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WASHINGTON 
 AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 A CHRONICLE OF THE 
 
 RISE AND FALL OF FEDERALISM 
 
 BY HENRY JONES FORD 
 
 NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 TORONTO: GLASGOW. BROOK & CO. 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1921 
 
Copyright, 1918, by Yale University Press 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. AN IMITATION COURT Page 1 
 
 II. GREAT DECISIONS " 26 
 
 III. THE MASTER BUILDER " 64 
 
 IV. ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS " 80 
 
 V. TRIBUTE TO THE ALGERINES " 104 
 
 VI. FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA " 115 
 
 VII. A SETTLEMENT WITH ENGLAND " 147 
 
 VIII. PARTY VIOLENCE . " 164 
 
 IX. THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS " 195 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 227 
 
 INDEX " 231 
 
 460^48 
 
ILLUSTRATION 
 
 WASHINGTON S SECOND INAUGURA 
 TION, CONGRESS HALL, PHILA 
 DELPHIA, 1793 
 
 From the painting by Ferris. In the 
 Ferris Collection of American Historical 
 Paintings. Copyright, J. L. G. Ferris. Frontispiece 
 
 IX 
 

WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 * 
 
 AN IMITATION COURT 
 
 WASHINGTON was glad to remain at Mount 
 Vernon as long as possible after he had con 
 sented to serve as President, enjoying the life 
 of a country gentleman, which was now much 
 more suited to his taste than official employment. 
 He was weary of public duties and the heavy 
 demands upon his time which had left him with 
 little leisure for his private life at home. His 
 correspondence during this period gives ample 
 evidence of his extreme reluctance to reassume 
 public responsibilities. To bring the matter to 
 its true proportions, it must be remembered that 
 to the view of the times the new constitution was 
 but the latest attempt to tinker the federal scheme, 
 
 l 
 
2 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 aw) ii was yet tc be seen whether this endeavor 
 would be any more successful than previous 
 efforts had been. As for the title of President, it 
 had already been borne by a number of congres 
 sional politicians and had been rather tarnished 
 by the behavior of some of them. Washington 
 was not at all eager to move in the matter before 
 he had to, and he therefore remained on his farm 
 until Congress met, formally declared the result 
 of the election, and sent a committee to Mount 
 Vernon to give him official notice. It was not 
 until April 30, 1789, that he was formally installed 
 as President. 
 
 Madison and Hamilton were meanwhile going 
 ahead with their plans. This time was perhaps 
 the happiest in their lives. They had stood to 
 gether in years of struggle to start the movement 
 for a new constitution, to steer it through the 
 convention, and to force it on the States. Al 
 though the fight had been a long and a hard one, 
 and although they had not won all that they had 
 wanted, it was nevertheless a great satisfaction 
 that they had accomplished so much, and they 
 were now applying themselves with great zest to 
 the organization of the new government. Madi 
 son was a member of Congress; Hamilton lived 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 3 
 
 near the place where Congress held its sittings 
 in New York and his house was a rendezvous 
 for the federal leaders. Thither Madison would 
 often go to talk over plans and prospects. A lady 
 who lived near by has related how she often saw 
 them walking and talking together, stopping some 
 times to have fun with a monkey skipping about in 
 a neighbor s yard. 
 
 At that time Madison was thirty-eight; Ham 
 ilton was thirty-two. They were little men, of 
 the quick, dapper type. Madison was five feet 
 six and a quarter inches tall, slim and delicate in 
 physique, with a pale student s face lit up by 
 bright hazel eyes. He was as plain as a Quaker in 
 his style of dress, and his hair, which was light in 
 color, was brushed straight back and gathered into 
 a small queue, tied with a plain ribbon. Hamil 
 ton was of about the same stature, but his figure 
 had wiry strength. His Scottish ancestry was 
 manifest in his ruddy complexion and in the 
 modeling of his features. He was more elegant 
 than Madison in his habitual attire. He had a 
 very erect, dignified bearing; his expression was 
 rather severe when his features were in repose, 
 but he had a smile of flashing radiance when he 
 was pleased and interested. Washington* who 
 
4 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 stood over six feet two inches in his buckled shoes, 
 had to look down over his nose when he met the 
 young statesmen who had been the wheel horses 
 of the federal movement. 
 
 Soon after Washington arrived in New York he 
 sought Hamilton s aid in the management of the 
 national finances. There was the rock on which 
 the government of the Confederation had found 
 ered. There the most skillful pilotage was re 
 quired if the new government was to make a safe 
 voyage. Washington s first thought had been to 
 get Robert Morris to take charge again of the 
 department that he had formerly managed with 
 conspicuous ability, and w r hile stopping in Phila 
 delphia on his way to New York, he had approached 
 Morris on the subject. Morris, who was now en 
 gaged in grand projects which were eventually to 
 bring him to a debtor s prison, declined the position 
 but strongly recommended Hamilton. This sug 
 gestion proved very acceptable to Washington, 
 who was well aware of Hamilton s capacity. 
 
 The thorny question of etiquette was the next 
 matter to receive Washington s attention. Per 
 sonally he favored the easy hospitality to which 
 he was accustomed in Virginia, but he knew quite 
 well that his own taste ought not to be decisive. 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 5 
 
 The forms that he might adopt would become 
 precedents, and hence action should be taken 
 cautiously. Washington was a methodical man. 
 He had a well-balanced nature which was never 
 disturbed by timidity of any kind and rarely by 
 anxiety. His anger was strong when it was 
 excited, but his ordinary disposition was one 
 of massive equanimity. He was not imaginative, 
 but he took things as they came, and did what 
 the occasion demanded. In crises that did not 
 admit of deliberation, his instinctive courage 
 guided his behavior, but such crises belong to 
 military experience, and in civil life careful delib 
 eration was his rule. It was his practice to read 
 important documents pen in hand to note the 
 points. From one of his familiar letters to General 
 Knox we learn that on rising in the morning he 
 would turn over in his mind the day s work and 
 would consider how to deal with it. His new 
 circumstances soon apprised him that the first 
 thing to be settled was his deportment as President. 
 Under any form of government the man who is 
 head of the state is forced, as part of his public 
 service, to submit to public exhibition and to be 
 exact in social observance; but, unless precautions 
 are taken, engagements will consume his time and 
 
6 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 strength. Writing to a friend about the situation 
 in which he found himself, Washington declared: 
 "By the time I had done breakfast, and thence 
 till dinner, and afterwards till bed-time, I could 
 not get relieved from the ceremony of one visit, 
 before I had to attend to another. In a word, I 
 had no leisure to read or answer the dispatches 
 that were pouring in upon me from all quarters. " 
 The radical treatment which the situation 
 called for was aided by a general feeling in Con 
 gress that arrangements should be made for the 
 President different from those under the Articles of 
 Confederation. It had been the practice for the 
 President to keep open house. Of this custom 
 Washington remarked that it brought the office 
 "in perfect contempt; for the table was considered 
 a public one, and every person, who could get 
 introduced, conceived that he had a right to be 
 invited to it. This, although the table was always 
 crowded (and with mixed company, and the 
 President considered in no better light than as a 
 maitre d hotel), was in its nature impracticable, 
 and as many offenses given as if no table had been 
 kept." It was important to settle the matter 
 before Mrs. Washington joined him in New York. 
 Inside of ten days from the time he took the oath of 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 7 
 
 office, he therefore drafted a set of nine queries, 
 copies of which he sent to Jay, Madison, Hamil 
 ton, and John Adams, with these sensible remarks : 
 
 "Many things, which appear of little importance 
 in themselves and at the beginning, may have 
 great and durable consequences from their having 
 been established at the commencement of a new 
 general government. It will be much easier to com 
 mence the Administration upon a well-adjusted 
 system, built on tenable grounds, than to correct 
 errors, or alter inconveniences, after they shall 
 have been confirmed by habit. The President, 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 dig 
 nity of his office, without subjecting himself to 
 the imputation of superciliousness or unnecessary 
 reserve. Under these impressions he asks for 
 your candid and undisguised opinion. " 
 
 Only the replies of Hamilton and Adams have 
 been preserved. Hamilton advised Washington 
 that while "the dignity of the office should be 
 supported . . . care will be necessary to avoid 
 extensive disgust or discontent. . . . The 
 notions of equality are yet, in my opinion, too 
 general and strong to admit of such a distance 
 
8 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 being placed between the President and other 
 branches of the Government as might even be 
 consistent with a due proportion." Hamilton 
 then sketched a plan for a weekly levee: "The 
 President to accept no invitations, and to give 
 formal entertainments only twice or four times a 
 year, the anniversaries of important events of the 
 Revolution." In addition, "the President on levee 
 days, either by himself or some gentleman of his 
 household, to give informal invitations to family 
 dinners . . . not more than six or eight to be 
 invited at a time, and the matter to be confined 
 essentially to members of the legislature and other 
 official characters. The President never to remain 
 long at table. " Hamilton observed that his views 
 did not correspond with those of other advisers, 
 but he urged the necessity of behaving so as "to 
 remove the idea of too immense inequality, which 
 I fear would excite dissatisfaction and cabal." 
 
 This was sagacious advice, and Washington 
 would have benefited by conforming to it more 
 closely than he did. The prevailing tenor of the 
 advice which he received is probably reflected 
 in the communication from Adams, who was 
 in favor of making the government impressive 
 through grand ceremonial. " Chamberlains, aides- 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 9 
 
 de-camp, secretaries, masters of ceremonies, etc., 
 will become necessary. . . . Neither dignity nor 
 authority can be supported in human minds, 
 collected into nations or any great numbers, with 
 out a splendor and majesty in some degree pro 
 portioned to them. " Adams held that in no case 
 would it be "proper for the President to make 
 any formal public entertainment," but that this 
 should be the function of some minister of state, 
 although "upon such occasions the President, in 
 his private character, might honor with his pres 
 ence." The President might invite to his house 
 in small parties what official characters or citizens 
 of distinction he pleased, but this invitation 
 should always be given without formality. The 
 President should hold levees to receive "visits of 
 compliment," and two days a week might not be 
 too many for this purpose. The idea running 
 through Adams s advice was that in his private 
 character the President might live like any other 
 private gentleman of means, but that in his public 
 functions he should adopt a grand style. This 
 advice, which Washington undoubtedly received 
 from others as well as Adams, influenced Wash 
 ington s behavior, and the consequences were 
 exactly what Hamilton had predicted. According 
 
10 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 to Jefferson s recollection, many years afterward, 
 Washington told him that General Knox and 
 Colonel Humphreys drew up the regulations and 
 that some were proposed "so highly strained 
 that he absolutely rejected them." Jefferson 
 further related that, when Washington was 
 re-elected, Hamilton took the position that the 
 parade of the previous inauguration ought not to 
 be repeated, remarking that "there was too much 
 ceremony for the character of our government." 
 It is a well-known characteristic of human 
 nature to be touchy about such matters as these. 
 Popular feeling about Washington s procedure was 
 inflamed by reports of the grand titles which 
 Congress was arranging to bestow upon the 
 President. That matter was, in fact, considered 
 by the Senate on the very day of Washington s 
 arrival in New York and before any steps could 
 have been taken to ascertain his views. A joint 
 committee of the two houses reported against 
 annexing "any style or title to the respective 
 styles or titles of office expressed in the Con 
 stitution." But a group of Senators headed by 
 John Adams was unwilling to let the matter drop, 
 and another Senate committee was appointed 
 which recommended as a proper style of address 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 11 
 
 "His Highness, the President of the United States 
 of America, and Protector of their Liberties." 
 While the Senate debated, the House acted, address 
 ing the President in reply to his inaugural address 
 simply as "The President of the United States." 
 The Senate now had practically no choice but to 
 drop the matter, but in so doing adopted a resolu 
 tion that because of its desire that "a due respect 
 for the majesty of the people of the United States 
 may not be hazarded by singularity," the Senate 
 was still of the opinion "that it would be proper 
 to annex a respectable title to the office." Thus 
 it came about that the President of the United 
 States is distinguished by having no title. A 
 governor may be addressed as "Your Excellency," 
 a judge as "Your Honor," but the chief magis 
 trate of the nation is simply "Mr. President. " It 
 was a relief to Washington when the Senate dis 
 continued its attempt to decorate him. He wrote 
 to a friend, "Happily this matter is now done with, 
 I hope never to be revived." 
 
 Details of the social entanglements in which 
 Washington was caught at the outset of his ad 
 ministration are generally omitted by serious 
 historians, but whatever illustrates life and manners 
 is not insignificant, and events of this character 
 
12 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 had, moreover, a distinct bearing on the politics of 
 the times. The facts indicate that Washington s 
 arrangements were somewhat encumbered by the 
 civic ambition of New York. That bustling town 
 of 30,000 population desired to be the capital of 
 the nation, and, in the splendid exertions which 
 it made, it went rather too far. Federal Hall, de 
 signed as a City Hall, was built in part for the ac 
 commodation of Congress, on the site in Wall Street 
 now in part occupied by the United States Sub- 
 Treasury. The plans were made by Major Pierre 
 Charles TEnfant, a French engineer who had 
 served with distinction in the Continental Army 
 but whose clearest title to fame is the work which 
 he did in laying out the city of Washington when 
 it was made the national capital. Federal Hall 
 exceeded in dignified proportions and in artistic 
 design any public building then existing in America. 
 The painted ceilings, the crimson damask canopies 
 and hangings, and the handsome furniture were 
 considered by many political agitators to be a great 
 violation of republican simplicity. The architect 
 was first censured in the public press and then, 
 because of disputes, received no pay for his time 
 and trouble, although, had he accepted a grant of 
 city lots offered by the town council he would have 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 13 
 
 received a compensation that would have turned 
 out to be very valuable. 
 
 Federal Hall had been completed and presented 
 to Congress before Washington started for New 
 York. The local arrangements for his reception 
 were upon a corresponding scale of magnificence, 
 but with these Washington had had nothing to do. 
 The barge in which he was conveyed from the 
 Jersey shore to New York was fifty feet long, hung 
 with red curtains and having an awning of satin. 
 It was rowed by thirteen oarsmen, in white with 
 blue ribbons. In the inauguration ceremonies 
 Washington s coach was drawn by four horses 
 with gay trappings and hoofs blackened and 
 polished. This became his usual style. He 
 seldom walked in the street, for he was so much a 
 public show that that might have been attended by 
 annoying practical inconvenience; but when he 
 rode out with Mrs. Washington his carriage was 
 drawn by four sometimes six horses, with 
 two outriders, in livery, with powdered hair and 
 cockades in their hats. When he rode on horse 
 back, which he often did for exercise, he was 
 attended by outriders and accompanied by one or 
 more of the gentlemen of his household. Toward 
 the end of the year there arrived from England 
 
14 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 the state coach which he used in formal visits to 
 Congress and for other ceremonious events. It 
 was a canary-colored chariot, decorated with 
 gilded nymphs and cupids, and emblazoned with 
 the Washington arms. His state was simplified 
 when he went to church, which he did regularly 
 every Sunday; then his coach was drawn by two 
 horses, with two footmen behind, and was followed 
 by a post-chaise carrying two gentlemen of his 
 household. Washington was fond of horses and 
 was in the habit of keeping a fine stable. The 
 term "muslin horses" was commonly used to 
 denote the care taken in grooming. The head 
 groom would test the work of the stable-boys by 
 applying a clean muslin handkerchief to the coats 
 of the animals, and, if any stain of dirt showed, 
 there was trouble. The night before the white 
 horses which Washington used as President were 
 to be taken out, their coats were covered by a paste 
 of whiting, and the animals were swathed in 
 wrappings. In the morning the paste was dry 
 and with rubbing gave a marble gloss to the 
 horses coats. The hoofs were then blackened and 
 polished, and even the animals teeth were scoured. 
 Such arrangements, however, were not peculiar 
 to Washington s stable. This was the usual way 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 15 
 
 in which grooming for "the quality" was done in 
 that period. 
 
 The first house occupied by Washington was at 
 the corner of Pearl and Cherry streets, then a 
 fashionable locality. What the New York end of 
 the Brooklyn Bridge has left of it is now known as 
 Franklin Square. The house was so small that 
 three of his secretaries had to lodge in one room; 
 and Custis in his Recollections tells how one of 
 them, who fancied he could write poetry, would 
 sometimes disturb the others by walking the floor 
 in his nightgown trying the rhythm of his lines by 
 rehearsing them with loud emphasis. About a 
 year later Washington removed to a larger house 
 on the west side of Broadway near Bowling Green. 
 Both buildings went down at an early date before 
 the continual march of improvement in New York. 
 In Washington s time Wall Street was superseding 
 Pearl Street as the principal* haunt of fashion. 
 Here lived Alexander Hamilton and other New 
 Yorkers prominent in their day ; here were fashion 
 able boarding-houses at which lived the leading 
 members of Congress. When some fashionable 
 reception was taking place, the street was gay with 
 coaches and sedan-chairs, and the attire of the 
 people who then gathered was as brilliant as a 
 
16 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 flight of cockatoos. It was a period of spectacular 
 dress and behavior for both men and women, the 
 men rivaling the women in their use of lace, silk, 
 and satin. Dr. John Bard, the fashionable 
 doctor of his day, who attended Washington 
 through the severe illness which laid him up 
 for six weeks early in his administration, habitu 
 ally wore a cocked hat and a scarlet coat, his 
 hands resting upon a massive cane as he drove 
 about in a pony-phaeton. The scarlet waist 
 coat with large bright buttons which Jefferson 
 wore on fine occasions, when he arrived on the 
 scene, showed that he was not then averse to gay 
 raiment. Plain styles of dress were among the 
 many social changes ushered in by the French 
 Revolution and the war cycle that ensued 
 from it. 
 
 Titles figured considerably in colonial society, 
 and the Revolutionary War did not destroy the 
 continuity of usage. It was quite in accord with 
 the fashion of the times that the courtesy title of 
 Lady Washington was commonly employed in 
 talk about the President s household. Mrs. 
 Washington arrived in New York from Mount 
 Vernon on May 27, 1789. She was met by the 
 President with his barge on the Jersey shore, 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 17 
 
 and as the barge passed the Battery a salute of 
 thirteen cannon was fired. At the landing-place 
 a large company was gathered, and the coach that 
 took her to her home was escorted with military 
 parade. The questions of etiquette had been 
 settled by that time, and she performed her social 
 duties with the ease of a Virginia gentlewoman 
 always used to good society. She found them 
 irksome, however, as such things had long since 
 lost their novelty. Writing to a friend she said, 
 "I think I am more like a state prisoner than any 
 thing else. " She was then a grandmother through 
 her children by her first husband. Although she 
 preferred plain attire, she is described on one 
 occasion as wearing a - velvet gown over a white 
 satin petticoat, her hair smoothed back over a 
 moderately high cushion. It was the fashion 
 of the times for the ladies to tent their hair up to 
 a great height. At one of Mrs. Washington s 
 receptions, Miss Mclvers, a New York belle, had 
 such a towering coiffure that the feathers which 
 surmounted it brushed a lighted chandelier and 
 caught fire. The consequences might have been 
 serious had the fire spread to the pomatumed 
 structure below, but one of the President s aides 
 sprang to the rescue and smothered the burning 
 
18 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 plumes between the palms of his hands before any 
 harm came to the young lady. 
 
 Every Tuesday while Congress was in session 
 Washington received visitors from three to four 
 o clock. These receptions were known as his 
 levees. He is described as clad in black velvet; 
 his hair was powdered and gathered behind in a silk 
 bag; he wore knee and shoe buckles and yellow 
 gloves; he held a cocked hat with a cockade and 
 a black feather edging; and he carried a long sword 
 in a scabbard of white polished leather. As 
 visitors were presented to him by an aide, Wash 
 ington made a bow. To a candid friend who 
 reported to him that his bows were considered to 
 be too stiff, he replied: "Would it not have been 
 better to throw the veil of charity over them, 
 ascribing their stiffness to the effects of age, or to 
 the unskillfulness of my teacher, rather than to 
 pride and dignity of office, which God knows has 
 no charm for me?" Washington bore with 
 remarkable humility the criticisms of his man 
 ners that occasionally reached him. 
 
 On Friday evenings Mrs. Washington received, 
 and these affairs were known as her "drawing- 
 rooms." They were over by nine o clock which 
 was bed-time in the Washington household; for 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 19 
 
 Washington was an early riser, often getting up at 
 four in the morning to start the day s work betimes. 
 The " drawing-rooms " were more cheery affairs 
 than the levees, as Mrs. Washington had simple 
 unaffected manners, and the General had made 
 it known that on these occasions he desired to 
 be regarded not as the President but simply as a 
 private gentleman. This gave him an opportunity 
 such as he did not have at the levees to un 
 bend and to enjoy himself. Besides these receptions 
 a series of formal dinners was given to diplo 
 matic representatives, high officers of government, 
 and members of Congress. Senator Maclay of 
 Pennsylvania recorded in the diary he kept during 
 the First Congress that Washington would drink 
 wine with every one in the company, addressing 
 each in turn by name. Maclay thought it of suffi 
 cient interest to record that on one occasion a trifle 
 was served which had been made with rancid cream. 
 All the ladies watched to see what Mrs. Washington 
 would do with her portion; and next day there were 
 tittering remarks all through the fashionable part 
 of the town over the fact that she had martyred 
 herself and swallowed the dose. Incidentally 
 Maclay, who was in nearly everything a vehe 
 ment opponent of the policy of the Administration, 
 
20 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 bore witness to Washington s perfect courtesy. 
 Maclay noted that in spite of his antagonistic 
 attitude Washington invited him to dinner and 
 paid him "marked attention," although "he 
 knows enough to satisfy him that I will not be 
 Senator after the 3d of March, and to the score of 
 his good nature must I place these attentions. " 
 
 In his relations with Congress, Washington 
 followed precedents derived from the English 
 constitutional system under which he had been 
 educated. No question was raised by anybody 
 at first as to the propriety of a course with which 
 the public men of the day were familiar. He 
 opened the session with an address to Congress 
 couched somewhat in the style of the speech from 
 the throne. At the first session there was talk of 
 providing some sort of throne for him; but the 
 proposal came to nothing. He spoke from the 
 Vice-President s chair, and the Representatives 
 went into the Senate chamber to hear him, as 
 the Commons proceed to the House of Lords 
 on such occasions. Congress, too, conformed to 
 English precedents by voting addresses in reply, 
 and then the members repaired to the President s 
 "audience chamber, " where the presiding officers 
 of the two houses delivered their addresses and 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 21 
 
 received the President s acknowledgments. These 
 were disagreeable duties for Washington, although 
 he discharged them conscientiously. Maclay has 
 recorded in his diary the fact that when Washing 
 ton made his first address to Congress he was 
 "agitated and embarrassed more than ever he was 
 by the leveled cannon or pointed musket. " 
 
 It was not until June 8 that Washington 
 settled these delicate affairs of official etiquette 
 sufficiently to enable him to attend to details of 
 administration. The government, although bank 
 rupt, was in active operation, and the several 
 executive departments were under secretaries 
 appointed by the old Congress. The distinguished 
 New York jurist, John Jay, now forty-four years 
 old, had been Secretary of Foreign Affairs since 
 
 1784. He had long possessed Washington s con 
 fidence, and now retained his Secretaryship until 
 the government was organized, whereupon he left 
 that post to become the first chief-justice of the 
 United States. Henry Knox of Massachusetts, 
 aged thirty-nine, had been Secretary of War since 
 
 1785, a position to which Washington helped him. 
 They were old friends, for Knox had served through 
 the war with Washington in special charge of 
 artillery. The Postmaster-General, Ebenezer 
 
22 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 Hazard, was not in Washington s favor. Wliile 
 the struggle over the adoption of the Constitution 
 was going on Hazard put a stop to the customary 
 practice by which newspaper publishers were 
 allowed to exchange copies by mail. Washing 
 ton wrote an indignant letter to John Jay about 
 this action which was doing mischief by "inducing 
 a belief that the suppression of intelligence at that 
 critical juncture was a wicked trick of policy 
 contrived by an aristocratic junto." As soon 
 as Washington could move in the matter, Hazard 
 was superseded by Samuel Osgood, who as a mem 
 ber of the old Congress had served on a committee 
 to examine the post-office accounts. There was no 
 Secretary of the Treasury at that time, but the 
 affairs of that department were in the hands of a 
 board of commissioners, this same Samuel Os 
 good, together with Walter Livingston and Arthur 
 Lee. To all these officials Washington now ap 
 plied for a written account of "the real situation" 
 of their departments. 
 
 Several months elapsed before he was in a posi 
 tion to make new arrangements. The salary bill 
 was approved September 2, 1789, and on the same 
 day Washington commissioned Hamilton as Secre 
 tary of the Treasury, the first of the new 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 23 
 
 appointments, although in the creative enact 
 ments the Treasury Department came last. Next 
 came Henry Knox, Secretary of War and of the 
 Navy, on September 12; Thomas Jefferson, 
 Secretary of State; and Edmund Randolph, 
 Attorney-General, on September 26, on which date 
 Osgood was also appointed. What may be 
 said to be Washington s Cabinet was thus estab 
 lished, but the term itself did not come into use 
 until 1793. At the outset no more was decided 
 than that the new government should have ex 
 ecutive departments, and in superficial appearance 
 these were much like those of the old government. 
 The Constitution made no distinct provision 
 for a cabinet, and the only clause referring 
 to the subject is the provision authorizing the 
 President to "require the opinion, in writing, 
 of the principal officer in each of the executive 
 departments, upon any subject relating to the 
 duties of their respective offices. " This provision 
 does not contemplate a body that should be 
 consultative by its normal character. The pre 
 vailing opinion at the time the Constitution was 
 framed was that the consultative function would 
 be exercised by the Senate, which together with the 
 President would form the Administration. Upon 
 
24 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 this ground, Mason of Virginia refused to sign 
 the report of the constitutional convention. It 
 was owing to practical experience and not to the 
 language of the Constitution that the President 
 was soon repelled from using the Senate as his 
 privy council and was thrown back upon the aid 
 of the heads of the executive departments, who 
 were thus drawn close to him as his Cabinet. J 
 
 The inchoate character of the Cabinet for a con 
 siderable period explains what might otherwise 
 seem to be an anomaly, the delay of Jefferson 
 in occupying his post. He did not arrive until 
 March 21, 1790, when Washington had been in 
 office nearly a year. But this situation occasioned 
 no remark. The notion that the heads of the 
 departments formed a cabinet, taking office with 
 the President and reflecting his personal choice as 
 his advisers, was not developed until long after 
 Washington s administration, although the Cabi 
 net itself, as a distinct feature of the system of 
 government, dates from his first term. The 
 importance which the Cabinet soon acquired is 
 
 1 In this formative process the Postmaster-General was left outside 
 in Washington s time, since his functions were purely of a business 
 nature, not directly affected by the issues on which Washington 
 desired advice. The Postmaster-General did not become a member 
 of the Cabinet until 1829. 
 
AN IMITATION COURT 25 
 
 evidence that, even under a written constitution, 
 institutions owe more to circumstances than to 
 intentions. The Constitution of the United States 
 is no exception to the rule that the true constitu 
 tion of a country is the actual distribution of power, 
 written provisions being efficacious only in the 
 way and to the extent that they affect such distribu 
 tion in practice. Hence results may differ widely 
 from the expectations with which those provi 
 sions are introduced. A constitution is essentially 
 a growth and never merely a contrivance. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 
 
 GREAT DECISIONS 
 
 WHILE Washington was bearing with military 
 fortitude the rigors and annoyances of the imita 
 tion court in which he was confined, Congress 
 reached decisions that had a vast effect in de 
 termining the actual character of the govern 
 ment. The first business in order of course was 
 the raising of revenue, for the treasury was empty, 
 and payments of interest due on^the French 
 and Spanish loans were years behind. Madison 
 attacked this problem before Washington ar 
 rived in New York to take the oath of office. On 
 April 8 he introduced in the House a resolu 
 tion which aimed only at giving immediate effect 
 to a scheme of duties and imposts that had been 
 approved generally by the States in 1783. On the 
 very next day debate upon this resolution began in 
 the committee of the whole, for there was then no 
 system of standing committees to intervene be- 
 
 26 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 27 
 
 tween the House and its business. The debate 
 soon broadened out far beyond the lines of the 
 original scheme, and in it the student finds lucidly 
 presented the issues of public policy that have 
 accompanied tariff debates ever since. 
 
 Madison laid down the general principle that 
 "commerce ought to be free, and labor and indus 
 try left at large to find its proper object," but 
 suggested that it would be unwise to apply this 
 principle without regard to particular circum 
 stances, "Although interest will, in general, 
 operate effectually to produce political good, 
 yet there are causes in which certain factitious 
 circumstances may divert it from its natural chan 
 nel, or throw or retain it in an artificial one. " In 
 language which now reads like prophecy he referred 
 to cases "where cities, companies, or opulent 
 individuals engross the business from others, by 
 having had an uninterrupted possession of it, or by 
 the extent of. their capitals being able to destroy 
 a competition. " The same situation could occur 
 between nations, and had to be considered. There 
 was some truth, he also thought, in the opinion 
 "that each nation should have within itself the 
 means of defense, independent of foreign supplies, " 
 but he considered that this argument had been 
 
28 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 urged beyond reason, as "there is good reason to 
 believe that, when it becomes necessary, we may 
 obtain supplies abroad as readily as any other 
 nation whatsoever." He instanced as a cogent 
 reason in favor of protective duties that, as the 
 States had formerly the power of making regu 
 lations of trade to cherish their domestic interests, 
 it must be presumed that, when they put the 
 exercise of this power into other hands by adopting 
 the Constitution, "they must have done this with 
 the expectation that those interests would not be 
 neglected" by Congress. 
 
 Actuated by such views, and doubtless also 
 influenced by the great need for revenue, Madison 
 was on the whole favorable to amendments 
 extending the list of dutiable articles. Though 
 there were conflicts between members from manu 
 facturing districts and those from agricultural 
 constituencies, and though the salt protectionists 
 of New York had some difficulty in carrying their 
 point, the contention did not follow sectional lines. 
 Coal was added to the list on the motion of a mem 
 ber from Virginia. The duties levied were, how 
 ever, very moderate, ranging from five to twelve 
 and one-half per cent, with an exception in the case 
 of one article that might be considered a luxury. 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 29 
 
 The bill as it passed the House discriminated 
 in favor of nations with which the United States 
 had commercial treaties. That is to say, it 
 favored France and Holland as against Great 
 Britain, which had the bulk of America s foreign 
 trade. Though Madison insisted on this provi 
 sion and was supported by a large majority of the 
 House, the Senate would not agree to it-. During 
 the early sessions of Congress the Senate met 
 behind closed doors, a practice which it did J not 
 abandon until five years later. From the accounts 
 of the discussion preserved in Maclay s diary it 
 appears that there was much wrangling. Maclay 
 relates that on one occasion when Pennsylvania s 
 demands were sharply attacked, his colleague, 
 Robert Morris, was so incensed that Maclay 
 "could see his nostrils widen and his nose flatten 
 like the head of a viper. " Pierce Butler of South 
 Carolina "flamed away and threatened a dissolu 
 tion of the Union, with regard to his State, as sure 
 as God was in the firmament. " Thus began a line 
 of argument that was frequently pursued there 
 after until it was ended by wager of battle. On 
 several occasions the division was so close that 
 Vice-President Adams gave the casting vote. 
 Although there was much railing in the Senate 
 
30 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 against imposts as a burden to the agricultural 
 sections, yet some who opposed duties in the 
 abstract thought of particulars that ought not to 
 be neglected if the principle of protection were 
 admitted. Duties on hemp and cotton therefore 
 found their way into the bill through amendments 
 voted by the Senate. Adjustment of the differ 
 ences between the two houses was hindered by 
 the resentment of the^jBEouse at the removal of 
 the treaty discrimination feature, but te Senate 
 with characteristic address evaded the issue by 
 promising to deal with it as a separate measure 
 and ended by thwarting the House on that 
 point. 
 
 On the whole, in view of the sharp differences of 
 opinion, the action taken on the tariff was remark 
 ably expeditious. The bill, which passed the 
 House on May 16, was passed by the Senate on 
 June 2, and although delay now ensued because 
 of the conflict over the discrimination issue, the 
 bill became law by the President s approval on 
 July 4. This prompt conclusion in spite of closely- 
 balanced factions becomes more intelligible when 
 it is observed that the rules of the Senate then 
 provided that, "in case of a debate becoming 
 tedious, four Senators may call for the question. * 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 31 
 
 Brief as was the period of consideration as com 
 pared with the practice since that day, Maclay 
 noted indignantly that the merchants had "al 
 ready added the amount of the duties to the price 
 of their goods-" so that- a burden fell upon the 
 consumers without advantage to the Treasury. 
 Such consequence is evidence of defect in pro 
 cedure which the experience of other nations has 
 led them to correct, but which has continued to 
 increase in the United States until it has attained 
 monstrous proportions. Under the English bud 
 get system new imposts now take effect as soon 
 as they are proposed by the government, the 
 contingency of alteration in the course of en 
 actment being provided for by return of pay 
 ments made in error. The general tendency of 
 civilized government is now strongly in favor of 
 attaching the process of deliberation upon finan 
 cial measures to the period of their adminis 
 trative incubation, and of shortening the period of 
 formal legislative consideration. 
 
