by a seeming indifference to the
cause of liberty. And it seems to violate the form and spirit of the
Constitution by making the executive magistrate the organ of the
'disposition' 'the duty' and 'the interest' of the nation in relation to
war and peace--subjects appropriated to other departments of the
Government."

"On one side," says Mr. Rives, in his "Life of Madison," "the people saw
a power which had but lately carried war and desolation, fire and sword,
through their own country, and, since the peace, had not ceased to act
toward them in the old spirit of unkindness, jealousy, arrogance, and
injustice; on the other an ally who had rendered them the most generous
assistance in war, had evinced the most cordial dispositions for a
liberal and mutually beneficial intercourse in peace, and was now set
upon by an unholy league of the monarchical powers of Europe, to
overwhelm and destroy her, for her desire to establish institutions
congenial to those of America."

The more sagacious opponents of the administration believed true policy
as well as true honesty to demand rigid and pronounced adherence to the
letter of the French treaty. They were convinced from the outset that
France would vanquish her enemies, and that close alliance with her was
the sure and the only sure way to coerce either Great Britain to justice
or Spain to a reasonable attitude touching the navigation of the
Mississippi; while by offending France, they argued, we should be forced
to wrestle single-handed with England first, then with victorious
France, meantime securing no concession whatever from Spain.

This was a shrewd forecast of the actual event. The Federalists,
destitute of idealism, proved to have been overawed by the prestige of
England and to have underestimated the might which freedom would impart
to the French people. After Napoleon's great campaign of 1796-97, Pitt
seeks peace, which the French Directory feels able to decline. In 1802
the Peace of Amiens is actually concluded, upon terms dictated by
France. Had we been still in France's friendship, the two republics
might have compelled England's abandonment of that course which evoked
the war of 1812. As it was, ignored by England, to whom, as detailed
below, we cringed in consenting to Jay's treaty, we were left to
encounter the French navy alone, escaping open and serious war with
France only by a readiness to negotiate which all but compromised our
dignity. The Mississippi