Lafayette's Triumphal Tour of America

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NEW SOLIDARITY April 1, 1980 Page 4

Lafayette's Triumphal Tour of America

How the Europeans Rebuilt a National Republican

Movement

by Warren Hamerman

Left, an engraving of Lafayette as he looked when he visited American in

1824; right, a march composed for President John Quincy Adams, whose

election the Lafayette tour helped to secure.

From August 14, 1824 until September 9, 1825 General Lafayette and hisson George Washington Lafayette—accompanied on the last two months bythe great "American System" economist from Germany, Friedrich List—

toured every principal city and town in all 24 states of the Union, remobiliz-ing the population to the highest level of understanding, the great tradition of the American Republic.

Forty years before in his last earlier speech in America, when Franklin,Washington, and Hamilton were alive, Lafayette had expressed America'shigher purpose in these words:



May this immense Temple of Freedom ever stand, a lesson tooppressors, an example to the oppressed, a sanctuary for therights of mankind! And may these happy United States attainthat complete splendor and prosperity which will illustrate the

blessings of their Government, and for ages to come rejoice thedeparted souls of its founders.

As a result of Lafayette's reforging of a true national republican movementwhich understood the tradition and legacy of its international foundingfathers, John Quincy Adams, himself European educated under BenjaminFranklin's guidance, was elected President, and the British hoped-for armedinsurrection to break up the Union was averted. What John Quincy Adamshad characterised in the earlier period of his break with Thomas Jefferson, asthe "Jacobin anti-federal faction," or his father John Adams more bluntly

called "Anglomaniacs," had been defeated through the process of educatingthe population to a higher level of international strategic understanding of itstradition, launching great industrial and scientific projects and bringing theadvanced music of Beethoven to America around the tour.

Lyndon LaRouche's 1980 presidential campaign is based upon the same premise as that which led to John Quincy Adams's election in 1824: at amoment of urgent national and international political-economic peril, onlythe mobilization of the American population to the higher conception andqualities associated with the Founding Fathers can rebuild the national

republican movement capable of placing a President of that tradition into theWhite House. European political leaders from West Germany, France andItaly have already come to the United States to campaign for Larouche. Thegreat music of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach is omnipresent at LaRouchecampaign rallies and in television commercials.

Welcome Lafayette!

When Lafayette landed in New York, American newspapers underwent a profound transformation, as the following account in the Commercial

Advertiser of August 17, 1824 indicates in its coverage of the significance of Lafayette's arrival in New York two days before:

This distinguished friend of civil liberty is again on our shoresafter a long absence; an absence during which he has himself

passed many dangerous and eventful scenes in the old world,while his youthful compatriots in glory in the new, have



perfected the principles and the system of government, for thesupport of which, both he and they were lavish of their treas-ures, their blood, and their lives. At every step he will meetwith some object familiar to his memory; objects which mustawaken in his ardent mind the most grateful feelings, and fillhis soul with the purest enjoyment. He left us weak, unorgan-ized, and tottering with infancy; he returns to us, and finds our shores smiling with cultivation, our waters white with sails of every nation, our cities enlarged, flourishing and wealthy, andour free government, for whose establishment he himself suf-fered, perfected in beauty, union, and experience. He finds, too,a remnant remaining, of the great and patriotic men of 76, towelcome him to the land of freedom. Every native American,man, woman, and child, is acquainted with his name. The story

of his devotion, his patriotism, his disinterested services in thecause of liberty, is familiar to us all, and the feelings of admira-tion and love with which he is greeted, are spontaneous anduniversal.

The newspaper biographies of Lafayette told not merely the story of theAmerican Revolution but contrasted it to the way in which Jacobin anarchydestroyed the republican program in the French Revolution. The accounts of Lafayette's life emphasized that he symbolized all those Europeans— fromvon Steuben and DeKalb to Pulaski and Kosciuszko who fought as an

international faction under the leadership of Franklin and Washington to build an American republic independent of the hated British monarchy.

When Lafayette traveled from town to town in 1824 and 1825 huge crowdsand processions greeted him with banners: "Welcome Lafayette", and"Washington and Lafayette". A crowd of 200,000 turned out for him on the50th Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston. He reviewedcountless military and civilian parades accompanied by special "LafayetteGuards," the "State Militia" and the Revolutionary veterans in the Society of Cincinnatus and other organizations.

There were addresses, banquets, balls, concerts, fireworks, city council andstate government resolutions, and more addresses all filling the newspapers.The after dinner toasts in each city's banquets indicate the overall scope of the celebrations. The Daily Advertiser of Albany on September 20, 1824records the following toasts, each followed by an emptying of refilledglasses, at the previous evening's banquet:



Thousands of

memorial plaques,

banners, ribbons,

flags, and songs were

produced to honorGen. Lafayette along

the course of his 14-

month U.S. tour. This

ribbon was produced

and worn by citizens

of Connecticut.

