The inauguration of Washington on April 30, 1789, brought a new type
of administration into the world. The democracy which it initiated was
very different from that of antiquity, from the models of Greece and
of Rome, and quite different from that of the Italian republics during
the Middle Age. The head of the new State differed essentially
from the monarchs across the sea. Although there were varieties of
traditions and customs in what had been the Colonies, still their
dominant characteristic was British. According to the social
traditions of Virginia, George Washington was an aristocrat, but in
contrast with the British, he was a democrat.
He believed, however, that the President must guard his office from
the free-and-easy want of decorum which some of his countrymen
regarded as the stamp of democracy. At his receptions he wore a black
velvet suit with gold buckles at the knee and on his shoes, and yellow
gloves, and profusely powdered hair carried in a silk bag behind. In
one hand he held a cocked hat with an ostrich plume; on his left thigh
he wore a sword in a white scabbard of polished leather. He shook
hands with no one; but acknowledged the courtesy of his visitors by
a very formal bow. When he drove, it was in a coach with four or six
handsome horses and outriders and lackeys dressed in resplendent
livery.
After his inauguration he spoke his address to the Congress, and
several days later members of the House and of the Senate called on
him at his residence and made formal replies to his Inaugural Address.
After a few weeks, experience led him to modify somewhat his daily
schedule. He found that unless it was checked, the insatiate public
would consume all his time. Every Tuesday afternoon, between three and
four o'clock, he had a public reception which any one might attend.
Likewise, on Friday afternoons, Mrs. Washington had receptions of her
own. The President accepted no invitations to dinner, but at his own
table there was an unending succession of invited guests, except on
Sunday, which he observed privately. Interviews with the President
could be had at any time that suited his convenience. Thus did he
arrange to transact his regular or his private business.
Inevitably, some of the public objected to his rules and pretended to
see very strong monarchical leanings in them. But the country took
them as he intended, and there can be no doubt that it felt the
benefit of his promoting the dignity of his office. Equally beneficial
was his rule of not appointing to any office any man merely because he
was the President's friend. Washington knew that such a consideration
would give the candidate an unfair advantage. He knew further that
office-holders who could screen themselves behind the plea that they
were the President's friends might be very embarrassing to him. As
office-seekers became, with the development of the Republic, among
the most pernicious of its evils and of its infamies, we can but feel
grateful that so far as in him lay Washington tried to keep them
within bounds.
In all his official acts he took great pains not to force his personal
wishes. He knew that both in prestige and popularity he held a place
apart among his countrymen, and for this reason he did not wish to
have measures passed simply because they were his. Accordingly, in
the matter of receiving the public and in granting interviews and of
ceremonials at the Presidential Residence, he asked the advice of John
Adams, John Jay, Hamilton, and Jefferson, and he listened to many
of their suggestions. Colonel Humphreys, who had been one of his
aides-de-camp and was staying in the Presidential Residence, acted as
Chamberlain at the first reception. Humphreys took an almost childish
delight in gold braid and flummery. At a given moment the door of the
large hall in which the concourse of guests was assembled was opened
and he, advancing, shouted, with a loud voice: "The President of the
United States!" Washington followed him and went through the paces
prescribed by the Colonel with punctilious exactness, but with evident
lack of relish. When the levee broke up and the party had gone,
Washington said to Colonel Humphreys: "Well, you have taken me in
once, but, by God, you shall never take me in a second time."[Footnote: Irving, V, 14.]
Irving, who borrows this story from Jefferson, warns us that perhaps
Jefferson was not a credible witness.
Congress transacted much important business at this first session.
It determined that the President should have a Cabinet of men whose
business it was to administer the chief departments and to advise the
President. Next in importance were the financial measures proposed by
the Secretary of the Treasury. Washington chose for his first Cabinet
Ministers: Thomas Jefferson, who had not returned from Paris, as
Secretary of State, or Foreign Minister as he was first called;
Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; General Henry Knox,
Secretary of War; and Edmund Randolph, Attorney-General. Of these,
Hamilton had to face the most bitter opposition. Throughout the
Revolution the former Colonies had never been able to collect enough
money to pay the expense of the war and the other charges of the
Confederation. The Confederation handed over a considerable debt to
the new Government. Besides this many of the States had paid each its
own cost of equipping and maintaining its contingent. Hamilton now
proposed that the United States Government should assume these various
State debts, which would aggregate $21,000,000 and bring the National
debt to a total of $75,000,000. Hamilton's suggestion that the State
debts be assumed caused a vehement outcry. Its opponents protested
that no fair adjustment could be reached. The Assumptionists
retorted that this would be the only fair settlement, but the
Anti-Assumptionists voted them down by a majority of two. In other
respects, Hamilton's financial measures prospered, and before many
months he seized the opportunity of making a bargain by which the next
Congress reversed its vote on Assumption. In less than a year the
members of Congress and many of the public had reached the conclusion
that New York City was not the best place to be the capital of the
Nation. The men from the South argued that it put the South to a
disadvantage, as its ease of access to New York, New Jersey, and
the Eastern States gave that section of the country a too favorable
situation. There was a strong party in favor of Philadelphia, but
it was remembered that in the days of the Confederation a gang of
turbulent soldiers had dashed down from Lancaster and put to flight
the Convention sitting at Philadelphia. Nevertheless, Philadelphia was
chosen temporarily, the ultimate choice of a situation being farther
south on the Potomac.
