Even by modern standards, the years that marked the administrations of Presidents Washington and Adams—from 1788 to 1800—were a time of ferocious partisanship in American political life. The nation was torn between those championing ties with Great Britain—tarred by their enemies as monarchists—and those seeking shelter under the wing of France—accused by their opponents of advocating a degree of popular rule that would inevitably lead to despotism. Known as Federalists and Republicans respectively, the factions ranged against one another in bitter combat. Everyone knew that nothing less than the fate of republican government for all ages hung in the balance; otherwise reasonable men were certain that conspiracies lurked in every corner and no one’s motives were to be trusted.

In Virginia, men toasted “A speedy Death to General Washington.” Influential newspaper editors such as James Callender, Philip Freneau, and Benjamin Franklin Bache warned their readers that the corrupting hand of monarchy lurked behind every Federalist move. Bands of Republican militia drilled openly from Baltimore to Boston, readying themselves to repulse the Federalist threat. During the critical days of 1798 and 1799, armed mobs roamed Philadelphia, then the nation’s capital, spurring President Adams to smuggle arms into his quarters for self-defense. John Jay was burned in effigy, Hamilton was stoned in the streets of New York, and, in the halls of Congress, Representatives Matthew Lyons and Roger Griswold took after one another with spittle and fire tongs. Partisanship reached such a fever pitch that, as Thomas Jefferson famously