by Ron Chernow
In early July, word came that the British had issued bellicose new orders to seize ships laden with food bound for France. Having crafted delicate compromises to steer the treaty through the Senate, Washington was appalled at British insensitivity and protested to resident minister George Hammond. Washington felt sufficiently jittery about signing the treaty that he privately asked Hamilton, now returned to legal practice in Manhattan, to aid him with a high-level crib sheet. Evidently Washington and Hamilton had not been in touch, since Washington admitted that he did not know how Hamilton had been occupied of late. “My wishes,” Washington explained, “are to have the favorable and unfavorable side of each article stated and compared together, that I may see the bearing and tendency of them and, ultimately, on which side the balance is to be found.”3 That Washington turned to Hamilton for guidance reflects his lack of confidence in his newly installed cabinet and his continuing reliance on Hamilton as his economic tutor. When Hamilton was treasury secretary, Washington had had to keep him at arm’s length, juggling him against Jefferson, but he had no such inhibitions with Hamilton out of office. Despite reservations about the Jay Treaty, Hamilton provided Washington with a generally laudatory fifty-three-page analysis, urging him to sign the highly imperfect document. Amazed at the breadth of this sparkling dissection, Washington in his reply sounded sheepish about having inadvertently taken up so much of Hamilton’s time.
Before he put his signature on the treaty, Washington was preparing to publish it when the Aurora printed a précis on June 29 that left the public so aghast that Madison said the treaty “flew with an electric velocity to every part of the union.”4 On July 1 the paper issued the complete text, and an official version ran in the Federalist Gazette of the United States. The uproar was overwhelming, tagging Jay as the chief monster in the Republicans’ bestiary. In the treaty, Republicans saw a blatant partiality for England and equally barefaced hostility toward France. Critics gave way to full-blown paranoid fantasies that Jay, in the pay of British gold, had suborned other politicians to introduce a monarchical cabal. Some protests bordered on the obscene, especially a bawdy poem in the Republican press about Jay’s servility to the British king: “May it please your highness, I John Jay / Have traveled all this mighty way, / To inquire if you, good Lord, will please, / to suffer me while on my knees, / to show all others I surpass / In love, by kissing of your———.” 5 By the July Fourth celebrations, Jay had been burned in effigy in so many towns that he declared he could have traversed the entire country by the glare of his own flaming figure.
The targets of the protest went far beyond Jay. At a rally in New York, when Hamilton rose to defend the treaty, protesters hurled stones at him, while in Philadelphia a menacing mob descended on George Hammond’s residence, smashed the windows, and “burned the treaty with huzzahs and acclamations.”6 Treaty opponents had no compunctions about besieging the presidential mansion, and John Adams remembered it “surrounded by an innumerable multitude from day to day, buzzing, demanding war against England, cursing Washington, and crying success to the French patriots and virtuous Republicans.”7 From across the country, inflammatory resolutions against the treaty piled up on Washington’s desk, many of them too obnoxious to warrant replies. “No answer given. The address too rude to merit one,” Washington scrawled atop a New Jersey petition, while he chided another from Virginia thus: “Tenor indecent. No answer returned.” On still another from Kentucky, he scribbled: “The ignorance and indecency of these proceedings forbade an answer.”8 Though tepid in his enthusiasm for the treaty, Washington was not prepared to go to war with England and thought the treaty would prevent a harmful deterioration in Anglo-American trade.
