of the support of all good men, he
hesitated not a moment. Some democratic members of the senate, the most
prominent of whom were Burr and Jackson, showed great ill feeling; but
the majority in that body gave it their approval. In the lower house it
created a good deal of angry altercation, for the opposition were
powerful there. They exhibited their disapprobation on the first draft
of their answer to the president's message, by passing the matter over
in silence. To this draft an amendment was offered, reprobating the
"self-created societies," which, "by deceiving and inflaming the
ignorant and weak, may naturally be supposed to have stimulated the
insurrection." It then denounced them as "institutions not strictly
unlawful, yet not less fatal to good order and true liberty, and
reprehensible in the degree that our system of government approaches to
perfect political freedom."

It was this amendment that caused the debate. Those who opposed it did
so cautiously, and exhibited their sense of the waning popularity of
these societies, by taking care to disclaim their own personal
connection with them. It was contended that the term "self-created
societies" involved all voluntary associations whatever; that the right
of censure was sacred; and that the societies would retort. Others
contended that the question was not, whether the societies were legal,
but whether they were mischievous. If they were so, the representatives
of the people, presumed to be the guardians of the republic, ought to
declare it, and not, by silence, give an implied contradiction to the
president's statements.

A motion to strike out the words "self-constituted societies" elicited a
warm debate. "It has been argued," said one of the members (Sedgwick)
who traced the origin of these societies to Genet, "that to censure them
might be construed into an attack on the freedom of public discussion.
He was sorry," he said, "to see a disposition to confound freedom and
licentiousness. Was there not an obvious distinction between a cool,
dispassionate, honest, and candid discussion, and a false, wicked,
seditious misrepresentation of public men and public measures? The
former was within the province of freemen; it was, indeed, their duty;
the latter was inconsistent with moral rectitude, and tended to the
destruction of freedom and to the production of every evil that could
afflict a community." The speaker then described the Democratic
Societies as "sel