'A Most Critical Time': Philadelphia in 1793

In late May, 1793, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson confided to a political associate that the approaching summer ‘is of immense importance to the future condition of mankind all over the earth, and not a little so to ours’. Jefferson, like many of his contemporaries, doubted that America’s experiment in republican government would endure. Indeed, in a world of monarchial powers, the United States seemed hopelessly weak; and the events of 1793 did nothing to change that pessimistic view.

Caught up in the controversies of the French Revolution, the nation, especially its capital city Philadelphia, suffered from bitter political divisions and violence in the streets. Most ominously, the capital city experienced the ravages of the dreaded yellow fever, which threatened the very life of the community.