Chapter IX
WASHINGTON'S NOVEL POSITION--THE SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE--APPEARANCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC ELEMENT IN SOCIETY--THE QUESTION OF A TITLE FOR THE PRESIDENT DISCUSSED IN CONGRESS--THE RESULT--DISCRETION NECESSARY--WASHINGTON ASKS ADVICE CONCERNING CEREMONIALS--RESPONSES--WASHINGTON'S ARRANGEMENT FOR VISITS OF CEREMONY--JEALOUSY OF THE PEOPLE--SILLY STORIES CONCERNING THE POMP OF THE PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT--CUSTOMS OF THE LEVEES ESTABLISHED--GRAND BALLS--MRS. WASHINGTON'S JOURNEY TO NEW YORK--HER RECEPTION--HER DRAWING-ROOMS--WASHINGTON'S HABITS OF LIVING.
Washington's position was a novel one in every particular. He was the chosen head of a people who had just abolished royal government with all its pomp and parade, its titles and class immunities, but who were too refined, and too conscious of their real social and political strength as a basis for a great nation, to be willing to trample upon all deferential forms and ceremonies that might give proper dignity to, and respect for deserving rulers, without implying servility.
In the convention that framed the constitution, the representatives of the people exhibited this conservative feeling in a remarkable degree; and the extreme democratic sentiment, such as afterward sympathized with the radicals of the French revolution, was yet only a fledgling, but destined to grow rapidly, and to fly with swift wing over the land. Yet the spirit was manifest, and its coalescence with the state-rights feeling made circumspection in the arrangement of the ceremonials connected with the president and his household extremely necessary.
Already the question of a title for the president had been discussed in Congress, and had produced a great deal of excitement in different quarters. The subject appears to have been suggested by Mr. Adams, the vice-president; and on the twenty-third of April the senate appointed Richard Henry Lee, Ralph Izard, and Tristram Dalton, a committee "to consider and report what style or titles it will be proper to annex to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States." On the following day the house of representatives appointed a committee to confer with that of the senate, and the joint committee reported that it was "improper to annex any style or title to the respective styles or titles of office expressed in the constitution."
The house adopted the report by unanimous vote, but the senate did not concur. The question then arose in the senate whether the president should not be addressed by the title of His Excellency, and the subject was referred to a new committee, of which Mr. Lee was chairman. A proposition in the house to appoint a committee to confer with the new senate committee elicited a warm debate. The senate committee, meanwhile, reported in favor of the title of His Highness the President of the United States of America, and Protector of their Liberties; but they did not press the matter, as the inauguration had taken place in the meantime, and the house had addressed the chief magistrate, in reply to his inaugural address, simply as President of the United States. With a view to preserve harmonious action, the senate determined to address him in the same way; at the same time resolving that, "from a decent respect for the opinion and practice of civilized nations, whether under monarchical or republican forms of government, whose custom is to annex titles of respectability to the office of their chief magistrate, and that, in intercourse with foreign nations, a due respect for the majesty of the people of the United States may not be hazarded by an appearance of singularity, the senate have been induced to be of opinion that it would be proper to annex a respectable title to the office of the president of the United States."
This was the last action in Congress upon the subject, but it was discussed in the newspapers for some time afterward. The excitement upon the subject ran high in some places for a while, and Mr. Lee and Mr. Adams, the reputed authors of the proposition, were quite unpopular. It gave Washington, who was averse to all titles, much uneasiness, lest, he said, it should be supposed by some, unacquainted with the facts, that the object they had in view was not displeasing to him. "The truth is," he said, "the question was moved before I arrived, without any privity or knowledge of it on my part, and urged, after I was apprized of it, contrary to my opinion; for I foresaw and predicted the reception it has met with, and the use that would be made of it by the adversaries of the government. Happily this matter is now done with, I hope never to be revived."
The effect of this movement upon the public mind gave Washington a perception of the necessity of great circumspection in the arrangement of ceremonials, to which allusion has just been made. He also perceived the greater necessity of so regulating his personal matters as to secure the most time for attention to public business; for, immediately after his inauguration, he found that he was master neither of himself nor his home. "By the time I had done breakfast," he wrote to Dr. Stuart, "and thence till dinner, and afterward till bed-time, I could not get rid of the ceremony of one visit before I had to attend to another. In a word, I held no leisure to read or to answer the despatches that were pouring in upon me from all quarters."
As usual, Washington sought the advice of those in whom he had confidence. To Vice-President Adams, Jay, Hamilton, and Madison, he addressed a series of nine questions, and desired them to reflect upon and answer them. These all had reference to his intercourse with the public: whether a line of conduct equally distant from an association with all kinds of company on the one hand, and from a total seclusion from society on the other, would be proper; how such a system should best be made known to the public; whether one day in every week would not be sufficient to devote to visits of compliment; whether he should receive direct applications from those having business with him, setting apart a certain hour every morning; whether the customs of the presidents of the old Congress, in giving large dinner-parties to both sexes twice a-week, ought not to be abolished, and invitations to dine at the president's house, informal or otherwise, be limited, in regard to persons, to six, eight, or ten official characters, including in rotation the members of both houses of Congress, on days fixed for receiving company; whether the public would be satisfied if he should give four great entertainments in a year, on such occasions as the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the alliance with France, the peace with Great Britain, and the organization of the general government; whether the president should make and receive informal visits from friends and acquaintances, for purposes of sociability and civility, and, if so, in what way they should be made so as not to be construed into visits from the president of the United States; and finally, whether it might not be advantageous for the president to make a tour through the United States during the recess of Congress, in order to become better acquainted with the people, and the circumstances and resources of the country.
"The president," he said at the close of his queries, "in all matters of business and etiquette, can have no object but to demean himself in his public character in such a manner as to maintain the dignity of his office, without subjecting himself to the imputation of superciliousness or unnecessary reserve."
To these queries the gentlemen addressed promptly responded in writing. The vice-president, who, as minister abroad, had seen much of royal etiquette, and become somewhat fascinated, as Jefferson said, "by the glare of royalty and nobility," spoke of chamberlains, aids-de-camp, and masters of ceremonies; for he regarded the presidential office "equal to any in the world." "The royal office in Poland," he said, "is a mere shadow in comparison with it;" and he thought that "if the state and pomp essential to that great department were not in a good degree preserved, it would be in vain for America to hope for consideration with foreign powers." He thought it would be necessary to devote two days each week to the reception of complimentary visits; that application to a minister of state should be made by those who desired an interview with the president; and in every case the character and business of the visitor should be communicated to the chamberlain or gentleman in waiting, who should judge whom to admit and whom to exclude. He thought the time for receiving visits should be limited to one hour each day; that the president might informally invite small parties of official characters and strangers of distinction to dine with him, without exciting public clamor; and that he might, as a private gentleman, make and receive visits; but in his official character, he should have no other intercourse with society than such as pertained to public business.
Hamilton desired the dignity of the presidential office to be well sustained, but intimated that care would be necessary "to avoid extensive disgust or discontent." Although men's minds were prepared, he said, for a "pretty high tone in the demeanor of the executive," he doubted whether so high as might be desirable would be tolerated, for the notions of equality were too strong to admit of a great distance being placed between the president and other branches of the government. He advised a public levee of half an hour once a-week; that formal entertainments should be given, at most, four times a year, on the days mentioned by Washington; that informal invitations to family dinners might be given to official characters; that heads of departments, foreign ministers of some descriptions, and senators, should alone have direct access to the person of the president, and only in matters pertaining to the public business.
The opinions of his friends so nearly coinciding with that of his own, Washington proceeded to act upon them, but with a wise discretion. He had already adopted the plan of designating certain times for visits of compliment, and he gave a public intimation that these would be on Tuesday and Friday of each week, between the hours of two and three o'clock. On these occasions there was no ostentatious display. On the contrary, the president received his visitors in a simple manner; conversed with them freely after introduction, if opportunities were afforded; and in every respect, while maintaining perfect dignity, he made all feel that he was their fellow-citizen.
"These visits are optional," he said in a letter to Dr. Stuart; "they are made without invitation.... Gentlemen, often in great numbers, come and go, chat with each other, and act as they please. A porter shows them into the room, and they retire from it when they choose, without ceremony. At their first entrance they salute me, and I them, and as many as I can, I talk to. What 'pomp' there is in all this I am unable to discover."
The last clause refers to a sentence in Dr. Stuart's letter, in which he spoke of public clamors, in some places in Virginia, originating generally with the opponents of the constitution and the government organized under it, on account of alleged practices on the part of the president and vice-president, which were regarded as monarchical in their tendency. An untrue report was circulated that the vice-president (who, it must be confessed, was quite high in his notions) never appeared publicly except with a coach and six horses! It created much excitement in Virginia, and the opponents of the government made much use of it.
The levees of the president were cited as examples of the rapid growth of aristocracy. Among other stories, it was alleged that at the first levee an ante-chamber and presence-room were provided in the presidential mansion; and that, when those who were to pay court were assembled, the president, preceded by Colonel Humphreys as herald, passed through the ante-chamber to the door of the inner room. This was first entered, according to the untruthful account, by Humphreys, who called out, with a loud voice, "The president of the United States!"
Another silly story went abroad, that at the ball given in honor of the president, soon after his inauguration, he and Mrs. Washington were seated in state upon a raised sofa at the head of the room; that each gentleman, when going to dance, led his partner to the foot of the sofa and made a low bow, and that when the dance was over, he again took his partner to make obeisance to the president and his lady before they retired to their chairs!
The subject of etiquette in the president's home, and in his intercourse with the public at large, was of far more consequence, under the circumstances, than might appear at first thought. It seems to have been left chiefly to Colonel Humphreys, who had lately been Jefferson's secretary of legation in Paris, to arrange the whole matter; yet several months elapsed before Washington felt that he was treading upon sure ground. As late as November, he made the following entry in his diary: "Received an Invitation to attend the funeral of Mrs. Roosevelt (the wife of a senator of this state), but declined complying with it--first, because the propriety of accepting any invitation of this sort appeared very questionable; and, secondly (though to do it in this instance might not be improper), because it might be difficult to discriminate in cases which might thereafter happen."
The customs established during Washington's administration concerning levees, the president not returning visits, et cetera, have ever since prevailed, and the chief magistrate of the republic is never seen in the position of a private citizen.
We have alluded to the ball given in honor of Washington after his inauguration. It was a brilliant affair, and surpassed anything of the kind ever before seen in New York. Preparations had been made by the managers of the city assemblies to have the ball on the evening of the inauguration day; but, hearing that Mrs. Washington could not accompany her husband, it was postponed. The time when she would arrive being uncertain, the ball was given a week afterward. It was attended by the president and vice-president, a large majority of the members of both houses of Congress, the governor and other New York state officers, foreign ministers, many military characters, and a large number of distinguished citizens. "The collection of ladies," wrote one who was present, "was numerous and brilliant, and they were dressed with consummate taste and elegance."
"On this occasion," says Griswold, "an agreeable surprise was prepared by the managers for every woman who attended. A sufficient number of fans had been made for the purpose in Paris, the ivory frames of which displayed, as they were opened, between the hinges and the elegant paper covering, an extremely well-executed medallion portrait of Washington in profile, and a page was appointed to present one, with the compliments of the managers, as each couple passed the receiver of the tickets."[17]
On the evening of the fourteenth of May, the Count de Moustier, the French minister, gave a splendid ball in honor of the president, at his residence in M'Comb's house, in Broadway, afterward occupied by Washington as the presidential mansion. The whole arrangement was directed by his sister, the Marchioness de Brienne, who was an amateur artist of considerable distinction. "I heard the marchioness declare," wrote a lady who was present, "she had exhausted every resource to produce an entertainment worthy of France."
Mrs. Washington did not leave Mount Vernon until Tuesday, the nineteenth of May, when she set out for New York in her travelling carriage, drawn by four horses, accompanied by her two grandchildren, Eleanor Parke and George Washington Parke Custis, and a small escort of horse. She was everywhere greeted with demonstrations of the greatest affection. When she approached Baltimore she was met by a cavalcade of citizens. In the evening, fireworks were discharged in honor of the fair guest, and a band of musicians serenaded her. When she approached Philadelphia she was met by the president of the commonwealth, the speaker of the assembly, two troops of dragoons, and a large number of citizens, who escorted her toward the Schuylkill. Seven miles from Philadelphia she was met by a large company of women in carriages, who formed an escort, and at Gray's ferry all partook of a collation. There Mrs. Robert Morris joined Mrs. Washington in her carriage, and as the procession entered the city the bells rang out a merry peal, and cannon thundered a cordial welcome.
Mrs. Washington remained in Philadelphia, a guest of Mrs. Morris, until Monday morning, when she set out for New York, accompanied by that lady. All through New Jersey she received the most affectionate attentions, and at Elizabethtown was the guest of Governor Livingston. At Elizabethtown Point she was met by her husband, who, attended by Robert Morris and other distinguished men, had come from New York in his splendid barge to receive her. As they approached the city they were saluted by thirteen discharges of cannon, and were followed to their residence by a crowd of the citizens.
On the day after Mrs. Washington's arrival, the president invited a few official characters to a family dinner. No clergyman being present, Washington himself asked a blessing before the company took their seat at table. The dinner was simple, and no special etiquette was observed on that occasion. A single glass of wine was offered to each guest, with the toast which Washington invariably gave on such occasions--"To all our friends;" and when it was drunk, the president arose, led the way to the drawing-room, and each one departed when he pleased, without ceremony. Such continued to be the simple hospitality of President Washington's table.
On the evening of the twenty-eighth, two days after her arrival, Mrs. Washington held her first levee, or drawing-room. It was attended by nearly all of the leading characters in social and political life then in the federal metropolis. "There was no place for the intrusion of the rabble in crowds, or for the mere coarse and boisterous partisan," says Colonel Stone in some remarks upon these receptions. "There was no place for the vulgar electioneerer or impudent place-hunter. On the contrary, they were select, and more courtly than have been given by any of Washington's successors. Proud of her husband's exalted fame, and jealous of the honors due, not only to his own lofty character, but to the dignified station to which a grateful country had called him, Mrs. Washington was careful, in her drawing-rooms, to exact those courtesies to which she knew he was entitled, as well on account of personal merit as of official consideration. None, therefore, were admitted to the levees but those who had either a right by official station to be there, or were entitled to the privilege by established merit and character."
Mrs. Washington's receptions were on Friday evenings, and were always closed at precisely nine o'clock. Notwithstanding the entire absence of all pomp or parade on these occasions, cavilers spoke of them sometimes in ill-natured and offensive terms, as "court levees" and "queenly drawing-rooms."[18]
Washington always held the Sabbath-day sacred to worship and repose, and no visitors were received by him on that day. Sometimes an intimate acquaintance would spend the evening with him. He usually attended public worship with his family in the morning, and in the afternoon he retired to study, to read, to meditate, or to write private letters.
In public as in private life, he was temperate in all things, and frugal in his household expenses. He employed the celebrated tavern-keeper, Samuel Fraunces (whose daughter, it will be remembered, once saved Washington's life by revealing the murderous intentions of one of his life-guard) as his steward. Everything was governed by a well-regulated economy, which had a most salutary effect in restraining extravagant living, toward which New York society had then a strong tendency. The president's example in that particular was powerful.
Washington preserved, in his movements, a certain degree of state, not offensive to the well-informed or right-minded. He had a fine coach, and, as at Mount Vernon, he kept superb horses, six of which, on some few occasions, were driven at one time before his carriage. The family carriage was generally drawn by four horses, when rides were taken in the country for exercise, with "Mrs. Washington and the children." His servants usually wore livery, and he sometimes was accompanied by outriders. Such was the state in which many wealthy gentlemen moved at that day, especially in Virginia; and none knew better than those who made these things an occasion to revile the new government, that nothing was further from the mind and heart of Washington, in the practice of these customs, than a desire for ostentatious display.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Griswold's Republican Court, page 156.
[18] The late Mr. Custis, Mrs. Washington's grandson, giving an account of these receptions at the presidential mansion in Philadelphia, says:--
"When Mrs. Washington received company it was on Friday, commencing about seven, and ending about nine o'clock. Two rooms were thrown open. The furniture that was thought handsome in those days would be considered barely decent in modern times. The principal ornament was a glass chandelier in the largest room, burning wax lights. The chair of the lady of the president was a plain arm-chair lined with green morocco leather.
"The ladies visiting the drawing-room were always attended by gentlemen. It was not the habit for very young girls to be present at the drawing-room, but only those of the age when it is proper for ladies to go into company. Upon the ladies being introduced they were seated, and the president, who always attended the drawing-room, passed round the circle, paying his respects to each in succession; and it was a common remark, among the chit-chat of the drawing-room, that the chief was no inconsiderable judge of female beauty, since he was observed to tarry longer than usual when paying his compliments to Miss Sophia Chew, a charming belle of Philadelphia in that time.
"Refreshments were handed round by servants in livery; and about that period first appeared the luxury, now so universal, of ice-cream. Introductions to eminent personages and conversation formed the entertainments of the drawing-room. Cards were altogether unknown.
"But the leading and most imposing feature of the drawing-room was the men of mark, the 'Revolutionaries,' both civil and military, who were to be seen there. The old officers delighted to pay their respects to the wife of Washington, and to call up the reminiscences of the headquarters, and of the 'times that tried men's souls.' These glorious old chevaliers were the greatest beaux of the age, and the recollections of their gallant achievements, together with their elegant manners, made them acceptable to the ladies everywhere. They formed the élite of the drawing-room. General Wayne--the renowned 'Mad Anthony'--with his aids-de-camp, Lewis and De Butts, frequently attended, with Mifflin, Walter Stewart, Colonel Hartley, and many others. Indeed, there was often to be met with at the mansion of the first president an assemblage of intellect and honor, public virtue and private worth, exalted merit and illustrious services, such as the world will never see again."
Chapter X
WASHINGTON BEGINS HIS OFFICIAL LABORS--THE FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES--DANGEROUS ILLNESS OF THE PRESIDENT--PUBLIC ANXIETY AND HIS OWN CALMNESS--SLOW CONVALESCENCE--DEATH OF WASHINGTON'S MOTHER--PROCEEDINGS IN CONGRESS IN REFERENCE TO REVENUE, THE JUDICIARY AND EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS--DEBATES CONCERNING THE APPOINTING POWER--AMENDMENTS OF THE CONSTITUTION--ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JUDICIARY--WASHINGTON'S APPOINTMENT OF CABINET AND JUDICIAL OFFICERS--ADJOURNMENT OF CONGRESS--THANKSGIVING-DAY APPOINTED.
With a most earnest desire to be a faithful public servant, Washington commenced his labors as soon as possible after the inauguration. His first care was to make himself acquainted with the exact condition of his country; and for that purpose he personally inspected all of the most important official documents issued since the establishment of the Confederacy, and called, unofficially, upon the heads of the several departments to report, in writing, the condition of things connected with the operations of their respective bureaux. In this pursuit he labored almost incessantly, examining with care the archives of the departments, making notes of important foreign correspondence, and collating his garnered facts so as to make them most convenient for use.
The foreign relations of the United States were, on the whole, satisfactory. With the exception of England, the feeling of the European powers toward the new republic was friendly. The resentments caused by the long war with the mother-country were blunted, but by no means deprived of their strength; and the fact that the British government still held possession of western posts, in violation of treaty stipulations, to which allusion has already been made, was a cause of much irritation on the part of the Americans. And this was increased, as we have observed, by the supposed malign influence of British officers over the tribes of Indians between the lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, whose military strength was computed at five thousand warriors, one third of whom were, at the time in question, standing in open hostility to the United States. In the far southwest, the powerful Creeks, six thousand strong, were at war with Georgia, while the entire regular force of the United States did not exceed six hundred men.
We have already alluded to the relative position of the Spaniards in the southwest, and their disposition to exclude the Americans from the navigation of the southern Mississippi to its mouth. An attempt to open that navigation by treaty had failed; and there was an almost undefinable boundary-line between the Spanish possessions and those of the United States, about which a dispute had arisen that threatened unpleasant relations with Spain.
France, the old ally of the new republic, was still friendly; but its government was then shaken by a terrible revolution just commenced, in which Lafayette took a conspicuous part. Of this we shall speak hereafter.
Up to the time in question, the representatives of France in America had exhibited the most friendly disposition. Count de Moustier, the successor of the Chevalier de Luzerne, was assiduous in his attentions; and Washington had scarcely commenced the exercise of his executive functions, before that embassador, who had been more than a year in the country, sought a private interview with him, preparatory, as he said, to diplomatic negotiations concerning the commerce between the two nations. He was anxious to secure for his country superior advantages in commercial arrangements, and seemed to feel that France, as an ally, was entitled to more consideration than other nations. Washington reciprocated his expressions of friendship, gave him assurance of the most friendly feeling toward France on the part of the people and government of the United States; but, with a wise caution, did not commit himself to any future policy in regard to commercial or other intercourse with the nations of Europe.
