Tuesday, .,” Spectator, (New York), , 1798, Genealogy Bank. 53 E., “The Miscellany: From the Anchor Club. No 111,” J. Russel’s Gazette, Commercial and Political, (Boston), Feb. 25, 1799, Genealogy Bank. 54 Introduction to DRS, 38. Quote from Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), Sept. 1, 1796, and Republican Journal (Dumphries, VA), Sept. 9, 1796. 103 the clergy.” The Bavarian government managed to stifle such Enlightenment-era rhetoric and its several-thousand proponents, but the rumours and conspiracies endured, fuelling fear and paranoia in 1790s America.55 The Dublin Society of United Irishmen was a reformist organization, responsible for the violent revolution of 1798. They also secured French aid in this exploit, and it was this connection that Federalists like William Cobbett seized upon.56 Cobbett warned that it was only a matter of time before Americans would endure the same kind of deadly uprising, which would undoubtedly be led by the Irish immigrants and French supporters in the

U.S.57 This widespread concern, perpetuated by such sensational narratives, would prompt the

Adams administration to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which gravely hampered the ability of political dissenters to speak freely without fear of legal retribution. These Acts had a profound effect on Democratic societies’ ability to speak and publish their ideas. Their modus operandi was severely hampered as a result of the Federalist response to perceived foreign threats.

Simon P. Newman portrays American print culture after the Jay Treaty as a kind of metaphorical battleground between the parties. The Federalists exhibited what he called a

“festive renaissance” to mixed success, which was an ardent, nationalistic effort to drown out opposition voices.58 While they were not able to entirely stem the Republican participation in politics through their publications, toasts, and festivities, their efforts eventually affected the

55 Bryan Waterman, “The Bavarian Illuminati, the Early American Novel, and Histories of the Public Sphere,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3, 62, no. 1 (January 2005): 17. 56 Edward C. Carter II, “A ‘Wild Irishman’ under Every Federalist’s Bed: Naturalization in Philadelphia, 1789- 1806,” American Philosophical Society, Symposium on the Demographic History of the Philadelphia Region, 1600- 1860, 133, no. 2 (June 1989): 179, 181. 57 Introduction to DRS, 38-40, quoted page 39; Carter II, 181; Charles C. Bradshaw, “The New England Illuminati: Conspiracy and Causality in ’s ‘Wieland,’” The New England Quarterly, Inc. 76, no. 3 (September 2003): 357-360. 58 Simon P. Newman, Parades and the Politics of the Street: Festive Culture in the Early American Republic (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 103-07, quoted page 107; Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 262. 104

Democratic societies, whose own publications waned. For years, Federalists had accused them of treason, Jacobinism, and clandestine activities, and now these accusations took on a new, harsher significance due to the fears prevalent during the Quasi-War.

While patriotic Federalist fervour grew in the U.S., it often manifested through suspicion and derision of mysterious foreign influence. Immigrants, many of whom tended to support the

Republican cause, were the recipients of this paranoia.59 The Federalist fear of the unknown agent, and prejudice against French and Irish immigrants, may be attributed to a widespread paranoia against the secret Bavarian Illuminati, and United Irishmen. The rumours of agents of these organizations within the U.S. Members of the clergy participated in the Federalist effort, as well, warning of the foreign Illuminati, and “French danger.”60 Jedediah Morse, minister and

Federalist educator in Connecticut, famously delivered a sermon on , 1798, warning against the “spread of those disorganizing opinions, and that atheistical philosophy, which are deluging the Old World in misery and blood.”61 The subject of Morse’s tirade, the Illuminati, was a common scapegoat in Federalist circles.

Those who feared the organization viewed them as the instigators of the French

Revolution, and as ideological invaders in the U.S. Historian Charles C. Bradshaw writes that

“by fictionalizing the relationship between the moral condition of the nation and perceived historical events, [such] sermons spun an idealistic national narrative in which the young republic was only one step away from utter destruction.”62 For years, Federalists had accused the

Democratic societies of clandestine operations. It was a natural course of logic to associate such

59 Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 128-29; Jeffrey L. Pasley, “The Tyranny of Printers”: Newspaper Politics in the Early Republic (United States: University Press of Virginia, 2001), 118. 60 Waldstreicher, 152. 61 Bradshaw, “New England Illuminati,” 356-57, quoted page 356. 62 Bradshaw, 359, quoted page 360. 105 undercover French sympathizers with the Illuminati. “Secrecy is the main ingredient in crime and Jacobinism,” one article read in the Dartmouth Gazette, reviewing a newly published book by Abbe Barruel, “History of Jacobinism.” Barruel’s text connected the Jacobin movement to

“the Knights Templars, the Albigenses, the Masons, the Philosophers of the present century,

[and] the Illuminati.”63 Others took the connection further. “Hither flock all the annual importations of discomfited traitors from Ireland and elsewhere,” one contributor writes, referring to the substantial immigrant population in large cities. Such places were “the Seat of

Jacobinism, [and] the focus of French intrigue and influence.”64 Though it was challenging,

Democratic societies had always done their best to counter these charges. “They keep their doors shut, admit no members but by ballot, who must engage to keep the secrets of the Society—and they hold their meetings after dinner, and sometimes at night,” went a popular refrain, as described the Democratic Society of the County of Chittenden in 1795. They responded: “We do not keep our doors shut—every person who pleases is at liberty to attend. … We neither do, nor ever did, exact of our members any promise of secrecy. … The accusation of holding our meetings after dinner, and sometimes at night, must have originated with some drunken debauched sot, who supposed, that like himself, the rest of mankind were seldom sober at those periods.”65 However, though such defences were common during the societies’ existence, they

63 “From the N.Y. Spectator: Barruel Amended—No. 1.,” Dartmouth Gazette, (Hanover, NH), Dec. 9, 1799, Genealogy Bank. The writer earlier related the dissenting Democrats with Satan’s rebellion against God, demonstrating again the popular Federalist fear of revolution: “A large number of beings, headed by a discontented demagogue or angelgogue, Satan, became uneasy with the government over them. Democratic meetings were held in Heaven, to contrive means of dethroning God Almighty … a civil war was commenced in the celestial regions, and a bold effort made to wrest the sceptre from the King of Heaven.” 64 A Pennsylvanian, “From the Gazette of the United States: Logan,” Commercial Advertiser, (New York), Jan. 16, 1799, Genealogy Bank. The article refers to Dr. George Logan, who had recently been elected to the Pennsylvanian State legislature, noting that his district was particularly known for attracting foreign immigrants. Logan had attracted Federalist criticism after a “Quixotte [sic] expedition” to France, during which he attempted to pacify Franco-American relations in 1798. For more information, see Michael V. Seitzinger, “Conducting Foreign Relations Without Authority: The Logan Act,” Current Politics and Economics of the United States, Canada and Mexico 18, no. 4 (2016): 597. 65 Pearl and Coit, “Resolutions,” in DRS, 311-18, quoted page 312. 106 were not enough to sway the Federalist accusers, particularly as prejudices and paranoia rose in the late 1790s.