1. To the President of the U.S.!

2. To the Cause of Liberty and Good government all over the world!



3. To the Immortal Memory of Washington!

4. To the Statesman and the soldiers of the American Revolution, the lights,the shields, the guides, and the ornaments of the age!

5. To France! Her eminent services to Our Country in the time that triedmen's souls, will be gratefully remembered!

6. To that benevolent and enlightened policy which prefers the Olive to theLaurel, the Ivy to the Cypress!

7. To Public Gratitude! The United offering of the head and heart, theexpression of sentiment and opinion in favor of pre-eminent merit!

8. To the memory of George Clinton, the man without fear and withoutreproach!

9. To the governments of South America-having once tasted of liberty mayHeaven protect them from subjugation to the misrule and despotism of Spain!

10. To Greece and her heroic efforts against the crescent of fanaticism andthe sabre of despotism!

11. To the surviving soldiers of the Revolution, whilst we are enjoying therich inheritance of their valor, may we never forget the immense debt of

gratitude we owe them!

12. To our Country's Women! Distinguished for moral, intellectual and physical beauty!

13. To the Sovereignty of Public Opinion, Judiciously organized andfaithfully administered!

14. To Lafayette!

Lafayette's itinerary encompassed the entire nation, with major rallies and

banquets held in New York, Bridgeport, Stratford, New Haven, NewLondon, Providence, Boston, Portsmouth, Concord, Boston again,Worcester, Hartford, Albany, New York again, Newark, New Brunswick,Bordentown, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond,Washington. All the above towns were toured before early December, 1824,when Lafayette stayed for several months with John Quincy Adams.



In February 1825 Lafayette began a southern tour through Virginia, Raleigh,Fayetteville, Columbia, Charleston, Savannah, Augusta, Montgomery,Mobile, New Orleans and then up the Mississippi to St. Louis. Across theOhio River to Nashville, Louisville, Lexington, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Erie,Buffalo, Rochester, Rome, Utica, Albany. Back to Boston for the fiftiethAnniversary of Bunker Hill, then a New England tour through NewHampshire, Maine and Vermont before traveling down to New York, NewJersey, Baltimore and on to Washington, DC, again where he stayed in theWhite House with John Quincy Adams before sailing to France. Lafayettehad traveled the newly opened Erie Canal, ridden American steamships,visited new cities, industrial works, universities, and colleges.

Shakespeare and Beethoven

The process of raising the American population to the higher level of under-standing their true tradition and historical mission was emphasized in eachmajor event with poetry, music, and great drama. Three days after his arrivalin New York, the day after a triumphal procession to City Hall and a ban-quet. Lafayette was celebrated with a gala performance of Shakespeare'sTwelfth Night , on August 17, 1824. On his return to New York the Societyof Cincinnatus gave him an immense banquet on September 6 to celebratehis 67th birthday. Four days later on September 10, the Commercial Adver-

tiser reported that the newly formed New York Choral Society gave Lafay-ette tribute in a special concert at St. Paul's Church. The featured piece

performed by the New York Choral Society was Ludwig von Beethoven's"Hallelujah" Chorus from Christ on the Mount of Olives. As part of the tour orchestras, concerts and music schools were established throughout thecountry to bring the great music of Beethoven and Mozart to America. Inlocal towns, musicians and poets composed pieces for the celebrations.

During Lafayette's tour the 100-piece orchestra of the Philadelphia MusicalFund Society regularly performed concerts featuring Beethoven's symphon-ies. Ludwig von Beethoven himself, of course, did not die until two yearsafter Lafayette ended his tour and went back to Europe (in 1827). When

Lafayette passed through Maine, there were performances by the BeethovenSociety in Portland which had been formed back in 1819. In Philadelphiaand other parts of Pennsylvania, Lafayette was treated to musical concerts.

At precisely the time of Lafayette's tour the European and American politicalrepublican networks were engaged in a full-scale effort to build a musicsystem in American towns and cities which had as its objective the perform-



ance and teaching of the music of Beethoven and Mozart. Thus, the NewYork Choral Society which performed Beethoven for Lafayette on Septem-

ber 9, 1824 announced on the printed program that their overall purposewould be to bring to America the music of "The great masters: Handel,Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven."

