By Nancy Spannaus
Dec. 10, 2024—At 3 pm today, the United States House of Representatives will hold a special event, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Major General Lafayette’s[1] reception at a Joint Session of Congress. The French Lafayette was the first foreign dignitary to address such a session in Washington, D.C.
The event in 1824 occurred four months into the General’s 13-month tour of the United States as the “guest of the nation.” Since arriving in New York City in August, he had traveled up to Boston and then South through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, drawing huge crowds of admiring citizens, meeting with his old comrades-in-arms from the Revolutionary War, and seeking to revive the spirit of the Revolution.
As I have discussed the broader significance and context of Lafayette’s tour in a recent post, I have chosen here to concentrate on this specific event.
What was particularly striking in the description by Auguste Lavasseur, who accompanied the General and wrote a book-length journal on the tour, was the solemnity of the affair. One is reminded of a ceremony like the reaffirmation of wedding vows; only here what were being affirmed were the vows the Founders made in the Declaration of Independence.
First, Lafayette intervened to ensure that his entrance to the Congress was not accompanied by a military parade, although such had been proposed by local militias. Lafayette “did not believe it was fitting … [to] be surrounded by a display of arms.”[2] Second, when Lafayette was presented to the Senate on Dec. 9, the Senators stood to receive him “in deepest silence” (according to Lavasseur). The Senate then adjourned so that each Senator could come forward to personally greet the General.
On December 10, the House of Representatives convened to honor the General, who was being led across the city by a delegation of 24 members of Congress in solemn silence. The first order of business was a motion that the Senate be invited to the session, which was passed by a large majority. The Senators then entered the Chamber and, upon being announced, the official guests entered: first, Lafayette’s son George and Mr. Lavasseur, and then the General himself, accompanied by his 24 escorts.
Once again, he was received by the assembly standing in respectful silence.
The Moving Exchange
What followed were two addresses, the first by Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and the second by the General himself.
In the remainder of this post, I will reproduce these speeches in full, but I encourage you to note the following elements.
First is the degree to which Speaker Clay acknowledges the debt of the United States to the General. It should be common knowledge among us Americans that our victory in the War of Independence was impossible without the aid of France, although I find that such acknowledgement is too often ignored. But very few perhaps understand the personal role which General Lafayette played in securing the military (including naval) support which played such a critical role in the Battle of Yorktown.[3] As the first or second richest nobleman in France, Lafayette was able to appeal directly to Louis XVI to obtain that support – and he did so repeatedly until he succeeded.
Second is the emphasis which General Lafayette, in his response to Clay, puts on the Revolution’s commitment to the “principles of liberty, equality and true social order,” and “institutions founded on the rights of man and on the republican principle of a government of the people by themselves.” It is the commitment to such principles that allows the prosperity America now sees, the General asserts, with an eye to making that case in his own homeland, where reactionary forces had once again come into power.
But General Lafayette was acutely aware of the shortcomings of his American compatriots in guaranteeing the “rights of man.” He was horrified at the expansion of chattel slavery in America, and sought to use every opportunity he could (without direct confrontation) to embrace his Black collaborators during the war, and challenge his friends, such as Jefferson, on the issue.[4] Publicly, he felt he could only speak in generalities, but his implicit challenge for Americans to live up to their commitments was undoubtedly understood by many – and encouraged the active abolitionist movement.
Now, here are the speeches.[5]
Speaker Henry Clay
General—The house of representatives of the United States, impelled alike by its own feelings, and by those of the whole American people, could not have assigned to me a more gratifying duty, than that of presenting to you cordial congratulations upon the occasion of your recent arrival in the United States, in compliance with the wishes of congress, and to assure you of the very high satisfaction which your presence affords on this early theatre of your glory and renown. Although but few of the members who compose this body shared with you in the war of our revolution, all have, from impartial history or from faithful tradition, a knowledge of the perils, the sufferings, and the sacrifices which you voluntarily encountered, and the signal services, in America and in Europe, which you performed for an infant, a distant, and an alien people; and all feel and own the very great extent of the obligations under which you have placed our country.
But the relations in which you have ever stood to the United States, interesting and important as they have been, do not constitute the only motive of the respect and admiration which the house of representatives entertain for you. Your consistency of character, your uniform devotion to regulated liberty, in all the vicissitudes of a long and arduous life, also commands its admiration. During all the recent convulsions of Europe, amidst, as after the dispersion of, every political storm, the people of the United States have beheld you, true to your old principles, firm and erect, cheering and animating, with your well known voice, the votaries of liberty, its faithful and fearless champion, ready to shed the last drop of that blood which here you so freely and nobly spilt, in the same holy cause.
