John Fries, a Pennsylvania militia captain sentenced to death as a traitor after freeing tax resisters from federal captivity in 1799, survived his death sentence when President John Adams decided to pardon him. But his treason conviction did have a serious consequence: Fries lost his position as a militia captain. Removing him from that office, the militiamen of Montgomery County instead elected him [added later: in 1800] to the rank of lieutenant colonel. So, you know, militia officers had to be very careful not to commit any capital crimes in the early republic, because it might get them promoted.
Also elected to field grade in Pennsylvania that year: Thomas Cooper, a republican newspaper editor convicted under the sedition act. He became the colonel of the Northampton County militia while still confined in a Philadelphia jail.
The standard history of military force in the early republic has Americans opposed to a professional army and preferring to rely on the militia. But it's difficult to overstate how little the people in political power believed they could rely on the militia -- and not just because they regarded the militia as an ineffective military force. Presidents and governors didn't trust the militia because they couldn't trust the militia. My sentiments are entirely with Fries and Cooper, who were on the right side against a gang of High Federalist assholes, but the point is that government officials preferred professional forces precisely because they could separated from the people at large. They could be held to the political will of their leaders in a way that the ordinary men of the militia could not.
See also the January, 1799 address of Georgia Governor James Jackson to the state legislature: "And here I have to remark that lieut. col. Watkins, of the Richmond county regiment, has also made declarations in the public prints, that he will never consider himself bound by certain parts of the constitution. This, as a public officer, is going to great lengths indeed. Will never feel himself bound by certain parts of the constitution, and those parts not specified!"
Despite their many flowery speeches about the glorious militia of the republic, early American political leaders never much wanted to turn their backs on the thing. It was a problem that they never solved, but also a problem they never stopped trying to solve. They did not prefer the militia to professional military forces.
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9 comments:
Things are so much simpler now: people who subvert the Constitution and violate laws intended to preserve our national security are never considered heroes or given positions of responsibility once their crimes are revealed.
Cooper was convicted in 1800, not 1799.
You're right -- the mistake was in the set-up. See the first paragraph for the correction.
I can understand sympathy for Cooper, but why for Fries?
Headed to bed -- detailed answer on Monday....
The High Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton ("America's First David Addington"®), used the extremely dubious threat of a French invasion to justify the creation of an army that would have been, in relative terms, ginormous (in the context of its time and place). In particular, Hamilton won congressional authorization for twelve new regiments that were to be led only by Federalist officers, who Hamilton intended to vet personally. Look at this army alongside the Alien and Sedition Acts, and you can see what it was supposed to be for. Hamilton was trying to build an armed wing of the Federalist Party, using state finance to secure political power through armed coercion. Also, Hamilton would have had something close to sole power over his new army, since Washington -- very old, basically homebound -- notionally commanded it and Hamilton was AG.
So, first, republican tax resisters were making the same kinds of arguments that jailed republican newspaper editors were making: they were saying, correctly, that Hamilton was manufacturing a threat to capture revenue in the service of his personal agenda, and developing armed force that would serve his own political interests. So they didn't want to pay for the thing.
Second, the High Federalists depicted Fried as a craaaaaazy radical, who made a wild-eyed attack on federal marshals and dragged away their prisoners by armed force. Paul Douglas Newman's really great scholarship has established that Fries was a calm negotiator who made a slow, quiet effort to release prisoners who he (and many others) regarded as having been improperly arrested. After several discussions, he finally said that, look, we're just taking the prisoners, and we'll pay bail for them. The marshals refused to take the bail, believing it would grant legitimacy to Fries and his followers. But no one was hurt, or anything close to it. The Fries Rebellion was nonviolent, careful, accompanied by petitions for relief -- all the steps in what Wayne Lee describes as the "signaling" of armed political protest in the early republic.
Third, Fries didn't flee, didn't fight, etc. -- he submitted to arrest and trial, and calmly stood ready to accept the consequences of his choices.
Fourth, Fries had a history: he had fought in the Revolution, and had led militia forces during the Whiskey Rebellion. He served the nation that sentenced him to death, and he was entitled to consideration.
Put all of this together, and it makes sense that Adams pardoned him. And it makes sense, too, that Pennsylvania militiamen respected him and wanted to have him serve in a leadership position. I think his courage, integrity, and political wisdom are clear, and I think Alexander Hamilton was a power hungry lunatic jackass.
Forgive the typos in the above -- I was in a hurry. Also, I meant to provide links for Wayne Lee and his book about restraint and signaling in early American political violence....
Thanks for the info. My in-depth knowledge of the subject (a dimly remembered paragraph in a book years ago and a cursory wiki) wasn't enough, it seems.
Better yet, a big brown truck just dropped off a new book, and it describes Fries arriving with his militia company, joined by two other militia companies that "paraded under arms in front of the tavern" -- behaving formally like the militia, not a mob -- where the federal marshal was holding the tax resisters. And then:
"During this confrontation, Fries used the minimum necessary force to achieve his purpose. When Fries demanded the release of the prisoners, [federal marshal William] Nichols insisted that he could not simply yield. 'I cannot give them up willingly,' Nichols told Fries, 'but if you take them by force, I cannot help it.' Fries, correctly thinking he heard a deal offered, collected his men."
Those were two smart guys in that tavern.
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