Washington- The Indispensable Man

by James Thomas Flexner

  Washington again agreed with Jefferson. He wished the dispatch to state that the United States did not blame France for what they regarded as Genêt’s personal misbehavior. The President’s desire for national unity so overrode his hope that the Democratic Societies be discredited, that he decided not to publish, at least for the time being, even the fact that Genêt’s recall had been requested. The government would have to do its best to put up with the intransigent Minister until word came back from France.

  Washington’s decisions elicited violent opposition from Hamilton and Knox. They warned that, unless the public were notified of their danger, sedition would sweep the country. Knox made two attempts to rouse Washington’s anger at the personal insults being offered him. On the second attempt, when he referred to a satire which described Washington being guillotined for his aristocratic crimes, Knox succeeded.

  Washington liked to say that, since “neither ambitious or interested motives have influenced my conduct, the arrows of malevolence … never can reach the vulnerable part of me.” But now, so Jefferson noted, he “got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself, ran on much on the personal abuse which had been bestowed on him, defied any man on earth to produce one single act of his since he had been in the government which was not done on the purest motives.” He stated “that he had never repented but once having slipped the moment of resigning his office, and that was every moment since, and 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 yet that they were charging him with wanting to be a 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, and that he could see in this nothing but an impudent design to insult him. He ended in this high tone.”

  Washington’s burst of rage did not make him change his decision not to publish the Genêt record. However, Hamilton could not bear to lose what Jefferson called “the advantage they have got.” Under the nom de plume “No Jacobin,” he stated in the press that Genêt was attempting to subvert the government in order to drag the United States, a French prisoner, into war with England.

  When fifteen warships of the French West Indian fleet appeared in New York Harbor, Genêt, ignorant that his recall had been requested, rushed there jubilantly. Washington warned Jefferson that he claimed he now had fifteen thousand seamen at his command. He might use them to fit out privateers “in our ports.”

  Sensing a grave crisis, the Federalists undertook a bold move. A letter appeared in the press, remarkable in that it was signed, not by a nom de plume as was then the almost universal practice, but by two high officials of the government in their true names: Rufus King, Senator from New York, and John Jay, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. They stated succinctly: “Mr. Genêt, the French Minister, had said he would appeal to the people from certain decisions of the President.”

  Genêt responded with a public letter ostensibly addressed to the President. He recalled that he had “demonstrated” to Washington that official American policy sacrificed the French interest and seemed contrary to “the views of the people of America.” Was Genêt to infer that “the slightest hint of an appeal, which a magistrate deserving of his high office would ardently desire, was to you the greatest offense I could offer?” Having thus publicly attacked Washington and tried to go over his head to the people, Genêt demanded Washington’s “explicit declaration” that he had never done either of these things.

  The immediate reaction induced a replay of what had happened during the Revolution when the public, on learning that Washington had been insulted by that other Frenchman, General Conway, had felt a surge of renewed affection for their national leader. Washington was of course pleased to hear the previously augmenting pro-French explosions begin to muffle, but in relation to Jay and King he did not deviate from what he considered impartial propriety. Having been officially so requested by the French Minister, the President set on foot an inquiry to determine whether the foreign diplomat had been libeled.

  Jay and King were furious at what they considered Washington’s lack of gratitude. They wrote him an immoderate protest at which he was deeply offended. Knox sprang into the breach. Through his mediation, the conflict was patched up. As King watched, Washington threw all the angry correspondence into the fire. However, Jay, who could not bear even the tiniest slight to his self-importance, seems not to have forgiven the President. This was to have calamitous repercussions later in Washington’s second term.

  The role of noncombatant in a political and ideological fight is not a happy one. While Jay and King were still fuming, Washington received a letter, dated July 31, 1793, in which Jefferson renewed his resignation.

  Washington responded by riding to Jefferson’s country retreat on the outskirts of Philadelphia. His appeal to the loyalty of his old friend fell on deaf ears. Jefferson stated that not only did he have “an excessive repugnance to public life,” but he found especially repulsive the social life in Philadelphia. And his private affairs at home needed attending to.

  Washington then “expressed great apprehension at the fermentation which seemed to be working in the mind of the public, that many descriptions of persons, actuated by different causes, appeared to be uniting. What it would end in, he knew not.”

  Jefferson assured Washington that the Republicans were not opposed to the government: they merely wished to reestablish the independence of Congress. The danger, Jefferson reiterated, was an American monarchy. As before, Washington scoffed at the possibility of such a danger.

  Jefferson’s ears must have pricked forward when Washington confided that Hamilton had asked to retire towards the close of the next congressional session. If Jefferson would postpone his departure to the same date, Washington could fill both vacancies simultaneously. This would enable him to reshuffle the geographic distribution, putting perhaps a southerner in the Treasury and a northerner in State. The conferees then discussed, without coming up with any impressive possibilities, who could fill the two vacancies. Washington again pressed Jefferson to stay. When Jefferson asked if he might postpone his final decision for three days, Washington replied, “Like a man going to the gallows, he was willing to put it off as long as he could.”

