In 1794, a year after hostilities in Europe began, President Washington sent John Jay to London to negotiate a treaty to stop British attacks on American ships and impressment of its sailors.   Jay’s concessions to the British created a political maelstrom. The treaty failed to stop attacks on American ships and impressments. Jay did manage to negotiate increased trade that opened the West Indies to American merchants on a limited basis. It prevented war, and met two key requirements; withdrawal of British troops from posts in the Northwest Territory, and the arbitration of wartime debt.   Nevertheless, citizens throughout the United States criticized Jay for conceding too much to the British.

John Jay (1745-1829) negotiated a treaty with the British that was highly controversial and a central issue in forming the Democratic – Republican Party.

Washington had to contend with the British, the French and the opposing parties emerging in the new but fragile union of states and their respective regions. Democratic-Republicans coalesced to oppose the treaty. Federalists advocated its ratification, despite its failings.

The treaty impinged on issues important to all the nation’s regions. New England and the Mid-Atlantic states were most affected. Merchant ships faced impressments and attacks by the Barbary Pirates. They also had restrictions on the carrying trade. The British Orders of Council of 1793 allowed seizure of American vessels carrying produce or supplies to French Caribbean colonies.   Southern states were affected by the treaty’s failure to compensate for loss of slaves and other property. The West was affected because the treaty affected the settlements’ safety from British encouragement of Native American raids, and the establishment of a boundary in the Northwest. The entire nation was affected by terms that deferred issues to British courts.

A copy of the treaty, with Jay’s commentary, arrived in Philadelphia on March 7, 1795. Washington kept the contents of the treaty from the public until he had presented it to the Senate in June. The Senate continued to keep it secret until July 1795.[1]

Choosing a pseudonym of a character renowned for his loyalty but bluntness from Shakespeare’s King Lear, Carey published Caius’s Address to the President of the United States on July 21, 1795. He attacked the treaty on political and commercial grounds, asking Washington not to approve it. The treaty, he wrote, failed to address impressments. Attacks by Barbary Pirates, he noted, affected the profitable trade that yielded specie to the United States.   Jay also failed to address America’s carrying trade outside the West Indies. The British, he argued, only restrained American vessels in that trade.   The treaty also failed to remove the British Orders of Council of November 1793 and January 1794. The treaty did not address compensation for loss of slaves and other property. The treaty allowed the British to retain influence over Native Americans and the benefits of the fur trade. The Mississippi was open to the British, even though they had no ports there. The treaty, he wrote, did not clearly define boundaries. The territorial rights of states were at risk.   The seventh article forced commissioners to defer to British courts. This failed to assure any remedy for American complaints [2]

Less than a month later, on August 12, 1795 Carey collected some documents and published them as the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation

Federalists were concerned Washington would not consent to the Treaty. They presented him with captured dispatches revealing that Secretary of State Edmund Randolph had unauthorized dealings with the former French minister to the United States, Joseph Fauchet. On August 19, 1795 Washington made Randolph read the incriminating evidence before his Cabinet, forcing him to resign.[3]

Carey issued a new periodical, the American Remembrancer. He published it at least once a month and often three times a month in twelve editions between August 20, 1795 and January 20, 1796. The first edition carried an advertisement by Carey. “It is intended,” he wrote, “in the present Publication, to collect together the most valuable Essays, Resolutions, Speeches, &c. respecting the Treaty between the United States and Great Britain. In the Prosecution of this Plan, the Publisher pledges himself to observe the strictest Impartiality, and on this Observance rests his Pretensions to public Encouragement.”[4]

Carey published twelve editions of the American Remembrancer between August 20, 1795 and January 20, 1796. He bound them together in three separate volumes indicating that the documents he published were worthy of being remembered for their historical value.

Just as he had included documents related about the Constitution in his American Museum, he collected documents about the Jay Treaty. He published them as a national periodical, distributing them over the network he had established for the Museum. He named it the American Remembrancer. Later he bound them into three volumes. That suggested the documents were not ephemeral but worthy of preservation for posterity.[5]

On January 20, 1796, the day of the final issue of the American Remembrancer, Carey wrote a despondent letter to fellow printer and Democratic-Republican Samuel Harrison Smith. Proceedings in the House of Representatives on January 19 led Carey to believe that Congress would ratify the treaty. He had written an Address to the House of Representatives and asked Smith to print the pamphlet without releasing it to booksellers. If the Treaty did go into effect, he wrote to Smith, he would not publish the Address. If his suspicions proved to be wrong, however, he was willing to risk revealing his authorship, even if it meant dangerous consequences to himself and his family.[6]

Congress did not ratify the treaty. Carey’s conclusions proved to be incorrect. No longer hiding behind the pseudonym of Caius, he gathered the courage to have his Address to the House of Representatives to be distributed to booksellers.   First he urged the “political Barque steer the middle course” between avoiding despotism on the one hand and anarchy on the other. He was concerned the ideals of America’s new republican government would perish if the President and the Senate could overrule the House, which represented the voice of the people. He pointed out that Washington had given Jay the authority to negotiate with Grenville without the Senate’s approval. Carey drew on Alexander Dallas’ Features of Mr. Jay’s Treaty. He noted that while the President and the Senate had the power to make treaties, but the House regulated trade under provisions of Article I. The Jay Treaty was a commercial treaty. If the United States required funds to fulfill it, the House needed to confirm the appropriation of funding. The House had the power to prevent the ratification of the treaty by refusing to appropriate funding. Carey argued the United States was a significant debtor to Britain and her most important trading partner. The United States supplied foodstuffs to the West Indies. If members of the House did not stand up to the President and the Senate, their power would be “swallowed up in a gulph of presidential and senatorial usurpations.”[7]

Issues raised by the Jay Treaty had no precedent. Washington, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans engaged in an important debate about how the government should handle treaties within the framework of the Constitution.   Carey based his argument on a constitutional principle. He concluded the ability to appropriate funds for provisions of a treaty gave the House power to accept or reject it.