The Presidency

As a result of the general moral and intellectual uplifting of the populationJohn Quincy Adams was elected President. Lafayette's secretary on the trip,A. Levasseur, wrote in 1829 that when Lafayette left for America the Britishand French press were predicting the outbreak of Civil War that year inAmerica, or at minimum an armed insurrection by Andrew Jackson.Levasseur wrote:

It was during the height of the excitement produced by thediscussion of the presidential question that General Lafayetteappeared on American shores. This event, as if by enchant-ment, paralyzed all the electoral ardour. The newspapers,which, the evening before, were furiously combatting for their favorite candidate, now closed their long columns on all partydisputes, and only gave admission to the unanimous expressionof the public joy and national gratitude. At the public dinners,instead of caustic toasts, intended to throw ridicule and odium

on some potent adversary, none were heard but healths to thequest of the nation, around whom were amicably grouped themost violent of both parties. Finally, for nearly two months allthe discord and excitement produced by this election, which, itwas said, would engender the most disastrous consequences,were forgotten, and nothing was thought of but Lafayette andthe heroes of the Revolution.

Taking nothing for granted, Lafayette himself was personally present at theCapitol in the room on February 9, 1825 when the ballots were cast giving

John Quincy Adams the presidency after he received Henry Clay's backing.In the Electoral College Jackson had actually received a plurality (99 votes)to Adams (84), Crawford (41) and Clay (37). Under Lafayette's influenceClay gave his support to Adams who therefore won the House of Represent-atives vote on February 9, 1825.



John Quincy Adams was personally educated by Benjamin Franklin. Whenhe was ten, Quincy Adams left with his father in February 1778 for Pariswhere they lived in Passy alongside "Dr. Franklin." Young John Quincywent to school with Franklin's grandson and the next year when his father,John Adams was appointed ambassador plenipotentiary to Spain, thenminister to the Netherlands, and then minister to Great Britain, John Quincystayed in Paris to be educated with Franklin.

When John Quincy was only 14, he was appointed official translator to theAmerican negotiating mission to Catherine's court in Russia where he stayedfor 14 months. He traveled on the return from one republican leader toanother in Germany and the Netherlands. From 1783-85 he was officialsecretary to his father in Paris and attended regular meetings with Franklin atLafayette's house. Twelve years later, in 1795, John Quincy secured an

official American grant to fund Adrienne Lafayette in her campaign to freethe General Lafayette who was in Austrian prison. In 1812 when JohnQuincy was minister to Russia he personally secured from Czar Alexander Ithe parole of Lafayette's son-in-law, the Comte de Tracy.

John Quincy Adams was educated in Greek, in which original language heread Plato's great conceptions and the program of a Republic, music, geo-metry and had the most broad-based international experiences in his youth.

John Quincy Adams graduated from Harvard in 1787 after two years of

study. His student oration was titled: "The Importance of Public Faith to theWell Being of a Nation" in which he addresses the alarm caused by Shay'sRebellion. John Quincy Adams saw the symptom of disunity due to thedisease of the "collapse of national credit" which led to the "lamentabledeclension of our trade."

On May 29, 1794 John Quincy Adams was appointed minister resident tothe Netherlands where he was Alexander Hamilton's direct overseas contactin reorganizing the U.S. debt. He was Hamilton's contact in Europe for managing loans and consolidating the American debt around an industrial

development program. He later was ambassador to the Court of St. James(1795-96), minister to Prussia (1797-1801), U.S. senator from Massachusetts(1803-1808), minister to St. Petersburg (1809-1812), on the Ghent PeaceCommission (1814), minister to Great Britain (1815-17), secretary of stateunder Monroe (1817-1825), U.S. President (1824-29). After the presidency,he served again as a Massachusetts representative to Congress.



While in Prussia when his father was President, John Quincy became anexpert on German literature and culture and later translated FriedrichSchiller and Goethe into English. His presence in Berlin in 1797 would verylikely have made him Lafayette's contact man when he was freed from

prison in Austria.

The program of John Quincy Adams's administration was to fully implementthe Hamiltonian policy of fostering rapid scientific and industrial develop-ment at home through a foreign policy committed to fostering sovereignnational republics. With Henry Clay as his secretary of state, the administra-tion represented a coalition based upon the "American System" of economicgrowth and development. Adams fought for a federal program of internalimprovements, especially road-building.

He advocated cheap credit for promoting manufacture and the industrializa-tion of agriculture as well as scientific and educational projects: fromwestward exploration and colonization, to the creation of a nationaluniversity and a national observatory.

John Quincy Adams had had the highest possible level of preparation on both sides of the Atlantic from the international Founding Fathers of theAmerican Revolution, from Benjamin Franklin to Friedrich Schiller. His

personal political history and statesmanship ensured that his entering theWhite House would not merely transform the United States, but allow for an

international republican program to be fulfilled.Even during George Washington's administration it was the letters from theyoung John Quincy which shaped the international strategic evaluation and

plans of the President. There was no better qualified person to become U.S.President in the troubled world in 1824 than John Quincy. Therefore, theEuropean republican humanist faction deployed into the United States. Withan American President in the tradition of the Founding Fathers, the basis for republicanizing Europe and shifting the entire world political situationexisted.