While zealously engaged in his public duties, Washington was prostrated by violent disease, in the form of malignant anthrax or carbuncle boil upon his thigh, and for several days his life was seriously jeoparded. Fortunately for himself and the republic, there was a physician at hand, in the person of Doctor Samuel Bard, by whose well-directed skill his life was spared. While the malady was approaching its crisis, Doctor Bard never left his patient, but watched the progress of the disease with the greatest anxiety. On one occasion, when they were alone in the room, Washington, looking earnestly in the doctor's face, said: "Do not flatter me with vain hopes; I am not afraid to die, and therefore can bear the worst." Bard replied with an expression of hope, but with an acknowledgment of apprehension. To this the president calmly answered: "Whether to-night or twenty years hence makes no difference--I know that I am in the hands of a good Providence."
While Washington was so calm under his severe affliction--for his sufferings were intense--the public mind was greatly agitated upon the subject of his illness; for momentous interests were suspended upon the result of the disease. Every hour, anxious inquiries were made at the presidential mansion. People listened with the most intense concern to every word that was passed from the lips of the physician to the public ear; and there was a sense of great relief when his convalescence was announced. But his recovery was very slow. On the twenty-eighth of July he was enabled for the first to receive a few visits of compliment, notwithstanding he had considered his health as restored three weeks earlier. "But," he wrote to Mr. M'Henry, "a feebleness still hangs upon me, and I am much incommoded by the incision which was made in a very large and painful tumor on the protuberance of my thigh. This prevents me from walking or sitting. However, the physician assures me it has had a happy effect in removing my fever, and will tend very much to the establishment of my general health." As late as the eighth of September he wrote to Doctor Craik, saying:
"Though now freed from pain, the wound given by the incision is not yet healed."
Before he had fairly recovered, the president heard of the death of his mother, who expired at Fredericksburg, on the twenty-fifth of August, at the age of little more than eighty-two years, forty-six of which she had passed in widowhood. The event was touchingly alluded to in the pulpits of New York; and at the first public levees of the president, after her death was known, members of the two houses of Congress and other persons wore badges of mourning.
When Washington had fully recovered, he resumed his labors for the public good with the greatest ardor. The Congress had been chiefly employed, meanwhile, in framing laws necessary to the organization of the government. The most important of these, in the senate, was an act for the establishment of a judiciary, and in the house of representatives an act providing a revenue by an imposition of discriminating duties upon imports. The latter subject had received the earliest attention of the house, for, in the condition in which the new government found the national finances, it was an all-important one. Mr. Madison brought it to the attention of Congress, only two days after the inauguration, by a suggestion, in the first committee of the whole on the state of the Union, to adopt a temporary system of imposts, by which the exhausted treasury might be replenished. Upon the questions which this proposition gave birth to, long and able debates ensued, in which the actual state of the trade, commerce, and manufactures of the country were quite fully developed. From the published reports of these debates Washington collated a mass of facts which aided him much in his future labors, and in drawing conclusions concerning public measures. An act for the collection of revenue through the medium of imposts was finally passed, and the principle was recognised of discriminating duties for the protection of American manufactures. The plan then adopted became the basis of our present revenue system.
Another important question that engaged Congress during its first session was the establishment of executive departments, the heads of which should be the counsellors and assistants of the president in the management of public affairs. Hitherto these functions had been performed by those officers who had been appointed, some of them several years before, by Congress under the old Confederation. John Jay had been secretary for foreign affairs (an equivalent to secretary of state) since 1784; General Knox had been at the head of the war department since the close of 1783, when he succeeded General Lincoln; and the treasury department was still managed by a board, at that time consisting of Samuel Osgood, Walter Livingston, and Arthur Lee.
Congress established three executive departments--treasury, war, and foreign affairs (the latter afterward called department of state)--the heads of which were to be styled secretaries, instead of ministers as in Europe, and were to constitute, with the president of the United States, an executive council. In the organization of these departments, the important question arose, in what manner might the high officers who should fill them be appointed or removed? Many believed that the decision of this question would materially influence the character of the new government; and the clause in the act to "establish an executive department to be denominated the department of foreign affairs," which declared the secretary thereof to be removable by the president, was debated with great warmth. It was contended that such a prerogative given to the president was in its character so monarchical that it would, in the nature of things, convert the heads of departments into mere tools and creatures of his will; that a dependence so servile on one individual would deter men of high and honorable minds from engaging in the public service; and that the most alarming dangers to liberty might be perceived in such prerogative. It was feared, they said, that those who advocated the bestowment of such power upon the president were too much dazzled with the splendor of the virtues which adorned the then incumbent of the office; and that they did not extend their views far enough to perceive, that an ambitious man at the head of the government might apply the prerogative to dangerous purposes, and remove the best of men from office.
The idea that a man could ever be elected by the people of the United States to the office of chief magistrate, who was so lost to a sense of right, and so indifferent to public odium, as to remove a good man from office, was treated by the opposite party as absurd; and after a discussion which lasted several days, it was decided to give the removing power to the president, the action of the senate being necessary only in the matter of appointment.
Another important matter acted upon during the first session of Congress was that of amending the constitution. It was brought to the attention of the national legislature in the president's inaugural speech; for he conceived that the amendments which had been proposed by the minorities in the several state conventions called to consider the constitution, deserved the careful consideration of those in authority, not only because of the nature of the propositions, but because such a consideration might be productive of good will toward the government, even in the minds of its opponents.
Mr. Madison brought the subject before Congress, pursuant to pledges which he found himself compelled to give in the Virginia convention in order to secure the ratification of the constitution. These amendments amounted in the aggregate to no less than one hundred and forty-seven, besides separate bills of rights proposed by Virginia and New York. Some of them, made in different states, were identical in spirit, and sometimes in form; and yet, it is worthy of remark that not one of these proposed amendments, judged by subsequent experience, was of a vital character. How well this fact illustrates the profound wisdom embodied in our constitution!
Sixteen amendments were finally agreed to by Congress and submitted to the several state legislatures. Ten of these were subsequently ratified, and now form a part of the federal constitution. This early action of Congress in deference to the opinions of minorities in the several states had a most happy effect. It reconciled many able men to the new government, and gave it strength at an hour when it was most needed.
The senate, meanwhile, had adopted measures for the establishment of a federal judiciary. A plan embodied in a bill drafted by Ellsworth, of Connecticut, was, after several amendments, concurred in by both houses. By its provisions, the judiciary as established consisted of a supreme court, having one chief justice and five associate justices, who were to hold two sessions annually at the seat of the federal government. Circuit and district courts were also established, which had jurisdiction over certain specified cases. Appeals from these lower courts to the supreme court of the United States were allowed, as to points of law, in all civil cases where the matter in dispute amounted to two thousand dollars. A marshal was to be appointed for each district, having the general power of a sheriff, who was to attend all courts, and was authorized to serve all processes. A district attorney, to act for the United States in all cases in which the federal government might be interested, was also to be appointed for each district. Such, in brief outline and in general terms, was the federal judiciary organized at the commencement of the government, and which is still in force, with slight modifications.
The government being completely organized by acts of Congress, and a system of revenue for the support of the government being established, Washington proceeded to the important duty of filling the several offices which had been created. This was a most delicate and momentous task, for upon a right choice, especially in the heads of the executive departments, depended much of the success of his administration. He had contemplated the subject with much deliberation, and when the time came for him to act he was fully prepared.
At that time the post of secretary of the treasury was the most important of all. Everything pertaining to the finances of the country was in confusion, and needed a skillful hand in re-arranging and systematizing the inharmonious and incoherent fiscal machinery, so as to ascertain the actual resources of the treasury, and to adopt measures for restoring the credit of the country upon a basis of perfect solvency. "My endeavors," Washington wrote before he assumed the office of chief magistrate, "shall be unremittingly exerted, even at the hazard of former fame or present popularity, to extricate my country from the embarrassments in which it is entangled through want of credit."
To Robert Morris, the able financier of the Revolution, Washington turned with a feeling that he was the best man for the head of the treasury department. Immediately after his inauguration, he inquired of Morris: "What are we to do with this heavy debt?" "There is but one man in the United States," replied Morris, "who can tell you--that is Alexander Hamilton. I am glad," he added, "that you have given me this opportunity to declare to you the extent of the obligations I am under to him."
This hint determined Washington to offer the important position of secretary of the treasury to Hamilton. At the beginning of his administration he gave that gentleman assurances that he should call him to his cabinet in that capacity; and he frequently consulted him in reference to fiscal matters and cognate subjects during the summer. And when, in September, the office was formally tendered to Hamilton, he accepted it, although it was at the sacrifice of the emoluments of a lucrative profession. Some of his friends remonstrated with him on that account, because it would not be just to his growing family. "Of that I am aware," the patriot replied; "but I am convinced it is the situation in which I can do most good." He entered upon the duties of his office almost immediately, with a full assurance that he should perform what he had often expressed a belief that he could do--the restoration of the public credit.
General Henry Knox, the efficient leader of the artillery during the Revolution, the sincere friend of Washington, and a prudent, industrious, faithful, and honest man, was retained in the office of secretary of war.
To Edmund Randolph, Washington offered the responsible position of attorney-general of the United States. They had differed materially in their opinions concerning the federal constitution, and it will be remembered that Randolph refused to sign it; but he had in a great degree become reconciled to the measure; and at no time was the friendship between himself and Washington interrupted by their diversity of political sentiments. Washington knew Randolph's great worth and eminent abilities, and urged him to accept the office. He complied, and some months afterward entered upon its duties.
John Jay, one of the brightest minds of the remarkable century in which he lived, and an acute lawyer, was chosen to fill the office of chief justice of the United States. "I have a full confidence," wrote Washington to Mr. Jay, "that the love which you bear to our country, and a desire to promote the general happiness, will not suffer you to hesitate a moment to bring into action the talents, knowledge, and integrity, which are so necessary to be exercised at the head of that department which must be considered the keystone of our political fabric."
Mr. Jay accepted the office; and for his associates on the bench, the president selected William Cushing, then chief justice of Massachusetts; James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, a very conspicuous member of the general convention of 1787; Robert H. Harrison, then chief justice of Maryland, who during a large portion of the war for independence had been one of Washington's most loved confidential secretaries; John Blair, one of the judges of the court of appeals in Virginia; and John Rutledge, the bold, outspoken patriot of South Carolina. Harrison declined, and James Iredell, of North Carolina, was substituted.
The office of secretary of state remained to be filled. To that important post the president invited Thomas Jefferson, whose long and varied experience in public affairs at home and abroad thoroughly qualified him for the duties of that office. He was then the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at the French court, having succeeded Doctor Franklin. He had obtained leave to return home for a few months. He sailed from Havre to England late in September, and embarked from Cowes for America. He landed at Norfolk on the twenty-third of November; and on his way to Monticello, his beautiful seat near Charlottesville in Virginia, he received a letter from Washington, dated the thirteenth of October, in which he was invited to a seat in the cabinet as secretary of state. "In the selection of characters," the president said, "to fill the important offices of government, I was naturally led to contemplate the talents and disposition which I knew you to possess and entertain for the service of your country; and without being able to consult your inclination, or to derive any knowledge of your intentions from your letters either to myself or to any of your friends, I was determined, as well by motives of private regard as a conviction of public propriety, to nominate you for the department of state, which, under its present organization, involves many of the most interesting objects of the executive authority."
Mr. Jefferson, who had become enamored with the leaders and the principles of the French revolution then just inaugurated by the destruction of the Bastile and other acts, preferred to remain in Europe; but, yielding to the wishes of the president, he signified his willingness to accept the office. He was fearful that he would not be equal to the requirements of the station; but, he said, "my chief comfort will be to work under your eye, my only shelter the authority of your name, and the wisdom of measures to be dictated by you and implicitly executed by me."
The office of secretary of the navy was not created until early in 1798, when war with France was anticipated. A navy was then formed, and a naval department established; and at the close of April, Benjamin Stoddart, of Georgetown, in the District of Columbia, was appointed the secretary, and became a cabinet officer. The postmaster-general did not become an executive officer until 1829, the first year of President Jackson's administration, when William T. Barry entered the cabinet as the head of the post-office department. Since then a new department has been established, called the department of the interior, the head of which is a cabinet officer.
The Congress adjourned on the twenty-ninth of September, after a session of more than six months, to meet again on the first Monday in January. Their last act was to appoint a joint committee to wait on the president and "request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peacefully to establish a constitution of government for their safety and happiness."
The president complied, and by proclamation he recommended that the twenty-sixth of November "be devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may thus all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for his kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now recently instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us."
Chapter XI
WASHINGTON DEPARTS ON A TOUR THROUGH NEW ENGLAND--HIS CORDIAL RECEPTION EVERYWHERE--HONORS ON THE ROUTE--INVITED TO PARTAKE OF GOVERNOR HANCOCK'S HOSPITALITY WHILE HE REMAINS IN BOSTON--WASHINGTON DECLINES, BUT AGREES TO DINE WITH HIM--CONFLICTING PREPARATIONS FOR RECEIVING THE PRESIDENT AT BOSTON--WASHINGTON ESCORTED TO THE VERGE OF BOSTON--DELAY OCCASIONED BY DISPUTES CONCERNING A POINT OF ETIQUETTE--WASHINGTON DISGUSTED--THE DISPUTE SETTLED--A GRAND RECEPTION--THE GOVERNOR OF A STATE ASSUMES SUPERIOR DIGNITY TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES--HIS HUMILIATION--AN EYE-WITNESS'S ACCOUNT OF THE MATTER--HONORS BESTOWED UPON THE PRESIDENT AT BOSTON--HE JOURNEYS TO PORTSMOUTH--RETURNS THROUGH THE INTERIOR TO NEW YORK--POSITION OF NORTH CAROLINA AND RHODE ISLAND.
Immediately after the adjournment of Congress, Washington prepared to make a tour through New England, in order to become better acquainted with public characters there, the temper of the people toward the new government, and the circumstances and resources of the country. He had asked the advice of his counsellors on the propriety of such a journey, immediately after his inauguration, and now he again talked with Hamilton and Madison about it. They thought it desirable; and on the morning of Thursday, the fifteenth of October, he set out in his carriage drawn by four horses, and accompanied by Major Jackson, his aid-de-camp, and Tobias Lear, his private secretary, with six servants. All papers appertaining to foreign affairs he left under the temporary control of Mr. Jay.
The president was accompanied some distance out of the city by Chief-Justice Jay, General Knox, and Colonel Hamilton. His diary kept during his tour exhibits his constant and minute observations concerning the agricultural resources, and mechanical and other industrial operations, of the country through which he passed. At every considerable town on his route he was greeted by the authorities and the people, and everywhere he received demonstrations of the greatest personal respect and affection. On approaching New Haven on Saturday, the seventeenth, he was met by the governor and lieutenant-governor of Connecticut (Huntington and Wolcott), and Roger Sherman, the mayor of the city. The governor and the congregational ministers of the city presented to him addresses, in which they congratulated him on the restoration of his health. He remained in New Haven until Monday morning, and then journeyed on to Hartford accompanied by an escort of cavalry and citizens. At Middletown and other places on the way he was received by escorts, and greeted with the ringing of bells, and sometimes the firing of cannon. Increasing demonstrations of respect met him as he proceeded. At Hartford all business was suspended during his stay; and, in all the towns, every class of citizens thronged the places of his presence to see the face of their beloved friend.
Grateful as these demonstrations were to the feelings of Washington, as evidences of personal and official respect, they were not consonant with his desires. He wished to travel in the quiet manner of a private citizen, for he was ever averse to ostentatious displays of every kind. But his wishes could not control the actions of his fellow-citizens, and he yielded with a good grace to their receptions.
Near Brookfield, between Palmer and Worcester, the president was met by a messenger sent by John Hancock, then governor of Massachusetts, to give notice of measures that had been arranged for the chief magistrate's reception on his approach to, and entrance into the city of Boston, the capital of the commonwealth. Governor Hancock also invited him to make his house his home while in Boston.
Washington courteously declined the governor's invitation to partake of his hospitality. "Could my wish prevail," he said, "I should desire to visit your metropolis without any parade or extraordinary ceremony. From a wish to avoid giving trouble to private families I determined, on leaving New York, to decline the honor of any invitation to quarters which I might receive while on my journey; and, with a view to observe this rule, I had requested a gentleman to engage lodgings for me during my stay in Boston."
On the receipt of this letter, Governor Hancock wrote by the return courier to the president, expressing his regret that he could not have the honor of entertaining him at his house as a guest, and begging that he and his suite would honor him with their company at dinner, en famille, on the day of their arrival. Washington accepted the invitation, and on Saturday, the twenty-fourth of October, he passed through Cambridge, and approached Boston toward meridian.
Preparations had been made for the reception of the president by Governor Hancock and the municipal authorities of Boston, each independently of the other, and without consultation. This produced a disagreeable, but in some respects laughable scene in the ceremonies of the day. Both parties sincerely desired to pay the highest honors to the chief magistrate of the nation, but political considerations separated the governor and the selectmen of Boston. The governor claimed the right, as chief officer of the state, of receiving and welcoming in person the expected guest at the entrance to the capital; while the selectmen said, "You should have met him at the boundary of the state; but when he is about to enter the town, it is the right of the municipal authorities to receive him."
The controversy was unsettled when the president and suite, under a military escort commanded by General Brooks, passed through Roxbury and were ready to enter Boston. Washington and Major Jackson had left the carriage, and had mounted horses prepared for them; and as the whole procession passed over the Neck it was stopped, without apparent cause, for a long time. The contending parties, executive and municipal, had their respective carriages drawn up, each with the determination to receive and do honors to the president; and for more than an hour aides and marshals were posting between the leaders of the contending parties, endeavoring to effect a reconciliation. The sky was cloudy and the atmosphere raw, sour, and most disagreeable.[19] Washington finally inquired the cause of the delay, and, being informed, he asked, with evident impatience, whether there was any other avenue into the town. He was about to wheel his horse and seek one, and leave the contestants about etiquette to settle their dispute at leisure--when he was informed that the matter had been arranged, the governor's party having yielded to the municipal authorities.
The war of words being ended, the procession moved on. The president was formally welcomed by the selectmen, and was received into the city with acclamations of joy, the ringing of bells, and the firing of cannon. A magnificent arch was raised for Washington to pass under, and the streets, doors, and windows were filled with well-dressed people of both sexes. The president rode with his hat off, and with a calm, dignified air, without bowing to the people as he passed; but when he had reached a balcony of the old statehouse, and he was saluted by a long procession of citizens, he occasionally returned the salutations.[20] When the ceremonials were over, he was conducted to his lodgings, at Mrs. Ingersoll's--a fine brick house, at the corner of Tremont and Court streets--accompanied by the lieutenant-governor and council, and Vice-President Adams, who was then in Boston. A fine company of light-infantry, commanded by the distinguished Harrison Gray Otis, was a guard of honor on the occasion.
Washington made the following record in his diary that evening: "Having engaged yesterday to take an informal dinner with the governor to-day, but under a full persuasion that he would have waited upon me so soon as I should have arrived, I excused myself upon his not doing it, and informing me through his secretary that he was too much indisposed to do it, being resolved to receive the visit. Dined at my lodgings, where the vice-president favored me with his company."
This record alludes to an amusing display of official pride on the part of Governor Hancock, which Washington, in the most dignified way, completely humbled. Hancock's wealth, public services, and official position, placed him in the highest rank of social life at that time; and he had conceived the opinion that, as governor of a state and within the bounds of his jurisdiction, etiquette made it proper for him to receive the first visit, even from the president of the United States. He therefore omitted to meet Washington on his first arrival, or to call upon him; but, lacking courage to avow the true reason, he pleaded indisposition. The true cause of the omission had been given to the president, and he determined to resist the governor's foolish pretensions. He therefore excused himself from the engagement to dinner, and dined, as he says, at his own lodgings, with Vice-President Adams as his guest.
Hancock soon perceived that he had made a great mistake, and sent three gentlemen that evening to express to Washington his concern that he had not been in a condition to call upon him as soon as he entered the town. "I informed them," says Washington in his diary, "in explicit terms, that I should not see the governor unless it was at my own lodgings."
The next day (Sunday), on consultation with his friends, Hancock determined to waive the point of etiquette; and at noon he sent a message to Washington that he would do himself the honor of visiting him within half an hour, notwithstanding it was at the hazard of his health. Washington immediately returned a note in reply to the governor, informing him that he would be at home until two o'clock, and adding, with the most polished irony: "The president need not express the pleasure it will give him to see the governor; but, at the same time, he most earnestly begs that the governor will not hazard his health on the occasion."
