State Trials of the United States During the Administrations of Washington and Adams

ever calculated on as possible in judicial warfare-completely deprived those two eminent lawyers of their self possession. He had them down, and soon after adding Mr. Wirt to their number--whom he called a 46 young man," telling him to sit down, though that most courteous and eloquent counsel was then nearly middle aged, a widower, with a family of children-he proceeded to tuck them under his elbow, and at his leisure to apply to them that correction which he had promised. How richly he did so, the trial in the text amply shows.

But not only all Virginia, but the profession throughout the country, was stung to the quick. The Philadelphia bar, as has been already noticed, was aroused by a similar invasion of its prerogative; and for a long time counsel declined to appear before the Judge who had thus violated, as they alleged, the decorum of his office. At the very moment a determination was avowed to obtain an impeachment, and at last, in January 1804, Mr. Randolph rose in the House of Representatives, and made the long-expected charges.

At another period, it will probably be necessary to consider at large this memorable trial; and in the preliminary notes to this work, an outline of Judge Chase's life has been given in which the general character of the proceeding is noticed. At present it is enough to consider its relation to the present case. Five articles of the impeachment were based on Callender's trial, and of these the fate was as follows:

ART. II. Misconduct in refusing to overrule the objection to John Bassett, as a juror. Guilty, 10; Not Guilty, 24.

ART. III. Misconduct in refusing to permit Mr. Taylor to be examined. Guilty, 16.

ART. IV. Rude, contemptuous, and indecent conduct during the trial.

Guilty, 16.

ART. V. Misconduct in issuing bench warrant, instead of summons. Guilty, 34.

Guilty, 18; Not

Guilty, none; Not

ART. VI. Misconduct in refusing continuance. Guilty, 4; Not Guilty, 30. "On the third and fourth articles nothing but Judge Chase's age, and the peculiar party sympathies of the Senate, saved him, as was conceded at the time, from a conviction by the requisite majority of two-thirds. The fourth article, it is true, rested on the abuse of a discretionary power, not susceptible, perhaps, of exact legal measurement; but the rejection of Mr. Taylor's testimony, on which the second article hung, was a palpable and unprecedented violation of the law of evidence, Mr. Taylor was offered to prove the truth of one of the several allegations in the alleged libellous article; the Sedition Act provided that the defendant should be permitted to give the truth in evidence; Judge Chase refused to allow Mr. Taylor to be examined, because it was no defence to justify part of the libellous matter; it was necessary that there should be a justification of the whole. In other words, a witness was rejected, who proved a material part of the defendant's case, simply because the particular witness was not able to prove the whole of it.

Callender himself, like all the other subjects of the sedition law, was a foreigner, and was as depraved in morals as he was malignant in temper. "He seemed to have been a man," says Mr. Harrison, the accomplished historian of Virginia, (2 Hist. of Va. 373,) "in whose heart vindictive passion raged without control." The "Prospect before Us," from which the libellous matter in the text was extracted, is now, as it was then by all honourable minds, surrendered to infamy, and the only regret is, that a creature so contemptible should have been temporarily honoured by the fires of a martyrdom like that which the present trial inflicted. Mr. Tucker (2 Life of Jeff. 120), after mentioning that, on Mr. Jefferson's acces sion, he refused Callender the office of postmaster at Richmond, thus states the sequel of his history.

"It should be further mentioned that Mr. Jefferson, as soon as he became President, exer. cised his powers of pardon in favour of Callender, as well as all others who had been convicted under the Sedition Law, and were then undergoing sentence of imprisonment. He took great offence at the refusal, and in no long time was found writing in opposition to the new administration: and he openly justified his desertion, on the ground of the ill-treatment he had received from Mr. Jefferson. He was of course welcomed by the new allies, and having connected himself with the editor of an obscure journal, recently established in Richmond, (the Recorder,) he poured forth against the republican party generally, and Mr. Jefferson in particular, a torrent of scurrility and slander, of which no example had been previously afforded in the United States, not even by himself. The private life of Mr. Jefferson, present and past, was the subject of the closest scrutiny; and, whenever he was believed to be vulnerable, no matter for what cause, or upon what evidence, he was unhesitatingly as sailed in the grossest and most offensive way. Such, too, are the debasing effects of party malignity, that there were not wanting those of the federal party who were panders to this writer's vindictive calumnies, and communicated every piece of scandal or gossip, no matter how unfit for the public eye, how unsupported by evidence, or improbable in itself, which was thought at all likely to lower the chief magistrate in the eyes of the nation. The paper

which was the vehicle of these slanders, and which previously circulated scarcely out of Richmond, now found its way to the remotest parts of the Union. It remains to be added that, while this wretched libeller, who had now become an habitual sot, was disseminating his slanders and ribaldry with untiring virulence, he was one morning found drowned in James' River, where he had been bathing, it was supposed, in a state of intoxication."

The following letters of Mr. Jefferson are here of some interest:

MR. JEFFERSON TO MR. MONROE.
(3 Jeff. Cor., 503.)

Washington, July 15th, 1802.

