the same principles which had triumphed here--a lawful attempt of an
oppressed people to secure the exercise of inalienable rights--although
shuddering at the excesses which had been perpetrated, still felt it to be
our own cause, and insisted that we were in honor and duty bound to render
all the assistance in our power, even to a resort to arms, if need be. The
Federalists, on the other hand, were alarmed at the anarchical tendencies
in France. They were fearful that law, order, government, and society
itself, would be utterly and speedily swept away, unless the revolutionary
movement was arrested. Cherishing these apprehensions, they were disposed
to favor the views of Great Britain and other European powers, and were
anxious that the government of the United States should adopt some active
measures to assist in checking what they could not but view as rapid
strides to political and social anarchy. However the two parties differed
as to the measures proper to be adopted in this crisis, they were united
in the conviction that our government should take some part as a
belligerant, in these European struggles; and exerted each its influence
to bring about such an interference as would be in accordance with their
conflicting views of duty and expediency.

There was residing, at this period, in Boston, a young and nearly
briefless lawyer, whose views on these important matters differed
materially from those entertained by both parties. It was John Quincy
Adams. While he could not countenance the attempts of the Allied Powers to
destroy the French Republic, and re-establish a monarchy, he was equally
far from favoring the turn which affairs were clearly taking in that
unhappy country. He evidently foresaw the French Revolution would prove a
failure; and that it was engendering an influence which, unchecked, would
be deeply injurious to American liberty and order. To counteract this
tendency, he published in the Boston Centinel, in 1791, a series of
articles, signed "Publicola," in which he discussed with great ability,