Alexander Hamilton: “Against an Alliance with France”

In the years following the Revolutionary War, the fledgling United States charted a perilous course in its relationships with two of the world's most powerful nations, England and France. During the Revolution, the United States had signed the Treaty of Alliance, also called the Franco-American Alliance, with France. Under the terms of this agreement made in 1778, the two nations pledged to come to the aid of each other in the event of a British attack. The Revolutionaries owed a debt of gratitude to the French, who had come to the Americans' aid against the British with troops under the command of the marquis de Lafayette and the comte de Rochambeau.

Matters became complicated when the French Revolution erupted in 1789 and replaced the monarchy with a revolutionary republican government. One consequence of the revolution was that the United States extinguished its debts to France from the American Revolution, arguing that the debts were owed to the monarchy, not to the new French Republic. Further complicating relations with France were two actions by the U.S. government. One was the Proclamation of Neutrality issued by President George Washington on April 22, 1793. In this proclamation, the United States declared itself neutral in the war between Britain and France that had broken out in the wake of the French Revolution. It led to the passage of the Neutrality Act of 1794, which cemented the nation's position of neutrality between the belligerents and was consistent with Washington's distrust of “entangling” foreign alliances. The second action was the Jay Treaty, ratified by Congress in 1796. Negotiated by John Jay, the chief justice of the United States, and formulated primarily by Hamilton, the treaty settled a number of issues still outstanding from the Revolutionary War and ushered in a period of peaceful trade relations with Britain. From Britain's standpoint, the treaty was advantageous as a means of preventing the United States from allying itself with France in its war against Britain.

But the Neutrality Act and the Jay Treaty came later, after the publication of Hamilton's article on February 7, 1794, in Dunlap and Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser in which Hamilton argues against an alliance with France. The essay was one of a series of essays Hamilton wrote defending Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality. Some members of Congress, along with some members of Washington's cabinet, including Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, believed that the president had exceeded his constitutional authority by issuing the proclamation; they would have preferred that the American government remain silent on the issue. Taking what today would be termed a “strict constructionist” view of the Constitution, they argued that matters of peace and war, and foreign affairs in general, were the purview of Congress, not the president. Jefferson was so opposed to the president's action that he resigned as secretary of state. Jefferson persuaded Hamilton's erstwhile ally James Madison to write a series of articles attacking Washington, Hamilton, and the Federalists who supported the president's actions. Madison went on the offensive, attacking the Federalists as secret “monarchists” out to undermine the principles of republicanism that had led to the American and French revolutions. Hamilton's position on this issue, in conjunction with his position on the nation's economic affairs, contributed to sharp divisions in the government and the emergence of political parties.

Hamilton does not address the constitutional issues. Rather, in these excerpts he focuses first on the economic consequences of an alliance with France that would draw the United States into its war with Britain. He points out that such an alliance would be particularly damaging to trade and that since the United States derived some 90 percent of its revenues from “commercial duties,” or tariffs, war and disruption to trade would bankrupt the country. Additionally, Hamilton addresses the question of the threat to the United States that could result from the defeat of France. He dismisses this threat, arguing that the United States was so far removed from Europe that any effort on the part of Britain (or Spain) to harass the United States on its borders or to destroy the nation's republican form of government would be folly.

It is an irony that only five years later the United States was at war not with Britain but with France. This conflict, variously called the Quasi-War, the Pirate Wars, the Half-War, and the Undeclared War with France, took place from 1798 to 1800. The Jay Treaty had angered the French in light of the earlier Treaty of Alliance. In 1796 French ships began seizing American merchant ships engaged in trade with Britain. President John Adams announced that the United States had to assume a posture of defense if negotiations with France broke down. Then in 1798 Adams revealed to Congress the so-called XYZ Affair, a demand by French diplomats for an immense bribe in exchange for normalizing relations with France. In the summer of 1798, Congress authorized U.S. Navy vessels to attack French ships. The Quasi-War ended in the fall of 1800 after the French adopted a more conciliatory stance and signed the Convention of 1800.