 One of the tasks of Congress in its first session 
 was to draught amendments to the Constitution. 
 The reasons for such action were stated by Madi 
 son to be a desire to propitiate those who desired a 
 bill of rights, and an effort to secure acceptance 
 
m WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 of the Constitution in Rhode Island and North 
 Carolina. Promises had been made, in the course 
 of the struggle for adoption, that this matter would 
 be taken up, and there was a general willingness to 
 proceed with it. Under the leadership of Madi 
 son, the House adopted seventeen amendments, 
 which were reduced by the Senate to twelve. 
 Of these, ten were eventually ratified and formed 
 what is commonly known as the Bill of Rights. 
 
 Apart from this matter, the session, which 
 lasted until September 29, was almost wholly 
 occupied with measures to organize the new gov 
 ernment. To understand the significance of the 
 action taken, it should be remembered that the 
 passions excited by the struggle over the new 
 Constitution were still turbulent. Fisher Ames 
 of Massachusetts, a member without previous 
 national experience, who watched the proceedings 
 with keen observation, early noticed the presence 
 of a group of objectors whose motives he regarded 
 as partly factious and partly temperamental. Writ 
 ing, to a friend about the character of the House, 
 he remarked: "Three sorts of people are often 
 troublesome: the anti-federals, who alone are 
 weak and some of them well disposed; the dupes 
 of local prejudices, who fear eastern influence, 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 33 
 
 monopolies, and navigation acts; and lastly 
 the violent republicans, as they think fit to style 
 themselves, who are new lights in politics, who are 
 more solicitous to establish, or rather to expatiate 
 upon, some sounding principle of republicanism, 
 than to protect property, cement the union, 
 and perpetuate liberty. " The spirit of opposition 
 had from the first an experienced leader in Elbridge 
 Gerry^ of Massachusetts. He had seen many 
 years of service in the Continental Congress which 
 he first entered in 1776. He was a delegate to the 
 Philadelphia convention, in whose sessions he 
 showed a contentious temper, and in the end re 
 fused to subscribe to the new Constitution. In 
 the convention debates he had strongly declared 
 himself "against letting the heads of the depart 
 ments, particularly of finance, have anything to 
 do with business connected with legislation." 
 Defeated in the convention, Gerry was now bent 
 upon making his ideas prevail in the organization 
 of the government. 
 
 On May 19, the matter of the executive depart 
 ments was brought up in committee of the whole 
 by Boudinot of New Jersey. At this time it was 
 the practice of Congress to take up matters first 
 in committee of the whole, and, after general 
 
34 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 conclusions had been reached, to appoint a com 
 mittee to prepare and bring in a bill. A warm 
 discussion ensued on the question whether the 
 heads of the departments should be removable by 
 the President. Gerry, who did not take a promi 
 nent part in the debate, spoke with a mildness 
 that was in marked contrast with the excitement 
 shown by some of the speakers. He was in favor 
 of supporting the President to the utmost and of 
 making him as responsible as possible, but since 
 Congress had obviously no right to confer a power 
 not authorized by the Constitution, and since the 
 Constitution had conditioned appointments on the 
 consent of the Senate, it followed that removals 
 must be subject to the same condition. He spoke 
 briefly and only once, although the debate became 
 long and impassioned. But he was merely reserv 
 ing his fire, as subsequent developments soon 
 showed. Without a call for the ayes and nays, 
 the question was decided in favor of declaring the 
 power of removal to be in the President. The 
 committee then proceeded to the consideration of 
 the Treasury Department. Gerry at once made a 
 plea for delay. "He thought they were hurrying 
 on business too rapidly. Gentlemen had already 
 committed themselves on one very important 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 35 
 
 point." He "knew nothing of the system which 
 gentlemen proposed to adopt in arranging the 
 Treasury Department," but the fact was worth 
 considering that "the late Congress had, on long 
 experience, thought proper to organize the Trea 
 sury Department, in a mode different from that 
 now proposed. " He " would be glad to know what 
 the reasons were that would induce the committee 
 to adopt a different system from that which had 
 been found most beneficial to the United States. " 
 What Gerry had in view was the retention of the 
 then existing system of Treasury management by 
 a Board of Commissioners. In 1781 the Con 
 tinental Congress had been forced to let the 
 Treasury pass out of its own hands into those of a 
 Superintendent of Finance, through sheer inability 
 to get any funds unless the change was made. 
 Robert Morris, who held the position, had resigned 
 in January, 1783, because of the behavior of Con 
 gress, but the attitude of the army had become 
 so menacing that he was implored to remain in 
 office and attend to the arrears of military pay. 
 He had managed to effect a settlement, and at 
 length retired from office on November 1, 1784. 
 Congress then put the Treasury in the hands of 
 three commissioners appointed and supervised by 
 
36 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 t s/ 
 
 it. Gerry was now striving to continue this 
 
 arrangement with as little change as possible. 
 
 When debate was resumed the next day, Gerry 
 made a long, smooth speech on the many superior 
 advantages of the Board system. The extent 
 and variety of the functions of the office would be 
 a trial to any one man s integrity. "Admit these 
 innumerable opportunities for defrauding the 
 revenue, without check or control, and it is next to 
 impossible he should remain unsullied in reputa 
 tion, or innoxious with respect to misapplying his 
 trust." The situation would be "very disagree 
 able to the person appointed, provided he is an 
 honest, upright man; it will be disagreeable also to 
 the people of the Union, who will always have 
 reason to suspect" misconduct. "We have had a 
 Board of Treasury and we have had a Financier. 
 Have not express charges, as well as vague rumors, 
 been brought against him at the bar of the public? 
 They may be unfounded, it is true; but it shows 
 that a man cannot serve in such a station without 
 exciting popular clamor. It is very well known, 
 I dare say, to many gentlemen in this House, that 
 the noise and commotion were such as obliged Con 
 gress once more to alter their Treasury Department, 
 and place it under the management of a Board of 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 37 
 
 Commissioners." He descanted upon the perils to 
 liberty involved in the course they were pursuing. 
 Surround the President with Ministers of State 
 and "the President will be induced to place more 
 confidence in them than in the Senate. . . . An 
 oligarchy will be confirmed upon the ruin of the 
 democracy; a government most hateful will 
 descend to our posterity and all our exertions in 
 the glorious cause of freedom will be frustrated. " 
 
 Gerry s speech as a whole was tactful and per 
 suasive, but he made a blunder when he appealed 
 to the recollections of the old members, men who 
 had been in the Continental Congress, or else in 
 some position where they could view its springs of 
 action. Their recollections now came forward to 
 his discomfiture. "My official duty," said Wads- 
 worth of Connecticut, "has led me often to attend 
 at the Treasury of the United States, and, from 
 my experience, I venture to pronounce that a 
 Board of Treasury is the worst of all institutions. 
 They have doubled our national debt." He 
 contrasted the order and clearness of accounts 
 while the Superintendent of Finance was in charge 
 with the situation since then. If the committee 
 had before them the transactions of the Treasury 
 Board, "instead of system and responsibility they 
 
38 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 would find nothing but confusion and disorder, 
 without a possibility of checking their accounts." 
 Boudinot of New Jersey said he "would state a 
 circumstance which might give the committee 
 some small idea of what the savings under the 
 Superintendent were. The expenditure of hay at 
 a certain post was one hundred and forty tons; 
 such was the estimate laid before him; yet twelve 
 tons carried the post through the year, and the 
 supply was abundant, and the post was as fully 
 and usefully occupied as it had ever been before. " 
 Of course there was an outcry against the Super 
 intendent of Finance; "he rather wondered that 
 the clamor was not more loud and tremendous." 
 He remembered that "one hundred and forty-six 
 supernumerary officers were brushed off in one day, 
 who had long been sucking the vital blood and 
 spirit of the nation. Was it to be wondered at, if 
 this swarm should raise a buzz about him? " Gerry 
 fought on almost singlehanded, but he could not 
 refute the evidence that he had invited. He lost 
 his temper and resorted to sarcasm. If a single 
 head of the Treasury was so desirable, why not 
 "have a single legislator; one man to make all 
 the laws, the revenue laws particularly, because 
 among many there is less responsibility, system, 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 39 
 
 and energy; consequently a numerous represen 
 tation in this House is an odious institution. " 
 
 The case for the Treasury Board was so hope 
 less that nothing more was heard of it; but the 
 battle over the removal question was renewed 
 with added violence, when the bill for establish 
 ing the Department of Foreign Affairs came up 
 for consideration. White of Virginia now led 
 the attack. He had been a member of the Con 
 tinental Congress from 1786 to 1788, and a member 
 of the ratifying convention of his State. Although 
 he voted for a provisional acceptance of the 
 Constitution, he had supported an amendment 
 requiring Congress to collect direct taxes or excises 
 through State agency, which would have been in 
 effect a return to the plan of requisitions the 
 bane of the Confederation. In an elaborate speech 
 he attacked the clause giving the President power 
 to remove from .office, as an attempt to impart 
 an autlK>rity not conferred by the Constitution, 
 and inconsistent with the requirement that appoint 
 ments should be made with the advice and consent 
 of the Senate. The debate soon became heated. 
 "Let us look around at this moment," said Jack 
 son of Georgia, "and see the progress we are mak 
 ing toward venality and corruption. We already 
 
40 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 hear the sounding title of Highness and Most Honor 
 able trumpeted in our ears, which, ten years since, 
 would have exalted a man to a station as high as 
 Hainan s gibbet." Page of Virginia was ablaze 
 with indignation. "Good God!" he exclaimed. 
 "What, authorize in a free republic, by law, too, 
 by your first act, the exertion of a dangerous royal 
 prerogative in your Chief Magistrate!" Gerry, 
 in remarks whose oblique criticism upon arrange 
 ments at the President s house was perfectly well 
 understood, dwelt upon the possibility that the 
 President might be guided by some other criterion 
 than discharge of duty as the law directs. "Per 
 haps the officer is not good natured enough; he 
 makes an ungraceful bow, or does it left leg fore 
 most; this is unbecoming in a great officer at the 
 President s levee. Now, because he is so unfortu 
 nate as not to be so good a dancer as he is a worthy 
 officer, he must be removed." These rhetorical 
 flourishes, which are significant of the undercur 
 rent of sentiment, hardly do justice to the general 
 quality of the debate which was marked by legal 
 acuteness on both sides. Madison pressed home 
 the sensible argument that the President could 
 not be held to responsibility unless he could control 
 his subordinates. "And if it should happen that 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 41 
 
 the officers connect themselves with the Senate, 
 they may mutually support each other, and for 
 want of efficacy reduce the power of the President 
 to a mere vapor; in which case, his responsibility 
 would be annihilated and the expectation of it 
 unjust. " 
 
 The debate lasted for several days, but Madison 
 won by a vote of 34 to 20 in committee, in favor of 
 retaining the clause. On second thought, how 
 ever, and probably after consultation with the little 
 group of constructive statesmen who stood behind 
 the scenes, he decided that it might be dangerous 
 to allow the President s power of removal to rest 
 upon a legislative grant that might be revoked. 
 When the report from the committee of the whole 
 was taken up in the House, a few days later, 
 Benson of New York proposed that the disputed 
 clause should be omitted and the language of the 
 bill should be worded so as to imply that the 
 power of removal was in the President. Madison 
 accepted the suggestion, and the matter was thus 
 settled. The point was covered by providing that 
 the chief clerk of the Department should take 
 charge "whenever the principal officer shall be 
 removed from office by the President." The 
 clause got through the Senate by the casting vote 
 
42 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 of the Vice-President, and a similar provision was 
 inserted, without further contest, in all the acts 
 creating the executive departments. It is rather 
 striking evidence of the Utopian expectations 
 which could then be indulged that Daniel Carroll 
 of Maryland was persistent in urging that the 
 existence of the office should be limited to a few 
 years, "under a hope that a time would come when 
 the United States would be disengaged from the 
 necessity of supporting a Secretary of Foreign 
 Affairs." Although Gerry and others expressed 
 sympathy with the motion it was voted down 
 without a division. 
 
 When the bill establishing the Treasury Depart 
 ment was taken up, Page of Virginia made a violent 
 attack upon the clause authorizing the Secretary 
 to "digest and report plans. " He denounced it as 
 "an attempt to create an undue influence" in the 
 House. "Nor would the mischief stop here; it 
 would establish a precedent which might be 
 extended until we admitted all the Ministers of the 
 government on the floor, to explain and support the 
 plans they have digested and reported; thus laying 
 the foundation for an aristocracy or a detestable 
 monarchy." As a matter of fact, a precedent in 
 favor of access to Congress already existed. The 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 43 
 
 old Superintendent of Finance and the Board 
 which succeeded him had the power now proposed 
 for the Secretary of the Treasury. Livermore of 
 New Hampshire, who had been a member of the 
 Continental Congress, admitted this fact, but held 
 that such power was not dangerous at that time 
 since Congress then possessed both legislative 
 and executive authority. They could abolish his 
 plans and his office together, if they thought pro 
 per; "but we are restrained by a Senate and 
 by the negative of the President." Gerry de 
 clared his assent to the views expressed by Page. 
 "If the doctrine of having prime and great 
 ministers of state was once well established, he 
 did not doubt but that we should soon see them 
 distinguished by a green or red ribbon, or other 
 insignia of court favor and patronage." 
 
 The strongest argument in favor of retaining the 
 clause referred to was made by Fisher Ames, 
 who had begun to display the powers of clear state 
 ment and of convincing argument that soon estab 
 lished his supremacy in debate. He brought the 
 debate at once to its proper bearings by pointing 
 out that there were really only two matters to be 
 considered: whether the proposed arrangement 
 was useful, and whether it could be safely guarded 
 
44 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 from abuse. "The Secretary is presumed to 
 acquire the best knowledge of the subject of 
 finance of any member of the community. Now, 
 if this House is to act on the best knowledge 
 of circumstances, it seems to follow logically 
 that the House must obtain the evidence from 
 that officer; the best way of doing this will be 
 publicly from the officer himself, by making it 
 his duty to furnish us with it. " In one of those 
 eloquent passages which brighten the records of 
 debate whenever Ames spoke at any length, 
 he pictured the difficulties that had to be sur 
 mounted. "If we consider the present situation 
 of our finances, owing to a variety of causes, 
 we shall no doubt perceive a great, although 
 unavoidable confusion throughout the whole 
 scene; it presents to the imagination a deep, dark, 
 and dreary chaos; impossible to be reduced to 
 order without the mind of the architect is clear 
 and capacious, and his power commensurate to the 
 occasion. " He asked, " What improper influ 
 ence could a plan reported openly and officially 
 have on the mind of any member, more than if the 
 scheme and information were given privately 
 at the Secretary s office?" Merely to call for 
 information would not be advantageous to the 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 45 
 
 House. "It will be no mark of inattention or 
 neglect, if he take time to consider the questions 
 you propound; but if you make it his duty to fur 
 nish you plans . . . and he neglect to perform it, 
 his conduct or capacity is virtually impeached. 
 This will be furnishing an additional check. " 
 
 Sedgwick of Massachusetts made a strong speech 
 to the same effect. "Make your officer respon 
 sible," he said with prophetic vision, "and the 
 presumption is, that plans and information are 
 properly digested; but if he can secrete himself 
 behind the curtain, he might create a noxious 
 influence, and not be answerable for the inform 
 ation he gives. " 
 
 The weight of the argument was heavily on the 
 side of the supporters of the clause, and it looked 
 as though the group of objectors would again be 
 beaten. But now a curious thing happened. Fitz- 
 simmons remarked that, if he understood the objec 
 tion made to the clause, "it was a jealousy arising 
 from the power given the Secretary to report 
 plans of revenue to the House." He suggested 
 that "harmony might be restored by changing 
 the word report into prepare ." Fitzsimmons 
 was esteemed by the House because of his zealous 
 support of the War of Independence and also 
 
46 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 because he stood high as a successful Philadelphia 
 merchant, but he did not, however, rank as a 
 leader. Early in the session Ames described him 
 as a man who "is supposed to understand trade, 
 and he assumes some weight in such matters. 
 He is plausible, though not over civil; is artful, 
 has a glaring eye, a down look, speaks low, and 
 with apparent candor and coolness." He was 
 hardly the man to guide the House on a matter 
 pertaining to the organization of public authority. 
 While the removal issue was before the House, 
 Madison had been prominent in debate, and had 
 spoken with great power and earnestness; but up 
 to this time he had said nothing on the issue now 
 pending. He now remarked that he did not be 
 lieve that the danger apprehended by some really 
 existed, but twice in his speech he admitted that 
 "there is a small possibility, though it is but small, 
 that an officer may derive a weight from this 
 circumstance, and have some degree of influence 
 upon the deliberations of the legislature. " In its 
 practical effect the speech favored the compromise 
 which Fitzsimmons had just proposed; in fact, 
 the only opposition to the change of phrasing 
 now came from a few extremists who still clamored 
 for the omission of the entire clause. The decisive 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 47 
 
 effect of Madison s intervention was a natural 
 consequence of the leadership he had held in the 
 movement for the new Constitution and of his 
 standing as the representative of the new Adminis 
 tration, of his possessing Washington s confidence 
 and acting as his adviser. Washington, then 
 being without a cabinet, had turned to Madison 
 for help in discharging the duties of his office, and 
 at Washington s written request Madison had 
 drafted for him his replies to the addresses of the 
 House and the Senate at the opening of the session. 
 It was a matter of course in such circumstances 
 that the House accepted Fitzsimmons amend 
 ment, "by a great majority," according to the 
 record, and thus the Secretary of the Treasury 
 was shut out of the House and was condemned to 
 work in the lobby. 
 
 The consequences of this decision have been so 
 vast that it is worth while making an inquiry 
 into motive, although the materials upon which 
 judgment must rest are scant. No one can read 
 the record of this discussion without noting that 
 Madison s approval of the original clause was luke 
 warm as compared with the ardor he had shown 
 when the question was whether Washington should 
 be allowed to remove his subordinates. This 
 
48 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 contrast suggests that Madison s behavior was 
 affected by fear of Hamilton s influence. Would it 
 be prudent for him to give Hamilton the advantage 
 of being able to appear in person before the House, 
 and probably to supplant Madison himself as the 
 spokesman of the Administration? Divergence 
 between the two men had already begun in details. 
 At the time the vote on the powers of the Secre 
 tary of the Treasury was taken, the tariff bill and 
 the tonnage bill were still pending, and Hamilton s 
 influence operated against Madison s views on 
 some points. Moreover, the question of the 
 permanent residence of the federal government/ 
 was coming forward and was apparently over 
 shadowing everything else in the minds of mem 
 bers. Ames several times in his correspondence 
 at this period remarks upon Madison s timidity, 
 which was due to his concern about Virginia State 
 politics. Any arrangement that might enable 
 Hamilton to cross swords with an opponent on 
 the floor of the House could not be attractive to 
 Madison, who was a lucid reasoner but not an 
 impressive speaker. Hamilton was both of these, 
 and he possessed an intellectual brilliancy which 
 Madison lacked. Ames, who respected Madi 
 son s abilities and who regarded him as the leading 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 49 
 
 member of the House, wrote that "he speaks 
 low, his person is little and ordinary; he speaks de 
 cently as to manner, and no more; his language is 
 very pure, perspicuous, and to the point. " Why 
 Fitzsimmons should be opposed to the appearance 
 of the Secretary in person in the House, as had been 
 Robert Morris s practice when he was Superintend 
 ent of Finance, is plain enough. Maclay s diary 
 has many references to Fitzsimmons s negotiations 
 with members on tariff rates. It was not to the 
 advantage of private diplomacy to allow the 
 Secretary to shape and define issues on the floor 
 of the House. But Fitzsimmons could not have 
 had his way about the matter without Madison s 
 help. 
 
 Gibbon remarks that the greatest of theological 
 controversies which racked the Roman Empire 
 and affected the peace of millions turned on the 
 question whether a certain word should be spelled 
 with one diphthong or another. A like dispropor 
 tion between the vastness of results and the min 
 uteness of verbal distinction is exhibited in this 
 decision by the House. The change of "report" 
 into "prepare" threw up a ridge in the field of 
 constitutional development that has affected the 
 trend of American politics ever since. This is the 
 
50 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 explanation of a problem of comparative politics 
 that has often excited much wondering notice : why 
 it is that alone among modern representative 
 assemblies the American House of Representatives 
 tends to decline in prestige and authority. The 
 original expectation was that the House of Repre 
 sentatives would take a dominant position like 
 that of the House of Commons, but its degradation 
 began so soon that Fisher Ames noted it as early as 
 1797. Writing to Hamilton he observed: 
 
 "The heads of departments are chief clerks. 
 Instead of being the ministry, the organs of the 
 executive power, and imparting a kind of momen 
 tum to the operation of the laws, they are pre 
 cluded even from communicating with the House 
 
 by reports Committees already are the 
 
 Ministers and while the House indulges a jeal 
 ousy of encroachment in its functions, which 
 are properly deliberative, it does not perceive 
 that these are impaired and nullified by the mon 
 opoly as well as the perversion of information 
 by these committees." 
 
 Justice Story, who entered Congress in 1808 as a 
 Jeffersonian Republican, noted the process of de 
 gradation, and in his Commentaries he pointed out 
 the cause: "The Executive is compelled to resort to 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 51 
 
 secret and unseen influences, to private interviews 
 and private arrangements to accomplish its own 
 appropriate purposes, instead of proposing and 
 sustaining its own duties and measures by a bold 
 and manly appeal to the nation in the face of 
 its representatives." 
 
 The last of the organic acts of the session was 
 the one establishing the judiciary. The student 
 will be disappointed if he examines the record to 
 note whether there was any vision of the ascend 
 ancy which the judiciary was to obtain in the 
 development of the American constitutional sys 
 tem. The debates were almost wholly about 
 the possibilities of conflict between the state 
 and the federal courts. Although Maclay s diary 
 gives a one-sided and distorted account of the 
 proceedings in the Senate, the course of the debate 
 is clear. Ellsworth of Connecticut had principal 
 charge of the bill. At the outset Lee and Gray- 
 son of Virginia made an ineffectual effort to con 
 fine the original jurisdiction of the federal courts to 
 cases, of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and 
 argued that jurisdiction over other cases involving 
 federal law might be conferred upon state courts. 
 This was a point on which there had been some 
 difference of opinion between Hamilton and Madi- 
 
52 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 son. The former held that it was within the com 
 petency of Congress, when instituting tribunals 
 inferior to the Supreme Court, to adopt the state 
 courts for that purpose. Madison held that 
 nothing less than a system of federal courts quite 
 distinct from the state courts would satisfy the 
 requirements of the Constitution. When the 
 bill was taken up in the House, there was along 
 debate over this matter. The costly duplication of 
 judicial establishments that has ever since existed 
 in the United States is certainly not necessary to 
 a federal system, but is an American peculiarity. 
 The advocates of a unified system were hampered 
 by the fact that this view was pressed by some in a 
 spirit of hostility to the Constitution. The decisive 
 argument was the untrustworthiness of the state 
 courts. Madison urged this fact with great force 
 and pointed out that in some of the States the 
 courts "are so dependent on the state legis 
 latures, that to make the federal laws dependent 
 on them, would throw us back into all the em 
 barrassments which characterized our former 
 situation. " Such was the low repute of the state 
 legislatures that the only way in which this argu 
 ment could be met was to argue that "Congress 
 shall have power, in its fullest extent, to correct. 
 
GREAT DECISIONS 53 
 
 reverse, or affirm, any decree of a state court." 
 This high assertion of federal authority was made 
 by Jackson of Georgia in the course of a long legal 
 argument. The debate did not follow sectional 
 lines, and in general it was not unfairly described 
 by Maclay as a lawyer s wrangle. The bill was 
 put into shape by the Senate, and reached the 
 House toward the close of the session when the 
 struggle over the site of the national capital 
 was overshadowing everything else. It was so 
 generally believed that nothing important could 
 be gained by attempts at amendment that, after 
 an airing of opinions, the House accepted the 
 measure just as it had come from the Senate. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MASTER BUILDER 
 
 THE subject of national finance had long inter 
 ested Hamilton. His ideas had been matured 
 by a diligent and minute study of English 
 precedents, and now that his opportunity had 
 come he was ready to grasp it. Soon after he 
 took office, the House resolved that "an adequate 
 provision for the support of the public credit" 
 should be made, and it directed the Secretary of the 
 Treasury "to prepare a plan for that purpose and 
 to report the same to the House at its next meet 
 ing." This was, in effect, a postponement until 
 the second session of the First Congress, which 
 began in January, 1790. In his opening address 
 to Congress, Washington pointedly referred to the 
 public credit resolution which he had noted "with 
 peculiar pleasure." On the next day a letter 
 from Hamilton was read in the House stating that 
 he had prepared his plan and was ready to report 
 
 54 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 55 
 
 the same to the House when they should be pleased 
 to receive it. 
 
 This announcement brought up anew the ques 
 tion in what manner the Secretary should make 
 his report. Gerry was on his feet at once with a 
 motion that it should be made in writing. Boudi- 
 not "hoped that the Secretary of the Treasury 
 might be permitted to make his report in person, 
 in order to answer such inquiries as the members 
 might be disposed to make, for it was a justifiable 
 surmise that gentlemen would not be able clearly 
 to comprehend so intricate a subject without oral 
 illustration. " The allusion to the intricacy of the 
 subject had the effect of turning against the 
 plan of oral communication some who had favored 
 giving the Secretary the same direct access to 
 Congress that the Superintendent of Finance had 
 formerly enjoyed. Ames, for instance, now de 
 sired that the Secretary s communications should 
 be in writing since "in this shape they would obtain 
 a degree of permanency. favorable to the responsi 
 bility of the officer, wlSle, at the same time, they 
 would be less liable to be misunderstood." Ben 
 son suggested that slKce the resolution of Congress 
 had directed the Secretary to make a report, it was 
 left to his discretion to "make it in the manner for 
 
56 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 which he is prepared. " Gerry adroitly countered 
 by saying that the resolution provided for a report. 
 That done, it would be time enough "to give him 
 the right to lay before them his explanations, if 
 he thinks explanations necessary." The debate 
 was brief and one-sided; the motion for receiving 
 the report in writing was adopted without a divi 
 sion. Five days later the written report was laid 
 before the House, but the Secretary was never 
 accorded an opportunity to offer any personal 
 explanations. 
 
 This masterly report, which is justly regarded as 
 the corner-stone of American public credit, excites 
 the admiration of the reader by the clearness of its 
 analysis, the cogency of its argument, and the 
 broad range of its vision. The principles of action 
 that it embodied, however, were few and simple, 
 chief among them being exact and punctual ful 
 fillment of contract. "States, like individuals, 
 who observe their engagements, are respected and 
 trusted; while the reverse is the fate of those who 
 pursue an opposite conduct." To discharge 
 the principal of the public debt was of course 
 impracticable; nor was it desirable, as the creditors 
 would be well pleased to leave it at interest. * In 
 cidentally the funding of the debt would provide 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 57 
 
 securities that would serve trade as a species of 
 currency, and would set in motion a long train of 
 benefits that would extend throughout the com 
 munity. In the funding operation the debts con 
 tracted by the States should be included. As to 
 this Hamilton remarked: "The general princi 
 ple of it seems to be equitable, for it seems 
 difficult to conceive a good reason why the ex 
 penses for the particular defense of a part in a 
 common war should not be a common charge, as 
 well as those incurred professedly for the gen 
 eral defense. The defense of each part is that 
 of the whole; and unless the expenditures are 
 brought into a common mass, the tendency must be 
 to add to the calamities suffered by being the most 
 exposed to the ravages of war and increase of 
 burthens." / 
 
 Hamilton computed the amount of the foreign 
 debt, principal and arrears, at $11,710,378.62; 
 the domestic debt, including that of the States, 
 at $42,414,085.94, a total of over fifty-four 
 millions with an annual interest charge at existing 
 rates amounting to $4,587,444.81, a staggering 
 total for a nation whose revenue was then insuffi 
 cient to meet its current expenses. Nevertheless 
 Hamilton refused to admit that "such a provision 
 
58 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 would exceed the abilities of the country," but 
 he was "clearly of the opinion that to make it 
 would require the extension of taxation to a degree 
 and to objects which the true interest of the public 
 creditor forbids." He therefore favored a com 
 position, in arranging which there would be strict 
 adherence to the principle "that no change in the 
 rights of creditors ought to be attempted without 
 their voluntary consent; and that this consent 
 ought to be voluntary in fact as well as in name." 
 It followed that "every proposal of a change ought 
 to be in the shape of an appeal to their interests; 
 but not to their necessities. " Hamilton then went 
 into details of a funding loan, in which various 
 options were offered to the creditors, including 
 land grants in part payment, and conversion in 
 whole or in part into annuities, several sorts of 
 which were offered. He submitted estimates of 
 how the various plans would work out in practice, 
 and he concluded that the annual revenue which 
 would be required to enable the government to 
 meet its obligations under the scheme and also 
 to maintain its current service would amount to 
 $2,239,163.09, a sum that could be readily pro 
 vided. 
 
 There could not have been a more striking 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 59 
 
 contrast than there was between the humiliat 
 ing conditions which actually existed and the 
 grand results which Hamilton designed and con 
 fidently expected. The ardent and hopeful tone 
 of his plan, conceived in apparently desperate 
 circumstances, is very marked. He declared: 
 "It cannot but merit particular attention that 
 among ourselves the most enlightened friends 
 of good government are those whose expecta 
 tions are the highest. To justify and preserve 
 their confidence; to promote the increasing 
 respectability of the American name; to answer 
 the calls of justice; to restore landed property 
 to its due value; to furnish new resources both 
 to agriculture and commerce; to cement more 
 closely the union of the States; to add to their 
 security against foreign attack; to establish pub 
 lic order on the basis of a liberal and upright 
 policy these are the great and invaluable ends 
 to be secured by a proper and adequate pro 
 vision at the present period for the support of 
 public credit. " 
 
 All these great objects were indeed attained, 
 but Hamilton s anticipation of them was at the 
 time regarded as either a pretext made to cajole 
 Congress or else merely an ebullition from his own 
 
60 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 sanguine nature not to be taken too seriously by 
 sensible people. Senator Maclay of Pennsylvania 
 regarded Hamilton s plans as wildly extravagant 
 in their conception and iniquitous in their practical 
 effect. In his opinion, Hamilton had "a very boy 
 ish, giddy manner, and Scotch-Irish people could 
 well call him a skite." Jackson of Georgia 
 exposed to the House the folly of Hamilton s pro 
 posals by pointing out that a funded debt meant 
 national decay. He mentioned England as "a 
 melancholy instance of the ruin attending such 
 engagements." To such a pitch had the "spirit 
 of funding and borrowing been carried in that 
 country" that its national debt was now "a 
 burthen which the most sanguine mind can never 
 contemplate they will ever be relieved from." 
 France also was "considerably enfeebled and 
 languishes under a heavy load of debt." He 
 argued that by funding the debt in America "the 
 same effect must be produced that has taken place 
 in other nations; it must either bring on national 
 bankruptcy, or annihilate her existence as an 
 independent empire. " y 
 
 Such dismal prognostications on the very eve of 
 the Napoleonic era, with its tremendous revelations 
 of national power, were quite common at that time. 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 61 
 
 The long rambling debate that took place in the 
 House when Hamilton s report was taken up for 
 consideration abounds with similar instances of 
 shortsightedness. Many members did not scruple 
 to advise repudiation, in whole or in part. Liver- 
 more of New Hampshire admitted that the foreign 
 debt should be provided for, since it was "lent to 
 the United States in real coin, by disinterested 
 persons, not concerned or benefited by the revo 
 lution," but that the domestic debt was "for 
 depreciated paper, or services done at exorbitant 
 rates, or for goods or provisions supplied at more 
 than their real worth, by those who received all the 
 benefits arising from our change of condition." 
 True, Congress had pledged its faith to the redemp 
 tion of issues at their face value, "but this was 
 done on a principle of policy, in order to prevent 
 the rapid depreciation which was taking place." 
 He argued that "money lent in this depreciated 
 and depreciating state can hardly be said to be 
 lent from a spirit of patriotism; it was a mere 
 speculation in public securities. " 
 
 The distinction between the foreign debt and 
 the domestic was seized by many members as 
 providing a just basis for discrimination. Page of 
 Virginia observed that "our citizens were deeply 
 
62 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 interested, and, I believe, if they were never to get 
 a farthing for what is owing to them for their 
 services, they would be well paid; they have gained 
 what they aimed at; they have secured their 
 liberties and their laws; they will be satisfied that 
 this House has pledged itself to pay foreigners 
 the generous loans they advanced to us in the day 
 of distress. " In the course of the debate the power 
 to do was so often mentioned as implying the right 
 to do that Ames was moved to remark: "I have 
 heard that in the East Indies the stock of the 
 labor and the property of the empire is the pro 
 perty of the Prince; that it is held at his will and 
 pleasure; but this is a slavish doctrine, which I 
 hope we are not prepared to adopt here." As a 
 matter of fact, there had already been extensive 
 scaling of the debt, and the note emissions had 
 been pretty nearly wiped out. To save the public 
 credit from complete collapse, the Continental 
 Congress had entered into definite contracts under 
 the most solemn pledges, and it was upon this 
 select class of securities that it was now proposed 
 to start anew the process of repudiation. But 
 public opinion displayed itself so hostile to such 
 perfidy that the party of repudiation in Congress 
 soon dwindled to insignificance and the struggle 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 63 
 
 finally settled upon two issues, discrimination and 
 assumption. 
 
