In April 1778, a number of prominent Essex County men gathered in Ipswich to discuss the drafting of a new Massachusetts constitution, and became the local backbone of the Federalist Party, advocating the financial policies of Alexander Hamilton. Among its members were George Cabot, Timothy Pickering, Nathan Dane, and Theophilus Parsons. President John Adams coined the name “Essex Junto” for this group, whom he deemed his political adversaries. Rumors abounded about the so-called Junto, fueling antipathy among Jeffersonian Republicans to Eastern Massachusetts elitists.
The Federalist Party dominated Ipswich politics until its demise in 1816, and political discourse filled the air. Excerpts below are from Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, by Thomas Franklin Waters follow:
Clouds and Gloom
Gen. George Washington died on Dec. 14, 1799, and the town went into mourning. The pirates of Algiers and Tripoli continuing their depredations on the ships of all the United States and the European Powers were making the most humiliating concessions to secure exemption from attack.
The feeble navy of the United States brought the Mediterranean pirates to terms in 1806, but British men-of-war were constantly impressing sailors from American vessels, claiming them as deserters from the British navy. War with England seemed unavoidable.
The Jeffersonian party, known as Anti-Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, or simply Republicans, favored active measures of retaliation. Though Ipswich was strongly Federalist, the Jeffersonian minority was active and vigorous. Federalists warned that Jefferson was a dangerous revolutionary hostile to religion, and would drag us into war with Britain.
On July 4, 1805, the Town celebrated the national anniversary with a procession to Swazey’s Tavern and the church at the South Green. The newly-arrived Baptist minister “Citizen Pottle,” by special request addressed the Supreme Being and then made a very ingenious, pertinent, and solemn discourse, followed by a toast:
“The Venerable Town of Ipswich. May it be purged of all old Toryism and mock Federalism,”
As the other ministers in town were strong Federalists, his toasts aroused the suspicion that the whole celebration was largely a spirited demonstration of Baptist enthusiasm availing itself of the great midsummer holiday. The final toasts of the day were:
“May more Piety and less Politics adorn the American Clergy.”
“Citizen Pottle. May his Labours of Love abide on our minds.”
Good order and decency being nonetheless observed, the day was closed agreeably.
The oldest photo we have of the Town Wharf. The Embargo of 1807 halted shipping, and Ipswich began a downward slide. Photo courtesy of Billy Barton
Embargo with England
In December 1807, President Jefferson proclaimed an Embargo with Britain, which had been voted by Congress, forbidding all American vessels to leave United States ports for foreign countries and prohibiting foreign vessels from sailing, except with the cargo actually on board. The ports of Ipswich, Newburyport, and Salem were instantly paralyzed.
By 1808, New England ports were at a standstill and its cities and towns were heading into a depression. The people of Ipswich were united in their opposition to the Embargo, and the Town Meeting dictated a complaint to President Jefferson. (Read the full complaint.)
- That the laws of the United States, laying an embargo on all ships and vessels in the country, have operated in a very grievous manner on all classes of our citizens;
- That farmers, mechanics, fishermen, and manufacturers have, in their turns, experienced and still experience their ill effects; and we cannot contemplate their further continuance without most disquieting apprehensions;
- Nor will we believe, that the regular expression of the wishes of a free people can be offensive to enlightened and patriotic rulers.
- Therefore, your petitioners beg leave to suggest, whether the great events which have lately taken place in Europe will not afford your Excellency an opportunity for relieving the people of this once prosperous country from their present embarrassed and distressed condition.
To which the President replied, (Read in full)
“I would, with great willingness, have executed the wishes of the inhabitants of the town of Ipswich, had peace or a repeal of the obnoxious edicts, or other changes, produced the case in which alone the laws have given me that authority… But while these edicts remain, the legislature alone can prescribe the course to be pursued.”
At this juncture, the Republican Convention of Essex County met at Ipswich on February 24th, 1808, and adopted the platform: “We consider the Embargo at the present crisis as a measure best calculated to preserve our property from plunder, our seamen from impressment, and our nation from the horrors of War.”
The Federalists of Ipswich met on Friday evening, March 25th, and adopted a lengthy Report of their Committee. Their forecast was gloomy indeed: “National ruin is not far distant when our beloved country seems destined to be whirled into the all-devouring vortex of unbounded and lawless ambition and like every other republic to be blotted out from the already reduced and almost annihilated catalog of free and independent nations.”