This paranoia and Francophobia corresponded with new and old prejudices. One editorial demonstrates the supposed connection between the Democratic societies and a new iteration of conspiratorial meetings, this time conducted by the Irish. Cobbett’s Porcupine’s Gazette attributed the rise of the United Irishmen to the demise of the Democratic societies, and French ambition. Koschnik notes a change in Cobbett’s opinion that occurred around this time when his publications began to focus on the threat of clandestine foreign invasion.66 Having shifted his tone from one of condemnation, Cobbett posits that the Democratic societies were merely filled with “many well-meaning men, who became members of these seditious meetings from ignorance,” and quit their activities the moment “they perceive[d] the real views of [Alexander]

Dallas and the other leaders.” These “defections” may have been a blow to French designs, but they quickly turned their attention to the “real, sincere, villainy, then without property, without principles, without country and without character; dark and desperate, unnatural and bloody- thirsty ruffians,” the United Irishmen, who, according to Cobbett, would be more receptive to

French influence.67 The Democratic societies were suddenly American patriots, led astray by evil

French schemes. The real enemies, Cobbett wrote, were the dispossessed foreigners who colluded with France to damage American society from within. While Cobbett might not be the sole indicator of ideology across the print sphere, he was not alone in this view.68 A reprinted notice from the “obscure publication, called the Aurora,” was published in the Springer’s Daily

66 Albrecht Koschnik, “Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together”: Associations, Partisanship, and Culture in Philadelphia, 1775-1840 (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2007), 44. 67 William Cobbett, “Detection of a Conspiracy, Formed by the United Irishmen […],” Porcupine’s Gazette, (Philadelphia), May 8, 1798, Genealogy Bank. 68 Jeffrey L. Pasley, “Tyranny of Printers.” Pasley notes that while Cobbett was a prolific writer and faithful critic of Republicans, he was “more of a satirist than a politician.” Quoted page 429, n. 65. 107

Oracle late 1798. The notice advertised a meeting to be held in Philadelphia by the United

Irishmen. The reprint was preceded with a warning “against those underhanded conspiracies …

[formed] on the ruins of the Democratic Societies.”69

Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts

The French and Irish within the U.S. had carefully observed the Jay Treaty debate and

America’s treatment of both Great Britain and France. Both demographics held significant sway in politics. French Minister Pierre-Auguste Adet was aware of the importance of a Republican president in repairing French-American relations after the Jay Treaty debacle. In his view, it would be disastrous to foreign affairs if Adams won the election, and would potentially cause a war between the two nations. His actions as a result, however, likely exacerbated the situation.

As the prospective candidates campaigned, Adet published notices declaring French support for

Republican candidate Jefferson and urged American-French voters to do the same. A result of this, real or perceived, was yet another association between France and American Republicans.

The Portland Republican Society even toasted his name at a January celebration in 1797.70 This connection became acutely prominent as the “swing states,” New York and Pennsylvania, became the political battlefields on which the election would be decided. The growing urban, immigrant population of Pennsylvania was a new contender, and it was no longer certain that the

69 “Citizen D. Clarke,” Springer’s Weekly Oracle, (New London, CT), Dec. 3, 1798, Genealogy Bank. 70 “Toasts Delivered at a Meeting, , 1797,” Independent Chronicle, (Boston), Jan. 30, 1797, in DRS, 272. At the same meeting, the society also offered six cheers to the toast that “may the self-sticklers for the British treaty repent of their folly and imprudence” and nine for the declaration that “may all secret communications to both houses of Congress be made public.” 108 historically Federalist-controlled state would remain that way. In the end, the Federalists won

New York, while Jefferson won fourteen out of fifteen votes in Pennsylvania.71

It had become apparent that there was a growing demographic in the state that Federalists could not afford to ignore. And historically, immigrants were not an insignificant portion of the population, especially in Pennsylvania, which received thousands of Irish immigrants per year leading up to the Revolution. In the 1790s, this rate of growth continued at an annual average of approximately 3,000. While this population’s political support was diverse at first, the Jay Treaty controversy caused many former Irish-Federalists to switch their allegiance to the Republicans, due to the Treaty’s support of Great Britain. Adams was only elected by a narrow margin of votes. To avoid such risk in the future, Federalists knew that something must be done to mitigate foreign Republican influence. Federalist Representative Harrison Gray Otis wrote, “If some means are not adopted to prevent the indiscriminate admission of wild Irishmen & others to the right of suffrage, there will soon be an end to liberty & property.”72 Following the 1798 Irish

Rebellion, Cobbett’s paper printed a list of rebels suspected to have fled from their native country. Accompanying the list was a dire warning that “the rascals will certainly be flocking hither.”73

It was a period of “Federalist self-confidence.”74 Bache’s Aurora was the initial target of their ire, but gradually Federalists began to focus on Republican dissent as a whole. Adams’

Alien and Sedition Acts would be a means through which widespread suppression might occur.75

71 David W. Houpt, “John Adams and the Elections of 1796 and 1800,” in A Companion to John Adams and , ed. David Waldstreicher, 1st ed., vol. 62, Wiley Blackwell Companions to American History Ser. (John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013), 149-150. 72 Carter II, “Wild Irishman,” 179-80, 184; Samuel Eliot Morison, Harrison Gray Otis 1765-1848: The Urban Federalist (Boston: 1969), 107, quoted in Carter II, page 180. 73 William Cobbett, “Irish Rebels,” Porcupine’s Gazette, (Philadelphia), Nov. 3, 1798, Genealogy Bank. 74 Pasley, “Tyranny of Printers,” 118. 75 Pasley, 118-119, 109