Hancock made the visit within the specified time. After recording in his diary his attendance upon public worship in the morning and afternoon, Washington added: "Between the two I received a visit from the governor, who assured me that indisposition alone prevented him from doing it yesterday, and that he was still indisposed; but as it had been suggested that he expected to receive the visit from the president, which he knew was improper, he was resolved at all hazards to pay his compliments to-day." Thus the matter ended; and the next day the president drank tea with the governor, the latter not having been injured by his exposure in calling upon Washington.[21]
The president remained in Boston until Thursday, the twenty-ninth, during which time he received many calls and addresses, and visited the manufacturing establishments in the city, and the French ships-of-war in the harbor. On the twenty-seventh he had a busy day. In his diary he recorded: "At ten o'clock in the morning received the visits of the clergy of the town. At eleven, went to an oratorio; and between that and three o'clock received the addresses of the governor and council of the town of Boston[22]--of the president, et cetera, of Harvard college, and of the Cincinnati of the state; after which, at three o'clock, I dined at a large and elegant dinner at Faneuil hall, given by the governor and council, and spent the evening at my lodgings."
Of all the addresses, none were so grateful to him as that from his old companions-in-arms, the members of the Cincinnati. "After the solemn and endearing farewell on the banks of the Hudson," they said, "which our anxiety presaged as final, most peculiarly pleasing is the present unexpected meeting. On this occasion we can not avoid the recollection of the various scenes of toil and danger through which you conducted us; and while we contemplate the trying periods of the war, and the triumphs of peace, we rejoice to behold you, induced by the unanimous voice of your country, entering upon other trials and other services, alike important, and in some points of view equally hazardous. For the completion of the great purposes which a grateful country has assigned you, long, very long may your invaluable life be preserved; and as an admiring world, while considering you as a soldier, have wanted a comparison, so may your virtues and talents as a statesman leave it without a parallel."
To these remarks Washington replied: "Dear, indeed, is the occasion which restores intercourse with my associates in prosperous and adverse fortune; and enhanced are the triumphs of peace participated with those whose virtue and valor so largely contributed to procure them. To that virtue and valor your country has confessed her obligations. Be mine the grateful task to add to the testimony of a connection which it was my pride to own in the field, and is now my happiness to acknowledge in the enjoyment of peace and freedom."
On board the French vessels in the harbor were about thirty officers who had served in America during the Revolution, and several of these were members of the society of the Cincinnati in France. Of these the admiral, Viscount de Pondevez, the Marquis de Traversay, and the Chevalier de Braye (the Marquis de Galhsoneire being ill on board his ship) accompanied the Cincinnati in presenting their address. On the following day the president was conveyed on board the flag-ship of the French admiral, in the beautiful barge of the ship Illustrious, having the flag of the United States at the bow, and that of France at the stern. It was steered by a major and rowed by midshipmen, and the president was received on board with the homage given to sovereigns. "The officers," says one account, "took off their shoes, and the crew all appeared with their legs bared." "Going and coming," says Washington in his diary, "I was saluted by the two frigates which lay near the wharves, and by the seventy-fours after I had been on board of them. I was also saluted, going and coming, by the fort on Castle island."
Washington continued his tour eastward as far as Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, passing through Salem and Newburyport on the way. He was attended nearly the whole distance by military escorts. He left Boston on the morning of the twenty-ninth. Eight o'clock was the hour appointed for departure. The escort that was to accompany him was not ready, and the punctual president, ever deprecating delays, and fearing some other question of etiquette was to be settled, left the laggards to overtake him on the road. He enjoyed the hospitalities of the executive of New Hampshire (General Sullivan) and the citizens of Portsmouth, for several days. There he gave Mr. Gulligher, a Boston painter, one sitting for his portrait, at the request of several of the inhabitants of that city, and also partook of a public dinner and attended a ball given in his honor.[23]
From Portsmouth Washington journeyed toward New York by an interior route, passing through Exeter, Haverhill, Andover, Lexington, Watertown, Uxbridge, Pomfret (where General Putnam lived), and arrived at Hartford on Monday, the ninth of November. He reached New York in the afternoon of the thirteenth, his health much benefitted by the journey, and his store of knowledge of the people and the country greatly increased. He had been everywhere received as a father, and he left behind him many pleasant memories, which the participants cherished as long as life lasted.[24]
The excess of adulation to which the president had been exposed during his tour in New England was deprecated by the more thoughtful, but none found fault with the matter seriously. Trumbull, the author of McFingal, said good-naturedly in a letter to his friend Oliver Wolcott: "We have gone through all the popish grades of worship, and the president returns all fragrant with the odor of incense."
It will be observed that in this tour the president avoided Rhode Island altogether. The reason was that that state, and North Carolina, had not yet ratified the federal constitution, and were so far regarded as foreign states that tonnage duties were imposed upon the vessels of each coming into any port of the other eleven states. But this unpleasant position of the two commonwealths was soon changed. On the very day when Washington reached New York from his eastern tour, a convention of North Carolina voted to ratify the constitution; and on the twenty-ninth of May following, Rhode Island was admitted into the Union.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Washington took cold on that occasion. In his diary, the following Monday, he recorded: "The day being rainy and stormy, myself much disordered by a cold and inflammation in my left eye, I was prevented from visiting Lexington," etc. Sullivan, in his Familiar Letters, tells us that, for several days afterward, a severe influenza prevailed at Boston and in its vicinity, and was called the Washington influenza. It may not be inappropriate to mention that a similar epidemic prevailed all over New England and a part of New York, after the visit of President Tyler to Boston, in 1843, which was called the Tyler grippe.
[20] Washington wrote in his diary, under date of Saturday, October twenty-fourth: "Suffice it to say, that at the entrance of the town I was welcomed by the selectmen in a body. Then following the lieutenant-governor and council in the order we came from Cambridge (preceded by the town corps, very handsomely dressed), we passed through the citizens classed in their different professions and under their own banners, till we came to the statehouse, from which, across the street, an arch was thrown, in the front of which was this inscription, 'To the man who unites all hearts;' and on the other, 'To Columbia's favorite Son.' On one side thereof, next the statehouse, in a panel decorated with a trophy, composed of the arms of the United States, of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and our French allies, crowned with a wreath of laurel, was this inscription--'Boston relieved, March 17, 1776.' This arch was handsomely ornamented, and over the centre of it a canopy was erected twenty feet high, with the American eagle perched on the top. After passing through the arch, and entering the statehouse at the south end and ascending to the upper floor, and returning to the balcony at the north end, three cheers were given by a vast concourse of people who by this time had assembled at the arch. Then followed an ode, composed in honor of the president, and well sung by a band of select singers. After this three cheers, followed by the different professions and mechanics, in the order they were drawn up with their colors, through a lane of the people which had thronged about the arch, under which they passed. The streets, the doors, the windows, and tops of the houses, were crowded with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen."
[21] The venerable Samuel Breck, of Philadelphia, now [1859] in the eighty-ninth year of his age, communicated to me in a letter dated May twenty-fifth, 1859, the following interesting reminiscences of Washington's visit to Boston on the occasion under consideration. After giving me a most interesting account of matters connected with the French vessels there, Mr. Breck says:--
"At the time when Admiral de Pondevez was lying with his fleet in the harbor of Boston, General Washington, the first president of the United States, who was making a tour East during the recess of Congress, arrived there. He was received with open arms and hearty cheers by the people. In his honor a triumphal arch was raised, with appropriate mottoes, near the old statehouse. Under this he passed in great state. I stood at a window close by, and saw him enter the balcony of that building and show himself to the thousands who came from far and near to greet him. I saw all that passed, heard the fine anthems that were composed for the occasion, and gazed with admiring eyes upon his majestic figure.
"The procession that had accompanied him from the entrance of the town took up its line of march again, after these ceremonies, and accompanied him to the house selected for his residence, which stood at the corner of Tremont and Court streets. It was a handsome brick building. A beautiful company of light-infantry served as a guard of honor, commanded by the well-known and greatly distinguished Harrison Gray Otis.
"Governor Hancock had prepared a great dinner at his house, to which he invited the French admiral, the officers of the fleet, and many of the principal citizens. A notion had got into Hancock's head, that the governor of a state was a kind of king or sovereign in his own territory, and that it would be derogatory to his station to pay the first visit to any one, even the president of the United States; and, acting always upon this rule, he sent an invitation to General Washington to dine with him, but excused himself from calling on him, alleging that sickness detained him at home; thus covering by a lame apology the resolution which he dared not openly exercise toward the president. Washington, who had received some hint of this absurd point of etiquette which sought to exalt the head of a part above the head of the whole, sent his aid-de-camp, Major William Jackson, with a message to his excellency, declining the invitation to dinner, and intimating that if his health permitted him to receive company, it would admit of his visiting him.
"My father dined at the governor's, and about sunset brought Admiral de Pondevez and several of his officers, who spent the evening with us. The dinner-party went off heavily, owing to the general disappointment in not meeting the president. Meantime the French ships-of-war in the harbor were dressed in variegated lamps, and bonfires blazed in the streets. The ladies wore bandeaux, cestuses, and ribands, stamped and embroidered with the name of Washington; some in gold and silver letters, and some in pearls.
"About ten o'clock I accompanied the admiral to the wharf of embarkation for his ship. As we passed the house where the president lodged, De Pondevez and his party expressed great surprise at the absence of all sort of parade or noise. 'What!' said he, 'not even a sentinel? In Europe,' he added, 'a brigadier-general would have a guard; and here this great man, the chief of a nation, does not permit it!'
"The next day was Sunday, and immediately after morning service, Mr. Joseph Russell, an intimate friend of the governor, called at our house, and told my father that his excellency had swallowed the bitter pill, and was then on his way to visit the president--to which step he had been urged by a report that the people generally condemned his false pride."
[22] The address from the town was accompanied by a request, in behalf of the ladies of Boston, that he would sit for his portrait, to be placed in Faneuil hall, that others might be copied from it for their respective families. On account of a want of time he was compelled to decline, but promised to have it painted for them after his return to New York.
[23] "At half-after seven," he says in his diary, "I went to the assembly, where there were about seventy-five well-dressed, and many of them very handsome ladies, among whom (as was also the case at the Salem and Boston assemblies) were a greater proportion with much blacker hair than are usually seen in the southern states."
[24] Between Uxbridge and Pomfret, the president lodged at an inn kept by Mr. Taft, where he was so much pleased with the family, that on his arrival at Hartford he wrote the following letter to Mr. Taft:--
"HARTFORD, 8th November, 1789.
"SIR: Being informed that you have given my name to one of your sons, and called another after Mrs. Washington's family, and being moreover very much pleased with the modest and innocent looks of your two daughters, Patty and Polly, I do for these reasons send each of these girls a piece of chintz; and to Patty, who bears the name of Mrs. Washington, and who waited more upon us than Polly did, I send five guineas, with which she may buy herself any little ornament she may want, or she may dispose of them in any other manner more agreeable to herself. As I do not give these things with a view to have it talked of, or even to its being known, the less there is said about the matter the better you will please me. But, that I may be sure the chintz and money have got safe to hand, let Patty, who I dare say is equal to it, write me a line, informing me thereof, directed to 'The President of the United States at New York.' I wish you and your family well, and am your humble servant,
"GEO. WASHINGTON."
Chapter XII
FIRST ACT IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION--LAFAYETTE'S PARTICIPATION IN IT--AMERICAN SYMPATHY IN THE MOVEMENT--WASHINGTON'S EXPRESSION OF FEELINGS--OPENING OF THE SECOND SESSION OF CONGRESS--WASHINGTON'S MESSAGE--PRECEDENTS ESTABLISHED--HAMILTON'S REPORT ON THE PUBLIC DEBT AND PUBLIC CREDIT--HIS FINANCIAL SCHEME--THE PLAN BEFORE CONGRESS--ASSUMPTION OF STATE DEBTS--FINANCIAL MEASURES ADOPTED BY CONGRESS--EFFECTS OF THE DISCUSSION OF THE SUBJECT--WASHINGTON'S OPINIONS--HIS LETTER CONCERNING SECTIONAL JEALOUSIES.
During the summer of 1789 a revolution had broken out in France, and its influence was soon materially felt in the politics of the United States. It was severe at the beginning and terrible in its subsequent course. For a long time the enormous corruptions of state had been apparent, and an attempted cure by the most violent means appeared inevitable to the thoughtful and sagacious. The French monarch was a weak man and governed much by bad advisers; and he often refused to listen to the true friends of himself and France when they talked of political and social reforms. Among these was the good, and brave, and generous Lafayette, who loved the king for his many virtues, but loved France and her true glory, based upon the welfare and prosperity of her people, far more.
Lafayette's principal associates in the scheme of reform were the Duke de Rochefoucauld and M. Candorcet. These and one or two others were regarded as the leaders. They aimed to obtain for France a constitution similar to that of England, which they regarded as the most perfect model of human government then known. They desired to retain the throne, but to diminish very materially the power of the monarch. They desired a house of peers, with legislative powers similar to that of England, but restricted in number to one hundred members. They desired a house of representatives, to be chosen by the great body of the people from among themselves, and to make the government a constitutional monarchy upon a republican basis.
With this view Lafayette with his coadjutors had labored for several months, when, in the assembly of Notables in April, he boldly demanded a series of reforms, and among others a national assembly. "What!" exclaimed the Count d'Artois, one of Louis's bad advisers, "do you make a motion for the states-general?"--"Yes, and even more than that," quickly responded Lafayette. That more was a charter from the king, by which the public and individual liberty should be acknowledged and guarantied by the future states-general. The measure was carried, and early in May a session of the states-general was opened at Versailles.
Had the king now listened to the advice of his true friends, and made concessions, all would have been well. But he ordered the hall of the national assembly, or states-general, to be closed. He also allowed German troops from every quarter to gather around Paris, and when requested by the national assembly to send them away he refused. M. Necker, the patriotic controller of the treasury, and other ministers who favored reform were dismissed, and the populace became greatly excited. For three days there were scenes of violence in the French capital that presaged the most terrible results. The national assembly decreed the establishment of an armed militia of forty-eight thousand men, when no less than two hundred and seventy thousand citizens enrolled themselves. Arms were seized, and the greatest exasperation appeared on every side. Again the removal of the troops around Paris was demanded. "I alone," replied the king, "have the right to judge of the necessity, and in that respect I can make no change."
Forbearance was no longer a virtue; and the state-prison, called the Bastile, being regarded as one of the strongholds of despotism, was attacked and taken by the people on the fourteenth of July. The conquering thousands then marched in triumph to the city-hall. The chief supporters of the king fled, and Louis, finding himself abandoned, hurried to the national assembly to make peace with it. "Heaven knows," he exclaimed, "that the nation, and I are one--I confide myself wholly to you. Help me, in this crisis, to save the state. Relying on the attachment and security of my subjects, I have ordered the troops to leave Paris and Versailles. I beseech you to make known my intentions to the capital!"
Lafayette and another hurried to the city-hall, in Paris, to inform the people of the king's declarations. "He has hitherto been deceived," he said, "but he now sees the merit and justness of the popular cause." The enthusiasm was general at this announcement. Tears of joy were shed, and the revolution appeared to be at an end. The king confirmed the nomination of Lafayette as the commander-in-chief of the national guard, by which he was put at the head of four millions of armed citizens; and the nation breathed free with hope. But the wily duke of Orleans, who desired the destruction of the king for the base purposes of his own exaltation, excited suspicions among the people, and a demand for the king's presence at the Tuilleries was made. Louis went voluntarily from Versailles to Paris, followed by sixty thousand citizens and a hundred deputies of the assembly, and there formally accepted the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was presented to him. This set the minds of the people at rest, and quiet was restored to the capital and to France.
But Lafayette was filled with apprehension for the future. To Colonel John Trumbull, who was about to leave France for the United States at the close of summer, he communicated a special message to Washington concerning the state of affairs in France. After speaking of the changes already effected and the hopes for the future, he said: "Unhappily, there is one powerful and wicked man, who, I fear, will destroy this beautiful fabric of human happiness--the duke of Orleans." He had already been accused, and no doubt justly, of sending hired assassins to Versailles to murder Louis and the royal family, that he might be made regent of the kingdom. "He does not, indeed," said Lafayette, "possess talent to carry into execution a great project; but he possesses immense wealth, and France abounds in marketable talents. Every city and town has young men eminent for abilities, particularly in the law--ardent in character, eloquent, ambitious of distinction, but poor." Such was the material that composed the leaders in the reign of terror which speedily followed, and deluged Paris in blood.
The revolution in France, under the direction of Lafayette and his associates, was thorough as far as it went, yet it was conservative. It elicited the warmest sympathies of the American people, and Washington was rejoiced at the promise thus made of happiness for the French nation. "The revolution which has taken place with you," he wrote to Lafayette in October, "is of such magnitude, and of so momentous a nature, that we hardly yet dare to form a conjecture about it. We however trust, and fervently pray, that its consequences may prove happy to a nation in whose fate we have so much cause to be interested, and that its influence may be felt with pleasure by future generations." To the Count de Rochambeau he said: "I am persuaded I express the sentiments of my fellow-citizens, when I offer our earnest prayer that it may terminate in the permanent honor and happiness of your government and people."
The connection of the revolution, the first act of which we have delineated in outline, with the administration of Washington, will be developed hereafter. It has been given here because it was appropriate in the order of time.
Few public events of importance occurred in the United States, after Washington's return from his eastern tour, until the reassembling of Congress, early in January, 1790. The day appointed for that assembling was the fourth, but there was not a quorum of the two houses until the eighth, when the session was formally opened by Washington in person, with an address which he read in the senate chamber. According to a record in his diary, it was done with considerable state, conformably to arrangements made by General Knox and Colonel Humphreys.[25] In that address the president recommended adequate provision for the common defence, having special reference to Indian hostilities; an appropriation for the support of representatives of the United States at foreign courts and other agents abroad; the establishment of a federal rule of naturalization; measures for the encouragement of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and literature; and adequate provision for the interest on the public debt. As at the opening of the first session, both houses now waited upon the president with formal answers to his message, and the various recommendations contained in it were referred to an equal number of committees. The latter practice has ever since been adhered to.
Three important questions, involving the establishment of precedents, were discussed and decided early in the session of 1790. The first was a decision, in accordance with the report of a joint committee of both houses, that the last session of each Congress should expire on the third of March. The second was in relation to the unfinished business of the former session. On the report of a joint committee, a rule was established that everything might be taken up where it had been left off at the adjournment, except bills which after having passed one house had stopped in the other. These were to be considered as lost, and were not to be revived except in the form of new matter. The third question was as to the official intercourse of the heads of departments with Congress. The question grew out of an intimation from Mr. Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury, that he was ready to make a report on the national debt and the support of the public credit, according to the requirements of a resolution passed at the last session. The question was, Shall the report be made orally or in writing? The decision was that it should be in writing; and ever since, the heads of departments have held intercourse with Congress only in writing, the secretary of the treasury reporting directly to Congress, the other secretaries through the president.
Hamilton's financial scheme was the most important subject that occupied the attention of Congress during that session. It was submitted to the house on the fifteenth of January. It was a most masterly performance, and commanded the profound attention and respect of the whole country. It boldly enunciated principles based upon the broad foundation of common honesty, by which, in the opinion of the secretary, the United States ought to be governed in relation to the public debt. The report opened with an able and comprehensive argument in elucidation and support of these principles the fundamental ground of the whole argument being the justice and policy of making adequate provision for the final payment of the federal and state debts.
These debts amounted in the aggregate to a large sum. Hamilton estimated the foreign debt due to the account of France, to private creditors in Holland, and a small sum in Spain, at about eleven and three quarter millions of dollars. This sum included the arrears of interest (more than a million and a half of dollars) which had accumulated on the French and Spanish loans since 1786, and installments of the French loan overdue. The domestic debt, including interest to the end of 1790, and an allowance for unliquidated claims of two millions of dollars (principally unredeemed continental money), he estimated at about forty-two and a half millions, nearly a third part of which was arrears of interest.
The domestic debt was due originally to officers and soldiers of the war for independence; farmers who had furnished supplies for the army, or suffered losses by seizure of their products; and capitalists who had loaned money to the continental Congress during the war, or spent their fortunes freely in support of the cause. These were sacred debts; but the position into which the paper which represented these outstanding claims had fallen, afforded a specious argument against the propriety of paying their nominal value to the holders. So long had public justice delayed in liquidating these claims, that they had sunk to one sixth of their nominal value, and a greater portion of the paper was held by speculators. It thus lost the power with which it appealed to the public sympathy when in the hands of the original holders, and there was a general sentiment against a full liquidation of these claims. It was therefore suggested that the principle of a scale of depreciation should be applied to them, as had been done in the case of the continental money, in paying them--that is, at the rates at which they had been purchased by the holders. It was especially urged that this principle should be applied to the arrears of interest, then accumulated to an amount almost equal to one half the principal.