For the Fourth of July celebration of 1808, upwards of a hundred citizens marched to the meeting house of the First Parish, where Dr. Dana read Washington’s Farewell Address. On hearing that the leader of the Democratic party in the Town had likewise read Washington’s Farewell Address to its assembly, the following toast was given by one of the Federalist Company:
“May the tomb of Washington never again be profaned by a hypocritical tear, nor his legacy by a Jacobin reader.”
Harmony and good order again prevailed through the day, and the Clergy judiciously retired after twenty toasts had been drunk.
The extremists in the Essex Junto are credited by historians with destroying the Federalist Party. Unable to stop the political ascension of the Southerners and Westerners in the Democratic-Republican Party, a few proposed splitting the country into Northern and Southern Confederacies. In a letter to George Cabot, Timothy Pickering wrote, “The last refuge of Federalism is New England.” He advocated that the “British provinces in Canada and Nova Scotia, with the assent of Great Britain may become members of the Northern Confederacy. Certainly that government can only feel disgust at our present leaders.”
When war was declared against Great Britain in 1812, all members of the Essex Junto came forward in support of England and became referred to as the “Peace Faction.” Members of the Junto were so enraged that they renewed their calls for a Northern Confederation. The Federalists were without a prominent leader after an exasperated Alexander Hamilton forsook the Junto and endorsed Jefferson for President. Jefferson wrote, “The ‘Essex Junto’ alone desire separation. The majority of the Federalists do not aim at separation. Monarchy and separation is the policy of the Essex Federalists.”
The Federalists were routed in the 1812 polls, resulting in a diminished national role for the Essex Junto. Their final attempt at relevancy was a series of secret meetings of 26 delegates from New England known as the Hartford Convention. Their final report included:
- Several proposals to amend the U.S. Constitution.
- Prohibiting any trade embargo lasting over 60 days
- Requiring a two-thirds Congressional majority for declaration of war or admission of a new state
- Repealing the three-fifths compromise
- Limiting future presidents to one term
Nathan Dane of Ipswich and Beverly was one of the most important delegates to the Hartford Convention, being on (1) the committee to determine what subjects would be appropriate to discuss at the Convention, and (2) a committee assigned to report why the Convention had adopted the proposals.
Sources & Further reading:
- Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, by Thomas Franklin Waters
- The Northern Confederacy According to the Plans of the “Essex Junto”, 1796-1814 by Charles Raymond Brown
- The Myth of the Essex Junto by David H. Fisher
- Understanding the Essex Junto: Fear, Dissent, and Propaganda in the Early Republic, Dinah Mayo-Bobee, The New England Quarterly
- Nathan Dane’s Role in the Hartford Convention of 1814-1815 by Ethan Norton
EXCERPTS FROM A LETTER TO WILLIAM SHORT FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON
January 8, 1825
Dear Sir,
—I returned the first volume of Hall by a mail of a week ago, and by this, shall return the second. We have kept them long, but every member of the family wished to read his book, in which case, you know, it had a long gauntlet to run. It is impossible to read thoroughly such writings as those of Harper and Otis, who take a page to say what requires but a sentence, or rather, who give you whole pages of what is nothing to the purpose. A cursory race over the ground is as much as they can claim. It is easy for them, at this day, to endeavor to whitewash their party, when the greater part are dead of those who witnessed what passed, others old and become indifferent to the subject, and others indisposed to take the trouble of answering them.
As to Otis, his attempt is to prove that the sun does not shine at mid-day; that that is not a fact which everyone saw. He merits no notice. It is well known that Harper had little scruple about facts where detection was not obvious. By placing in false lights whatever admits it, and passing over in silence what does not, a plausible aspect may be presented of anything. He takes great pains to prove, for instance, that Hamilton was no monarchist, by exaggerating his own intimacy with him, and the impossibility, if he was so, that he should not, at some time, have betrayed it to him. This may pass with uninformed readers, but not with those who have had it from Hamilton’s own mouth. I am one of those, and but one of many.