The Acts themselves were not well received by the public. The wording was vague, and people across the country protested them as unconstitutional. There were four Acts: The Alien Friends

Act, the Alien Enemies Act, Naturalization Act, and the Sedition Act. This paper refers specifically to the Alien Friends and Sedition Acts, the first of which stipulated that it was

“lawful for the President of the United States … to order all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or shall have reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned in any treasonable or secret machinations against the government thereof, to depart out of the territory of the United States.” The Sedition Act promised prosecution to anyone who would “unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall be directed by proper authority … and [to] any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, [who] shall counsel, advise or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination.” Furthermore, the act stipulated that “if any person shall write, print, utter or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published … any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government … with the intent to defame the said government … [that person] shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand , and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.”76 Such terminology could be widely interpreted to cover any “false” publication that criticized the government.

76 “Fifth Congress, Session II, Ch. 58, Sec. 1, 1798,” American Memory: A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation; U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates 1774 – 1875, Library of Congress, quoted pages 570-71, https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=693; “Fifth Congress, Session II, Chapter 74, Sec. 1 and 2, 1798,” Library of Congress, American Memory: A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation; U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates 1774 – 1875, quoted pages 596-97. https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=719. Douglas Bradburn, “A Clamor in the Public Mind: Opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts,” William and Mary Quarterly 65, no. 3 (July 2008): 565-67, 566, n. 2. 110

This vagueness allowed for the prosecution of several Republican editors, including

Bache, who until then had been a member and staunch defender of the Democratic societies. It is undeniable that this would have had a demoralizing effect on societies across the country. Bache was jailed for sedition in 1798, and then died of yellow fever there at the age of 29. Other targets of the Acts included Republican journalist James Callender, Irish Vermont Representative

Matthew , and Irish journalist John Daly Burk, who was arrested and later disappeared after his outspoken writings in the Time Piece.77 In 1796, an article accused Burk of being a French conspirator and of “form[ing] a chain of Democratic Societies,” which simultaneously charges

Burk and the societies with French and Irish radicalism.78 The wife of the late Republican newspaper editor Thomas Greenleaf, Ann Greenleaf, was another target of the Sedition Act. The

Greenleaf was one newspaper that consistently published defences of the Democratic societies before it ceased operations in late 1799. While Federalists derided the prosecuted Republicans as traitors, others viewed them as martyrs. Congressman Lyon had been despised by Federalists throughout his career, yet was popular among Republicans. During his imprisonment for sedition, his constituents re-elected him and petitioned on his behalf against the Sedition Act.79

Nonetheless, criticism and slander of such public figures held a prominent position in the papers, and there was little opportunity through which to defend their names.80

77 Pasley, “Tyranny of Printers,” 125 78 “Boston, April 1. From Ireland,” Hampshire Gazette, (Northampton, MA), April 13, 1796, Genealogy Bank; “A Villain Un-Hanged,” Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), , 1799, Genealogy Bank. This 1799 article expresses familiarity with Burk’s supposedly well-recognized “stupidity.” 79 Pasley, “Tyranny of Printers,” 125; to Thomas Jefferson, in The Adams-Jefferson Letters, ed. Lester Cappon (Chapel Hill, NC: 1988), 343, quoted in Marc Lendler, “‘“Equally Proper at All Times and at All Times Necessary”’: Civility, Bad Tendency, and the Sedition Act,” Journal of the Early Republic 24 (Fall 2004): 433, n. 57. First Lady Abigail Adams referred to people like Callender as “vipers”; Bradburn, “Clamor in the Public,” 580-581; Pasley, 110. Lyon, known for his own derision of Federalist elitism, endured numerous insults from other House members. Once, during an argument, he spat on Representative . Griswold retaliated by beating him with a hickory cane, while Lyon defended himself with a pair of metal tongs. 80 Willcocks’ article denounces “Greenleaf and Bache—Mr. Faouchet’s flour merchants, and others of his American confidants—your Callenders—and … some of a certain assembly” as traitors and recipients of French bribes. Wm. 111

While the Whiskey Rebellion and Federalist response were a blow to the Democratic societies’ reputations, Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts were perhaps a more significant trial to endure. The legislation produced a negative and palpable effect on the societies’ publication freedom and the support they received from their allies. These Acts were a direct result of the

Quasi-War and the aforementioned immigrant paranoia that was so prevalent among the

Republicans’ critics. The Alien and Sedition Acts granted the government authority to prosecute writers for sedition against the government and to rescind citizenship to immigrants deemed a danger to the American government. It seemed evident after Adams’ election of 1796 that immigrants, particularly French-Americans, could potentially sway the vote in favour of the

Republicans. These Acts were a reaction to an apparent foreign threat, but their enforcement hampered Republicans’ freedom to express dissenting opinions. Federalist courts targeted high- profile Republicans, many of whom had immigrant backgrounds. From their creation, the

Democratic societies’ method of influencing the nation’s debate had been through newspaper publications. Such a silencing of the opposition made it nearly impossible for the Societies to continue their publishing activities, as they lost support from their traditional allies, and they lost the means to express their ideologies in print safely.

