REVISED CONSTITUTION OF KENTUCKY. 815 XIV. curious as coming from a party of which Jefferson was CHAPTI ? the great leader, and Gallatin a principal champion. One was a suspicion that Ross' religious views were not or- 1799 thodox, he having voted in convention against that clause of the Constitution of Pennsylvania which required all office-holders to acknowledge "the being of a God, and a future state of rewards and punishments," whereas M'Kean was a very orthodox Presbyterian, and had voted for that clause, without which, as he had remarked, the state might have atheists in office. The having contributed, by his avowed hostility to the Excise Law, to bring about the Whisky Insurrection, constituted a second objection to Ross. Yet in all this there was not wanting a sort of wily policy. The Republicans were sure to vote against Ross at any rate, because he was not of their party, and these objections were only intended for weak-minded Federalists. Somewhat later in the season a convention met in August Kentucky to revise the Constitution of that growing state. George Nicholas, the draughtsman of the former Constitution, and the nominal author of the late nullify. ing resolutions, was recently dead. Of the present Assembly, John Breckenridge, a lawyer of eminence, who had been president of the Democratic Society of Lexington, was the leading spirit. The chief change in the Constitution related to the choice of senators and governor, which were given directly to the people, the coun ties to be arranged into as many districts as there were senators, one fourth of the number to vacate their seats annually, the senatorial term, as under the first Constitution, to be four years. Some attempt was made to introduce a provision for the gradual abolition of slavery, an attempt supported by Henry Clay, a recent immigrant from Virginia, a young lawyer, who commenced a po CHAPTER litical career of half a century, by holding a seat in this XIV. Convention. The attempt met, however, with very 1799. feeble support, and, so far as related to the subject of slavery, the Constitution underwent no change. A similar proposition for the gradual abolition of slav ery had been introduced a short time before into the Maryland Assembly, but it found so little encouragement there as to be withdrawn by the mover. Even in Pennsylvania, a proposition introduced into the Assem bly for the immediate and total abolition of slavery, though supported by the earnest efforts of the Pennsyl vania Abolition Society, failed of success. The contemporaneous act of the state of New York for the gradual abolition of slavery, has been already mentioned. Two judicial decisions, made in the course of the summer, furnished the opposition to the general government with new topics of bitter complaint. In the year 1797 a mutiny had occurred on board the British frigate Hermione, then in the West Indies; several of the officers had been killed, and the vessel, having been carried into La Guayra, on the Spanish Main, had there been sold by the mutineers. In the course of the present summer, one Thomas Nash, former boatswain of the Hermione, and an active leader in the mutiny, had made his appearance at Charleston, in South Carolina, under the name of Nathan Robbins, and having betrayed himself by imprudent boastings, had been arrested at the instance of the British consul, under that clause of Jay's treaty which provided for the mutual surrender of forgers and murderers. Application having been made to the presi dent on the subject, he wrote to Bee, the district judge, to give the prisoner up on proof of identity and the production of such further evidence as would justify his apprehension and commitment for trial had the cffense CASES OF ROBBINS AND WILLIAMS. 317 XIV. occurred within the jurisdiction of the United States. CHAPTER The ground taken by the president was, that a national ship of war on the high seas formed a part of the juris- 1799. diction of the nation under whose flag she sailed. To avert his impending fate, the fugitive mutineer assumed the name of Jonathan Robbins, produced a notarial certificate or "protection" granted in New York, in 1795, to a person of that name, and also made an affidavit that he was born in Danbury, in Connecticut, and that two years before he had been pressed into the British service. In spite, however, of these documents, his identification as the Thomas Nash of the Hermione being complete, he was delivered up, and, being carried to Halifax, was tried by a court martial, found guilty, and hanged. He confessed at his execution that he was an Irishman, and it appeared by the Hermione's books that he had entered the service at the beginning of the war, being entered as born at Waterford. But before the result of this investigation had become known, a great clam or had been raised against the president and Jay's treaty, Charles Pinckney, lately chosen a senator from South Carolina, of which state he had just ceased to be governor, and who had acted as counsel for the prisoner, taking a very active part in it. The president was charged with having given up an American citizen to be tried for a mutiny, in which, if he really did join it, he was justifiable enough, since he had been pressed into the British service; and even after the result of the Halifax court martial was known, the same accusation was still continued, the proof adduced on the trial being represented as manufactured for the occasion. The other case was that of Isaac Williams, one of those American renegadoes who, under color of being naturalized as French citizens, had enriched themselves by pri July. CHAPTER vateering, under the French flag, against American as XIV. well as British commerce. After making himself rich 1799. and notorious by this discreditable means, Williams had Sept. 28. the audacity to return to Connecticut, his native state, there to enjoy his ill-gotten gains. But he was speedily arrested and indicted under that clause of Jay's treaty which prohibited privateering by American citizens against British commerce. The trial came on before Chief-justice Ellsworth-one of the last cases on which he ever sat-and he instructed the jury that Williams, notwithstanding the French letters of naturalization produced in his defense, was still subject to American law, it not being in the power of any man to throw off by his own volition the allegiance to the country in which he had been born. Under this doctrine-held at the present day, by the decided weight even of American authority, to be good law, and never questioned in any other country-Williams was found guilty, and fined and imprisoned; very much to the dissatisfaction of the ultra Republican sympathizers with France, and advo cates of the right and power of expatriation. Another point of law which furnished still further occasion for clamor and alarm was the claim, since abandoned, but then vigorously maintained, of a common law criminal jurisdiction in the Federal courts-the right, that is, without any special statute, to punish by fine and imprisonment, such acts as, without any special statute, were indictable by the common law of England and the states, whenever committed under such circumstances as would bring them within the general range of Federal jurisdiction. Edmund Randolph, who, since his dismissal by Washington, had remained in perfect political obscurity, though enjoying an extensive practice as a lawyer, attempted to recall attention to himself by DOCTRINE OF NULLIFICATION. 319 XIV. a pamphlet against this doctrine,—a work in which he CHAPTER was strenuously encouraged by Jefferson. Nor did Jefferson exhibit any disposition to give up 1799. his own doctrine of nullification, notwithstanding the repudiation of it by so many states. After a consultation between him, Madison, and Wilson C. Nicholas, it was agreed that Madison, who had now again come actively forward, (having been chosen to the House of Delegates on purpose to oppose Patrick Henry,) should draw up a report in answer to the various objections urged against the resolutions of the last session. To make this report as palatable as possible, it was to express great attachment to the Union, and indisposition to break it for slight causes. Jefferson wished, indeed, a positive reservation of the right to make the recent alleged violations of the compact, should these violations be continued or repeated, "the ground of doing hereafter what might rightfully be done now;" but the more cautious and moderate Madison preferred to argue the abstract point of mere right, without going so far as to suggest any actual exercise of it, either present or future. And, indeed, if such a right really existed, Jefferson's proposed reservation was quite superfluous, since any violation of the contract, continued or renewed, would, without any reservation, itself afford ground enough for action. The management of matters in Kentucky was intrusted to Wilson C. Nicholas, then about to make a journey thither to look after the affairs of his deceased brother. He employed as the active agent John Breckenridge, already mentioned, on whom, since the death of George Nicholas, the political leadership of that state had devolved. "To avoid suspicions, which were pretty strong in some quarters on the late occasion," so he himself tells us, Jefferson omitted to prepare any thing in writ |