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Foreign Influence And Subversion Goes Way Back
How Secret French Meddling Nearly Undermined Washington and Adams
With all the buzz regarding Israel’s influence in American politics, I thought it might be helpful to point out that our country has been dealing with subversive infiltration since the early days of our nation’s existence. By pointing this particular example out, I hope you don’t think I’m Francophobic. I have family with French heritage. That said, let’s take a look at foreign immigration and infiltration as it occurred almost from day one.
When most people think of early threats to the young American republic, they picture British troops, frontier wars, or domestic political feuds. Few realize that during the administrations of George Washington and John Adams, America faced a quieter but far more dangerous challenge: organized French subversion.
In the 1790s, while France was ablaze with revolutionary fervor, its agents and sympathizers flooded into the United States. These weren’t just ordinary immigrants or traders—they were paid revolutionaries, emissaries of the radical French government, determined to reshape the world in their image.
By some accounts, the United States was “honeycombed” with French operatives, and their reach extended shockingly high—into newspapers, political clubs, and even the cabinet of President Washington himself.
Yet despite their numbers and influence, these agents failed to overthrow America’s fledgling government. The reason wasn’t luck or military might; it was the moral and religious backbone of the American people—a “strong godly element,” as one commentator put it.
A Nation Still Finding Its Footing
French diplomats inspired by the Revolution stir public passions and confront American leaders in the 1790s, as revolutionary ideals and foreign intrigue collide with the fledgling republic’s struggle for unity and sovereignty.
The United States of the 1790s was fragile, untested, and divided. Washington’s administration presided over a standing army of barely a hundred men. The Constitution itself was new and controversial, and the idea of federal authority was still being defined. Against this backdrop, the French Revolution burst onto the scene, preaching liberty, equality, and fraternity—but also chaos, atheism, and the guillotine.
To many Americans, France was still the beloved ally that had helped secure independence. Gratitude ran deep, and anti-British sentiment was strong. When revolution erupted in France, countless Americans instinctively took the French side. The problem was that the revolutionaries in Paris weren’t content with sympathy—they wanted action.
The new French Republic saw itself as the engine of global transformation. Its leaders believed that all nations, especially fellow republics, should rise up and join the cause. To them, America wasn’t a sovereign nation to be respected—it was a stage for exporting revolution.
The Genêt Affair: A Revolutionary Mission Gone Rogue
No episode captures this better than the Genêt Affair. In 1793, Edmond-Charles Genêt arrived in the United States as the French ambassador, but he wasn’t a normal diplomat. His mission was to mobilize Americans to fight in France’s wars against Britain and Spain.
Genêt openly recruited privateers to attack British ships and organized militias to fight Spain in Florida and Louisiana. He appealed directly to “the people,” bypassing Washington and Congress entirely. Crowds cheered him, toasting the French Revolution and denouncing monarchy everywhere.
But Genêt’s revolution-by-popular-appeal crossed the line. Washington, determined to keep the young republic neutral, demanded that Genêt stop. When the ambassador refused, the President asked for his recall.
Even many Americans who admired France began to see that the revolutionary fire Genêt was spreading could just as easily burn down their own government.
The Genêt Affair became the first major test of American independence—not from Britain, but from foreign ideological control.
The French Revolution’s Shadow on American Politics
The Genêt incident didn’t just strain diplomacy—it ignited deep political division at home. The French Revolution’s radical ideals bled into American newspapers and speeches, polarizing the nation.
Federalists, led by Washington and Adams, viewed the Reign of Terror as a warning of what unchecked passion could lead to. They feared that importing French ideas meant importing French chaos. Meanwhile, Democratic-Republicans, led by Jefferson and Madison, sympathized with the revolutionary struggle, believing that the same spirit that overthrew kings in France had given birth to liberty in America.
The press became the battlefield. Newspapers aligned with one party or the other hurled accusations of treason, monarchy, or Jacobinism at their rivals. For the first time, American politics became ideological warfare—echoing the feverish “with us or against us” tone of revolutionary France.
The revolution that began in Paris had found fertile ground in Philadelphia and New York.