Edward Livingston (1764-1836), as a congressman from New York, asked President George Washington to release papers relating to Jay’s negotiation of the treaty for consideration by members of the House. Washington refused.

On March 2, 1796, Edward Livingston, a member of the House of Representatives, presented a resolution asking Washington to release papers about Jay’s negotiation of the treaty for consideration by his fellow congressmen.   Washington believed the power to negotiate treaties rested with the President and the Senate. He refused to release the papers to the House.[8]

Noah Webster(1758-1843), best remembered for his dictionary, edited a newspaper in New York City, the American Minerva. A forthright Federalist, he attacked the actions of the House of Representatives in his paper.

In New York, Noah Webster attacked the House in his newspaper, the Minerva. Writing under the pseudonym “Harrington” Carey countered Webster’s arguments, placing four articles in John Fenno’s widely-read Federalist newspaper, the Gazette of the United States, instead of Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Aurora, the mouthpiece of the Democratic-Republicans. Webster argued that the treaty should not be subject to the “whims and errors of the people,” while Carey countered with the “Voice of the People is the Voice of God” and reminded his readers that it was the House that was constitutionally responsible for initiating appropriation of funding.[9]

The Federalists accused the House of Representatives of being irresponsible. On April 2, 1796, Madison summoned his fellow Democratic-Republicans into a party caucus, the first to take place in the House. The language of the Blount-Madison resolutions confirmed the House had constitutional powers concerning treaties. Although the House passed the resolutions, questions remained. Would those who voted for the resolutions defend their position? Would they prevent ratification of the treaty?[10]

The Federalists prevailed.   Congressman Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, enticed western Democratic-Republicans in the House to vote for Jay’s Treaty. He linked it to Pinkney’s Treaty that promised access to the Gulf of Mexico through the Mississippi and allowed merchants to warehouse their goods in New Orleans. These issues were important to westerners.

Congressman Ames had been ill during much of the debate. With some effort, rose to give a stirring oration to the House, urging them to vote for ratification of Jay’s Treaty, bringing many of those present to tears.

Playing on Westerners’ fears about the security of the frontier Ames said:

“In the daytime your path through the woods is ambushed; the darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings…the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field!…the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle!…I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture…even as slender and almost broken as my hold on life is, I may outlive the Government and Constitution of my country.” [11]

The Senate had failed to act on Pinckney’s Treaty.   If the House passed the Jay Treaty, Ames suggested, the Senate would ratify Pinkney’s Treaty. His ploy worked. The House appropriated the funds for Jay’s Treaty, in a vote of 51-48 on April 30, 1796.[12]

Fisher Ames (1758-1808) a Federalist congressman from Massachusetts, who had been ill during much of the debate, with some effort, rose to give a stirring oration to the House, urging them to vote for ratification of Jay’s Treaty, bringing many of those present to tears.

The Jay Treaty marked the emergence of political parties in the United States. With his Address to the House of Representatives and his “Harrington” letters, Carey finalized his break with the Federalists.

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[1] Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic 1788-1800, (New York: Oxford University Press , 1993) 417.

[2] Caius, [Pseudonym, Mathew Carey]“Address To the President of the United States,” July 21, 1795. Carey included this address in the American Remembrancer, or An Impartial Collection of Essays, Resolves Speeches &c. Relative or Having Affinity to the Treaty with Great Britain. (Philadelphia: Mathew Carey, 1795) V.I, N.II, 105-114.

[3] Edward C. Carter II, The Political Activities of Mathew Carey, Nationalist, 1760-1814, Bryn Mawr College PhD. Dissertation, 1962, 225.

[4] Mathew Carey, The American Remembrancer; or, An Impartial Collection of Essays, Resolves, Speeches, &c. Relative or Having Affinity to the Treaty with Great Britain, (Philadelphia: Mathew Carey) 20 August 1795.

[5] Edward Carter argues in The Political Activities of Mathew Carey, Nationalist, 1760-1814, that Carey was a good propagandist, and edited the documents in the Remembrancer in such a way that they appeared to be impartial.   Carey included all of Federalist Alexander Hamilton’s arguments for the treaty balanced by Republican writers such as Robert Livingston and Tench Coxe. Carter concludes that anti-treaty documents predominated, and that Carey used his nation-wide distribution network to mount an effective campaign against the treaty for the Republicans.

[6] Carter, The Political Activities of Mathew Carey, 226.

[7] Carter, The Political Activities of Mathew Carey, 228-229.

[8] Carter, The Political Activities of Mathew Carey, 229.

[9] Carter, The Political Activities of Mathew Carey, 232-233.

[10] Carter, The Political Activities of Mathew Carey, 233. 229-230.

[11] Fisher Ames quoted in Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 448.

[12] Carter, The Political Activities of Mathew Carey, 233.