In mid-July Washington left sultry Philadelphia for a breathing spell at Mount Vernon, enduring a debilitating six-day journey in “hot and disagreeable” weather.9 If he hoped to escape the brouhaha over the Jay Treaty, he was disabused when Secretary of State Randolph reported on the spreading commotion and some preposterous accusations against Washington. One newspaper writer had charged that the president “insidiously aims to dissolve all connections between the United States and France and to substitute a monarchic for a republican ally.”10 Washington felt powerless to stop this sometimes-ludicrous barrage of falsehoods. Owing to “party disputes,” he complained to Pickering, the “truth is so enveloped in mist and false representations that it is extremely difficult to know through what channel to seek it.”11 Washington was especially pleased when his ex-treasury secretary launched a lengthy series of essays under the signature of “Camillus,” providing a detailed defense of the Jay Treaty. Washington gave way to gloomy musings about republican government, viewing his Republican opponents as full of passionate intensity—“always working, like bees, to distill their poison”—while government supporters were either cowed or spineless, trusting too much to the good sense of the people.12
Such was the hubbub over the treaty that at the end of July Washington debated whether to hurry back to Philadelphia to deal with its critics. “At present,” he told Hamilton, “the cry against the treaty is like that against a mad dog and everyone, in a manner, seems engaged in running it down.”13 The Mount Vernon weather seemed emblematic of the political storm he faced: extremely violent rains destroyed crops and washed away bridges, impeding Washington’s communications with his cabinet. Both Randolph and Pickering sent Washington urgent pleas to return, but Pickering inserted a cryptic reference that must have mystified the president. The secretary of war said that due to “a special reason, which can be communicated to you only in person, I entreat therefore that you will return with all convenient speed to the seat of government.”14 Even more startling was Pickering’s admonition that Washington should refrain from making any important political decisions until he arrived in Philadelphia.
The “special reason” proved to be nothing less than suspicions that Secretary of State Edmund Randolph was engaged in treason. The maddeningly vague and ambiguous charges arose in a roundabout fashion. In late October the French minister, Jean-Antoine Fauchet, sent a secret dispatch to his superiors in France, summarizing conversations with Randolph about the Whiskey Rebellion. According to Fauchet, Randolph intimated that if France handed over thousands of dollars, he could induce certain Pennsylvania officials to resolve the whiskey dispute on terms beneficial to French interests. He also hinted that certain flour merchants, if relieved of their indebtedness to English creditors, could reveal that England had fomented the rebellion. Talking as if Randolph might have extorted a bribe, Fauchet wrote, “Thus, the consciences of the pretended patriots of America have already their scale of prices! . . . What will be the old age of this government, if it is thus early decrepit!” 15 When a British warship captured the French vessel carrying this message, Fauchet’s letter was routed to London and then rerouted to George Hammond in Philadelphia, who was told to show it to “well disposed persons in America” when a convenient time arose.16 That opportunity presented itself on July 28, 1795, when Hammond shared the incriminating letter with Treasury Secretary Wolcott, who brought it to the scandalized attention of Pickering. The latter then dashed off his mysterious missive to Washington. At the very least the Fauchet dispatch showed Randolph voicing strong pro-Republican sentiments, disloyal to Washington’s administration, and grossly exaggerating his influence over the president.
After returning to Philadelphia, Washington asked Pickering to come and speak with him, and coincidentally, the latter arrived while Washington was enjoying a convivial dinner with none other than Randolph. Picking up a glass of wine, Washington excused himself and ushered Pickering into an adjoining room. When the door was shut behind them, Washington asked, “What is the cause of your writing me such a letter?” Motioning toward the other room, Pickering blurted out his bald accusation: “That man is a traitor!” Washington listened in thunderstruck silence. When Pickering was through, Washington said calmly, “Let us return to the other room to prevent any suspicion of the cause of
our withdrawing.”17 Washington did not immediately confront Randolph. The next morning the main topic of a cabinet meeting was whether Washington should sign the Jay Treaty, and he announced his intention to do so. Whether suspiciously or not, Randolph was the only cabinet officer who opposed it, having already introduced numerous objections to the document. In retrospect, he came to believe that the revelation of his supposed treachery had led Washington to overcome his earlier doubts and endorse the treaty.
