by Ron Chernow
On September 21 France abolished the monarchy and declared itself a republic. Two weeks later Madame Lafayette informed Washington of her husband’s dreadful plight and thwarted plans to defect to America: “His wish was that I should go with all our family to join him in England, that we might go and establish ourselves together in America and there enjoy the consoling sight of virtue worthy of liberty.”22 She pleaded with Washington to dispatch an envoy who might reclaim her husband in the name of the United States. However distraught he was about Lafayette, Washington was entangled in a political predicament. He could not afford to antagonize the new French republic, and Lafayette’s name was now anathema among the French revolutionaries. Gouverneur Morris, named minister to France in early 1792, warned Washington against undertaking any rash actions on Lafayette’s behalf. “His enemies here are as virulent as ever,” he cautioned.23 For the moment, the only permissible response was personal charity. Drawing on his own money, Gouverneur Morris extended 100,000 livres to Lafayette’s wife, while Washington deposited 2,300 guilders from his own funds into an Amsterdam account for her use. He assured Madame Lafayette that he wasn’t indifferent to her husband’s plight, “nor contenting myself with inactive wishes for his liberation. My affection to his nation and to himself are unabated.”24
Developments in France only aggravated the growing discord in American politics. Regarding the French revolutionaries as kindred spirits, Republicans rejoiced at the downfall of the Bourbon dynasty, while Federalists, dreading popular anarchy, dwelled on the grisly massacres. The fate of France was more than an academic question after it promulgated its Edict of Fraternity, promising fraternal support to revolutionary states around the globe. Amid this revolutionary camaraderie, in August 1792 the French conferred honorary citizenship upon Washington, Hamilton, Madison, and Thomas Paine. For Jeffersonians, it fulfilled their fondest dream of a worldwide democratic revolution, while Federalists found the universal dream disturbing. Alexander Hamilton protested, “Every nation has a right to carve out its own happiness in its own way.”25 Among the imperial powers, the Edict of Fraternity generated widespread fear of subversion, sharpening tensions throughout Europe.
On January 21, 1793, the former King Louis XVI, who had helped win American independence, was decapitated before a crowd of twenty thousand people intoxicated with a lust for revenge. After stuffing the king’s head between his legs, the executioner flung his remains into a rude cart piled with corpses, while bystanders dipped souvenirs into the royal blood pooled under the guillotine. Vendors soon hawked patches of the king’s clothing and locks of bloodstained hair, in a spectacle of sadistic glee that shocked many people inside and outside France. On February 1 France declared war on Great Britain and Holland.
Thomas Jefferson seemed unfazed by the regicide and the large-scale massacres preceding it. After William Short wrote of horrifying beheadings in Paris, Jefferson saw little cause for alarm. “My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause,” he conceded, then added cold-bloodedly, “but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than it is now.”26 Persuaded that tales of French atrocities were propaganda exploited by Federalists, Jefferson became an apologist for the burgeoning horrors of the Jacobins. “I begin to consider them the true revolutionary spirit of the whole nation,” he told Madison.27 Madison also viewed the revolution through rose-colored spectacles. While Washington and Hamilton refused to acknowledge their election as honorary French citizens, Madison sent back a warmly fraternal response, extolling the “sublime truths and precious sentiments recorded in the revolution of France.”28
Washington hoped to win respectability from foreign powers, but he also wanted to stay free of foreign entanglements so the young nation could prosper. He gave Gouverneur Morris a succinct formulation of his credo: “My primary objects . . . have been to preserve the country in peace, if I can, and to be prepared for war, if I cannot.”29 In general, he favored economic rather than political involvement with the outside world. This neutrality policy was practical in that the United States was too small to exert significant leverage among the great powers and high-minded enough to shy away from European balance-of-power politics. Washington had no desire to exploit wrangling among foreign states, telling Morris that “this country is not guided by such narrow and mistaken policy as will lead it to wish the destruction of any nation under an idea that our importance will be increased in proportion as that of others is lessened.”30 As war convulsed Europe, Washington, a former war hero, might have been tempted to become a warlike president, but he wisely abjured the use of force at this first serious threat.
In early April, while vacationing at Mount Vernon, Washington received a letter from Hamilton in Philadelphia, announcing that England and France were at war. In forwarding instructions to Jefferson, Washington left no doubt of his desire for unconditional American neutrality: “War having actually commenced between France and Great Britain, 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.”31 As he rushed back to the capital, he asked Jefferson to draw up a document spelling out the terms of neutrality. Washington was especially concerned that American ships might be recruited as privateers to prey on British vessels, luring the country into war.
