Neutrality during the European Wars of 1792-1815: America's Understanding of Her Obligations

1930 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles S. Hyneman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Neutral State ◽  
French Government ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
The Government ◽  
The French Revolution

The year 1792 marks the beginning of the long European struggle which started as the French Revolution and culminated in the Napoleonic Wars. The first notice that a state of war existed reached the Government of the United States August 2, 1792, when the French Minister at Philadelphia, M. Jean Temant, informed Thomas Jefferson, the American Secretary of State, that the French Government had declared war against Hungary and Bohemia. The Secretary of State, in reply to this notice, assured the French Minister that the United States would remain friendly to France “and render all those good offices which shall be consistent with the duties of a neutral nation.” This expression of Mr. Jefferson seems to be the only direct acknowledgement by President Washington or his Cabinet that the United States had been placed in the position of a neutral state.

Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution

1988 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-25
Author(s):  
Merrill D. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
University Of Virginia ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The French Revolution

The meeting of this conference at the University of Virginia inevitably calls to mind the first public occasion in the history of the institution 163 years ago. General Lafayette, on his year-long triumphal tour of the United States, came to Charlottesville for a tearful reunion with his old friend, Thomas Jefferson. They had met in the perilous days of 1781 when Jefferson was governor of Virginia and Lafayette marched a small army into the state to repel the British invaders. Jefferson was grateful to the spirited young general, whose zeal for the American cause seemed scarcely less than his own. Three years later, in France, they became friends, and, in 1789, their friendship personified the historical nexus between the American and the French Revolution. Thereafter, they corresponded intermittently but did not meet again until 1824. Lafayette, though he had long since ceased to be a hero in France, remained a hero in America -- in itself a poignant commentary on the contrasting fates of the two great democratic revolutions. The University fathered by Jefferson was still unfinished in 1824. The Rotunda, commanding the Lawn, was still under scaffolding, and the massive Corinthian capitals imported from Carrara had yet to be raised atop the columns of the portico. But over 400 people crowded into the Dome Room for the great public dinner in honor of the “nations’s guest.” There were many toasts, of course; and Jefferson, who was 81 and in poor health, made a little address, through the voice of another, extolling Lafayette’s services in war and peace and closing with a prayer for “the eternal duration” of the nation’s freedom.

The Political Economy of John Taylor of Caroline

1980 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Macleod
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
The Political ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
John Adams ◽  
John Taylor ◽  
The Government ◽  
Style Of Writing ◽  
To Receive

After years of comparative neglect John Taylor of Caroline has recently begun to receive again a degree of attention more in keeping with his true importance. That his impact upon both his own generation and upon subsequent generations of historians has always been less than it might have been is due largely to his tortured style of writing and the tortuous thought processes it reflected. John Randolph of Roanoke once commented that Taylor needed only a translator to make an impact, and Thomas Jefferson, replying to a communication from John Adams in 1814, wrote that a book received by Adams must have been Taylor's An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States: “neither the style nor the stuff of the author of Arator can ever be mistaken. [I]n the latter work, as you observe, there are some good things, but so involved in quaint, in far-fetched, affected, mystical conceipts [sic], and flimsy theories, that who can take the trouble of getting at them?” Taylor himself appeared to hold a fluent style in contempt, commenting that “A talent for fine writing is often a great misfortune to politicians.”Although Taylor's style renders study of his writings far from congenial, the consistency of his purpose and thought make it relatively easy to extract the main thrusts of his arguments. Far from a rigorous theorist he provides a running commentary upon the politics of his times. In that capacity, however, he never felt compelled to define clearly, even to himself perhaps, some of the central premises from which his arguments derived.

Innovative Recent Perspectives

2019 ◽  
pp. 57-78
Author(s):  
Robert Chazan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

This chapter considers Salo Baron's writings on Jewish history. Recent historians have come to reject the supernaturally grounded assumption of unending Jewish suffering during the supposed third exile; many of them have also distanced themselves from the modern and naturalistic continuations of this sense of interminable Jewish suffering. The first major challenge to the received wisdom came in 1928 from Salo Baron, newly arrived in the United States from his native Europe. In an essay titled “Ghetto and Emancipation: Shall We Revisit the Traditional View?” he undertook a fairly limited assault on traditional Jewish thinking about exilic pain. Focusing on the French Revolution and the beginnings of the process of emancipation of Western Jewry, Baron examined the centuries immediately preceding the revolution and the immediate post-Emancipation period. He argued that the former was nowhere near so horrific as usually projected and that the latter was nowhere near so idyllic.

