by Ron Chernow
No American was to expend more prophetic verbiage in denouncing the French Revolution than Alexander Hamilton. The suspension of the monarchy and the September Massacres, Hamilton later told Lafayette, had “cured me of my goodwill for the French Revolution.”20 Hamilton refused to condone the carnage in Paris or separate means from ends. He did not think a revolution should cast off the past overnight or repudiate law, order, and tradition. “A struggle for liberty is in itself respectable and glorious,” he opined. “When conducted with magnanimity, justice, and humanity, it ought to command the admiration of every friend to human nature. But if sullied by crimes and extravagancies, it loses its respectability.”21 The American Revolution had succeeded because it was “a free, regular and deliberate act of the nation” and had been conducted with “a spirit of justice and humanity.”22 It was, in fact, a revolution written in parchment and defined by documents, petitions, and other forms of law.
What threw Hamilton into despair was not just the betrayal of revolutionary hopes in France but the way its American apologists ended up justifying a “state of things the most cruel, sanguinary, and violent that ever stained the annals of mankind.”23 For Hamilton, the utopian revolutionaries in France had emphasized liberty to the exclusion of order, morality, religion, and property rights. They had singled out for persecution bankers and businessmen—people Hamilton regarded as agents of progressive change. He saw the chaos in France as a frightening portent of what could happen in America if the safeguards of order were stripped away by the love of liberty. His greatest nightmare was being enacted across the Atlantic—a hopeful revolution giving way to indiscriminate terror and authoritarian rule. His conclusion was categorical: “If there be anything solid in virtue, the time must come when it will have been a disgrace to have advocated the revolution of France in its late stages.”24
Reports that France had declared war against England and other royal powers did not reach American shores until early April, when Hamilton informed Washington, then at Mount Vernon, “there seems to be no room for doubt of the existence of war.”25 Washington rushed back to Philadelphia to formulate policy. He inclined instantly toward neutrality and blanched at rumors that American ships were getting ready to wage war as pro-French privateers. Before Washington’s arrival, Hamilton mulled over a neutrality proclamation and consulted with John Jay, not Thomas Jefferson, who was slowly being shunted aside in foreign policy. The day after his return on April 17, Washington asked his advisers to ponder thirteen questions for a meeting at his residence the next morning. The first question was the overriding one: Should the United States issue a proclamation of neutrality? The next twelve questions related to France, among them: Should America receive an ambassador from France? Should earlier treaties apply? Was France waging an offensive or defensive war? In these queries, with their implicit skepticism of France, Jefferson saw the handiwork of Hamilton, even though Washington had taken pains to write out the questions himself.
With his usual fierce certitude, Hamilton believed that neutrality was the only proper course and had already lectured Washington on the need for “a continuance of the peace, the desire of which may be said to be both universal and ardent.”26 This had less to do with scruples about war than with a conviction, shared by Washington, that the young country needed a period of prosperity and stability before it was capable of combat. The United States did not even possess a regular navy. At such a moment, Hamilton said, war would be “the most unequal and calamitous in which it is possible for a country to be engaged—a war which would not be unlikely to prove pregnant with greater dangers and disasters than that by which we established our existence as an independent nation.”27 Though Jefferson sympathized with France and Hamilton with Great Britain, they agreed that neutrality was the only sensible policy. The two secretaries differed on the form this should assume, however, and three days of spirited debate ensued.
At a dramatic session on April 19, Washington listened as Jefferson, eager to extract concessions from England, opposed an immediate declaration of neutrality, or perhaps any declaration at all. Why not stall and make countries bid for American neutrality? Aghast, Hamilton said that American neutrality was not negotiable. Drawing on his formidable powers of persuasion, he pummeled his listeners with authorities on international law: Grotius, Vattel, and Pufendorf. Hamilton carried the day, and the cabinet decided to issue a declaration “forbidding our citizens to take part in any hostilities on the seas with or against any of the belligerent powers.”28 Jefferson was horrified at suspending the 1778 treaties with France, sealed during the Revolution. But Hamilton argued that France had aided the American Revolution not from humanitarian motives but only to weaken England. He also argued that the French, having toppled Louis XVI, had traded one government for another, rendering their former treaties null and void. Predictably, he opposed a friendly reception for the French minister recently arrived in America, lest it commit the United States to the French cause. Nonetheless, Jefferson triumphed on the issue of accepting the new French minister without qualifications, as Washington demonstrated anew that he was not a puppet in Hamilton’s hands.