The vain wish has been sometimes indulged, that Providence would allow the patriot, after death, to return to his country, and to contemplate the intermediate changes which had taken place—to view the forests felled, the cities built, the mountains levelled, the canals cut, the highways constructed, the progress of the arts, the advancement of learning, and the increase of population.
General, your present visit to the United States is a realization of the consoling object of that wish. You are in the midst of posterity. Every where, you must have been struck with the great changes, physical and moral, which have occurred since you left us. Even this very city, bearing a venerated name, alike endeared to you and to us, has since emerged from the forest which then covered its site. In one respect, you behold us unaltered, and this is in the sentiment of continued devotion to liberty, and of ardent affection and profound gratitude to your departed friend, the father of his country, and to you, and to your illustrious associates in the field and in the cabinet, for the multiplied blessings which surround us, and for the very privilege of addressing you, which I now exercise. This sentiment, now fondly cherished by more than ten millions of people, will be transmitted, with unabated vigour, down the tide of time, through the countless millions who are destined to inhabit this continent, to the latest posterity.
General Lafayette
Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives—While the people of the United States, and their honourable representatives in congress, have deigned to make choice of me, one of the American veterans, to signify, in his person, their esteem for our joint services, and their attachment to the principles for which we have had the honour to fight and bleed, I am proud and happy to share those extraordinary favours with my dear revolutionary companions; yet it would be, on my part, uncandid and ungrateful, not to acknowledge my personal share in those testimonies of kindness, as they excite in my breast emotions which no words are adequate to express.
My obligations to the United States, sir, far exceed any merit I might claim; they date from the time when I have had the happiness to be adopted as a young soldier, a favoured son of America; they have been continued to me during almost a half a century of constant affection and confidence; and now, sir, thanks to your most gratifying invitation, I find myself greeted by a series of welcomes, one hour of which would more than compensate for the public exertions and sufferings of a whole life.
The approbation of the American people, and their representatives, for my conduct, during the vicissitudes of the European revolution, is the highest reward I could receive. Well may I stand firm and erect, when, in their names, and by you, Mr. Speaker, I am declared to have, in every instance, been faithful to those American principles of liberty, equality, and true social order, the devotion to which, as it has been from my earliest youth, so it shall continue to be to my latest breath.
You have been pleased, Mr. Speaker, to allude to the peculiar felicity of my situation, when, after so long an absence, I am called to witness the immense improvements, the admirable communications, the prodigious creations, of which we find an example in this city, whose name itself is a venerated palladium; in a word, all the grandeur and prosperity of those happy United States, who, at the same time they nobly secure the complete 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 love of liberty, when these blessings are evidently the result of a virtuous resistance to oppression, and institutions founded on the rights of man, and the republican principle of self-government?
No, Mr. Speaker, posterity has not begun for me, since, in the sons of my companions and friends, I find the same public feelings; and permit me to add, the same feelings in my behalf, which I have had the happiness to experience in their fathers.
Sir, I have been allowed, forty years ago, before a committee of a congress of thirteen states, to express the fond wishes of an American heart; on this day, I have the honour and enjoy the delight, to congratulate the representatives of the Union, so vastly enlarged, on the realization of those wishes, even beyond every human expectation, and upon the almost infinite prospects we can with certainty anticipate; permit me, Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the house of representatives, to join to the expression of those sentiments, a tribute of my lively gratitude, affectionate devotion, and profound respect.
[1] I am referring, of course, to the person generally identified as the Marquis de Lafayette, who served as a Major General in the American Revolutionary War. The Marquis, however, was reluctant to be identified by his title of nobility, preferring to be called by his name or military rank.
[2] As you can read in my post cited above, Lafayette maintained this attitude throughout his tour. Even when being feted by military parades, or reviewing troops, he himself wore civilian clothes, to stress his dedication to being a citizen.
[3] Not only did the French army supply more than 4000 troops, but the French Navy’s defeat of the British in the Battle of the Capes was crucial in keeping Cornwallis under siege. The Navy also delivered at least 3000 more French troops to aid the Americans and their fellow countryman on land.
[4] Although the French assembly had banned slavery in 1794, Napoleon had re-established it in 1802. Slavery itself was not banned in French colonies until 1848.
[5] The texts I have included come from the translation of Lavasseur’s journal by John D. Godman in 1829, which is published by Project Gutenberg on the Internet and available for free. It can be found here. A more accurate translation is available in the book Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825 by Alan R. Hoffman, president of the American Friends of Lafayette, which can be purchased on Amazon.
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Tags: Congress, General Lafayette, Henry Clay, Nancy Spannaus, Revolutionary War