Jefferson returned from France in the early winter. The discussion
over Assumption was going on very virulently. It happened that one day
Jefferson met Hamilton, and this is his account of what followed:
As I was going to the President's one day, I met him [Hamilton]
in the street. He walked me backwards and forwards before the
President's door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the
temper into which the legislature had been wrought; the disgust
of those who were called the creditor States; the danger of the
secession of their members, and the separation of the States. He
observed that the members of the administration ought to act in
concert; that though this question was not of my department, yet
a common duty should make it a common concern; that the President
was the centre on which all administrative questions ultimately
rested, and that all of us should rally around him and support,
with joint efforts, measures approved by him; and that the
question having been lost by a small majority only, it was
probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of
some of my friends, might effect a change in the vote, and the
machine of government now suspended, might be again set into
motion. I told him that I was really a stranger to the whole
subject, that not having yet informed myself of the system of
finance adopted, I knew not how far this was a necessary sequence;
that undoubtedly, if its rejection endangered a dissolution of our
Union at this incipient stage, I should deem it most unfortunate
of all consequences to avert which all partial and temporary evils
should be yielded, I proposed to him, however, to dine with me the
next day, and I would invite another friend or two, bring them
into conference together, and I thought it impossible that
reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail, by some
mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise which was to
save the Union. The discussion took place. I could take no part
in it but an exhortatory one, because I was a stranger to the
circumstances which should govern it. But it was finally agreed,
that whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of
this proposition, the preservation of the Union and of concord
among the States was more important, and that, therefore, it would
be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded, to
effect which some members should change their votes. But it was
observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern
States, and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to
sweeten it a little to them. There had before been projects to fix
the seat of government either at Philadelphia or at Georgetown on
the Potomac; and it was thought that, by giving it to Philadelphia
for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterwards, this
might, as an anodyne, solve in some degree the ferment which might
be excited by the other measure alone. So two of the Potomac
members (White and Lee, but White with a revulsion of stomach
almost convulsive) agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton
undertook to carry the other point. In doing this, the influence
he had established over the eastern members, with the agency of
Robert Morris with those of the Middle States, effected his side
of the engagement.[Footnote: Jefferson's Works, IX, 93.]
As a result of Hamilton's bargain, the bill for Assumption was passed,
and it was agreed that Philadelphia should be the capital for ten
years and that afterwards a new city should be built on the banks of
the Potomac and made the capital permanently.
During the summer of 1789 Washington suffered the most serious
sickness of his entire life. The cause was anthrax in his thigh, and
at times it seemed that it would prove fatal. For many weeks he was
forced to lie on one side, with frequent paroxysms of great pain.
After a month and a half he began to mend, but very slowly, so that
autumn came before he got up and could go about again. His medical
adviser was Dr. Samuel Bard of New York, and Irving reports the
following characteristic conversation between him and his patient:
"Do not flatter me with vain hopes," said Washington, with placid
firmness; "I am not afraid to die, and therefore can bear the worst."
The doctor expressed hope, but owned that he had apprehensions.
"Whether to-night or twenty hence, makes no difference," observed
Washington. "I know that I am in the hands of a good Providence."[Footnote: Irving, V, 22.]
His friends thought that he never really recovered his old-time vigor.
That autumn, as soon as Congress had adjourned, he took a journey
through New England, going as far as Portsmouth and returning in time
for the opening of the Second Congress.