On April 22, after days of heated rhetoric from Hamilton and Jefferson, Washington promulgated his Proclamation of Neutrality. Hamilton was the undisputed victor on the main point of issuing a formal, speedy executive declaration, but Jefferson won some key emphases. In particular, Jefferson had worried that the word neutrality would signal a flat rejection of France, so the document spoke instead of the need for U.S. citizens to be “friendly and impartial” toward the warring powers.29 The proclamation set a vital precedent for a proudly independent America, giving it an ideological shield against European entanglements. Of this declaration, Henry Cabot Lodge later wrote, “There is no stronger example of the influence of the Federalists under the leadership of Washington upon the history of the country than this famous proclamation, and in no respect did the personality of Hamilton impress itself more directly on the future of the United States.”30 With the Neutrality Proclamation, Hamilton continued to define his views on American foreign policy: that it should be based on self-interest, not emotional attachment; that the supposed altruism of nations often masked baser motives; that individuals sometimes acted benevolently, but nations seldom did. This austere, hardheaded view of human affairs likely dated to Hamilton’s earliest observations of the European powers in the West Indies.
The Neutrality Proclamation provoked another contretemps between Jefferson and Hamilton. The secretary of state opposed the form of this milestone in American foreign policy and expressed his indignation to Monroe: “Hamilton is panicstruck if we refuse our breech to every kick which Great Britain may choose to give it.”31 Madison, too, was enraged by the “anglified complexion” of administration policy and dismissed the proclamation as a “most unfortunate error.” The executive branch, he thought, was usurping national-security powers that properly belonged to the legislature. Didn’t Congress alone have the power to declare war and neutrality? He deplored Hamilton’s effort to “shuffle off ” the treaty with France as a trick “equally contemptible for the meanness and folly of it.”32 Madison favored American support for France and bemoaned that Washington had succumbed to “the unpopular cause of Anglomany.” He still viewed the French Revolution as an inspirational fight for freedom and asked indignantly why George Washington “should have anything to apprehend from the success of liberty in another country.”33
On April 8, 1793, the new French minister to the United States sailed into Charleston, South Carolina, aboard the frigate Embuscade and enjoyed a tumultuous reception from a giant throng. His name was Edmond Charles Genêt, but he would be known to history, in the fraternal style popularized by the French Revolution, as Citizen Genêt. Short and ruddy, the thirty-year-old diplomat had flaming red hair, a sloping forehead, and an aquiline nose. Gouverneur Morris sniffed that he had “the manner and look of an upstart.”34 Though he often acted like a political amateur, he had a
n excellent résumé. Fluent in Greek at age six, the translator of Swedish histories by twelve, he spoke seven languages, was an accomplished musician, and had already seen diplomatic service in London and St. Petersburg. He was so closely associated with the moderate Girondists that, before the king’s head was severed, there had been speculation that Citizen Genêt might accompany the royal family to America.
In social situations, the bustling young emissary could be charming and engaging, but he did not behave with the subtlety and prudence expected of a diplomat. Indeed, if Hamilton had decided to invent a minister to dramatize his fears of the French Revolution, he could have conjured up no one better than the vain, extravagant, and bombastic Genêt. The Frenchman was to swagger and bluster and wade blindly into the warfare between Hamilton and Jefferson.