In his report, Hamilton took strong grounds against this idea, as being unjust, dishonest, and impolitic. In the latter point of view, he justly argued that public credit was essential to the new federal government, and without it sudden emergencies, to which all governments as well as individuals are exposed, could not be met promptly and efficiently. Public credit, he said, could only be established by the faithful discharge of public debts in strict conformity to the terms of contract. In the case in question the contract was to pay so much money to the holders of the certificates, or to their assignees. This was plain, and nothing but a full and faithful discharge of the nominal value of the debt could satisfy the contract. Thus he argued concerning the principal, and he applied the same logic to the accumulated overdue interest. It ought to have been paid when due, according to contract, and was as much an honest debt as the principal.
Hamilton went further. He strongly recommended the assumption of the state debts by the federal government, amounting in the aggregate, overdue interest included, to about twenty-five millions of dollars. Both descriptions of debts, he argued, were contracted for the same objects, and were in the main the same. Indeed, a great part of the particular debts of the states had arisen from assumptions by them on account of the Union, and it was most equitable that there should be the same measure of retribution for all. The secretary considered such assumption "a measure of sound policy and substantial justice." The entire debt, federal and state, foreign and domestic, for the payment of which he recommended measures of provision, was almost eighty millions of dollars.
The secretary, after giving the whole subject a thorough investigation and discussion, proposed that a loan should be opened to the full amount of the debt, federal and state, upon the following terms:--
"First. That for every one hundred dollars subscribed payable in the debt, as well interest as principal, the subscriber should be entitled to have two thirds founded on a yearly interest of six per cent. (the capital redeemable at the pleasure of the government by the payment of the principal), and to receive the other third in lands of the western territory at their then actual value. Or,
"Secondly. To have the whole sum funded at a yearly interest of four per cent., irredeemable by any payment exceeding five dollars upon the hundred, per annum, both on account of principal and interest, and to receive as a compensation for the reduction of interest fifteen dollars and eighty cents, payable in lands as in the preceding case. Or,
"Thirdly. To have sixty-six and two thirds of a dollar funded at a yearly interest of six per cent., irredeemable also by any payment exceeding four dollars and two thirds of a dollar upon the hundred, per annum, on account both of principal and interest; and to have at the end of ten years twenty-six dollars and eighty-eight cents, funded at the like interest and rate of redemption."
In addition to these propositions, the creditors were to have an option of vesting their money in annuities on different plans; and it was also recommended to open a loan at five per cent. for ten millions of dollars, payable one half in specie and the other half in the debt, irredeemable by any payment exceeding six dollars upon the hundred, per annum, both of principal and interest.
The secretary also proposed an augmentation of the duties on imported wines, spirits, tea, and coffee, to enable the treasury to meet the increased demand that would be made upon it; and a duty on domestic spirits was also recommended. Serious trouble grew out of the latter measure when adopted and put in force.
Hamilton's report, sent to Congress on the fourteenth of January, was taken up for consideration in the house of representatives on the twenty-eighth; but action was postponed until the eighth of February. Its propositions, especially the one relating to the assumption of the state debts, were vehemently opposed, chiefly because of their tendency to a centralization of power, as giving an undue influence to the general government, and as being of doubtful constitutionality. Many in different parts of the Union thought they saw great political evil in this financial union of the states; and Virginia, above all others, most earnestly opposed the scheme. It was believed that the funding of the state debts would materially benefit the northern states, in which was almost the entire capital of the country, while the southern states could see no benefit for themselves.
Finally, on the ninth of March, a bill predicated upon the secretary's report passed in committee of the whole by a small majority, and went to the house for discussion. This continued from time to time until August, when, on the fourth, an act was passed embodying essentially the several propositions in Hamilton's report. It authorized the president to borrow twelve millions of dollars, if so much were found necessary, for discharging the arrears of interest and the overdue installments of the foreign debt, and for the paying off the whole of that debt, could it be effected on advantageous terms, the money thus borrowed to be reimbursed within fifteen years. It also authorized the opening of a new loan, payable in certificates of the domestic debt at par value, and in continental bills of credit at the rate of one hundred for one. Certificates were to be issued for subscriptions in the interest of the domestic debt to the full amount, redeemable at the pleasure of the government, and bearing interest at the rate of three per cent., the interest to be paid quarterly, and to commence with the first day of January, 1791; all interest becoming due on continental certificates, up to that time, to be funded as above. Subscriptions in the principal of the domestic debt were to bear interest at six per cent.; but upon one third of the amount, entitled "deferred stock," the interest was not to commence till the year 1800. This interest was not to be redeemable at a faster rate than eight dollars upon the hundred, annually, including the yearly interest, and it was left to the option of the public creditors to subscribe, or not, to this new loan.
The amount of state debts assumed by the general government, by the act, was twenty-one millions, five hundred thousand dollars. For this the act authorized an additional loan, payable in certificates of the state debts, which were distributed among the states in specific proportions;[26] but no certificates were to be received except such as had been issued for services or supplies during the war.
"The effect of this measure," says Marshall, "was great and rapid. The public paper suddenly rose, and was for a short time above par. The immense wealth which individuals acquired by this unexpected appreciation could not be viewed with indifference. Those who participated in its advantages regarded the author of a system to which they were so greatly indebted, with an enthusiasm of attachment to which scarcely any limits were assigned. To many others, this adventitious collection of wealth in particular hands was a subject rather of chagrin than of pleasure; and the reputation which the success of his plans gave to the secretary of the treasury was not contemplated with unconcern."
The discussions which Hamilton's report produced in and out of Congress, in the public press and in private circles, fearfully agitated the country, and called forth the first regular and systematic opposition to the principles on which the affairs of the Union were administered. In this discussion Washington was greatly interested, yet he avoided all semblance of participation in it. He heartily approved of Hamilton's plan for restoring the public credit and laying the foundation of national policy, as the most perfect that human wisdom had yet devised; but he concealed his opinions in his own breast, except when in private conversation with intimate friends. He looked with ineffable disgust upon the sectional jealousies which the discussion revealed; and in an able letter to Dr. Stuart, written toward the close of March, in reply to remarks of that gentleman concerning a spirit of jealousy in Virginia toward the eastern states, he spoke out warmly. The latter section of the Union had united in favor of Hamilton's scheme, while Virginia, for reasons already alluded to, opposed it. Stuart wrote: "It is represented that the northern phalanx is so firmly united as to bear down all opposition, while Virginia is unsupported even by those whose interests are similar to hers.[27] Colonel Lee tells me that many who were warm supporters of the government are changing their sentiments, from a conviction of the impracticability of union with states, whose interests are so dissimilar to those of Virginia."
"I am sorry such jealousies as you speak of should be gaining ground, or are poisoning the minds of the southern people," Washington wrote in reply. "But admit the fact, which is alleged as the cause of them, and give it full scope--does it amount to more than was known to every man of information before, at, and since the adoption of the constitution? Was it not always believed that there are some points which peculiarly interest the eastern states? And did any one who reads human nature, and more especially the character of the eastern people, conceive that they would not pursue them steadily by a combination of their force? Are there not other points which equally concern the southern states? If these states are less tenacious of their interest, or if, whilst the eastern move in a solid phalanx to effect their views, the southern are always divided, which of the two is most to be blamed? That there is a diversity of interests in the Union none have denied; that this is the case also in every state is equally certain; and that it even extends to the counties of individual states can be as readily proved. Instance the southern and northern parts of Virginia, the upper and lower parts of South Carolina. Have not the interests of these always been at variance? Witness the county of Fairfax. Have not the interests of the people of that county varied, or the inhabitants been taught to believe so? These are well-known truths; and yet, it did not follow that separation was to result from the disagreement.
"To constitute a dispute there must be two parties. To understand it well, both parties and all the circumstances must be fully heard; and, to accommodate differences, temper and mutual forbearance are requisite. Common danger brought the states into confederacy, and on their union our safety and importance depend. A spirit of accommodation was the basis of the present constitution. Can it be expected, then, that the southern or eastern parts of the empire will succeed in all their measures? Certainly not. But I will readily grant that more points will be carried by the latter than the former, and for the reason which has been mentioned, namely, that in all great national questions they move in unison, whilst the others are divided. But I ask, again, which is most blameworthy--those who see, and will steadily pursue their interest, or those who can not see, or seeing will not act wisely? And I will ask another question, of the highest magnitude in my mind, to wit: if the eastern and northern states are dangerous in union, will they be less so in separation? If self-interest is their governing principle, will it forsake them, or be restrained by such an event? I hardly think it would. Then, independently of other considerations, what would Virginia, and such other states as might be inclined to join her, gain by a separation? Would they not, most unquestionably, be the weaker party?"
FOOTNOTES:
[25] The following is the record:--
"According to appointment, at eleven o'clock I set out for the city-hall in my coach, preceded by Colonel Humphreys and Major Jackson in uniform (on my two white horses), and followed by Messrs. Lear and Nelson in my chariot, and Mr. Lewis, on horseback, following them. In their rear were the chief justice of the United States, and secretary of the treasury and war departments, in their respective carriages, and in the order they are named. At the outer door of the hall I was met by the doorkeepers of the senate and house, and conducted to the door of the senate chamber; and passing from thence to the chair through the senate on the right, and house of representatives on the left, I took my seat. The gentlemen who attended me followed and took their stand behind the senators, the whole rising as I entered. After being seated, at which time the members of both houses also sat I arose (as they also did) and made my speech, delivering one copy to the president of the senate, and another to the speaker of the house of representatives; after which, and being a few moments seated, I retired, bowing on each side to the assembly (who stood) as I passed, and descending to the lower hall, attended as before, I returned with them to my house."
[26] The following were the amounts: New Hampshire, $300,000; Massachusetts, $4,000,000; Rhode Island, $200,000; Connecticut, $1,600,000; New York, $1,200,000; New Jersey, $800,000; Pennsylvania, $2,200,000; Delaware, $200,000; Maryland, $800,000; Virginia, $3,000,000; North Carolina, $2,400,000; South Carolina, $4,000,000; Georgia, $300,000.
[27] South Carolina joined New England in favor of Hamilton's scheme.
Chapter XIII
ARRIVAL OF JEFFERSON AT THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT--HIS REPUBLICANISM SHOCKED--MONARCHICAL SENTIMENTS ENTERTAINED BY SOME--HAMILTON INDUCES JEFFERSON TO SUPPORT HIS FINANCIAL MEASURES--LOCATION OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AGREED UPON--JEFFERSON'S SUSPICIONS--HIS DISLIKE OF HAMILTON--WASHINGTON UNSUSPICIOUS OF DISSENTION IN HIS CABINET--BIRTH OF THE FEDERAL AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES--SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE-TRADE DISCUSSED--THE RESULT--DIFFICULTIES WITH THE INDIAN TRIBES--NEGOTIATIONS AND WAR--RELATIONS WITH GREAT BRITAIN AND SPAIN--SECRET SERVICE--GOUVERNEUR MORRIS AND MAJOR BECKWITH.
After a tedious journey of a fortnight from Richmond, Mr. Jefferson arrived at the seat of government on the twenty-first of March, when the debate on the assumption of the state debts was at its bitterest point. He had returned to America after several years of diplomatic service in France, with a sincere desire to spend the remainder of his days in private life. But he was met at the house of his brother-in-law, on his way from Norfolk (where he landed) to his home at Monticello, by Washington's letter, already mentioned, inviting him to his cabinet as secretary of state. The diplomat was disappointed. He had seen, and in a degree had participated in, the opening act in the drama of the French revolution. He had, as we have observed, become deeply enamored of the leaders in the revolt, and the political sentiments they had proclaimed; and he preferred to remain in France, if he was to be continued in public employment. But the terms of Washington's invitation were such, that Jefferson's sense of duty and reverence for the president would not allow him to refuse, and after due deliberation he accepted the office.
On his arrival at New York, Jefferson found many things to surprise and startle him. A wonderful change had apparently taken place in political life during his residence in Europe; and being thoroughly imbued with republican principles and a deep-seated hatred of monarchy, his suspicions and jealousies were most painfully alive. He saw dangers to the state lurking in every recess where the full light of clear perceptions did not fall. "I found a state of things," he wrote some years afterward, "which, of all I had contemplated, I least expected. I had left France in the first year of her revolution, in the fervor of natural rights and zeal for reformation. My conscientious devotion to these rights could not be heightened, but it had been aroused and excited by daily exercise. The president received me cordially, and my colleagues and circle of principal citizens apparently with welcome. The courtesies of dinner-parties given me, as a stranger newly arrived among them, placed me at once in their familiar society. But I can not describe the wonder and mortification with which the table conversations filled me. Politics were the chief topic, and a preference of kingly over republican government was evidently the favorite sentiment. An apostate I could not be, nor yet a hypocrite; and I found myself, for the most part, the only advocate on the republican side of the question, unless among the guests there chanced to be some member of that party from the legislative houses."
That there were men of character in the United States at that time who desired a monarchical form of government, evidence is not wanting. Some of them had been loyalists during the war. Washington spoke of them in 1787, before the assembling of the convention that framed the federal constitution, as men who either had "not consulted the public mind," or who lived "in a region more productive of monarchical ideas than was the case in the southern states." But that any officer of the government, on Jefferson's arrival, had a desire for kingly rule, there is no positive evidence. The most earnest advocate for a strong, energetic, consolidated government, was Alexander Hamilton; yet he never expressed a desire for a monarchical government in America. In his speech in the constitutional convention on the eighteenth of June, 1787, he lauded the British constitution as the best ever devised by man, and said that he doubted whether anything short of a government like that of Great Britain (a constitutional monarchy) would do in America. These sentiments were uttered when everything like order appeared to be on the verge of destruction, and a strong arm, independent of the popular will, seemed necessary for the establishment of public strength and individual security. The crisis was passed, the federal constitution was formed, and Hamilton gave it his zealous support. Yet, to the close of his life, he considered the constitution too weak to perform the great duties assigned it.
Hamilton was always frank and unreserved in the expression of his political views; and immediately after Jefferson's arrival at the seat of government, the secretary of the treasury pressed upon his attention the importance of the assumption of the state debts--a measure which had been rejected. "He observed," says Jefferson in his account of the matter, "that the members of the administration ought to act in concert; that though this question was not of my department, yet a common duty should make it a common concern; that the president was the centre on which all administrative questions ultimately rested; that, the question having been lost by a small majority only, it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of some of my friends might effect a change in the vote, and the machinery of government, now suspended, might be again set in motion."
To this Jefferson replied that he was a stranger to the whole matter; that if the rejection of the proposition really, as Hamilton alleged, endangered the Union, it was important to reconsider it; and then proposed that the secretary of the treasury should meet two or three friends at table the next day to discuss the subject. The dinner and the discussion took place; and it was "finally agreed," says Jefferson, "that whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union and of concord among the states was more important, and that therefore it would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded, to effect which, some members should change their votes."
At that time the question, Where shall the seat of the federal government be permanently located? was a subject of violent contest, the people in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, wishing it to be in their respective states. Debates had run high upon the subject in Congress, and the public press had discussed it vigorously. It being observed at Jefferson's dinner-party that a reconsideration of the assumption bill, and its adoption, would be "a bitter pill" to the southern states, it was proposed that "some concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them." The location of the seat of government was chosen as the soother. The contest had narrowed, geographically, so that it lay between Philadelphia on the Delaware and Georgetown on the Potomac. It was proposed to give it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently thereafter, believing that "that might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the ferment which might be excited by the other measure alone." "Two of the Potomac members agreed to change their votes," says Jefferson, "and Hamilton undertook to carry the other point. In doing this, the influence he had established over the eastern members, with the agency of Robert Morris with those of the middle states, effected his side of the engagement." The assumption bill was carried, and the location of the seat of government was settled. Congress agreed to make Philadelphia its residence for ten years, during which time the public buildings should be erected at some point on the Potomac that the president might select. Subsequently a territory ten miles square, lying on both sides of the Potomac in Maryland and Virginia, was ceded by those states to the United States, and called the district of Columbia. Thus the matter was settled.
When Jefferson's sensitive republicanism took the alarm to which we have alluded, he became suspicious of all around him. His feelings toward Hamilton changed, until he considered him a monarchist in principle, and regarded all his financial schemes as intended to strengthen the general government, centralize power, and make the treasury the controlling lever of public affairs, the chief of which, with almost autocratic puissance, might direct everything to suit his own political views. With this impression, retrospection made him angry and resentful. He regarded the manner in which Hamilton had procured his aid in effecting the measure of assumption as a snare by which he had been entrapped, and he characterized the measure itself as a fiscal manoeuvre, to which he had "ignorantly and innocently been made to hold the candle."
This was the beginning of those dissentions in his cabinet which afterward gave the president so much trouble. They had grown to mischievous proportions at a time when he believed there was perfect harmony among his constitutional advisers. He had never experienced the sentiment of jealousy himself, and he was the last man to suspect it in others; and at the time when Jefferson and Hamilton were regarding each other with a spirit of rivalry, Washington wrote to Lafayette, saying: "Many of your old acquaintances and friends are concerned with me in the administration of this government. By having Mr. Jefferson at the head of the department of state, Mr. Jay of the judiciary, Hamilton of the treasury, and Knox of war, I feel myself supported by able coadjutors who harmonize extremely well."
Out of the rivalry between Jefferson and Hamilton, and the conflict of their opinions respecting the national jurisprudence and French politics, grew the two political parties known respectively, for about twenty years, as Federal and Republican. We shall observe that growth as we progress in our narrative.
While Congress and the nation were agitated by discussions concerning the public debt, another topic elicited a still more exciting discussion: it was African slavery and the slave-trade. Slavery then existed in all the states of the Union except Massachusetts, in whose constitution a clause had been inserted for the purpose of tacitly abolishing the system from the commonwealth. Pennsylvania had adopted measures with the same view, and had been imitated by Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, had prohibited the further importation of slaves; and in Virginia and Maryland restrictions upon emancipation had been repealed. A desire to get rid of the system appeared to prevail throughout the Union. The Presbyteries of New York and Pennsylvania, composing a united synod, had constituted themselves as the general assembly of the Presbyterian church in America; and that representative body issued a pastoral letter in 1788, in which they strongly recommended the abolition of slavery, and the instruction of negroes in letters and religion. The Methodist church, then rising into notice, even refused slaveholders a place in their communion; and the Quakers had made opposition to slavery a part of their discipline. In these benevolent movements Washington sympathized; for he desired to see the system extinguished by some just method.
It was only a few days after the commencement of the debate on the public debt, that a petition from the yearly meeting of the Quakers of Pennsylvania and Delaware, with another from that of New York, was laid before the house of representatives. A motion for reference to a special committee caused a warm debate, and some of those who opposed its reception spoke sneeringly of "the men in the gallery," who were the Quaker deputation appointed to look after the petition.[28] It was laid upon the table that day; and at the opening of the session on the following morning, another petition on the same subject, from the Pennsylvania society for the abolition of slavery, was presented. It was signed by Benjamin Franklin (president of the society), then in the last weeks of his life. The petition was read, and then the Quaker memorial was called up. The excitement in the house was very great. The movement was denominated an improper interference with state rights, or at least an act of imprudence; and Judge Burke, of South Carolina, declared that if these memorials were entertained by commitment, the act would "sound an alarm and blow the trumpet of sedition through the southern states."
The question was mainly a constitutional one, but the debates took great latitude. It was finally agreed to commit the memorials, by a vote of forty-three to eleven. They were referred to a committee consisting of one member from each of the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
A month afterward, that committee reported seven resolutions: first, that the general government was expressly restrained from prohibiting the carrying on of the slave-trade until the year 1808; second, that by a fair construction of the constitution, Congress was equally restrained from interfering with slavery, in the matter of emancipation, in the several states; third, that Congress had no power to interfere in the internal regulations of slavery in the several states; fourth, that Congress had the right, by virtue of the revenue laws, to levy a tax of ten dollars upon every person imported as property under the special permission of any of the states; fifth, that Congress had power to regulate or to interdict the African slave-trade, carried on by citizens of the United States for the supply of foreign countries; sixth, that Congress had the right to prohibit foreigners from fitting out vessels in the United States, to be employed in the supply of foreign countries with slaves from Africa; seventh, that Congress would exercise their authority to its full extent, to promote the humane objects set forth in the memorial of the Quakers.
This report called forth zealous and sometimes angry debates for a whole week, when it was finally agreed, at the suggestion of Fisher Ames, seconded by Madison and others, by a vote of twenty-nine to twenty-five, to enter the report at length upon the journal of the house, where it might be consulted in the future, and to take no further action. Thus ended the first agitation of the still pending "slavery question" in Congress. In a letter to Doctor Stuart, in June, referring to a complaint of the tardiness of Congress, Washington remarked: "The introduction of the Quaker memorial respecting slavery was, to be sure, not only ill-timed, but occasioned a great waste of time. The final decision thereon, however, was as favorable as the proprietors of this species of property could well have expected, considering the light in which slavery is viewed by a large part of this Union."