After the abortive attempt by Giles to expel him from office, Hamilton was not eager to defer to Jefferson and turned to Chief Justice Jay for advice on drafting a neutrality proclamation. Even though Jefferson complained bitterly about Hamilton’s meddling in affairs of state, Washington did not always segregate foreign policy matters. Back in Philadelphia on April 18, he addressed thirteen questions on the crisis to all his department heads. The first two were the most urgent: Should the United States issue a declaration of neutrality, and should it receive a minister from the French republic? Ever alert to Hamilton’s unseen influence, Jefferson noted that while the handwriting was Washington’s, “the language was Hamilton’s and the doubts his alone.”32
At a cabinet meeting the next day, the thirteen questions spurred a brisk exchange between Jefferson and Hamilton. Sympathetic to the French Revolution, Jefferson opposed an immediate neutrality declaration, preferring to have England and France bid for American favor. Thunderstruck at the notion of auctioning American honor, Hamilton favored an immediate declaration. Their dispute hinged on fundamentally disparate views of what America owed France for her wartime assistance. Like many Americans, Jefferson thought the United States should embrace a longtime ally and honor the 1778 treaties with France, while Hamilton deemed them invalid because they had involved only a defensive alliance and had been signed by the now-beheaded Louis XVI. “Knox subscribed at once to H[amilton]’s opinion that we ought to declare the treaty void, acknowledging at the same time, like a fool as he is, that he knew nothing about it,” an embittered Jefferson wrote.33 Hamilton contended that France had aided the American Revolution only to undercut the British Empire. He won the debate about issuing a neutrality proclamation, and agreement to receive a minister from the French Republic was unanimous.
Drafted by Attorney General Randolph, the neutrality proclamation signed on April 22, 1793, was a monumental achievement for Washington’s administration. This milestone of foreign policy, which refrained from employing the word neutrality, exhorted Americans to “pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers” and simultaneously warned them against “committing, aiding or abetting hostilities against any of the said powers” or carrying contraband articles. 34 Washington, a hardheaded realist, believed devoutly in neutrality and never doubted that nations are governed by their interests, not by their emotions.
This proud, courageous proclamation became a centerpiece of foreign policy for the next century, but it had no shortage of cong
ressional critics. In a key assertion of executive power—denigrated by Republicans as a royaledict—Washington had bypassed the Senate, refusing to call it into session. Many in Congress reasoned that, if Congress had the power to declare war, it also had the power to declare neutrality. Many Americans had difficulty countenancing an end to the French alliance. Madison was especially disturbed by what he deemed a violation of congressional prerogatives, a betrayal of Franco-American ties, and capitulation to “the unpopular cause of Anglomany.”35 He feared that the president would abuse war-making powers: “The constitution supposes, what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to use it,” he wrote. “It has accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the legislature.”36 Executive power in foreign affairs would grow steadily during the next two centuries, perhaps confirming the truth of Madison’s warning.
As England and France studied the exact meaning of American neutrality, the proclamation prompted a significant constitutional debate. Writing under the pen names of “Pacificus” and “Helvidius,” respectively, Hamilton and Madison sparred over its legality; Hamilton claimed executive branch primacy in foreign policy, while Madison made the case for the legislature. Unless he deliberately feigned ignorance, Washington had little inkling that the secretive Madison had led the charge against his neutrality policy. “The president is extremely anxious to know your sentiments on the proclamation,” Jefferson confided to Madison in early August. “He has asked me several times. I tell him you are so absorbed in farming, that you write to me always about plows, rotations, etc.”37
The political ramifications of the quarrel over the neutrality proclamation were no less far-reaching than the constitutional ones. The dispute over supporting England versus France further polarized an already divided country, and the Republicans sensed, with some satisfaction, that they could capitalize on a deep-seated attachment to France. “The war between France and England seems to be producing an effect not contemplated,” Jefferson observed to Monroe in May in a tone of pleasant surprise. “All the old spirit of 1776 is rekindling.”38
Bringing the controversy to full boil was the arrival in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 8 of the new French minister, Edmond-Charles Genet, who incarnated the new militance of French foreign policy following the king’s deposition. French radicals had taken to hailing each other as citoyen and citoyenne (“citizen” and “citizeness”) to supplant the bourgeois terminology of monsieur and madame, so the new minister became known as Citizen Genet. Gouverneur Morris had already predicted that Washington would find him insufferable and see in him “at the first blush, the manner and look of an upstart.”39 Only thirty years old, well versed in music and foreign languages, with a personality as flamboyant as his flaming red hair, Genet had already rendered diplomatic service in London and St. Petersburg. Dispensing with diplomatic niceties, he would take flagrant liberties and brazenly interfere in American politics.
The rabble-rousing diplomat lost no time in trying to nullify the neutrality proclamation. He set about converting American ships into privateers, manned by American and French sailors, hoping they would pounce on British merchant vessels and bring them into American ports as prizes of war. He also tried to recruit Americans to infiltrate Spanish and British possessions in Louisiana, Florida, and Canada and instigate uprisings. The dizzying acclaim that greeted Genet in Charleston foreshadowed his reception as he worked his way north to Philadelphia. More than a month elapsed before he presented his credentials to Washington; in the meantime he engaged in open politicking along the eastern seaboard, to the delight of Francophile citizens. But to the horror of Federalists, this brash, impetuous man, prone to grand pronouncements, drew huge throngs as he disseminated the messianic message of the French Revolution.
