USA > New York > The Empire State: a compendious history of the commonwealth of New York > Part 36
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* Edmund Charles Genet was born at Versailles, France, in January, 1763, and died at Greenbush, opposite Albany, N. Y., in July, 1834. He was a precocious lad, who early developed a taste and talent for literature, like his notable sister, Madame Campan. He was attached to foreign embassies in his youth, and had been trained in the arts of diplomacy before he came to America. As will be observed in the text, his conduct as representative of the French revolutionists became very obnoxious to our Government. Such changes took place in France that Genet dared not return. He remained in New York, and married the daughter of Governor George Clinton, and became one of the best citizens of the commonwealth. He was twice married, his second wife being the daughter of Mr. Osgood, the first Postmaster-General under the National Constitution. Fond of agriculture, he took great interest in its pursuit. His last illness was occasioned by attendance at a meeting of an agricultural society of which he was president.
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THE MADNESS OF PARTISANSHIP.
of these-L' Ambuscade-the frigate that brought the minister to our shores, went prowling up the coast, seizing English vessels, and pro- ceeded to Philadelphia, bearing at her masthead and elsewhere liberty- caps. She was greeted by a multitude of citizens with " peals of exnlta- tion," Jefferson wrote to Madison. Genet soon followed. He had received everywhere on his land journey demonstrations of delight. He was met at the Schuylkill by a crowd of citizens and escorted into Philadelphia, where he was entertained at a public banquet by his Republican friends before he had presented his credentials to the Presi- dent of the United States ! He had changed the name of L' Ambuscade to Little Democrat, in French. and from that time the Republicans were called " Democrats" in derision .*
Genet bore secret instructions from his Government to foment discord between Great Britain and the United States, and to set the American Government at defiance, if necessary, to accomplish his purpose ; and yet when he presented his credentials to the President he uttered the most vehement protestations of the peaceful and friendly intentions of the French Republic. " Nothing," wrote Jefferson, " could be more affectionate, more magnanimous than the purport of Genet's mission. He offers everything and asks nothing." But when Genet left the presence of Washington the minister's pride was touched and his hopeful ardor was chilled. He had found himself in an atmosphere of the most profound dignity in that presence, and he was made to realize
* Madness appears to have seized some of the staid citizens of Philadelphia at that moment. The sympathizers with the French revolutionists at that banquet (May 23d, 1793) presented some strange seenes. Governor Mifflin was among the guests. The chief music was the air of the " Marseillaise." A Liberty Tree crowned the table. The flags of the two nations were fraternally enfolded. A red cap of liberty was first placed on the head of Genet and then upon the head of each guest, who, while it rested there, uttered some patriotic sentiment. A roasted pig on the table received the name of the murdered King of the French. The head of the pig was severed from the body and carried round to each guest, who, after placing the liberty-cap on his head, pronounced the word " tyrant," and proceeded to mangle with his knife the head of the luckless porker ! Earlier than this, at a public dinner in Philadelphia to celebrate the alliance with France (February 6th, 1778), a pike at the head of the table bore upon its point a bonnet rouge entwined with the flags of the two nations.
There was a strange political demonstration at Boston a few days earlier. An ox was roasted whole, decorated with ribbons, and borne in a procession through the streets on a car drawn by sixteen horses, followed by carts carrying sixteen hundred loaves of bread and two hogsheads of punch, which were distributed among the people. Three hundred citizens, with Samuel Adams at their head, sat down to a banquet. The children of all the schools were paraded in the streets, to whom cakes were presented bearing the stamped words, Liberty and Equality.
The citizens of New York did not indulge in such extravagances at that time.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
his own littleness while standing before that noble representative of the best men and soundest principles of the American Republie. He with- drew from the audience abashed and subdned. He had heard sentiments of sineere regard for the French nation that touched the sensibilities of his heart, and he had felt in the genuine courtesy and severe simplicity and frankness of the President's manner, wholly free from effervescent enthusiasm, a withering rebuke, not only of the adulation in publie places, but also of his own pretentions aspirations and ungenerous duplicity. He had already been rebuked by the action of more than three hundred merchants and other substantial men in Philadelphia, who on the day of his arrival had signed and presented to President Washington an address expressing their unswerving loyalty to the letter and spirit of his proclamation of neutrality.
