swayed more by the concurring or adverse passions of the observer, than by reason, or even by the merits of the cause."

This grave-yard charity, like death-bed repentance, has a doubtful air about it and does not reach far; at all events, time wisely and calmly forgets the funereal mood and its extravagance, and takes things for what they are worth. Errors of judgment are more. fatal to the community than those of the heart or motive. Nor is a good motive in a bad cause a subject of praise. Even pity does not follow in the track of the works of an erroneous judgment. To have been on the wrong side in any thing, and to any degree, is always an impediment in the estimation of character. The advocacy of what time and experience prove to be right and best is alone worthy of admiration. The world has never adjudged wisdom to men who have been on the wrong side, and advocated the wrong.

Yet this is not to say that "what did occur," simply because it did occur, however well it may be, can necessarily be held up always as an unimpeachable verdict against the supposably better and wiser demonstrable results of other principles and conduct. Success is often wrong. To be right it must be endowed with certain qualities, bearing the moral and other tests of the present and the future.

CHAPTER IV.

MR. MONROE IN CONGRESS-GENERAL WASHINGTON SENDS HIM TO FRANCE-HIS DEFENSE.

UT Virginia only had a small majority in favor

BUT

of the Constitution, even with the weight of Washington, and without his weight would not have had that, and shared largely the sentiments and doubts of Monroe. At all events, he had lost nothing by his course in that "Sovereign Commonwealth," and among "the good people," as fearful of the work they had done, and thinking his doubting hand would serve them well, he was soon put forward in the next important step in his career.

The first Senators from Virginia in the Congress of the United States were Richard Henry Lee, not a warm friend, and William Grayson, an opposer, of the New Government. In December, 1789, Mr. Grayson, died, and early in the following year the Legislature appointed Mr. Monroe to fill the vacancy, as the third Senator from Virginia. He took his seat in that body on the 6th of December, 1790, and continued in this position until appointed Minister to France by President Washington.

Mr. Monroe now became one of the most intense of the Anti-Federal partisans, and in Congress mainly opposed the measures of the Administration. His early suspicions as to the probable outcome in Wash

ington's case, that is, his falling a prey to bad influences, he thought were at once speedily fulfilled in the powers of Secretary Hamilton, a man whose ability and principles he hated.

On the 8th of April, 1794, Mr. Monroe, then in the United States Senate at Philadelphia, and being possessed of a degree of party hate which would have made him blush for shame twenty-five years later, wrote to President Washington stating that rumors of the appointment of Alexander Hamilton to be Minister to Great Britain were in circulation, and he wished the opportunity of placing before the President his views against such an appointment, and preferring as his motives the two things which have, from that time to the present day, been in the mouths of all partisans and demagogues; namely, "the especial welfare of the country and the best interests of the Administration." He also wrote another letter or so of the same purport to the President, but was not gratified by a personal interview. He received a letter, however, from General Washington, stating that he had never been actuated by any desire other than to serve the best interests of the country in his appointments, as well as in all other acts of his life, but he would be glad to have Mr. Monroe's opinions on any subject he desired, in writing. Mr. Monroe did not see fit to comply with this proposition, and so the matter dropped. And not long after this bit of experience he was unexpectedly appointed Minister to France.

The intense degree of bitterness in politics at this time was greatly owing to the arrival in this country of "Citizen" Genet, the piratical and seditious representative of a bloody commune, composed of the vilest

and most godless men in a most changeful and unexemplary nation. At the outset the Republicans (Democrats) generally favored his cause and supported his villainies, while the Federalists reprobated his entire conduct. Because they did this the Antis accused them of being friendly to Great Britain, and called their party the British party. By reason of their countenancing and upholding many of the outrageous deeds of Genet, and their blind advocacy of the cause of France, and desire that the Government of the United States should do as they were doing, the AntiFederalists (Republicans) were called the French party. But in the end there was little variety of sentiment in this country as to the conduct of this immodest and mad Frenchman; and long ago it ceased to be a matter of question as to which party was right and which was wrong on the French issue of that day.

Although the Democratic leaders finally fell in with the safe and right doctrine of neutrality or non-interference of this Government in the quarrels and wars of the Old World, yet until the days of Andrew Jackson they were unreliable on this point, as the three Democratic Presidents before him, after all their experiences, actually meditated a war-alliance with England, the nation they always pretended to hate intensely, during the Administration of Mr. Monroe.

Mr. Monroe owed his appointment to France mainly to Washington's disposition to conciliate the turbulent rising party spirit of the times. The fact that he had taken an active part in the proceedings of Congress, to a great extent in opposition to the Administration, and with very marked party heat, only operated as an additional

incentive to the extraordinary conduct of General Washington in making the selection. He had undoubtedly a favorable opinion of Monroe's ability, and had no reason for doubting his integrity. And hence he hoped that the cause at stake would be advanced by sending to Paris a Minister whose sentiments toward France would have a tendency to allay the ill-feelings of that country, the character of the agent being a pledge for the good intentions of his Government. Yet the President's greatest anxiety lay in the direction of reconciling and pacifying the factions at home.

Mr. Monroe's appointment was made in May, and on August 2, 1794, he reached Paris. He had set out with the impression that the sentiments of the Administration were really as favorable toward France as his own, and although he took entirely wrong views of the desires and purposes of the Administration, the first letters of the Secretary of State (Mr. Randolph) to him did not clear the matter up, he still choosing to interpret his instructions according to his own sentiments. In fact, his enthusiastic republicanism rendered him unfit or unable to represent the cautious character of Washington.

Mr. Monroe was received with such demonstrations of personal respect as to inflame and overbalance his feelings still further. And his speech before the French Convention was hot and suggestive beyond the grounds of reason for a diplomatic agent in the midst of such events. Upon which the president of the Convention publicly embraced him, and in his reply intimated the propriety of a war alliance with this country, and cunningly, for effect, the speeches and proceedings of the occasion were published in both