 Weeks of debate ensued, and the deepest impres 
 sion made by a careful perusal of the record is the 
 inability of members to appreciate the importance 
 of the issues. Much of the tedious and pointless 
 character of their speeches may be ascribed to the 
 lack of the personal presence of the Secretary. 
 There being nothing to focus the debate and 
 exclude the fictitious and irrelevant, it rambled 
 in any direction a speaker s fancy might suggest. 
 Moreover, its quality was impaired because any 
 consideration of motive was of the nature of talk 
 ing about a man behind his back and this, every 
 one knows, is very different from saying things to 
 his face. Assertions and innuendos which would 
 hardly have been hazarded had Hamilton been 
 present, or which, had they been made, would have 
 been forthwith met and refuted, were indulged 
 in without restraint. Although one of the reasons 
 given for requiring a written report was that the 
 House would be the better informed, the debate 
 does not indicate that the arguments by which 
 Hamilton had vindicated his proposals had really 
 been apprehended. 
 
 The question whether or not any discrimination 
 
64 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 could be made between original holders of the 
 public securities and those who had acquired them 
 by purchase was considered at length by Hamilton 
 in his report. The ^ftic securities had been at 
 such a heavy discount mat now, if they were to be 
 met at face value, speculators would reap large 
 profits. Hamilton put the case of the opposition 
 as strongly as possible. It might be urged that it 
 was unreasonable "to pay twenty shillings in the 
 pound to one who had not given more for it than 
 three or four; and it is added that it would be 
 hard to aggravate the misfortune of the first owner, 
 who, probably through necessity, parted with his 
 property at so great a loss, by obliging him to 
 contribute to the profit of the person who had 
 speculated on his distresses. " Nevertheless, Ham 
 ilton submitted considerations showing that dis 
 crimination would be "equally unjust and 
 impolitic, as highly injurious even to the original 
 holders of public securities, as ruinous to public 
 credit." It is unnecessary to repeat the lucid 
 argument by which Hamilton demonstrated the 
 soundness of his position, for security of transfer 
 is now well understood to be an essential element 
 of public credit; but the special point of interest 
 is that the debate simply ignored Hamilton s 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 65 
 
 argument and rambled along over the superficial 
 aspects of the case, dwelling upon the sorrows 
 of those who had parted with their holdings, and 
 exhibiting their situation as the most important 
 matter to be considered. 
 
 Madison was most active in making that branch 
 of the case the leading issue, and in a series of 
 elaborate speeches which cannot now be read 
 without regret, he urged that the present holders 
 should be allowed only the highest market price 
 previously recorded, and that the residue should 
 go to the original holders. Boudinot at once 
 pointed out that there was nothing on record to 
 show who might be an original bona fide holder. 
 Great quantities of the certificates of indebtedness 
 had, as a mere matter of convenience, been issued 
 to government clerks who afterwards distributed 
 them among those who furnished supplies to the 
 government or who performed services entitling 
 them to pay. He mentioned that he himself 
 appeared on the record as original holder in cases 
 wherein he had really acted in behalf of his neigh 
 bors to relieve them of the trouble of personal 
 appearance. Madison s proposition would there 
 fore invest him with a legal title to property which 
 really belonged to others. But this and other 
 
66 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 evidence of the real effect of Madison s proposal 
 failed to move him, further than to cause him to 
 declare that "all that he wished was that the claims 
 of the original holders, not less than those of the 
 actual holders, should be fairly examined and 
 justly decided." Finally Benson of New York 
 gave him a shrewd home thrust that plainly 
 embarrassed him. He put the question whether, 
 if he had purchased a certificate from Madison, 
 and the Treasury withheld part of the amount for 
 Madison as the original holder, Madison would 
 keep the money? "I ask, " said Benson, "whether 
 he would take advantage of the law against me, 
 and refuse to give me authority to take it up 
 in his name?" Madison evaded the query by 
 saying that everything would depend upon the 
 circumstances of any particular case, and that 
 circumstances were conceivable in which the 
 most tender conscience need not refrain from 
 taking the benefit of what the government had 
 determined. 
 
 The debate on Madison s discrimination amend 
 ment lasted from the eleventh to the twenty-second 
 day of February Washington s birthday. The 
 House did honor to the day when it rejected 
 Madison s motion by the crushing vote of 36 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 67 
 
 to 13. With that, his pretensions to the leader 
 ship of the House quite disappeared. 
 
 The^assump tion_of^state_debts^ was the subject 
 of a debate in committee of the whole which lasted 
 from the twenty-third of February to the second 
 of March. New factional lines now revealed a 
 supposed diversity of interest of the several States. 
 The false notions of finance then current were 
 illustrated by an argument that was in continual 
 use, either on the floor or in the lobby. Members 
 would figure how much their States would have to 
 pay as their share of the debt that would be as 
 sumed, and on that basis would reach conclusions 
 as to how their States stood to win or lose by the 
 transaction. By this reckoning, of course, the 
 great gainer would appear to be the State upon 
 whom the chances of war had piled the largest 
 debt. This calculation made Burke of South 
 Carolina, usually an opponent of anything coming 
 from Hamilton, a strong advocate of assumption. 
 He told the House that "if the present question 
 was lost, he was almost certain it would end in her 
 bankruptcy, for she [South Carolina] was no more 
 able to grapple with her enormous debt than a boy 
 of twelve years of age is able to grapple with a 
 giant." Livermore, representing a State never 
 
68 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 within the actual field of military operations, at 
 once replied: "I conceive that the debt of South 
 Carolina, or Massachusetts, or of an individual, has 
 nothing to do with our deliberations. If they have 
 involved themselves in debt, it is their misfortune, 
 and they must extricate themselves as well as 
 they can." On a later occasion Stone of Mary 
 land, another State that lay outside the track of 
 war, gave the leading war-debt States an admoni 
 tion of the kind that adds insult to injury, saying 
 "however inconvenient it may be to Massachusetts 
 or South Carolina to make a bold exertion, and 
 nobly bear the burthens of their present debt, I 
 believe in the end it would be found to conduce 
 greatly to their advantage." Burke made a 
 crushing rejoinder. "Was Maryland like South 
 Carolina constantly grappling with the enemy dur 
 ing the whole war? There is not a road in the 
 State but has witnessed the ravages of war; plan 
 tations were destroyed, and the skeletons of houses, 
 to this day, point out to the traveler the route 
 of the British army; her citizens were exposed to 
 every violence, their capital taken, and their 
 country almost overrun by the enemy; men, 
 women, and children murdered by the Indians and 
 Tories; all the personal property consumed, and 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 69 
 
 now is it to be wondered at that she is not able to 
 make exertions equal with other States, who have 
 been generally in an undisturbed condition?" 
 
 The argument pressed by the advocates of 
 assumption was that the state debts contracted 
 during the Revolutionary War were for the com 
 mon defense, and that, unless these were assumed 
 by the general government, the adoption of the 
 new Constitution would do injury by withdrawing 
 revenue resources which the States had formerly 
 possessed. This position at the present day seems 
 reasonable enough, but it is certain that at that 
 time people worked themselves into a genuine rage 
 over the matter and were able to persuade them 
 selves into a sincere belief that it was outrageous 
 the unfortunate States should expect the others 
 to bear their troubles, and that Hamilton was a 
 great rogue for proposing such a scheme. Writing 
 in his private diary, Maclay characterized the plan 
 as "a monument of political absurdity," and 
 he was in the habit of referring to Hamilton s 
 supporters as his "gladiators" and as a "corrupt 
 squadron. *] 
 
 j ^On the whole the records make painful reading. 
 The prevailing tone of public life was one of dull 
 and narrow provincialism, at times thickening 
 
70 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 into stupidity, at times sharpening into spite, 
 although ordinarily made respectable by a serious 
 attitude to life and by a stolid fortitude in facing 
 whatever the distracted times might present. It 
 was the influence of a few great men that made 
 America a nation. If one is not subject to the 
 spirit of ancestor worship that has long ruled 
 American history, one is bound to say that/ 
 apart from some forceful pamphleteering of 
 transient purpose the voluminous political lit- 
 v erature of the formative period displays much 
 A) pedantic erudition but has little that goes really 
 Y deep. )The Federalist, the artillery of a hard 
 fought battle, is a striking exception. So, too, is 
 the series of reports by Hamilton. But his plans 
 could not prevail by force of reason against the 
 general spirit of selfish particularism. Although 
 on March 2 a motion adverse to assumption in 
 committee of the whole was defeated by a vote of 
 28 to 22, it was then known that a majority could 
 not be procured for enactment, and on April 12 
 the assumption bill was defeated outright in the 
 House, 31 to 29. Maclay, who went over to the 
 House from the Senate to witness the event, gloated 
 over the defeat in his diary: 
 
 "Sedgwick, from Boston, pronounced a funeral 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 71 
 
 oration over it. He was called to order; some 
 confusion ensued; he took his hat and went out. 
 When he returned, his visage bore the visible 
 marks of weeping. Fitzsimmons reddened like 
 scarlet; his eyes were brimful. Clymer s color, 
 always pale, now merged to a deadly white; his lips 
 quivered, and his nether jaw shook with convulsive 
 motions; his head, neck, and breast contracted 
 with gesticulations resembling those of a turkey or 
 goose nearly strangled in the act of deglutition. 
 Benson bungled like a shoemaker who has lost his 
 end. . . . Wads worth hid his grief under the rim 
 of a round hat. Boudinot s wrinkles rose in 
 ridges and the angles of his mouth were depressed 
 and assumed a curve resembling a horse s shoe." 
 The defeat did not discourage Hamilton. He 
 had successfully handled a more difficult situation 
 in getting New York to ratify the Constitution, 
 and, resorting now to the same means he had then 
 employed, he used pressure of interest to move 
 those who could not be stirred by reason. The 
 intense concern felt by members in the choice 
 of the site of the national capital supplied him 
 with, the leverage which he brought to bear on the 
 situation. Most of the members were more 
 stirred by that question than by any other before 
 
72 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 Congress. It was a prominent topic in Madison s 
 correspondence from the time the Constitution 
 was adopted. Maclay s diary abounds with 
 references to the subject. Some of his bitterest 
 sentences are penned about the conduct of those 
 who preferred some other site to that on the 
 Susquehanna River which he knew to be the best 
 because he lived there himself. Bargaining among 
 the members as to the selection had been going on 
 almost from the first. As early as April 26, 1789, 
 before Washington had been installed in his office, 
 Maclay mentions a meeting "to concert some 
 measures for the removal of Congress. " There-, 
 after notices of pending deals appear frequently 
 in his diary. After the defeat of the assumption 
 bill, the diary notes the activity of Hamilton in 
 this matter. An entry of June 14, 1790, ascribes 
 to Robert Morris the statement that "Hamilton 
 said he wanted one vote in the Senate and five in 
 the House of Representatives; that he was willing 
 and would agree to place the permanent residence 
 of Congress at Germantown or Falls of the Dela 
 ware (Trenton), if he would procure him those 
 votes." Although definite knowledge is un 
 attainable, one gets the impression, in following 
 the devious course of these intrigues, that had 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 73 
 
 Pennsylvania interests been united they could 
 have decided the site of the national capital; but 
 the delegation was divided over the relative merits 
 of the Delaware and the Susquehanna as well as 
 on the question of assumption. Hamilton s efforts 
 in this quarter were ineffectual, and the winning 
 combination was finally arranged elsewhere and 
 otherwise by the aid of Jefferson. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson was at this time forty-seven 
 years old, and owing both to seniority and to the 
 distinguished positions he had held, he ranked as 
 the most illustrious member of the Administration. 
 His correspondence at this period shows that he 
 was fully aware of the importance of the crisis, 
 and he did not overrate it when he wrote to James 
 Monroe, June 20, 1790, that, unless the measures 
 of the Administration were successful, "our credit 
 will burst and vanish, and the States separate to 
 take care everyone of itself." In this letter 
 Jefferson outlined the compromise that was actu 
 ally adopted by Congress. The strongest opposi 
 tion to the assumption bill had come from Virginia,, 
 although Maryland, Georgia, and New Hamp 
 shire also opposed it, and the Middle States were 
 divided. Jefferson was able to get enough South 
 ern votes to carry assumption in return for enough 
 
74 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 votes from Hamilton s adherents to carry the 
 Potomac site. An agreement was reached at a 
 dinner given by Jefferson to which he invited Ham 
 ilton and Madison. According to this arrange 
 ment, the capital was to remain in Philadelphia for 
 ten years and after that to be on the Potomac River 
 in a district ten miles square to be selected by the 
 President. The residence act was approved July 
 16, 1790; the funding and assumption measures, 
 now combined in one bill, became law on Au 
 gust 4u 
 
 After Jefferson turned against the Administra 
 tion, his participation in the passage of the 
 assumption bill was such an awkward circum 
 stance that he discredited his own intelligence 
 by professing that he "was most ignorantly and 
 innocently made to hold the candle" to Hamil 
 ton s "game." In_ reality the public service 
 Jefferson then performed was the most useful in all 
 his long and fruitful career. But for this action, 
 the Declaration of Independence, to the drafting of 
 which he owes his greatest fame, might now be 
 figuring among the historical documents of lost 
 causes, like similar elaborate statements of princi 
 ple made during the Commonwealth period in Eng 
 land. Had the national forces failed at the critical 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 75 
 
 period of financial organization, and the States, 
 bankrupt by the revolutionary struggle, been left 
 in the lurch, the republic would have followed the 
 usual course of disintegration displayed by feder 
 ations from the time of the Greek amphictyonies 
 down to that of the Holy Roman Empire. 
 
 The charge was made soon after Hamilton s 
 victory that it was largely due to the influence of 
 speculators. The advance in the market value of 
 securities produced by Hamilton s measures cer 
 tainly gave an opportunity to speculators of which 
 they availed themselves with the unscrupulous 
 activity characteristic of the sordid tribe. Jeffer 
 son has left an account of "the base scramble." 
 "Couriers and relay horses by land, and swift 
 sailing pilot boats by sea, were flying in all direc 
 tions. Active partners and agents were associated 
 and employed in every state, town, and country 
 neighborhood, and this paper was bought up at 
 five shillings, and even as low as two shillings in the 
 pound, before the holder knew that Congress had 
 already provided for its assumption at par. Im 
 mense sums were thus filched from the poor and 
 ignorant, and fortunes accumulated by those who 
 had themselves been poor enough before. " 
 
 This account is highly colored. The struggle 
 
76 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 was too close, and the issue was long too doubtful, 
 to admit of speculative preparations extending to 
 every "town and country neighborhood." If 
 speculation took place on such a large scale, it must 
 have been also taking risks on a large scale, for 
 assumption was not assured until Jefferson 
 himself put his shoulder to the wheel. The lack 
 of means for prompt diffusion of intelligence 
 naturally provided large opportunity for specula 
 tion by those in a position to keep well-informed, 
 and undoubtedly large profits were made; but the 
 circumstances were such tjiat it seems most prob 
 able that profits were less than market opportu 
 nities would have allowed had not the issue been 
 so long in doubt. Nevertheless there was much 
 speculative activity, and the charge was soon made 
 that it extended into Congress. x 
 
 1 This charge was put forth by John Taylor in pamphlets printed in 
 1793 and 1794, in which he reviewed the financial policy of the Adminis 
 tration and gave a list of Congressmen who had invested in the public 
 funds. The facts on which this charge rests have been collected and 
 examined by Professor Beard in his Economic Origins of Jeffersonian 
 Democracy. His analysis shows that out of sixty-four members of the 
 House, twenty-nine were security holders, and of these twenty-one 
 voted for and eight voted against assumption. But the facts dis 
 closed do not sustain his theory that the issue was essentially a con 
 flict between capitalism and agrarianism. The assumption bill was 
 lifted to its place on the statute book through the leverage exerted by 
 Hamilton and Jefferson, with Washington s prestige as their fulcrum. 
 The characters of these three men resist schemes of classification 
 
THE MASTER BUILDER 77 
 
 The passage of assumption was the turning point. 
 Other important measures followed, but none of 
 them met with difficulties which the Administra 
 tion could not overcome by ordinary methods of 
 persuasion and appeal. A national bank was 
 authorized by an act approved on February 25, 
 1791. Hamilton s famous report on manu 
 factures, a masterly analysis of the sources of 
 national wealth and of the means of improving 
 them, was sent to Congress on December 5, 1791. 
 Upon his recommendation Congress established 
 the mint, the only point, which excited controversy 
 being Hamilton s proposal that the coins should be 
 stamped with the head of the President in whose 
 administration they were issued. This suggestion 
 was rejected on the ground that it smacked too 
 much of the practice of monarchies. The queer 
 totemistic designs of American coinage are a 
 consequence of this decision. 
 
 The formation of national government by 
 voluntary agreement is a unique event. The 
 
 according to economic interest. The principal value of analysis of 
 the economic elements of the struggle is to protect from undervalu 
 ation the motives that actuated the opposition to Hamilton s meas 
 ures. The historian has the advantage of a perspective denied to 
 participants in events, and this fact is apt to turn unduly to the 
 discredit of lost causes. 
 
78 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 explanation of this peculiar result in the case of 
 America is the unifying influence of Hamilton s 
 measures. They interested in the support of the 
 government economic forces strong enough to 
 counteract the separatist tendencies that had 
 always before broken up states unless they were 
 held together by sheer might of power in their 
 rulers. The means employed have been cited as 
 evidence in support of the economic interpretation 
 of history now in fashion. Government, it is 
 true, like every other form of life, must meet the 
 fundamental needs of subsistence and defense, 
 but this truism supplies no explanation of the 
 particular mode of doing so that may be adopted. 
 Those needs account for motion but not for direc-. 
 tion. Human will, discernment, and purpose enter 
 and complicate the situation in a way that makes 
 theories of determinism appear absurd. No one 
 has ever contended that Hamilton was prompted 
 by an economic motive in giving up his law prac 
 tice to accept public office. He did so against the 
 remonstrances of his friends, whose predictions 
 that what he would get out of it for himself would 
 be calumny, persecution, and loss of fortune, were 
 all fully verified; but he possessed a nature which 
 found its happiness in bringing high ideals to grand 
 

 THE MASTER BUILDER 79 
 
 fulfillment, and in applying his powers to that 
 object he let everything else go. Hamilton s 
 career is one of the greatest of those facts that 
 baffle attempts to reduce history to an exhibition 
 of the play of economic forces. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 
 
 THE Shakespearian stage direction which heads 
 this chapter appropriately describes the course 
 of administrative experience while Washington 
 was trying to get from Congress the means of 
 sustaining the responsibilities with which he was 
 charged by his office. Events did not stand still 
 because for a time anything like national govern 
 ment had ceased. Before Washington left Mount 
 Vernon he had been disquieted by reports of Indian 
 troubles in the West, and of intrigues by Great 
 Britain which still retained posts that according 
 to the treaty of peace belonged to the United 
 States, and by Spain which held the lower 
 Mississippi. Washington applied himself to these 
 matters as soon as he was well in office, but he was 
 much hindered in his arrangements by apathy or 
 indifference in Congress. He noted in his diary 
 for May 1, 1790, communications made to him of a 
 
 80 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 81 
 
 disposition among members of Congress "to pay 
 little attention to the Western country because 
 they were of the opinion it would soon shake off its 
 dependence on this, and in the meantime would be 
 burdensome to it. " From a letter of Gen. Rufus 
 Putnam, one of the organizers of the Ohio com 
 pany, it appears that in July, 1789, Ames of 
 Massachusetts put these queries to him: "Can 
 we retain the western country with the govern 
 ment of the United States? And if we can, what 
 use will it be to them?" Putnam wrote a labored 
 article to the effect that it was both feasible and 
 desirable to hold the West, but the character of 
 his arguments shows that there was then a poor 
 prospect of success. At that time no one could 
 have anticipated the Napoleonic wars which ended 
 all European competition for the possession of the 
 Mississippi valley, and, as it were* tossed that 
 region into the hands of the United States. There 
 was strong opposition in Congress to pursuing 
 any course that would require maintenance of an 
 army or navy. Some held that it was a great mis 
 take to have a war department, and that there 
 would be time enough to create one in case war 
 should actually arrive. f , 
 
 In a message to the Senate, August 7, 1789, 
 
82 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 Washington had urged the importance of "some 
 uniform and effective system for the militia of the 
 United States," saying that he was "particularly 
 anxious" it should receive early attention. On 
 January 18, 1790, General Knox submitted to 
 Congress a plan to which there are frequent refer 
 ences in Washington s diary, showing the special 
 interest he took in the subject. The report laid 
 down principles which have long since been em 
 braced by European nations, but which have just 
 recently been recognized by the United States. It 
 asserts: "That it is the indispensable duty of every 
 nation to establish all necessary institutions for its 
 protection and defense; that it is a capital security 
 to a free state for the great body of the people to 
 possess a competent knowledge of the military art; 
 that every man of the proper age and ability of 
 body is firmly bound by the social compact to 
 perform, personally, his proportion of military duty 
 for the defense of the State; that all men of the 
 legal military age should be armed, enrolled, and 
 held responsible for different degrees of military 
 service." In furtherance of these principles a 
 scheme was submitted providing for military service 
 by the citizens of the United States beginning at 
 eighteen years of age and terminating at sixty. 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 83 
 
 The response of Congress was the Act of April 
 30, 1790, authorizing a military establishment 
 "to the number of one thousand two hundred and 
 sixteen non-commissioned officers, privates, and 
 musicians," with permission to the President to 
 call State Militia into service if need be, "in protect 
 ing the inhabitants of the frontiers." Washing 
 ton, in noting in his diary his approval of the 
 act, observed that it was not "adequate to the 
 exigencies of the government and the protection it 
 is intended to afford. " 
 
 The Indian troubles in the Southwest were made 
 particularly serious by the ability of the head-chief 
 of the Creek nation, Alexander McGillivray, 
 the authentic facts of whose career might seem too 
 wildly improbable even for the uses of melodrama. 
 His grandmother was a full-blooded Creek of high 
 standing in the nation. She had a daughter by 
 Captain Marchand, a French officer. This daugh 
 ter, who is described as a bewitching beauty, 
 was taken to wife by Lachland McGillivray, a 
 Scotchman engaged in the Indian trade. A son 
 was born who, at the age of ten, was sent by his 
 father to Charleston to be educated, where he 
 remained nearly seven years receiving instruction 
 both in English and Latin. This son, Alexander, 
 
84 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 was intended by his father for civilized life, and 
 when he was seventeen he was placed with a busi 
 ness house in Savannah. During the Revolution 
 ary War the father took the Tory side and his 
 property was confiscated. The son took refuge 
 with his Indian kinsfolk, and acquired in their 
 councils an ascendancy which also extended to the 
 Seniinole tribe. His position and influence made 
 his favor an important object with all powers 
 having American interests. During the war the 
 British conferred upon him the rank and pay of a 
 colonel. In 1784, as the representative of the 
 Creek and Seminole nations, he formed a treaty 
 of alliance with Spain, by the terms of which he 
 became a Spanish commissary with the rank and 
 pay of a colonel. 
 
 Against the State of Georgia, the Creek nation 
 had grievances which McGillivray was able to 
 voice with a vigor and an eloquence that compelled 
 attention. It was the old story, so often repeated 
 in American history, of encroachments upon 
 Indian territory. Attempts at negotiation had 
 been made by the old government, and these were 
 now renewed by Washington with no better result. 
 McGillivray met the commissioners, but left on 
 finding that they had no intention of restoring the 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 85 
 
 Indian lands that had been taken. A formidable 
 Indian war seemed imminent, but Washington, 
 whose own frontier experience made him well 
 versed in Indian affairs, judged correctly that the 
 way to handle the situation was to induce McGilli- 
 vray to come to New York, though, as he noted in 
 his diary, the matter must be so managed that 
 the "government might not appear to be an agent 
 in it, or suffer in its dignity if the attempt to get 
 him here should not succeed. " With his habitual 
 caution, Washington considered the point whether 
 he could send out an agent without consulting the 
 Senate on the appointment, and he instructed 
 General Knox "to take the opinion of the Chief 
 Justice of the United States and the Secretary of 
 the Treasury." The assurances obtained were 
 such that Washington selected an experienced 
 frontier commander, Colonel Marinus Willett of 
 Xew York, and impressed upon him the im 
 portance of bringing the Indian chiefs to Xew 
 York, pointing out "the arguments justifiable for 
 him to use to effect this, with such lures as re 
 spected McGillivray personally, and might be held 
 out to them. " 
 
 Colonel Willett was altogether successful, though 
 the inducements he offered were probably aided 
 
86 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 by McGillivray s desire to visit New York 
 and meet General Washington. Other chiefs 
 accompanied him, and on their way they received 
 many official attentions. An incident which 
 occurred at Guilford Court House, South Carolina, 
 displays McGillivray s character in a kindly light. 
 A woman whose husband had been killed by Creek 
 Indians and who with her children had been made 
 captive, visited McGillivray to thank him for effect 
 ing their release, and it was disclosed that he had 
 since that time been contributing to the support of 
 the family. At New York, the recently organized 
 Tammany Society turned out in costumes sup 
 posed to represent Indian attire and escorted the 
 visiting chiefs to Federal Hall. Eventually Wash 
 ington himself went to Federal Hall in his coach 
 of state and in all the trappings of official dignity, 
 to sign the treaty concluded with the Indians. 
 The treaty, which laid down the pattern subse 
 quently followed by the government in its dealings 
 with the Indians, recognized the claims of the 
 Creek nation to part of the territory it claimed, 
 and gave compensation for the part it relinquished 
 by an annuity of fifteen hundred dollars for the 
 tribe, and an annuity of one hundred dollars for 
 each of the principal chiefs. 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 87 
 
 For his part in the transaction McGillivray was 
 commissioned an agent of the United States with 
 the rank of brigadier-general, a position which he 
 sustained with dignity. He was six feet tall, spare 
 in frame, erect in carriage. His eyes were large, 
 dark, and piercing; his forehead, wider at the top 
 than just above the eyes, was so high and broad 
 as to be almost bulging. When he was a British 
 colonel, he wore the uniform of that rank; when in 
 the Spanish service, he wore the military dress of 
 that country; and after Washington appointed him 
 a brigadier-general he sometimes wore the uniform 
 of the American army, but never in the presence of 
 Spaniards. In different parts of his dominions 
 he had good houses where he practised generous 
 hospitality. His influence was shaken by his 
 various political alliances, and before he died in 
 1793 he had lost much of his authority. 
 
 In the course of these negotiations Washington 
 had an experience with the Senate which there 
 after affected his official behavior. The debates 
 of the constitutional convention indicated an ex 
 pectation that the Senate would act as a privy 
 council to the President; and Washington 
 intent above all things on doing his duty tried 
 to treat it as such. In company with General 
 
88 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 Knox he went to the Senate chamber, prepared 
 to explain his negotiations with the Indian 
 chiefs, but he forthwith experienced the truth 
 of the proverb that although you may lead a 
 horse to water you cannot make him drink. In 
 his diary for August 22, 1789, Maclay gave a 
 characteristic account of the scene. Washington 
 presided, taking the Vice-President s chair. "He 
 rose and told us bluntly that he had called on us 
 for our advice and consent to some propositions 
 respecting the treaty to be held with the Southern 
 Indians. Said he had brought General Knox 
 with him who was well acquainted with the busi 
 ness." A statement was read giving a schedule 
 of the propositions on which the advice of the 
 Senate was asked. Maclay relates that he called 
 for the reading of the treaties and other documents 
 referred to in the statement. "I cast an eye 
 at the President of the United States. I saw he 
 wore an aspect of stern displeasure. " There was a 
 manifest reluctance of the Senate to proceed with 
 the matter in the President s presence, and finally 
 a motion was made to refer the business to a com 
 mittee of five. A sharp debate followed in which 
 "the President of the United States started up in 
 a violent fret. This defeats every purpose of my 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 91 
 
 coming here were the first words that he Sc. f 
 He then went on to say that he had brought his 
 Secretary of War with him to give any necessary 
 information; that the Secretary knew all about the 
 business, and yet he was delayed and could not 
 go on with the matter. " The situation evidently 
 became strained. Maclay relates: "A pause for 
 some time ensued. We waited for him to with 
 draw. He did so with a discontented air. " 
 
 The privy council function of the Senate was 
 thus in effect abolished by its own action. There 
 after the President had practically no choice 
 save to conclude matters subject to subsequent 
 ratification by the Senate. It soon became the 
 practice of the Senate to restrict the President s 
 power of appointment by conditioning it upon the 
 approval of the Senators from the State in which an 
 appointment was made. The clause providing for 
 the advice and consent of the Senate was among 
 the changes made in the original draft to con 
 ciliate the small States^ but it was not supposed 
 that the practical effect would be to allow Senators 
 to dictate appointments. It was observed in the 
 Federalist s^ "there will be no exertion of choice 
 on the part of Senators. " Nevertheless there was 
 some uneasiness on the point. In a letter of May 
 
88 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 Kn^ 1789, Ames remarked that "the meddling of 
 the Senate in appointments is one of the least 
 defensible parts of the Constitution," and with 
 prophetic insight he foretold that "the number 
 of the Senators, the secrecy of their doings, would 
 shelter them, and a corrupt connection between 
 those who appoint to office and the officers them 
 selves would be created. " 
 
 Washington had to submit to senatorial dic 
 tation almost at the outset of his administration, 
 the Senate refusing to confirm his nomination of 
 Benjamin Fishbourn for the place of naval officer 
 at Savannah. The only details to be had about 
 this affair are those given in a special message 
 of August 6, 1789, from which it appears that 
 Washington was not notified of the grounds of the 
 Senate s objection. He defended his selection on 
 the ground that Fishbourn had a meritorious 
 record as an army officer, had held distinguished 
 positions in the state government of Georgia 
 which testified public confidence, and moreover 
 was actually holding, by virtue of state appoint 
 ment, an office similar to that to which Washington 
 desired to appoint him. The appointment was, 
 in fact, no more than the transfer to the federal 
 service of an official of approved administrative 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 91 
 
 experience, and was of such manifest propriety 
 that it seems most likely that the rejection was 
 due to local political intrigue using the Georgia 
 Senators as its tool. The office went to Lachlan 
 Mclntosh, who was a prominent Georgia politician. 
 Over ten years before he had killed in a duel Button 
 Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Indepen 
 dence. Gwinnett was the challenger and Mc 
 lntosh was badly wounded in the duel, but the 
 affair caused a feud that long disturbed Georgia 
 politics, and through the agency of the Senate it 
 was able to reach and annoy the President of 
 the United States. 
 
 At the time when Washington was inaugurated 
 both North Carolina and Rhode Island were out 
 side the Union. The national government was 
 a new and doubtful enterprise, remote from and 
 unfamiliar to the mass of the people. To turn 
 their thoughts toward the new Administration it 
 seemed to be good policy for Washington to make 
 tours. The notes made by Washington in his 
 diary indicate that the project was his own notion, 
 but both Hamilton and Knox cordially approved 
 it and Madison "saw no impropriety" in it. 
 Therefore, shortly after the recess of the first 
 session of Congress, Washington started on a 
 
)2 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 trip through the Northern States, pointedly avoid 
 ing Rhode Island, then a foreign country. It was 
 during this tour that a question of etiquette 
 occurred about which there was a great stir at the 
 time. John Hancock, then Governor of Massa 
 chusetts, did not call upon Washington but wrote 
 inviting Washington to stay at his house, and 
 when this invitation was declined, he wrote again 
 inviting the President to dinner en famille. Wash 
 ington again declined, and this time the failure of 
 the Governor to pay his respects to the President 
 of the United States was the talk of the town. 
 Some of Hancock s aides now called with excuses 
 on the score of his illness. Washington noted 
 in his diary, "I informed them in explicit terms 
 that I should not see the Governor unless it was 
 at my own lodgings./ This incident occurred on 
 Saturday evening, and the effect was such that 
 Governor Hancock called in person on Sunday. 
 The affair was the subject of much comment not 
 to Governor Hancock s advantage. Washington s 
 church-going habits on this trip afford no small 
 evidence of the patient consideration which he 
 paid to every .point of duty. In New York, he 
 attended Episcopal church service regularly once 
 every Sunday. On his northern tour he went 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 93 
 
 to the Episcopal church in the ijiorning, and 
 then showed his respect for the dominant religious 
 system of New England by attending the Congre 
 gational church in the afternoon. His northern 
 tour lasted from October 15 to November 13, 1789, 
 and was attended by popular manifestations that 
 must have promoted the spread of national senti 
 ment. On November 21, 1789, North Carolina 
 came into the Union, and Rhode Island followed 
 on May 29, 1790. Washington started on a tour 
 of the Southern States on March 21, 1791, in which 
 he covered more than seventeen hundred miles 
 in sixty-six days, and was received with grand 
 demonstrations at all the towns he visited. 
 