The Demise of the Democratic Societies, 1796-1800

On , 1796, an extract of Rev. Ebenezer Bradford’s February 19th sermon appeared in the Oracle of the Day. “The Democratic Societies have already gone the way of all the earth,” he said. “Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.”81 A , 1797, Massachusetts

Willcocks, “For this Gazette: To the People of the United States,” New-York Gazette, May 3, 1798, Genealogy Bank. 81 “Extract from the Political Prophecy of the Rev. Ebenezer Bradford, Delivered in a Sermon, Preached Feb. 19, 1796.,” Oracle of the Day, (Portsmouth), May 26, 1796, Genealogy Bank. 112 publication declared the “spirit” of the Democratic societies to be “nearly extinct.”82 How accurate were such assessments? Some societies did not survive through 1794 and 1795, while a small number of others endured for several years afterwards. The aforementioned Democratic

Society of Pennsylvania, after their dissolution, met again in 1797 under the name “True

Republican Society of Philadelphia,” under the same leadership, and were still active as late as

1800, if not later.83 Though publications waned, there were hints of activity. Foner lists the publications of four or five societies that remained active past 1796, including the joint activities of several New York societies that participated in annual July 4 processions.84 The Democratic

Society of the City of New York and the New York Tammany Society, alongside the General

Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, participated in July 4th parades between 1797 and 1799.85

In Foner’s sourcebook, the last publication written by the Democratic Society of the City of New

York was dated June 1798, a year before their appearance in the annual parade. This indicates a full year had passed during which the society was still active, yet ceased publications. This suggests a reluctance to participate in the press for fear of prosecution, though public celebrations, a key component of early American culture, were still permissible. Waldstreicher

82 “Political Miscellany: From the Farmer’s Weekly Museum,” Massachusetts Mercury, (Boston), Jan. 20, 1797, Genealogy Bank. 83 “Toasts Drunk at the Anniversary Meeting, , 1800,”Aurora, (Philadelphia), May 7, 1800, in DRS, 110-112, 417, n. 69; John Russell Young, ed., Memorial History of the City of Philadelphia from Its First Settlement to the Year 1895, vol. 2, 2 vols. (New York, 1898), 167, https://archive.org/details/memorialhistoryo02youn. This source describes how in 1814, a number of Pennsylvanian societies contributed labourers to help build fortifications. Among the volunteers are 400 workers from the Tammany Society, and 70 from the True Republican Society. 84 “Toasts Drunk,” Aurora, 110-112, Solomon Simpson, “Notice of a Meeting to Draft an Address to Congress, , 1798,” Argus, (New York), June 15, 1798, 200, “Toasts Drunk on the Fourth of July, 1799,” New York Journal, (New York), July 6, 1799, 219-220, “Introduction to the Constitution, April 4, 1798,” Bee, (New London, CT), April 4, 1798, 254, “Toasts Delivered at a Meeting, January 11, 1797,” Independent Chronicle, (Boston), Jan. 30, 1797, 272, and “Joint Activities of the Democratic, Tammany, Mechanic, and Other Societies of New York City,” 220-232 in DRS. It is uncertain whether the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania disbanded in 1795 or early 1796, as the notice of dissolution appears on January 25, 1796. Allowing for typical delays between writing and publication, it is quite possible they disbanded at the beginning of the month. 85 “American Independence,” New-York Gazette, July 3, 1797, Genealogy Bank; “Argus: Thursday, July 5: American Independence,” Argus, (Putney, VT), July 5, 1798, Genealogy Bank; “Arrangements for the 4th of July: Order of Procesion [sic],” Daily Advertiser, (New York,), July 3, 1799, Genealogy Bank. In these articles, the societies are identified as “The Democratic Society” and the “Tammany Society, or Columbian Order.” 113 depicts an era of “perpetual fetes” and political participation tied intimately with the pursuit of freedom and promulgation of revolutionary ideas.86 But without allies in the press, the effect of

Democratic societies’ celebrations in the public mind would be significantly diminished.

Some did try to encourage political debate in a different form, to some success. Journalist

Matthew Livingston Davis, a former member of a Democratic society, independently created a debating club. After invitations to a meeting of his “Debating Society” appeared in New York late 1798, one critic, signed “A decided foe to Democratic Societies in every shape,” claimed to have sat in on one of the meetings led by chairman Davis. The writer described disparaging, unpatriotic remarks of several members, and their supposed attempts to stifle any praise for

George Washington.87 Any organization resembling the Democratic societies was a fair target for censure, and even a contribution to relatively uncontroversial celebrations was not immune to criticism. “Sixteen Members, and no more, of the Democratic Society could be brought upon the ground,” one person wrote following the 1799 New York Independence Day procession. “The

Liberty Cap was their Standard, and the contempt of their fellow-citizens accompanied them.

They seemed as if they were pursued by the Ghost of the Guillotine.”88 Such comments connected the societies with the radicalism of the French Revolution, effectively serving to undermine their public image.

86 Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 126-141. 87 “Abigail Adams to John Adams, 28 December 1798,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-13-02-0159; Decided Foe to Democratic Societies in Every Shape, “For this Gazette,” New-York Gazette, , 1798, Genealogy Bank; Matthew L. Davis, “Society for Free Debate,” Argus, (Putney, VT), April 12, 1798, Genealogy Bank. The society met regularly to debate assertions such as whether “the Influence of Wealth has operated more injuriously to the liberties of mankind, than the influence of Birth,” and “Is the virtue of Fortitude more exemplified in the Male or Female sex?” The latter topic of debate took place the meeting following the one the anonymous critic attended. Accordingly, special invitations were extended to “ladies who please to attend.” While records of this society do not appear in DRS, Davis certainly appears to have considered his club a reincarnated Democratic society, and if the “foe” is to be believed, Davis took pride in that fact. 88 “Communication,” New-York Gazette, , 1799, Genealogy Bank. 114

By 1800, most of the Democratic societies had fallen silent, though their critics remained active in the press. Though there were plenty of discussions to be had regarding the unconstitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Acts, there is barely any mention, apart from critique, of or by the societies in the newspapers. The silencing of several well-known figures in the press may have been a partial cause of this silence. The gagging of such Republican outlets, the goal of many Federalists since the early days of the constitutional debates, indeed removed opportunities previously available to dissenters. Bache’s death was no small blow to the movement. His wife, Margaret Hartman Bache, and editor William Duane, once a benefactor of the Bache’s financial aid, took over the paper immediately afterwards but continued to endure harsh criticism.89 Margaret Bache was no stranger to running the Aurora, having once taken up the mantle in 1795 while Benjamin was away on a trip. She, like her husband, believed strongly in the importance of the partisan Republican press.90 She and Duane incurred vile attacks from