The Government was now settling down into what became its normal
routine. The Cabinet was completed by the appointment of Jefferson as
Secretary of State and Edmund Randolph as Attorney-General. Jefferson
would have preferred to go back to France as American Minister, but
in a fulsome letter he declared himself willing to accept any office
which Washington wished him to fill. The Supreme Court was organized
with John Jay as Chief Justice, and five Associate Justices.
Washington could not fail to be aware that parties were beginning to
shape themselves. At first the natural divisions consisted of the
Federalists, who believed in adopting the Constitution, and those
who did not. As soon as the thirteen States voted to accept the
Constitution, the Anti-Federalists had no definite motive for
existing. Their place was taken principally by the Republicans over
against whom were the Democrats. A few years later these parties
exchanged names. A fundamental difference in the ideas of the
Americans sprang from their views in regard to National and State
rights. Some of them regarded the State as the ultimate unit. Others
insisted that the Nation was sovereign. These two conflicting views
run through American history down to the Civil War, and even in
Washington's time they existed in outline. Washington himself was
a Federalist, believing that the Federation of the former Colonies
should be made as compact and strongly knit as possible. He had
had too much evidence during the Revolution of the weakness of
uncentralized government, and yet his Virginia origin and training had
planted in him a strong sympathy for State rights. In Washington's
own Cabinet dwelt side by side the leaders of the two parties: Thomas
Jefferson, the Secretary of State, though born in Virginia of high
aristocratic stock, was the most aggressive and infatuated of
Democrats. Alexander Hamilton, born in the West Indies and owing
nothing to family connections, was a natural aristocrat. He believed
that the educated and competent few must inevitably govern the
incompetent masses. His enemies suspected that he leaned strongly
towards monarchy and would have been glad to see Washington crowned
king.
President Washington, believing in Assumption, took satisfaction in
Hamilton's bargain with Jefferson which made Assumption possible. For
the President saw in the act a power making for union, and union was
one of the chief objects of his concern. The foremost of Hamilton's
measures, however, for good or for ill, was the protective tariff on
foreign imports. Experience has shown that protection has been much
more than a financial device. It has been deeply and inextricably
moral. It has caused many American citizens to seek for tariff favors
from the Government. Compared with later rates, those which Hamilton's
tariff set were moderate indeed. The highest duties it exacted on
foreign imports were fifteen per cent, while the average was only
eight and a half per cent. And yet it had not been long in force when
the Government was receiving $200,000 a month, which enabled it to
defray all the necessary public charges. Hamilton, in the words of
Daniel Webster, "smote the rock of National resources and copious
streams of wealth poured forth. He touched the dead corpse of public
credit and it stood forth erect with life." The United States of all
modern countries have been the best fitted by their natural resources
to do without artificial stimulation, in spite of which fact they
still cling, after one hundred and thirty-five years, to the easy
and plausible tariff makeshift. Washington himself believed that the
tariff should so promote industries as to provide for whatever the
country needed in time of war.
Two other financial measures are to be credited to Hamilton. The first
was the excise, an internal revenue on distilled spirits. It met with
opposition from the advocates of State rights, but was passed after
heated debate. The last was the establishment of a United States Bank.
All of Hamilton's measures tended directly to centralization, the
object which he and Washington regarded as paramount.
In 1790 Washington made a second trip through the Eastern States,
taking pains to visit Rhode Island, which was the last State to ratify
the Constitution (May 29, 1790). These trips of his, for which the
hostile might have found parallels in the royal progresses of the
British sovereigns, really served a good purpose; for they enabled the
people to see and hear their President; which had a good effect in a
newly established nation. Washington lost no opportunity for teaching
a moral. Thus, when he came to Boston, John Hancock, the Governor of
Massachusetts, seemed to wish to indicate that the Governor was the
highest personage in the State and not at all subservient even to
the President of the United States. He wished to arrange it so that
Washington should call on him first, but this Washington had no idea
of doing. Hancock then wrote and apologized for not greeting the
President owing to an unfortunate indisposition. Washington replied
regretting the Governor's illness and announcing that the schedule on
which he was travelling required him to quit Boston at a given time.
Governor Hancock, whose spectacular signature had given him prominence
everywhere, finding that he could not make the President budge, sent
word that he was coming to pay his respects. Washington replied that
he should be much pleased to welcome him, but expressed anxiety lest
the Governor might increase his indisposition by coming out. This
little comedy had a far-reaching effect. It settled the question as to
whether the Governor of a State or the President of the United States
should take precedence. From that day to this, no Governor, so far
as I am aware, has set himself above the President in matters of
ceremonial.