The Republicans were irrepressible. In their infatuation they formed Democratie societies in various eities, in imitation of the Jacobin clubs of Paris. Their operations were in secret, and their proceedings were often extremely disloyal. In servile imitation of their prototypes, they adopted the peculiar phrases of the populace of Paris, and a power- ful faction was soon visible in the United States more French than American in their habits of thought and political principles.
The Government went straight forward in the performance of its duty, satisfied that it would be sustained by the great mass of the . American people. British vessels captured by privateers were restored to their owners ; American citizens acting as privateers were prosecuted ; collectors at ports of the United States were ordered to seize all priva- teers that entered them ; Chief Justice Jay declared it to be the duty of all Grand Juries to present for trial persons engaged in such violation of the laws of nations ; and the privateers were ordered to leave American waters forthwith.
Genet and his American partisans were greatly irritated. Enconraged by the disloyal faction, Genet vehemently protested against the acts of the Government, and even threatened to " appeal from the Presi- dent to the people" -- in other words, to incite an insurrection. He actually began to fit ont a privateer at Philadelphia, when Governor Mifflin, though a Republican, threatened to seize the vessel if he per- sisted. Jefferson soon found his French friend exceedingly troublesome. He begged him to pause in his ontrageous career. The minister refused to listen, and raved like a madman. Jefferson, disgusted with his con- duct, joined Washington in requesting the French Government to recall their obnoxious representative. Genet went to New York, where he was received with more enthusiasm, if possible, than at Philadelphia.
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CITIZEN GENET IN NEW YORK.
He was welcomed by ringing of bells and salvos of cannon fired in honor of the success of the Republicans of France. A great meeting had been held in the Fields (now City Hall Park), at whichi a committee of forty had been appointed to meet him at Paulns Hook (Jersey City) and escort him into the town. The Federalists, supported by the Chamber of Commerce, held counter meetings, denounced Genet's conduct, and warmly endorsed the Proclamation of Neutrality.
The Republican newspapers in New York had zealously espoused the French cause, and the minister was feted and caressed to his heart's con- tent. The liberty-cap was raised upon the flag-staff at the Tontine Coffee-House ; tri-colored cockades were worn by many citizens ; the Marseillaise Hymn was chanted and the carmagnole * was performed in the streets. For a time New York seemed transformed into a French city.+
Genet was recalled. A political change had taken place in France. He was of the Girondist or more moderate faction, who ruled when he came here. They had fallen, and the Jacobins were conducting the dreadful Reign of Terror. He dared not return, so he married a daughter of Governor Clinton, and remained in the State of New York.
During the Reign of Terror in France an immense number of its wealthier and more refined population fled to other countries. America became the favorite refuge for these emigres, and the city of New York
" A dance, with singing, performed in the streets of Paris during the Revolution.
+ At a meeting of the Democratic Society in New York the following song, com- posed by Thelwall, an English Radical, was sung to the air of " God Save the King :"
"God save the Guillotine ! Till England's King and Queen His power shall prove ; Till each anointed knob Affords a clipping job, Let no rude halter rob The Guillotine.
"France, let thy trumpet sound- Tell all the world around How Capet fell ; And when Great George's poll Shall in the basket roll, Let mercy theu control The Guillotine.
"When all the sceptred crew Have paid their homage due The Gullotine, Let Freedom's flag advance Till all the world, like France, O'er tyrants' graves shall dance And peace begin !"
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
was their principal resort. They produced a sensible effect upon society there. French fashions, French furniture, French manners and customs, and the French language became prevalent. Even when the emigrants were permitted to return home after the downfall of Robespierre and they had left this country, their influence continued to be felt in social life in New York for many years.