While topics of a domestic nature agitated the public mind and occupied the attention of the national legislature, the foreign relations of the government (in which expression may be included the relations with hostile Indian tribes) were far from satisfactory. We have already alluded to the hostile attitude of some of the tribes in the northwest and southwest, among whom it was suspected British emissaries were at work. Those of the southwest, especially the Creek nation, had been in a disturbed state for some time, and difficulties with the authorities of Georgia had caused an open rupture a little earlier than the period in question. The Creeks were governed by an accomplished chief, Alexander M'Gillivray, the son of a loyalist Scotchman, of that name, and a Creek woman of a leading family. He had been well educated, and his father designed him for commercial pursuits. He loved study more than ledgers; and his father owning large possessions in Georgia, the young man looked forward to wealth and social position. But the revolution swept all away. His father's property was confiscated, and young M'Gillivray took refuge with the Creeks, his heart filled with hatred of the republicans. He was brave, fluent in speech, popular with the leading men, and soon rose to the rank of head chief; and no doubt he stirred up his nation to assume an attitude hostile to the Americans.
The Creeks, with M'Gillivray at their head, had also established a close alliance with the Spaniards, who held possession of Florida. The Spanish governor of that province courted the young half-blood chief, and he was honored with a colonelcy in the military service of Spain. Through the Spaniards, the Creeks could readily obtain arms and ammunition in exchange for their furs; and thus, in point of strength, they were the most formidable enemies to the United States among the Indian nations.
Good policy caused the United States government to send commissioners to treat with the Creeks; and in the autumn of 1789, General Lincoln, Colonel Humphries, and David Griffin--a commission appointed by Washington--met deputies of that confederacy on the Oconee, to hold a treaty. M'Gillivray was at the head of the deputation. He received the American commissioners kindly, and expressed a desire for friendship; but when he found that they did not propose to restore to the Creeks their lands about which they had disputed with the Georgians, he abruptly ended the conference, promising, however, to remain peaceable until further negotiations could be had.
In March, 1790, Washington despatched Colonel Marinus Willett on a new mission to the Creeks. He succeeded in persuading M'Gillivray to go to New York, to carry on negotiations there. Attended by twenty-eight sachems, chiefs, and warriors, he arrived at the federal capital on the twenty-third of June, having been received with much attention at the principal towns on the line of his journey. The members of the Tammany society of New York, arrayed in Indian costume, escorted M'Gillivray and his party into the city; and the Creek chief, being the son of a Scotchman, was made an honorary member of the St. Andrew's society.
These attentions, and the gracious manner in which he was received by the president, made a deep impression on M'Gillivray's mind. General Knox, the secretary of war, was appointed to negotiate with him. A satisfactory treaty, founded upon mutual concessions, was made; and one of the last acts of Washington during the second session of the first Congress was the approval of that treaty. It was signed by the contracting parties on the seventh of August, and was ratified on the thirteenth, the day after Congress adjourned.
Meanwhile, the aspect of Indian affairs in the country northwest of the Ohio, into which a stream of emigration was rapidly flowing, claimed the serious consideration of the government. A territorial government for that region had been ordained in 1787, and the domain was called the northwest territory. General Arthur St. Clair was appointed governor. As we have observed, the Indians in that vicinity had shown much hostility to the Americans ever since the close of the Revolution. They were encouraged by Sir John Johnson, then Indian agent on that frontier, and by Sir Guy Carleton, who was again governor of Canada, to insist upon re-establishing the Ohio as the Indian boundary. They swarmed upon the banks of that river, waylaid the boats of emigrants, and even crossed the stream and made incursions into Kentucky, to attack frontier stations there. The president was convinced, by long experience with the Indians, that on the failure of negotiations with them, sound policy and true economy, not less than humanity, required the immediate employment of force, which should go as a scourge into the very heart of their country. Such were now the relations between the northwestern tribes and the United States; and in the autumn, a military force eleven hundred strong, under the command of General Harmer, was directed by the president to march against the Miami village on the Scioto, where Chilicothe now stands. After some successes and defeats the Americans withdrew, and the Indians became more insolent and bold.
At this time a general European war appeared inevitable. A long-pending controversy between Spain and Great Britain remained unsettled. It was believed that France would side with Spain; and it was thought to be a favorable time for the United States to press upon Great Britain the necessity of complying with the yet unfulfilled articles of the treaty of 1783. Accordingly, as early as January, 1790, Gouverneur Morris, then in Paris, was commissioned by Washington to proceed to London, as private agent of the United States, to sound the British ministry on the subject. At that time there was no diplomatic intercourse between the United States and Great Britain. Mr. Adams had returned home, and the court of St. James had never sent a minister to the United States. Morris opened a communication with the English minister for foreign affairs, but was unable to make much satisfactory progress for some time. As late as the first of July, Washington made the following record in his diary:
"Having put into the hands of the vice president of the United States the communication of Mr. Gouverneur Morris, who had been empowered to make informal inquiries how well disposed the British ministry might be to enter into commercial relations with the United States, and to fulfil the articles of peace respecting our western posts, and the slaves which had been carried from this country, he expressed his approbation that this step had been taken, and added that the disinclination of the British cabinet to comply with the two latter and to evade the former, as evidently appears from the correspondence of Mr. Morris with the duke of Leeds (the British minister for foreign affairs), was of a piece with their conduct toward him whilst minister at that court, and just what he expected, and that to have it ascertained was necessary.
"He thought, as a rupture between England and Spain was almost inevitable, that it would be our policy and interest to take part with the latter, as he was very apprehensive that New Orleans was an object with the former of their possessing, which would be very injurious to us; but he observed, at the same time, that the situation of our affairs would not justify the measure, unless the people [of the United States] themselves should take the lead in the business."
This was also considered a favorable time for the United States to urge upon Spain their claims to the free navigation of the Mississippi river. Mr. Carmichael, the American chargé d'affaires at the court of Madrid, was instructed not only to press this point with earnestness, but to use his best endeavors to secure the unmolested use of that river in future, by obtaining a cession of the island of New Orleans and of the Floridas, offering as an equivalent the sincere friendship of the United States, by which the territories of Spain west of the Mississippi might be secured to that government.
Evidence was not wanting that Great Britain apprehended an alliance of the United States with Spain in the war that seemed to be impending; and also that, in the event of war, the arms of Great Britain would be directed against the Spanish settlements in America, to the disadvantage of the United States. Sir Guy Carleton (now Lord Dorchester) was continued in the government of Canada. He had asked leave to pass through New York on his way to England. It was readily granted. And now, under the pretext of making a formal acknowledgment for the contest, he despatched his aid-de-camp, Major Beckwith, to sound the American government, and ascertain, if possible, its disposition toward the two disputing nations.
Major Beckwith first approached Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury. After acknowledging the courtesy of the United States government in offering to comply with the wishes of Lord Dorchester, he observed that the prospect of a war between Great Britain and Spain would prevent or defer his lordship's departure for England.
"He next proceeded to observe," says Hamilton in his written report of the interview which he laid before the president, "that Lord Dorchester had been informed of a negotiation commenced on the other side of the water, through the agency of Mr. Morris; mentioning, as the subscriber understood principally by way of proof of Lord Dorchester's knowledge of the transaction, that Mr. Morris had not produced any regular credentials, but merely a letter from the president directed to himself; that some delays had intervened, partly on account of Mr. Morris's absence on a trip to Holland, as was understood, and that it was not improbable these delays and some other circumstances may have impressed Mr. Morris with an idea of backwardness on the part of the British ministry. That his lordship, however, had directed him to say that an inference of this sort would not, in his opinion, be well founded, as he had reason to believe that the cabinet of Great Britain entertained a disposition, not only toward a friendly intercourse, but toward an alliance with the United States."
"Major Beckwith then proceeded to speak of the particular cause of the expected rupture between Spain and Great Britain, observing it was one in which all commercial nations must be supposed to favor the views of Great Britain. That it was therefore presumed, should a war take place, that the United States would find it to their interest to take part with Great Britain rather than with Spain."
Major Beckwith then, in the name of Lord Dorchester, disclaimed any influence, under the sanction of British authorities, over the western tribes, unfavorable to the interests of the citizens of the United States; and concluded by producing a letter signed by Dorchester, which contained sentiments similar to those expressed by the bearer, with an assurance that "his lordship knew too well the consequences of such a step, to have taken it without a previous knowledge of the intentions of the cabinet."
Washington's impression of this semi-official overture from Great Britain is expressed in the following record in his diary on the eighth of July: "The aspect of this business, in the moment of its communication to me, appeared simply and no other than this: 'We did not incline to give any satisfactory answer to Mr. Morris, who was officially commissioned to ascertain our intentions with respect to the evacuation of the western posts within the territory of the United States, and other matters, until by this unauthenticated mode we can discover whether you will enter into an alliance with us, and make common cause against Spain. In that case we will enter into a commercial treaty with you, and promise perhaps to fulfil what we already stand engaged to perform.'"
The president referred the matter to his cabinet, with a request that they would give it their serious consideration. They did so; and on the fourteenth it was agreed to treat Beckwith's communications very civilly--to intimate, delicately, that they carried no marks official or authentic; nor, in speaking of alliance, did they convey any definite meaning by which the precise object of the British cabinet could be discovered. "In a word," says Washington in his diary, "that the secretary of the treasury was to extract as much as he could from Major Beckwith, and to report to me, without committing, by any assurances whatever, the government of the United States, leaving it entirely free to pursue, unreproached, such a line of conduct in the dispute as her interest and honor shall dictate."
It was evident that the British government were willing that their relations with the United States should remain unchanged, until they should perceive what course European affairs were likely to take. For about nine months Morris remained in London, endeavoring to accomplish the objects of his mission; but, at the end of that time, the views of the British government, on all the main topics of discussion, were as much hidden in a cloud of uncertainty as when he first presented Washington's letter to the duke of Leeds, as his credentials. The powers given to Mr. Morris were withdrawn; because, to further press the subject of a commercial treaty, or the exchange of ministers, or the evacuation of the western posts, on the part of the United States, would be useless and dishonorable; and it was resolved to pause in action until the government had become strong enough to speak in decisive tones, and prepare to maintain words with works.
Finding the French government, then embarrassed by its own internal difficulties, disinclined to take part in the quarrel with Great Britain, Spain, unable alone to cope with her foe, yielded every point in the controversy, and the dispute was settled.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] In his diary under date of March the sixteenth, 1790, Washington recorded: "Exercised on horseback, between ten and twelve o'clock; previous to this, I was visited (having given permission) by Mr. Warner Mifflin, one of the people called Quakers, active in pursuit of the measures laid before Congress for emancipating the slaves. After much general conversation, and an endeavor to remove the prejudices which, he said, had been entertained of the motives by which the attending deputations from their society were actuated, he used arguments to show the immorality, injustice, and impolicy of keeping these people in a state of slavery; with declarations, however, that he did not wish for more than a gradual abolition, or to see any infraction of the constitution to effect it. To these I replied, that as it was a matter which might come before me for official decision, I was not inclined to express any sentiments on the merits of the question before this should happen."
Chapter XIV
ADJOURNMENT OF CONGRESS--WASHINGTON'S OPINION OF THEIR CONDUCT--HIS PUBLIC LABORS--TOUR ON LONG ISLAND--SEVERE ILLNESS OF THE PRESIDENT--VOYAGE TO RHODE ISLAND--IN RETIREMENT AT MOUNT VERNON--LAFAYETTE'S POSITION--KEY OF THE BASTILE PRESENTED TO WASHINGTON--WASHINGTON'S HOPES FOR THE FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES--HIS NEUTRAL POLICY FORESHADOWED--INDIAN WAR IN THE WEST.
Congress adjourned on the twelfth of August, after a session of about seven months, during which time questions of great importance had been met, discussed, and settled; not always, it must be confessed, in a conciliatory spirit. In a partial defense of the national legislature, in a letter to Doctor Stuart, Washington remarked: "I do not mean, however, from what I have here said, to justify the conduct of Congress in all these movements; for some of their movements, in my opinion, have been injudicious, and others unseasonable; whilst the questions of assumption, residence, and other matters, have been agitated with a warmth and intemperance, with prolixity and threats, which, it is to be feared, have lessened the dignity of that body, and decreased that respect which was once entertained for it. And this misfortune is increased by many members, even among those who wish well to the government, ascribing in letters to their respective states, when they are defeated in a favorite measure, the worst motives for the conduct of their opponents, who, viewing matters through another medium, may and do retort in their turn; by which means jealousies and distrusts are spread most impolitically far and wide, and will, it is to be feared, have a most unhappy tendency to injure our public affairs, which, if wisely managed, might make us, as we are now by Europeans thought to be, the happiest people upon earth."
The session just closed had been a season of great labor for the president. The cares of state had been many and important, and the affairs of France had occupied much of his attention. Some days his application to public business was so continuous, from early morning until evening, that he omitted his usual exercise in the open air. He managed, however, to make a tour of four days, in his carriage, upon Long Island. He travelled eastward as far as Huntington, making (as appears by his diary) careful observations of the country and its resources. He proceeded from Brooklyn, through Flatbush and New Utrecht, to Gravesend, on the extreme western point of the island, and then eastward to Jamaica by the middle road. From Jamaica he journeyed to South Hempstead, and then to Hart's tavern in Brookhaven, from which place he struck across toward the north shore of the island by Coram to Setauket. On the third day of his journey (April the twenty-third) he went through Smithstown to Huntington, where he dined; and then turning westward, he drove to Oyster bay and lodged. Early the following morning he passed through Mosquito cove, and breakfasted at Hendrick Onderdonk's, at the head of a bay, the site of the present village of Roslyn, or Hempstead harbor. He dined at Flushing, reached Brooklyn ferry before sunset, and home at twilight.
Incessant application to business made severe inroads upon the health of the president, and on the tenth of May he was seized with a severe illness, which reduced him to the verge of dissolution. He was confined to his chamber for several weeks, and it was not until the twenty-fourth of June that he was able to resume his diary. His chief difficulty was inflammation of the lungs, and he suffered from general debility until the close of the session of Congress in August. Then, accompanied by Jefferson, he made a voyage to Newport, Rhode Island, especially for the benefit of his health, and incidentally to have personal intercourse with the leading inhabitants there, he having, as we have observed, avoided the soil of Rhode Island when on his eastern tour, that state not then being a member of the Union. It had recently entered by adopting the federal constitution.
The sea-voyage was beneficial to the health of the president; and soon after his return, at the close of August, he set out with his family for Mount Vernon, there to seek repose from the turmoil of public life, and the sweet recreation which he always experienced in the midst of agricultural employments in that happy retreat. He carried with him to Mount Vernon a curious present which he received from his friend Lafayette, just before the adjournment of Congress. It was the ponderous iron key of the Bastile--that old fortress of despotism in Paris which the populace of that city captured the year before, and which had been levelled to the ground by order of the marquis, who was still at the head of the revolution in France.
Washington had watched the course of his friend with great anxiety; for he loved the marquis as a brother. The career upon which he had entered was a most difficult and perilous one. "Never has any man been placed in a more critical situation," the Marquis de Luzerne wrote to Washington. "A good citizen, a faithful subject, he is embarrassed by a thousand difficulties in making many people sensible of what is proper, who very often feel it not, and who sometimes do not understand what it is."
"He acts now a splendid but dangerous part," wrote Gouverneur Morris. Lafayette himself felt the perils of his position. "How often, my well-beloved general," he wrote to Washington early in the year, "have I regretted your sage counsels and friendly support. We have advanced in the career of the revolution without the vessel of state being wrecked against the rocks of aristocracy or faction.... At present, that which existed has been destroyed; a new political edifice is forming; without being perfect, it is sufficient to assure liberty. Thus prepared, the nation will be in a state to elect in two years a convention which can correct the faults of the constitution." Alas! those two years had scarcely passed away before the hopeful champion of freedom was a prisoner, far away from his home, in an Austrian dungeon. But we will not anticipate.
Two months later, Lafayette wrote a most hopeful letter to Washington. "Our revolution," he said, "pursues its march as happily as is possible with a nation which, receiving at once all its liberties, is yet subject to confound them with licentiousness." He then spoke of the hinderances to speedy success in the establishment of a sound republican government, and said: "After having avowed all this, my dear general, I will tell you, with the same frankness, that we have made an admirable and almost incredible destruction of all the abuses, of all the prejudices; that all which was not useful to the people--all which did not come from them--has been retrenched; that, in considering the situation, topographical, moral, and political, of France, we have effected more changes in ten months than the most presumptive patriots could have hoped, and that the reports about our anarchy, our internal troubles, are greatly exaggerated."
In conclusion, the marquis said: "Permit me, my dear general, to offer you a picture representing the Bastile, such as it was some days after I had given orders for its demolition, with the main key of the fortress of despotism. It is a tribute which I owe as a son to an adopted father--as an aid-de-camp to my general--as a missionary of liberty to its patriarch."
The picture and key were placed in the hands of Thomas Paine, then in London, who was intending soon to visit the United States. His destination was changed to France, and after considerable delay he forwarded the precious mementoes, with a letter, in which he said:--
"I feel myself happy in being the person through whom the marquis has conveyed this early trophy of the spoils of despotism, and the first ripe fruit of American principles transplanted into Europe, to his great master and patron. When he mentioned to me the present he intended for you, my heart leaped with joy.... That the principles of America opened the Bastile is not to be doubted, and therefore the key comes to the right place."
On the receipt of these presents early in August, Washington wrote to Lafayette, saying: "I have received your affectionate letter of the seventeenth of March by one conveyance, and the token of the victory gained by liberty over despotism by another; for both which testimonials of your friendship and regard, I pray you to accept my sincerest thanks. In this great subject of triumph for the new world and for humanity in general, it will never be forgotten how conspicuous a part you bore, and how much lustre you reflected on a country in which you made the first displays of your character."
Referring in the same letter to the treaty which had been concluded with the Creeks, he said: "This event will leave us at peace from one end of our borders to the other, except when it may be interrupted by a small refugee banditti of Cherokees and Shawnees, who can be easily chastised, or even extirpated, if it shall become necessary." He then added:--
"Gradually recovering from the distress in which the war left us, patiently advancing in our task of civil government, unentangled in the crooked politics of Europe, wanting scarcely anything but the free navigation of the Mississippi (which we must have, and as certainly shall have as we remain a nation), I have supposed that, with the undeviating exercise of a just, steady, and prudent national policy, we shall be the gainers, whether the powers of the old world may be in peace or war, but more especially in the latter case. In that case, our importance will certainly increase, and our friendship will be coveted." The last clause foreshadows that neutral policy which Washington assumed for the government of the United States at a little later period, when great efforts were made to involve it in the meshes of European politics, by active sympathy with the democratic movements in France.
Rest at Mount Vernon was grateful to the wearied chief of the republic. Yet it was not absolute repose. As a conscientious public servant; as the chief officer of a government yet in a comparatively formative state, and charged with the highest trusts that can be committed to mortal man, he felt most sensibly the care of state, even in his quiet home on the banks of the Potomac. One subject, in particular, filled him with anxiety. He had ordered the chastisement of the Indians in the Ohio country, and troops had gone thither for the purpose. He had deprecated a war with the deluded savages, but good policy appeared to demand it; and on the thirtieth of September an expedition set out from Fort Washington, where the city of Cincinnati now stands, under General Harmer, a veteran of the Revolution. But from that time until his arrival in Philadelphia, at the close of November, Washington remained in profound ignorance of the operations or the fate of the expedition. On the second of November he wrote to General Knox, the secretary of war, expressing his surprise that no information of the expedition had been received, and saying: "This, in my opinion, is an undertaking of a very serious nature. I am not a little anxious to know the result of it.... This matter, favorable or otherwise in the issue, will require to be laid before the Congress, that the motives which induced the expedition may appear."
On his arrival in Philadelphia, Washington received a letter from Governor Clinton, of New York, giving an account of Harmer's ill success against the Indians, reported by Captain Brant, the celebrated Mohawk warrior of the Revolution. "If this information of Captain Brant be true," Washington wrote to Clinton in reply, "the issue of the expedition against the Indians will indeed prove unfortunate and disgraceful to the troops, who suffered themselves to be ambuscaded."
It was even so. The expedition, as we have already observed, failed in its efforts, and the savages took courage for future operations. An expensive war of four or five years' duration ensued.
Chapter XV
SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT PHILADELPHIA--CONSEQUENCES OF THE REMOVAL--RENTING OF THE PRESIDENTIAL MANSION--WASHINGTON'S PRUDENCE AND ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED--THE PRESIDENT AND FAMILY IN PHILADELPHIA--MRS. WASHINGTON'S RECEPTIONS--GAYETY IN THE METROPOLIS--WASHINGTON AND HIS PUBLIC DUTIES--HIS SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE AND ITS SUGGESTIONS--HAMILTON'S NATIONAL BANK SCHEME--OPPOSITION TO IT--A BANK ESTABLISHED--NEW TARIFF SCHEME ADOPTED--EXCISE LAW--ESTABLISHMENT OF A MINT--INDIAN AFFAIRS--ST. CLAIR APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE NORTHWEST--ADJOURNMENT OF CONGRESS.