One of the earliest difficulties which Washington's administration had
to overcome was the hostility of the Indians. Indian discontent and
even lawlessness had been going on for years, with only a desultory
and ineffectual show of vigor on the part of the whites. Washington,
who detested whatever was ineffectual and lacking in purpose,
determined to beat down the Indians into submission. He sent out a
first army under General St. Clair, but it was taken in ambush by the
Indians and nearly wiped out--a disaster which caused almost a panic
throughout the Western country. Washington felt the losses deeply, but
he had no intention of being beaten there. He organized a second army,
gave it to General Wayne to command, who finally brought the Six
Nations to terms. The Indians in the South still remained unpacified
and lawless.
Washington made another prolonged trip, this time through the Southern
States, which greatly improved his health and gave an opportunity of
seeing many of the public men, and enabled the population to greet for
the first time their President. Meanwhile the seeds of partisan feuds
grew apace, as they could not fail to do where two of the ablest
politicians ever known in the United States sat in the same Cabinet
and pursued with unremitting energy ideas that were mutually
uncompromising. Thomas Jefferson, although born of the old
aristocratic stock of Virginia, had early announced himself a
Democrat, and had led that faction throughout the Revolution. His
facile and fiery mind gave to the Declaration of Independence an
irresistible appeal, and it still remains after nearly one hundred and
fifty years one of the most contagious documents ever drawn up. Going
to France at the outbreak of the French Revolution, he found the
French nation about to put into practice the principles on which he
had long fed his imagination--principles which he accepted without
qualification and without scruple. Returning to America after the
organization of the Government, he accepted with evident reluctance
the position of Secretary of State which Washington offered to him. In
the Cabinet his chief adversary or competitor was Alexander Hamilton,
his junior by fourteen years, a man equally versatile and equally
facile--and still more enthralling as an orator. Hamilton harbored the
anxiety that the United States under their new Constitution would be
too loosely held together. He promoted, therefore, every measure
that tended to strengthen the Central Government and to save it
from dissolution either by the collapse of its unifying bonds or
by anarchy. In the work of the first two years of Washington's
administration, Hamilton was plainly victorious. The Tariff Law, the
Excise, the National Bank, the National Funding Bill, all centralizing
measures, were his. Washington approved them all, and we may believe
that he talked them over with Hamilton and gave them his approval
before they came under public discussion.
Thus, as Hamilton gained, Jefferson plainly lost. But Washington
did not abandon his sound position as a neutral between the two. He
requested Jefferson and Edmund Randolph to draw up objections to some
of Hamilton's schemes, so that he had in writing the arguments of very
strong opponents.
Meanwhile the French Revolution had broken all bounds, and Jefferson, as
the sponsor of the French over here, was kept busy in explaining and
defending the Gallic horrors. The Americans were in a large sense
law-abiding, but in another sense they were lawless. Nevertheless, they
heard with horror of the atrocities of the French Revolutionists--of the
drownings, of the guillotining, of the imprisonment and execution of the
King and Queen--and they had a healthy distrust of the Jacobin Party,
which boasted that these things were natural accompaniments of Liberty
with which they planned to conquer the world. Events in France
inevitably drove that country into war with England. Washington and his
chief advisers believed that the United States ought to remain neutral
as between the two belligerents. But neutrality was difficult. In spite
of their horror at the French Revolution, the memory of our debt to
France during our own Revolution made a very strong bond of sympathy,
whereas our long record of hostility to England during our Colony days,
and since the Declaration of Independence, kept alive a traditional
hatred for Great Britain. While it was easy, therefore, to preach
neutrality, it was very difficult to enforce it. An occurrence which
could not have been foreseen further added to the difficulty of
neutrality.
In the spring of 1793 the French Republic appointed Edmond Charles
Genêt, familiarly called "Citizen Genêt," Minister to the United
States. He was a young man, not more than thirty, of very quick parts,
who had been brought up in the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, had an
exorbitant idea of his own importance, and might be described without
malice as a master of effrontery. The ship which brought him to this
country was driven by adverse winds to Charleston and landed him there
on April 8th. He lost no time in fitting out a privateer against
British mercantile vessels. The fact that by so doing he broke the
American rule of neutrality did not seem to trouble him at all; on the
contrary, he acted as if he were simply doing what the United States
would do if they really did what they wished. As soon as he had made
his arrangements, he proceeded by land up the coast to Philadelphia.