 While he was making these tours, which in the 
 days before the railroad and the telegraph were 
 practically the only efficacious means of establish 
 ing the new government in the thoughts and feel 
 ings of the people, he was much -concerned about 
 frontier troubles, and with good reason, as he well 
 knew the deficiency of the means that Congress had 
 allowed. The tiny army of the United States 
 was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Josiah Harmar, with the brevet rank of general. 
 In October, 1790, Harmar led his troops, nearly 
 four-fifths of which were new levies of militia, 
 
94 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 against the Indians who had been disturbing the 
 western frontier. The expedition was a succession 
 of blunders and failures which were due more to 
 the rude and undisciplined character of the 
 material that Harmar had to work with than to 
 his personal incapacity. Harmar did succeed 
 in destroying five Indian villages with their 
 stores of corn, but their inhabitants had warning 
 enough to escape and were able to take prompt 
 vengeance. A detachment of troops was am 
 bushed and badly cut up. The design had been 
 to push on to the upper course of the Wabash, but 
 so many horses had been stolen by the Indians 
 that the expedition was crippled. As a result, 
 Harmar marched his troops back again, professing 
 to believe that punishment had been inflicted 
 upon the Indians that would be a severe lesson to 
 them. What really happened was that the In 
 dians were encouraged to think that they were 
 more than a match for any army which the 
 settlers could send against them, and before 
 long news came of the destruction of settlements 
 and the massacre of their inhabitants. "Unless," 
 wrote Rufus Putnam to Washington," Government 
 speedily sends a body of troops for our protection, 
 we are a ruined people. " 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 95 
 
 Washington did what he could. He sent to 
 Congress Putnam s letter and other frontier 
 communications, but Congress, which was stub 
 bornly opposed to creating a national army, 
 replied, when the need was demonstrated, that 
 the militia of the several States were available. 
 The Government was without means of protecting 
 the Indians against abuse and injustice or of pro 
 tecting the settlers against the savage retaliations 
 that naturally followed. The dilemma was stated 
 with sharp distinctness in correspondence which 
 passed between Washington and Hamilton in April, 
 1791. Washington wrote that it was a hopeless 
 undertaking to keep peace on the frontier "whilst 
 land- jobbing and the disorderly conduct of our 
 borderers are suffered with impunity; and while 
 the States individually are omitting no occasion to 
 intermeddle in matters which belong to the general 
 Government." Hamilton in reply went to the 
 root of the matter. "Our system is such as still 
 to leave the public peace of the Union at the 
 mercy of each state government. " He proceeded 
 to give a concrete instance: "For example, a party 
 comes from a county of Virginia into Pennsylvania, 
 and wantonly murders some friendly Indians. 
 The national Government, instead of having 
 
96 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 power to apprehend the murderers and bring them 
 to justice, is obliged to make a representation 
 to that of Pennsylvania; that of Pennsylvania, 
 again, is to make a requisition of that of Virginia. 
 And whether the murderers shall be brought to 
 justice at all must depend upon the particular 
 policy, and energy, and good disposition of two 
 state governments, and the efficacy of the pro 
 visions of their respective laws. And security of 
 other States and the money of all are at the dis 
 cretion of one. These things require a remedy; 
 but when that will come, God knows." 
 
 Toward the close of its last session, the First 
 Congress was induced to pass an act "for raising 
 and adding another regiment to the military 
 establishment of the United States and for making 
 further provision for the protection of the fron 
 tiers." The further provision authorized the 
 President to employ "troops enlisted under the 
 denomination of levies" for a term not exceeding 
 six months and in number not exceeding two thou 
 sand. The law thus made it compulsory that 
 the troops should move while still raw and un 
 trained. Congress had fixed the pay of the 
 privates at three dollars a month, from which 
 ninety cents were deducted, and it had been 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 97 
 
 necessary to scrape the streets and even the prisons 
 of the seaboard cities for men willing to enlist 
 upon such terms. Washington gave the command 
 to General Arthur St. Clair, whose military experi 
 ence should have made him a capable commander, 
 but he was then in bad health and unable to handle 
 the situation under the conditions imposed upon 
 him. General Harmar, enlightened by his own 
 experience, predicted that such an army would 
 certainly be defeated/ 
 
 The campaign was intended as an expedition 
 to chastise the Indians so that they would be 
 deterred from molesting the settlers, but it resulted 
 in a disaster that greatly encouraged Indian 
 depredations. As the army approached the In 
 dian towns, a body of the militia deserted, and 
 it was reported to St. Clair that they intended 
 to plunder the supplies. He sent one of his 
 regular regiments after them, thus reducing 
 his available force to about fourteen hundred 
 men. On November 3, 1791, this force camped 
 on the eastern fork of Wabash. Before daybreak 
 the next morning the Indians made a sudden attack, 
 taking the troops by surprise and throwing them 
 into disorder. It was the story of Braddock s 
 defeat over again. The troops were surrounded 
 
98 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 by foes that they could not see and could not reach. 
 Indian marksmen picked off the gunners until the 
 artillery was silenced; then the Indians rushed in 
 and seized the guns. In the combat there were 
 both conspicuous exploits of valor and disgraceful 
 scenes of cowardice. In that dark hour St. Clair 
 showed undaunted courage. He was in the front 
 of the fight, and several times he headed charges. 
 He seemed to have a charmed life, for although 
 eight bullets pierced his clothes, one cutting away a 
 lock of the thick gray hair that flowed from under 
 his three-cornered hat, he escaped without a 
 wound. Finally defeat became a rout which St. 
 Clair was powerless to check. Pushed aside in 
 the rush of fugitives, he was left in a position of 
 great peril. If the Indian pursuit had been per 
 sistent, few might have escaped, but the Indians 
 stopped to plunder the camp. Nevertheless six 
 hundred and thirty men were killed and over two 
 hundred and eighty wounded, with small loss to the 
 Indians. 
 
 Washington s reception of the news illustrates 
 both his iron composure and the gusts of passion 
 under which it sometimes gave way. The details 
 are unquestionably authentic, as they were com 
 municated by Washington s secretary who wit- 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 99 
 
 nessed the scene. Washington was having a dinner 
 party when an officer arrived at the door and sent 
 word that he was the bearer of dispatches from the 
 Western army. The secretary went out to him, 
 but the officer said his instructions were to deliver 
 the dispatches to the President in person. Wash 
 ington then went to the officer and received the 
 terrible news. He returned to the table as though 
 nothing had happened, and everything went on as 
 usual. After dinner there was a reception in Mrs. 
 Washington s drawing-room and the President, 
 as was his custom, spoke courteously to every lady 
 in the room. By ten o clock all the visitors had 
 gone and Washington began to pace the floor at 
 first without any change of manner, but soon he 
 began to show emotional excitement and he 
 broke out suddenly: "It s all over! St. Clair is 
 defeated ; routed, the officers nearly all killed 
 
 the men by wholesale, the rout complete, 
 
 too shocking to think of, and a surprise into 
 the bargain!" 
 
 When near the door in his agitated march about 
 the room, he stopped and burst forth, "Yes, 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 
 
100 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 eye to them, and will add one word 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, butchered, toma 
 hawked by a surprise ! 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 the widows and orphans the 
 curse of Heaven ! " 
 
 The secretary relates that this torrent of passion 
 burst forth in appalling tones. The President s 
 frame shook. "More than once he threw his 
 hands up as he hurled imprecations upon St. 
 Clair. " But at length he got his feelings under 
 control, and after a pause he remarked, "I will 
 hear him without prejudice. He shall have full 
 justice." St. Clair was, indeed, treated with 
 marked leniency. A committee of the House re 
 ported that the failure of the expedition could not 
 "be imputed to his conduct, either at any time be 
 fore or during the action. " St. Clair was continued 
 in his position as Governor of the Northwest 
 Territory and remained there until 1802. 
 
 Notwithstanding the dire results of relying on 
 casual levies, Congress was still stubbornly opposed 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 101 
 
 to creating an effective force under national 
 control, and in this attitude to some extent 
 reflected even frontier sentiment. Ames in a 
 letter of January 13, 1792, wrote that "even the 
 views of the western people, whose defense has been 
 undertaken by government, have been unfriendly 
 to the Secretary of War and to the popularity 
 of the Government. They wish to be hired as 
 volunteers, at two-thirds of a dollar a day to fight 
 the Indians. They are averse to the regulars." 
 By the Act of March 5, 1792, Congress authorized 
 three additional regiments, with the proviso, how 
 ever, that they "shall be discharged as soon as 
 the United States shall be at peace with the Indian 
 tribes. " This legislation, nevertheless, was a great 
 practical improvement on the previous act. Gen 
 eral Wayne, who now took command, was fortu 
 nately circumstanced in that he was under no 
 pressure to move against the Indians. Public 
 opinion favored a return to negotiation, so that 
 he had time " to get his troops under good dis 
 cipline. He did not move the main body of his 
 troops until the summer of 1794, and on August 
 20, he inflicted a smashing defeat on the Indians, 
 at a place known as the Fallen Timbers, followed 
 up the victory by punitive expeditions to the 
 
102 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 Indian towns, and burned their houses and crops. 
 The campaign was a complete success. The 
 Indians were so humbled by their losses that they 
 sued for peace, and negotiations began which were 
 concluded in the summer of 1795 by the treaty of 
 Greenville, under which the Northwestern tribes 
 ceded an extensive territory to the United States. 
 It was notorious that the trouble which the 
 American authorities had experienced with the 
 Indians had been largely due to the activity of 
 British agents. In his report Wayne noted that 
 the destruction effected by his troops included 
 "the houses, stores, and property of Colonel Mc- 
 Kee, the British agent, and principal stimulator of 
 the war now existing between the United States and 
 the savages. " A sharp correspondence took place 
 between Wayne and Major William Campbell, 
 commanding a British post on the Miami. Camp 
 bell protested against the approach of Wayne s 
 army, "no war existing between Great Britain and 
 America." Wayne assented to this statement, 
 and then asked what he meant "by taking post far 
 within the well known arid acknowledged limits of 
 the United States." Campbell rejoined that he 
 had acted under orders and as to his right, that was 
 a matter which were best left to "the ambassadors 
 
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 103 
 
 of our different nations." Campbell refused to 
 obey Wayne s demand to withdraw, and Wayne 
 ignored Campbell s threat to fire if he were ap 
 proached too close. Wayne reported that the only 
 notice he took of this threat was "by immediately 
 setting fire to and destroying everything within 
 view of the fort, and even under the muzzles of the 
 guns." "Had Mr. Campbell carried his threats 
 into execution," added Wayne, "it is more than 
 probable he would have experienced a storm." 
 No collision actually took place at that time but 
 there was created a situation which, unless it 
 were removed by diplomacy, must have eventually 
 brought on war. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 TRIBUTE TO THE ALGERINES 
 
 AT the time when Washington took office, the 
 captains and crews of two American vessels, which 
 had been seized by Algerine Corsairs in 1785, still 
 remained in captivity. The Continental Congress 
 had made some efforts in their behalf which 
 were contemptuously received. The Dey of 
 Algiers did not wish any treaty with the United 
 States; but he did want $59,496.00 for the twenty- 
 one captives whom he then held^ Farther than 
 that negotiation had not progressed. Agents of 
 the United States were advised that, if such a high 
 amount were paid, the Corsairs would pursue 
 American vessels in preference to those of any 
 other nation, and that the shrewd thing would be 
 to pretend indifference to the fate of the captives. 
 This advice was acted upon even to the extent of 
 cutting off the supplies which had been forwarded 
 to the captives through the Spanish consul at 
 
 104 
 
TRIBUTE TO THE ALGERINES 105 
 
 Algiers. The summary method which was pur 
 sued was that of dishonoring bills drawn by him to 
 cover his expenditures^ 
 
 Jefferson, who while Minister to France had 
 been closely connected with these proceedings, was 
 called upon by Congress for a report upon them, 
 not long after he took office as Secretary of State. 
 This report, December 28, 1790, set forth the 
 fact that the Mediterranean trade, which had 
 employed from eighty to one hundred ships with 
 about twelve hundred seamen, had been almost 
 destroyed. In the interest of the negotiations, it 
 had been necessary "to suffer the captives and 
 their friends to believe for a while, that no atten 
 tion was paid to them, no notice taken of their 
 letters, " .and they were "still under this impres 
 sion." Jefferson contented himself with sub 
 mitting the facts in the case, remarking that 
 "upon the whole it rests with Congress to decide 
 between war, tribute, and ransom. If war, they 
 will consider how far our own resources shall be 
 called forth, and how far they will enable the 
 Executive to engage, in the forms of the Con 
 stitution, the cooperation of other Powers. If 
 tribute or ransom, it will rest with them to 
 limit and provide the amount; and with the 
 
106 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 Executive, observing the same constitutional 
 forms, to make arrangements for employing it to 
 the best advantage. " 
 
 The problem which Jefferson thus put before 
 Congress was a singularly difficult one. Among 
 the captives was Captain Richard O Brien, whose 
 ship, the Dauphin of Philadelphia, was taken 
 July 30, 1785. He had a ready pen and, appar 
 ently, had unrestricted access to the mails. 
 His letters were those of a shrewd observer and 
 depicted a situation that bristled with perplexity. 
 The Algerines had about a dozen vessels, their 
 armament ranging from ten to thirty-six guns, 
 but of these vessels only two belonged to the 
 Government, the others being private ventures. 
 Though they preyed on merchantmen, they 
 avoided engagements, and did not come out at all 
 if there were vessels cruising for them. A block 
 ade was effective only while it lasted. Whenevef 
 it was raised, out came the Corsairs again. An 
 occasional bombardment of their port did not cow 
 them and had no permanent effect. A French 
 official described it as being "like breaking glass 
 windows with guineas." The Algerines made 
 treaties with some Powers in consideration of 
 tribute but refused peace to others on any terms, 
 
TRIBUTE TO THE ALGERINES 107 
 
 as they did not desire to shut out all opportunity 
 for their time-honored sport of piracy. 
 
 Congress was slow to take action of any kind. 
 In January, 1791, Maclay noted that a committee 
 had decided that the Mediterranean trade could 
 not be preserved without an armed force to 
 protect it, and that a navy should be established 
 as soon as the Treasury was in a position to bear 
 the expense. Meanwhile the President began fresh 
 negotiations, which were attended by singular 
 fatality. ThomasJBarcJay, who had some diplo 
 matic experience, was commissioned to go to the 
 Emperor of Morocco. When Barclay^reached 
 GibralJtajrJhe^JK^^ and, after being re 
 
 moved to Lisbon, he died. Admiral John Paul 
 Jones was then appointegLspecial commissioner to 
 arrange^ for the ransom of the captives. As he 
 had then left the Russian service and was living 
 in Paris, it was supposed that his services would 
 be available, but he died before the commission 
 could reach him. The delay caused by these events 
 was made so much worse by the slow transmission 
 of intelligence that two years elapsed before a fresh 
 start was made by placing the conduct of matters 
 in the hands of 
 
 enjyjimsteF-tQ Portugal. Humphreys had gone 
 
108 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 as far as Gibraltar on his mission when he learned 
 that a truce had been suddenly arranged between 
 Portugal ano!^ Algiers. This was alarming news, 
 since it meant that the Algerines could now pass 
 into the Atlantic from which they had been ex 
 cluded by Portuguese war-vessels stationed in the 
 strait of Gibraltar. "I have not slept since the 
 receipt of the news of this the hellish plot, " wrote 
 Edward Church, the United States consul at 
 Lisbon. Church was energetic in spreading the 
 intelligence, which fortunately reached some Amer 
 ican shipmasters in time to save them. In October, 
 1793, as thirteen American vessels were in the port 
 of Lisbon afraid to venture out, Church pleaded 
 their case so vigorously that the Portuguese govern 
 ment agreed to give them an armed convoy. 
 Nevertheless the Algerines found plenty of game 
 among American ships then at sea, for they cap 
 tured ten vessels and added one hundred and five 
 more Americans to the stock of slaves in Algiers. 
 "They are in a distressed and naked situation," 
 wrote Captain O Brien, who had himself then been 
 eight years in captivity. 
 
 Humphreys made arrangements by which they 
 received clothing and a money allowance ranging 
 from twelve cents a day for a seaman up to eight 
 
TRIBUTE TO THE ALGERINES 109 
 
 dollars a month for a captain. Nothing, however, 
 could be done in the way of peace negotiations. 
 One of Humphreys agents reported that the Dey 
 could not make peace even if he really wanted to 
 do so. "He declared to me that his interest does 
 not permit him to accept your offers, Sir, even 
 were you to lavish millions upon him, because, 
 said he, if I were to make peace with everybody, 
 what should I do with my Corsairs? What should 
 I do with my soldiers? They would take off my 
 head, for want of other prizes. 
 
 This was an honest disclosure of the situation. 
 Humphreys wrote Jefferson that "no choice is left 
 for the United States but to prepare a naval 
 force for the protection of their trade." Captain 
 O Brien wrote, "By all means urge Congress to 
 fit out some remarkably fast sailing cruisers, well 
 appointed and manned." In January, 1794, 
 accordingly, a committee of the House brought in a 
 resolution for building four ships of 44 guns and 
 two of 20 guns each. The debate began on Febru 
 ary 6, and for some time was altogether one-sided, 
 with one speaker after another opposing the 
 creation of a navy. Madison, as was now his habit, 
 had doubts as to the propriety of the measure. He 
 fancied that peace "might be purchased for less 
 
110 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 money than this armament would cost." Clark 
 of New Jersey had "an objection to the establish 
 ment of a fleet, because, when once it had been 
 commenced, there would be no end to it. " He had 
 "a scheme which he judged would be less expen 
 sive and more effectual. This was to hire the 
 Portuguese to cruise against the Algerines." 
 Baldwin of Georgia thought that "bribery alone 
 could purchase security from the Algerines." 
 Nicholas of Virginia "feared that we were not a 
 match for the Algerines. " 
 
 Smith of Maryland and Fitzsimmons of Penn 
 sylvania championed the resolution, and Fisher 
 Ames made some remarks on Madison s lack of 
 spirit that caused Madison to define his position. 
 He proposed as a substitute for the pending meas 
 ure that money should "be employed in such a 
 manner as should be found most effectual for 
 obtaining a peace with the Regency of Algiers; 
 and failing of this, that the sum should be applied 
 to the end of obtaining protection from some of the 
 European Powers. " This motion warmed up the 
 debate. Giles of Virginia came to Madison s 
 support in a style that was not helpful. He 
 "considered navies altogether as very foolish 
 things. An immense quantity of property was 
 
TRIBUTE TO THE ALGERINES 111 
 
 spread on the water for no purpose whatever, which 
 might have been employed by land to the best 
 purpose. " The suggestion that the United States 
 should be a hermit nation was an indiscreet 
 exposure of the logical significance of Madison s 
 plan, and it perhaps turned the scale in favor of 
 employing force. 
 
 The bill came up in the House for final passage 
 on March 10, 1794. Its opponents now sparred for 
 time, but a motion to recommit in order to give 
 opportunity for further consideration was defeated 
 by 48 to 41. Giles made a final effort, by a long 
 and elaborate address, in which he argued that the 
 effect of fitting out a navy would be to involve 
 the United States in war with all the European 
 Powers. Moreover, a navy would be dangerous 
 to American liberty. "A navy is the most expen 
 sive of all means of defense, and the tyranny of 
 governments consists in the expensiveness of their 
 machinery. " He pointed to the results of British 
 naval policy. "The government is not yet de 
 stroyed, but the people are oppressed, liberty is 
 banished." The French monarchy had been 
 ruined by its navy. He was "astonished, with 
 these fatal examples before our eyes, that there 
 should be gentlemen who would wish to enter upon 
 
112 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 this fashionable system of politics. " In discussing 
 the expense of maintaining a navy, he expressed 
 his fear that it would eventually bring back the 
 miseries of feudalism. 
 
 William Smith of South Carolina made a reply 
 in which he defined the issue as being between 
 defense and tribute; but Giles had the last word. 
 He wanted to know whether it was maintained 
 that the frigates it was proposed to build would 
 "boldly march upon land and break the chains of 
 the prisoners?" He begged Congress not to do 
 what "would irritate the barbarians and furnish 
 additional misery to the unfortunate prisoners." 
 In this closing struggle over the bill Giles fought 
 single-handed. When he had quite finished, the 
 bill was passed by 50 yeas to 39 nays, a result 
 which showed a decided gain in strength from the 
 discussion. 
 
 The debates in the Senate have not been pre 
 served, but the Senate was so evenly divided that it 
 took the casting vote of the Vice-President to 
 pass the bill, which became law March 27, 1794. 
 In order to get it passed at all, a proviso had been 
 tacked on that, if peace terms could be arranged, 
 "no farther proceeding be had under this Act." 
 In September, 1795, a treaty of peace with Algiers 
 
TRIBUTE TO THE ALGERINES 113 
 
 was finally concluded, after negotiations had been 
 facilitated by a contingent fee of $18,000 paid to 
 "Bacri the Jew, who has as much art in this sort 
 of management as any man we ever knew," the 
 American agents reported. It was a keen bargain, 
 as Bacri had to propitiate court officials at his own 
 risk, and had to look for both reimbursement and 
 personal profit, too, out of the lump sum he was to 
 receive in event of his success. It can hardly be 
 doubted that he had the situation securely in hand 
 before making the bargain. The money paid in 
 Algiers for the ransom of the captives, for trib 
 ute and for presents to officials amounted to 
 $42,500.00. But in addition the United States 
 agreed to build a frigate for the Algerine navy and 
 also supply naval stores, which with incidental ex 
 penses brought the total cost of the peace treaty 
 up to $99gJ3.25. Moreover, the United States 
 agreed to pay an annual tribute of 12,000 sequins, 
 about $27,500, 
 
 By the terms of the navy act, the United States 
 had to stop building vessels for its own protection. 
 Of those which had been authorized, the frigates 
 Constitution, United States, and Constellation were 
 under way and were eventually completed. The 
 timber, with material that had been collected for 
 
114 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 the other vessels, was sold, except what was needed 
 for the frigate which was to be presented to the 
 Algerines, and which was to be built at Portsmouth, 
 N. H. The whole affair was a melancholy business 
 that must have occasioned Washington deep 
 chagrin. In his address to Congress, December 
 7, 1796, announcing the success of the negotiations 
 for effecting the release of the captives, he observed 
 that "to secure respect to a neutral flag requires 
 a naval force, organized and ready to vindicate 
 it from insult or aggression. " 
 
17 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 
 
 A FEW months before France declared war upon 
 England, February 1, 1793, Edmond Genet 
 was appointed French Minister to the United 
 States. He landed at Charleston, April 8, and 
 at once began activities so authoritative as to 
 amount to an erection of French sovereignty 
 in the United States. The subsequent failure of 
 his efforts and the abrupt ending of his diplomatic 
 career have so reacted upon his reputation that 
 associations of boastful arrogance and reckless 
 incompetency cling to his name. This estimate 
 holds him too lightly and underrates the peril to 
 which the United States was then exposed % Genet 
 was no casual rhetorician raised to important 
 office by caprice of events, but a trained diplomat 
 ist of hereditary aptitude and of long experience. 
 His father was chief of the bureau of correspond 
 ence in the Department of Foreign Affairs for 
 
 115 
 
118 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 flie French monarchy, and it was as an interpreter 
 attached to that bureau that the son began his 
 career in 1775. While still a youth, he gained 
 literary distinction by his translations of historical 
 works from Swedish into French. Genet was 
 successively attached to the French Embassies at 
 Berlin and Vienna, and in 1781 he succeeded his 
 father in the Department of Foreign Affairs. In 
 1788, he was Secretary of the French Embassy at 
 St. Petersburg, where his zeal for French Revolu 
 tionary principles so irritated the Empress Cather 
 ine that she characterized him as "a furious 
 demagogue," and in 1792 he was forced to leave 
 Russia. In the same year he was named Ambassa 
 dor to Holland, and thence was soon transferred to 
 the United States. 
 
 It is obvious that a man of such experience 
 could not be ignorant of diplomatic forms and of 
 international proprieties of behavior. If he pur 
 sued a course that has since seemed to be a marvel 
 of truculence, the explanation should be sought in 
 the circumstances of his mission more than in the 
 nature of his personality. When the matter is 
 considered from this standpoint, not only does one 
 find that Genet s proceedings become consistent 
 and intelligible, but one becomes deeply impressed 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 117 f 
 
 with the magnitude of the peril then confronting fc 
 the United States. Nothing less than American, 
 independence was at stake. J 
 
 It should be borne in mind that France, in aiding 
 America against England, had been pursuing her 
 own ends. In August, 1787, the French govern 
 ment advised its American representative that it 
 had observed with indifference the movements 
 going on in the United States and would view the 
 break-up of the Confederation without regret. 
 "We have never pretended to make of America 
 useful ally; we have had no other object than to 
 deprive Great Britain of that vast continent.." But, 
 now that war with England had broken out again, 
 it was worth while making an effort to convert 
 America into a useful ally. Jefferson, while 
 Minister to Paris., had been sympathetic with the 
 Revolutionary movement.. In 1789, the Engli 
 Ambassador reported to his government tha 
 Jefferson was much consulted by the leaders of the 
 Third Estate. On the other hand, Gouverneur 
 Morris, who was then living in Paris, sympathized 
 frankly with the King. Nevertheless he was 
 chosen to succeed Jefferson as the American 
 Minister. In notifying him of the appointment, 
 Washington let him know that there had been 
 
118 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 objections. "It was urged that in France you 
 were considered as a favorer of the aristocracy, 
 and unfriendly to its Revolution. " Washington s 
 reminder that it was his business to promote the 
 interest of his own country did not have any 
 apparent effect on Morris s behavior. He became 
 the personal agent of Louis XVI, and he not only 
 received and disbursed large sums on the King s 
 account, but he also entered into plans for the 
 King s flight from Paris. During the Reign of 
 Terror which began in 1792, he behaved with an 
 energy and an intrepidity honorable to him as a 
 man; in general, however, his course tended to 
 embroil and not to guard American interests. 
 
 In the face of the European coalition against 
 revolutionary France, the principle of action was 
 that announced by Dan ton, "to dare, and to 
 dare, and without end to dare. " Genet therefore 
 went on his mission to America keyed to measures 
 which were audacious but which can hardly be 
 described as reckless. By plunging heavily he 
 might make a big winning; if he failed, he was 
 hardly worse off than if he had not made the 
 attempt. To draw the United States into the war 
 as the ally of France was only one part of his 
 mission. He was also planning to reestablish the 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 119 
 
 French colonial empire, the loss of which was still 
 an unhealed wound. Canada, Louisiana, and the 
 Floridas were all in his mind. In Louisiana, 
 France regarded conditions as being so favorable 
 that Genet was instructed to make special efforts in 
 that quarter. Spain, which had entered the coali 
 tion against republican France, held the lower 
 Mississippi. Spain was therefore the common 
 enemy of France and of the American settlements 
 west of the mountains. Ought not then those 
 two republican interests to work together to expel 
 Spain and to seize Louisiana? Moreover, there 
 was a belief, not without grounds, that the older 
 States which formed the American union were 
 indifferent to the needs and interests of the country 
 west of the Alleghenies and would be more relieved 
 than afflicted if it should take its destinies into its 
 own hands. Such considerations animated a group 
 of Americans in Paris, among whose prominent 
 members were Thomas Paine, the pamphleteer, 
 Joel Barlow, the poet, and Dr. James O Fallon, a 
 Revolutionary soldier now interested in Western 
 land speculation. All were then ardent sym 
 pathizers with the French Revolution, and they 
 entered heartily into the design of stirring up the 
 Western country against Spain. The project 
 
120 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 attracted some frontier leaders, among them 
 George Rogers Clark, famous for his successful 
 campaigns against the hostile Indians and the 
 British during the Revolutionary War. He was 
 to lead a force of Western riflemen against the 
 Spanish posts in Louisiana, and Genet brought with 
 him blank brevets of officers up to the grade of 
 captain for bestowal on the Indian chiefs who 
 would cooperate. The expenses of the expedition 
 were to be met by collections which Genet expected 
 to make from the treasury of the United States on 
 account of sums due to France. 
 
 The project of using the United States as a 
 French base could claim legal rights under the 
 treaties of 1778 between France and the United 
 States. There were two treaties, both concluded 
 on the same day. One, entitled a treaty of amity 
 and commerce, was a mutual conveyance of privi 
 leges; it provided that the ships of war of each 
 country should defend the vessels of the other 
 country against all attacks that might occur while 
 they were in company. Besides this right of con 
 voy, each country had the right to use the ports of 
 the other, either for ships of war or for privateers 
 and their prizes, "nor shall such prizes be arrested 
 or seized when they come to and enter the ports of 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 121 
 
 either party; nor shall the searchers or other 
 officers of those places search the same, or make any 
 examination concerning the lawfulness of such 
 prizes, but they may hoist sail at any time, and 
 depart." All vessels of either country had the 
 right to take refuge in the ports of the other, 
 whether from stress of weather or pursuit of 
 enemies, "and they shall be permitted to refresh 
 and provide themselves at reasonable rates, with 
 victuals and all things needful for the sustenance 
 of their persons or reparation of their ships, and 
 conveniency of their voyage; and they shall no 
 ways be detained or hindered from returning out of 
 the said ports or roads, but may remove and depart 
 when and whither they please, without any let or 
 hindrance." It was expressly provided that such 
 hospitality should not be extended to vessels of 
 an enemy of either country. The accompanying 
 instrument, entitled a treaty of alliance, was a 
 mutual guarantee of territorial possessions, "for 
 ever against all other powers." These broad 
 rights and privileges were supplemented by the 
 convention of 1788 on consular functions, which 
 facilitated the organization of a consular juris 
 diction competent to deal with cases arising from 
 the treaties. There was still due to France on 
 
WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 loans contracted during the Revolution a remain 
 der of about $2,300,000 payable by instalments, 
 subject to the proviso that "Congress and the 
 United States" had "the liberty of freeing them 
 selves by anticipated payments should the state of 
 their finances admit." It was planned to get the 
 United States to reciprocate the past favors of 
 France by favoring her now, if not by direct pay 
 ments of money, at least by acceptances which 
 Genet could use in purchasing supplies. The 
 fact that whatever in the way of money or accom 
 modations was obtained in the United States 
 would be used in business in that country was 
 counted upon to facilitate the transaction. 
 
 These facts forni the background against which 
 Genet s activities should be viewed. He came 
 with deliberate intent to rush the situation, and 
 armed with all needful powers, for that purpose, 
 so far as the French government could confer them. 
 According to a dispatch from Morris to the State 
 Department, Genet "took with him three hundred 
 blank commissions which he is to distribute to 
 such as will fit out cruisers in our ports to prey on 
 the British commerce.." 
 
 At Charleston, Genet received an enthusiastic 
 reception. The Revolutionary commander, Gen- 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 123 
 
 eral Moultrie, who was then governor of South 
 Carolina, entered so cordially into Genet s plans 
 that in his first dispatch home, Genet was able to 
 say to his government that Moultrie had permitted 
 him to arm privateers and had assisted the various 
 branches of his mission in every possible way. 
 Such was Genet s energy that within five days 
 after his arrival he had opened a recruiting station 
 at which American seamen were taken into the 
 French service; he had commissioned American 
 vessels as French privateers; and he had turned the 
 French consul s office into an admiralty court for 
 which business was provided by the prizes that 
 were being brought in. 
 
 After seeing under way all matters that he could 
 attend to in Charleston, Genet moved on to 
 Philadelphia, and received on his way thither 
 such greetings as to give to his journey the 
 character of a triumphal progress. Meanwhile, 
 L Ambuscade, the French frigate which had.brought 
 Genet to Charleston, was proceeding to Phila 
 delphia, taking prizes on her way and sending them 
 to American ports. In Delaware Ba^ she captured 
 the Grange, an English merchantman lying there at 
 anchor, and took this vessel with her to Philadel 
 phia as a prize* As Genet neared Philadelphia on 
 
124 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 May 16, L Ambuscade gave notice by firing three 
 guns, at which signal a procession was formed to 
 meet Genet at Gray s Ferry and escort him to his 
 lodgings. He found awaiting him a letter from 
 George Rogers Clark, which gave an account of his 
 plans for the invasion of Louisiana and the capture 
 of New Orleans, and which announced his readiness 
 to start if he were assisted by some frigates and 
 provided with three thousand pounds sterling to 
 meet expenses. Genet received reports from other 
 agents or friendly correspondents in the Spanish 
 territory, and so active was he in forwarding the 
 objects of his mission that on June 19 he was able 
 to write to his government, "I am provisioning 
 the West Indies, I excite the Canadians to break 
 the British yoke, I arm the Kentukois and pre 
 pare a naval expedition which will facilitate their 
 descent on New Orleans. " 
 
 These claims were well founded. Genet did, 
 in fact, make an effective start, and had he been 
 able to command funds he might have opened 
 a great chapter of history. George Rogers Clark 
 was the ablest and most successful commander that 
 the frontier had yet produced, and such was the 
 weakness of the Spanish defenses that had his 
 expedition been actually launched as planned, the 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 125 
 
 conquest of Louisiana might indeed have been 
 accomplished. It was not any defect in Genet s 
 arrangements that frustrated his plans, but his 
 inability to raise money and the uncertainty of his 
 position as the agent of a government which was 
 undergoing rapid revolutionary change/ 
 
 News, that the French Republic had declared war 
 against Great Britain reached the United States 
 early in April, 1793. Washington, who was then 
 at Mount Vernon, wrote to Jefferson that "it 
 behooves the Government of this country to use 
 every means in its power to prevent the 
 citizens thereof from embroiling us with either 
 of those Powers, by endeavoring to maintain 
 a strict neutrality," and he requested that the 
 Secretary should "give the subject mature 
 consideration, that such measures as shall be 
 deemed most likely to effect this desirable purpose 
 may be adopted without delay." On arriving 
 at Philadelphia a few days later, Washington 
 was met by a distracted Cabinet. The great 
 difficulty was the conflict of obligations. The 
 United States had a treaty of alliance with France; 
 it had a treaty of peace with Great Britain. The 
 situation had become, such that it could not sus 
 tain both relations at the same time. If the 
 
126 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 United States remained neutral, it would have to 
 deny to France privileges conferred by the treaty 
 which had been negotiated when both countries 
 were at war with Great Britain. How far was that 
 treaty now binding? It had been made with 
 "the Most Christian king," whose head had been 
 cut off. Did not his engagements fall with his 
 head? That was the very position taken by the 
 government of the French Republic, which had 
 asserted the right to decide what treaties of the old 
 monarchy should be retained and what rejected. 
 As an incident of the present case, the question 
 was to be decided whether the ambassador of the 
 French Republic should be received. 
 
