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The Jacobin Phrenzy: Federalism and the Menace of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Marshall Smelser
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Extract

During the first years of the American federal republic, Europe was being overrun by French revolutionary forces and ideas. Nation after nation had fallen to the revolutionaries–first weakened by propaganda and subversive organizations, then subdued by soldiery, finally converted into subordinate allies. Watching these successes, some Americans feared that the Atlantic was too narrow to keep revolutionary arms and ideology away. Indeed, the ideology seemed already to permeate the country.

American relations with the successful French nation had become tense and strained shortly after France and Britain went to war in 1793. Many people thought the country had been needlessly endangered by mismanagement of our foreign relations in such a way as to antagonize an otherwise friendly French government. Others thought the United States had been imperilled by too great a toleration of pro-French and revolutionary elements among us, who concealed diabolical designs against American security underneath their very vocal admiration for liberty, equality, and fraternity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , October 1951 , pp. 457 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1951

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