The disloyalty and insubordination of the Republican faction, inaugu- rated by the official acts of Genet, were conspicuously manifested the following year in the event known in our history as " The Whiskey Insurrection ;" and the violence of political antagonisms was as conspic- nously displayed in 1795, when the provisions of a treaty with Great Britain, which Mr. Jay had negotiated, were made known. That treaty was the result of an attempt on the part of the President to avert the calamities of war with Great Britain, which circumstances seemed to be engendering. The British Government had failed in complying with the treaty of peace of 1783, in giving up forts in the western country and in other matters. This event, on one side, and the hostile attitude toward Great Britain and partiality for France of the Republicans, on the other side, so menaced the peace between the two nations that Washington sent Jay on the righteous errand to secure tranquillity and justice. The Republicans opposed the mission as a cringing to Great Britain and an affront to France, and when it was known that the treaty had not seeured all that the United States demanded, and especially that it bound our Government to a strict neutrality in all wars between Great Britain and other nations (the spirit of the proclamation of neutrality), there was a burst of indignation from the opposition which knew no bounds for a while. They used the most strenuous efforts to induce the President and Senate to refuse their ratification of the treaty.
The first public demonstration in that direction was made in Boston. An anonymous handbill was distributed throughout New York, calling on the citizens to meet in front of the City Hall, in Wall Street, on July 18th (1795), to join the Bostonians in expressing their opposition to the treaty. The meeting assembled. Aaron Burr, Chancellor Livingston, and Brockholst Livingston (the latter a brother-in-law of Jay, who had joined the Republican Party) were leaders of the opposition. The Federalists had gathered there in full force, and were led by Alexander Hamilton and Richard Varick." They succeeded in electing a chairman
* Richard Varick was a descendant of one of the earlier Dutch settlers of New York. He was born in Hackensack, N. J., in 1753, and died in New York City in July, 1831. When the war for independence broke out he was a young lawyer in New York. He entered the military service, and was General Schuyler's military secretary until after the
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JAY'S TREATY.
from among their number, and then proposed to adjourn. The Repub- licans objected. Then it was moved that the disposition of the treaty be left to the President and Senate. The question being taken, both sides claimed the majority, when a seene of violence ensued. Hamilton, standing upon the elevated " stoop" of a Dutch house on the corner of Wall and Broad streets, attempted to speak in defence of the treaty, when he was stoned, dragged to the ground by the Republicans, and roughly handled in the street. A motion was made to appoint a committee of fifteen to report three days later. It was pro- nouneed carried. Then the tumult increased. Some person in the crowd shouted :
" All you who agree to adjourn to Bowling Green and burn the British treaty will say Aye."
There was a tremendous affirma- tive response, and the excited op- position ran, shouting, to the Bowling Green, where a copy of the treaty was burned beneath the entwined folds of the American RICHARD VARICK. and French flags, while the car- magnole was performed. At the adjourned meeting, on the 21st, attended mostly by Republicans, a series of resolutions was adopted condemnatory of the treaty. The next day the Chamber of Commerce adopted counter resolutions.
Mr. Jay was violently abused. He was denonneed as a " traitor who had sold his country for British gold." In Charleston the populace trailed the British flag in the dust and burned it at the door of the British consul. Some of the more violent Republicans longed for the guil- lotine, while leaders in Virginia, ever ready with the panacea of dis-
surrender of Burgoyne. He was inspector-general at West Point until after the treason of Arnold, when he became a member of Washington's military family, and was his recording secretary until the close of the war. After the British evacuated the city of New York, in November, 1783, he was appointed recorder of that municipality, and held the office until 1789, when he became attorney-general of the State, and subsequently mayor of the city, which position he held until 1801. He had been associated with Samuel Jones in making a revision of the laws of the State (1786-88). In 1787 he was speaker of the Assembly. Colonel Varick was one of the founders of the American Bible Society and one of its most efficient members.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
union, offered their prescription in vehement language. The treaty was ratified in August, and the effervescence of passion soon ceased.