Cobbett, who claimed that Margaret was “the authoress of the licentiousness, falsehood, impudence, and bawdry, contained in [the Aurora]” and that “she shall disavow the whole paper, or decency shall disavow her.” Later, he “compared her to ‘a sympathetic Sow’ prone to ‘grunt and champ and foam and fly, ‘till all the Swinish Multitude were in an uproar.” 91 Her reputation shattered, Margaret never regained the social standing she held in the years prior. However, even while his critics posthumously dragged the name of his family, Benjamin Bache’s memory would endure among his former colleagues—in 1800, the members of the True Republican

Society of Philadelphia drank a toast to “the memory of Benjamin Franklin Bache—May his

89 Pasley, “Tyranny of Printers,” 183, 102. 90 Pasley, 90, 92. 91 William Cobbett, editorial, Porcupine’s Gazette, (Philadelphia), Nov. 3, 1798, and “Mother Bache,” , 1799, quoted in Pasley, 103. 115 country ever retain a grateful sense of his services.”92 While the Alien and Sedition Acts did little to destroy the opposition movement and seemed even to inspire the growth of Republican printers, between 1798-1800, they succeeded in creating a culture of fear against which rebellion was necessary. Printing began as a trade, and not a lucrative one, but became politicized as editors became symbols of opposition against a repressive government. As Pasley writes, “the

Federalist repression convinced many printers that there was no place for an honest printer who followed the traditional nonpartisan approach … Many of them became political professionals, people for whom printing was a way to make a living out of politics, rather than the other way around.”93 However, in encroaching on the freedoms of printers to express dissatisfaction with the government, Federalists effectively prohibited the expression of any narrative counter to theirs, and so prevented the Democratic societies from participating in the print sphere.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact dates the Democratic societies disappeared. Criticism of the 1790s Democratic societies rang through the papers for decades. As late as 1817, one article lamented Genêt’s arrival in the U.S. and the Jacobin “opposers of the federal constitution.”94 Those societies previously mentioned to have endured the longest, the True

Republican Society of Philadelphia, and the Democratic Society of the City of New York, all but disappeared by the 19th century. However, there are hints in later sources that might suggest a longer lifespan, or at least a new era of Democratic societies inspired by the previous generation.

The New York Tammany Society indeed survived, evolving from its grassroots origins to become a powerful political actor in the state. During and after Jefferson’s election, “Tammany had few political assets,” and instead embraced a patriotic fraternalism. This changed beginning

92 “Toasts Drunk,” Aurora, 110-112, quoted page 112 in DRS. 93 Pasley, The Tyranny of Printers, 125-131, quoted page 131. 94 “From the New-York Courier,” Northern Whig, (Hudson, NY), Feb. 4, 1817, Genealogy Bank. 116 in 1807, when the club “abruptly began a vigorous recruitment program that lasted four years, a program that drastically reshaped Tammany’s entire purpose.”95 It grew in prominence through the 19th century as an organization with one purpose: “to marshal voters, march them off to the polls in well-disciplined ranks, and win elections.” They became plagued with political scandal.

The society gained infamy as a corrupt entity, and quickly outgrew its relatively modest origins.96 Because of its influence and longevity, there are a plethora of sources regarding its continuing activities. The New York Library holds a comprehensive collection of their records and meeting minutes, which demonstrate an active role in politics until the mid-20th century.97

While the political climate changed over the centuries, the New York Tammany Society’s roots first as a mixed political association, and later as a Democratic society, certainly shaped its activities and perception during that time.

There is less of a direct connection between the other two societies and their 19th-century counterparts. A number of so-called Democratic societies appeared in Pennsylvania between

1810 and at least 1820. Named for the districts in which they were found, these Democratic societies met frequently, often inviting receptive citizens to participate in their meetings. This was something atypical of their 1790s counterparts, which acted more exclusively.98 At one

95 Jerome Mushkat, Tammany: The Evolution of a Political Machine, 1789-1865, (NY: Syracuse University Press, 1971), 29, 31, quoted pages 28 and 30. 96 Mushkat, 30, quoted page vii. 97 “Society of Tammany, or Columbian Order records,” Digital Collections, The New York Public Library, Accessed Aug. 1, 2020, https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/society-of-tammany-or-columbian-order- records#/?tab=about. 98 Leonard Stricker, “Democratic Society: AN ADJOURNED MEETING,” Democratic Press, (Philadelphia), , 1810, Genealogy Bank; Leonard Stricker, “Democratic Society: An Adjourned Meeting,” Democratic Press, (Philadelphia), May 1, 1810, Genealogy Bank; Daniel De Benneville and John Conard, “Democratic Society,” Democratic Press, (Philadelphia), , 1810, Genealogy Bank; Leonard Stricker and James S. Spencer, “DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY OF THE NORTHERN LIBERTIES,” Democratic Press, (Philadelphia), , 1810, Genealogy Bank; William Fryhoffer and Joseph Hergesheimer, “Democratic Society,” Franklin Gazette, (Philadelphia), Sept. 14, 1820, Genealogy Bank. The Democratic Press and Franklin Gazette ran such advertisements regularly until at least 1820, according to a search of the papers’ names, and the keywords “democratic society” in Genealogy Bank. The final recorded meeting of the Democratic Society of Germantown, Roxborough, and Bristol, occurred late 1820. 117 point, the Democratic Society of the City and County of Philadelphia, and the Democratic

Society of the Northern Liberties formed a joint coalition in which they “resolved unanimously” to permit the “members of [the respective societies] … to attend the meetings of each Society, as

Members therof.”99 There was some conflict, as well. In 1810, the same Democratic Society of the City of Philadelphia issued a written condemnation of the “Whig Society of Pennsylvania,” a local society that purportedly accused the former of being a “self-created” entity. Among the membership of the Whig Society were , Thomas Leiper, and William J. Duane.100

Leib, a doctor, and Leiper, a tobacconist, were once members of the “mother club” of

Democratic societies, the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania. William J. Duane was the son of

Bache’s successor at the Aurora, William Duane.101

Pasley identifies two schools of Republican thought in Pennsylvania during the early

