Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/419

1808. frenzy,—a temporary insanity like the witchcraft and Quaker mania,—took possession of the mind of Massachusetts, and broke into acute expression. Not for a full century had the old Puritan prejudice shown itself in a form so unreasoning and unreasonable; but although nearly one half the people held aloof and wondered at the madness of their own society, the whole history of Massachusetts, a succession of half-forgotten disputes and rebellions, seemed to concentrate itself for the last time in a burst of expiring passions, mingled with hatred of Virginia and loathing for Jefferson, until the rest of America, perplexed at paroxysms so eccentric, wondered whether the spirit of Massachusetts liberty could ever have been sane. For the moment Timothy Pickering was its genius.

The decision reached by the Federalists at Washington, on or about December 21, when the Enforcement Bill passed the Senate, was quickly known in Massachusetts, and without further delay the crisis was begun. Hitherto the tone of remonstrance had been respectful; under cover of the Enforcement Act it rapidly became revolutionary. Dec. 27, 1808, a town-meeting at Bath, in the district of Maine, set the movement on foot by adopting Resolutions which called on the general court, at its meeting January 25, to take "immediate steps for relieving the people, either by themselves alone, or in concert with other commercial States" while at the same time the