Jefferson was exuberant, and he wrote in exultation to Madison on the
fifth of May, concluding with the phrase, "I wish we may be able
to repress the spirit of the people within the limits of a fair
neutrality." If there be such things as crocodile tears, perhaps there
may also be crocodile wishes, of which this would seem to be one. A
friend of Hamilton's, writing about the same time, speaks in different
terms, as follows:
He has a good person, a fine ruddy complexion, quite active, and
seems always in a bustle, more like a busy man than a man of
business. A Frenchman in his manners, he announces himself in all
companies as the Minister of the Republic, etc., talks freely of
his commission, and, like most Europeans, seems to have adopted
mistaken notions of the penetration and knowledge of the people of
the United States. His system, I think, is to laugh us into war if
he can.[Footnote: Irving, V, 151.]
Citizen Genêt did not allow his progress up the coast to be so
rapid that he was deprived of any ovation. The banquets, luncheons,
speech-makings, by which he was welcomed everywhere, had had no
parallel in the country up to that time. They seemed to be too
carefully prepared to be unpremeditated, and probably many of those
who took part in them did not understand that they were cheering for a
cause which they had never espoused. One wonders why he was allowed to
carry on this personal campaign and to show rude unconcern for good
manners, or indeed for any manners except those of a wayward and
headstrong boy. It might be thought that the Secretary of State
abetted him and in his infatuation for France did not check him; but,
so far as I have discovered, no evidence exists that Jefferson was
in collusion with the truculent and impertinent "Citizen." No doubt,
however, the shrewd American politician took satisfaction in observing
the extravagances of his fellow countrymen in paying tribute to the
representative of France. At Philadelphia, for instance, the city
which already was beginning to have a reputation for spinster
propriety which became its boast in the next century, we hear that
"... before Genêt had presented his credentials and been acknowledged
by the President, he was invited to a grand republican dinner, 'at
which,' we are told, 'the company united in singing the Marseillaise
Hymn. A deputation of French sailors presented themselves, and were
received by the guests with the fraternal embrace.' The table was
decorated with the 'tree of liberty,' and a red cap, called the cap
of liberty, was placed on the head of the minister, and from his
travelled in succession from head to head round the table."[Footnote:
Jay's Life, I, 30.]
But not all the Americans were delirious enthusiasts. Hamilton kept
his head amid the whirling words which, he said, might "do us much
harm and could do France no good." In a letter, which deserves to be
quoted in spite of its length, he states very clearly the opinions of
one of the sanest of Americans. He writes to a friend:
It cannot be without danger and inconvenience to our interests, to
impress on the nations of Europe an idea that we are actuated by
the same spirit which has for some time past fatally misguided the
measures of those who conduct the affairs of France, and sullied
a cause once glorious, and that might have been triumphant. The
cause of France is compared with that of America during its late
revolution. Would to Heaven that the comparison were just! Would
to Heaven we could discern, in the mirror of French affairs, the
same decorum, the same gravity, the same order, the same dignity,
the same solemnity, which distinguished the cause of the American
Revolution! Clouds and darkness would not then rest upon the
issue as they now do. I own I do not like the comparison. When I
contemplate the horrid and systematic massacres of the 2nd and 3rd
of September, when I observe that a Marat and a Robespierre, the
notorious prompters of those bloody scenes, sit triumphantly in
the convention, and take a conspicuous part in its measures--that
an attempt to bring the assassins to justice has been obliged to
be abandoned--when I see an unfortunate prince, whose reign was
a continued demonstration of the goodness and benevolence of his
heart, of his attachment to the people of whom he was the monarch,
who, though educated in the lap of despotism, had given repeated
proofs that he was not the enemy of liberty, brought precipitately
and ignominiously to the block without any substantial proof of
guilt, as yet disclosed--without even an authentic exhibition of
motives, in decent regard to the opinions of mankind; when I find
the doctrine of atheism openly advanced in the convention, and
heard with loud applause; when I see the sword of fanaticism
extended to force a political creed upon citizens who were invited
to submit to the arms of France as the harbingers of liberty; when
I behold the hand of rapacity outstretched to prostrate and ravish
the monuments of religious worship, erected by those citizens and
their ancestors; when I perceive passion, tumult, and violence
usurping those seats, where reason and cool deliberation ought to
preside, I acknowledge that I am glad to believe there is no real
resemblance between what was the cause of America and what is the
cause of France; that the difference is no less great than that
between liberty and licentiousness. I regret whatever has a
tendency to confound them, and I feel anxious, as an American,
that the ebullitions of inconsiderate men among us may not tend to
involve our reputation in the issue.[Footnote: Hamilton's Works, 566.]