“DEAR SIR:—Your favour of the 7th has been duly received. I am really,mortified at the base ingratitude of Callender. It presents human nature in a hideous form. It gives me concern, because I perceive that relief, which was afforded him on mere motives of charity, may be viewed under the aspect of employing him as a writer. When 'The Political Progress of Britain' first appeared in this country, it was in a periodical publication called the Bee, where I saw it. I was speaking of it in terms of strong approbation to a friend in Philadelphia, when he asked me if I knew that the author was there in the city, a fugitive from prosecution on account of that work, and in want of employ for his subsistence. This was the first of my learning that Callender was the author of the work. I considered him as a man of science fled from persecution, and assured my friend of my readiness to do whatever I could to serve him. It was long after this, before I saw him; probably not till 1798. He had in the mean time written a second part of the Political Progress, much inferior to the first, and his History of the United States. In 1798, I think, I was applied to by Mr. Leiper to contribute to his relief. I did so. In 1799, I think, S. T. Mason applied for him. I contributed again. He had by this time paid me two personal visits. When he fled in a panic from Philadelphia to General Mason's, he wrote to me that he was a fugitive in want of employ, wished to know if he could get into a counting house or school, in my neighbour hood or that of Richmond; that he had materials for a volume, and if he could get as much money as would buy the paper, the profit of the sale would be all his own. I availed my self of this pretext to cover a mere charity, by desiring him to consider me a subscriber for as many copies of his book as the money enclosed ($50) amounted to; but to send me two copies only, as the others might lay until called for. But I discouraged his coming into my neighbourhood.

His first writings here had fallen far short of his original "Political Progress," and the scur rilities of his subsequent ones began evidently to do mischief. As to myself, no man wished more to see his pen stopped; but I still considered him as a proper object of benevolence.

The succeeding year he again wanted money to buy paper for another volume. I made his letter, as before, the occasion of giving him another fifty dollars. He considers these as proofs of my approbation of his writings, when they were mere charities, yielded under a strong conviction that he was injuring us by these writings. It is known to many that the sums given him were such, and even smaller than I was in the habit of giving to others in distress, of the federal as well as the republican party, without attention to political princi ples. Soon after I was elected to the government, Callender came on here, wishing to be made postmaster of Richmond. I knew him to be totally unfit for it, and however ready I was to aid him with my own charities (and I then gave him fifty dollars), I did not think the public offices were confided to me to give away as charities. He took it in mortal offence, and from that moment has been hauling off to his former enemies, the federalists. Besides the letter I wrote him in answer to the one from General Mason's, I wrote him another containing answers to two questions he addressed me. 1st. Whether Mr. Jay received salary as chief justice and envoy at the same time? and, 2d. Something relative to the expenses of an embassy to Constantinople. I think these were the only letters I ever wrote him, in answer to volumes he was perpetually writing to me. This is the true state of what has passed between him and me. I do not know that it can be used without committing me in controversy, as it were, with one too little respected by the public to merit that notice. I leave to your judgment what use can be made of these facts."

MR. JEFFERSON TO MRS. ADAMS.

(4 Jeff. Corres., 23.)

Washington, July 22d, 1804. "DEAR MADAM:-Your favour of the 1st instant was duly received, and I would not again have intruded on you, but to rectify certain facts which seem not to have been presented to you under their true aspect. My charities to Callender are considered as rewards for his calumnies. As early, I think, as 1796, I was told in Philadelphia that Callender, the author of the Political Progress of Britain, was in that city, a fugitive from persecution, having written that book, and in distress. I had read and approved the book; I considered him as a man of genius, unjustly persecuted. I knew nothing of his private character, and imme

diately expressed my readiness to contribute to his relief, and to serve him. It was a considerable time after that, on application from a person who thought of him as I did, I contributed to his relief, and afterwards repeated the contribution. Himself I did not see till long after, nor ever more than two or three times. When he first began to write, he told some useful truths in his coarse way; but nobody sooner disapproved of his writing than I did, or wished more that he should be silent. My charities to him were no more meant as encouragements to his scurrilities, than those I gave to the beggar at my door, are meant as rewards for the vices of his life, and to make them chargeable to myself. In truth, they would have been greater to him, had he never written a word, after the work for which he fled from Britain. With respect to the calumnies of writers and printers at large, published against Mr. Adams, I was as far from stooping to any concern or approbation of them as Mr. Adams was respecting those of Porcupine, Fenno, or Russell, who published volumes against me for every sentence rendered by their opponents against Mr. Adams. But I never supposed Mr. Adams had any participation in the atrocities of these editors, or their writers. I knew myself incapable of that base warfare, and believed him to be so. On the contrary, whatever I may have thought of the acts of the administration of that day, I have ever borne testimony to Mr. Adams' personal worth; nor was it ever impeached in my presence, without a just vindication on my part. I never supposed that any person who knew either of us, could believe that either of us meddled in that dirty work.

But another fact is, that I liberated a wretch who was suffering for a libel against Mr. Adams! I do not know who was the particular wretch alluded to; but I discharged every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition law, because I considered, and now consider, that law to be a nullity as absolute and as palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image. It was accordingly done in every instance, without asking what the offenders had done, or against whom they had offended, but whether the pains they were suffering were inflicted under the pretended Sedition law. It was certainly possible that my motives for contributing to the relief of Callender, and liberating under the Sedition law, might have been to protect, encourage, and reward slander; but they may also have been those which inspire ordinary charities to objects of distress, meritorious or not, or the obligation of an oath to protect the Constitution, violated by an unautho rized act of Congress. Which of these were my motives, must be decided by a regard to the general tenor of my life. On this I am not afraid to appeal to any nation at large, to posterity, and still less to that Being who sees himself our motives, who will judge us from his own knowledge of them, and not on the testimony of Porcupine or Fenno.

You observe, there has been one other act of my administration personally unkind, and suppose it will readily suggest itself to me. I declare, on my honour, Madam, I have not the least conception what act is alluded to. I never did a single one with an unkind intention. My sole object, in this letter, being to place before your attention, that the acts imputed to me are either such as are falsely imputed, or as might flow from good as well as bad motives, I shall make no other addition than the assurance of my continued wishes for the health and happiness of yourself and Mr. Adams.”