1800s, Old School, and the New School Democratic-Republicans born from political and economic disagreements arising from Jefferson’s 1807 Embargo. Federalists, having lost their dominant place in politics, and Democratic-Republicans who were wary of governmental power, both rejected the idea that politicians should choose their own caucuses, and instead should leave nominations to voters. Old School proponents like editor William Duane, echoed the fears arising from the Jay Treaty, and feared widespread moral degradation in Pennsylvania resulting from political campaigns built on “promise[s] of votes for bank charters.”102 This rift certainly

99 Jacob Mitchell, Peter Christian, and John Conrad, “Democratic Society,” Democratic Press, (Philadelphia), , 1810, Genealogy Bank. 100 Michael Bright et al., “THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA TO THEIR FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT,” Democratic Press, (Philadelphia), Sept. 28, 1810, Genealogy Bank. The usage of the term “Whig” here likely borrows its connotations from the American Patriots of the Revolution, rather than the contemporary British political party. 101 Appendix A, in DRS, 440; Koschnik, “Democratic Societies of Philadelphia,” 620; Pasley, “Tyranny of Printers,” 319. 102 Pasley, quoted page 316; Kim T. Phillips, “Democrats of the Old School in the Era of Good Feelings,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 95, no. 3 (July 1971): 366-67, 364, quoted page 366. 118 corresponded with the conflict between the two groups of societies, and Leib, Duane (elder and younger), and the Whig Society bore much criticism from the new camp of Democrats. A rift in the papers between the Aurora and the popular new Democratic Press, led by ally-turned- competitor John Binns, also threatened the unity between the Pennsylvanian Democratic-

Republicans.103 The Democratic Press is filled with admonitions of the Whig Society, clearly aligning them with the Old School mentality, while fiercely promoting the Democratic Society of the Northern Liberties and the new Pennsylvanian Society as the only true Democrats.104 The relationship between this New School Pennsylvanian society, and the True Republican Society of Philadelphia of the 1790s, is uncertain, and there is more continuity between the Whig Society than the former. The last mention of the True Republican Society in the paper was a particularly unflattering depiction, which appeared in August 1800, when “an Observer” claimed to have sat in on one of their meetings.105 There is a brief mention of an association with the same name in an entry dated February 1830, authored by the Pennsylvania Treasury in 1838.106 However, it is impossible to determine whether this is the same society without further substantiating evidence.

103 Pasley, “Tyranny of Printers,” 314-15. 104 For examples, see Michael Bright, et al., “Democratic Society,” Democratic Press; “A Conversation Between a COUNTRY DEMOCRAT and an OLD SCHOOL Citizen of Philadelphia,” Democratic Press, (Philadelphia), Aug. 27, 1810, Genealogy Bank; President O’Brien, “MONDAY EVENING, JULY 16, 1810,” Democratic Press, (Philadelphia), July 16, 1810, Genealogy Bank. This account of the meeting of the Whig Society is fictional, but is clearly modelled after the conventions of the Democratic societies’ meetings. It employs the same rhetoric used by Federalists in the 1790s, namely that the society members are ignorant; “NORTHERN LIBERTIES: TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE,” Democratic Press, (Philadelphia), Oct. 1, 1810, Genealogy Bank; “PHILADELPHIA JUNTO POLITICS,” and “From the (Chilicothe) [sic] Republican PANDEMONIUM SOCIETY,” Democratic Press, (Philadelphia), Oct. 18, 1810, Genealogy Bank. 105 The “Observer” describes, in exaggerated detail, the crass proceedings of the “Jacobins,” “almost altogether composed of the very refuse and filth of society.” According to the article, the meeting was attended solely by drunk, disorderly, illiterate ruffians. A few days later, Jewish abolitionist Benjamin Nones wrote to the Aurora defending his character against the anti-Semitic depictions. Nones himself had ties to the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, and later the True Republican Society of Philadelphia. An Observer, “’An Observer’ to the Gazette of the United States, , 1800,” Gazette of the United States, (Philadelphia), Aug. 5, 1800, 112-116, 418 n. 83 and 85, quoted page 112, and Benjamin Nones, “Benjamin Nones to the Editor of the Aurora,” Aurora, (Philadelphia), Aug. 13, 1800, 116-119 in DRS. 106 Journal of the Forty-Ninth House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, […] Vol. II, (Harrisburg, 1838-9), 419, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.78118086&view=1up&seq=1&q1=true%20republican. 119

The three-decade silence also indicates that this is a separate entity that simply shares the name of the late Democratic society. As for the Democratic Society of the City of New-York, the 1799

Independence Parade was last reported public activity in which the members participated, alongside the Tammany Society and various other local organizations. One year later, on the

Fourth of July, 1800, Matthew L. Davis delivered a rousing speech before the Tammany Society and the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, as well as “other Associations and

Citizens,” but the published oration makes no mention of the Democratic society.107 An 1802 article attributes the rise of the “’Columbian Illuminati’” as having “[sprung] from the wrecks of the New-York Democratic Society.”108 The Democratic societies were not yet a relic of the past.

The same rhetoric and discourse surrounding the 18th-century societies followed the new generation as well. The Democratic societies were created to counteract the Federalist elitist impulse in the early years of the Republic and regularly contended with obstacles caused by their vocal dissent. However, there was some continuity. They undoubtedly inspired others, including some of their own membership, to continue meeting in various capacities, under various monikers, in the same way they were accustomed in the previous decade.

Conclusion

While their membership and numbers declined in 1794, a significant portion of active

Democratic societies remained in the public sphere, defending themselves from rhetorical attacks while using the press themselves to condemn Jay’s Treaty. It was during this time that Franco-

American relations deteriorated due to the treaty’s friendly terms with Great Britain, France’s

107 M.L. Davis, An Oration, Delivered in St. Paul’s Church, on the Fourth of July, 1800 […], (New York, 1800), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433023465580&view=1up&seq=3 108 “WOOD’S FULL EXPOSITION, &c.,” Commercial Advertiser, (New York), Sept. 15, 1802, Genealogy Bank. 120 military enemy. This eventually led to the undeclared Quasi-War between the nations under

President Adams. This war, and the concurrent XYZ Affair, stimulated old prejudices among

Federalists against the French. The Democratic societies, long-time French supporters, found themselves surrounded by a climate in which it was increasingly taboo to express pro-French sentiments. Republican support from Irish and French immigrants during the election of 1796, and Adams’ near-loss of the presidency, motivated Federalists to contend with their opponents growing voting base. The result was Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts, which the government used to silence Republican dissenters by fining or imprisoning them. Republicans like

Congressman and editor of the Aurora Benjamin Bache were men with high public profiles, and so were apparent targets for prosecution under these laws. The American public, already angered by the injustice of the Alien and Sedition Acts, while disheartened, would have viewed such individuals as martyrs fighting against an oppressive government. The threat of prosecution was real, however, and it was a considerable legal risk to one’s livelihood to express anti-Federalist, pro-French sentiments.