Philadelphia, as we have already observed, was chosen to be the residence of the federal government for ten years; and there, in the courthouse, on the first Monday in December, 1790, the first Congress assembled to hold their third session.
The removal of the seat of government from New York had caused much dissatisfaction in that quarter, while many Philadelphians experienced equal dissatisfaction, but for different reasons. Rents, prices of provisions, and other necessaries of life, greatly advanced. "Some of the blessings anticipated from the removal of Congress to this city are already beginning to be apparent," wrote a Philadelphian. "Rents of houses have risen, and I fear will continue to rise shamefully; even in the outskirts they have lately been increased from fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen pounds, to twenty-five, twenty-eight, and thirty. This is oppression. Our markets, it is expected, will also be dearer than heretofore."
Washington was subjected to considerable personal annoyance by the change. During the recess of Congress, he commissioned Mr. Lear, his private secretary, to rent a house for his use in Philadelphia. One owned by Robert Morris appeared to be the most eligible of all; but, for a long time, Washington could not procure an answer to his prudent question, "What will be the rent?" Both the state and city authorities, through committees, had offered to provide at their own expense a home for the president; but Washington declined the generous offer. He preferred the independence of a resident in his own hired house; and he was also convinced that the offer was made because of a desire to have Philadelphia become the permanent residence of the government. The erection of a presidential mansion would be an argument in favor of the scheme. Washington preferred a more southern location. He was to choose the spot. He wished to have his views unbiassed; so he refused all offers to lessen his expenses at the cost of the city of Philadelphia, or of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Time after time Washington wrote to Lear about the rent of Morris's house. "He has most assuredly," he said, "formed an idea of what ought to be the rent of the tenement in the condition he left it; and with this aid, the committee ought, I conceive, to be as little at a loss in determining what it should rent for, with the additions and alterations which are about to be made, and which ought to be done in a plain and neat, and not by any means extravagant, style." He was satisfied that the committee were delaying with the intention of having the rent paid by the public; and he foresaw that he might be subjected to heavy bills of expense in fixing and furnishing the house in an extravagant manner.
"Let us for a moment suppose," he said, "that the rooms (the new ones, I mean) were to be hung with tapestry, or a very rich and costly paper, neither of which would suit my present furniture; that costly ornaments for the bow-windows, extravagant chimney-pieces and the like, were to be provided; that workmen, from extravagance of the times, for every twenty shillings' worth of work would charge forty shillings; and that advantage would be taken of the occasion to newly paint every part of the house and buildings; would there be any propriety in adding ten or twelve-and-a-half per cent. for all this to the rent of the house in its original state, for the two years that I am to hold it? If the solution of these questions is in the negative, wherein lies the difficulty of determining that the houses and lots, when finished according to the proposed plan, ought to rent for so much? When all is done that can be done," he added, "the residence will not be so commodious as that I left in New York, for there (and the want of it will be found a real inconvenience at Mr. Morris's) my office was in the front room below, where persons on business immediately entered; whereas, in the present case, they will have to ascend two pairs of stairs, and to pass by the public rooms as well as the private chambers, to get to it."[29]
It must be remembered that Washington refused to receive a salary for his services as president of the United States, but stipulated that the amount of his expenses should be paid by the government. In regulating these expenses, he was as careful to avoid extravagance as if his private purse had to be drawn upon to pay. In New York he lived frugally,[30] and he resolved to continue, in Philadelphia, the same unostentatious way of living, not only on his own account, but for the benefit of those connected with the government who could not afford to spend more than their salaries. His example had a most salutary effect. An illustrative case may be cited. When Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut, was appointed first auditor of the treasury, he, like a prudent man, would not accept the office until he could visit New York, and ascertain whether he could live upon the salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year. He came to the conclusion that he could live upon one thousand, and he wrote to his wife, saying: "The example of the president and his family will render parade and expense improper and disreputable." What a significant commentary!
The rent of Morris's house was at last fixed at three thousand dollars a year; and on the twenty-second of November Washington set out for Philadelphia, accompanied by his family, in a chariot drawn by four horses. They were allowed to travel without parade, and on reaching Philadelphia, on the twenty-eighth, they found their house ready for their reception. Yet it was nearly a month before they were prepared to receive company. Mrs. Washington's first levee or reception in Philadelphia was on Friday, the twenty-fifth of December, where, according to eye-witnesses, there was an assemblage of "the most brilliant, beautiful, well-dressed, and well educated women that had ever been seen in America."
The season opened gayly. "I should spend a very dissipated winter," wrote the vice-president's wife to a friend, "if I were to accept one half the invitations I receive, particularly to the routs, or tea-and-cards." The city, for a few weeks after the assembling of Congress, appeared to be intoxicated. But Washington and his wife were proof against the song of the syren. They could not be seduced from their temperate habits in eating, drinking, and sleeping, by the scenes of immoderate pleasure around them. They held their respective levees on Tuesdays and Fridays, as in New York, without the least ostentation; and Congressional and official dinners were served in a plain way, without any extravagant displays of plate, ornament, or variety of dishes. Mrs. Washington's levees always closed at nine o'clock. When the great clock in the hall struck that hour, she would say to those present, with a complacent smile, "The general always retires at nine, and I usually precede him." In a few minutes the drawing-room would be closed, the lights extinguished, and the presidential mansion would be as dark and quiet before ten o'clock as the house of any private citizen.
Washington entered upon his public duties with great energy on his arrival in Philadelphia. His health was almost perfectly restored, and subjects of profound interest demanded the attention of Congress. That body assembled on the sixth of December, and on the eighth, in the presence of both houses sitting in the senate-chamber, the president delivered, in person, his second annual message. He opened by congratulating Congress on the financial prosperity of the country, the import duties having produced, in a little more than thirteen months, the sum of one million, nine hundred thousand dollars. He had without difficulty obtained a loan in Holland for the partial liquidation of the foreign debt; and, in consequence of the increasing confidence in the government, certificates of the domestic debt had greatly increased in value. He informed them that Kentucky was about to ask for admission into the Union as a sovereign state. He called their attention to the Indian war commenced in the northwestern territory; and after some allusion to the disturbed state of Europe, growing out of recent events in France, he suggested measures for the protection of American commerce in the Mediterranean sea, where it was continually exposed to the depredations of corsairs of the Barbary powers.
He called their attention to regulations concerning the consular system that had been proposed and partially established; to the creation of a mint, the right of coinage being delegated to the federal government alone; to a uniform system of weights and measures; to a reorganization of the post-office system, and a uniform militia.
The two most important measures brought forward at the beginning of the session were, a plan for a national bank, and a tax on ardent spirits distilled within the United States. In a former communication to Congress, the secretary of the treasury recommended the establishment of a national bank, as a useful instrument in the management of the finances of the country; and now, at the opening of a new session, he presented a special report, in which the policy of such a measure was urged with Hamilton's usual strength and acuteness of logic. He argued upon premises resting on the alleged facilities afforded to trade by banks, and the great benefits to be expected from a national one in a commercial point of view. He chiefly dwelt upon the topic of the convenience to the government of a paper medium in which to conduct its monetary transactions, and especially as a ready resource for such temporary loans as might from time to time be required.
Such reasons, utterly without force in the light of subsequent experience, were wise and important at that time, and commended themselves to the people of the United States, because they had not forgotten the convenience afforded by the bank of North America, established by Robert Morris in 1781, chiefly for the purpose of assistance to himself in the difficult office of superintendent of finance. That was the first experiment in America in the issue of a currency redeemable at sight--a promissory note payable on demand--which had been the practice of the bank of England for nearly a hundred years. It was a system so much superior to the colonial loan-office plans, and the scheme upon which the continental paper-money had been issued during the earlier years of the war for independence, that the people generally received Hamilton's recommendation with favor. But it met with determined opposition in Congress. The anti-federal feeling which from the close of 1789 had manifested itself, principally in criticisms upon the federal constitution, now assumed the shape of a party opposed to the financial policy of the administration. At the head of this opposition was Mr. Jefferson, the secretary of state; and the herald's trumpet for the tilt was sounded by the Virginia assembly, in the adoption of a resolution, declaring so much of the late act of Congress as provided for the assumption of the state debts "repugnant to the constitution of the United States," and "the exercise of a power not expressly granted to the general government." That clause of the act for funding the continental debt, which restrained the government from redeeming at pleasure any part of that debt, was denounced as "dangerous to the rights, and subversive of the interests, of the people."
The bank project encountered very little opposition in the senate, where the bill originated; but in the house it was assailed vehemently, chiefly on the ground of its being unconstitutional. Its policy was questioned, and the utility of banking systems stoutly denied. The arguments on both sides, in relation to the constitutionality of the measure (the constitution being utterly silent on the subject), assumed on frequent occasions an extremely metaphysical tone. It was argued, in favor of a bank, that the power to establish one was implied in the powers delegated to Congress by the constitution to collect a revenue, and to pay the debts of the United States, and in the authority expressly granted to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying those powers into execution.
On the twentieth of January 1791, the bank bill passed the senate without a division, and on the eighth of February it passed the house of representatives by a vote of thirty-nine to twenty. Before signing it, the president requested the written opinion of each member of his cabinet as to its constitutionality, and his reasons for such opinion. They promptly complied. The cabinet was divided. Hamilton and Knox strongly maintained that it was constitutional: Jefferson and Randolph (the attorney-general) as strongly contended that it was unconstitutional. Washington examined the whole subject with great deliberation, and then put his signature to the act. That act gave a charter to the institution limited to twenty years, and for that period Congress renounced the power of establishing any other bank. The capital was to be ten millions of dollars, divided into twenty-five thousand shares of four hundred dollars each; eight millions to be subscribed by individuals, and the other two millions by the United States. It was to be managed by twenty-five directors, chosen annually by the stockholders, and its headquarters were to be at Philadelphia.
The opponents of the bank, and especially Mr. Jefferson, presumed to censure the president because, in the conscientious exercise of his power, he made the act a law by affixing his signature. The secretary of state had other than constitutional grounds for his opposition to the measure. He had conceived an irrepressible distrust of Hamilton. It seemed almost like a monomania. He considered the bank as one of the engines in a scheme intended by Hamilton to make the national legislature subservient to, and under the direction of, the treasury, for the purpose of promoting his monarchical schemes. He afterward affirmed that Washington was deceived by Hamilton, and that he did not perceive the drift or effect of his financial schemes; and ungenerously and unfairly remarked, that, "unversed in financial projects and calculations and budgets, his approbation of them was bottomed on his confidence in the man."
No person knew better than Mr. Jefferson the unfairness of this assertion. None knew better than he how little Washington was prone to be swayed in his judgment by partiality either toward a man or a measure. He always weighed everything with the greatest care and most profound wisdom, and the opinions of friends and foes were always submitted to the alembic of his keen penetration, and the tests of his almost unfailing sagacity, before they were acted upon. "Hamilton and myself," wrote Jefferson, "were daily pitted in the cabinet like two cocks." The personal resentments and consequent prejudices of the secretary of state appear to have frequently warped his judgment and fettered his generosity.
An increase of duties on imported spirits, and an excise tax on those produced at home, in order to increase the revenue required by the charges growing out of the assumption of the state debts, recommended by the secretary of the treasury and submitted to the consideration of Congress in the form of an act, excited warm discussion. An attempt was made to strike out the excise, but failed; and after animated and sometimes violent debates, it was carried by a vote in the house of thirty-five to twenty-one.[31] The portion of the act relating to excise was received with indignation in some parts of the country, and led, as we shall hereafter observe, to actual insurrection in western Pennsylvania.
The establishment of a national mint also occupied the attention of Congress at this session. At the conclusion of the war for independence, the continental Congress requested Robert Morris, the minister of finance, to lay before them his views upon the subject of coins and currency. The labor of preparing a report upon the subject was assigned to the able assistant financier, Gouverneur Morris. It was prepared with great care, and presented in 1782. Morris's first effort was to harmonize the currency of all the states. He ascertained that the one thousand, four hundred and fortieth part of a Spanish dollar was a common divisor for the various currencies. Starting with that fraction as a unit, he proposed the following table of moneys:--
Ten units to be equal to one penny. Ten pence to one bill. Ten bills, one dollar (about seventy-five cents of our present currency). Ten dollars one crown.
Congress debated the subject from time to time until 1784, when Mr. Jefferson proposed a different scheme. He recommended four coins upon the basis of the Spanish dollar, as follows:--
A golden piece of the value of ten dollars. A dollar in silver. A tenth of a dollar in silver. A hundredth of a dollar in copper.
In 1785 Congress adopted Mr. Jefferson's scheme, and in 1786 made provision for coinage upon that basis. This was the origin of our decimal currency--the copper cent, the silver dime and dollar, and the golden eagle. Since then, several other coins of different values, having the decimal basis, have been made of gold and silver; and a smaller cent, made of metallic composition, has been coined.
Mr. Jefferson, soon after he came into the cabinet, urged the necessity of a uniform and national coinage, "to banish the discordant pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings of the different states, and to establish in their stead the new denominations." The subject received some attention during that session, and was agitated in the next (the one we are now considering); but it was not until the second of April, 1792, that laws were enacted for the establishment and regulation of a mint. Thereafter there was much delay, and the mint was not in full operation until January, 1795. During that interval its performances were chiefly experimental, and the variety of silver and copper coins, now so much sought after by collectors, were struck. The most noted of these is the "Washington cent," so called because it bore the head of Washington on one side. It was a long time before Congress decided upon a proper device for the coins, and the debates that occurred upon the subject were interesting and sometimes amusing.
During this short session, full official reports of Harmer's expedition were laid before Congress; and his repulse, and the increasing danger to the western settlements from the Indians on the frontier, caused that body to authorize an addition to the standing military force of a second regiment of infantry, nine hundred strong. By the same act the president was authorised to appoint, for such term as he should think proper, a major-general and a brigadier-general, and to call into service, in addition to the militia, a corps of two thousand six months' levies, and a body of mounted volunteers.
The conduct of the troops under Harmer was stigmatized as disgraceful. It was thought proper to place the new expedition about to be organized under the command of another officer. St. Clair was then at the seat of government. He was governor of the Northwestern territory, and well acquainted with the country and the movements of the Indians; and Washington, having confidence in his old friend and companion-in-arms, conferred upon him the general command. Yet suffering chagrin and mortification because of the disasters to Harmer's expedition on account of Indian ambuscades, the president, when he took leave of St. Clair, warned him against them in a most solemn manner, saying: "You have your instructions from the secretary of war. I had a strict eye to them, and will add but one word--beware of surprise! You know how the Indians fight. I repeat it--beware of a surprise!"
At that time, three famous Seneca chiefs from western New York--Corn-Planter, Half Town, and Big Tree--were at the seat of government, and offered to visit their dusky brethren in the Ohio region, and try to persuade them to bury the hatchet. Washington, who had a most earnest desire for peace with the savages, accepted their offer, saying: "By this humane measure you will render these mistaken people a great service, and probably prevent their being swept off the face of the earth. The United States require that these people should only demean themselves peaceably." He concluded his remarks with the following words, which were indicative of a scheme for civilizing the Indians which had occupied his mind for a long time: "When you return to your country, tell your nation that it is my desire to promote their prosperity, by teaching them the use of domestic animals, and the manner that the white people plough and raise so much corn; and if, upon consideration, it would be agreeable to the nation at large to learn those arts, I will find some means of teaching them, at such places within their country as shall be agreed upon."
With the admission of Kentucky and Vermont into the Union as sovereign states, and providing for the increase and pay of the army, the first Congress closed its labors. They had, within two years, performed a great work; and no body of men, except those who composed the continental Congress during the earlier years of the Revolution, so fairly deserve our sincere gratitude as they. Within that time, with Washington at their head, they had set in motion the machinery of the federal government, laid the foundations of its policy, and placed the United States firmly in the position of a leading nation among the states of the world.
The term of service of the first Congress expired on the third of March, 1791; but Washington did not leave Philadelphia for Mount Vernon until late in the month.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Washington's residence in New York was first at Osgood's house, No. 10 Cherry street, which by subsequent changes was made to front on Franklin square. He afterward occupied the more commodious house of Mr. M'Comb, where the French minister, M. de Moustier, had resided. It was on Broadway, west side, below Trinity church. That was the one alluded to in Washington's letter. An English traveller who visited the president there described the drawing-room as "lofty and spacious; but," he added, "the furniture was not beyond that found in the dwellings of opulent Americans in general, and might be called plain for its situation. The upper end of the room had glass doors, which opened upon a balcony, commanding an extensive view of the Hudson river and the Jersey shore opposite."
[30] Mr. Custis relates that Fraunces, the steward, once purchased the first shad of the season for the president's table, as he knew Washington to be extravagantly fond of fish. He placed it before Washington at table as an agreeable surprise. The president inquired how much he paid for the shad. "Two dollars," was Fraunces's reply. "Take it away," said the president--"I will not encourage such extravagance in my house." Fraunces had no scruples of that kind, and the fish was devoured by himself and other members of the household.
[31] The act imposed a duty varying from twenty to forty cents a gallon, according to strength, on imported liquors; and an excise on domestic liquors varying, according to the strength, from nine to twenty-five cents a gallon on those distilled from grain, and from eleven to thirty cents on those made from molasses or other imported product. Stringent regulations were made for the collection of this excise.
Chapter XVI
WASHINGTON JOURNEYS TO MOUNT VERNON--HIS TOUR THROUGH THE SOUTHERN STATES--VISITS THE MORAVIANS AT SALEM--RESULTS OF HIS OBSERVATIONS--CONDITION AND RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY--THE FEDERAL CITY--OPENING OF THE SECOND CONGRESS--LAFAYETTE AND HIS PERPLEXITIES--THE JACOBIN CLUB--FLIGHT AND ARREST OF THE KING--THE CONSTITUTION ACCEPTED BY HIM--GRAND FETE ON THE OCCASION--PARTY LINES DRAWN IN THE UNITED STATES--VIEWS OF HAMILTON AND JEFFERSON--ADAMS'S DISCOURSES ON DAVILA--PAINE'S RIGHTS OF MAN--JEFFERSON'S ENDORSEMENT OF THE LATTER--HIS UNGENEROUS CHARGES AGAINST ADAMS AND HAMILTON--WASHINGTON DISTURBED BY PARTY FEUDS.
Washington left Philadelphia for home on Monday, the twenty-first of March, prepared for a tour through the southern states. He was accompanied as far as Chester by Mr. Jefferson, the secretary of state, and General Knox, the secretary of war--the only heads of departments then remaining in Philadelphia. He travelled by Chestertown, in Maryland, to Rock Hall, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, where he and his suite, with horses, carriage, et cetera, embarked for Annapolis. They arrived at that city on the morning of the twenty-fifth, after a night of peril on the bay in the midst of a storm of wind, rain, and lightning. The president was cordially received by the governor and other dignitaries. On the twenty-eighth he reached Georgetown, and partook of a public dinner given by the mayor and corporation. There he met the commissioners appointed under the residence law, and examined the surveys of the federal city made by Andrew Ellicott, and plans of public buildings by Major L'Enfant.
It was left to the discretion of the president, it will be remembered, to choose a place on the Potomac, between the East branch and Conococheague, for the federal city. He chose the land between the villages of Georgetown and Carrollsburg; and on his arrival he found disputes running very high between the inhabitants of the two places respecting the location of the public buildings, the landholders in each desiring their village to be the favored one. Washington requested the contestants to meet him the next day. He then frankly told them that the dispute in which they were engaged did not comport with either their own interest or that of the public; that while each party was aiming to obtain the public buildings, they might, by placing the matter on a contracted scale, defeat the measure altogether, not only by procrastination, but for want of means to carry on the work; that neither the offer of land from Georgetown or Carrollsburg for the public buildings, separately, was adequate to the end of insuring the object; that both together did not comprehend more ground, nor would afford greater means, than was required for the federal city; and that, instead of contending which of the two should have it, they had better, by combining more offers, make a common cause of it, and thereby secure it to the district. The parties saw the wisdom of the president's suggestion, that while they were contesting for the shadow they might lose the substance, and they mutually agreed, in writing, to surrender for public purposes one half of the land they severally possessed. This business being finished, Washington rode on to Mount Vernon, where he arrived on the evening of the thirtieth of March.
On the seventh of April the president resumed his tour southward. "I was accompanied," he says in his diary, "by Major Jackson. My equipage and attendants consisted of a chariot and four horses drove in hand, a light baggage-wagon and two horses, four saddle-horses, besides a led one for myself; and five, to wit, my valet-de-chambre, two footmen, coachman, and postillion."