At my own table, in presence of Mr. Adams, Knox, Randolph, and myself, in a dispute between Mr. Adams and himself, he avowed his preference of monarchy over every other government, and his opinion that the English was the most perfect model of government ever devised by the wit of man, Mr. Adams agreeing “if its corruptions were done away.” While Hamilton insisted that “with these corruptions it was perfect, and without them it would be an impracticable government.” Can anyone read Mr. Adams’ defence of the American Constitution without seeing that he was a monarchist? And J. Q. Adams, the son, was more explicit than the father, in his answer to Paine’s rights of man.
So much for leaders. Their followers were divided. Some went the same lengths, others, and I believe the greater part, only wished a stronger Executive. When I arrived at New York in 1790, to take a part in the administration, being fresh from the French Revolution, while in its first and pure stage, and consequently somewhat whetted up in my own republican principles, I found a state of things, in the general society of the place, which I could not have supposed possible. Being a stranger there, I was feasted from table to table, at large set dinners, the parties generally from twenty to thirty. The revolution I had left, and that we had just gone through in the recent change of our own government, being the common topics of conversation, I was astonished to find the general prevalence of monarchical sentiments, insomuch that in maintaining those of republicanism, I had always the whole company on my hands, never scarcely finding among them a single co-advocate in that argument, unless some old member of Congress happened to be present. The furthest that anyone would go, in support of the republican features of our new government, would be to say, “the present constitution is well as a beginning, and may be allowed a fair trial; but it is, in fact, only a stepping stone to something better.” Among their writers, Denny, the editor of the Portfolio, who was a kind of oracle with them, and styled the Addison of America, openly avowed his preference of monarchy over all other forms of government, prided himself on the avowal, and maintained it by argument freely and without reserve, in his publications. I do not, myself, know that the Essex junto of Boston were monarchists, but I have always heard it so said, and never doubted.
These, my dear Sir, are but detached items from a great mass of proofs then fully before the public. They are unknown to you, because you were absent in Europe, and they are now disavowed by the party. But, had it not been for the firm and determined stand then made by a counterparty, no man can say what our government would have been at this day. Monarchy, to be sure, is now defeated, and they wish it should be forgotten that it was ever advocated. They see that it is desperate, and treat its imputation to them as a calumny; and I verily believe that none of them have it now in direct aim. Yet the spirit is not done away. The same party now takes what they deem the next best ground, the consolidation of the government; the giving to the federal member of the government, by unlimited constructions of the constitution, a control over all the functions of the States, and the concentration of all power ultimately at Washington.
The true history of that conflict of parties will never be in possession of the public, until, by the death of the actors in it, the hoards of their letters shall be broken up and given to the world. I should not fear to appeal to those of Harper himself, if he has kept copies of them, for abundant proof that he was himself a monarchist. I shall not live to see these unrevealed proofs, nor probably you; for time will be requisite. But time will, in the end, produce the truth. And, after all, it is but a truth which exists in every country, where not suppressed by the rod of despotism.
Men, according to their constitutions, and the circumstances in which they are placed, differ honestly in opinion. Some are whigs, liberals, democrats, call them what you please. Others are tories, serviles, aristocrats, &c. The latter fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society; the former consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent. This is the division of sentiment now existing in the United States. It is the common division of Whig and Tory, or according to our denominations of republican and federal; and is the most salutary of all divisions, and ought, therefore, to be fostered, instead of being amalgamated. For, take away this, and some more dangerous principle of division will take its place. But there is really no amalgamation. The parties exist now as heretofore. The one, indeed, has thrown off its old name and has not yet assumed a new one, although obviously consolidationists. And among those in the offices of every denomination, I believe it to be a bare minority.
I have gone into these facts to show how one-sided a view of this case Harper has presented. I do not recall these recollections with pleasure, but rather wish to forget them, nor did I ever permit them to affect social intercourse. And now, least of all, am disposed to do so. Peace and goodwill with all mankind is my sincere wish. I willingly leave to the present generation to conduct their affairs as they please. And in my general affection to the whole human family, and my particular devotion to my friends, be assured of the high and special estimation in which yourself is cordially held.
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson, Thomas
Jan. 8. 25
Monticello
Sources and further reading:
- Volume 12 of the “Federal Edition” of Jefferson’s works in 12 volumes edited by Paul Leicester Ford in 1904-05. This volume contains various letters and papers from the years 1816-1826.
- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 26 April 1798
Historic Ipswich 