XYZ AFFAIR

The decade of the 1790s was a perilous era for the new federal government of the United States. The economy only slowly emerged from the Revolutionary War slump, international commerce flagged, and the nation faced a crushing foreign and domestic debt. In addition, France—its former ally—had launched its own democratic revolution that slid into a bloodbath and led to resumed naval warfare with Britain in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. The American army and navy were woefully unready to protect their own vessels, rendering the nation's illprepared ports and harbors virtually defenseless. In 1793 the Federalist administration of George Washington sought to navigate these treacherous waters by proclaiming American neutrality in the Anglo-French War, seeking trade with both sides. Instead, however, it succeeded only in incurring the wrath of both and also of its emerging domestic opponent, the Democratic Republicans.

Then, in 1794 Washington sent John Jay to London to negotiate with Britain for the settlement of issues unresolved since the Treaty of Paris (1783) and to broker a trade agreement that would open British ports in the Caribbean to American commerce. Jay's Treaty (1794) outraged the French, who claimed that the Franco-American Treaties of Amity and Commerce (1778) still bound the Revolutionary Xallies. A French minister to the United States, Jean Fauchet, was so outraged he demanded that Americans be made to hear "the voice of France thundering against the treaty and demanding justice." When trade resumed with Britain in the Caribbean and beyond in 1796, the French began attacking and confiscating American merchant vessels in a conflict that became known as the Quasi-War. Hundreds of thousands of tons of American merchant vessels were lost and all-out war with France seemed imminent.

In May 1797 President John Adams, another Federalist, determined to stave off disaster by sending a bipartisam Extraordinary Commission to France consisting of three ministers: Federalists John Marshall and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Democratic Republican Elbridge Gerry. The commission arrived in France by the fall to discuss settlement for American commercial losses and to pursue an agreement that would secure neutral trading rights for the United States and preclude further French attacks. After they had waited a considerable time to be received by the French Directory, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the French minister of foreign affairs, sent three lesser, anonymous officials to receive the American delegation. However, the operatives, identified only as X, Y, and Z, refused officially to receive the Americans without payment of tribute to the French government. When Marshall and Pinckney returned to the United States and reported the slight, the Democratic Republicans suspected a Federalist plot to instigate war with France and challenged the Federalist Adams administration to prove the allegations. With that, Adams released the XYZ dispatches in March 1798, to general American outrage. Letters, memorials, petitions, and declarations of support poured into the capital at Philadelphia vowing "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!" Citizens pledged to stand behind the president, even in the case of war, to protect the honor and security of the Republic. Many wore black ribbons or cockades on their hats to exhibit support for the president and their disapproval of France. Republicans, however, took to wearing red, white, and blue cockades, opposing war with their ally from the American Revolution.

Federalists manipulated the popular attitude of the "black cockade fever" to draft defense legislation fortifying ports and harbors, creating a Department of the Navy (1798), authorizing the construction of three new warships, and augmenting the army with a provisional force of ten thousand troops. The administration also secured passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) to stifle domestic dissent and remove suspected foreign agitators. The Fifth Congress in 1797 and 1798 appropriated more than $10 million for defense, $4 million more than the normal expenditure would have been for the entire nonmilitary federal budget. As a result, Congress also used the XYZ affair and fear of French invasion to levy the first federal direct tax (1798), a rate collected from the value of lands, dwelling houses, and slaves. Many in Congress demanded a declaration of war against France, but Democratic Republicans and moderate Federalists following the lead of President Adams refused to go that far. In 1799 the president sent another delegation, the Ellsworth Commission, to France to seek a peaceful solution. By the autumn of 1800, the French had received the American commission and reached a peaceful settlement at the Convention at Mortefontaine, just before President Adams's loss to Democratic Republican Thomas Jefferson in the presidential election.

Partisan intrigue, the Anglo-French War, and popular hysteria over the XYZ affair cost the American people their civil liberties and millions in tax dollars in 1798. But cooler diplomatic heads among moderate Federalists forestalled a potentially disastrous war and bought the young nation another decade of growth and stability until a similar crisis led to a Democratic Republican declaration of war against Britain in 1812.

See alsoDemocratic Republicans; Federalist Party; Presidency, The: John Adams; Quasi-War with France .

bibliography

Ray, Thomas M. "'Not One Cent for Tribute!': The Public Addresses and American Popular Reaction to the XYZ Affair." Journal of the Early Republic 3 (Winter 1983): 389–412.

Stinchcombe, William. The XYZ Affair. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980.

Paul Douglas Newman