For a full week Washington proceeded with business as usual, dropping no hints to Randolph of any mistrust he harbored. Washington, who never did anything lightly, tried to anticipate all the political repercussions of the affair. He examined thoroughly the question of whether the incriminating letter, or just damaging parts, should be published. “A part, without the whole, might be charged with unfairness,” he advised Wolcott and Pickering. “The public would expect reasons for the sudden removal of so high an officer.”18 He knew Republicans would try to convert Randolph into a political martyr, sacrificed for his opposition to the Jay Treaty, and that the Fauchet letter would be dismissed as a transparent excuse for getting rid of him. On the evening of August 18, to forestall suspicions of what was afoot, Washington included Edmund Randolph among his dinner guests. Although he asked Randolph to arrive at his office at ten-thirty the next morning, he had Wolcott and Pickering come earlier to devise a strategy for dealing with him. They fell back on a standard technique of detective work: they would hand Randolph the Fauchet dispatch and closely watch his expression as he absorbed its contents. This would be “the best means of discovering his true situation” and figuring out his line of defense.19
When Randolph entered, Washington reacted in a formal manner, producing the dispatch from his pocket. “Mr. Randolph,” he announced, “here is a letter which I desire you to read and make such explanations as you choose.”20 Although Randolph reddened, he kept his composure and scanned it in silence. Then he lifted his eyes and told Washington that the letter must have been intercepted. Washington nodded in confirmation. “I will explain what I know,” said Randolph, who denied having solicited or received money from the French. He would be glad to commit his defense to paper, he asserted, if he could retain the letter. “Very well,” Washington replied, “retain it.”21 At Washington’s invitation, Pickering and Wolcott began to interrogate their colleague, a prosecutorial grilling that rattled Randolph.
At one point Washington asked Randolph to step outside while he, Pickering, and Wolcott remained closeted. As they appraised Randolph’s behavior, they were all struck that he had remained so collected during their confrontation. Nevertheless, when Randolph returned, his composure had suddenly crumbled. When Washington asked how quickly he could come up with a written defense, Randolph grew indignant. “As soon as possible,” he replied hotly, blustering that he “couldn’t continue in the office one second after such treatment.”22 With that, he turned on his heels and left. Washington accepted his resignation, the first time a cabinet member had left involuntarily. The next day Washington informed Randolph that as long as he was trying to clear his name, Washington would keep an open mind and the matter would remain strictly confidential.
It was an uncertain time in the capital, with scattered reports of yellow fever flaring up again, a fear heightened by uncommon summer heat. The tactless, abrasive manner in which Randolph handled his defense strengthened Washington’s conviction of his guilt. Randolph stalled in producing an explanation, leading Washington to speculate that his strategy was “to gain time, to puzzle, and to try if he cannot discover inconsistencies in the conduct of others relative to it.”23 In a move that Washington found unforgivable, Randolph published letters to him in the opposition press before sending them to him first. Characteristically, Washington worried that his own integrity might be impugned and gave Randolph permission to publish “any and every private and confidential letter I ever wrote you,” as well as every word he ever uttered to him.24 What most infuriated Washington was that Randolph upbraided him for being in league with the Federalist party. Washington reminded Randolph of the countless times he had heard him “lament from the bottom of my soul that differences of sentiments should have occasioned those heats which are disquieting a country otherwise the happiest in the world.”25 Randolph found Washington’s tone so abhorrent that a week later, writing to Madison, he faulted the president for “profound hypocrisy” and having practiced “the injustice of an assassin” against him.26
On December 18 Randolph published a 103-page pamphlet called A Vindication that presented a fairly credible defense against the bribery charge but made offensive remarks about Washington, who was stung to the quick. As soon as he saw the pamphlet, Washington exclaimed in disgust, “He has written and published this,” flinging it to the floor.27 Washington felt deeply betrayed by Randolph. Out of friendship for his uncle, Peyton Randolph, Washington had aided the young man and pushed him forward, and this was his reward. In trying to figure out how to minimize political damage, Washington consulted Hamilton. Although Hamilton found it hard to muzzle his opinions in political disputes, he knew that silence was Washington’s preferred method and that presidential dignity reinforced that need. “It appears to me that by you no notice can be or ought to be taken of the publication,” he wrote back. “It contains its own antidote.”28 Indeed, even Republicans found the Vindication’s tone misguided; Jefferson confessed to Madison that while it exonerated Randolph of the bribery charges, “it does not give . . . high ideas of his wisdom or steadiness.”29 Washington thereafter referred to Randolph as a rascal or a villain.
