XII. the rules of the House, it had grown wholly out of his CHAPTER ignorance of their extent, and that if through ignorance he had unwittingly offended, he was sorry to deserve censure. 1798. This letter was referred to the committee already appointed, who reported, the day after, a statement of facts, Feb. 2. and along with it a resolution for Lyon's expulsion. To the passage of this resolution Lyon's Democratic friends made a most obstinate resistance. It was only by fortynine votes to forty-four that the House consented to go into committee on the subject; and not content with the Feb. statement reported, it was insisted that the witnesses should again give their testimony before the Committee of the Whole. Lyon put in for the consideration of that committee a long statement in reference to the military censure to which he had been subjected, in which he threw upon the other officers, particularly the one in command, the blame of the desertion of the post for which he had been cashiered. He repeated the same thing in a speech against the resolution; but in defending his conduct he made use of a very vulgar and indecent expression, which itself, on Harper's motion, and by the casting vote of the speaker, was referred to the same Committee of the Whole as a new and separate offense. Among the witnesses who had given testimony as to the fact of Lyon's having been cashiered, and his patience at home under allusions to it, was Chipman, the new Vermont senator. By way of rebuttal, Lyon stated in his speech that he had once chastised Chipman for an insult; a statement which drew out from Chipman, in a letter addressed to the House, a full account of the affair referred to, placing Lyon in a most ridiculous light. The adoption of the resolution for expelling Lyon was vehemently opposed by Nicholas and Gallatin on the frivolous and unfounded pretense which Lyon himself XII. CHAPTER had set up in excuse, that the session of the House was suspended at the time, and that expulsion, therefore, 1798. would be too severe a punishment. Though a good deal ashamed of Lyon's conduct, the opposition, in the close division of parties, were very unwilling to suffer even the temporary loss of a single vote. An attempt was made to substitute a reprimand for expulsion; but this Feb. 12. motion was lost, forty-four to fifty-two, the same number of votes presently given for the original resolution. But as a two thirds vote was necessary to expel, this resolution, though sustained by a majority, was lost. To this very discreditable decision, and to the precedent thus established, may in a great measure be ascribed those personal affrays on the floor of the House by which that body has from time to time been disgraced. Indeed this action, or rather non-action, very speedily produced its natural fruits. As the House refused to avenge him or itself, Griswold took the matter into hist own hands. For two or three days after the decision, Lyon kept out of the way. The first time that he made Feb. 15. his appearance in the hall, prayers having been read, and many of the members being in their seats, but the House not yet called to order, Griswold walked up to him as he was reading in his seat, and commenced beating him over the head with a cane. Lyon also had a cane, but, in his confusion, instead of seizing it, he attempted to close with Griswold, who retired slowly before him, keeping him at arms' length, and still beating him. When, at length, they had cleared the seats, Lyon rushed to the fire-place and seized a pair of tongs, with which he approached Griswold, who now struck him a blow in the face which blackened his eye, closed with him, threw him, fell upon him, and still continued to pommel him over the head, till the discomfited Democrat was finally XII. relieved by some of his political friends, who seized Gris- CHAPTER wold by the legs and dragged him off; after which the speaker, who had looked calmly on all the while, as- 1798. sumed his seat and called the House to order. Just as that was done, Lyon, having been provided with a cane, approached Griswold, whose cane had slipped from his hand when he was dragged off of Lyon, and who at this moment was unarmed. Lyon made a feeble blow, which Griswold avoided by drawing back, when the call to or der put an end to this discreditable scene. That portion of the opposition who had voted for expelling Lyon now called loudly for the expulsion both of Lyon and Griswold, and a resolution to that effect was offered and referred to the committee on privileges, notwithstanding the opposition of some of the Federalists, who remarked, with some malice, that it seemed very hard to include Lyon in this motion, since he had only been guilty of very quietly taking a severe beating. The committee reported against the resolution, and their re- Feb. 23 port was sustained, seventy-three to twenty-one. An attempt was then made to obtain a vote of censure, but this was also lost by a small majority. Pending this affair, in a message covering certain doc- Feb. 8 uments transmitted by Charles Pinckney, governor of South Carolina, setting forth the violation of the neutrality of the United States by a French privateer, which had captured and burned a British vessel within the waters of Charleston harbor, the president had attempted to stimulate Congress to some measures for the protection of commerce. The privilege affair having been disposed of, and the House having resumed the discussion of the Foreign Intercourse Bill, the president sent another message giving information of the arrival of the first dispatches from the envoys in France. All these CHAPTER dispatches except the latest, dated January 8th, which XII. gave notice of the impending decree for the forfeiture of 1798. all vessels having English merchandise on board, were March 5. in cipher, and it would take some time to get at their contents, as to which, however, it was briefly mentioned in this last dispatch that no hope existed of the reception of the envoys by the French government, or of their being able, in any way, to accomplish the object of their mission-statements so important that the president judged it expedient to lay them at once before the House. As soon as the other dispatches were decipherMarch 19. ed, the president sent another message, informing Con gress of the result to which he had arrived from a careful consideration of their contents. Though nothing seemed to have been wanting, either in the instructions to the envoys or in their efforts, he could see no ground of expectation that the objects of the mission could be accomplished on terms compatible with the safety, honor, and essential interests of the United States; or that any thing further in the way of negotiation could be attempted consistently with the principles for which the country had contended at every hazard, and which constituted the basis of our national sovereignty. He therefore reiterated his former recommendations of measures for the protection of "our seafaring and commercial citizens," "the defense of any exposed portion of our territory," "replenishing our arsenals, and establishing founderies and military manufactories," and the provision of an efficient supply for any deficiency of revenue which might be occasioned by depredations on our commerce. He had himself already taken one step toward defense by withdrawing the circular instruction to the collectors not to grant clearances to armed private vessels. This message, as might naturally be expected, pro POLICY OF JEFFERSON AND THE OPPOSITION. 193 XII. duced a great excitement. It was the policy of the op- CHAPTER position, as developed in Jefferson's private correspondence, by keeping the country unarmed, to compel the 1798. acceptance of such terms as France might choose to dictate. To any humiliation on that score, the opposition leaders appeared perfectly insensible. Such humiliation. would fall, according to their view, not on them who had always opposed the policy of the Federal government toward France, nor on the country, but on the administration alone; and the more the administration was humbled and mortified, the more surely would the road to power be open to the opposition. Jefferson, in a confidential March 21 letter to Madison, denounced the president's message as identical with war, in favor of which he could find no reason, "resulting from views either of interest or honor, plausible enough to impose even on the weakest mind." He could only explain "so extraordinary a degree of impetuosity" by reference to "the views so well known to have been entertained at Annapolis, and afterward at the grand Convention by a particular set of men”. meaning, doubtless, the establishment of a monarchy'or, perhaps, instead of what was then in contemplation, a separation of the states, which has been so much the topic of late at the eastward"—a reference to a recent series of articles in the Hartford Courant newspaper, under the signature of "Pelham." The president's former message respecting protection to commerce he had described as "inflammatory;" the present message he denounced as "insane." But while thus suspicious and denunciatory as to the measures and intentions of his own government, Jefferson seems to have relied with a girl-like confidence, equal to that of Monroe himself, un the good faith and fair intentions of Talleyrand and the Directory. He proposed to meet the withdrawal of the |