Part 18 (1/2)

The immediate effect of the paper was excellent. The various State Legislatures voted thanks to Was.h.i.+ngton, and were warm in their praises of his wise and patriotic services as President. The regret was universal that the country was so soon to lose his valuable counsel and guidance.

WEST POINT MILITARY ACADEMY ESTABLISHED.

During the Revolution Was.h.i.+ngton recommended the excellent location of West Point as the proper one for a military school of instruction. An act establis.h.i.+ng the United States Military Academy at that place was pa.s.sed March 16, 1802. It provided that fifty students or cadets should be given instruction under the senior engineer or officer, a.s.sisted by the corps of engineers of the army. As the inst.i.tution grew, professors.h.i.+ps of mathematics, engineering, philosophy, etc., were added, and the academy was made a military body subject to the rules and articles of war. A superintendent was designated in 1815, and the present system of appointing cadets was inst.i.tuted in 1843. The rigid course, steadily elevated, probably prevents fully one-half of those entering from graduating, and, a comparison of the West Point Military Academy with similar inst.i.tutions establishes the fact that it is the finest of the kind in the world.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1796.

The presidential election of 1796 was a close one, the result being: John Adams, Federalist, 71; Thomas Jefferson, Republican, 68; Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina, Federalist, 59; Aaron Burr, of New York, Republican, 30; Samuel Adams, of Ma.s.sachusetts, Republican, 15; Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, Independent, 11; George Clinton, of New York, Republican, 7; John Jay, of New York, Federalist, 5; James Iredell, of North Carolina, Federalist, 3; George Was.h.i.+ngton, of Virginia, John Henry, of Maryland, and S. Johnson, of North Carolina, all Federalists, 2 votes each; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina, Federalist, 1 vote. Since it required 70 votes to elect, it will be seen that John Adams was barely successful, with Jefferson close to him.

John Adams, the second President, was born at Braintree, Ma.s.sachusetts, October 19, 1735. He graduated at Harvard, at the age of twenty, and was admitted to the bar three years later. He was one of the most active and influential members of the First and Second Continental Congresses. It was he who by his eloquent logic persuaded Congress to adopt the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson, his strenuous political opponent, declared that Adams was the pillar of its support and its ablest advocate and defender. It was Adams who suggested the appointment of General Was.h.i.+ngton as commander-in-chief of the Continental army.

During the progress of the war, he criticised the management of Was.h.i.+ngton, but, long before the death of the Father of his Country, candidly acknowledged the injustice of such criticism.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN ADAMS.

(1735-1826.) One term, 1797-1801.]

The services of Adams were not confined to his early efforts in Congress nor to his term as President. He did important work as commissioner to France and Holland, and as minister plenipotentiary to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain. He obtained large loans and induced leading European powers to make excellent treaties with his country.

Adams and Franklin framed the preliminary treaty of Versailles, and, as the first American minister to England, he served until 1788. He received the thanks of Congress for the ”patriotism, perseverance, integrity, and diligence” displayed while representing his country abroad. When John Adams a.s.sumed the duties of the presidency, he found the country comparatively prosperous and well governed.

The South was the most prosperous. Until 1793, its princ.i.p.al productions were rice, indigo, tar, and tobacco. The soil and climate were highly favorable to the growth of cotton, but its culture was unprofitable, for its seeds were so closely interwoven in its texture that only by hard work could a slave clean five pounds a day. In the year named, Eli Whitney, a New England schoolteacher, living in Georgia, invented the cotton gin, with which a man can clean a thousand pounds of cotton a day. This rendered its cultivation highly profitable, gave an importance to the inst.i.tution of slavery, and, in its far-reaching effects, was the greatest invention ever made in this country.

TROUBLES WITH FRANCE.

The matter which chiefly occupied public attention during the administration of the elder Adams was our difficulties with France. That country had hardly emerged from the awful Reign of Terror in which a million of people were ma.s.sacred, and it was under the control of a set of b.l.o.o.d.y minded miscreants, who warred against mankind and believed they could compel the United States to pay a large sum of money for the privilege of being let alone. They turned our representatives out of the country, enacted laws aimed to destroy our commerce, and instructed their naval officers to capture and sell American vessels and cargoes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COTTON GIN, INVENTED IN 1793.

A machine which does the work of more than 1,000 men.]

President Adams, who abhorred war, sent special ministers to protest against the course of France. The impudent reply was there would be no stoppage until the men who controlled the French government were paid large sums of money. This exasperating notice brought the answer from Charles Cotesworth Pinckney which has become historical: ”Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.”

Although war was not declared, it prevailed on the ocean during the latter half of 1798. Congress convened, abolished the treaties with France, strengthened the navy, and ordered it to attack French vessels wherever found. Several engagements took place, in all of which the French men-of-war were whipped ”to a standstill.” The most important of the naval battles was between the _Const.i.tution_, under Commodore Truxton, and the French frigate _L'Insurgente_, in which the latter was captured. A messenger was sent to Mount Vernon, carrying the appointment of Was.h.i.+ngton as commander-in-chief of the American army. He found the great man in the harvest field; but when Was.h.i.+ngton donned his spectacles and read the paper, he replied that he was then as always ready to serve his country in whatever capacity he could. He accepted with the understanding that he was not to be called into the field until actual hostilities took place on the land, and that Alexander Hamilton should until then be the commander-in-chief.

Doubtless a destructive war would have resulted, but for the fact that Napoleon Bonaparte, as a stepping-stone to his marvelous career, overturned the French government and installed himself as emperor. He saw the folly of a war with the United States, when he was certain soon to be embroiled with more powerful neighbors near home. He offered fair terms of peace to our country in 1799, and they were accepted.

THE ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS.

One of the gravest mistakes made by the Federalists in Congress was the pa.s.sage of the Alien and Sedition Laws. Irritated by the mischief-making of foreigners, a law was enacted which permitted the President to arrest any alien in the country whose presence he considered dangerous. The acts under which this was to be done were known as the Alien Laws. The most detested measure, however, was that which authorized the arrest of any person who should speak evil of the government, and was known as the Sedition Law. There were arrests and punishments under its provisions, and the majority of the people were bitterly hostile to it. It was unquestionably a direct invasion of the liberty of speech. The claim that no editor, public speaker, or private citizen should be allowed to condemn an action of the government which he disproved was unbearable, but it was in direct line with the Federal policy of a powerful central government, and as directly opposed to Republican principles. The feeling became so intense that at the next presidential election the Federal party was defeated and never afterward gained control of the government.

REMOVAL OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL TO WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

The census of 1800 showed that the population of the country had increased to 5,308,483. In that year, the national capital was removed from Philadelphia to the straggling, partly built village of Was.h.i.+ngton, standing in the woods, and without any of the structures that have made it one of the most attractive cities in the world.

The presidential election of 1800 was an exciting one. Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, both Republicans, received 73 electoral votes, while John Adams, Federalist had 65; Charles C. Pinckney, Federalist, 64; John Jay, Federalist 1. The vote between the leaders being a tie, the election was thrown into the House of Representatives, where, after thirty-eight ballots, Jefferson was elected, with Burr, the next highest candidate, Vice-President. The preceding election, as will be remembered, gave a President and Vice-President of different political parties, always an undesirable thing, and this fact, added to the difficulties of the election just over, led to the adoption in 1804 of the Twelfth Amendment to the Const.i.tution, which requires the electors to vote separately for the President and Vice-President.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.