Years of Crisis
|
I |
n
1793 and 1794 a series of crises threatened to destroy the new national
government:
· France
tried to entangle America in its war with England,
· Armed
rebellion erupted in western Pennsylvania,
· Indians
in Ohio threatened American expansion, and
· War with
Britain appeared imminent.
In
April 1793, a French minister, Edmond Charles Genet, arrived in the United
States and tried to persuade American citizens to join in revolutionary
France's "war of all peoples against all kings." Genet passed out
letters authorizing Americans to attack British commercial vessels. Washington
regarded these activities as clear violations of U.S. neutrality, and demanded
that France recall its hot headed minister. Fearful that he would be executed
if he returned to France, Genet requested and was granted political asylum.
The
Genet affair intensified party divisions. From Vermont to South Carolina,
supporters of the French Revolution organized Democratic‑Republican
clubs. Hamilton suspected that these societies really existed to stir up grass‑roots
opposition to the Washington administration.
Political
polarization was further intensified by the outbreak of popular protests in
western Pennsylvania against Hamilton's financial program. To help pay off the
nation's debt, Congress passed a tax on whiskey. On the frontier, the only
practical way to transport and sell surplus corn was to distill it into
whiskey. Frontier farmers regarded a tax on whiskey in the same way as American
colonists had regarded Britain's stamp tax.
By
1794, western Pennsylvanians had had enough. Some 7000 frontiersmen marched on
Pittsburgh to stop collection of the tax. Determined to set a precedent for the
federal government's authority, Washington gathered an army of 15,000 militamen
to disperse the rebels. In the face of
this overwhelming force, the uprising collapsed. The new government had proved
that it would enforce laws enacted by Congress.
Thomas
Jefferson took a very different view of the "Whiskey Rebellion." He believed that the government had used the
army to stifle legitimate opposition to unfair government policies.
The
end of the American Revolution unleashed a rush of white settlers into frontier
Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and western New York. Hundreds died as
Indians resisted the influx of whites onto their lands. To open the Ohio country
to white settlement, President Washington dispatched three armies. Twice, a confederacy of eight tribes led by
Little Turtle, chief of the Miamis, defeated American forces. But in 1794, a
third army defeated the Indian alliance at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in
northwestern Ohio. Under the Treaty of Greenville (1795), Native Americans
ceded much of the present state of Ohio in return for cash and a promise that
the federal government would treat the Indian nations fairly in land dealings.
The
year 1794 brought a crisis in America's relations with Britain. For a decade,
Britain had refused to evacuate forts in the Northwest Territory. Control of
those forts allowed the British to monopolize the fur trade. Frontier settlers
believed that British officials sold firearms to the Indians and incited
uprisings against white settlers. War appeared imminent when British warships
stopped 300 American ships carrying food supplies to France and to France's
overseas possessions and forced sailors suspected of deserting from British
ships into the British navy.
To
end the crisis, President Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to London
negotiate a settlement with the British. Britain agreed to evacuate its forts
on American soil and to cease harassing American shipping (provided the ships
did not carry supplies to Britain's enemies). Britain also agreed to pay
damages for the ships it had seized and to permit the United States to trade
with India and carry on restricted trade with the British West Indies. But Jay
failed to win compensation for slaves carried off by the British army during
the Revolution.
The
Jeffersonians denounced the treaty as a give-away to northern shipping
interests. Southerner slaveowners were especially angry because they received
no compensation for the slaves who had fled to the British during the
Revolution. In Boston, graffiti appeared on a wall: "Damn John Jay! Damn
everyone who won't damn John Jay!! Damn everyone that won't put lights in his
windows and sit up all night damning John Jay!!!"
President
Washington was now in a position to retire gracefully. He had pushed the
British out of the western forts, opened the Ohio country to white settlement,
and avoided war with Britain. In a Farewell Address, published in a
Philadelphia newspaper in 1796, Washington warned his countrymen against the
growth of partisan divisions. He also called on the country to avoid
"permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world." It would
not be until after World War II that the country would establish peacetime
alliances with foreign nations.