ockholst Livingston, over
the signature of "Decius," assailed the treaty with great ability. This
aroused Hamilton, who had both spoken and written in favor of the
treaty. He came to the tournament most gallantly, and, over the
signature of "Camillus," he dealt such powerful blows with his
battle-axe of fact and logic; that "Decius" was quickly unhorsed.
Jefferson, with his eagle vision, had watched the combat with intense
interest from his eyry at Monticello; and when he saw the force of
Hamilton's reasoning, and the power it must have upon the people, he
shouted to Madison to join the lists and do battle against "Camillus,"
and a smaller champion called "Curtius." "Hamilton," he exclaimed in a
letter to Madison on the twenty-first of September, "is really a
colossus to the anti-republican party. Without numbers, he is a host
within himself. They have got themselves into a defile, where they might
be finished; but too much security on the republican part will give time
to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only
middling performers to oppose to him. In truth, when he comes forward,
there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries have
begun the attack, he has the advantage of answering them, and remains
unanswered himself. A solid reply might yet completely demolish what was
too feebly attacked, and has gathered strength from the weakness of the
attack." With his usual alarm-bell notes, Jefferson then spoke of
"Hamilton, Jay," etc., as engaged "in the boldest act they ever ventured
on to undermine the government;" and exclaimed, in conclusion, "For
God's sake, take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to 'Curtius'
and 'Camillus.'"[86]

The opposition found other champions of the treaty to meet than
newspaper writers. The friends of that instrument and the government
rallied in various forms. A few days before the president signed the
ratification, the Boston Chamber of Commerce, like that of New York,
representing a large and influential class to be affected by the treaty,
passed a resolution, with only one dissenting voice, in favor of
ratification. Some violent Boston republicans, to counteract these
expressions, used the mobocratic argument and paraded an effigy of Jay
in the streets, and concluded the performance by burning it, attacking
the house of the editor of a federal paper (from which they were
repulsed by firearms), and keeping the New England capital in a
dis