These turbulent events in New York and elsewhere, and the support given them by the secret Democratic societies, caused Washington to denounce secret associations as dangerous to the public welfare. The Tammany Society, or Columbian Order, which had been formed at the beginning of his administration as a patriotic and benevolent institution, regarding itself as pointed at, and being largely composed of Republicans, or Democrats, was transformed into a political organization in opposition to the Federalists. It still exists, and plays an important part in the politics of the State of New York .*
In his message to the Legislature, which convened at Poughkeepsie on January 6th, 1795, Governor Clinton reminded that body that while liberal provisions had been made for the endowment of colleges and other higher seminaries of learning, no legislative aid had yet been given to common schools. He recommended that provisions be made for their encouragement and improvement. This was the first official move- ment in the State of New York for extending the fostering care of the
* The Tammany Society, or Columbian Order, was formed chiefly through the exertions of William Mooney, an upholsterer in the city of New York, in May, 1789. Its first meeting was held on the 13th of that month, a fortnight after the inauguration of Wash- ington. It took its name from a great and good Delaware chief, who, was supposed to have been one of those who made the famous treaty with William Penn. He was revered by the Delawares, and the early settlers called him " Saint Tammany," or Tamenand. He " loved liberty better than life," it was asserted, and the new society professed the same. The officers consisted of a grand sachem and thirteen inferior sachems, represent- ing the President and the governors of the thirteen States in the Union. There was also a grand couneil, of which the sachems were members. It was patriotie in its influence and very popular, and its membership comprised many of the best men of New York. For reasons given in the text, Mooney and others adhered to the organization, but took part with Jefferson and the Democratic Party. They first met as a political organization at Martling's Long Room, at the south-east corner of Nassau and Spruce streets. They built a wigwam on the spot. The corner-stone of the hall was laid in May, 1811, and the building was completed the following year. The venerable Jacob Barker, who died in Philadelphia in 1871, at the age of ninety-two years, was the last survivor of the building committee. The certificate of membership of the reorganized Tammany Society bore a device of an arch composed of two cornucopias ; the supports, resting upon a solid stone arch composed of eighteen blocks, represented the seventeen States and one Territory then in the Union, that of Pennsylvania forming the keystone. Under the cornucopia arch are the words :
" Civil Liberty the Glory of Man. This Sheweth a Link of that Bright and Lasting CHAIN of Patriotic Friendship which binds together
THE SONS OF TAMMANY."
Then follows the certificate, with the seal and signatures of the grand sachem, sagamore, and sentry.
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THE COMMON-SCHOOL SYSTEM.
commonwealth to these most important institutions-far more important to the welfare of the commonwealth than colleges and universities. The Legislature heeded the recommendation of the governor, and at that session passed a law appropriating annually for five years $50,000, and directed the specific sums to be paid by the State treasurer to each county. The act provided that the supervisors of the several counties should apportion the money among the respective towns, and a sum . equal to one half the sum received from the State by the several towns was required to be raised by a tax in such towns and added to the bounty of the State. The sum thus made up was to be distributed in each school district, under the direction of the town commissioners.
A Literature Fund was created by the operation of an act passed in April, 1801, which authorized four lotteries, for the purpose of raising $100,000 for the joint benefit of colleges, academies, and common schools, but chiefly for the latter. This fund has been increased from various sources from time to time. It was managed by the regents of the University until 1832, when it was transferred to the comptroller for investment, the Legislature appropriating the proceeds annually.
The State of New York has been and continues to be very liberal in its provisions for popular education. During the closing year of the first century of the Republic (1875) the expenditure from the public treasury of the State for educational purposes amounted to about $11,364,000, of which amount about $2,960,000 were the proceeds of a direct tax of 14 mills for common schools. *
* There was no general system of primary education in the State of New York before the Revolutionary War. The schools were chiefly of a private character, and education was confined largely to the wealthier classes. In 1789 an aet was passed appropriating certain portions of the public lands for gospel and school purposes. The regents of the University in 1793 recommended the establishment of a general system of common schools, and this led to the recommendation of Governor Clinton in his message mentioned in the text. In the spring of 1801 Judge Peck, of Otsego County, then a member of the Legislature, introdneed a bill which by its provisions created the Literature Fund mentioned in the text.