Lafayette at Congress

The quality of the European intervention into America is indicated by theofficial appearance of Lafayette before the joint House of Congress onDecember 9 and 10, 1824. Henry Clay, the speaker of the house greetedLafayette in part:



The vain wish has been sometimes indulged, that Providencewould allow the patriot, after death, to return to his country, andto contemplate the intermediate changes which had taken place

—to view the forests felled, the cities built, the mountainslevelled, the canals cut, the highways constructed, the progressof the arts, the advancement of learning and the increase in

population-General, your present visit to the United States is arealization of the consoling object of that wish. You are in themidst of posterity. Everywhere, you must have been struck bythe great changes, physical and moral, which have occurredsince you left us. Even this city, bearing a venerated name,alike endeared to you and to us, has since emerged from theforest which then covered its site.

Because of Hamilton's economic program both the U.S. population and itsterritory had quadrupled from 1775 to 1825 (from 2.5 million people and393,152 square miles in 1775 to 11.3 people and well over 1.6 mil squaremiles in 1825.

Lafayette responded:

You have been pleased, Mr. Speaker, to allude, to the peculiar felicity of my situation, when after so long an absence, I amcalled to witness the immense improvements, the admirable

communications, the prodigious creations, of which we find anexample in this city, whose name itself is a venerated pallad-ium; in a word, all the grandeur and prosperity of those happyUnited States, who, at the same time they nobly secure thecomplete assertion of American independence, reflect, on every

part of the world, the light of a far superior political civilization.What better pledge can be given, of a persevering national loveof liberty, when these blessings are evidently the result of avirtuous resistance to oppression, and institutions founded onthe rights of man, and the republican principle of self-

government."

The joint House and Senate adopted a resolution granting Lafayette$200,000 and 24,000 acres of land, which grant Lafayette used to financerepublican movements around the world—such as the republican revolutionin France in 1830 planned when he was in America.



The day before Lafayette left America to return to France he again appeared before a joint session of the Congress on September 6, 1825. President JohnQuincy Adams spoke:

Go, then, our beloved friend—return to the land of brilliant

genius, of generous sentiment, of heroic valour; to that beautifulFrance, the nursing mother of the twelfth Louis, and the fourthHenry; to the native soil of Bayard and Coligni, of Turenne andCatinat, of Fenelon and D'Aguesseau. In that illustrious cata-logue of names which she claims as of her children, and withhonest pride holds up to the admiration of other nations, thename of Lafayette has already for centuries been enrolled. Andit shall henceforth burnish into brighter flame; for if, in after days, a Frenchman shall be called to indicate the character of

his nation by that one individual, during the age in which welive, the blood of lofty patriotism shall mantle in his cheek, thefire of conscious virtue shall sparkle in his eye, and he shall

pronounce the name of Lafayette. Yet we, too, and our children, in life and after death, shall claim you for our own.

Lafayette, in his last speech on American soil responded:

I have had proudly to recognize a result of the republican principles for which we have fought, and a glorious demonstra-

tion to the most timid and prejudiced minds, of the superiority,over degrading aristocracy or despotism, of popular institutionsfounded on the plain rights of man, and where the local rightsof every section are preserved under a constitutional bond of union. The cherishing of that union between the states, as it has

been the farewell entreaty of our great paternal Washington, andwill ever have the dying prayer of every American patriot, so ithas become the sacred pledge of the emancipation of the world,an object in which I am happy to observe that the American

people, while they give the animating example of successful

free institutions, in return for an evil entailed upon them byEurope, and of which a liberal and enlightened sense is every-where more and more generally felt, show themselves everyday more anxiously interested.

When Lafayette toured America, there still existed small numbers of veterans of the Revolutionary War as well as nearly an entire generation,



epitomized by John Quincy Adams, who as children were trained andeducated by the international Founding Fathers. These men and women,mobilized, became the force which reunified the younger generations arounda sense of national purpose. The European intervention into America in1824-25, created the generation which formed the political leadership behindthe Lincoln administration.

Therefore, Lafayette's tour, in balance, assured that the United States would be able to exist into the 20th century. Today, for America to even march intothe 21st century, a mere two decades ahead, she must refind her national soulin the heritage of the international Founding Fathers. For this purpose.Lyndon LaRouche has shaped his presidential campaign.

This memorial ribbon was

circulated throughout

southern New York state in

honor of French visitorLafayette's tour.

Lafayette's Triumphal Tour of America

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