 Such were the issues that Washington s Adminis 
 tration had to face, at a time when the whole 
 country was thrilling with enthusiasm in behalf of 
 the French Republic. Chief Justice Marshall left 
 on record his opinion that this feeling "was 
 almost universal, " and that " a great majority 
 of the American people deemed it criminal to 
 remain unconcerned spectators of a conflict be 
 tween their ancient enemy and republican France." 
 
 Washington acted with his customary deliber 
 ation. On April 18, 1793, he submitted to the 
 members of his Cabinet thirteen questions. Jeffer- 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 127 
 
 son, who held that the French treaty was still 
 operative, noted that the questions reached him 
 in Washington s own handwriting, "yet it was 
 palpable from the style, their ingenious tissue 
 and suite, that they were not the President s, 
 that they were raised upon a prepared chain of 
 argument, in short, that the language was Hamil 
 ton s and the doubts his alone." In Jefferson s 
 opinion they were designed to lead "to a declar 
 ation of the ^Executive that our treaty with France 
 is void." Jefferson was right as to Hamilton s 
 authorship. At a time when Jefferson had no ad 
 vice to give save that it would be well to consider 
 whether Congress ought not to be summoned, 
 Hamilton had ready a set of interrogatories which 
 subjected the whole situation to close analysis. 
 The critical questions were these: 
 
 " Shall a^ proclamation issue for the purpose of 
 preventing interferences of the citizens of the 
 United States in the war between France and Great 
 Britain, &c. ? Shall it contain a declaration of 
 neutrality or not? What shall it contain E 
 
 " Are the United States obliged, by good faith, 
 to consider the treaties heretofore made with 
 
 4 
 
 France as applying to the present situation of the 
 parties? May they either renounce them, or hold 
 
128 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 them suspended till the government of France 
 shall be established?" 
 
 To the interrogatories framed by Hamilton, 
 Washington added one which presented the point 
 raised by Jefferson " Is it necessary or advisable 
 to call together the two Houses of Congress, with 
 a view to the present posture of European affairs? 
 If it is, what shall be the particular object of such a 
 call? " 
 
 The Cabinet met on April 19. On the question 
 of a proclamation of neutrality Jefferson argued 
 that such a proclamation would be equivalent to a 
 declaration that the United States would not take 
 part in the war, and that this matter did not lie 
 within the power of the Executive, since it was the 
 province of Congress to declare war. Congress 
 ought therefore to be called to consider the ques 
 tion. Hamilton, who held that it was both the 
 right and the duty of the President to proclaim 
 neutrality, was strongly opposed to summoning 
 Congress. In a br\ef record of the proceedings he 
 remarked that "whether this advice proceeded from 
 a secret wish to involve us in a war, or from a 
 constitutional timidity, certain it is such a step 
 would have been fatal to the peace and tranquillity 
 of America. " The matter was finally compro- 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 129 
 
 raised by an unanimous agreement that a pro 
 clamation should be issued "forbidding our citizens 
 taking any part in any hostilities on the seas with 
 or against any of the belligerent powers; and warn 
 ing them against carrying to any such powers any 
 of those articles deemed contraband, according to 
 the modern usage of nations; and enjoining them 
 from all acts and proceedings inconsistent with the 
 duties of a friendly nation toward those at war." 
 Jefferson s scruples having been appeased by avoid 
 ing the use of the term "neutrality," it was now 
 unanimously decided that Congress should not be 
 called. It was further decided that the French 
 Minister should be received. Jefferson and Ran 
 dolph, however, were of opinion that he should 
 be received without conditions, while Hamilton, 
 supported by Knox, held that the Minister ought 
 to be apprised of the intention to reserve the 
 question whether the treaties were still operative-, 
 "lest silence on that point should occasion mis 
 construction. " The even division of the Cabinet 
 on this point was in practical effect a victory for 
 Jefferson. The Cabinet was unable to reach any 
 decision in the matter of treaty obligations. 
 Jefferson held that they were still operative; 
 Hamilton, that they were "temporarily and 
 
130 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 provisionally suspended." Knox sided with 
 Hamilton, and Randolph, although he at first 
 sided with Jefferson, was so shaken in his opinion 
 by Hamilton s argument that he asked further 
 time for consideration. Eventually written opin 
 ions were submitted by Hamilton, Jefferson, and 
 Randolph, confirming the views they had previ 
 ously expressed, and, as Knox concurred with 
 Hamilton, the Cabinet was still evenly divided 
 on that fundamental question. 
 
 The proclamation, on the lines upon which all 
 had agreed, was draughted by Randolph who 
 showed it to Jefferson in order to .assure him that 
 "there was no such word as neutrality in it." 
 Jefferson, whose own account this is, did not men 
 tion that he raised any objection to the wording of 
 the proclamation at the time, though a few months 
 later he referred to it in his private correspondence 
 as a piece of "pusillanimity," because it omitted 
 any expression of the affection of America for 
 France. The proclamation was issued on April 
 22, two weeks after the arrival of Genet at Charles 
 ton. The procedure that had been adopted at 
 Jefferson s instance avoided none of the difficulties 
 that a declaration of neutrality would have encoun 
 tered but rather increased them by putting the 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 131 
 
 Government in a false position. The mere omis 
 sion of the term did not prevent it from being 
 known as a neutrality proclamation. It was at 
 once so designated and has always been so con 
 sidered. Jefferson himself, in advising the Ameri 
 can foreign representatives of the policy of the 
 Government, said that it would be "a fair neutral 
 ity"; and, in writing to Madison a few days after 
 the proclamation had been issued, he remarked, 
 "I fear a fair neutrajity will prove a disagreeable 
 v pill to pur friends, though necessary to keep us out 
 of the calamities of war. " 
 
 By its terms, however, the proclamation was 
 simply an admonition to American citizens to keep 
 out of the war, with notice that, if they got into 
 trouble by engaging in contraband trade, they 
 would not receive the protection of the United 
 States, and would be liable to prosecution for the 
 commission of acts of a nature to "violate the law 
 of nations." It is manifest that the question 
 whether or not the French, treaty was still in oper 
 ation was of great practical importance. If it was 
 still in force, the treaty formed part of the law of 
 the land, and American citizens might plead 
 immunity for acts done in pursuance of its pro 
 visions. Hamilton was for suspending the treaty 
 
132 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 since a situation had arisen which made its pro 
 visions inconsistent with a policy of neutrality. 
 His main contention was that the obligations 
 imposed by the treaty of 78 were no longer binding 
 on the United States, since they contemplated 
 only defensive war. By her declaration of war 
 France had taken the offensive, thereby relieving 
 the United States of her reciprocal obligations. 
 Jefferson held that the treaty was still operative, 
 for even if its provisions apparently required the 
 United States to engage in the war, it did not 
 follow that such action would be an actual conse 
 quence. The possibility was "not yet certain 
 enough to authorize us in sound morality to de 
 clare, at this moment, the treaties null. " 
 
 Meanwhile Genet was left in a position in which 
 he had a perfect right to claim all privileges 
 conferred on France by the treaty. The result was 
 a curious chapter of diplomatic correspondence. 
 Genet took an attitude of indignant remonstrance 
 at the duplicity of the American position. Did 
 not the United States have a treaty with France? 
 By what authority then did the Administration 
 interfere with him in the enjoyment of his rights as 
 the representative of France, and interfere with 
 American citizens in their dealings with him? 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 133 
 
 He shrewdly refrained from any attempt to de 
 fend the capture of the Grange by L Ambuscade 
 in Delaware Bay. "The learned conclusions of 
 the Attorney-General of the United States, and 
 the declarations of the American Government, 
 have been on this subject the rulejrf my conduct. 
 I have caused the prize to be given up. " But he 
 stood firm on rights secured by the treaty. "As 
 long as the States, assembled in Congress, shall 
 not have determined that this solemn engagement 
 should not be performed, no one has the right to 
 shackle our operations, and to annul their effect, 
 by hindering those of our marines who may be in 
 the American ports, to take advantage of the 
 commissions which the French Government has 
 charged me to give to them, authorizing them to 
 defend themselves, and fulfill, if they find an 
 opportunity, all the duties of citizens against the 
 enemies of the State. " 
 
 This was using an argument borrowed from 
 Jefferson s abundant jstock of constitutional limi 
 tations. Genet was, of course, advised of the 
 dissensions in the Cabinet. He was on such con 
 fidential terms with Jefferson that he talked freely 
 about the projected raid on Louisiana. Jefferson 
 noted in his diary that "he communicated these 
 
134 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 things to me, not as Secretary of State, but as Mr. 
 Jefferson." Jefferson told Genet that he "did 
 not care what insurrections should be excited in 
 Louisiana," but that "enticing officers and soldiers 
 from Kentucky to go against Spain was really put 
 ting a halter about their necks, for that they would 
 assuredly be hung if they commenced hostilities 
 against a nation at peace with the United States. " 
 So great is the force of legal pedantry that Jefferson 
 was unable to agree that the President should pro 
 claim neutrality in clear and positive terms; 
 but that same pedantry was effectively employed 
 in covering the legal flaws of Jefferson s position 
 in his notes to Genet. He attenuated the treaty 
 obligations by strict construction and also by 
 reservations founded on the general principles of 
 international law. "By our treaties with several 
 of the belligerent Powers," he told Genet, "we 
 have established a style of peace with them. But 
 without appealing to treaties, we are at peace with 
 them all by the law of nature : for, by nature s law, 
 man is at peace with man." Hence the propriety 
 of forbidding acts within American jurisdiction 
 that would cause disturbance of this peace, a point 
 on which he quoted copiously from Vattel. Genet 
 manifested some irritation at being referred to 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 135 
 
 treatises on international law when he was resting 
 his case on a treaty the validity of which Jefferson 
 acknowledged. "Let us not lower ourselves," he 
 wrote, "to the level of ancient politics by diplo 
 matic subtleties. Let us be frank in our overtures, 
 in our declarations, as our two nations are in their 
 affections, and, by this plain and sincere conduct, 
 arrive at the object by the shortest way. " 
 
 Logically Jefferson s position was that of main 
 taining the validity of the treaty while opposing 
 the fulfillment of its obligations. At the same 
 time he had to carry on a correspondence with 
 Hammond, the British Minister, who was making 
 complaints of the use of American ports for French 
 depredations on British commerce, and to him 
 Jefferson ^pleaded entire willingness to discharge 
 in good faith the obligations of a neutral Power. 
 It may seem as if Jefferson was attempting the 
 impossible feat of trying to ride at one time two 
 horses going in opposite directions, but such was 
 his dexterity that in appearance he was largely 
 successful. Meanwhile he contrived to throw on 
 Hamilton and his adherents the blame for the 
 feebleness and inconsistency of national policy. In 
 letters to his Congressional lieutenants, Monroe 
 in the Senate and Madison in the House, he la- 
 
136 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 mented "the anglophobia, secret antigallomany " 
 that have "decided the complexion of our disposi 
 tions." He spoke scornfully of Randolph, whom 
 he regarded as so irresolute that the votes in 
 the Cabinet were "generally two and a half against 
 one and a half, " by which he meant that Hamilton 
 and Knox stood together against Jefferson, while 
 Randolph divided his influence between the two 
 factions. 
 
 So inflamed was the state of public opinion that 
 a rising against the Government seemed possible. 
 In a letter written twenty years later, John Adams 
 described "the terrorism excited by Genet, in 
 1793, when ten thousand people in the streets of 
 Philadelphia, day after day, threatened to drag 
 Washington out of his house, and effect a revolu 
 tion in the Government, or compel it to declare war 
 in favor of the French Revolution and against 
 England. " Adams related that he "judged it pru 
 dent and necessary to order chests of arms from the 
 War Office" to be, brought into his house to defend 
 it from attack, and he had it from "the coolest 
 and firmest minds" that nothing but the outbreak 
 of* yellow fever in Philadelphia that summer 
 "could have saved the United States from a fatal 
 revolution of government." On the other hand, 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 137 
 
 letters written by Hamilton during the time of all 
 this excitement show that he thought little of it, 
 although he more than anyone else was its target. 
 In May, 1793, he wrote that the number of persons 
 who went to meet Genet "would be stated high at 
 a hundred, " and he did not believe that a tenth 
 part of the city participated in the meetings and 
 addresses of Genet s sympathizers. "A crowd 
 will always draw a crowd, whatever be the purpose. 
 Curiosity will supply the place of attachment to, or 
 interest in, the object. " Washington s own letters 
 at this period show no trace of concern about 
 his personal safety though he smarted under the 
 attacks on his motives. An entry of August 2, 
 1793, in Jefferson s private diary, forming the vol 
 ume since known as "The Anas," relates that at a 
 cabinet meeting Knox exhibited a print entitled the 
 
 funeral of George W n, in which the President 
 
 was placed on a guillotine. "The President was 
 much inflamed; got into one of those passions when 
 he cannot command himself; ran much on the 
 personal abuse which had been bestowed upon him ; 
 defied any man on earth to produce one single act 
 of his since he had been in the Government which 
 was not done from the purest motives; that he -had 
 never repented but once the having slipped the 
 
138 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 moment of resigning his office, and that was every 
 moment since; that by God he had rather be in 
 his grave than in his present situation; that he had 
 rather be on his farm than to be made emperor of 
 the world; and that they were charging him with 
 wanting to be king; that that rascal Freneau sent 
 him three of his papers every day, as if he thought 
 he would become the distributor of his papers; that 
 he could see in this nothing but an impudent design 
 to insult him. " 
 
 Freneau was one of Jefferson s subordinates in 
 the State Department, combining with his duties 
 there the editorship of a newspaper engaged in 
 spreading the calumny that the Administration was 
 leaning toward monarchy through the influence 
 of Hamilton and his friends, who despised repub 
 licanism, hated France, and loved England. This 
 journalistic campaign went on under the protec 
 tion of Jefferson to the disturbance of an adminis 
 tration of which Jefferson himself formed a part. 
 This circumstance has given trouble to Jeffer 
 son s biographers, and it is now somewhat difficult 
 to make those allowances to which Jefferson is en 
 titled from the candid historian. Such behavior 
 at the present day would be regarded as treacher 
 ous, for it is now a settled doctrine that it is the 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 139 
 
 duty of a member of the President s Cabinet to 
 give unreserved support to his policy, or to resign. 
 But at that period, neither in England nor in the 
 United States, did this view of cabinet solidarity 
 prevail. It was not considered against the rules 
 of the game for a cabinet official to use any op 
 portunities within reach for promoting his aims or 
 to boast such behavior as patriotic zeal. Jeffer 
 son, who wanted to resign and stayed on only at 
 Washington s earnest desire, certainly rendered a 
 service to the Administration, which was then so 
 unpopular that Jefferson s connection with it was 
 a political asset of great value., 
 
 Hamilton also made use of the services of journal 
 ism. When on June 29, 1793, publication began of 
 a series of eight articles signed "Pacificus," it was 
 well known that Hamilton was the author. The 
 acute analysis and cogent reasoning of these 
 articles have given them classic rank as an exposi 
 tion of national rights and duties. Upon minds 
 open to reason their effect was marked. Jefferson 
 wrote to Madison, "For God s sake, my dear 
 Sir, take up your pen, select the most striking 
 heresies, and cut him to pieces in the face of the 
 public r " Madison did take up his pen, but he 
 laid it down again without attempting to con- 
 
140 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 trovert Hamilton s argument. The five articles 
 which Madison wrote over the signature "Helvi- 
 dius" do not proceed farther into the subject than 
 a preliminary examination of executive authority, 
 in which he laid down principles of strict con 
 struction of the Constitution which have never 
 been adopted in practice and which are now 
 interesting only as specimens of dialectic subtlety. 
 Although as an electioneering tactician Jefferson 
 had superior ability, neither he nor any of his 
 associates was a match for Hamilton in debate. 
 As the issues were discussed, the Jeffersonians lost 
 ground, and for this they put the blame on Genet. 
 By July 7, Jefferson was writing to Madison that 
 Genet "renders my position immensely difficult, " 
 and thereafter in the correspondence of Jefferson, 
 Madison, and Monroe, Genet figures as a rash 
 man whose indiscretions embarrassed his friends 
 and impeded his own objects. This view has to a 
 large extent passed over into history, but when it is 
 considered that Genet did not come to America for 
 Jefferson s comfort but to accomplish certain things 
 for his own government, it must be owned that 
 he had considerable success. Although his means 
 were small, he managed to engage in the French 
 service an active American fleet including such 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 141 
 
 vessels as Le Cassius, L Ami de le Point a Petre, 
 L Amour de la Liberte, La Vengeance, La Montague, 
 Le Vainqueur de la Bastille, La Carmagnole, L Esper- 
 ance, Le Citoyen Genet, Sans Pareil, and Le Petit 
 Democrate. The last-mentioned vessel was origi 
 nally an English merchantman, the brig Little 
 Sarah, brought into Philadelphia harbor as a 
 French prize. When it was learned that this vessel 
 had been armed and equipped for service as a 
 French man-of-war, Governor Mifflin of Pennsyl 
 vania gave orders that the vessel should be de 
 tained. Genet threatened forcible resistance, and 
 a clash might have occurred, had Jefferson not 
 intervened. He went to Genet s house on Sunday 
 to persuade him not to move the vessel until the 
 President could decide the case. Genet refused to 
 give any promise, but remarked that the vessel 
 would probably not be ready to depart for several 
 days. Jefferson thereupon exerted himself suc 
 cessfully to prevent the taking of any steps to 
 detain the vessel. 
 
 Washington, hafijassed and confused by the 
 dissensions of his Cabinet, now desired that the 
 advice of the justices of the Supreme Court 
 be taken. Hamilton was opposed to a proceeding 
 which involved prejudgment by the Court on 
 
142 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 questions which might come before it in due course 
 of law, and which seemed to him also to be an 
 avoidance of the proper responsibility of the execu 
 tive. Nevertheless he took part in preparing the 
 case, and of the twenty-nine questions submitted 
 to the Supreme Court, Hamilton framed twenty- 
 one, Jefferson seven, and Washington himself the 
 last. Jefferson notified Genet of this consultation 
 as an additional reason for patience, "the object 
 of it being to obtain the best advice possible on the 
 sense of the laws and treaties respecting the several 
 cases. I am persuaded you will think the delay 
 well compensated." Genet did not think so, and 
 Le Petit Democrate put to^ sea in defiance of Ameri 
 can authority. 
 
 The justices declined to answer the questions, 
 and the Administration had to face its responsibil 
 ities on its own judgement of its rights and duties. 
 At least one member of the Administration had 
 clear and positive ideas on that subject. Hamilton, 
 who in his "Pacificus" letters had given a masterly 
 exposition of international obligations, now took 
 up the particular issues raised by Genet s claims, 
 which at that time were receiving ardent cham 
 pionship. Freneau s National Gazette held that 
 Genet had really acted "too tamely," had been 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 143 
 
 "too accommodating for the peace of the United 
 States." Hamilton now replied by a series of 
 articles in the Daily Advertiser over the signature 
 "No Jacobin," in which Genet s behavior was 
 reviewed. After iive articles had appeared in 
 rapid succession, the series was abruptly termi 
 nated because Hamilton was taken down by the 
 yellow fever. 
 
 The journalistic war was almost in the nature 
 of a duel between the State and the Treasury 
 Departments. Genet must have been amused. 
 Lack of funds hindered his activities more than 
 anything else. Jefferson had advised Washington 
 that, "if the instalments falling due in this year 
 could be advanced without incurring more dan 
 ger," it would be well to make the payments, as he 
 "thought it very material to keep alive the friendly 
 sentiments of France." But this was a matter 
 which pertained to Hamilton s own department, 
 and in that field his advice controlled Washington. 
 Genet could do nothing in this direction, and 
 before the affair of Le Petit Democrate he had 
 ceased to expect financial aid. 
 
 Jefferson was now so angry and indignant that 
 he no longer opposed the suggestions that had been 
 made in cabinet meetings that Genet should be 
 
144 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 dismissed, and the note on that subject which he 
 drafted for transmission to the French Government 
 is an able document. The French Government, 
 with ample reason, conditioned the recall of Genet 
 upon the recall of Morris, who was succeeded by 
 James Monroe. Meanwhile Genet s situation 
 had become perilous through revolution at home. 
 On October 16, 1793, his Government issued an 
 order for his arrest. The United States now 
 became his asylum. He acquired citizenship, 
 married a daughter of Governor Clinton of New 
 York, and settled down to a useful and respected 
 career as a country gentleman devoted to the 
 improvement of agriculture. He died at his home, 
 Schodak, New York, in 1834, after having founded 
 an American family. 
 
 At the time when Genet, favored by the exasper 
 ated state of Western sentiment over the naviga 
 tion of the lower Mississippi, was promoting an 
 attack upon the Spanish posts, the Administra 
 tion had already been engaged for a long time in 
 efforts to secure "full enjoyment of that navi 
 gation, " as well as a settlement of the southwestern 
 boundary. In December, 1791, Washington nom 
 inated William Carmichael, charge d affaires in 
 Spain, and William Short, then charge d affaires 
 
FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA 145 
 
 in France, commissioners to make a treaty. 
 Their efforts proved unsuccessful, and in 1794 
 the Spanish commissioner in the United States 
 gave notice that they were not acceptable per 
 sonally, and that it "was hoped that some other 
 person would be appointed, with full powers, 
 to settle this treaty, and graced with such a 
 character as became the royalty to which he 
 was accredited." Washington then nominated 
 Thomas Pinckney, at that time minister in Lon 
 don, as minister plenipotentiary in Spain. When 
 Pinckney arrived on the scene he was met with 
 the dilatory methods then characteristic of Span 
 ish diplomacy, and finally he had to bring 
 matters to an issue by demanding his passports. 
 His determination so impressed the Spanish Gov 
 ernment that it finally consented to a treaty, 
 October 27, 1795, which fixed the southern bound 
 ary of the United States and opened the Mississippi 
 River to navigation. The boundary line was to 
 run east along the thirty-first parallel of latitude 
 from the Mississippi to the Appalachicola, thence 
 along the latter river to its junction with the Flint, 
 thence to the headwaters of the St. Mary s, and 
 along its course to the Atlantic Ocean. The free 
 navigation of the Mississippi was coupled with the 
 
146 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 privilege of depositing merchandise at New Or 
 leans "without paying any other duty than a fair 
 price for the hire of the stores. " This privilege 
 was to be continued after three years, or "an 
 equivalent establishment" on the banks of the 
 Mississippi was to be assigned to citizens of the 
 United States a provision which was not free 
 from ambiguities and which furnished fresh ma 
 terial for controversy a few years later. 
 
149 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A SETTLEMENT WITH ENGLAND 
 
 ACCORDING to Jefferson, the President origi 
 nally took the same view of the French 
 treaty that he did. Jefferson relates that on 
 April 18, 1793, Washington spoke of having 
 "never had a doubt of the validity of the French 
 treaty," and he notes that in the cabinet dis 
 putes Washington was inclined to his views. As 
 the embarrassments of the Administration thick 
 ened, the President, it is true, leaned more and 
 more toward Hamilton, but this inclination was 
 due more \o necessity than to personal partiality. 
 The explanation stands out in Jefferson s own 
 account of events. Hamilton was clear, positive, 
 and decided as to what to do and how to do it. 
 Jefferson was active in finding objections but not 
 in finding ways and means of action. This con 
 trast became sharper as time went on, and, as 
 Washington was in a position where he had to do 
 
 147 
 
14.fi 
 
 .^SHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 TJT" 1 
 
 Something, he was forced to rely on Hamilton 
 more and more. Jefferson held that it would be 
 inexpedient for the general government to assume 
 the duty of fortifying the harbors, and that there 
 was no constitutional authority for establishing a 
 military academy. On November 28, 1793, there 
 was a prolonged wrangle over these issues at a 
 cabinet meeting, which the President ended by 
 saying that he would recommend the military 
 academy to Congress, and "let them decide for 
 themselves whether the Constitution authorized 
 it or not. " This was the last of the quarrelsome 
 cabinet sessions recorded by Jefferson. He vacated 
 the office of Secretary of State, December 31, 1793, 
 and thereafter the ascendancy of Hamilton in the 
 Cabinet was indisputed. 
 
 An immediate effect of the change was to give j 
 new vigor to efforts at reaching a settlement with j 
 Great Britain. The old troubles over her reten- j 
 tion of the western posts still continued, and in 
 addition to them came new difficulties arising from 
 war measures. On January 30, 1793, Thomas 
 Pinckney^ then American minister to Great Britain, 
 wrote that war was about to begin, "and although 
 our claim to a free intercourse is founded in reason 
 and our national right, yet, as we have no armed 
 
A SETTLEMENT WITH ENGLAND 149 
 
 * 
 
 Neutrality the members whereof this people have to 
 fear, they may stop our vessels bound to French 
 ports with provisions." What was feared soon 
 happened. By theFrench decree of 1793, the 
 French^olonies we^e^^en^LJO American trade 
 and West Indian commerce flourished. This 
 was now~afflicted by contraband regulations laid 
 down by Great Britain, under which many Ameri 
 can vessels were seized for carrying cargoes to 
 or from French ports. Although Genet s activities 
 and the extent to which they were indulged by 
 the United States did not tend to promote friendly 
 relations with Great Britain, yet it does not 
 appear that the British policy was inspired by 
 resentment. The regulations as defined by in 
 structions issued on June 8, 1793, made liable to 
 detention all vessels carrying "corn, flour, or 
 meal" to French ports, with the proviso that the 
 cargoes might be purchased on behalf of the 
 British government and the ships might then be 
 released with a due allowance for freight, or they 
 might be allowed to dispose of their cargoes in 
 the ports of any country in amity with Great 
 Britain. Vessels attempting to enter a blockaded 
 port were liable to seizure and condemnation, save 
 that the ships of Denmark and Sweden might be 
 
150 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 seized only if they should persist in trying to enter 
 after once having been turned back. 
 
 Conciliatory explanations were made by Ham 
 mond, the British minister, in notifying our State 
 Department. He pointed out that only corn and 
 flour were contraband, that the regulations did not 
 extend to other provisions, and that they secured 
 "to the proprietors, supposing them neutral, a full 
 indemnification for any loss they may possibly 
 sustain. " The special privilege extended to Den 
 mark and Sweden was attributed to treaty require 
 ments and therefore could not be regarded as 
 invidious. In reply Jefferson at home and Pinck- 
 ney abroad argued in behalf of the United States 
 for the principle that free ships make free goods, 
 but Great Britain would not hearken to a doctrine 
 that struck at the efficacy of her sea power. 
 
 Washington besought Congress to support the 
 efforts of the Administration by making, for the 
 defense of American interests, such provision as 
 would inspire respect. In his address of December 
 3, 1793, he observed: "There is a rank due to the 
 United States among nations which will be with 
 held, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of 
 weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be 
 able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of 
 
A SETTLEMENT WITH ENGLAND 151 
 
 the most powerful instruments of our rising pros 
 perity, it must be known that we are at all times 
 ready for war." The answer of Congress was the 
 grudging consent to some naval preparations 
 already recounted. 
 
 After the passage of the navy bill Sedgwick of 
 Massachusetts endeavored to interest the House in 
 the general subject of military preparation. On 
 March 12, 1794, he introduced resolutions for 
 raising fifteen additional regiments for two years, 
 the term to be extended for three years in case of 
 the outbreak of war. In advocating this measure 
 he spoke of the sorry experience of the country in 
 depending upon militia. Their " want of discipline 
 occasions them to commit a great waste on the 
 property of their fellow citizens, besides a waste of 
 public property." As long as we depend upon 
 militia, "European nations will not consider us as 
 able to retaliate and assert our rights. " Nothing 
 came of this sensible proposal, but Sedgwick 
 made an auxiliary suggestion which Congress 
 did adopt. He urged that the sailing of vessels 
 from the ports of the United States be prohibited. 
 An embargo would hold over foreign nations the 
 threat that, unless they behaved themselves, 
 their supplies from the United States might be 
 
152 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 cut off. Such embargo was voted for a month 
 from March 26, 1794, which was subsequently 
 extended for another month, and the President was 
 authorized to lay, regulate, and revoke embargoes 
 during the recess of Congress. Congress regarded 
 the embargo policy as a cheap way out of a difficult 
 situation, but this method was really not only far 
 more costly to the nation than would have been the 
 straightforward course of arming for defense, but 
 at the same time accomplished nothing. Dayton 
 of New Jersey proposed to supplement the em 
 bargo by the sequestration of all debts due from 
 citizens of the United States to British subjects. 
 Clark of New Jersey outdid his colleague by pro 
 posing to prohibit all commercial intercourse 
 between the United States and Great Britain 
 until such time as that country should surrender 
 the western posts and should make restitution for 
 all losses sustained by American citizens. 
 
 Violent speeches were made on these proposals 
 at the very time when the House was refusing to 
 support either an army or a navy. Sedgwick intro 
 duced some good sense into a debate that was 
 alternating between blatant vaporing and legal 
 pedantry, by pointing out that, under the Con 
 stitution, the President of the United States ought 
 
A SETTLEMENT WITH ENGLAND 153 
 
 to be allowed to have some say about the matter. 
 It was the function of the President to treat 
 with foreign powers, and yet the House was now 
 considering action which was in effect "prescribing 
 the terms of treaty, and restraining the constitu 
 tional power from treating on any other terms. " 
 This argument was used effectively by a number 
 of speakers. It turned the main position taken by 
 the advocates of non-intercourse, which was that 
 the real objection came from the bondholders who 
 feared that the ensuing loss of revenue might pre 
 vent them from getting their interest. Such 
 imputations of sordid motive became fruitless 
 when the issue was raised of the constitutional 
 authority of the President, but the advocates of 
 non-intercourse met this new point of view by 
 pointing out that the Constitution gave Congress 
 the right to regulate commerce. The feeling 
 against Great Britain was so great that the House 
 was bent on indulging it, and on April 25, 1794, 
 the non-intercourse bill was passed by a vote of 
 58 to 34. The Senate was so evenly divided that, 
 on the motion to pass the bill to its third reading, 
 there was a tie vote, and Vice-President Adams, 
 who was called upon for a casting vote, gave it 
 against the bill. About a month later in the House 
 
154 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 another attempt was made to carry the policy of 
 non-intercourse by a joint resolution, but by this 
 * time a reaction in favor of the Administration had 
 set in and the resolution received only 24 yeas to 
 46 nays, James Madison being among those who 
 stuck to the proposal to the last. 
 
 While the House was abandoning itself to reck 
 less mischief-making, Washington was striving to 
 arrange matters by negotiation. The perplexities 
 of his situation were great and varied. As a 
 military man he knew that American jurisdiction 
 was precarious so long as Great Britain held 
 the interior. The matter had been the subject 
 of prolix correspondence between Jefferson and 
 Hammond, but the American demands that Great 
 Britain should surrender the frontier posts in 
 accordance with the treaty of peace had been met 
 by demands that America, in accordance with that 
 same treaty, should first satisfy various claims 
 of British subjects for restitution, indemnity, and 
 relief. The regular diplomatic machinery stuck 
 fast at this point, both at home and abroad. In 
 one of his gossipy, confidential letters Fisher 
 Ames remarked that Hammond was a most 
 "petulant, impudent" man, habitually railing 
 against the conduct of our government "with a 
 
A SETTLEMENT WITH ENGLAND 155 
 
 gabble that his feelings render doubly unin 
 telligible." But Pinckney, our representative in 
 England, was equally undiplomatic. He was 
 "sour and also Gallican"; although calm in man 
 ner, "he had prejudices, and unless a man has a 
 mind above them, he can do little service there." 
 Washington decided that it would be wise to 
 send a special envoy to deal with all the points at 
 issue. He thought first of Hamilton, but was 
 warned that the Senate would not ratify such an 
 appointment. Hamilton recommended John Jay 
 as "the only man in whose qualifications for 
 success there would be thorough confidence." 
 Jay was then chief -justice, but the crisis was so 
 dangerous as to justify Washington in calling him 
 even from that important post. He had match 
 less qualifications for the mission. He had been 
 minister to Spain, 1778-1782; he had been one of 
 the commissioners who had negotiated the treaty 
 of peace of 1783; he had been Secretary of Foreign 
 Affairs, 1784-1789; so that he had had an experi 
 ence which familiarized him with every detail 
 of the questions at issue. As a negotiator he had 
 always gained marked success by acting upon his 
 own principle that "a little good-natured wisdom 
 often does more in politics than much slippery 
 
156 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 craft." Jay showed fine patriotism in accepting 
 the appointment. He remarked to his friends that 
 no man could frame a treaty with Great Britain 
 without making himself unpopular and odious, 
 and he accepted the mission under "a conviction 
 that to refuse it would be to desert my duty for 
 the sake of my ease and domestic concerns and 
 comforts. " 
 
 Jay was nominated as envoy extraordinary on 
 April 16, 1794, and, after three days of violent 
 debate, the appointment was confirmed by the 
 Senate. The event did not moderate the rage of 
 the House for immediate action. Some members 
 urged that it was indelicate for the House to be 
 passing reprisals at a time when the Executive was 
 attempting friendly negotiations; but the reply was 
 made that, if there was any indelicacy, it was on 
 the part of the Executive, inasmuch as the House 
 proceedings had been already begun when the 
 President decided to nominate an envoy extra 
 ordinary. While Congress was fuming and wran 
 gling, Jay was proceeding with his difficult task. 
 He sailed on May 12, and on June 8 landed in Eng 
 land where he was hospitably received. Despite 
 these personal attentions, the differences to be 
 adjusted were so numerous and complicated that 
 
A SETTLEMENT WITH ENGLAND 157 
 
 on the surface the situation looked almost hope 
 less. Conditions, however, were really more 
 favorable than they appeared to be. A change, 
 latent but influential, had taken place in the 
 mental attitude of the governing class in England. 
 There had been a notion that American independ 
 ence would not last long and that the country 
 would eventually be restored to the British Crown. 
 The drift of events was rather in that direction 
 until Hamilton s measures gave the ascendancy to 
 the forces making for American national develop 
 ment. The practical statesmanship of Great 
 Britain perhaps saw more clearly the significance 
 of what was taking place than did that of America 
 itself, and it was prepared to reckon with this 
 new condition. Moreover, the European com 
 motion resulting from the French Revolution had 
 brought to the front a new set of interests and 
 anxieties, for the free handling of which a settle 
 ment of differences with the United States might 
 be advantageous. The effect of such consider 
 ations was at least to render the situation more 
 manageable than might have been expected, and 
 Jay improved his opportunities with admirable 
 tact. 
 