Jacobins in America
After the French monarchy fell, the Jacobins—radical revolutionaries who had seized control of France—extended their influence abroad. They infiltrated organizations like the Masonic lodges, using them as vehicles for spreading revolutionary doctrine. These secret networks soon reached American shores.
Because France had helped the colonies win independence, many Americans still saw the French as natural allies. “I’m for the French!” was a familiar cry, especially among those still bitter toward Britain. The Jacobins exploited this goodwill, wrapping their radical agenda in the language of friendship and shared liberty.
By the mid-1790s, French agents and sympathizers had become so numerous and confident that some believed they could seize control of the U.S. government outright. Washington himself recognized the threat. It was no longer about diplomacy—it was about national survival.
The Jay Treaty and the Fury of French Influence
Washington’s signing of the Jay Treaty in 1795 marked a turning point. The treaty, negotiated with Britain, aimed to resolve lingering issues from the Revolution and secure peace. To France and its allies in America, it looked like betrayal.
French officials and their American supporters launched a full-scale propaganda war. Newspapers fumed that the treaty was “pro-British” and “anti-republican.” Some tried to bribe American officials, while others leaked documents and organized protests to pressure Congress.
This wasn’t diplomacy—it was political warfare. The French sought to make American leaders accountable not to their own people, but to revolutionary ideals crafted in Paris.
Washington’s farewell address, warning against foreign entanglements and “the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” wasn’t just abstract philosophy—it was a direct rebuke to what he had seen firsthand.
Adams, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and the Breaking Point
When John Adams took office in 1797, the crisis only deepened. French privateers attacked American ships, and French diplomats treated American envoys with contempt. Then came the infamous XYZ Affair.
Adams had sent representatives to Paris to negotiate peace, but instead they were met by three intermediaries—code-named X, Y, and Z—who demanded hefty bribes and loans before any discussion could begin. The insult outraged Americans. “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!” became the rallying cry.
At home, the French threat seemed to justify extraordinary measures. The Alien and Sedition Acts, passed in 1798, allowed the government to deport foreign agents and jail those stirring up rebellion. The Sedition Act, in particular, was poorly written and misused by one overzealous judge, resulting in the wrongful imprisonment of several critics. Adams himself was uneasy with it.
Still, the acts achieved their purpose: two shiploads of French agents fled the country within weeks. It was later discovered that even the Secretary of State under Washington had been on the French payroll. This stunning revelation revealed just how deep the subversion had gone.
A Godly Resistance
Despite the scale of infiltration, America didn’t fall. The French subversives misjudged the heart of the American people. They found energy and sympathy in radical clubs and newspapers. Still, they ran into something more substantial in the broader culture—a moral resistance rooted in faith.
While the French Revolution tore down altars and enthroned “Reason,” early America remained deeply rooted in biblical conviction. Washington’s frequent references to Providence, Adams’s belief in divine justice, and the public’s general reverence for God created a kind of spiritual firewall.
That moral core—the “strong godly element”—meant Americans could criticize British policy without embracing godless revolution. They could demand liberty while rejecting anarchy.
Lessons from the Hidden War
The French subversion of the Washington and Adams administrations wasn’t just an episode of espionage—it was a test of America’s identity. The struggle wasn’t between France and the United States as nations; it was between two worldviews. One believed liberty flowed from divine order and moral law; the other sought to destroy all authority and rebuild humanity from reason alone.
That same tension echoes through history. Whether the subversives call themselves Jacobins, socialists, or globalists, their method is the same: infiltrate, divide, and replace moral order with ideology. But as long as a nation accepts responsibility before God, as Washington and Adams did, they can resist.
The early republic survived because its leaders refused to excuse failure by blaming “the serpent” or the foreigner. They recognized that national corruption begins within, not abroad.
The Forgotten Foundation
Today, few remember that the first great crisis of the United States came not from muskets but from manipulation.
The lesson is as urgent now as it was in 1798: a free nation can only remain free if its people are morally grounded, discerning, and unwilling to trade truth for passion.
Washington’s farewell warning and Adams’s stubborn defense of sovereignty preserved more than independence—they preserved America’s soul.
When foreign revolutions tried to remake our republic, it wasn’t might or policy that saved us. It was conviction. It was the moral courage to say no—to France, to chaos, and to ourselves.
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