Note 269 — Chapter II

Pamphleteers and newspaper writers were much more explicit. The Pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency Examined: and the Charges against John Adams Refuted, was one of the well known political pamphlets of the day. According to Gibbs, in his Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams, vol. i, p. 379, it was prepared by Oliver Wolcott and William Smith, the latter of South Carolina. It marshalled the reasons why Jefferson should not be elected to the presidency. Among these “reasons” the charge of a close alliance between Jefferson and the men of the country who were notoriously interested in the cause of irreligion was boldly affirmed. Cf. page 36 et seq. This pamphlet was published in 1796. Later the charge of impiety was lodged against Jefferson with great frequency. Typical utterances of this nature may be found in the Library of American Literature, vol. iv, pp. 249–251: “The Imported French Philosophy” (from “The Lay Preacher” of Joseph Dennie). This disquisition was much quoted in the newspapers of the day. From the position that the leaders of the Democrats were irreligious, it was easy for the Federalists to glide over to the position that the spirit of infidelity, believed to be spreading far and wide through the country, was consciously and deliberately backed by the restless and unscrupulous elements which, in the view of the Federalists, formed the opposition. The Connecticut Courant of January 19, 1795, reflects this attitude. “The French”, it is asserted, “are mad in their pursuit of every phantom which disordered intellects can image. Having set themselves free from all human control, they would gladly scale the ramparts of heaven, and dethrone ALMIGHTY JEHOVAH. Our own Democrats would do just so, if they dare.” Cf. also the issue of the Courant for January 5, the same year, for a characterization of the program of the Democrats as “a crazy system of Anti-Christian politics.” The offence given to the Democrats by such accusations was great. No man, perhaps, stated the stinging resentment which they felt better than Benjamin Franklin Bache in his Aurora of August 15, 1798: “No part of the perfidy of the faction, the insidious monarchical faction, which dishonors our country, and endangers our future peace, is so bare faced as their perpetual railing about a party acting in concert with France—a party of democrats and Jacobins—a party of disorganizers and atheists—a party inimical to our independence! What is the plain intent of these impudent and ignorant railings? It is to impose upon the ignorant, to collect and concentre in our focus all the vice, pride, superstition, avarice, and ambition in the United States, in order to weigh down by the union of such a phalanx of iniquity, all that is virtuous and free in the nation.” Abraham Bishop, whose repudiation of the Federalist charge that Jefferson was to be the High Priest of Infidelity was particularly vehement, saw in this cry that an alliance had been made between the forces of democracy and the forces of infidelity, the evidences of a shameless hypocrisy that stripped its makers of all right to be styled Christians. The cry that infidelity abounded meant nothing more nor less than that new electioneering methods were being employed. Oration Delivered in Wallingford on the 11th of March, 1801 … by Abraham Bishop, pp. 36, 37.