Previous to leaving Mount Vernon, he wrote to the secretaries of state, treasury, and war, giving them information concerning the time when he expected to be at certain places on his route, and desiring them, in case of important occurrences, to communicate with him, that he might, if necessary, return to the seat of government. So judicious were his arrangements, and so fortunate was the journey, that Washington reached the several places designated at the time contemplated.[32]
Honors awaited the president at every step. Receptions, escorts, artillery salutes, and public dinners, everywhere testified the respect of the people, and many invitations to private entertainments were given him: he declined all. Among others was one from his kinsman, William Washington (a hero of the southern campaign), to make his house in Charleston his home while there. The president's reply in this case exhibits the spirit of the whole: "I can not comply with your invitation without involving myself in inconsistency," he said; "as I have determined to pursue the same plan in my southern as I did in my eastern visit, which was, not to incommode any private family by taking up my quarters with them during my journey. It leaves me unencumbered by engagements, and, by a uniform adherence to it, I shall avoid giving umbrage to any, by declining all such invitations."
At Richmond, Washington inspected the works in progress of the James River Navigation company, of which he was president, and received from Colonel Carrington, the marshall of that judicial district, the pleasing assurance that the people generally were favorable to the federal government. To ascertain the temper of the people, become personally acquainted with the leading citizens, and to observe the resources of the country, were the grand objects of the president's tour, and he was rejoiced to find evidences that his own state was gradually perceiving the value and blessings of the Union. At Richmond he was entertained at a public dinner, and escorted far on toward Petersburg by a cavalcade of gentlemen. Having been much incommoded by dust, and finding an escort of horse was preparing to accompany him from Petersburg, Washington caused inquiries as to the time he would leave the town to be answered, that he should endeavor to do it before eight o'clock in the morning. He managed to get off at five, by which means he avoided the inconvenience above-mentioned.
At Wilmington, in North Carolina, he was received by a military and civic escort, entertained at a public dinner, and attended a ball given in his honor in the evening. At Newbern he received like homage, where the dinner and the ball were given at the palace built by Governor Tryon about twenty-five years before. On the morning of the second of May he breakfasted at the country-seat of Governor Pinckney, a few miles from Charleston; and when he arrived at Haddrell's point, across the mouth of the Cooper river, he was met by General Pinckney, Edward Rutledge, and the recorder of the city, in a twelve-oared barge, rowed by twelve captains of American vessels, elegantly dressed. This was accompanied by a great number of other boats with gentlemen and ladies in them; and the gay scene, as the flotilla proceeded toward the city, was enlivened by vocal and instrumental music. At the wharf he was met by the governor and other civil officers, amid the thunder of artillery; and by the Cincinnati and a civic and military escort he was conducted to his lodgings.
Washington remained in Charleston a week, and then departed for Savannah. There he was greeted by General Wayne, General M'Intosh, and other companions-in-arms, and remained several days. He left for Augusta on the fifteenth, dined at Mulberry grove (the seat of Mrs. General Greene) that day, and reached Augusta on the eighteenth. There Governor Telfair, Judge Walton, and others, led in offering ceremonial honors to the illustrious guest.
On the twenty-first the president turned his face homeward, travelling by way of Columbia and Camden in South Carolina, Charlotte, Salisbury, Salem, Guilford and Hillsborough in North Carolina, and Harrisburg, Williamsburg, and Frederickburg, to Mount Vernon. At Salem, a Moravian settlement, he halted for the purpose of seeing Governor Martin, who, he was informed, was on his way to meet the president. He spent a day there, visiting the social and industrial establishments of the community, and attended their religious services in the evening. A committee in behalf of the community presented an address to him, to which he made a brief reply.[33] He reached home on the twelfth of June, having made a most satisfactory journey of more than seventeen hundred miles, after starting from Mount Vernon, in sixty-six days, with the same team of horses. "My return to this place is sooner than I expected," he wrote to Hamilton, "owing to the uninterruptedness of my journey by sickness, from bad weather, or accidents of any kind whatsoever," for which he had made an allowance of eight days.
Washington returned to Philadelphia on the sixth of July. "I am much pleased," he wrote to Colonel Humphreys, then in Paris, on the twentieth, "that I have undertaken the journey, as it has enabled me to see with my own eyes the situation of the country through which we travelled, and to learn more accurately the disposition of the people than I could from any information." His observations filled his mind with joy in contemplating the future. "The country appears," he said, "to be in a very improving state, and industry and frugality are becoming much more fashionable than they have hitherto been. Tranquillity reigns among the people, with that disposition towards the general government which is likely to preserve it. They begin to feel the good effects of equal laws and equal protection. The farmer finds a ready market for his produce, and the merchant calculates with more certainty on his payments. Manufactures have as yet made but little progress in that part of the country, and it will probably be a long time before they are brought to that state to which they have already arrived in the middle and eastern parts of the Union. Each day's experience of the government of the United States seems to confirm its establishment, and to make it more popular. A ready acquiescence in the laws made under it shows in a strong light the confidence which the people have in their representatives, and in the upright views of those who administer the government."
"Our public credit stands on that ground which, three years ago, it would have been a species of madness to have foretold. The astonishing rapidity with which the newly-instituted bank was filled gives an unexampled proof of the resources of our countrymen, and their confidence in public measures. On the first day of opening the subscription, the whole number of shares (twenty thousand) were taken up in one hour, and application made for upwards of four thousand shares more than were granted by the institution, besides many others that were coming in from different quarters."
In reference to the future seat of government the president said: "I am now happy to add, that all matters between the proprietors of the soil and the public are settled to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, and that the business of laying out the city, the grounds for public buildings, walks, et cetera, is advancing under the inspection of Major L'Enfant with pleasing prospects."
L'Enfant, who had served as an engineer in the continental army, and was employed to furnish a plan for, and make a survey of, the federal city, spent a week at Mount Vernon, immediately after Washington's return from his southern tour, in submitting his plans to the president, and in consulting with him about the future. These plans were approved by Washington, and met the approbation of Congress when laid before them at the next session. The city was laid out upon a plot containing eight square miles.
The first session of the second Congress commenced at Philadelphia on the twenty-fourth of October, in conformity to an act of the last session of the first Congress. Washington had spent a greater portion of the summer in the federal city, in close attention to public duties; but for six weeks previous to the assembling of the national legislature he remained in the seclusion of Mount Vernon. It was not for him a season of repose. Every mail brought him numerous letters, most of them on public business. Many of them gave him themes for deep and solemn meditation; for national affairs at home and abroad were assuming forms and attitudes that occasioned him much anxiety.
The French revolution, in which his friend Lafayette was engaged as a chief actor, was exhibiting a most alarming and disappointing aspect to the friends of genuine liberty; and the dreams of the marquis, that his country was speedily to be redeemed from disorder and corrupt rule, were disturbed by dismal visions of reality. "Whatever expectations I had conceived of a speedy termination to our revolutionary troubles," he wrote to Washington as early as the previous March, "I still am tossed about in the ocean of factions and commotions of every kind; for it is my fate to be attacked on each side with equal animosity; on the one by the aristocratic, slavish, parliamentary, clerical--in a word, by all the enemies to my free and levelling doctrine--and on the other by the Orleans factions, anti-royal, licentious, and pillaging parties of every kind: so that my personal escape from amidst so many hostile bands is rather dubious, although our great and good revolution is, thank Heaven, not only insured in France, but on the point of visiting other parts of the world, provided the restoration of public order is soon obtained in this country, where the good people have been better taught how to overthrow despotism than they can understand how to submit to the laws. To you, my dear general, the patriarch and generalissimo of universal liberty, I shall render exact accounts of the conduct of your deputy and aid in that great cause."
In May he wrote: "I wish it were in my power to give you an assurance that our troubles are at an end, and our constitution totally established. But, although dark clouds are still before us, we have come so far as to foresee the moment when the legislative corps will succeed this convention; and, unless foreign powers interfere, I hope that within four months your friend will have resumed the life of a private and quiet citizen. The rage of parties, even among the patriots, is gone as far as it is possible, short of bloodshed; but, although hatreds are far from subsiding, matters do not appear so much disposed as they formerly were towards collision among the supporters of the popular cause. I myself am exposed to the envy and attacks of all parties--for this simple reason, that whoever acts or means wrong finds me an insuperable obstacle. And there appears a kind of phenomenon in my situation--all parties against me, and a national popularity, which, in spite of every effort, has remained unchanged.... Given up to all the madness of license, faction, and popular rage, I stood alone in defence of the law, and turned the tide into the constitutional channel."
A little later, Lafayette wrote: "The refugees hovering about the frontiers; intrigues in most of the despotic and aristocratic cabinets; our regular army divided into tory officers and undisciplined soldiers; licentiousness among the people not easily repressed; the capital, that gives the tone to the empire, tossed about by anti-revolutionary or factious parties; the assembly fatigued by hard labor, and very unmanageable--cause me sometimes to be filled with alarm."
These few sentences lift the curtain slightly from the terrible drama, then in cautious rehearsal, which was soon openly acted before the great audience of the nations. In place of constitutional order, there was the anarchy of faction in the French capital and throughout the provinces. The club of forty gentlemen and men of letters, who met in the hall of the Jacobin monks long before the states-general convened, had now grown up to a vast and popular association known as the Jacobin club. They were the avowed and determined adversaries of monarchy and all aristocratic titles and privileges, and contemners of Christianity; and they had started a journal for the dissemination of their ultra-democratic and irreligious doctrines, having for its watchwords--Liberty and Equality. It was puissant in spreading the spirit of revolt and disaffection to the king, and the greatest license began to prevail among the people. The king and his family were insulted in public. Lafayette, disgusted with the refractory spirit that began to prevail among the National Guards, resigned the command of them, but resumed it at the urgent solicitation of sixty battalions. The democratic spirit became more and more insolent, and at length the king and his family fled from Paris in disguise. Terror prevailed among all classes. A crisis seemed impending. Political dissolution appeared at hand. But the monarch was arrested at Varennes and taken back to Paris under an escort of thirty thousand National Guards. The helpless king assured the assembly that he had no intention of leaving France, but wished to live quietly at a distance from the capital, until government should in a degree be restored and the constitution settled. His justification was that he was subjected to too many insults in the capital, and that the personal safety of the queen was imperilled.
The populace were not satisfied. On the twentieth of July they met in the Elysian Fields, with Robespierre at their head, and petitioned for the dethronement of the king. Four thousand troops fired upon them and killed several hundred. Then and there, in the exasperation of the people and the appearance of Robespierre, the epoch of the Reign of Terror dawned. Yet Lafayette and his friends held the factions in check. The constitution was completed early in September, and was accepted by the king, who solemnly swore that he would "employ all the powers with which he was intrusted in maintaining the constitution declared by the national assembly."
Proclamation of this act was made throughout the kingdom, and a grand festival in commemoration of the event took place in the Elysian Fields. One hundred thousand citizens danced on that occasion; festoons of many-colored lamps were suspended between the trees; every half hour, one hundred and thirty pieces of cannon thundered along the banks of the Seine; and on a tree planted upon the site of the Bastile was a placard inscribed--
"Here is the epoch of liberty; We dance on the ruins of despotism; The constitution is finished-- Long live patriotism!"
On the thirtieth, the king made a speech to the assembly, when the president proclaimed: "The constituent assembly declares their mission fulfilled and their sittings terminated." Then opened a new act in the French revolution.
While this revolution was thus progressing, half-formed, half-understood political maxims, that were floating upon the tide of social life in the United States, were crystallizing into distinct tenets and assuming strongly antagonistic party positions. The electric forces, so to speak, which produced this crystallization, proceeded from the president's cabinet, where the opinions of the secretaries of the treasury and of the state were at direct variance, and were now making constant war upon each other. Hamilton regarded the federal constitution as inadequate in strength to perform its required functions, and believed that weakness to be its greatest defect; and it was his sincere desire, and his uniform practice, so to construe its provisions as to give the greatest strength to the executive in the administration of public affairs. Jefferson, on the other hand, contemplated all executive power with distrust, and desired to impair its vitality and restrain its operations, believing with Paine that a weak government and a strong people were the best guaranties of liberty to the citizen. He saw in the funding system, the United States bank, and the excise law, instruments for enslaving the people, and believed that the rights of the states and liberties of the inhabitants were in danger. And as Hamilton was the originator of these measures, and they constituted prominent features of the administration, Jefferson found himself, at the opening of the new Congress, arrayed politically with the opposers of the president and the general government, and in the position of arch-leader.
Not content with an expression of his opinions, he charged his opponents, and especially Hamilton, with corrupt and anti-republican designs, selfish motives, and treacherous intentions; and then was inaugurated that system of personal vituperation which, from that time until the present, has disgraced the press and the politicians of our country, and brought odium upon us as a nation.
The party of which Jefferson was the head called themselves Republicans, and warmly sympathized with the radical revolutionists in France; while the great majority of the people--the conservative men of the country--who were favorable to Hamilton's financial schemes and the constitution, were called FEDERALISTS.
In the adjustment of party lines at this time, there was a very small party that appeared to be a cross between the two, as manifested by John Adams in a series of essays which he published in the United States Gazette, the acknowledged organ (if organ it had) of the administration, entitled "Discourses on Davila." These were an analysis of Davila's History of the Civil Wars in France in the sixteenth century; and the aim of Mr. Adams was to point out to his countrymen the danger to be apprehended from factions and ill-balanced forms of government. In these essays he maintained that as the great spring of human activity, especially as related to public life, was self-esteem, manifested in the love of superiority and the desire of distinction, applause, and admiration, it was important in a popular government to provide for the moderate gratification of all of them. He therefore advocated a liberal use of titles and ceremonial honors for those in office, and an aristocratic senate. To counteract any undue influence on the part of the senate, he proposed a popular assembly on the broadest democratic basis; and to keep in check the encroachment of each upon the other, he recommended a powerful executive. He thought liberty to all would be thus secured. From the premises which formed the basis of his reasoning, Mr. Adams concluded that the French constitution, which disavowed all distinctions of rank, which vested the legislative authority in a single assembly, and which, though retaining the office of king, divested him of nearly all actual power, must, in the nature of things, prove a failure.
In the publication of these essays, Adams was most unfortunate. He appears not to have presented his ideas concerning his political system with sufficient clearness to be understood. He was, indeed, greatly misunderstood, and was charged with advocating a monarchy and a hereditary senate and presidency; with the greatest inconsistency, because, in 1787, he had written and published in London an excellent "Defence of the American Constitution;" and with political heresy, if not actual apostasy, because of that inconsistency. Twenty years later, when speaking of these essays, Mr. Adams said: "This dull, heavy volume still excites the wonder of its author--first, that he could find, amid the constant scenes of business and dissipation in which he was enveloped, time to write it; secondly, that he had the courage to oppose and publish his own opinions to the universal opinion of America, and indeed of all mankind." Others were no less astonished, for the same reasons.
These essays were published in 1790, and filled Jefferson with disgust. He already began to suspect Hamilton of anti-republican schemes, and he now cherished the idea that there was a conspiracy on foot, headed by Adams and Hamilton, to overthrow the republican institutions of the United States, and on their ruins to erect a mixed government like that of England, composed of a monarchy and aristocracy. To counteract these political heresies, Paine's Rights of Man, which he wrote in reply to Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution (a performance which Adams held in "perfect detestation," but which other patriots regarded as one of which any man might be proud), was reprinted and circulated in the United States, with a complimentary note from Mr. Jefferson at its head--"a note which Mr. Jefferson declared he neither desired nor expected to have printed;" not because he did not approve of Paine's doctrines, but because he did not wish to take such responsibility at that crisis and while in his official position. He rejoiced, however, at the reprint of Paine's essay.
"Paine's pamphlet," he said in a letter to Mr. Short, the American chargé d'affaires at Paris, "has been published and read with general applause here;" and then he proceeds to charge "Adams, Jay, Hamilton, Knox, and many of the Cincinnati," with endeavoring "to make way for a king, lords, and commons." "The second" (Jay), he said, "says nothing; the third [Hamilton] is open. Both are dangerous. They pant after union with England, as the power which is to support their projects, and are most determined anti-Gallicans." This, as time has demonstrated, was a most unjust and ungenerous charge. So thoroughly was Mr. Jefferson then imbued with the spirit of the French revolution, in its most democratic and destructive aspect--so bitter was his hatred of monarchy and aristocracy--that his judgment seemed entirely perverted, his usual charity utterly congealed; and every man who differed with him in opinion was regarded as a conspirator against the rights of mankind.
In after years, when the passions of the times had passed away, he reiterated his opinion that Adams and Hamilton were at that time seeking the subversion of republican institutions in the United States. "The one [Adams]," he said, "was for two hereditary branches, and an honest elective one; the other [Hamilton] for an hereditary king, with a house of lords and commons, corrupted to his will, and standing between him and the people. Hamilton was indeed a singular character. Of acute understanding, disinterested, honest, and honorable in all private transactions, amiable in society, and duly valuing virtue in private life, yet so bewitched and perverted by British example, as to be under thorough conviction that corruption was essential to the government of a nation. Mr. Adams had originally been a republican. The glare of royalty and nobility, during his mission to England, had made him believe their fascination a necessary ingredient in government."
The best refutation of the opinion of Jefferson concerning Hamilton's views is contained in the whole tenor of that great man's life, and in the close private and political friendship that existed between the sagacious Washington and Hamilton until death separated them.
Paine's original pamphlet was dedicated "to the president of the United States," and that dedication was retained in the reprint. That and Jefferson's note produced quite a stir. Because of certain language in the pamphlet, Paine had been prosecuted for libel by the British government, and had fled to France; and this apparent endorsement of his essay by the government of the United States, in the persons of the president and secretary of state, was offensive to that of Great Britain. Major Beckwith, the aid-de-camp of Governor Carleton already mentioned, expressed his surprise that the pamphlet should have been published under such auspices, because it seemed to imply unfriendliness toward his government. He was satisfied, however, when assured that the president knew nothing of the reprint of the pamphlet, and that the publication of the note by the secretary of state was unauthorized. The matter disturbed the friendly relations between Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson for a short time. Frank explanations healed the breach for a moment; but they differed too widely in their ideas concerning some of the exciting questions of the day to act together as political friends. Indeed, they soon became decided political antagonists, and Washington was greatly disturbed by party dissentions in his cabinet and in Congress.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] "I shall be," he said, "on the eighth of April at Fredericksburg, the eleventh at Richmond, the fourteenth at Petersburg, the sixteenth at Halifax, the eighteenth at Tarborough, the twentieth at Newbern, the twenty-fifth at Wilmington, the twenty-ninth at Georgetown, South Carolina; on the second day of May at Charleston in South Carolina, halting there five days; on the eleventh at Savannah, halting there two days. Then leaving the line of mail, I shall proceed to Augusta; and according to the information I shall receive there, my return by an upper road will be regulated."
[33] The following is the address of the Moravians to the president:--
"Happy in sharing the honor of a visit from the illustrious president of the Union to the southern states, the Brethren of Wachovia humbly beg leave, upon this joyful occasion, to express their highest esteem, duty, and affection, for the great patriot of this country.
"Deeply impressed as we are with gratitude to the great Author of our being for his unbounded mercies, we can not but particularly acknowledge his gracious providence over the temporal and political prosperity of the country, in the peace whereof we do find peace, and wherein none can take a warmer interest than ourselves; in particular, when we consider that the same Lord who preserved your precious person in so many imminent dangers has made you, in a conspicuous manner, an instrument in his hands to forward that happy constitution, together with those improvements, whereby our United States begin to flourish, over which you preside with the applause of a thankful nation.
"Whenever, therefore, we solicit the protection of the Father of mercies over this favored country, we can not but fervently implore his kindness for your preservation, which is so intimately connected therewith.
"May this gracious Lord vouchsafe to prolong your valuable life as a further blessing, and an ornament of the constitution, that by your worthy example the regard for religion be increased, and the improvements of civil society encouraged.
"The settlements of the United Brethren, though small, will always make it their study to contribute as much as in them lies to the peace and improvement of the United States, and all the particular parts they live in, joining their ardent prayers to the best wishes of this whole continent that your personal as well as domestic happiness may abound, and a series of successes may crown your labors for the prosperity of our times and an example to future ages, until the glorious reward of a faithful servant shall be your portion.
"Signed, in behalf of the United Brethren in Wachovia:
"FREDERICK WILLIAM MARSHALL, "JOHN DANIEL KÖHLER, "CHRISTIAN LEWIS BENZIEN.
"Salem, the 1st of June, 1791."
To which the president of the United States was pleased to return the following answer:--
"To the United Brethren of Wachovia:
"GENTLEMEN: I am greatly indebted to your respectful and affectionate expression of personal regard, and I am not less obliged by the patriotic sentiment contained in your address.
"From a society whose governing principles are industry and the love of order, much may be expected towards the improvement and prosperity of the country in which their settlements are formed, and experience authorizes the belief that much will be obtained.
"Thanking you with grateful sincerity for your prayers in my behalf, I desire to assure you of my best wishes for your social and individual happiness.
"G. WASHINGTON."
