A Divided America : The French Revolution & Jay’s Treaty

A Divided America:The French Revolution

& Jay’s Treaty

Presentation created by Robert MartinezPrimary Source Content: America’s History

Images as cited.

America’s merchants profited handsomely during the French

Revolution.

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In 1793, President Washington issued a Proclamation of Neutrality, which allowed U.S. citizens to trade with both the British and the French.

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As neutral carriers, American merchants were initially able to pass their ships through the British naval blockade of

French ports; soon they dominated the lucrative sugar trade between France and

its West Indian islands.

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Commercial earnings rose spectacularly, averaging $20 million

annually in the 1790s, twice the value of cotton and tobacco exports.

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As the American merchant fleet increased dramatically, from 355,000

tons in 1790 to more than 1.1 million tons in 1808, northern ship owners provided work for thousands of shipwrights, sail

makers, laborers, and seamen.

Hundreds of carpenters, masons, and cabinetmakers in the major seaports of

Boston, New York, and Philadelphia found work building warehouses and

fashionable “Federal-style” town houses

for newly affluent merchants.

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Even as they profited from the European struggle, Americans argued passionately over its

ideologies.

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Most Americans had welcomed the French Revolution of 1789 because

it abolished feudalism and established a constitutional

monarchy.

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There was much less consensus, however, in 1792, when the French

formed a democratic republic. Many Americans applauded the downfall of the

French monarchy.

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Conversely, Americans with strong religious beliefs condemned the new

French government because it rejected Christianity and closed many churches, instead promoting a “rational” religion

based on “natural morality.”

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Wealthy Americans also condemned the execution of King Louis XVI, three thousand of the king’s aristocratic

supporters, and fourteen thousand other citizens.

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These ideological conflicts sharpened the debate over

Hamilton’s economic policies and helped to stir up domestic

insurrection.

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In 1794, farmers in western Pennsylvania mounted the Whiskey Rebellion to

protest Hamilton’s excise tax on spirits, which had raised the price, and cut the

demand, for the corn whiskey they bartered for eastern manufactures.

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Like the Sons of Liberty in 1765 and the Shaysites in 1786, the Whiskey

rebels attacked both local tax collectors and the authority of a

distant government.

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They also waved banners proclaiming the French

revolutionary slogan “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity!”

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To uphold national authority and deter secessionist movements along the

frontier, President Washington raised an army of twelve thousand troops and

dispersed the Whiskey rebels.

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Britain’s maritime strategy widened the political divisions in America. In

November 1793, the Royal Navy began to stop American ships carrying French

sugar, eventually seizing more than 250

vessels.

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Hoping to protect American property rights through diplomacy, President Washington dispatched John Jay to

Britain.

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Jay returned with a controversial treaty that acknowledged

Britain’s right to remove French property from neutral ships.

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The treaty also required the U.S. government to make “full and complete compensation” to British merchants for pre-Revolutionary War debts owed by

American citizens who refused to pay them.

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In return, the agreement allowed American merchants to submit claims of illegal

seizure to arbitration and, more important, required the British to remove their military garrisons from the Northwest Territory and

to end their alliance with the Indians there.

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Jefferson and other Republicans attacked the treaty for being too

conciliatory, but the Senate ratified it in 1795, albeit by the bare two-thirds

majority required by the Constitution.

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As long as Hamilton and his Federalist allies were in power, the

United States would have a pro-British foreign policy.

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