Fisher Ames (1758-1808) was born outside of Essex County, near the southwest corner of Boston, in Dedham. Intellectually precocious, Ames entered Harvard when he was twelve. At an early age, he excelled at oratory and elocution. He participated in a debating club.[1]
After graduating from Harvard in 1774 he joined the Dedham militia, but did not engage in any battles. After a brief stint teaching school he studied law. He began practicing in 1784. In 1788 he was part of the Massachusetts convention ratifying the Constitution. Running against Samuel Adams, he won a seat in the nation’s first Congress. In the House he debated with James Madison, and supported Alexander Hamilton, and his “First Report on the Public Credit.” Famous for his compelling oratory, Ames exasperated Thomas Jefferson, who called him “the colossus of monocrats and paper men,” for Ames’s position on assumption of the revolutionary debt.[2]
In 1792, Ames married Frances Worthington, a daughter of one of Connecticut’s “River Gods” a group of high Federalists similar to the Essex Junto. Three years later, Ames suffered from the beginning stages of tuberculosis. As controversy raged over the Jay Treaty, Ames was too weak to be anything but a bystander.[3]
After some debate, the Federalists prevailed. Although frail, Ames emerged from the sidelines. He enticed western Democratic-Republicans in the House to vote for Jay’s Treaty. He linked it to Pinckney’s Treaty that promised access to the Gulf of Mexico through the Mississippi and allowed merchants to warehouse their goods in New Orleans. These issues were important to westerners. With some effort, Ames rose to give a stirring oration to the House, urging them to vote for ratification of Jay’s Treaty, bringing many of those present to tears.
Playing on westerners’ fears about the security of the frontier, Ames said:
“In the daytime your path through the woods is ambushed; the darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings…the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field!…the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle!…I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture…even as slender and almost broken as my hold on life is, I may outlive the Government and Constitution of my country.” [4]
The Senate had failed to act on Pinckney’s Treaty. Ames suggested that if the House passed the Jay Treaty, the Senate would ratify Pinckney’s Treaty. His ploy worked. The House appropriated the funds for Jay’s Treaty in a vote of 51-48 on April 30, 1796.[5]
Ames retired from public service in 1797. He was only thirty-nine, but suffered from the ravages of tuberculosis. He found he could not stay out of the political fray. He opposed the growing influence of Jeffersonian Republicans in New England. He found allies within the ranks of the Essex Junto. Two newspapers, the New England Palladium and Boston’s Repertory, published his essays, persuading his readers on the virtues of the Federalists’ point of view. He was one of the Federalists’ most articulate spokesmen opposing Democratic-Republicans.[6]
Next: Who was Theophilus Parsons?
Look for it Monday, August 12
[1] Winfred E.A. Bernhard, “Fisher Ames,” American National Biography
[2] Bernhard, “Fisher Ames”
[3] Bernhard, “Fisher Ames”
[4] Fisher Ames quoted in Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800, (New York: Oxford University Press) 448.
[5] Edward C. Carter II, “The Political Activities of Mathew Carey,” PhD Dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1962, 233.
[6] Bernhard, “Fisher Ames”