 In pursuance of his principle of bringing " good- 
 
158 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 natured wisdom" to bear, Jay suggested to Lord 
 Grenville, the British Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs, that they should dispense with written 
 communications, and merely meet and converse 
 informally "until there should appear a probability 
 of coming to some amicable mutual understand 
 ing. " Even after such understanding should be 
 put into writing, it was not to be regarded as 
 official or binding, but simply as an exchange of 
 private memoranda. So strictly was this informal 
 method adhered to that the regular force of secre 
 taries and copyists had nothing to do with the 
 proceedings until the treaty was almost ready for 
 signing. Jay had been instructed to demand 
 compensation for some three thousand slaves who 
 had followed the British troops when they depart 
 ed, but Lord Grenville stood firm on the principle 
 that the slave, once under the British flag, became 
 a free man, the property rights of the former owner 
 thereupon becoming extinct and not forming a sub 
 ject for compensation. Jay, who really held the 
 same opinion, had to yield the point. It was 
 agreed that the western posts should be evacuated 
 by June 1, 1796, an arrangement which would 
 allow the British government to retain them about 
 two years longer. That government had already 
 
A SETTLEMENT WITH ENGLAND 159 
 
 justified its retention of these posts by averring 
 that the United States had not complied with the 
 articles of the peace treaty relating to British 
 debts. Jay was not in a position to argue the 
 point with any force, for when he was Secretary of 
 Foreign Affairs he had advised Congress that 
 these articles "have been constantly violated on 
 our part by legislative acts, then and still existing 
 and operating"; and that Great Britain was there 
 fore not to blame for retaining the posts. The 
 British government was undoubtedly cognizant of 
 this report, and Jay could not make any effective 
 opposition to a proviso which in effect said to the 
 United States, "before surrendering the posts we 
 will wait and see whether you intend to fulfill 
 your agreements. " The root of the trouble 
 an evil often felt and still experienced in the 
 United States was defective sovereignty, an 
 inability of the whole to control the behavior of 
 its parts. Jay could not deny that the peace treaty 
 had been violated by state legislation, and only 
 by the humiliating means of an avowal of its im 
 potence could he exonerate the national government 
 from the imputation of bad faith. The matter was 
 disposed of by provision for a joint commission to 
 decide upon all cases in which it was alleged that 
 
160 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 unlawful impediments had been placed in the way 
 of collection of debts due British subjects, and by 
 the United States undertaking payment of the 
 awards. A similar commission was to pass upon 
 American claims for British violation of neutral 
 rights. This arrangement was a concession whose 
 practical value was eventually shown by the fact 
 that as a result American merchants received some 
 millions of dollars. 
 
 Jay displayed marked adroitness as a negotiator 
 in dealing with the issues growing out of past differ 
 ences, but he made an extraordinary slip in provid 
 ing for commercial relations between the two 
 countries. In their general tenor the articles 
 displayed broad liberality. Between all British 
 dominions in Europe and the territories of the 
 United States there was to be "a reciprocal and 
 perfect liberty ^f commerce and navigation." 
 American vessels were to "be admitted and hos 
 pitably received" in the ports of East India, 
 and, although participation in the coasting trade 
 was prohibited, it was provided that this re 
 striction should not prevent ships going from one 
 port of discharge to another. The East Indian 
 trade was not, however, so important as the nearer 
 West Indian trade, and with respect to the latter 
 
A SETTLEMENT WITH ENGLAND 161 
 
 the treaty provisions were narrow and exacting. 
 American vessels were limited to seventy tons 
 burden, and it was provided that "the United 
 States will prohibit and restrain the carrying 
 away of molasses, sugar, coffee, or cotton in 
 American vessels, either for his Majesty s Islands 
 or the United States, to any part of the world 
 except the United States, reasonable sea-stores 
 excepted. " Jay, in a letter to Washington, excused 
 his acceptance of this restraint on the ground that 
 "the commercial part of the treaty may be ter 
 minated at the expiration of two years after the 
 war, and in the meantime a state of things more 
 auspicious to negotiation will probably arise, 
 especially if the next session of Congress should not 
 interpose fresh obstacles. " 
 
 The treaty was silent on the subject of impress 
 ment, but Jay s failure on that point was just 
 what was to haveHbeen expected in view of the 
 unwillingness of the United States to defend its 
 commerce. Impressment was not abandoned until 
 many years afterwards, and then not through 
 treaty stipulation but because the United States 
 had a navy and could resist aggression on the seas. 
 In its treatment of the subject of contraband, 
 the treaty took positions in accord with the 
 
162 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 international law then received, but in one respect 
 it made a distinct advance. Provision was made 
 that war between the two countries should never 
 become the pretext for confiscation of debts or 
 annulment of contracts. This position involves 
 the noble principle that war should never supersede 
 justice but should be the servant of justice. Great 
 practical advantage was experienced from it in the 
 War of 1812, when the United States was a creditor 
 nation. 
 
 On the whole, Jay s diplomacy was as enlight 
 ened as it was shrewd, but at the time it exposed 
 him to furious denunciation which he disdained 
 to notice. "I had read the history of Greece," 
 he wrote to a friend, "and was apprised of the 
 politics and proceedings of more recent date." 
 The philosophic composure which he drew from his 
 knowledge of history enabled him to behave with 
 calm dignity while he was being burned in effigy, 
 and while mob orators were heaping insult and 
 calumny on his name. After a struggle that shook 
 the Government, the treaty was ratified by the 
 Senate on June 24, 1795, with the exception of the 
 article about the West Indian trade, an omission 
 to which Great Britain made no objection. The 
 treaty was extremely unpopular, chiefly because 
 
A SETTLEMENT WITH ENGLAND 163 
 
 unreasonable expectations of its provisions had 
 been entertained. People had yet to learn that 
 national independence has its defects as well as its 
 advantages, and that the traditional intimacy 
 between the West Indies and America was now on 
 a footing of privilege and not of right. The great 
 benefits conferred by the treaty were therefore not 
 appreciated, and so violent was the fury its terms 
 excited that it was perhaps fortunate that Jay did 
 not resume his seat on the Supreme Bench. Before 
 his return from England and before the details of 
 the treaty had been made public, he had been 
 elected governor of New York, and to accept this 
 office he resigned the chief -justiceship. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PARTY VIOLENCE 
 
 WHEN, in July, 1793, Jefferson notified the Presi 
 dent of his wish to resign from the Cabinet, 
 Hamilton s resignation had already been before 
 the President for several weeks. Ever since the 
 removal of Congress to Philadelphia, Hamilton s 
 circumstances had become less and less able 
 to endure the strain of maintaining his official 
 position on a salary of $3500 a year. He had fully 
 experienced the truth of the warnings he had 
 received that, if he gave himself to the public 
 service, he might spend his time and substance 
 without receiving gratitude for his efforts or credit 
 for his motives. His vocation for statesmanship, 
 however, was too genuine and his courage too high 
 for such results to dishearten him. He had now 
 accomplished what he had set out to do in securing 
 the adoption of the measures which established the 
 new government, and he no longer regarded his 
 
 164 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 165 
 
 administrative position as essential to the success 
 of his policy. Meanwhile the need had become 
 urgent that he should resume the practice of his 
 profession to provide for his family. It was not 
 in his nature, however, to leave the front when a 
 battle was coming on, and, although he gave early 
 notice of his intention so that Washington should 
 have ample time to look about for his successor, 
 the resignation was not to become effective until 
 Congress had met and shown its temper. Accord 
 ing to Jefferson, Washington once remarked to 
 him that he supposed Hamilton "had fixed on the 
 latter part of next session to give an opportunity to 
 Congress to examine into his conduct. " Although 
 Hamilton had made up his mind to retire, he in 
 tended to march out with flying colors, as became 
 the victor on a hard-fought field. So far, he had 
 met and beaten all enemies who had dared to 
 assail his honor; he meant to beat them again if 
 they renewed the attack, and he had word that 
 one encounter was coming more formidable than 
 any before. 
 
 Hamilton s success in carrying his measures 
 through Congress, by sheer dexterity of manage 
 ment when numbers were against him, added 
 intense bitterness to the natural chagrin felt by 
 
166 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 the defeated faction. Men like Jefferson and 
 Madison were subject to traditions of behavior 
 that required them to maintain a certain style of 
 public decorum no matter how they might rage 
 in private. But new men with new manners were 
 coming on the scene, and among them the opposi 
 tion to Hamilton had found a new leader 
 William Branch Giles of Virginia. He was a 
 Princeton graduate of the class of 1781, had stud 
 ied for the bar, and had been admitted to practice 
 in 1786. To the full legal equipment of the period 
 . he added an energy and an audacity that speedily 
 brought him legal and political distinction. He 
 was active and outspoken in advocating the 
 adoption of the new Constitution, at a time when 
 popular sentiment in Virginia was strongly inclined 
 to be adverse. He had no hesitation about 
 undertaking unpopular causes, and hence British 
 debt cases became a marked feature of his practice. 
 Virginia State law had suspended the recovery of 
 debts due British subjects until reparation had 
 been made for the loss of negro slaves taken away 
 by the British during the war, and until the 
 western posts had been surrendered. But the 
 peace treaty of 1783 stipulated that creditors on 
 neither side should meet with lawful impediment 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 167 
 
 in the recovery of debts, and by the new Constitu 
 tion treaties had become part of the law of the 
 land. On the basis of a national jurisdiction in 
 conflict with the Virginia statutes, Giles acted so 
 energetically, that he himself related that by 1792 
 he had been employed in at least one hundred 
 British debt cases, and was "as successful in 
 collecting monies under judgments as is usually 
 the case with citizens." 
 
 Comprehension of the true nature of the struggle 
 in which Giles became conspicuous must start 
 with the fact that the Constitution was reluctantly 
 accepted and with great uneasiness as to possible 
 consequences. In the Virginia convention of 
 1788, it was declared that the new Constitution 
 was essentially a scheme of the military men to 
 subject the people to their rule. This argument 
 was not so much met as avoided by the declaration 
 that there could be no tyranny while Washington 
 lived. The rejoinder was obvious: what if he 
 should not be able to withstand military influence? 
 What if, in spite of him, the government should be 
 given a dangerous character that would develop 
 after he passed away? Jefferson had felt misgiv 
 ings on this score from the first, and Madison 
 experienced them as soon as differences on practical 
 
168 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 measures arose between himself and Hamilton. 
 Jefferson and Madison wanted the government 
 to be made respectable but not strong. Hamilton 
 saw what they could not see and indeed what 
 few at that time could see that a government 
 cannot be made respectable without being made 
 strong. 
 
 Washington was probably without any clear 
 views of his own on constitutional questions, and 
 what evidence there is on this point supports 
 Jefferson s claim that Washington was more dis 
 posed to confide in him and in Madison than in 
 Hamilton. When Jefferson relinquished the State 
 Department, Washington proposed to give Madison 
 the post, but was told he would not think of taking 
 it. Washington then transferred Randolph to 
 the position because he could not get anybody else 
 of suitable capacity. Whatever Washington s 
 personal inclinations may have been, he was in a 
 position in which he had to act. Hamilton was the 
 only one whom he could find to show him the way, 
 and thus circumstances more and more compelled 
 Washington to accept Hamilton s guidance, while 
 at the same time it seemed increasingly clear to the 
 opposition that it was above all things necessary 
 to crush Hamilton. This state of sentiment must 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 169 
 
 be kept in mind in order to make intelligible the 
 rabid violence of the party warfare which had long 
 been going on against Hamilton, and which now 
 that Jefferson had left the Cabinet was soon 
 to be extended to Washington himself. 
 
 When Giles went to the front in this war, both 
 Jefferson and Madison were busy behind the fir 
 ing line supplying munitions. Giles was elected 
 in 1790 to fill a vacancy caused by the death of 
 Theodorick Bland, and took his seat in the third 
 session of the First Congress. The assumption 
 bill had been passed, but that was only the first of 
 the series of financial measures proposed by 
 Hamilton, and Giles followed Madison s lead in 
 unsuccessful resistance to the excise and to the 
 national bank. Giles was re-elected to the Second 
 Congress, which opened on October 24, 1791. 
 In the course of this session he became the leader 
 of the opposition, not by supplanting Madison 
 but through willingness to take responsibilities 
 from which Madison, like Jefferson, shrank, because 
 he, too, preferred activity behind the scenes. 
 This situation has often occurred in parliamentary 
 history a zealous party champion scouting the 
 scruples and restraints that hampered the official 
 leadership, and assuming an independent line of 
 
170 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 attack with the covert favor and assistance of that 
 leadership. In the effort to crush Hamilton a 
 series of raids was led by Giles, whose appetite for 
 fighting could never be extinguished no matter 
 how severe might be his defeat. 
 
 After much preliminary skirmishing which put 
 heavy tasks on Hamilton in the way of getting up 
 reports and documents, a grand attack was made 
 on January 23, 1793. A series of resolutions, in 
 drafting which Madison and Jefferson took part, 
 was presented, calling for minute particulars of 
 all loans, names of all persons to whom payments 
 had been made, statements of semi-monthly bal 
 ances between the Treasury and the Bank, and an 
 account of the sinking fund and of unexpended 
 appropriations, all from the beginning of the 
 government until the end of 1792. The resolution 
 required Hamilton to complete and state all the 
 accounts of the Treasury Department up to a period 
 only a little over three weeks before the resolutions 
 were presented, and to give a detailed transcript 
 of particulars. But the Treasury accounts were in 
 such perfect order, and so great was Hamilton s 
 capacity for work, that the information called 
 for was promptly transmitted in reports dated 
 February 4, February 13, and February 14. At 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 171 
 
 the same time Hamilton hit back by observing that 
 the resolutions "were not moved without a pretty 
 copious display of the reasons on which they were 
 founded," which "were of a nature to excite 
 attention, to beget alarm, to inspire doubts." 
 
 Giles was soon able to renew the attack. Jeffer 
 son and Madison helped him to prepare a series 
 of nine resolutions which were presented on Febru 
 ary 27. They specifically charged Hamilton with 
 violation of law, neglect of duty, transgression of 
 the proper limits of his authority, and indecorum 
 in his attitude towards the House. The series 
 ended with a resolution that a copy should be 
 transmitted to the President. The proceeding 
 was a sort of impeachment, framed with the pur 
 pose not of bringing Hamilton to trial but of forc 
 ing him out of the Cabinet. The charges against 
 him were purely technical and were actuated by 
 malevolence. Hamilton, though not allowed to 
 come into the House to defend himself, neverthe 
 less participated in the debate indirectly by writing 
 the speech delivered by William Smith and credited 
 to him in the Annals of Congress. It was so gener 
 ally felt in Congress that the resolutions were 
 founded on nothing more substantial than spite 
 that Giles could not hold his forces together, and 
 
172 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 as the debate proceeded the number of his adher 
 ents dwindled. The House began voting at a 
 night session on March 1st. After the third 
 resolution had been defeated by a vote of 40 to 12, 
 an attempt was made to withdraw the others, but 
 such action was refused, and one by one the 
 remaining resolutions were defeated by increasing 
 numbers until only seven voted with Giles at 
 the last, among them James Madison. It was a 
 signal triumph for Hamilton. But his enemies 
 were not disposed to accept the decision as final, 
 and Jefferson thought it might be revised at the 
 next session. 
 
 It was not until the Second Congress that the old 
 factions finally disappeared and the formation of 
 national parties began . The issue over the 
 adoption of the Constitution had produced Federal 
 ists and Anti-Federalists, but with its adoption 
 Anti-Federalism as such became a thing of the past. 
 Opposition to the Government had to betake itself 
 to the political platform provided by the successful 
 introduction of the new system of government, and 
 was_ obliged to distinguish itself from official 
 Federalism by attacking not the Constitution but 
 ijQ Bg wJnli thgConstitution was being 
 
 construed and applied. The suspicion, jealousy, 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 173 
 
 and dislike with which the new government was 
 regarded in many quarters were reflected from the 
 beginning in the behavior of Congress. There 
 was from the first a disposition to find fault and to 
 antagonize, and as time went on this disposition 
 was aggravated by the great scope allowed to 
 misunderstanding and calumny from the lack of 
 direct contact between Congress and the Adminis 
 tration. In founding a new partv 7 Jfifferapp nr> ly 
 organized forces that were demanding leadership. 
 He consolidated the existing opposition, and gave 
 it the name " Republican Party," implying that 
 its purpose was to resist the rise of monarchy and 
 the growth of royal prerogative in the system of 
 government which was introduced by the adoption 
 of the Constitution. It is clear enough now that 
 the implication was mere calumny; the notion that 
 Washington was either aiming at monarchy or was 
 conniving at it through ignorance was a grotesque 
 travesty of the shameful situation that actually 
 existed; but fictions, pretenses, slanders, and 
 calumnies that would never have been allowed 
 utterance if the Administration and Congress had 
 stood face to face now had opportunity to spread 
 and infect public opinion. Hence the tone of ex 
 treme rage that dishonors the political contention 
 
174 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 of the period and the malice that stains the cor 
 respondence of the faction chiefs. 
 
 Although a distinct party opposition appeared 
 and assumed a name during the Second Congress, 
 it disavowed as yet any opposition to Washington 
 and represented its actual attempts to thwart 
 the measures of the Administration as efforts to 
 counteract Washington s evil advisers. The old 
 constitutional tradition that the king can do no 
 wrong, which still lingered in American politics, 
 tended to an analogous elevation of the presidential 
 office above the field of party strife, while leaving 
 the President s Cabinet advisers fully exposed to it, 
 just as in the case of the ministers of the Crown in 
 England. Allowance must be made for the effect 
 of this tradition when judgment is passed on the 
 political activities of the period. Considered with 
 regard to present standards of political behavior, 
 the course of Jefferson in fomenting opposition 
 to the Administration of which he was a part wears 
 the appearance of despicable intrigue. There was 
 nothing mean or low about it, however, in the 
 opinion of himself and his friends, and even his 
 enemies would have allowed it to be within the 
 rules of the game. Jefferson did his best to defeat 
 in Congress measures adopted by Washington 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 175 
 
 on the advice of Hamilton, and he also did his 
 best to undermine Washington s confidence in 
 Hamilton. In his personal dealings with Washing 
 ton, Jefferson had every advantage, for he had 
 Washington s ear and could, more readily than 
 Hamilton, direct the currents of unconscious in 
 fluence that produce the will to believe. But 
 Jefferson s animosity kept tempting him to over 
 play his hand in a way that was fatal in the face 
 of an antagonist so keen and so dexterous as 
 Hamilton. 
 
 In a letter of May 23, 1792, Jefferson presented 
 to Washington an elaborate indictment of Hamil 
 ton s policy as a justification of his own behavior 
 in organizing an opposition party in Congress. He 
 charged Hamilton with subverting the character of 
 the Government by his financial measures, the logi 
 cal consequence of which would be "a change from 
 the present republican form of government to that 
 of a monarchy." Hence the need for organizing 
 "the Republican party who wish to preserve the 
 government in its present form." Washington 
 thought over the matter, and according to 
 Jefferson reopened the subject in a personal 
 interview on July 10. Being now fully apprised 
 of Jefferson s case, Washington himself prepared a 
 
176 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 brief of it, divided into numbered sections, and 
 applied to Hamilton for a statement of his ideas 
 upon the "enumerated discontents," framed so 
 " that those ideas may be applied to the correspond 
 ent numbers. " The proceeding is a fine instance 
 of the care which Washington exercised in forming 
 his opinions. Of course, as soon as charges of 
 corruption and misdemeanor were reduced to exact 
 statement the matter was put just where Hamilton 
 wanted to get it, and in the grasp of his powerful 
 hands its trashy character was promptly displayed. 
 It is needless to go into details, now that public 
 loans, the funding of floating indebtedness in 
 excess of current income, and the maintenance of a 
 national banking system to supply machinery 
 of credit, are such well recognized functions that 
 the wonder is how any statesman could have ever 
 thought otherwise. Jefferson s arguments, when 
 read with the prepossessions of the present day, 
 are so apt to leave an impression of absurdity that 
 they constitute a troublesome episode for his 
 biographers. 
 
 Jefferson s maneuvering utterly failed to injure 
 Hamilton in Washington s esteem, but it did have 
 the effect of so thoroughly disgusting Washington 
 with public life that at one time he was determined 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 177 
 
 to refuse a reelection, and even went so far 
 as to ask Madison to prepare a valedictory address 
 for him. He consented to serve another term 
 most reluctantly, and not until he had been be 
 sought to do so by the leaders on both sides. 
 Jefferson was as urgent as was Hamilton. While 
 Washington was still wavering, he received a 
 strong letter from Edmund Randolph that doubt 
 less touched his soldierly pride. The letter 
 closed with this sharp argument: 
 
 "You suffered yourself to yield when the voice 
 of your country summoned you to the Adminis 
 tration. Should a civil war arise, you cannot stay 
 at home. And how much easier will it be to 
 disperse the factions, which are rushing to this 
 catastrophe, than to subdue them after they shall 
 appear in arms? It is the fixed opinion of the 
 world, that you surrender nothing incomplete. " 
 
 An appeal of this character was the most effect 
 ive that could possibly be addressed to Washing 
 ton, but in consenting he grumbled over the 
 hardship of having to keep in active service at his 
 time of life after already having served for so long 
 a time. He complained that his hearing was get 
 ting bad and that "perhaps his other faculties 
 might fall off and he not be sensible of it." 
 
178 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 Acquiescence in Washington s candidacy made 
 it practically impossible for the Republican party 
 to manifest its true strength. The compliment 
 of Republican support was awarded to Governor 
 Clinton of New York, who together with Washing 
 ton received all the electoral votes of Virginia, 
 New York, North Carolina, and Georgia. A stray 
 electoral vote from Pennsylvania brought Clinton s 
 total up to 50, whereas John Adams received 77 
 votes which re-elected him as vice-president. 
 Jefferson received only four electoral votes, all 
 from Kentucky, but his poor showing in this 
 election was wholly due to the intricacy of the 
 electoral system, and his party meanwhile de 
 veloped so much strength that when the Third 
 Congress met on December 2, 1793, the Republi 
 cans were strong enough to elect the speaker. 
 
 Undeterred by this circumstance, Hamilton 
 forced the fighting. The Jeffersonians had been 
 excusing the defeat they had received in attacking 
 Hamilton in the previous Congress on the ground 
 that the House had acted without allowing suf 
 ficient time for due examination of the evidence. 
 This plea supplied to Hamilton an occasion for~~ 
 prompt action. Exactly two weeks after the 
 meeting of Congress he addressed a letter to the 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 179 
 
 Speaker, in which he declared: "Unwilling to leave 
 the matter on such a footing, I have concluded to 
 request of the House of Representatives, as I now 
 do, that a new inquiry may be, without delay, in 
 stituted in some mode, most effectual for an ac 
 curate and thorough investigation; and I will 
 add, that the more comprehensive it is, the more 
 agreeable it will be to me. " 
 
 Giles promptly took up the challenge, and 
 moved the appointment of a committee to examine 
 the state of the Treasury Department in all its 
 particulars. Pending action by the House, a new 
 complication was introduced, which, though meant 
 as a blow at Hamilton, resulted in a signal triumph 
 for him. His enemies got hold of a discharged 
 clerk of the Treasury Department by means of 
 whom they now tried to counteract the effect of 
 Hamilton s challenge. Two days after Hamilton s 
 letter to the Speaker, a memorial from Andrew G. 
 Fraunces was laid before the House making charges 
 which amounted to this: that there was a com 
 bination between Hamilton and other officers of 
 the Treasury Department to evade payment of 
 warrants so that they could be bought up for 
 speculative purposes. Hamilton s request for an 
 investigation was allowed to lie on the table, but 
 
180 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 the memorial from Fraunces was referred to a select 
 committee of which Giles was a member. This 
 circumstance turned out to be much to Hamilton s 
 advantage. Giles was an erect, bold, manly foe; 
 he could not stomach the sort of testimony upon 
 which depended the charges against Hamilton s 
 personal integrity, and he concurred in a report on 
 Hamilton finding that the evidence was "fully 
 sufficient to justify his conduct; and that in the 
 whole course of this transaction the Secretary and 
 other officers of the Treasury have acted a merito 
 rious part towards the public. " 
 
 Giles, while exonerating Hamilton of the charge 
 of dishonesty, did not desist from pressing his 
 motion for further investigation of the Treasury 
 Department. But he admitted that imputations 
 upon the Secretary s integrity had been quite 
 removed, and he now urged that "the primary 
 object of the resolution is to ascertain the bound 
 aries of discretion and authority between the 
 Legislature and the Treasury Department." In 
 thus shifting his ground he presented a new issue 
 in which the House and indeed Giles s own 
 party associates took little interest. The fact 
 was that the attack on Hamilton had failed, that 
 the purpose of showing him to be unworthy of 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 181 
 
 Washington s confidence had been abandoned as 
 impracticable, and that all that remained was a 
 proposal that the House should again engage in a 
 laborious investigation of the desirability of 
 attempting a new delimitation of the functions of 
 the Treasury Department and of Congress. But 
 this, of course, did not concern Hamilton. He 
 had acted under existing laws and with responsi 
 bilities which were defined by them. If Congress 
 saw fit to make new laws, the consequences would 
 fall upon his successor in office, not upon him since 
 he was about to retire. If Congress made fetters 
 for the Secretary, it might even be that some 
 member of Giles s own party would have to wear 
 them. Thus, however Giles s latest proposal 
 might be viewed, it was not attractive. Moreover, 
 it was presented at a time when the House had 
 much more urgent matters to consider. The 
 country was wild with excitement over the retali 
 ating orders and decrees of Great Britain and 
 France, which subjected American interests to 
 injury from both sides. Giles and Page appear to 
 have been the only speakers on the resolution when 
 it was taken up for consideration on February 24, 
 1794, and both disclaimed any intention of reflect 
 ing upon Hamilton. The resolution received 
 
182 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 decent interment by reference to a committee, with 
 no one objecting. The practical conclusion of the 
 matter was that Hamilton had beaten his enemies 
 once more and beaten them thoroughly. 
 
 Before resigning his office, Hamilton added still 
 another great achievement to his record of illus 
 trious service in establishing public authority, 
 The violent agitation against the excise act pro 
 moted by the Jeffersonians naturally tended to 
 forcible resistance. One of the counts of Jeffer 
 son s indictment of Hamilton s policy which had 
 been presented to Washington was that the excise 
 law was "of odious character . . . committing 
 the authority of the Government in parts where 
 resistance is most probable and coercion least 
 practicable. " The parts thus referred to were the 
 mountains of western Pennsylvania. The popular 
 discontent which arose there from the imposi 
 tion of taxes upon their principal staple distilled 
 spirits naturally coalesced with the agita 
 tion carried on against Washington s neutrality 
 policy. At a meeting of delegates from the elec 
 tion districts of Allegheny county held at Pitts 
 burgh, resolutions were adopted attributing the 
 policy of the Government "to the pernicious 
 influence of stockholders." This was an echo of 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 183 
 
 Jefferson s views. But the resolutions went on to 
 declare: " Our minds feel this with so much 
 indignancy, that we are almost ready to wish 
 for a state of revolution and the guillotine of 
 France, for a short space, in order to inflict punish 
 ment on the miscreants that enervate and disgrace 
 our Government. " This was an echo of the talk 
 in the political clubs that had been formed through 
 out the country. The original model was appar 
 ently the Jacobin club of Paris. The Philadelphia 
 club with which the movement started, soon after 
 Genet s arrival, adopted the Jacobin style of utter 
 ance. It declared its object to be the preser 
 vation of a freedom whose existence was menaced 
 by a "European confederacy transcendent in 
 power and unparalleled in iniquity," and also by 
 " the pride of wealth and arrogance of power" 
 displayed in the United States. Writing to Gov 
 ernor Lee of Virginia, Washington said that he 
 considered "this insurrection as the first formidable 
 fruit of the Democratic Societies. " 
 
 Hamilton moved warily, doing whatever lay in 
 his power to smooth the practical working of the 
 system in the hope of "attaining the object of 
 the laws by means short of force. " But such was 
 the inflamed state of feeling in western Penn- 
 
184 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 sylvania that no course was acceptable short of 
 abandonment by the Government of efforts to en 
 force the internal revenue laws. During 1793, there 
 were several outrageous attacks on agents of the 
 Government, and the execution of warrants for the 
 arrest of rioters was refused by local authority. 
 People who showed a disposition to side with the 
 Government had their barns burned. A revenue 
 inspector was tarred and feathered, and was run 
 out of the district. The patience with which the 
 Government endured insults to its authority 
 encouraged the mob spirit. On July 16, 1794, 
 the house of Inspector Neville was attacked by a 
 mob, and, when he appealed to the local authori 
 ties for protection, he was notified that there was 
 such a general combination of the people that the 
 laws could not be executed. Neville, a revolution 
 ary veteran of tried valor, was able to obtain the 
 help of an officer and eleven soldiers from Fort 
 Pitt, but the mob was too numerous and too well 
 armed to be withstood by so weak a force. After a 
 skirmish in which the mob fired the buildings and 
 the place became untenable, the troops had to 
 surrender. Soon after this affair, a convention of 
 delegates from the four western counties of Penn 
 sylvania was called to meet on August 14 to concert 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 185 
 
 measures for united action. Organized insurrec 
 tion had, in fact, begun. 
 
 "The Government," said Washington, "could 
 no longer remain a passive spectator of the con 
 tempt with which the laws were treated." But 
 when he called for Cabinet opinions, the old 
 variance at once showed itself. Randolph thought 
 that calm consideration of the situation "banishes 
 every idea of calling the militia into immediate 
 action." He pointed out that the disaffected region 
 had more than fifteen thousand white males above 
 the age of sixteen, and that sympathy with the in 
 surgents was active in " several counties in Virginia 
 having a strong militia. " There was also the risk 
 that the insurgents might seek British aid, in which 
 case a severance of the Union might result. Ran 
 dolph also enlarged upon the expense that would 
 attend military operations and questioned whether 
 the funds could be obtained. He advised a pro 
 clamation and the appointment of commissioners 
 to treat with the insurgents. Should such means 
 fail, and should it appear that the judiciary 
 authority was withstood, then at last military force 
 might be employed. 
 
 Hamilton held that "a competent force of militia 
 should be called forth and employed to suppress 
 
186 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 the insurrection, and support the civil authority. " 
 It appeared to him that "the very existence of the 
 Government demands this course. " He urged that 
 the force employed ought "to be an imposing one, 
 such, if practicable, as will deter from opposition, 
 save the effusion of the blood of the citizens, and 
 serve the object to be accomplished." He pro 
 posed a force of twelve thousand men, of whom 
 three thousand were to be cavalry, and he advised 
 that, in addition to the Pennsylvania militia, 
 New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia should each 
 contribute a quota. 
 
 All the members of the Cabinet except Randolph 
 concurred in Hamilton s opinion. The practical 
 execution of the measures was entrusted to 
 Hamilton, who acted with great sagacity. Some 
 appearance of timidity and inertia in Pennsylvania 
 state authority was indirectly but effectually coun 
 teracted by measures which showed that the mili 
 tary expedition would move even if Pennsylvania 
 held back. Although some troops were to gather 
 at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, others were to meet at 
 Cumberland Fort, Virginia. The business was so 
 shrewdly managed that Pennsylvania state author 
 ity fell obediently into line, and the insurgents 
 were so cowed by the determined action of the Gov- 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 187 
 
 ernment that they submitted without a struggle. 
 Washington thought that this event would react 
 upon the clubs and "effectuate their annihilation 
 sooner than it might otherwise have happened." 
 A general collapse among them certainly followed, 
 and they disappeared from the political scene. 
 
 It is in the nature of precaution that the more 
 successful it is the less necessary it appears to have 
 been, and thus the complete success of Hamilton s 
 management furnished his enemies with a new 
 argument against him of which they afterwards 
 made great use. The costly military expedition 
 that had no fighting to do was continually held up 
 to public ridicule. That the expense was trifling 
 in comparison with the objects achieved must 
 deeply impress any one who examines the records 
 of the times. A mistake might have been fatal 
 to the existence of the Government. It has 
 become so powerful and massive since that time, 
 that we can hardly realize what a rickety structure 
 it then was, and how readily, in less capable hands, 
 it might have collapsed. 
 