Citizen Genêt landed with a lengthy agenda. He wanted the United States to extend more funds to France and supply foodstuffs and other army provisions. Much more controversially, he wanted to strike blows against Spanish and British possessions in North America and was ready to hire secret agents for that purpose. Jefferson became his clandestine accomplice when he furnished Genêt with a letter introducing a French botanist named André Michaux to the governor of Kentucky. Michaux planned to arm Kentuckians and stir up frontier settlements in Spanish Louisiana. Jefferson’s aid violated the policy of neutrality and made Hamilton’s unauthorized talks with George Beckwith seem like tame indiscretions in comparison.
What most roused Washington’s and Hamilton’s ire was that Genêt’s satchel bulged with some blank “letters of marque.” These documents were to be distributed to private vessels, converting them into privateers. The marauding vessels could then capture unarmed British merchant ships as “prizes,” providing money for the captors and military benefits for France. Genêt wanted to recruit American and French seamen. Once settled in South Carolina, he chartered privateers to prey on British shipping from American ports and also assembled a sixteen-hundredman army to invade St. Augustine, Florida. In Philadelphia, Hamilton condemned this mischief as “the height of arrogance” and divined its true intent: “Genêt came to this country with the affectation of not desiring to embark us in the war and yet he did all in his power by indirect means to drag us into it.”35 Hamilton was convinced that, far from acting alone, Genêt was executing official policy. His suspicions were to be vindicated.
Ten days after his arrival, Citizen Genêt began a prolonged journey north to Philadelphia to present his credentials to Washington. Acting more like a political candidate than a foreign diplomat, he was cheered at banquets, and his six-week tour acquired major political overtones. In many cities, Genêt’s presence spawned “Republican” or “Democratic” societies whose members greeted and embraced each other as “citizens.” These groups feared that once the European powers had overthrown the French Revolution, they would crush its American counterpart. Jittery Federalists worried that the new societies would mimic the radical Jacobin “clubs” that had provoked mayhem in Paris. As these groups forged links with one another, Hamilton thought they might replicate the methods of the Sons of Liberty chapters that helped spark the American Revolution. As a precaution, he advised his customs collectors to inform him of any merchant ships in their ports being pierced with loopholes for guns—a sign they were being converted into privateers.
With each day of his northward journey, the uproar over Genêt’s activities mounted, and Federalist resentment vied with Republican adulation. While Genêt traveled, the Embuscade pounced upon the British ship Grange in American waters and hauled this prize to Philadelphia. George Hammond, the British minister, protested hotly to Thomas Jefferson, noting that such actions mocked Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation. The secretary of state privately applauded these violations of U.S. law. When the Grange arrived in Philadelphia, Jefferson could not contain his joy. “Upon her coming into sight, thousands and thousands...crowded and covered the wharves,” he told James Monroe. “Never before was such a crowd seen there and when the British colours were seen reversed and the French flag flying above them, they burst into peals of exultation.”36 Enchanted by Genêt, Jefferson informed Madison that he had “offered everything and asks nothing....It is impossible for anything to be more affectionate, more magnanimous than the purport of his mission.”37
This was all preamble to Citizen Genêt’s triumphant landing at Philadelphia on May 16, 1793, when he was welcomed by Governor Thomas Mifflin amid repeated volleys of artillery fire. Republicans hoped that an outpouring of affection for Genêt would cement Franco-American relations, and the two countries’ flags flew side by side across the city. French sympathizers rented Philadelphia’s biggest banquet hall for an “elegant civic repast,” passed around “liberty caps,” and roared out “The Marseillaise.” The new ambassador even joined a Jacobin club in Philadelphia. Jefferson was jubilant. “The war has kindled and brought forward the two parties with an ardour which our own interests merely could never excite,” he told Madison.38 One Federalist writer could not believe the adoration heaped on Genêt: “It is beyond the power of figures or words to express the hugs and kisses [they] lavished on him.... [V]ery few parts, if any, of the Citizen’s body, escaped a salute.”39
Where others saw camaraderie and high spirits, Hamilton detected an embryonic plot to subvert American foreign policy. The organizers of Genêt’s reception “were the same men who have been uniformly the enemies and the disturbers of the government of the U[nited] States.”40 Philadelphia was a stronghold of Republican sentiment, and leading figures flaunted their pro-French feelings. John Adams was appalled by daily toasts drunk to Marat and Robespierre, and he recalled one given by Governor Mifflin: “The ruling powers in France. May the United States of America, in alliance with them, declare war against England.”41 At times, Francophile passion was so unbridled that Adams feared violence against Federalists. “You certainly never felt the terrorism excited by Genêt in 1793,” Adams chided Jefferson years later, “when ten thousand people in the streets of Philadelphia, day after day, threatened to drag Washington out of his house and effect a revolution in the government or compel it to declare war in favor of the French Revolution and against England.”42 Though vice president, Adams felt so vulnerable to attack that he had a cache of arms smuggled through back lanes from the war office to his home so that he could defend his family, friends, and servants. The new republic remained an unsettled place, rife with fears of foreign plots, civil war, chaos, and disunion.
