Note 262 — Chapter II

Travelers from abroad who were in the country at this time remarked the extreme virulence of public and private discussion. De La Rochefoucault-Liancourt, Travels through the United States of North America, vol. ii, pp. 231 et seq. Cf. ibid., pp. 75 et seq., 256, 359, 381; vol. iii, pp. 23, 33 et seq., 74 et seq., 156, 163 et seq., 250, 274, 366 et seq. Cf. Weld, Travels through the States of North America … during the years 1795, 1796, and 1797, p. 62. Writing specifically of the excited state of the public mind in February, 1796, the latter observer of our national life said: “It is scarcely possible for a dozen Americans to sit together without quarrelling about politics, and the British treaty, which had just been ratified, now gave rise to a long and acrimonious debate. The farmers were of one opinion, and gabbled away for a long time; the lawyers and the judge were of another, and in turns they rose to answer their opponents with all the power of rhetoric they possessed. Neither party could say anything to change the sentiments of the other one; the noisy contest lasted till late at night, when getting heartily tired they withdrew, not to their respective chambers, but to the general one that held five or six beds, and in which they laid down in pairs. Here the conversation was again revived, and pursued with as much noise as below, till at last sleep closed their eyes, and happily their mouths at the same time….” (Ibid., pp. 58 et seq.) Such unfavorable reflections are not to be dismissed as representing prejudiced views of the case. A habit of intolerance toward political opponents and of all men who shared contrary opinions, had become one of the characteristics of the times. The agitation over the treaty went far toward fixing this habit. The Alien and Sedition Acts, which came a little later, were the result of an unrestrained freedom of discussion scarcely more perceptible when they were passed in 1798 than at the time of the heat produced by the treaty.