Genealogy Bank yielded results that confirm the decline in publications by and about the societies. These results demonstrate that during Adams’ presidency, the Democratic societies’ publications lessened drastically beginning in 1796, while the percentage of criticism in these results rose. Criticism of France, and the Citizen Genêt Affair, had always been a topic of discussion in the press since the minister’s arrival and association with the societies. However, such criticism gained a new fervour and meaning following the XYZ Affair. Federalists rose in opposition both against the actions of the French government, and its “Jacobin” supporters in the

U.S. As the Democratic societies had always been associated with the name of the French revolutionaries, they again became targets of Federalist derision, a scapegoat for their anger. 121

Other themes appear in the newspapers, including increasing paranoia of foreign entities and the immigrant population in the U.S., associated again with the Democratic societies. The

Democratic societies, as established earlier in this paper, were not foreign creations. However, there is truth to their connections with Irish immigrants, who had shifted their support to

Republican candidates in Congress, especially after the unpopular Jay Treaty with Great Britain.

Prominent figures like John Daly Burk, Benjamin Bache, Matthew Leib, and Matthew

Livingston Davis held positions in various Democratic societies, who, unlike Federalists, held no reservations about associating with supposed foreigners and other outcasts.

While the Quasi-War and XYZ Affair created new motivation for opposition to France, the Alien and Sedition Acts were a means through which retribution could be enacted. Finally,

Federalists had the opportunity to enforce policies that would silence the opposition movement, and they targeted the decades’ greatest offenders—people like Bache, Callender, Burk, and Lyon were prosecuted under the Acts, threatened with deportation, and fined large sums. Republican papers too endured pressure by Federalist critics, and both the Pennsylvanian Aurora and New

York Greenleaf, once advocates of the Democratic societies and publishers of their resolutions, came under attack for their history of partisan publications. The Republican press, though it would eventually emerge strong by 1800, was disrupted in a way that affected the ability of partisan writers to express opinions contrary to those held by Adams’ office. While it is difficult to ascertain the exact reason the societies fell silent during this period, it is without a doubt that the Alien and Sedition Acts fostered a climate of fear and threatened life-changing consequences for anyone who too loudly expressed dissent. Throughout the decade, Federalists had wished to limit political expression and participation only to the elite, and exclude the uneducated masses, 122 many of whom were active members of the Democratic societies. The Alien and Sedition Acts gave them the opportunity to implement this desire into practice.

The Federalists had won the battle—the Alien and Sedition Acts effectively brought about an end to meaningful dissent. Since 1793, they had waged a cultural and political war against the Democratic societies, beginning with Genêt’s arrival. The Democratic societies’ support for the diplomat and France threatened the tenuous peace the new Republic had promised. Their continual support for France, and by extension the excesses of the revolution, was simply unacceptable, and the Whiskey Rebellion seemed to confirm Federalist fears of domestic insurrection. Irish-Republican support, and the societies’ vocal Irish members and supporters, further exacerbated these fears. Furthermore, paranoia of secret societies such as the

Illuminati, propagated by high-profile Federalists, justified the severe Federalist response during the Adams administration. Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts removed the possibility that the

Democratic societies might defend themselves. The effects of this legislation were long lasting, impacting historiography for generations. In essence, the Federalists did manage to exert control over the narrative, even though the Democratic societies also managed to continue their activities longer than anticipated.

The silence of the Democratic societies does not indicate dissolution. Foner’s sources suggest that there were a number of active societies between 1796-1800, and my research has brought to attention the Pennsylvanian Democratic societies in the early . Though they suffered from rifts and political tensions, these organizations were modelled after the Democratic societies of the 1790s. After the Federalist decline after 1800, they operated in an environment more receptive to Republican ideology. No doubt stymied by the Federalist criticism and repressive legislation, the late-18th century Democratic societies remained political actors and 123 participated with their communities in celebrations. While their most direct and traditional means of interacting with the public was limited during this period, it is evident that the societies that endured these difficulties still managed to overcome obstacles in the print and public sphere.

124

Conclusion

In this thesis, I introduced the Democratic societies, their influence in the press and society, popular criticisms, and their ostensible connection to the Whiskey Rebellion. I concluded my research by exploring the effect of the Quasi-War on the societies, and their connections to Pennsylvanian Democratic societies formed between 1810 and 1820. These societies, in both composition and belief, were undeniably influenced by their predecessors of the 1790s. This study concludes that democratic societies were not actually very active in propagating the Whiskey Rebellion, despite the assertion by Federalists (adhered to by many historians) that they were. It also argues, in contrast to many Federalists’ and historians’ claims to the contrary, that several Democratic societies endured through the harsh political trials between 1794 and 1800, and some of their members continued to meet in the same capacity in the early 19th century. This demonstrates that the societies were not passive, but active members of politics, defending themselves from Federalist criticisms and taking advantage of a widening public sphere that would gradually come to allow more citizens to dissent against federal policy.

In chapter one, I introduced the concept of the “self-created” political societies, whose membership generally represented the emerging Republican movement. Their connection with

France, more tenuous than concrete, was portrayed in the press and by Federalists as indicative of a dangerous Jacobin-American movement, which threatened a breakdown of law and order in the same manner as the violent Revolution in France. Witnessing the slow devolution of the

French society under the Jacobins, and later Robespierre, American Federalists in Congress understandably anticipated and feared similar occurrences in the U.S., and believed the

Democratic societies to be a grassroots-level stimulus for rebellion against the government. In 125 reality, the societies, while supportive of France and Jacobin idealism, conducted their activities both to support Republicanism in France and as a reaction against Federalists who desired to suppress the participation of ordinary citizens in politics.