As Washington braced for his advent, he adopted a finely calibrated policy to suit both Hamilton and Jefferson. He would receive Genet, to please Jefferson, but without “too much warmth or cordiality,” to satisfy Hamilton.40 On May 16 Genet arrived in Philadelphia to an enthusiastic popular response. When he addressed a large crowd at the City Tavern, it reacted with hearty shouts and salutations. Slow to perceive Genet’s folly or the way he overplayed his hand, Jefferson at first saw only another grand chapter of the democratic revolution unfolding. “He offers everything and asks nothing” was his early estimate of the ambassador.41When Jefferson presented Genet to Washington, the president received him at the executive mansion with the touch of coolness already decided upon.
The Frenchman’s mere presence in Philadelphia opened floodgates of press criticism. Continuing its vendetta against the president, the National Gazette blasted Washington for toadying to England and showing base ingratitude toward France, complaining that the United States should not “view with cold indifference the struggles of those very friends to support their own liberties against an host of despots.”42 A few days later, in an open letter to Washington, the paper accused him of being isolated from the masses while surrounding himself with sycophants. “Let not the little buzz of the aristocratic few and their contemptible minions,” read the letter, “of speculators, Tories, and British emissaries, be mistaken for the exalted and general voice of the American people. The spirit of 1776 is again roused.”43 It was an extraordinary declaration, for who embodied the spirit of 1776 more than General George Washington?
In early June Washington contracted a fever, and the press volleys fired against him only worsened his health. Beneath the tough surface, Washington was easily wounded. Having long bathed in adulation, he was unaccustomed to such blistering criticism. “Little lingering fevers have been hanging about him, and affected his looks most remarkably,” Jefferson commented to Madison. He blamed the president’s poor health on the press onslaught: “He is extremely affected by the attacks made . . . on him in the public papers. I think he feels these things more than any person I have ever met with. I am sincerely sorry to see them.”44 It was a strange remark to pass between the two men whose sponsorship had launched the National Gazette. Jefferson’s self-described sympathy did not prevent him from presiding over further attacks against Washington, and he condemned the president as isolated, used to “unlimited applause,” and unable to “brook contradiction or even advice offered unasked.”45
The press slander could only have stiffened Washington’s resolve to step down after two years, but the hubbub over relations with France kept deferring that day. As Gouverneur Morris wrote from France, “It will be time enough for you to have a successor when it shall please God to call you from this world’s theater.”46 Oddly enough, both Hamilton and Jefferson also yearned to retire from the public stage. As he admitted to Madison, Jefferson felt worn down by the political backstabbing: “The motion of my blood no longer keeps time with the tumult of the world.”47 In February, when Washington asked him if he would serve as minister to France, Jefferson declined, citing his wish to retire to Monticello. In response, an irritable Washington grumbled that he himself had refused to retire.
One inescapable issue created by Genet was what to do about British ships brought into American ports as “prizes” captured by French privateers. In early May the French ship Embuscade docked in Philadelphia with two British merchant ships in tow. According to Jefferson, thousands of jubilant Philadelphians rent the air with “peals of exultation” when they set eyes on the captured vessels. Except for Jefferson, Washington and his cabinet members were appalled by Genet’s action in outfitting privateers in American ports. On June 5 Jefferson warned Genet to desist from this practice and stop luring Americans into such service. Still intoxicated from the cheering crowds, the deluded Genet ignored the warning and turned one captured British merchant ship, the Little Sarah, into an armed French privateer christened La Petite Démocrate. The high-handed Frenchman then informed Jefferson that France had the right to outfit such ships in American ports. Echoing the Jeffersonian press, he dared to i
mply that Washington was “subservient to a Federalist party . . . whose only aim is to establish Monocracy in this country.”48 Hamilton, bristling, termed this letter “the most offensive paper perhaps that ever was offered by a foreign minister to a friendly power with which he resided.”49 Citizen Genet, oblivious of his blunder, informed his superiors at home of his triumph over Washington: “Everything has succeeded beyond my hopes: the true Republicans triumph, but old Washington, le vieux Washington, a man very different from the character emblazoned in history, cannot forgive me for my successes and the eagerness with which the whole city rushed to my house, while a mere handful of English merchants rushed to congratulate him on his proclamation.”50
The National Gazette parroted Genet’s charges. In a July 4 column signed “A Citizen,” the author noted that only three hundred people had come to applaud Washington’s neutrality declaration while thousands cheered Genet in Charleston. Still more seriously, the author lectured Washington that, on this birthday of independence, he had relinquished his heroic standing from Revolutionary days: “There was a time when your name occupied an elevated position in the minds of your countrymen and your character was beloved by every genuine son of America . . . But alas! What an astonishing revolution has a few years of peace produced in the sentiments of your countrymen?”51