 Randolph, then Secretary of State, seems to 
 have been in a panic. Fauchet, the French 
 minister at that time, reported to his government 
 that Randolph called upon him and with a grief- 
 
188 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 stricken countenance declared, "It is all over; a 
 civil war is about to ravage our unhappy country. " 
 He represented to Fauchet that there were four 
 men whose talents, influence, and energy might 
 save it. "But debtors of English merchants, they 
 will be deprived of their liberty if they take the 
 smallest step." He wanted to know whether 
 Fauchet could lend "funds sufficient to shelter 
 them from English persecution." Fauchet s 
 letter was captured by the British and made 
 public. Randolph s explanations did not clear up 
 the obscurity that surrounds the affair. His 
 version was that the four men were flour mer 
 chants who were being pressed by their creditors 
 "and that the money was wanted only for the 
 purpose of paying them what was actually due to 
 them in virtue of existing contracts. " Even on 
 his own showing it was a shady transaction, and 
 he retired from Washington s Cabinet under a 
 cloud. 
 
 Washington always had difficulty about the 
 composition of his Cabinet. A capable man had 
 been found to succeed Randolph as Attorney- 
 General in the person of William Bradford, an able 
 Pennsylvania lawyer, but he died in 1795, and was 
 succeeded by Charles Lee of Virginia. When 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 189 
 
 Knox resigned in 1794, the vacancy was filled 
 by transferring to the War Department Timothy 
 Pickering of Massachusetts, who had previously 
 served as Postmaster- General. When Hamilton 
 retired, January, 1795, he was succeeded by Oliver 
 Wolcott of Connecticut, who had been Comptrol 
 ler of the Treasury. After Randolph has been 
 discredited by the Fauchet letter, the office of Secre 
 tary of State went a-begging. It was offered to 
 William Patterson of New Jersey, to Thomas John 
 son of Maryland, to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney 
 of South Carolina, but all these men declined. 
 Washington got word that Patrick Henry, the old 
 antagonist of the Constitution, was showing 
 Federalist leanings in opposition to Jefferson and 
 Madison, and Henry was then tendered the ap 
 pointment, but he too declined. Others were 
 approached but all refused, and meanwhile Picker 
 ing, though Secretary of War, also attended to the 
 work of the State Department. The matter was 
 finally settled by permanently attaching Pickering 
 to the State Department, while the vacancy thus 
 created at the head of the War Department was 
 filled by James McHenry, an appointment which 
 Washington himself described as "Hobson s 
 choice. " 
 
190 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 Hamilton, although out of the Cabinet, still 
 remained a trusted adviser, and he rendered splen 
 did service at a dangerous crisis. In spite of the 
 fact that the Jay treaty had been ratified by the 
 Senate in June, 1795, it was an issue in the Fall 
 elections that year. Jefferson held that the treaty 
 was an "execrable thing," an "infamous act, 
 which is really nothing more than a treaty of alli 
 ance between England and the Anglo-men of this 
 country against the Legislature and the people of 
 the United States. " Giles, who had been in close 
 consultation with Jefferson, moved with character 
 istic energy to translate Jefferson s views into 
 congressional action. 
 
 The Fourth Congress met on December 7, 1795, 
 and although a Federalist, Jonathan Dayton of 
 New Jersey was elected Speaker, the Republicans 
 were strong enough to tone down the reply to the 
 President s address by substituting for an expres 
 sion of "undiminished confidence" an acknowledg 
 ment of "zealous and faithful services," which 
 expressed "approval of his course." On March 
 24, 1796, the House by a vote of 62 to 37 adopted a 
 resolution calling upon the President to lay before 
 it his instructions to Jay, "together with the cor 
 respondence and the other documents relative to 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 191 
 
 said treaty." Advised by Hamilton and sus 
 tained by his whole Cabinet, Washington replied 
 on March 30, by declining to comply because 
 concurrence of the House was not necessary to give 
 validity to the treaty, and "because of the neces 
 sity of maintaining the boundaries fixed by the 
 Constitution between the different departments." 
 The House retorted by a resolution declaring its 
 right to judge the merits of the case when appli 
 cation was made for an appropriation to give effect 
 to a treaty. Debate on this issue, which is still 
 an open one in our constitutional system, began 
 on April 14 and continued for sixteen days. Madi 
 son opposed the execution of the treaty, but the 
 principal speech was made by Giles, whose argu 
 ment covers twenty-eight columns in the Annals. 
 As the struggle proceeded, the Jeffersonians 
 lost ground. It became evident that weighty ele 
 ments of public opinion were veering around to the 
 support of the treaty as the best arrangement 
 attainable in the circumstances. The balance 
 of strength became so close that the scales were 
 probably turned by a speech of wonderful power 
 and eloquence delivered by Fisher Ames. A deci 
 sion was reached on April 30, the test question 
 being on declaring the treaty "highly objection- 
 
192 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 able." Forty-eight votes were cast on each side 
 and the Speaker gave his decision for the negative. 
 In the end, the House stood 51 to 48 in favor of 
 carrying the treaty into effect. Only four votes 
 for the treaty came from the section south of 
 Mason and Dixon s line. 
 
 During the agitation over the Jay treaty the 
 rage of party spirit turned full against Washington 
 himself. He was blackguarded and abused in 
 every possible way. He was accused of having 
 shown incapacity while General and of having 
 embezzled public funds while President. He was 
 nicknamed "the Step-Father of his country." 
 The imputation on his honor stung so keenly that 
 he declared "he would rather be in his grave than 
 in the Presidency, " and in private correspondence 
 he complained that he had been assailed "in terms 
 so exaggerated and indecent as could scarcely 
 be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or 
 even to a common pickpocket." The only re 
 joinder which his dignity permitted him to make is 
 that contained in his Farewell Address, dated 
 September 17, 1796, in which he made a modest 
 estimate of his services and made a last affectionate 
 appeal to the people whom he had so faithfully 
 served. 
 
PARTY VIOLENCE 193 
 
 The Farewell Address was not a communication 
 to Congress. It was issued in view of the approach 
 ing presidential election, to give public notice that 
 he declined "being considered among the number 
 of those out of whom a choice is to be made. " The 
 usual address to Congress was delivered by 
 Washington on December 7, 1796, shortly after 
 the opening of the second session of the Fourth 
 Congress. The occasion was connected in the 
 public mind with his recent valedictory, and Con 
 gress was ready to vote a reply of particularly 
 cordial tenor. Giles stood to his guns to the last, 
 speaking and voting against complimentary resolu 
 tions. "He hoped gentlemen would compliment 
 the President privately, as individuals; at the same 
 time, he hoped such adulation would never pervade 
 the House." He held that "the Administration 
 has been neither wise nor firm, " and he acknowl 
 edged that he was "one of those who do not think 
 so much of the President as some others do. " On 
 this issue Madison forsook him, and Giles was voted 
 down, 67 to 12. Among the eleven who stood 
 by Giles was a new member who made his first 
 appearance that session Andrew Jackson of 
 Tennessee. In later years, when Giles s opinions 
 had been modified by experience and reflection, 
 
 13 
 
194 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 he regretted his attitude towards Washington. It 
 is due to Giles to say that he did not stab in the 
 dark. He had qualities of character that under 
 better constitutional arrangements would have 
 invigorated the functions of the House as an or 
 gan of control, but at that time, with the separa 
 tion that had been introduced between the House 
 and the Administration, his energy was mischievous 
 and his intrepidity was a misfortune to himself and 
 to his party. 
 
 Washington s term dragged to its close like so 
 much slow torture. Others might resign, but he 
 had to stand at his post until the end, and it was a 
 happy day for him when he got his discharge. His 
 elation was so manifest that it was noticed by John 
 Adams. Writing to his wife about the ceremony 
 the day after the inauguration, Adams remarked 
 that Washington "seemed to me to enjoy a triumph 
 over me. Methought I heard him say, Ay! I 
 am fairly out, and you fairly in! See which of 
 us will be the happiest. " ) 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 
 
 THE narrow majority by which John Adams 
 was elected did not accurately reflect the exist 
 ing state of party strength. The electoral college 
 system, by its nature, was apt to distort the 
 situation. Originally the electors voted for two 
 persons without designating their preference for 
 President. There was no inconvenience on that 
 account while Washington was a candidate, since 
 he was the first choice of all the electors; but in 
 1796, with Washington out of the field, both parties 
 were in the dilemma that, if they voted solidly for 
 two candidates, the vote of the electoral college 
 would not determine who should be President. To 
 avert this situation, the adherents of a presidential 
 candidate would have to scatter votes meant to 
 have only vice-presidential significance. This 
 explains the wide distribution of votes that char 
 acterized the working of the system until it was 
 
 195 
 
>6 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 changed by the Twelfth Amendment adopted in 
 1804. 
 
 In 1796, the electoral college gave votes to thir 
 teen candidates. The Federalist ticket was John 
 Adams and Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina. 
 Hamilton urged equal support of both as the surest 
 way to defeat Jefferson; but eighteen Adams elec 
 tors in New England withheld votes from Pinckney 
 to make sure that he should not slip in ahead of 
 Adams. Had they not done so, Pinckney would 
 have been chosen President, a possibility which 
 Hamilton foresaw because of Pinckney s popu 
 larity in the South. New York, New Jersey, and 
 Delaware voted solidly for Adams and Pinckney 
 as Hamilton had recommended, but South Caro 
 lina voted solidly for both Jefferson and Pinckney, 
 and moreover Pinckney received scattering votes 
 elsewhere in the South. The action of the Adams 
 electors in New England defeated Pinckney, and 
 gave Jefferson the vice-presidency, the vote for 
 the leading candidates being 71 for Adams, 68 for 
 Jefferson, and 59 for Pinckney. The tendency of 
 such conditions to inspire political feuds and to 
 foster factional animosity is quite obvious. This 
 situation must be borne in mind, in order to make 
 intelligible the course of Adams s administration. 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 197 
 
 Adams had an inheritance of trouble from the 
 same source which had plagued Washington s 
 administration, the efforts of revolutionary 
 France to rule the United States. In selecting 
 Monroe to succeed Morris, Washington knew 
 that the former was as friendly to the French 
 Revolution as Morris had been opposed to it, 
 and hence he hoped that Monroe would be able 
 to impart a more friendly feeling to the relations 
 of the two countries. Monroe arrived in Paris 
 just after the fall of Robespierre. The Commit 
 tee of Public Safety then in possession of the 
 executive authority hesitated to receive him. 
 Monroe wrote to the President of the National 
 Convention then sitting, and a decree was at once 
 passed that the Minister of the United States 
 should "be introduced in the bosom of the Con 
 vention." Monroe presented himself on August 
 15, 1794, and made a glowing address. He des 
 canted upon the trials by which America had won 
 her independence and declared that "France, our 
 ally and friend, and who aided in the contest, has 
 now embarked in the same noble career." The 
 address was received with enthusiasm, the Presi 
 dent of the Convention drew Monroe to his bosom 
 in a fraternal embrace; and it was decreed that 
 
198 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 "the flags of the United States of America shall be 
 joined to those of France, and displayed in the hall 
 of the sittings of the Convention, in sign of the 
 union and eternal fraternity of the two peoples." 
 In compliance with this decree Monroe soon after 
 presented an American flag to the Convention. 
 
 When the news of these proceedings reached the 
 State Department, a sharp note was sent to Monroe 
 "to recommend caution lest we be obliged at some 
 time or other to explain away or disavow an excess 
 of fervor, so as to reduce it down to the cool system 
 of neutrality. " The French Government regarded 
 the Jay treaty as an affront and as a violation of 
 our treaties with France. Many American vessels 
 were seized and confiscated with their cargoes, and 
 hundreds of American citizens were imprisoned. 
 Washington thought that Monroe was entirely too 
 submissive to such proceedings; therefore, on 
 August 22, 1796, Monroe was recalled and soon 
 after Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was appointed 
 in his stead. 
 
 The representation of France in the United 
 States had been as mutable as her politics. Fau- 
 chet, who succeeded Genet, retired in June, 1795, 
 and was succeeded by Adet, who like his predeces 
 sors, carried on active interference with American 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 199 
 
 politics, and even attempted to affect the presi 
 dential election by making public a note addressed 
 to the Secretary of State complaining of the be 
 havior of the Administration. In Adams s opinion 
 this note had some adverse effect in Pennsylvania 
 but no other serious consequences, since it was 
 generally resented. Meanwhile Pinckney arrived 
 in France in December, 1796, and the Directory 
 refused to receive him. He was not even per 
 mitted to remain in Paris; but honors were 
 showered upon Monroe as he took his leave. In 
 March, 1797, Adet withdrew, and diplomatic 
 relations between the two countries were entirely 
 suspended. By a decree made two days before 
 Adams took office, the Directory proclaimed as 
 pirates, to be treated without mercy, all Americans 
 found serving on board British vessels, and ordered 
 the seizure of all American vessels not provided 
 with lists of their crews in proper form. Though 
 made under cover of the treaty of 1778, this latter 
 provision ran counter to its spirit and purpose. 
 Captures of American ships began at once. As 
 Joel Barlow wrote, the decree of March 2, 1797, 
 "was meant to be little short of a declaration of 
 
 war. 3 
 
 The curious situation which ensued from the 
 
200 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 efforts made by Adams to deal with this emergency 
 cannot be understood without reference to his 
 personal peculiarities. He was vain, learned, and 
 self-sufficient, and he had the characteristic defect 
 of pedantry: he overrated intelligence and he un 
 derrated character. Hence he was inclined to re 
 sent Washington s eminence as being due more 
 to fortune than to merit, and he had for Hamilton 
 an active hatred compounded of wounded vanity 
 and a sense of positive injury. He knew that 
 Hamilton thought slightingly of his political 
 capacity and had worked against his political 
 advancement, and he was too lacking in magna 
 nimity to do justice to Hamilton s motives. His 
 state of mind was well known to the Republican 
 leaders, who hoped to be able to use him. Jeffer 
 son wrote to Madison suggesting that "it would 
 be worthy of consideration whether it would not 
 be for the public good to come to a good under 
 standing with him as to his future elections." 
 Jefferson himself called on Adams and showed him 
 self desirous of cordial relations. Mrs. Adams 
 responded by expressions of pleasure at the suc 
 cess of Jefferson, between whom and her husband, 
 she said, there had never been "any public or 
 private animosity." Such rejoicing over the 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 201 
 
 defeat of the Federalist candidate for Vice-Presi 
 dent did not promote good feeling between the 
 President and the Federalist leaders. 
 
 The morning before the inauguration, Adams 
 called on Jefferson and discussed with him the 
 policy to be pursued toward France. The idea 
 had occurred to Adams that a good impression 
 might be made by sending out a mission of extra 
 ordinary weight and dignity, and he wanted to 
 know whether Jefferson himself would not be 
 willing to head such a mission. Without checking 
 Adams s friendly overtures, Jefferson soon brought 
 him to agree that it would not be proper for the 
 Vice-President to accept such a post. Adams then 
 proposed that Madison should go. On March 6, 
 Jefferson reported to Adams that Madison would 
 not accept. Then for the first time, according 
 to Adams s own account, he consulted a member of 
 his Cabinet, supposed to be Wolcott although the 
 name is not mentioned. 
 
 Adams took over Washington s Cabinet as it was 
 finally constituted after the retirement of Jefferson 
 and Hamilton and the virtual expulsion of Ran 
 dolph. The process of change had made it entirely 
 Federalist in its political complexion, and entirely 
 devoted to Washington and Hamilton in its per- 
 
202 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 sonal sympathies. That Adams should have 
 adopted it as his own Cabinet has been generally 
 regarded as a blunder, but it was a natural step for 
 him to take. To get as capable men to accept 
 the portfolios as those then holding them would 
 have been difficult, so averse had prominent men 
 become to putting themselves in a position to be 
 harried by Congress, with no effective means of 
 explaining and justifying their cpnduct. Congress 
 then had a prestige which it does not now possess, 
 and its utterances then received consideration not 
 now accorded. Whenever presidential electors were 
 voted for directly by the people, the poll was small 
 compared with the vote for members of Congress. 
 Moreover, there was then a feeling that the Cabi 
 net should be regarded as a bureaucracy, and for a 
 long period this conception tended to give remark 
 able permanence to its composition. 
 
 When the personal attachments of the Cabinet 
 chiefs are considered, it is easy to imagine the dis 
 may and consternation produced by the dealings 
 of Adams with Jefferson. By the time Adams 
 consulted the members of his Cabinet, they had 
 become suspicious of his motives and distrustful 
 of his character. Before long they were writing 
 to Washington and Hamilton for advice, and were 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 203 
 
 endeavoring to manage Adams by concerted action. 
 In this course they had the cordial approval of 
 leading Federalists, who would write privately to 
 members of the Cabinet and give counsel as to 
 procedure. Wolcott, a Federalist leader in Con 
 necticut, warned his son, the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, that Adams was "a man of great 
 vanity, pretty capricious, of a very moderate 
 share of prudence, and of far less real abilities 
 than he believes himself to possess," so that "it 
 will require a deal of address to render him 
 the service which it will be essential for him to 
 receive. " 
 
 The policy to be pursued was still unsettled when 
 news came of the insulting rejection of Pinckney 
 and the domineering attitude assumed by France. 
 On March 25, Adams issued a call for the meeting 
 of Congress on May 15, and then set about getting 
 the advice of his Cabinet. He presented a schedule 
 of interrogatories to which he asked written 
 answers. The attitude of the Cabinet was at first 
 hostile to Adams s favorite notion of a special 
 mission, but as Hamilton counseled deference to 
 the President s views, the Cabinet finally approved 
 the project. Adams appointed John Marshall 
 of Virginia and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts 
 
204 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 to serve in conjunction with Pinckney, who had 
 taken refuge in Holland. 
 
 Strong support for the Government in taking a 
 firm stand against France was manifested in both 
 Houses of Congress. Hamilton aided Secretary 
 Wolcott in preparing a scheme of taxation by 
 which the revenue could be increased to provide for 
 national defense. With the singular fatality that 
 characterized Federalist party behavior through 
 out Adams s Administration, however, all the items 
 proposed were abandoned except one for stamp 
 taxes. What had been offered as a scheme whose 
 particulars were justifiable by their relation to the 
 whole was converted into a measure which was 
 traditionally obnoxious in itself, and was now made 
 freshly odious by an appearance of discrimination 
 and partiality. The Federalists did improve 
 their opportunity in the way of general legislation : 
 much needed laws were passed to stop privateer 
 ing, to protect the ports, and to increase the naval 
 armament; and Adams was placed in a much better 
 position to maintain neutrality than Washington 
 had been. Fear of another outbreak of yellow 
 fever accelerated the work of Congress, and the 
 extra session lasted only a little over three weeks. 
 
 Such was the slowness of communication in those 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 205 
 
 days that, when Congress reassembled at the regu 
 lar session in November, no decisive news had 
 arrived of the fate of the special mission. Adams 
 with proper prudence thought it would be wise to 
 consider what should be done in case of failure. 
 On January 24, 1798, he addressed to the members 
 of his Cabinet a letter requesting their views. 
 No record is preserved of the replies of the Secre 
 taries of State and of the Treasury. Lee, the At 
 torney-General, recommended a declaration of 
 war. McHenry, the Secretary of War, offered a 
 series of seven propositions to be recommended to 
 Congress: 1. Permission to merchant ships to 
 arm ; 2. The construction of twenty sloops of war ; 
 
 3. The completion of frigates already authorized; 
 
 4. Grant to the President of authority to provide 
 ships of the line, not exceeding ten, "by such means 
 as he may judge best." 5. Suspension of the 
 treaties with France; 6. An army of sixteen 
 thousand men, with provision for twenty thousand 
 more should occasion demand; 7. A loan and an 
 adequate system of taxation. 
 
 These recommendations are substantially identi 
 cal with those made by Hamilton in a letter to 
 Pickering, and the presumption is strong that 
 McHenry s paper is a product of Hamilton s 
 
206 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 influence, and that it had the concurrence of Picker 
 ing and Wolcott. The suggestion that the Presi 
 dent should be given discretionary authority in 
 the matter of procuring ships of the line contem 
 plated the possibility of obtaining them by trans 
 fer from England, not through formal alliance but 
 as an incident of a cooperation to be arranged by 
 negotiation, whose objects would also include aid 
 in placing a loan and permission for American ships 
 to join British convoys. This feature of Mc- 
 Henry s recommendations could not be carried out. 
 Pickering soon informed Hamilton that the old 
 animosities were still so active "in some breasts" 
 that the plan of cooperation was impracticable. 
 
 Meanwhile the composite mission had accom 
 plished nothing except to make clear the actual 
 character of French policy. When the envoys 
 arrived in France, the Directory had found in Na 
 poleon Bonaparte an instrument of power that was 
 stunning Europe by its tremendous blows. That 
 instrument had not yet turned to the reorgani 
 zation of France herself, and at the time it served 
 the rapacious designs of the Directory. Europe 
 was looted wherever the arms of France prevailed, 
 and the levying of tribute both on public and on 
 private account was the order of the day. Talley- 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 207 
 
 rand was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he 
 treated the envoys with a mixture of menace and 
 cajolery. It was a part of his tactics to sever the 
 Republican member, Gerry, from his Federalist 
 colleagues. Gerry was weak enough to be caught 
 by Talleyrand s snare, and he was foolish enough 
 to attribute the remonstrances of his colleagues to 
 vanity. "They were wounded," he wrote, "by 
 the manner in which they had been treated by the 
 Government of France, and the difference which 
 had been used in respect to me. " Gerry s conduct 
 served to weaken and delay the negotiations, but 
 he eventually united with his colleagues in a de 
 tailed report to the State Department, which was 
 transmitted to Congress by the President on April 
 3, 1798. In the original the names of the French 
 officials concerned were written at full length 
 in the Department cipher. In making a copy for 
 Congress, Secretary Pickering substituted for the 
 names the terminal letters of the alphabet, and 
 hence the report has passed into history as the 
 X. Y. Z. dispatches. 
 
 The story, in brief, was that on arriving in Paris 
 the envoys called on Talleyrand, who said that he 
 was busy at that very time on a report to the 
 Directory on American affairs, and in a few days 
 
208 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 would let them know how matters stood. A few 
 days later they received notice through Talley 
 rand s secretary that the Directory was greatly 
 exasperated by expressions used in President 
 Adams s address to Congress, that the envoys 
 would probably not be received until further 
 conference, and that persons might be appointed to 
 treat with them. A few more days elapsed, and 
 then three persons presented themselves as com- 
 ing from Talleyrand. They were Hottinguer, 
 Bellamy, and Hauteval, designated as X. Y. Z. in 
 the communication to Congress. They said that a 
 friendly reception by the Directory could not be 
 obtained unless the United States would assist 
 France by a loan, and that "a sum of money was 
 required for the pocket of the Directory and 
 Ministers, which would be at the disposal of M. 
 Talleyrand." This "douceur to the Directory ," 
 amounting to approximately $240,000, was urged 
 with great persistence as an indispensable condi 
 tion of friendly relations. The envoys temporized 
 and pointed out that their Government would have 
 to be consulted on the matter of the loan. The 
 wariness of the envoys made Talleyrand s agents 
 the more insistent about getting the " douceur. " At 
 one of the interviews Hottinguer exclaimed: 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 209 
 
 "Gentlemen, you do not speak to the point; it is 
 money; it is expected that you will offer money." 
 The envoys replied that on this point their answer 
 had already been given. " No, said he, you have 
 not: what is your answer? We replied, It is no; 
 no; not a sixpence." This part of the envoys 
 report soon received legendary embellishment, and 
 in innumerable stump speeches it rang out as, 
 "Not one cent for tribute; millions for defense!" 
 The publication of the X. Y. Z. dispatches 
 sent rolling through the country a wave of patri 
 otic feeling before which the Republican leaders 
 quailed and which swept away many of their 
 followers. Jefferson held that the French Govern 
 ment ought not to be held responsible for "the 
 turpitude of swindlers," and he steadfastly op 
 posed any action looking to the use of force to 
 maintain American rights. Some of the Republican, 
 members of Congress, however, went over to the 
 Federalist side, and Jefferson s party was pres 
 ently reduced to a feeble and dispirited minority. 
 Loyal addresses rained upon Adams. There 
 appeared a new national song, Hail Columbia, 
 which was sung all over the land and which was 
 established in lasting popularity. Among its 
 well-known lines is an exulting stanza beginning: 
 
210 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 "Behold the chief who now commands, 
 Once more to serve his country stands. " 
 
 This is an allusion to the fact that Washington 
 had left his retirement to take charge of the 
 national forces. The envoys had been threatened 
 that, unless they submitted to the French demands, 
 the American Republic might share the fate of the 
 Republic of Venice. The response of Congress 
 was to vote money to complete the frigates, 
 the United States, the Constitution, and the Con 
 stellation, work on which had been suspended 
 when the Algerine troubles subsided; and further, 
 to authorize the construction or purchase of twelve 
 additional vessels. For the management of this 
 force, the Navy Department was created by the 
 Act of April 30, 1798. By an Act of May 28, the 
 President was authorized to raise a military force 
 of ten thousand men, the commander of which 
 should have the services of "a suitable number 
 of major-generals. " On July 7, the treaties with 
 France that had so long vexed the United States 
 were abrogated. 
 
 The operations of the Navy Department soon 
 showed that American sailors were quite able and 
 willing to defend the nation if they were allowed 
 the opportunity. In December, 1798, the Navy 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 211 
 
 Department worked out a plan of operations in the 
 enemy s waters. To repress the depredations of 
 the French privateers in the West Indies, a squad 
 ron commanded by Captain John Barry was sent 
 to cruise to the windward of St. Kitts as far south 
 as Barbados, and it made numerous captures. 
 A squadron under Captain Thomas Truxtun 
 cruised in the vicinity of Porto Rico. The flag 
 ship was the frigate Constellation, which on Febru 
 ary 9, 1799, encountered the French frigate, 
 L Insurgente, and made it strike its flag after an 
 action lasting only an hour and seventeen minutes. 
 The French captain fought well, but he was put at 
 a disadvantage by losing his topmast at the open 
 ing of the engagement, so that Captain Truxtun 
 was able to take a raking position. The American 
 loss was only one killed and three wounded, while 
 L Insurgente had twenty -nine killed and forty-one 
 wounded. On February 1, 1800, the Constellation 
 fought the heavy French frigate Vengeance from 
 about eight o clock in the evening until after 
 midnight, when the Vengeance lay completely 
 silenced and apparently helpless. But the rigging 
 and spars of the Constellation had been so badly cut 
 up that the mainmast fell, and before the wreck 
 could be cleared away the Vengeance was able to 
 
212 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 make her escape. During the two years and a 
 half in which hostilities continued, the little navy 
 of the United States captured eighty-five armed 
 French vessels, nearly all privateers. Only one 
 American war vessel was taken by the enemy, and 
 that one had been originally a captured French 
 vessel. The value of the protection thus extended 
 to American trade is attested by the increase of 
 exports from $57,000,000 in 1797 to $78,665,528 in 
 1799. Revenue from imports increased from 
 $6,000,000 in 1797 to $9,080,932 in 1800. 
 
 The creation of an army, however, was attended 
 by personal disagreements that eventually wrecked 
 the Administration. Without waiting to hear from 
 Washington as to his views, Adams nominated him 
 for the command and then tried to overrule his 
 arrangements. The notion that Washington could 
 be hustled into a false position was a strange 
 blunder to be made by anyone who knew him. 
 He set forth his views and made his stipulations 
 with his customary precision, in letters to Secretary 
 McHenry, who had been instructed by Adams to 
 obtain Washington s advice as to the list of 
 officers. Washington recommended as major- 
 generals, Hamilton, C. C. Pinckney, and Knox, in 
 that order of rank. Adams made some demur to 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 213 
 
 the preference shown for Hamilton, but McHenry 
 showed him Washington s letter and argued the 
 matter so persistently that Adams finally sent the 
 nominations to the Senate in the same order 
 as Washington had requested. Confirmation 
 promptly followed, and a few days later Adams 
 departed for his home at Quincy, Massachusetts, 
 without notice to his Cabinet. It soon appeared 
 that he was in the sulks. When McHenry wrote 
 to him about proceeding with the organization of 
 the army, he replied that he was willing provided 
 Knox s precedence was acknowledged, and "he 
 added that the five New England States would not 
 patiently submit to the humiliation of having 
 Knox s claim disregarded. 
 
 From August 4 to October 13, wrangling over 
 this matter went on. The members of the Cabinet 
 were in a difficult position. It was their under 
 standing that Washington s stipulations had been 
 accepted, but the President now proposed a differ 
 ent arrangement. Pickering and McHenry wrote 
 to Washington explaining the situation in detail. 
 News of the differences between Adams and 
 Washington of course soon got about and caused 
 a great buzz in political circles. Adams became 
 angry over the opposition he was meeting, and on 
 
214 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 August 29 he wrote to McHenry that "there has 
 been too much intrigue in this business, both with 
 General Washington and with me"; that it might 
 as well be understood that in any event he would 
 have the last say, "and I shall then determine it 
 exactly as I should now, Knox, Pinckney, and 
 Hamilton. " Washington stood firm and, on Sep 
 tember 25, wrote to the President demanding "that 
 he might know at once and precisely what he had to 
 expect. " In reply Adams said that he had signed 
 the three commissions on the same day in the hope 
 "that an amicable adjustment or acquiescence 
 might take place among the gentlemen them 
 selves." But should this hope be disappointed, 
 "and controversies shall arise, they will of course 
 be submitted to you as commander-in-chief . " 
 
 Adams, of course, knew quite well that such 
 matters did not settle themselves, but he seems to 
 have imagined that all he had to do was to sit 
 tight and that matters would have to come his way. 
 The tricky and shuffling behavior to which he 
 descended would be unbelievable of a man of his 
 standing were there not an authentic record made 
 by himself. The suspense finally became so intol 
 erable that the Cabinet acted without consulting the 
 President any longer on the point. The Secretary 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 215 
 
 of War submitted to his colleagues all the cor 
 respondence in the case and asked their advice. 
 The Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, and of 
 the Navy made a joint reply declaring "the only 
 inference which we can draw from the facts before 
 stated, is, that the President consents to the 
 arrangement of rank as proposed by General 
 Washington," and that therefore "the Secretary 
 of War ought to transmit the commissions, and 
 inform the generals that in his opinion the rank is 
 definitely settled according to the original arrange 
 ment." This was done; but Knox declined an 
 appointment ranking him below Hamilton and 
 Pinckney. Thus, Adams despite his obstinacy, 
 was completely baffled, and a bitter feud between 
 him and his Cabinet was added to the causes now 
 at work to destroy the Federalist party. 
 
 The Federalist military measures were sound 
 and judicious, and the expense, although a subject 
 of bitter denunciation, was really trivial in com 
 parison with the national value of the enhanced 
 respect and consideration obtained for American 
 interests. But these measures were followed by 
 imprudent acts for regulating domestic politics. 
 By the Act of June 18, 1798, the period of residence 
 required before an alien could be admitted to 
 
216 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 American citizenship was raised from five years to 
 fourteen. By the Act of June 25, 1798, the 
 efficacy of which was limited to two years, the 
 President might send out of the country "such 
 aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and 
 safety of the United States, or shall have reasonable 
 grounds to suspect are concerned in any treason 
 able or secret machinations against the govern 
 ment thereof. " The state of public opinion might 
 then have sanctioned these measures had they 
 stood alone, but they were connected with another 
 which proved to be the weight that pulled them all 
 down. By the Act of July 14, 1798, it was made a 
 crime to write or publish "any false, scandalous, 
 and malicious" statements about the President or 
 either House of Congress, to bring them "into 
 contempt or disrepute," or to "stir up sedition 
 within the United States. " 
 
 There were plenty of precedents in English 
 history for legislation of such character. Robust, 
 examples of it were supplied in England at that 
 very time. There were also strong colonial pre-* 
 cedents. According to Secretary Wolcott, the x 
 sedition law was "merely a copy from a statute of 
 Virginia in October, 1776." But a revolutionary 
 Whig measure aimed at Tories was a very different 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 217 
 
 thing in its practical aspect from the same measure 
 used by a national party against a constitutional 
 opposition. Hamilton regarded such legislation 
 as impolitic, and, on hearing of the sedition bill, 
 he wrote a protesting letter, saying, "Let us not 
 establish tyranny. Energy is a very different thing 
 from violence. " 
 
 But in general the Federalist leader- 1 were so 
 carried away by the excitement of the tifries that 
 they could not practice moderation. Their zeal 
 otry was sustained by political theories which made 
 no distinction between partisanship and sedition. 
 The constitutional function of partisanship was 
 discerned and stated by Burke in 1770, but his 
 definition of it, as a joint endeavor to promote the 
 national interest upon some particular principle, 
 was scouted at the time and was not allowed 
 until long after. The prevailing idea in Washing 
 ton s time, both in England and America, was that 
 partisanship was inherently pernicious and ought 
 to be suppressed. Washington s Farewell Address 
 warned the people " in the most solemn manner 
 against the baneful effects of the spirit of party. " 
 The idea then was that government was wholly 
 the affair of constituted authority, and that it was 
 improper for political activity to surpass the ap- 
 
218 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 pointed bounds. Newspaper criticism and parti 
 san oratory were among the things in Washington s 
 mind when he censured all attempts "to direct, 
 control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation 
 and action of the constituted authorities. " Hence 
 judges thought it within their province to denounce 
 political agitators when charging a grand jury. 
 Chief Justice Ellsworth, in a charge delivered in 
 Massachusetts, denounced "the French sys 
 tem-mongers, from the quintumvirate at Paris to 
 the Vice-President and minority in Congress, as 
 apostles of atheism and anarchy, bloodshed, and 
 plunder." In charges delivered in western 
 Pennsylvania, Judge Addison dealt with such sub 
 jects as Jealousy of Administration and Govern 
 ment, and the Horrors of Revolution. Washington, 
 then in private life, was so pleased with the series 
 that he sent a copy to friends for circulation. 
 