Comprised of tradesmen such as printers, tailors, editors, and farmers, as well as doctors, lawyers, and politicians, the Democratic societies feared a federal return to monarchy in all but name. This would mitigate the achievements of the newly formed government and its constitutional values. To them, Federalists were those who would prefer that the United States were led only by aristocrats. These different perceptions, often clashing through the press, spurred an even more substantial debate upon the arrival of Girondist French Ambassador

Edmond Charles Genêt in 1793. Federalists viewed the Democratic societies’ enthusiastic welcome of Genêt as concrete proof of their treason. Genêt’s subsequent diplomatic blunders, as he sought to rally support for the French Jacobins, caused damage both to his and the societies’ reputations. From then on, the Democratic societies would be widely known for their support for

France, and often denounced as “Jacobins” by critics in the press. The tension between the political ideologies would rise even more the following year when Americans were forced to contend with the reality of violent rebellion.

In chapter two, I examined the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania and the local societies’ association with the insurrection. While some members within the Democratic societies disagreed as to whether or not the rebellion was justified, there was near-unanimous support, as indicated by their official publications across the nation, for Washington’s martial response. One association, the Mingo Creek Association, was primarily responsible for the insurrection. As Federalists and other critics believed the Mingo Creek Association to be a

Democratic society, the Association’s participation in radical activities preceding and during the 126 summer of 1794 tainted the nation’s perception of the Democratic societies. This chapter challenges the argument of numerous historians who have accepted Federalist criticism and presented the Whiskey Rebellion as a product of these societies in some significant way.

For instance, Alexander Hamilton’s publicized letter to Washington, which described the

Western Pennsylvanian political tensions in the early 1790s and the activities of the Mingo Creek

Association, had a significant impact on historians’ research on the event. Washington’s condemnation of the societies, based on this Federalist premise and his personal biases against the clubs, was also rooted in the false equivalency that many contemporaries created between the

Mingo Creek Association and Democratic societies. James Patrick McClure’s 1983 dissertation is one of the few sources that recognizes the distinction between the two and is perhaps one of the only that examines the history of the Mingo Creek Association in great depth. He argues, based on the local history of the western counties, which preceded the creation of the Democratic societies, that this Association was a separate entity that was nonetheless falsely connected with the other societies. However, his work is not focused on the history of the democratic societies as a whole. I concluded, based on this evidence, that Democratic societies had little involvement with the insurrection, unless in the instances when they aided the militia’s response, and it was the erroneous Federalist accusations that had a significant impact on their public perception following 1794.

Chapter three examines the decline of these societies. I examined the immediate and long-term response of historians to this matter, and I demonstrated that with a few exceptions, the historiography of the past two centuries largely agreed with Federalist narratives. This may be in part due to the swift Federalist condemnation of the Whiskey Rebellion, and their effective use of the press to shape public opinion. The survival of the societies became evident particularly 127 after the signing of Jay’s Treaty, as there are numerous sources from contemporary newspapers that demonstrate a loud outcry among the societies against the Treaty. I demonstrated that while the number of Democratic societies had begun to diminish even before the Whiskey Rebellion, those that remained between 1794 and 1795 conducted a robust defence of their character against defamation in the press. At the same time, they made their opinions known about the infamous pro-British Jay Treaty, arguing against its implementation and reiterating their support for France despite growing opposition to French republicanism.

Federalists, who wished to narrow political engagement and confine it to the elite, were partially successful in their endeavours in 1798, when President Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts finally provided a legal framework through which to charge the societies and their supporters with sedition. Until this point, Federalist citizens and Congressmen had used every opportunity to defame the societies and tarnish their characters. Accusations of Jacobinism and anarchy were common in the press before 1798, and to some, the Whiskey Rebellion appeared to be the perfect opportunity to finally quiet the Democratic societies. However, while some societies ceased operations in the debate that followed, others continued to defend themselves and their allies.

Their gradual decline of activity and presence in the press was a result of the Quasi-War, and a national political environment that was even harsher to French supporters and Republican immigrants than ever before. However, even this was not the end of the Democratic societies, and there is evidence of activity until 1800, and even a decade later.

The Genealogy Bank database and Philip S. Foner’s sourcebook comprised the majority of my primary source research. Genealogy Bank’s word search function proved invaluable and allowed me to observe the broad trends of criticism against the Democratic societies, and how contemporary events influenced these patterns. Foner’s work served to demonstrate the 128 approximate lifetimes of each Democratic society as well as provide information from the societies’ own publications. The results that Genealogy Bank yielded after 1800 indicate that the

Federalist narrative endured for years. At the same time, other Democratic societies appeared in

Pennsylvania, and they seem to have been motivated and inspired by the Democratic societies of the 1790s. Finding the names of several members of the old Democratic societies in the new, I conclude that there was more continuity between these different associations than previously assumed and that perhaps the 18th-century Democratic societies held a stronger and more secure position in the public sphere than Federalists would have preferred.

Even in the decades since Link’s work, some inaccuracies have lingered in the historiography which can be traced back to Federalist machinations. I have addressed two of them in order to tell the story of the Democratic societies in a different, more accurate manner.

The Democratic societies found themselves representing a broader cultural shift towards populism, and away from the more elitist, restrictive political sphere favoured by Federalists. As vocal, yet unofficial representatives of the people, the societies zealously advertised their values through publications and cultural activities. Their outspoken values and conspicuous activities unsurprisingly attracted criticism of many, while earning the support of others. The societies and their supporters, however, soon become a target for more stringent measures designed to undermine or silence them. The Whiskey Rebellion presented an opportunity for Federalists like

Alexander Hamilton to damage the societies’ reputations by utilizing the press to their advantage. Later, through the passing of the Alien and Sedition Acts, Federalists succeeded in legally affecting silence from their opposition. However, while they may have succeeded in that endeavour, they failed in the sense that a small number of Democratic societies managed to survive and participate in politics through more inconspicuous means. Finally, when the 129

Federalists lost their dominant position in politics, the descendants of the Democratic societies returned once more to advocate for the people and make their voices heard.

130

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Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. Vol. 2. 2 vols. Chapel Hill, NC: University of

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