  Jefferson took advantage of a traveler going south to send Madison and through him the other Virginian political leaders a packet which, he explained, “could never have been hazarded by post.” The papers included a complete transcript of his private conversation with Washington, “which may enable you to shape your plan for the state of things which is actually to take place,” and also a long letter outlining a new Republican strategy.

  Hamilton’s power should be undermined by breaking the Treasury Department in half. There should be two Secretaries: one to collect customs duties and the other, internal taxes. The House should declare the bank unconstitutional, which would have a popular impact even if the Senate were too “unsound” to concur. Then Jefferson, who had condoned, if regretfully, the attacks on Washington, urged that they be stilled. But not because of any affection or admiration for the President.

  The Federalists, Jefferson confided, were trying to persuade Washington that they were “the only friends to the government.” If the President were convinced that “the people” were supporting Genêt against him, he would probably publish the record of Genêt’s behavior. This would be disastrous. Thus the Republicans should praise Washington, abate their attack on the Neutrality Proclamation, and withdraw their support from Genêt.

  Madison, and to a greater extent Monroe, expressed unwillingness to abandon Genêt. In separate letters, they urged Jefferson not to resign. Their arguments were based on their acceptance of Jefferson’s statements that he alone in the executive was unsympathetic to monarchy and not pro-British. Having been told that Washington never paid any attention to anything Jefferson advised, they concluded that Washington’s motive in wishing to keep Jefferso
n in the cabinet was only “self-love,” the desire to use the presence of the Republican leader as a “shield” to protect him from even more violent newspaper attacks. Jefferson should take advantage of Washington’s need to hide behind him. He should stay on and make “as few concessions as possible.”

  Jefferson had to reach his decision long before he received these replies. He concluded that he could stay on if he could avoid the responsibility that forced him to support necessary decisions that were counter to his emotions and his politics. Towards this end, he worked out a scheme which would enable him to remain painlessly in office until the end of 1793. He would insist on going home for six weeks, and he knew that Washington intended to get off for three weeks. It being obvious that the President and the Secretary of State should not be away at the same time, this would get him, as far as policy making was concerned, “rid of nine weeks.” During the remaining four of his service, Congress would be in session and the executive presumably not making decisions but awaiting them. “My view in this,” Jefferson explained to Madison, “was precisely to avoid being at any more councils as much as possible, that I might not be committed in anything further.”

  After Jefferson had suggested (without stating his motives) this schedule to Washington, he worried lest the President had not understood him. He sent a letter expressing “in writing more exactly what I meant to have said yesterday.”

  Washington replied, “I clearly understood you on Saturday, and of what I conceive to be two evils, must prefer the least: that is to dispense with your temporary absence in autumn (in order to retain you in office till January) rather than part with you altogether at the close of September.”

  The more extreme Republicans were continuing to support the French Minister against the American President. Genêt himself was perpetually in the press, denouncing Washington, urging warlike preparations against England. As Jefferson had feared, this clamor swelled the revulsion of popular sentiment which had been started by the revelation of Jay and King. Mass meetings held across the land had previously adopted resolutions denouncing the executive and the Neutrality Proclamation. Now, even those which expressed sympathy for the French cause praised Washington and agreed that it should be national policy to treat both belligerents equally.

  The Republicans who had so libeled Washington were out on a limb that could be sawed off behind them. An easy opportunity to do this was given the President by his long-standing practice of publicly answering every resolution sent him. But when Washington asked Hamilton’s help in answering a resolution, he made it clear that he was not calling on that propagandist’s controversial gifts. He wished “such alterations in the expression of the draft … as will, in your opinion, make it palatable to all sides, or unexceptional.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  A Tragic Departure

  (1793)

  No one then understood how yellow fever was transmitted. Unsuspected by science, mosquitoes took over Philadelphia. In August, 1793, the disease moved on insect wings down the streets from the waterfront, creating the most murderous epidemic in all American history. Hamilton was soon believed to be dying. Those still-living inhabitants who had not fled the city, cowered indoors, the principal movement on the streets being of open carts driven by blacks (Negroes were considered immune) on which sprawled corpses being hurried to the pits which had taken over from the glutted graveyards.

  The presidential office, Washington wrote, was “in a manner blockaded by the disorder,” yet word came to him that his presence in the city was one of the few things that gave inhabitants hope. Although he had announced a date for his departure for a Mount Vernon holiday, he decided to remain. However, Martha could not be persuaded to leave without him. Unwilling to expose her and the children to the contagion, he agreed to leave, but not one day sooner than he had previously intended.