Bereft of trustworthy advisers that summer, Washington turned to John Adams more than before and praised the diplomatic acumen of his son, John Quincy, the precocious young minister to Holland. Washington held the young man’s talents in such high regard that he predicted that, before too long, John Quincy would be “found at the head of the Diplomatic Corps.”30 With Edmund Randolph’s resignation, Washington began a long and dispiriting search for a successor. As with all appointments, he handled the correspondence himself without any apparent assistance from aides. A disillusioned Washington capitulated to the reality that he could no longer tolerate appointees “whose political tenets are adverse” to his own policies. 31 He had had enough with gross disloyalty from his cabinet. But he then suffered the indignity of having five candidates in succession turn down the secretary of state job—William Paterson, Thomas Johnson, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Patrick Henry, and Rufus King. Honorable in his dealings, Washington informed each candidate of the previous refusals. By the time he approached Patrick Henry, fourth on the list, he experienced mounting frustration: “I persuade myself, Sir, it has not escaped your observation that a crisis is approaching that must, if it cannot be arrested, soon decide whether order and good government shall be preserved or anarchy and confusion ensue.”32 After the fourth rebuff, Washington spilled out his woes to Hamilton, asking plaintively, “What am I to do for a Secretary of State?”33 When Hamilton sounded out Rufus King for the post, the latter spurned the offer because of “the foul and venomous shafts of calumny” now directed at government officials.34
To fill the vacancy, Washington finally shifted the prickly Timothy Pickering from war to state. Instead of warming to this plum assignment, Pickering accepted it to spare Washington any further embarrassment. Devoted to Hamilton, Pickering adhered to that true-blue wing of the Federalists known as High Federalists. To plug the resulting vacancy at the War Department, Washington was again reduced to the unseemly position of peddling a cabinet post and was stymied three times before James McHenry accepted. A doctor by training, McHenry had served as a wartime aide to Washington, a member of the Confederation Congress, and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Fond of McHenry, Washington had sung his praises as a young man of “great integrity . . . an amiable temper, very obliging, and of polished manners.”35 Whatever his merits, McHenry’s talents did not measure up to the post, as Washin
gton soon learned. “I early discovered after he entered upon the duties of his office that his talents were unequal to great exertions or deep resources,” Washington later admitted to Hamilton. “In truth, they were not unexpected for the fact is, it was a Hobson’s choice.”36 With a second-string cabinet of Wolcott, Pickering, and McHenry, Washington had purged it of apostasy but had also exchanged creative ferment for mediocrity; the numerous rejections had given him little choice. With this cabinet overhaul, Republicans regarded the Federalist triumph as complete, and a forlorn Madison asked Jefferson rhetorically, “Through what official interstice can a ray of republican truths now penetrate to the P[resident]?”37
A few days after Washington’s confrontation with Randolph, Attorney General William Bradford died, saddling Washington with yet another appointment. Eager to restore a geographic mix to his cabinet, he turned to John Marshall, the tall, handsome Virginian destined to stand out as the foremost legal mind of the age. “When future generations pursue the history of America,” Washington once said, “they will find the name of Marshall on its sacred page as one of the brightest ornaments of the age in which he lived.”38 In approaching Marshall, Washington appealed to self-interest as well as loftier goals, noting that in Philadelphia Marshall could supplement his income with “a lucrative practice.”39 Marshall still declined. When Washington then considered Colonel Harry Innes for the job, he said that Innes’s reputation for extreme laziness did not disqualify him, since “the office of attorney general of the U[nited] States does not require constant labor or attention.” 40 Washington ended up choosing Charles Lee as attorney general (not to be confused with the wartime general with whom Washington feuded). Even though Washington had emphasized the job’s part-time nature, Lee left Philadelphia so often that Washington warned him that “unpleasant remarks” were made about his continual absences as well as charges that he had made “a sinecure of the office.”41