The History of the Department of State: VII

1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 414-432
Author(s):  
Gaillard Hunt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Provision ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

Having considered in former numbers of this Journal the sometime and occasional duties of the Department, including among them certain contingent duties which it has never been called upon to perform, we may now advance to a consideration of its habitual functions.The organic act of the Department prescribed that the Secretary of State should keep “ the seal of the United States.” It is the mark of the supreme authority of the United States, and before the government went into operation under the Constitution, was in the custody of the Secretary of Congress, being used to verify all important acts, whether executive or legislative; but the debate on executive departments in the first constitutional congress indicated that Congress did not contemplate keeping the seal any longer, and thought it would necessarily pass to the custody of the Executive. The President did, in fact, take it under his control as soon as he assumed office and before legal provision had been made for it.

THE APPEARANCE OF AMERICAN GIRLS, AS VIEWED BY MOREAU DE SAINT-MÉRY ABOUT 1795

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-167
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Young Girls ◽  
The North ◽  
North Side ◽  
The World ◽  
The French Revolution

The French jurist, Méderic Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry (1750-1819), was driven into exile during the French Revolution by Robespierre's accession to power. From 1794 to 1798 Moreau lived in the United States. In the journal he kept during these years, he described American young girls as follows: American girls are pretty, and their eyes are alive with expression; but their complexions are wan, bad teeth spoil the appearance of their mouths, and there is also something disagreeable about the length of their legs. In general, however, they are of good height, are graceful, and, in enumerating their charms, one must not forget the shapeliness of their breasts. Philadelphia has thousands of beauties between fourteen and eighteen. To offer but a single proof: on the north side of Market Street, between Third and Fifth Street, on a single winter's day I saw four hundred young maidens promenading, each one of whom would surely have been followed in Paris, a seductive tribute that could be offered by perhaps no other city in the world. But these girls soon became pale, and an indisposition which is reckoned among the most unfavorable for the maintenance of the freshness of youth is very common among them. They have thin hair and bad teeth, and are given to nervous illnesses. The elements which embellish beauty, or rather which compose and order it, are not often bestowed by the graces. Finally, they are charming, adorable at fifteen, dried up at twenty-three, old at thirty-five, decrepit at forty or fifty.

Consuls and Consiglieri: United States Relations with the Italian States, 1790-1815

Rough Waters ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 77-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Antonucci
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
The United States ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Economic Networks ◽  
Negotiation Tactics ◽  
Authority Figures ◽  
Trade Relationship

This chapter further explores the trade relationship between the United States and Italy during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars by examining the role of American consuls in the complex web of trade relationships between them. It investigates American consular records in attempt to determine how central their role was, and studies the way this role adapted over time. It provides case studies of the consulates of Livorno, Naples, and Sicily by analysing consul activity such as requests for military intervention against French authorities; negotiation tactics used to broker peace with monarchs and authority figures; connections made with local merchants; and the promotion of commerce. It concludes that despite the complexity of the role and the frequent changes to regime and personnel, American consuls established and developed political, social, and economic networks between America and Italy that benefitted American trade tremendously.

The Organization, The Goals, and Some Activities of The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

1973 ◽  
Vol 66 (5) ◽  
pp. 476-480
Author(s):  
H. Vernon Price
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Council ◽  
The World ◽  
The French Revolution

The great watchword of the French Revolution was Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Although a great oversimplification, it has been said that France exemplifies liberty, Great Britain equality, and the United States fraternity. Without attempting to apportion these virtues among the nations of the world, I should like to dwell for a few moments on fraternity as it applies in the United States to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, I believe it is in this domain that we have developed into the largest mathematical organization in the world and—we should like to think—one of the most influential.

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