Citizen Genêt continued his campaign unabashed. He attempted to force
the United States to give arms and munitions to the French. Receiving
cool answers to his demands, he lost patience, and intended to appeal
to the American People, over the head of the Government. He sent his
communication for the two Houses of Congress, in care of the Secretary
of State, to be delivered. But Washington, whose patience had seemed
inexhaustible, believed that the time had come to act boldly. By his
instruction Jefferson returned the communication to Genêt with a note
in which he curtly reminded the obstreperous Frenchman of a diplomat's
proper behavior. As the American Government had already requested the
French to recall Genêt, his amazing inflation collapsed like a pricked
bladder. He was too wary, however, to return to France which he had
served so devotedly. He preferred to remain in this country, to become
an American citizen, and to marry the daughter of Governor Clinton of
New York. Perhaps he had time for leisure, during the anticlimax of
his career, to recognize that President Washington, whom he had
looked down upon as a novice in diplomacy, knew how to accomplish his
purpose, very quietly, but effectually. A century and a quarter later,
another foreigner, the German Ambassador, Count Bernstorff, was
allowed by the American Government to weave an even more menacing
plot, but the sound sense of the country awoke in time to sweep him
and his truculence and his conspiracies beyond the Atlantic.
The intrigues of Genêt emphasized the fact that a party had arisen and
was not afraid to speak openly against President Washington. He held
in theory a position above that of parties, but the theory did not
go closely with fact, for he made no concealment of his fundamental
Federalism, and every one saw that, in spite of his formal neutrality,
in great matters he almost always sided with Hamilton instead of with
Jefferson. When he himself recognized that the rift was spreading
between his two chief Cabinet officers, he warned them both to avoid
exaggerating their differences and pursuing any policy which must be
harmful to the country. Patriotism was the chief aim of every one, and
patriotism meant sinking one's private desires in order to achieve
liberty through unity. Washington himself was a man of such strict
virtue that he could work with men who in many matters disagreed with
him, and as he left the points of disagreement on one side, he
used the more effectively points of agreement. I do not think that
Jefferson could do this, or Hamilton either, and I cannot rid myself
of the suspicion that Jefferson furnished Philip Freneau, who came
from New York to Philadelphia to edit the anti-Washington newspaper,
with much of his inspiration if not actual articles. The objective
of the "Gazette" was, of course, the destruction of Hamilton and his
policy of finance. If Hamilton could be thus destroyed, it would be
far easier to pull down Washington also. Lest the invectives in the
"Gazette" should fail to shake Washington in his regard for Hamilton,
Jefferson indited a serious criticism of the Treasury, and he took
pains to have friends of his leave copies of the indictment so that
Washington could not fail to see them. The latter, however, by a
perfectly natural and characteristic stroke which Jefferson could not
foresee, sent the indictment to Hamilton and asked him to explain.
This Hamilton did straightforwardly and point-blank--and Jefferson had
the mortification of perceiving that his ruse had failed. Hamilton,
under a thin disguise, wrote a series of newspaper assaults on
Jefferson, who could not parry them or answer them. He was no match
for the most terrible controversialist in America; but he could wince.
And presently B.F. Bache, the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, brought
his unusual talents in vituperation, in calumny, and in nastiness to
the "Aurora," a blackguard sheet of Philadelphia. Washington doubtless
thought himself so hardened to abuse by the experience he had had of
it during the Revolution that nothing which Freneau, Bache, and their
kind could say or do, would affect him. But he was mistaken. And one
cannot fail to see that they saddened and annoyed him. He felt
so keenly the evil which must come from the deliberate sowing of
dissensions. He cared little what they might say against himself, but
he cared immensely for their sin against patriotism. Before his term
as President drew to a close, he was already deciding not to be
a candidate for a second term. He told his intention to a few
intimates--from them it spread to many others. His best friends were
amazed. They foresaw great trials for the Nation and a possible
revolution. Hamilton tried to move him by every sort of appeal.
Jefferson also was almost boisterous in denouncing the very idea. He
impressed upon him the importance of his continuing at that crisis. He
had not been President long enough to establish precedents for the new
Nation. There were many volatile incidents which, if treated with less
judgment than his, might do grievous harm. One wonders how sincere all
the entreaties to Washington were, but one cannot doubt that the great
majority of the country was perfectly sincere in wishing to have him
continue; for it had sunk deep into the hearts of Americans that
Washington was himself a party, a policy, an ideal above all the rest.
And when the election was held in the autumn of 1792, he was reëlected
by the equivalent of a unanimous vote.