  Whatever hopes Washington had harbored for a restful vacation proved utterly vain. Since that distant date when he had undertaken the Revolutionary command, whenever other authorities had failed to function, the responsibility had devolved on him. Now the capital was sealed off from the rest of the United States by disease, and most members of the government had scattered, even disappeared. All federal business flowed into Mount Vernon. This was the more vexing because Washington, having not foreseen the situation, had not brought with him any of the relevant records. From the windows of the mansion house, he could see his managerless plantation deteriorating, but he hardly had time to step out of doors.

  With autumn, the disease began to abate, and Washington called such members of his cabinet as he could locate to join him in Germantown, six miles northwest of the stricken city. Jefferson met him on the road in a very bad humor. The Secretary of State’s plan for escaping responsibility had been destroyed because the yellow fever had made him journey to Monticello when Washington was also away. He was being forced to return to duty at exactly the moment he had most wished to avoid: when, in preparation for the upcoming congressional session, the executive would have to make crucial decisions.

  Germantown was crowded with refugees from Philadelphia. Setting up his headquarters in the elegant mansion of Colonel David Franks, Washington stayed in the same house—and perhaps slept in the same bed—where the British commander in chief, Sir William Howe, had, fifteen years before, received the shocking news that the Continental Army was advancing amazingly down Germantown’s streets.

  Now Washington’s appearance again created a sensation. It was taken as a demonstration that the calamity had passed. His advisers feared that his “indifference about danger” might make him risk his own life, and those of the inhabitants who would “crowd” after him, by riding into the city while contagion still lurked. Washington was not to be dissuaded. The mosquitoes having been killed by the chilly weather, neither he nor the “multitudes” who followed his example were harmed.

  The main business before the cabinet was determining what to report to Congress about the Neutrality Proclamation and about Genêt. Concerning the Proclamation, there had long been a constitutional debate between Hamilton and Jefferson. The Hamiltonian view was that the President had exerted a right to lead foreign policy, it being only required that he consult the Senate after the event. Jefferson asserted that the President would have encroached had he in fact promulgated a new foreign policy: he had merely declared the existing situation when the country was actually at peace. Washington agreed with Jefferson, stating that “he had never had an idea that he could bind Congress against declaring war.”

  The long-postponed question of whether the Genêt record should be made public by presenting the documents to Congress could, now that Congress was convening, no longer be postponed. This was the issue Jefferson had most wished to avoid, all the more because the refusal of his own followers to accept his advice to abandon Genêt had clearly made it necessary for the government to defend itself by justifying the request for his recall. It was with a feeling of being unfairly trapped that Jefferson made unanimous the cabinet decision to present Congress with the record of Genêt’s behavior.

  Debate then turned on whether the revelations unfavorable to France should be balanced by revelations unfavorable to England. Not only were the British ignoring American protests concerning the northwestern posts, but they were illegally damaging American trade with the French West Indies. Jefferson urged full publication. Hamilton, Knox, and Randolph stated that important information should be held back as negotiations were pending. “I began to tremble now for the whole,” Jefferson remembered, “lest all should be kept secret.” But Washington intervened “with more vehemence than I have seen him show” and decided that without reserve “the British acts be revealed.” He commissioned Jefferson to prepare the report to Congress.

  Since Genêt was still engaged in trying to undermine the government, Washington asked his cabinet whether the Minister should not be dismissed without waiting to hear from the French government. This created such a cat-and-dog fight that the Pr
esident postponed decision. He was relieved when, early in the new year, he heard that Paris was indeed acting.

  On Washington’s sixty-third birthday, a new envoy, Jean Antoine Joseph Baron Fauchet, presented his credentials. He seemed, Martha wrote, “a plain, grave, and good man.” Fauchet wished to arrest Genêt and send him back to France, where the diplomat would undoubtedly have paid for his indiscretions on the guillotine. Desiring no such revenge, Washington gave Genêt asylum in the United States. After marrying the daughter of Governor Clinton of New York, Genêt for the rest of his life devoted the boiling of his brain to impractical inventions.

  Hamilton’s bout with yellow fever had left him weak. He felt “chagrin” at the “weakness or wickedness” of those he had to contend with in the government. Yet he withdrew his resignation. It was Jefferson who remained determined to depart. He turned down Washington’s continuing appeals so “decidedly” that the President concluded “I can no longer hint this to him.”

  Washington’s search for a successor was not a happy one. The two other Americans most conversant with foreign affairs, Jay and Robert R. Livingston, were both New Yorkers, and thus could not serve beside the New Yorker Hamilton. Governor Thomas Johnson of Maryland, at best a lame choice, refused because of ill health. And so Washington turned to a man who had no foreign experience but had been present at all cabinet discussions, the Attorney General, Edmund Randolph.