In private talks with George Hammond, Hamilton promised that he would vigorously contest efforts to lure America into war alongside France. He also predicted that the United States would extend no large advances to the revolutionary government, and he delayed debt payments owed to France. In a dispatch to London, Hammond noted that Hamilton would defend American neutrality because “any event which might endanger the external tranquillity of the United States would be as fatal to the systems he has formed for the benefit of his country as to his...personal reputation and...his...ambition.”43 If Hamilton’s unofficial meetings with Hammond showed gross disloyalty to Jefferson, the latter repaid the favor. Soon after arriving in Philadelphia, Genêt told his superiors in Paris of his candid talks with the secretary of state. “Jefferson ...gave me useful notions of men in office and did not at all conceal from me that Senator [Robert] Morris and Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton, attached to the interests of England, had the greatest influence over the president’s mind and that it was only with difficulty that he counterbalanced their efforts.”44
Dubious about both the outcome and the legitimacy of the French Revolution, Hamilton recommended that Genêt be accorded a lesser diplomatic status. Washington overruled him and instructed Jefferson to receive the ambassador civilly, but with no real warmth, a reservation Jefferson interpreted as “a small sacrifice” by Washington to Hamilton’s opinion.45 When Genêt first arrived, Jefferson had resisted efforts to expel privateers in Charleston that Genêt had equipped
with weapons. Everybody else in the cabinet—Washington, Hamilton, Knox, Randolph— regarded these actions as an affront to American sovereignty and sought to banish the ships. On June 5, Jefferson had to tell Genêt to stop outfitting privateers and dragooning American citizens to serve on them. At this point, Genêt again showed his inimitable cheek. Only ten days after Jefferson’s warning, he began to transform a captured British merchant ship, the Little Sarah, into an armed privateer renamed La Petite démocrate. What made this additionally infuriating was that Genêt defied American orders in Philadelphia, “under the immediate eye of the Government,” as Hamilton put it.46 Hamilton and Knox wanted the ship returned to Britain or ordered from American shores; Washington adopted this latter course over Jefferson’s dissent.
Amid this imbroglio, Hamilton wrote to Washington on June 21 that he wished to resign when the next congressional session ended in June 1794. He wanted enough time to enact the programs he had initiated and to clear his name in the ongoing inquiry led by William Branch Giles, but he was chafing under the restraints of office. He kept scribbling tirades against the French Revolution and then stashing them in the drawer.
The day after Hamilton drafted his letter to Washington, Citizen Genêt informed Jefferson that France had the right to outfit ships in American ports—and, what was more, the American people agreed with him. Hamilton, taken aback by this effrontery, termed the letter “the most offensive paper perhaps that ever was offered by a foreign minister to a friendly power with which he resided.”47 A few days later, Hamilton had a tense exchange with Genêt, telling him that France was the aggressor in the European war and that this freed America from any need to comply with their old defense treaty. When Hamilton defended Washington’s right to declare neutrality, Genêt retorted that this misuse of executive power usurped congressional prerogatives. The scene had decided elements of farce: Citizen Genêt was lecturing the chief author of The Federalist Papers on the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
