Campaigner

The Strategic Significance
of Lafayette's 1824 Tour
America's
Unpaid Debt to
The European
Republicans
by Warren Hamerman
"Schiller is lessfollowed though inspired by a genius of During the year 1824, a presidential election of
higherelevation." enormous consequence occurred, representing an is-
-John Quincy Adams, Diary, 1799 sue of the utmost strategic priority. James Monroe
had finished his second term. Andrew Jackson, backed
"France, Ge_cnany,Poland,furnished to the armies of this by the American Jacobin Thomas Jefferson, was mo-
Union in our revolutionary struggle, no inconsiderable bilizing a populist movement which distrusted every
numberofoJficersof high rank and distinguishedmerit." political and economic principle of the Founding
--John Quincy Adams, Fathers. In particular, they were aimed at repudiating
Oration on Lafayette, 1834 the economic policies of America's first Secretary of
the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, the only policies
"_ "_ "_ which would lay the basis for America's industrial
development as the "seed crystal" of a new world
In the wake of the global economic depression economic system to replace the bankrupt looting and
which struck with full force after the Napoleonic genocide programs of the British and their allied
Wars ended in 1815, the young American republic European oligarchy.
faced one of the greatest crises in its history. Collaps- The remaining leadership of Benjamin Franklin's
ing prices, widespread unemployment and unstable networks deployed into the United States to ensure
currencies characterized Europe. In 1819, panic swept that the American Presidency would be captured by
the United States.
an heir of Franklin who could steer a course true to
The British oligarchy, their banking agents of the the principles of Washington and Hamilton.
House of Rothschild and Baring Brothers, were push- General Lafayette, himselfa colleague of Franklin
ing the economic strangulation and genocide pro- and Washington, who personally epitomized the
grams of Parson Malthus and Adam Smith upon the struggle of the international humanist republican
United States and the world. If America could be faction against Jacobinism, deployed into the United
recaptured through the combination of internal fac- States. For 13 months, he toured every state in the
tionalization, corruption and foreign aggressio n Union, organizing to raise the American population
which George Washington had warned against in his to the highest level of understanding of their legacy.
Farewell Address, not merely the United States, but As a result,John Quincy Adams, himself educated by
the entire international republican movement--the Franklin, who served George Washington as an
heirs of Benjamin Franklin-_-would suffer a strategic ambassador to Europe and was a longstanding coldefeat,
league of Lafayette, was elected President.
CAMPAIGNER/June 1980 5