 Convictions under the sedition law were few, but 
 there were enough of them to cause great alarm. 
 A Jerseyman, who had expressed a wish that the^ 
 wad of a cannon, fired as a salute to the President, 
 had hit him on the rear bulge of his breeches, was 
 fined $100. Matthew Lyon of Vermont, while 
 canvassing for reelection to Congress, charged the 
 President with "unbounded thirst for ridiculous 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 219 
 
 pomp, foolish adulation, and a selfish avarice." 
 This language cost him four months in jail and a 
 fine of $1000. But in general the law did not 
 repress the tendencies at which it was aimed but 
 merely increased them. 
 
 The Republicans, too weak to make an effective 
 stand in Congress, tried to interpose state author 
 ity. Jefferson drafted the Kentucky Resolutions, 
 adopted by the state legislature in November, 
 1 798 . They hold that the Constitution is a compact 
 to which the States are parties, and that "each 
 party has an equal right to judge for itself as well of 
 infractions as of the mode and measure of redress. " 
 The alien and sedition laws were denounced, and 
 steps were proposed by which protesting States 
 "will concur in declaring these Acts void and of no 
 force, and will each take measures of its own for 
 providing that neither these Acts, nor any others 
 of the general Government, not plainly and in 
 tentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall 
 be exercised within their respective territories." 
 The Virginia Resolutions, adopted in December, 
 1798, were drafted by Madison. They view "the 
 powers of the federal Government as resulting from 
 the compact to which the States are parties, " and 
 declare that, if those powers are exceeded, the 
 
220 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 States "have the right and are in duty bound to 
 interpose." This doctrine was a vial of woe to 
 American politics until it was cast down and 
 shattered on the battlefield of civil war. It was 
 invented for a partisan purpose, and yet was 
 entirely unnecessary for that purpose. 
 
 The Federalist party as then conducted was the 
 exponent of a theory of government that was 
 everywhere decaying. The alien and sedition laws 
 were condemned and discarded by the forces of 
 national politics, and state action was as futile in 
 effect as it was mischievous in principle. It di 
 verted the issue in a way that might have ulti 
 mately turned to the advantage of the Federalist 
 party, had it possessed the usual power of adapta 
 tion to circumstances. After all, there was no 
 reason inherent in the nature of that party why it 
 should not have perpetuated its organization and 
 repaired its fortunes by learning how to derive 
 authority from public opinion. The needed trans 
 formation of character would have been no greater 
 than has often been accomplished in party history. 
 Indeed, there is something abnormal in the complete^ 
 prostration and eventual extinction of the Federal 
 ist party; and the explanation is to be found in the 
 extraordinary character of Adams s administration. 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 221 
 
 It gave such prominence and energy to individual 
 aims and interests that the party was rent to pieces 
 by them. 
 
 In communicating the X. Y. Z. dispatches to Con 
 gress, Adams declared: "I will never send another 
 Minister to France without assurance that he will be 
 received, respected, and honored, as the representa 
 tive of a great, free, powerful, and independent 
 nation." But on receiving an authentic though 
 roundabout intimation that a new mission would 
 have a friendly reception, he concluded to dispense 
 with direct assurances, and, without consulting his 
 Cabinet, sent a message to the Senate on February 
 18, 1799, nominating Murray, then American 
 Minister to Holland, to be Minister to France. 
 This unexpected action stunned the Federalists 
 and delighted the Republicans as it endorsed the 
 position they had always taken that war talk was 
 folly and that France was ready to be friendly if 
 America would treat her fairlv^, "Had the foulest 
 heart and the ablest head in the world," wrote 
 Senator Sedgwick to Hamilton, "been permitted 
 to select the most embarrassing and ruinous meas 
 ure, perhaps it would have been precisely the one 
 which has been adopted. " Hamilton advised that 
 "the measure must go into effect with the addi- 
 
222 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 tional idea of a commission of three. " The com 
 mittee of the Senate to whom the nomination was 
 referred made a call upon Adams to inquire his 
 reasons. According to Adams s own account, 
 they informed him that a commission would 
 be more satisfactory to the Senate and to the 
 public. According to Secretary Pickering, Adams 
 was asked to withdraw the nomination and refused, 
 but a few days later, on hearing that the committee 
 intended to report against confirmation, he sent in 
 a message nominating Chief Justice Ellsworth and 
 Patrick Henry, together with Murray, as envoys 
 extraordinary. The Senate, much to Adams s 
 satisfaction, promptly confirmed the nominations, 
 but this was because Hamilton s influence had 
 smoothed the way. Patrick Henry declined, 
 and Governor Davie of North Carolina was substi 
 tuted. By the time this mission reached France, 
 Napoleon Bonaparte was in power and the envoys 
 were able to make an acceptable settlement of 
 the questions at issue between the two countries. 
 The event came too late to be of service to Adams 
 in his campaign for reelection, but it was intensely 
 gratifying to his self-esteem. 
 
 Some feelers were put forth to ascertain whether 
 Washington could not be induced to be a candidate 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 223 
 
 again, but the idea had hardly developed before all 
 hopes in that quarter were abruptly dashed by his 
 death on December 14, 1799, from a badly treated 
 attack of quinsy. Efforts to substitute some 
 other candidate for Adams proved unavailing, as 
 New England still clung to him on sectional 
 grounds. News of these efforts of course reached 
 Adams and increased his bitterness against Hamil 
 ton, whom he regarded as chiefly responsible for 
 them. Adams had a deep spite against members of 
 his Cabinet for the way in which they had foiled 
 him about Hamilton s commission, but for his own 
 convenience in routine matters he had retained 
 them, although debarring them from his confidence. 
 In the spring of 1800 he decided to rid himself of 
 men whom he regarded as "Hamilton s spies." 
 The first to fall was McHenry, whose resignation 
 was demanded on May 5, 1800, after an interview 
 in which according to McHenry Adams 
 reproached him with having "biased General 
 Washington to place Hamilton in his list of major- 
 generals before Knox." Pickering refused to 
 . resign, and he was dismissed from office on May 12. 
 John Marshall became the Secretary of State, and 
 Samuel Dexter of Massachusetts, Secretary of 
 War. Wolcott retained the Treasury portfolio 
 
224 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 until the end of the year, when he resigned of his 
 own motion. 
 
 The events of the summer of 1800 completed the 
 ruin of the Federalist party. That Adams should 
 have been so indifferent to the good will of his 
 party at a time when he was a candidate for re 
 election is a remarkable circumstance. A common 
 report among the Federalists was that he was no 
 longer entirely sane. A more likely supposition 
 was that he was influenced by some of the Republi 
 can leaders and counted on their political support. 
 In biographies of Gerry it is claimed that he was 
 able to accomplish important results through 
 his influence with Adams. At any rate, Adams 
 gave unrestrained expression to his feelings against 
 Hamilton, and finally Hamilton was aroused 
 to action. On August 1, 1800, he wrote to Adams 
 demanding whether it was true that Adams had 
 "asserted the existence of a British faction in this 
 country" of which Hamilton himself was said to be 
 a leader. Adams did not reply. Hamilton waited 
 until October 1, and then wrote again, affirming 
 "that by whomsoever a charge of the kind men 
 tioned in my former letter, may, at any time, 
 have been made or insinuated against me, it is 
 a base, wicked, and cruel calumny; destitute even 
 
THE PERSONAL RULE OF JOHN ADAMS 225 
 
 of a plausible pretext, to excuse the folly, or mask 
 the depravity which must have dictated it. " 
 
 Hamilton, always sensitive to imputations upon 
 his honor, was not satisfied to allow the matter to 
 rest there. He wrote a detailed account of his 
 relations with Adams, involving an examination 
 of Adams s public conduct and character, which he 
 privately circulated among leading Federalists. 
 It is an able paper, fully displaying Hamilton s 
 power of combining force of argument with dignity 
 of language, but although exhibiting Adams as 
 unfit for his office it advised support of his candi 
 dacy. Burr obtained a copy and made such use of 
 parts of it that Hamilton himself had to publish it 
 in full. 
 
 In this election the candidate associated with 
 Adams by the Federalists was Charles Cotesworth 
 Pinckney of South Carolina. Though one Adams 
 elector in Rhode Island cut Pinckney, he would 
 still have been elected had the electoral votes of his 
 own State been cast for him as they had been for 
 Thomas Pinckney, four years before; but South 
 Carolina now voted solidly for both Republican 
 candidates. The result of the election was a tie 
 between Jefferson and Burr, each receiving 73 
 votes, while Adams received 65 and Pinckney 64. 
 
226 WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 The election was thus thrown into the House, 
 where some of the Federalists entered into an 
 intrigue to give Burr the Presidency instead of 
 Jefferson, but this scheme was defeated largely 
 through Hamilton s influence. He wrote: "If 
 there be a man in this world I ought to hate, it is 
 Jefferson. With Burr I have always been person 
 ally well. But the public good must be paramount 
 to every private consideration." 
 
 The result of the election was a terrible blow to 
 Adams. His vanity was so hurt that he could not 
 bear to be present at the installation of his suc 
 cessor, and after working almost to the stroke of 
 midnight signing appointments to office for the 
 defeated Federalists, he drove away from Washing 
 ton in the early morning before the inauguration 
 ceremonies began. Eventually he soothed his 
 self-esteem by associating his own trials and 
 misfortunes with those endured by classical heroes. 
 He wrote that Washington, Hamilton, and Pinck- 
 ney formed a triumvirate like that of Antony, 
 Octavius, and Lepidus, and "that Cicero was not 
 sacrificed to the vengeance of Antony more 
 egregiously than John Adams was to the unbridled 
 and unbounded ambition of Alexander Hamilton 
 in the American triumvirate. " 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 ABUNDANT materials are available for the period 
 covered by this work. Chief among them are the 
 Annals of Congress, the State Papers, and the writings 
 of statesmen to be found in any library index under 
 their names. The style maintained by Washington 
 early became a subject of party controversy and to this 
 may be attributed a noticeable variation in accounts 
 given by different authors. For instance, Washington 
 Irving, who as a child witnessed the first inauguration 
 parade, says in his Life of Washington that the Presi 
 dent s coach "was drawn by a single pair of horses." 
 But the detailed account given in the New York Packet 
 of May 1, 1789, the day after the ceremony, says that 
 "the President joined the procession in his carriage and 
 four." The following authorities may be consulted 
 on the point: 
 
 B. J. LOSSING, article in The Independent, vol. xli, April 
 25, 1889. 
 
 MARTHA J. LAMB, article in Magazine of American His 
 tory, vol. xx, December, 1888. 
 
 227 
 
228 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 For details of official etiquette during Washington s 
 administration, the following may be consulted: 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON, Diary, from 1789 to 1791. 
 
 Edited by B. J. Lossing (1860). 
 WILLIAM MACLAY, Journal, 1789-1791 (1890). 
 GEORGE W. P. CUSTIS, Memoirs of Washington (1859). 
 JAMES G. WILSON, The Memorial History of New York 
 
 (1893). 
 ANNE HOLLINGSWORTH WHARTON, Martha Washington 
 
 (1897). 
 
 Works of special importance for their documentary 
 matter and for their exhibition of the personal aspect 
 of events are: 
 
 J. C. HAMILTON, History of the Republic of the United 
 
 Stales, 7 vols. (1860). 
 
 H. S. RANDALL, Life of Thomas Jefferson, 3 vols. (1858). 
 GEORGE GIBBS, Administrations of Washington and John 
 
 Adams, 2 vols. (1846). 
 
 Some economic aspects of the struggle over Hamil 
 ton s financial measures are exhibited by: 
 
 CHARLES A. BEARD, Economic Origins of Jeffersonian 
 Democracy (1915). 
 
 New light has been cast upon Genet s mission, causing 
 a great change in estimates of his character and activi- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 229 
 
 ties, by materials drawn from the French archives by 
 Professor F. J. Turner, and presented in the following 
 articles : 
 
 "The Origin of Genet s Projected Attack on Louisiana 
 
 and the Floridas," American Historical Review, 
 
 vol. iii. 
 "The Policy of France toward the Mississippi Valley," 
 
 American Historical Review, vol. x. 
 "The Diplomatic Contest for the Mississippi Valley," 
 
 Atlantic Monthly, vol. xciii. 
 
 Further references will be found appended to the 
 articles on Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, 
 Jay, and John Adams in The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
 llth Edition. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, John, favors making gov 
 ernment impressive through 
 ceremony, 8-9; attitude to 
 ward Genet affair, 136; re- 
 elected Vice-president, 178; 
 elected President, 195-96; per 
 sonal characteristics, 200; re 
 lations with Jefferson, 200-01 ; 
 Cabinet, 201-03; defeat at 
 election of 1800, 226 
 
 Addison, Alexander, Judge, 218 
 
 Algiers, relations with, 104 et 
 seq.; treaty with, 112-13 
 
 Alien and Sedition laws, 215 et 
 seq. 
 
 Ames, Fisher, of Massachusetts, 
 32-33, 43-44, 55, 62, 81, 90, 
 101, 110, 154, 191 
 
 Bacri, the Jew, 113 
 
 Barclay, Thomas, 107 
 
 Baldwin, Abraham, of Georgia, 
 110 
 
 Barlow, Joel, 119, 199 
 
 Barry, John, Captain, 211 
 
 Beard, C. A., Economic Origins 
 of Jeffersonian Democracy, 76- 
 77 
 
 Benson, Egbert, of New York, 
 55,66 
 
 Boudinot, Elias, of New Jersey, 
 33, 38, 55, 65-66 
 
 Bradford, William, of Rhode 
 Island, 188 
 
 Burke, Edanus, of South Caro 
 lina, 67, 68 
 
 Burr, Aaron, 226 
 
 Butler, Pierce, of South Caro 
 lina, 29 
 
 Cabinet, President s, a develop 
 ment after Washington s ad 
 ministration, 24-25; status of, 
 50 
 
 Campbell, William, Major, 102- 
 103 
 
 Carmichael, William, 144 
 
 Church, Edward, U. S. consul at 
 Lisbon, 108 
 
 Clark, Abraham, of New Jersey, 
 110, 152 
 
 Clark, George Rogers, 120, 124 
 
 Clinton, George, of New York, 
 178 
 
 Constellation, The, ship, 113, 210, 
 211 
 
 Constitution, The, ship, 113, 210 
 
 Constitutional amendments 
 adopted, 32 
 
 Daily Advertizer, 143 
 Dauphin, The, ship, 106 
 Dayton, Jonathan, of New Jer 
 sey, 152, 190 
 
 Dexter, Samuel, of Massachu 
 setts, 223 
 
 District of Columbia, exact site 
 to be selected by the President, 
 74 
 
 Ellsworth, Oliver, of Connecti 
 cut, 51, 218 
 
 Federal Hall, 12-13 
 
 Federalist, 70 
 
 Federalist party, 224 
 
 Finance, National, Tariff bill, 
 26-31; debt of United States 
 (1790), 57 Assumption bill, 67 
 
 231 
 
INDEX 
 
 Finance Continued 
 
 et seq., 169; national bank es 
 tablished, 77; mint established, 
 77 
 
 Fishbourn, Benjamin, 90-91 
 
 Fitzsimmons, Thomas, of Penn 
 sylvania, 45-46, 47, 49, 110 
 
 France, relations with United 
 States, 115 et seq. , treaties of 
 1778, 120-21; representation in 
 United States, 198-99; special 
 mission to, 201 et seq.; treaties 
 abrogated (1798), 210; mari 
 time troubles with, 210-12; 
 second mission to, 222 
 
 Fraunces, A. G., 179 
 
 Freneau, Philip, editor of Na- 
 tional Gazette, 138 
 
 Genet, Edmond, appointed 
 French minister to United 
 States, 115; a trained diplomat 
 ist, 115-16; audacious mission, 
 118-22; reception in United 
 States, 122-24; policy toward 
 Louisiana, 124; argues for 
 treaty rights, 132-33; public 
 opinion for, 136-37; arrest by 
 French Government, 144; suc 
 cess, 140-41; United States 
 becomes his asylum, 144; 
 bibliography, 228-29 
 
 Germantown, Proposal to place 
 capital at, 72 
 
 Gerry, Elbridge, of Massachu 
 setts, 33 et seq., 55, 203, 207, 
 224 
 
 Giles, W. B., of Virginia, 110-12, 
 166 et seq., 179-81, 191, 193- 
 94 
 
 Grange, The, ship, 123, 133 
 
 Gray son, William, of Virginia, 51 
 
 Great Britain, lays down con 
 traband regulations, 149-50; 
 retains Western posts in 
 America, 154, 158-59; treaty 
 with (1795), 158-62 
 
 Greenville, Treaty of (1795), 102 
 
 Gwinnett, Button, 91 
 
 Hail Columbia, 209-10 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, personal 
 appearance, 3; aid in finance 
 sought by Washington, 4; 
 advises Washington as to 
 deportment, 7-8, 10; ap 
 pointed Secretary of Treasury, 
 22-23; rivalry between Madi 
 son and, 48; opinion as to 
 establishment of courts, 52; 
 report to Congress (1790), 54 
 et seq. , stand on the question 
 of security of transfer, 64; 
 interest in site for national 
 capital, 71-72; report on manu- 
 factures, 77; appreciation of, 
 78-79; author of interrogator 
 ies to the cabinet (1793), 126- 
 128; opinion on French treaty 
 obligations, 131-32; stands 
 against Jefferson, 136; calm 
 ness in regard to Genet affair, 
 137; "Pacificus," 139; "No 
 Jacobin," 143; resigns as Sec 
 retary of Treasury (1793), 164- 
 65; party warfare against, 168 
 et seq. ; requests a Treasury in 
 vestigation, 179; opinion as to 
 enforcing law, 185-86; remains 
 trusted adviser, 190-91; aids 
 Wolcott in preparing scheme of 
 taxation, 204; appointed ma 
 jor-general, 212-13; relations 
 with Adams, 224-25; bibli 
 ography, 228 
 
 Hammond, George, British min 
 ister to United States, 150, 
 154 
 
 Hancock, John, 92 
 
 Harmar, Josiah, Lieutenant- 
 Colonel, 93, 97 
 
 Hazard, Ebenezer, Postmaster- 
 General, 21-22 
 
 Henry, Patrick, 189 
 
 Humphreys, David, Colonel, 
 107-08 
 
 Indian troubles in the West, 83- 
 87, 93-96, 97-98, 101-02 
 
INDEX 
 
 233 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, 193 
 
 Jackson, James, of Georgia, 53, 
 60 
 
 Jay, John, Secretary of Foreign 
 Affairs, 21; appointed envoy 
 extraordinary to Great Bri 
 tain (1794), 155-56; mission 
 to England, 158 et seq.; elected 
 Governor of New York, 163 
 
 Jay treaty, terms of, 158-63; 
 agitation over, 190-92; French 
 attitude toward, 198 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, appointed 
 Secretary of State, 23; attitude 
 on question of assumption of 
 state debts, 73-74; importance 
 of public service, 74; report on 
 the Algerine question, 105-06; 
 as minister to Paris, 117; opin 
 ion o n French treaty obliga 
 tions, 129-31, 134-37; "The 
 Anas," 137; disturbs the ad 
 ministration, 138-39; resigns 
 as Secretary of State (1793), 
 148; for the principle "free 
 ships, free goods," 150; op 
 ponent of Hamilton, 174-76; 
 drafts Kentucky Resolutions 
 (1798), 219; elected President, 
 225-26; bibliography, 228 
 
 Johnson, Thomas, of Maryland, 
 189 
 
 Jones, John Paul, Admiral, 107 
 
 Judiciary, Establishment of the, 
 51-53 
 
 Kentucky Resolutions, 219 
 Knox, Henry, Secretary of War 
 since 1785, 21; Secretary of 
 War and of the Navy, 23; 
 submits plan for militia, 82; 
 supports Hamilton in question 
 of treaty obligations, 129-30, 
 136; recommended as major- 
 general by Washington, 212; 
 question of precedence of rank, 
 213-14; declines appointment, 
 215 
 
 La Carmagnole, ship, 141 
 
 V Ambuscade, ship, 123-24, 133 
 
 L Ami de la Point a Petre, ship, 
 
 141 
 
 La Montagne, ship, 141 
 L Amour de la Liberte, ship, 141 
 La Vengeance, ship, 141 
 Le Cassius, ship, 141 
 Le Citoyen Genet, ship, 141 
 Lee, Arthur, 22 
 
 Lee, Charles, of Virginia, 188, 205 
 Lee, R. H., of Virginia, 51 
 1 Enfant, P. C., 12 
 Le Petit Democrate, ship, 141, 142. 
 
 143 
 
 L Esperance, ship, 141 
 Le Vainqueur de Bastille, ship, 141 
 Little Sarah, ship, 141 
 Livermore, Samuel, of New 
 
 Hampshire, 43, 61, 67-68 
 Livingston, Walter, 22 
 Louisiana territory, 119, 124 
 
 McGillivray, Alexander, Head 
 chief of the Creeks, 83-87 
 
 McHenry, James, of Maryland, 
 189, 205, 223 
 
 Mclntosh, Lachlan, 91 
 
 Maclay, William, of Pennsylvan 
 ia, Diary of, 19-20, 60, 69. 
 70-71, 72, 88-89, 107 
 
 Madison, James, cooperates 
 with Hamilton in government 
 organization, 2; personal ap 
 pearance, 3; introduces scheme 
 for raising revenue, 26-31; 
 upholds President s power of 
 removal, 40-41; acts as ad 
 visor to Washington, 47; opin 
 ion as to system of federal 
 courts, 52; stand on question 
 of security of transfer, 65, 66- 
 67; opinion on creation of a 
 navy, 109-10; "Helvidius," 
 140; attitude toward non- 
 intercourse, 154; drafts Vir 
 ginia Resolutions (1798), 219 
 
 Marshall, John, opinion on neu 
 trality of United States (1793), 
 
234 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Marshall Continued 
 
 126; appointed commissioner 
 to France, 203; becomes Sec 
 retary of State, 223 
 Military preparedness, Policy 
 of, 81-83, 96-97, 100-01, 151- 
 52 
 
 Monroe, James, 197-98 
 Morris, Gouverneur, 117-18 
 Morris, Robert, 4, 29, 35, 72 
 Moultrie, William, General, 122- 
 
 23 
 
 Murray, W. V., Minister to 
 Holland, 221 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, 206 
 National Gazette, 142-43 
 Naval policy of the United States, 
 
 109 et seq. 
 Neutrality, Question of (1793), 
 
 125 et seq. 
 New York, desires to be capital 
 
 of nation, 12; Washington s 
 
 home in, 15 
 
 Nicholas, W. C., of Virginia, 110 
 Non-intercourse bill, 153-54 
 North Carolina admitted to the 
 
 Union (1789), 93 
 
 O Brien Richard, Captain, 106, 
 
 108, 109 
 
 O Fallon, James, Dr., 119 
 Osgood, Samuel, Postmaster- 
 General, 22, 23 
 
 Page, John, of Virginia, 42, 61-62 
 
 Paine, Thomas, 119 
 
 Patterson, William, of New 
 Jersey, 189 
 
 Philadelphia club, 183 
 
 Pickering, Timothy of Massa 
 chusetts, 189, 223 
 
 Pinckney, C. C., 189, 198-99, 
 212-13, 225 
 
 Pinckney, Thomas, 145, 148, 150, 
 155, 196 
 
 President of the United States, 
 social position and duties, 
 
 5-10; official title, 10-11; 
 power of removal by, 34, 39- 
 42, 89 
 Putnam, Rufus, General 81 
 
 Randolph, Edmund, appointed 
 Attorney-General, 23; opinion 
 on question of French treaty 
 obligations, 129-30; divides 
 influence between factions in 
 cabinet, 136; transferred to 
 State Department, 168; letter 
 to Washington, 177; opinion 
 as to enforcing law, 185; ap 
 plies to French minister for 
 funds, 187-88; retires, 188 
 
 Republican party, 173 
 
 Residence act, 74 
 
 Rhode Island admitted to the 
 Union (1790), 93 
 
 St. Clair, Arthur, General, 97. 
 98, 100 
 
 Sans Pareil, ship, 141 
 
 Sedgwick, Theodore, of Massa 
 chusetts, 45, 151, 152 
 
 Senate, privy council function of, 
 87-89 
 
 Short, William, 144 
 
 Smith, Samuel, of Maryland, 110 
 
 Smith, William, of South Caro 
 lina, 112 
 
 Spain, Treaty with (1795), 
 145-46 
 
 Stone, M. J., of Maryland, 68 
 
 Story, Joseph, Justice, 50 
 
 Talleyrand, 206-09 
 
 Tariff, see Finance. 
 
 Taylor, John, 76 
 
 Treasury Department, estab 
 lished by Congress, 34-39; 
 rights and duties of Secretary 
 defined, 42-51; Secretary s 
 report, 55-56 
 
 Trenton, proposal to place capi 
 tal at, 72 
 
 Truxtun, Thomas, Captain, 211 
 
INDEX 
 
 235 
 
 United States, The, ship, 113, 
 210 
 
 Virginia Resolutions, 219-20 
 
 Wadsworth, Jeremiah, of Con 
 necticut, 37 
 
 War Department, Opposition to, 
 81 
 
 Washington, George, reluctant 
 to reassume public responsibil 
 ities, 1; installed as President 
 (1789), 2; personal characteris 
 tics, 5; his magnificence, 13- 
 14; his levees, 18; first message 
 to Congress, 20-21; first cab 
 inet, 22-23; message to Senate 
 (1789), 81-82; differences with 
 the Senate, 87-91; tours, 91- 
 93; church-going habits, 92- 
 93; receives news of St. Clair s 
 defeat, 98-100; concern about 
 Genet affair, 137-38; opinion 
 
 as to validity of French treaty, 
 147; dependence upon Hamil 
 ton, 147-48; address of Dec. 
 3, 1793, 150-51; reelected 
 President, 177-78; party spirit 
 against, 192; Farewell Address 
 (1796), 192-93; death (1799), 
 223; bibliography, 227-28 
 
 Washington, Martha, arrival in 
 New York, 16-17; her enter 
 tainments, 18-19 
 
 Wayne, Anthony, General, 101, 
 102-03 
 
 West Indies, trade with, 160-61, 
 162-63 
 
 Whiskey insurrection, 182 et seq. 
 
 White, Alexander- of Virginia, 
 39 
 
 Willett, Marinus, Colonel, 85 
 
 Wolcott, Oliver, of Connecticut, 
 189, 203, 223-24 
 
 "X. Y. Z." dispatches, 207-09, 
 221 
 
AN OUTLINE OF THE PLAN OF 
 THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA 
 
 The fifty tides of the Series fall into eight topical sequences or groups, 
 each with a dominant theme of its own 
 
 I. The Morning of America 
 TIME: 1492-1763 
 
 THE theme of the first sequence is the struggle of nations for the 
 possession of the New World. The mariners of four European king- 
 doms Spain, Portugal, France, and England are intent upon the 
 discovery of a new route to Asia. They come upon the American continent 
 which blocks the way. Spain plants colonies in the south, lured by gold. 
 France, in pursuit of the fur trade, plants colonies in the north. Englishmen, 
 in search of homes and of a wider freedom, occupy the Atlantic seaboard. 
 These Englishmen come in time to need the land into which the French 
 have penetrated by way of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, and a 
 mighty struggle between the two nations takes place in the wilderness, 
 ending in the expulsion of the French. This sequence comprises ten volumes: 
 
 1. THE RED MAN S CONTINENT, by Ellsworth Huntington 
 
 2. THE SPANISH CONQUERORS, by Irving Eerdine Richman 
 
 3. ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS, by William Wood 
 
 4. CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE, by William Bennett Munro 
 
 5. PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTH, by Mary Johnston 
 
 6. THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND, by Charles M. Andrei** 
 
 7. DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON, by Maud Wilder Goodwin 
 
 8. THE QUAKER COLONIES, by Sydney G. Fisher 
 
 9. COLONIAL FOLKWAYS, by Charles M. Andrews 
 
 IO. THE CONQUEST OF NEW FRANCE, by George M. Wrong 
 
II. The Winning of Independence 
 TIME: 1763-1815 
 
 The French peril has passed, and the great territory between the Alle- 
 ghanies and the Mississippi is now open to the Englishmen on the seaboard, 
 with no enemy to contest their right of way except the Indian. But the 
 question arises whether these Englishmen in the New World shall submit 
 to political dictation from the King and Parliament of England. To decide 
 this question the War of the Revolution is fought; the Union is born: 
 and the second war with England follows. Seven volumes: 
 
 11. THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION, by Carl Becker 
 
 12. WASHINGTON AND HIS COMRADES IN ARMS, by George M, Wrong 
 
 13. THE FATHERS OF THE CONSTITUTION, by Max Farrand 
 
 14. WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES, by Henry Jones Ford 
 
 15. JEFFERSON AND HIS COLLEAGUES, by Allen Johnson 
 
 16. JOHN MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION, by Edward S. CorWttl 
 
 17. THE FIGHT FOR A FREE SEA, by Ralph D. Paine 
 
 III. The Vision of the West 
 TIME: 1750-1890 
 
 The theme of the third sequence is the American frontier the conquest 
 of the continent from the Alleghanies to the Pacific Ocean. The story covers 
 nearly a century and a half, from the first crossing of the Alleghanies by 
 the backwoodsmen of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas (about 
 1750) to the heyday of the cowboy on the Great Plains in the latter part 
 of the nineteenth century. This is the marvelous tale of the greatest migra 
 tions in history, told in nine volumes as follows: 
 
 18. PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST, by Constance Lindsay Skinnet 
 
 19. THE OLD NORTHWEST, by Frederic Austin Ogg 
 
 20. THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON, by Frederic Austin Ogg 
 
 21. THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE, by Archer B. Hulbert 
 
 22. ADVENTURERS OF OREGON, by Constance Lindsay Skinner 
 
 23. THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS, by Herbert E. Bo/ton 
 
 24. TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson 
 
 25. THE FORTY-NINERS, by Stewart Edward White 
 
 26. THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIER, by EmfTSOn Hough 
 
IV. The Storm of Secession 
 TIME: 1830-1876 
 
 The curtain rises on the gathering storm of secession. The theme of the 
 fourth sequence is the preservation of the Union, which carries with it the 
 extermination of slavery. Six volumes as follows: 
 
 27. THE COTTON KINGDOM, by William E. Dodd 
 
 28. THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE, by JeSSC Macy 
 
 29. ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE UNION, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson 
 
 30. THE DAY OF THE CONFEDERACY, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson 
 
 31. CAPTAINS OF THE CIVIL WAR, by William Wood 
 
 32. THE SEQUEL OF APPOMATTOX, by Walter Lynwood Fleming 
 
 V. The Intellectual Life 
 
 Two volumes follow on the higher national life, telling of the nation s great 
 teachers and interpreters: 
 
 33. THE AMJERICAN SPIRIT IN EDUCATION, by Edwin E. SloSSOrt 
 
 34. THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE, by BHsS Perry 
 
 VI . The Epic of Commerce and Industry 
 
 The sixth sequence is devoted to the romance of industry and business, 
 and the dominant theme is the transformation caused by the inflow of 
 immigrants and the development and utilization of mechanics on a great 
 scale. The long age of muscular power has passed, and the era of mechanical 
 power has brought with it a new kind of civilization. Eight volumes: 
 
 35. OUR FOREIGNERS, by Samuel P. Orth 
 
 36. THE OLD MERCHANT MARINE, by Ralph D. Paine 
 
 37. THE AGE OF INVENTION, by Holland Thompson 
 
 38. THE RAILROAD BUILDERS, by John Moody 
 
 39. THE AGE OF BIG BUSINESS, by Burton J. Hendrick 
 
 40. THE ARMIES OF LABOR, by Samuel P. Orth 
 
 41. THE MASTERS OF CAPITAL, by John Moody 
 
 42. THE NEW SOUTH, by Holland Thompson 
 
VII. The Era of World Power 
 
 The seventh sequence carries on the story of government and diplomacy 
 and political expansion from the Reconstruction (1876) to the present day, 
 in six volumes: 
 
 43. THE BOSS AND THE MACHINE, by Samuel P. Or/A 
 
 44. THE CLEVELAND ERA, by Henry Jones Ford 
 
 45. THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE, by Solon J. Buck 
 
 46. THE PATH OF EMPIRE, by Ca rl Ru ssell Fish 
 
 47. THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS TIMES, by Harold Howland 
 
 48. WOODROW WILSON AND THE WORLD WAR, by Charles Seymour 
 
 VIII. Our Neighbor s 
 
 Now to round out the story of the continent, the Hispanic peoples on 
 the south and the Canadians on the north are taken up where they were 
 dropped further back in the Series, and these peoples are followed down 
 to the present day: 
 
 49. THE CANADIAN DOMINION, by Oscar D. Skelton 
 
 50. THE HISPANIC NATIONS OF THE NEW WORLD, by William R. Shepherd 
 
 The Chronicles of America is thus a great synthesis, giving a new projec 
 tion and a new interpretation of American History. These narratives are 
 works of real scholarship, for every one is written after an exhaustive 
 examination of the sources. Many of them contain new facts; some of them 
 such as those by Howland, Seymour, and Hough are founded on inti 
 mate personal knowledge. But the originality of the Series lies, not chiefly 
 in new facts, but rather in new ideas and new combinations of old facts. 
 
 The General Editor of the Series is Dr. Allen Johnson, Chairman of the 
 Department of History of Yale University, and the entire work has been 
 planned, prepared, and published under the control of the Council s 
 Committee on Publications of Yale University. 
 
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 DEC 261962, 
 
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