papers of the North. Though the meeting had been
held in St. Michael's Church in Charleston and presided
over by an eminent State Judge, the statement was
made in a leading partisan paper in Boston (and widely
copied) that Rutledge had appeared "mounted upon
the head of a hogshead, haranguing a mob assembled
to reprobate the treaty and insult the Executive of the
Union . . . insinuating that Mr. Jay and the Senate were
fools or knaves, duped by British sophistry or bribed by
British gold . . . prostituting the dearest rights of
freemen and laying them at the feet of royalty.'* Other
papers said that he had declared "he had rather the
President should die (dearly as he loved him) than he
should sign that treaty." ^ While the accuracy of
these quotations was denied by Rutledge's adherents,
the denial had little eflFect upon the Federalists, for
they were determined that no man who opposed the
treaty should be confirmed in oflBice.^ Edmund Ran-
dolph, the Secretary of State, wrote from Philadelphia
to Washington at Mount Vernon, July 29: "The newspai>ers present all intelligence which has reached me relative to the treaty. Durdap's of yesterday morning conveys the proceedings at Charleston. The conduct of the intended Chief Justice is so extraordinary that Mr. Wolcott and Col. Pickering conceive it to be a proof of the imputation of insanity. By calculating dates, it would seem to have taken place after my letter tendering the oflBice to him was received, tho he has not acknowledged it." Five days later, Randolph wrote: "No answer has been received from Mr. Rutledge; but
^ Columbian Centind, Aug. 26, 1795 ; Fanner* s Weekly Museum^ Aug. 11, 1795, quoting a Connecticut paper. The Columbian CenHnd, Aug. 25, 1795, said : "The report of what Mr. Rutledge said on the Treaty is bottomed on the accuracy of the Jacobin papers of Charleston." The speech was published in the ChofletUm City OazeUe, July 17, 1795.
- Lives and Times of the Chief Justices (1858), by Henry Flanders; Lives, TivMS a$id Judicial Services of the CHef Justices (1854), by George Van Santvoord.