Chapter XVII
THE NEW CONGRESS--AARON BURR SENATOR--SCOPE OF WASHINGTON'S ANNUAL ADDRESS--ST. CLAIR'S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE INDIANS--CHARACTER OF HIS ARMY--SURPRISE AND DEFEAT--EFFECT OF THE EVENT ON WASHINGTON--WAYNE APPOINTED TO SUCCEED ST. CLAIR--APPEARANCE OF PARTIES IN CONGRESS--OPPOSING NEWSPAPERS--APPORTIONMENT BILL--VETO FIRST APPLIED--WASHINGTON YEARNS FOR PRIVATE LIFE--EXPRESSES HIS DESIRES TO JEFFERSON AND MADISON--VALEDICTORY ADDRESS CONTEMPLATED--MADISON REQUESTED TO PREPARE ONE--A REMARKABLE LETTER FROM JEFFERSON--WASHINGTON CONSENTS TO A RE-ELECTION.
Washington read his third annual address to the assembled Congress on the twenty-fifth of October. Before him were most of the members of the previous Congress. Nearly all of the retiring senators had been re-elected. Among the new ones was Roger Sherman of Connecticut, George Cabot of Massachusetts, and Aaron Burr of New York. The latter was elected as the successor to General Schuyler, and now, for the first time, appeared prominent among statesmen. He had been appointed attorney-general of New York by Governor Clinton, and, in respect to talent and influence, was a rising man. Artful and fascinating, he had secured the votes of a sufficient number of federalists in the state legislature to gain his election, and he went into Congress a decided opponent of the administration; not on principle, for that never influenced him, but on account of personal hostility to the president, whom he hated because of his virtues.
In the house there were several new members, and the number of those opposed to the policy of the administration had been considerably increased, the elections in several of the states having been warmly contested. Jonathan Trumbull, son of the patriotic governor of Connecticut, was chosen speaker.
In his address, the president congratulated Congress on the general prosperity of the country, the success of its financial measures, and the disposition generally manifested to submit to the excise law. He dwelt at considerable length upon Indian affairs, recommending a just, impartial, and humane policy toward the savages, as the best means of securing peace on the frontier. He announced that the site of the federal capital had been selected and the city laid out on the bank of the Potomac. He again called their attention to the subject of a reorganization of the post-office department, the establishment of a mint, the adoption of a plan for producing uniformity in weights and measures, and making provision for the sale of the public lands of the United States.
The expedition against the Indians in the northwest had, meanwhile, been in progress, with varying fortunes, sometimes successful and sometimes not. At length painful rumors, and finally positive statements, came that a terrible calamity had overtaken St. Clair and his command. These troops had assembled in the vicinity of Fort Washington (now Cincinnati) early in September, and consisted nominally of two thousand regulars and one thousand militia, including a corps of artillery and several squadrons of horse. They were compelled to cut a road through the wilderness, and erect forts to keep up communication between the Ohio and the Wabash, the base of their operations. Desertions were numerous, and the refuse of western population often filled the places of these delinquents. Insubordination prevailed; and, to increase St. Clair's difficulties, he was so afflicted with the gout that he could not walk, and had to be lifted on and off his horse.
At length the little army, reduced to fourteen hundred effective men, rank and file, by desertion and the absence of a corps sent to apprehend deserters, had penetrated to a tributary of the Wabash fifteen miles south of the Miami villages, and almost a hundred from Fort Washington. There, before sunrise on the fourth of November, while the main body were encamped in two lines on rising ground, and the militia upon a high flat on the other side of the stream a quarter of a mile in advance, they were surprised and fiercely attacked by a large number of Indians, who fell first upon the militia, and then with deadly power upon the regulars. Great carnage ensued. The enemy, concealed in the woods, poured a destructive fire upon the troops from almost every point. St. Clair, unable to mount his horse, was carried about in a litter, and gave his orders with discretion and the most perfect coolness. Nearly all the officers and half the army were killed. For two hours and a half the desperate contest raged. Finally St. Clair ordered a retreat. It at once became a disorderly flight. The artillery, baggage, and many of the wounded, were left behind. Many of the troops threw away their arms, ammunition, and accoutrements. Some of the officers divested themselves of their fusees, that their flight might not be impeded. The general was mounted upon a lazy pack-horse, who could not be spurred into a gallop; but, as the enemy did not pursue more than a mile or two, St. Clair and the survivors of the battle escaped to Fort Jefferson, a distance of twenty-five miles. The retreat was continued the next day toward Fort Washington, where the shattered army arrived on the eighth. The entire loss was estimated at six hundred and seventy-seven killed, including thirty women, and two hundred and seventy-one wounded.
The late Richard Rush, of Philadelphia, has left on record the following graphic account of the effect which the intelligence of St. Clair's defeat had upon Washington. It was from an eye-witness:--
"An anecdote I derived from Colonel Lear," says Mr. Rush, "shortly before his death in 1816, may here be related, showing the height to which Washington's passion would rise, yet be controlled. It belongs to his domestic life, with which I am dealing, having occurred under his own roof, while it marks public feeling the most intense, and points to the moral of his life. I give it in Colonel Lear's words, as near as I can, having made a note of them at the time.
"Toward the close of a winter's day in 1791, an officer in uniform was seen to dismount in front of the president's house, in Philadelphia, and giving the bridle to his servant, knocked at the door of the mansion. Learning from the porter that the president was at dinner, he said he was on public business and had despatches for the president. A servant was sent into the dining-room to give the information to Mr. Lear, who left the table and went into the hall, where the officer repeated what he had said. Mr. Lear replied that, as the president's secretary, he would take charge of the despatches and deliver them at the proper time. The officer made answer that he had just arrived from the western army, and his orders were to deliver them with all promptitude, and to the president in person; but that he would wait his directions. Mr. Lear returned, and in a whisper imparted to the president what had passed. General Washington rose from the table and went to the officer. He was back in a short time, made a word of apology for his absence, but no allusion to the cause of it. He had company that day. Everything went on as usual. Dinner over, the gentlemen passed to the drawing-room of Mrs. Washington, which was open in the evening. The general spoke courteously to every lady in the room, as was his custom. His hours were early, and by ten o'clock all the company had gone. Mrs. Washington and Mr. Lear remained. Soon Mrs. Washington left the room.
"The general now walked backward and forward for some minutes without speaking. Then he sat down on a sofa by the fire, telling Mr. Lear to sit down. To this moment there had been no change in his manner since his interruption at the table. Mr. Lear now perceived emotion. This rising in him, he broke out suddenly: 'It's all over! St. Clair's defeated--routed; the officers nearly all killed--the men by wholesale--the rout complete! too shocking to think of!--and a surprise in the bargain!'
"He uttered all this with great vehemence. Then he paused, got up from the sofa, and walked about the room several times, agitated, but saying nothing. Near the door he stopped short and stood still a few seconds, when his wrath became terrible.
"'Yes!' he burst forth, 'HERE, on this very spot, I took leave of him: I wished him success and honor. "You have your instructions," I said, "from the secretary of war: I had a strict eye to them, and will add but one word--beware of a surprise! I repeat it--beware of a surprise! You know how the Indians fight us." He went off with that as my last solemn warning thrown into his ears. And yet, to suffer that army to be cut to pieces, hacked by a surprise--the very thing I guarded him against! O God! O God! he's worse than a murderer! How can he answer it to his country? The blood of the slain is upon him--the curse of widows and orphans--the curse of Heaven!'
"This torrent came out in tone appalling. His very frame shook. 'It was awful!' said Mr. Lear. More than once he threw his hands up as he hurled imprecations upon St. Clair. Mr. Lear remained speechless--awed into breathless silence.
"The roused chief sat down on the sofa once more. He seemed conscious of his passion, and uncomfortable. He was silent; his wrath began to subside. He at length said, in an altered voice, 'This must not go beyond this room.' Another pause followed--a longer one--when he said, in a tone quite low: 'General St. Clair shall have justice. I looked hastily through the despatches--saw the whole disaster, but not all the particulars. I will hear him without prejudice: he shall have full justice.'
"'He was now,' said Mr. Lear, 'perfectly calm. Half an hour had gone by; the storm was over, and no sign of it was afterward seen in his conduct or heard in his conversation.'"[34]
"The first interview of the president with St Clair after the fatal fourth of November," says the late Mr. Custis[35] (who was present), "was nobly impressive. The unfortunate general, worn down by age, disease, and the hardships of a frontier campaign, assailed by the press, and with the current of popular opinion setting hard against him, repaired to his chief, as to a shelter from the fury of so many elements. Washington extended his hand to one who appeared in no new character; for, during the whole of a long life, misfortune seemed 'to have marked him for her own.' Poor old St. Clair hobbled up to his chief, seized the offered hand in both of his, and gave vent to his feelings in an audible manner."
St. Clair's case was investigated by a committee of the house of representatives, and he was honorably acquitted. But public sentiment was against him, and he resigned his commission.
The alarm on the frontier, caused by St. Clair's defeat, produced prompt and appropriate action in Congress, and an army of five thousand men for frontier service was authorized. The impetuous General Wayne (of whom Washington said, at this time, "He has many good points as an officer, and it is to be hoped that time, reflection, good advice, and above all a due sense of the importance of the trust committed to him, will correct his faults, or cast a shade over them") was appointed commander-in-chief, and Colonel Otho H. Williams, of Maryland, and Colonel Rufus Putnam, then in the Ohio country, brigadiers under him. Wayne was then in the prime of life, being forty-seven years of age; and Washington, believing that an energetic campaign would retrieve the losses of St. Clair and produce a decisive and salutary effect upon the Indians, counted much upon the prowess and executive force of that officer. Nor was he disappointed.
Additional revenue was required to support the increased army; and upon a motion being made in Congress to call upon the secretary of the treasury to report the ways and means of raising it, the first decided opposition to that officer and the measures of the administration, in complicity with Jefferson's personal dislike of Hamilton, appeared in the national legislature. Such report was called for, however; and the discussions that ensued upon this and other topics were sometimes very acrimonious, and caused Washington much painful apprehension. The press, at the same time, was fostering party spirit with the most pernicious aliment. In the previous autumn, a paper in the interest of the republican party and in opposition to Fenno's United States Gazette, called the National Gazette, was established. Philip Freneau, a warm whig of the Revolution and a poet of considerable local eminence, who had been editor of a New York paper, and who was called to Philadelphia at that time by Mr. Jefferson to fill the post of translating clerk in the state department, was installed as editor of the new opposition paper. Jefferson patronized it for the avowed purpose of presenting to the president and the American people correct European intelligence, derived from the Leyden Gazette instead of through the alleged polluted channel of English newspapers. But it soon became the vehicle of bitter attacks upon all measures of the administration which did not originate with, or were approved by, Mr. Jefferson; and the character of the secretary became thereby seriously compromised before the American people. He was charged, with great plausibility, with being the author of many anonymous political articles in Freneau's paper; but he solemnly declared the accusation to be untrue.
Congress adjourned on the eighth of May. During the session, Washington had for the first time exercised the veto power intrusted to the president by the constitution. The occasion was the passage of an apportionment bill based upon the census of the population of the United States, lately taken, which in its provisions appeared to conflict with the constitution. That instrument provided that the representatives should not exceed one for every thirty thousand persons. This ratio would leave a fraction in each state (in some more, in some less) unrepresented. To obviate this difficulty, the senate originated a bill which exhibited a new principle of apportionment. It assumed as a basis the total population of the United States, and not the population of separate states, as that upon which the whole number of representatives should be determined. This aggregate was divided by thirty thousand. The quotient giving one hundred and twenty as the number of representatives, that number was apportioned upon the several states according to their population, allotting to each one member for every thirty thousand, and distributing the remaining members, to make up the one hundred and twenty, among the states having the largest fractions. After much debate, the house concurred in the senate's bill, and it was submitted to the president for his signature. The only question that arose was as to its constitutionality. The president consulted his cabinet. Jefferson and Randolph decided that it was unconstitutional; Knox could not express a definite opinion; and Hamilton rather favored the bill. After due deliberation Washington returned it with his objections. "A few of the hottest friends of the bill," says Jefferson in his Anas, "expressed passion, but the majority were satisfied; and both in and out of doors," he rather ill-naturedly added, "it gave pleasure to have at length an instance of the negative being exercised."
The distractions in his cabinet, the increasing virulence of party spirit continually manifested in Congress, and the cares of government, began to make Washington thoroughly weary of public life, and early in 1792 he resolved to retire from it at the end of the term for which he had been elected to the presidency. He had more than a year to serve; but he determined to let his resolution be made known to the public at an early day. He first announced it to his nearest friends and associates. Among these were Jefferson and Madison, the latter a representative from Virginia, and then taking the position of a republican leader in the house. To Jefferson, Washington had opened his mind on the subject as early as the close of February, at the same time saying that he should consider it unfortunate if his retirement should cause that of other great officers of the government. At that time, the president was becoming painfully aware that the differences in his cabinet were systematic, instead of incidental as at first.
With Madison, Washington held frequent conversations upon the subject of his retirement, but nothing definite was determined when they left Philadelphia at the close of the session. The president went so far, however, as to ask Madison to revolve this subject in his mind, and advise him as to the proper time and the best mode of announcing his intention to the people. But Madison always urged him to relinquish the idea for the public good, and Jefferson desired him to remain in office for the same reason.
Congress having adjourned on Tuesday, the eighth of May, on the tenth Washington set out alone for Mount Vernon, leaving his family in Philadelphia. He carried with him several copies of Paine's Rights of Man, already alluded to, fifty of which he received from the author a day or two before he left Philadelphia.[36] With peculiar delight he sat down amid the cool shadows and quiet retreats of his loved home on the Potomac, at the season of flowers; and the desire to leave the turmoils of public life appears to have taken hold of him with a strength which he had never felt before. He resolved to be governed by his inclinations; and on the twentieth he wrote to Madison, announcing his intention in unequivocal terms, and repeating the request for advice which he had made before leaving Philadelphia.
"I have not been unmindful," he said, "of the sentiments expressed by you in the conversations just alluded to. On the contrary, I have again and again revolved them with thoughtful anxiety, but without being able to dispose my mind to a longer continuation in the office I have now the honor to hold.... Nothing but a conviction that my declining the chair of government, if it should be the desire of the people to continue me in it, would involve the country in serious disputes respecting the chief magistrate, and the disagreeable consequences which might result therefrom in the floating and divided opinions which seem to prevail at present, could in any wise induce me to relinquish the determination I have formed.... Under these impressions, then, permit me to reiterate the request I made to you at our last meeting, namely, to think of the proper time and the best mode of announcing the intention, and that you would prepare the latter. In revolving this subject myself, my judgment has always been embarrassed.... I would fain carry my request to you further than is asked above, although I am sensible it would add to your trouble. But as the recess may afford you leisure, and as I flatter myself you have dispositions to oblige me, I will without apology desire, if the measure in itself should strike you as proper, or likely to produce public good or private honor, that you would turn your thoughts to a Valedictory Address from me to the public."
He desired Madison to express, "in plain and modest terms," his feelings: That having endeavored to do his duty in the office he held, and age coming on apace, he desired to retire to private life, believing that rotation in the elective offices might be more congenial with the ideas of the people, of liberty and safety--that with such views, he took leave of them as a public man, and invoked the continuance of every blessing of Providence upon his country, "and upon all those who are the supporters of its interests, and the promoters of harmony, order, and good government."
Washington then suggested four topics to be remarked upon, as follows: First, That we are all children of the same country, great and rich, and capable of being as prosperous and happy as any which the annals of history exhibit; and that the people have all an equal interest in the great concerns of the nation. Second, That the extent of our country, the diversity of our climate and soil, and the various productions of the states, are such as to make one part not only convenient, but indispensable to other parts, and may render the whole one of the most independent nations in the world. Third, That the government, being the work of the people, and having the mode and power of amendment engrafted upon the constitution, may, by the exercise of forbearance, wisdom, good will, and experience, be brought as near perfection as any human institution has ever been; and therefore, that the only strife should be, who should be foremost in facilitating and finally accomplishing such great and desirable objects, by giving every possible support and cement to the Union. Fourth, "That, however necessary it may be to keep a watchful eye over public servants and public measures, yet there ought to be limits to it; for suspicions unfounded and jealousies too lively are irritating to honest feelings, and oftentimes are productive of more evil than good."
With these general hints, Washington left the matter in Madison's hands. At the same time, he asked that friend to give him hints also as to "fit subjects for communication" in his next annual message to Congress. In all this we see the acts of an eminently wise man, intent solely upon the public good, seeking aid in his arduous labors from those in whom he had confidence.
A month later, Madison replied to the president's letter, giving his opinion, that if he was determined to retire, it would be expedient and highly proper for him to put forth a valedictory address through the public prints; at the same time he expressed a hope that Washington would "reconsider the measure in all its circumstances and consequences," and that he would acquiesce in one more sacrifice, severe as it might be, to the desires and interests of his country. With the letter Madison sent a draft of an address, and in reference to it remarked: "You will readily observe that, in executing it, I have aimed at that plainness and modesty of language which you had in view, and which indeed are so peculiarly becoming the character and the occasion; and that I had little more to do, as to the matter, than to follow the just and comprehensive outline which you had sketched. I flatter myself, however, that in everything which has depended on me, much improvement will be made before so interesting a paper shall have taken its last form."
In a letter to the president, written on the twenty-third of May, Jefferson expressed his concern at the determination of the president. "When you first mentioned to me your purpose of retiring from the government," he said, "though I felt all the magnitude of the event, I was in a considerable degree silent. I knew that to such a mind as yours persuasion was idle and impertinent; that, before forming your decision, you had weighed all the reasons for and against the measure, had made up your mind in full view of them, and that there could be little hope of changing the result. Pursuing my reflections, too, I knew we were some day to try to walk alone, and, if the essay should be made while you should be alive and looking on, we should derive confidence from that circumstance and resource if it failed. The public mind, too, was then calm and confident, and therefore in a favorable state for making an experiment. But the public mind is no longer so confident and serene, and that for causes in which you are no way personally mixed." He then went on at great length in denunciation of the funding system, as one calculated and even intended to "corrupt the legislature," and as the chief instrument in efforts to establish a monarchical and aristocratical government upon the ruins of the confederation--of preparing the way "for a change from the present republican form of government to that of a monarchy, of which the English constitution is to be the model." He then said:--
"The confidence of the whole Union is centred in you. Your being at the helm will be more than an answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead the people in any quarter into violence and secession. North and South will hang together if they have you to hang on; and if the first corrective of a numerous representation should fail in its effects, your presence will give time for trying others, not inconsistent with the union and peace of the states.
"I am perfectly aware of the oppression under which your present office lays your mind, and with the ardor with which you pant for domestic life. But there is sometimes an eminence of character on which society have such peculiar claims as to control the predilections of the individual for a particular walk of happiness, and restrain him to that alone arising from the present and future benedictions of mankind. This seems to be your condition, and the law imposed on you by Providence in forming your character, and fashioning the events on which it was to operate; and it is to motives like these, and not to personal anxieties of mine or others who have no right to call on you for sacrifices, that I appeal, and urge a revisal of it, on the ground of change in the aspect of things. Should an honest majority result from a new and enlarged representation; should those acquiesce whose principles or interests they may control, your wishes for retirement would be gratified with less danger, as soon as that shall be manifest, without awaiting the completion of the second term of four years. One or two sessions will determine the crisis; and I can not but hope that you can resolve to add more to the many years you have already sacrificed to the good of mankind."[37]
These were wise and patriotic words, and, no doubt, had much effect upon Washington's mind. The critical state of public affairs, the growing animosities of party spirit, the urgent pleadings of all his friends, the ardent desires of the people in all parts of the country, and his willingness to serve his country in any hour of her need, caused him, as usual, to sacrifice personal inclinations to the public welfare, and he consented to be a candidate for re-election.
Washington made a verbal reply to Mr. Jefferson's letter when he met him in Philadelphia. He dissented from most of the secretary's views of public policy, and defended the assumption of the state debts and the excise law. As to the United States bank, he did not believe that discontents concerning it were found far from the seat of government. He assured Mr. Jefferson that he had spoken with many people in Maryland and Virginia during his late journey, and found them contented and happy. According to notes made by Mr. Jefferson at the time, he and the president had a friendly discussion of the whole matter. Washington was very decided in his opinions, having weighed the subject with his sound judgment. But his words had no effect upon Jefferson.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Washington in Private Life, by Richard Rush.
[35] Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, page 419.
[36] In his letter accompanying the books, Paine remarked: "The work has had a run beyond any thing that has been published in this country on the subject of government, and the demand continues. In Ireland it has had a much greater. A letter I received from Dublin, tenth of May, mentioned that the fourth edition was then on sale. I know not what number of copies were printed at each edition, except the second, which was ten thousand. The same fate follows me here as I at first experienced in America--strong friends and violent enemies. But as I have got the ear of the country, I shall go on, and at least show them, what is a novelty here, that there can be a person beyond the reach of corruption."
[37] Randall's Life of Thomas Jefferson ii 61