The great benefits of the common-school system were immediately apparent, and successive governors recommended the passage of new laws for the encouragement and support of common schools. Nothing definite was accomplished until 1811, when five commissioners were appointed to report a complete system for the organization and estab- lishment of common schools. In 1812 the Legislature passed a bill in accordance with their report, under which Gideon Hawley was appointed State Superintendent of Common Schools. The office was abolished in 1821, and his duties were assigned to the department of the Secretary of State. In 1835 teachers' departments in academies, one in each sena- torial distriet-a sort of normal school-were authorized. In 1838 the school district library system was established, and in 1841 the office of deputy superintendent was created-in other words, county superintendent ; and in 1843 the Board of Town
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
The Board of Regents of the State of New York alluded to was estab- lished in 1784, when the name of King's College was changed to Co- lumbia College, and that institution was to be made the centre of a devised extensive system of education. Subordinate branches were to be established in different parts of the State, the whole to be under the control of the regents. The board was to be composed of the principal State officers -- two persons from each connty, and one chosen by each religious denomination. The number of the regents was afterward increased by adding thirty-three others, twenty of whom were to reside in the city of New York. The authorship of this scheme is attributed to Alexander Hamilton, then in the Assembly, assisted by Ezra L'Hommedien,* then in the Senate. It was found to be impracticable, and by an act passed in April, 1787, it was superseded by a system which has continued, with slight modifications, until the present time. The officers of the board are a chancellor, vice-chancellor, and secretary. They have the general supervision of all the educational institutions of the State and the distribution of a portion of the Literature Fund. They appoint the librarian and assistants of the State Library and a curator of the State Cabinet. Six members form a quorum for the transaction of business.
Both Governor Clinton and Lieutenant-Governor van Cortlandt de- clined to be a candidate for re-election in the spring of 1795. It was
Inspectors and School Commissioners was abolished and the office of town superintendent was substituted. In 1847 a State normal school was established at Albany for the instruction of teachers. In the same year the office of county superintendent was abol- ished, and teachers' institutes were legally established.
By act of the Legislature in the spring of 1849 free schools were established through- out the State, and the condition of the rate-bill system was abolished. It was soon found not to work well in practice. The law was repealed in 1851, and the rate-bill system was restored. In 1853 Union free schools were permitted under certain conditions.
In the spring of 1854 the office of superintendent of public instruction was created-a virtual restoration of the office filled by Gideon Hawley from 1813 to 1821. In 1855 the regents of the University were authorized to designate certain academies in the several counties in which teachers' classes might be taught free, allowing $10 for each pupil so taught, to a number not exceeding twenty in each academy. The office of school commis- sioner was created in 1856-really a reinstatement of the office of county superintendent.
* Ezra L'Hommedieu was born at Southold, Long Island, N. Y., in August, 1734, and died there in September, 1811. He was of a Huguenot family from Rochelle, France. Ezra was a lawyer, an active patriot, and a member of the New York Provincial Con- gress, 1775-78. He assisted in framing the first State Constitution, and was for many years a member of the Continental Congress. He was also a State senator from 1784 until 1809. He had been a member of the State Assembly from 1777 to 1783. Once he was a member of the Council of Appointment, and he was a regent of the University from 1787 until his death. In politics he was a Federalist.
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POLITICAL CHANGES IN NEW YORK.
evident that the horrors of the French Revolution had largely diminished the number of American sympathizers with the cause of the French Republicans, and there seemed little doubt that the Federalists were about to assume political control of the State. Clinton had been gov- ernor, by successive re-elections, since 1777, and had served the public with ability and faithfulness. The Federalists nominated John Jay for the exalted station. He was then in England, but was elected by a large majority, with Stephen van Rensselaer (the patroon) as lieutenant- governor. The Federalists also secured a majority in both branches of the Legislature.
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