Dynastically, Randolph (who was Jefferson’s cousin) had been born to rule in Virginia. Having served briefly as Washington’s military aide, he had become governor of the state at thirty-three. Because of his mellifluous oratory, he had been chosen to present, at the Constitutional Convention, “the Virginia plan” on which the Constitution had been built. He had been Washington’s personal lawyer and was Washington’s close friend. In cabinet discussions, he had been particularly valuable since he was not a zealot on either side. He had often presented the compromise which Washington accepted.
Jefferson felt that, as a fellow Virginian and a relation, Randolph should always have taken his side. He hated and despised Randolph, whom he regarded as a “mere chameleon” always changing color. He considered that no more “unfortunate appointment could be made.” Yet his own determination to retire was not shaken. On the last day of 1793, his courteously phrased but firm letter of resignation was on Washington’s desk.
Washington’s reply expressed “sincere regret.… Since it has been impossible to prevail upon you to forgo any longer the indulgence of your desire for private life, the event, however anxious I am to avert it, must be submitted to. But I cannot suffer you to leave your station without assuring you that the opinion that I had formed of your integrity and talents … has been confirmed by the fullest experience.… My earnest prayers for your happiness accompany you in your retirement.”
Jefferson’s retirement was undoubtedly the greatest catastrophe Washington suffered during his Presidency. It was not only that the powerful political leader, now no longer held down by an executive responsibility, went over completely into the opposition. The very essence of Washington’s decision-making process was set awry. Since he endeavored, before he reached a conclusion, to balance all points of view, he found it immensely valuable to have laid before him the arguments of the ablest members of both principal factions. Now, when Hamilton spoke, there was no equally strong voice to answer.
Edmund Randolph, the beloved friend and favorite minister, whom the elderly Washington tragically suspected of being a traitor. Artist unknown (Private collection. Photograph, Frick Art Reference Library)
This imbalance in Washington’s cabinet was made the more dangerous—as he seems himself to have realized if not altogether in his conscious mind—by the fact that the infirmities of age, which he had feared as he accepted his second term, were indeed rising slowly in him. The departing Jefferson noted of Washington, “The firm tone of his mind, for which he had been remarkable, was beginning to relax; its energy was abated; a listlessness of labor, a desire for tranquillity had crept on him, and a willingness to let others act or even think for him.”
Hamilton was eager to act and think for him. Hamilton was young, brilliant, efficient, energetic. How and to what extent would the aging President be able to resist?
FORTY
Opposite Hands Across the Ocean
(1794)
No sooner had the crisis with France abated than an even more dangerous crisis exploded with England. A British governmental decree, known as the Provision Order, had gone far beyond the Consolato del Mare, which permitted the removal of a belligerent’s goods from neutral bottoms. With no legal justification whatsoever, the British empowered their vessels to capture any American ship containing any French goods or sailing for any French port. After communicating the order to their own commanders, the British kept it secret from the Americans for almost three months, during which their warships and privateers had fallen on the unsuspecting American shipping that crowded the sea-lanes to the French West Indies. Hundreds of ships were soon anchored in English West Indian harbors awaiting formal confiscation, while the sailors were given the choice of joining the British navy or dying in prison hulks alive with tropical fevers.
Northwest of the Ohio River, the British had so successfully frustrated Washington’s efforts to make peace with the Indians that he had finally given in to frontier sentiment by ordering Wayne’s army to advance in preparation for attacking the tribes in the spring. Word now came that the Governor General of Canada had announced at an Indian parley that his King would soon be at war with the United States: the British and the Indians would then divide up the forests at their own pleasure. Washington ordered investigations concerning how many British regulars there were in Canada and what would be the loyalties of the French Canadians “if matters should come to extremities.”
Writing the British philanthropist Lord Buchan, Washington mourned, “If, instead of the provocations to war, bloodshed, and desolation (oftentimes unjustly given) the strife of nations and of individuals was to excel each other in acts of philanthropy, industry, and economy, in encouraging useful arts and manufactures, promoting thereby the comfort and happiness of our fellow men; and in exchanging on liberal terms the products of one country and clime for those of another, how much happier would mankind be! But providence, for purposes beyond the reach of mortal scan, has suffered the restless and malignant passions of man, the ambitious and sordid views of those who direct them, to keep the affairs of this world in a continual state of disquietude; and will, it is to be feared, place the prospects of peace far off, and the promised millenium at an awful distance from our day.”
News of the Provision Order and its harsh, unfair enforcement reached the United States during February and March, 1794. Inflammatory anti-British bills were soon before Congress. One would sequester all debts owed by Americans to Britons as a guarantee that American shippers and sailors be indemnified. Another would halt all commercial intercourse with Great Britain until every English soldier was out of the northwestern forts and an illegal maritime damage paid for.
These proposals horrified the Federalists. Expropriating private property was blasphemy to businessmen. They knew that a long break in commerce with that prime American market and supplier, England, would destroy American trade and the customs revenues essential to the federal government. And if war with England ensued, would that not, by discrediting the pro-British conservatives, throw the United States into the bloody hands of the American Jacobins? Senator King diagnosed “the most alarming irritation” against Britain in regions usually anti-French. The Massachusetts Federalist Fisher Ames mourned, “The English are absolutely madmen. Order in this country is endangered by their hostility.”
Congress passed and Washington signed a month’s embargo not only on British but on all transatlantic trade. This was agreed on by both parties: the Republicans because intercourse with French possessions had in any case been stopped, and the Federalists because keeping American ships out of the ocean would prevent further depredations that might topple the peace. But the Federalists could only accept this as a most temporary expedient. And they feared that by passing violent anti-British laws Congress would incite even greater violence in the British.
Led by Hamilton, the Federalists put pressure on Washington to employ his prestige in soothing Congress down. Following his constitutional principles, the President refused to intervene with the legislature. But there was a constitutional way for the executive to step into the breach. Needing only to secure the consent of the pro-Federalist Senate, Washington could appoint a special envoy to iron out the troubles with Britain. Congress would then be impelled to postpone all anti-British measures until the envoy achieved the slow voyage across the ocean and, having negotiated, reported as slowly back.
Washington was to explain to the Senate, “A mission like this, while it corresponds with the solemnity of the occasion, will announce to the world a solicitude for friendly adjustment.… Going immediately from the United States, such an envoy will carry with him knowledge of the existing temper and sensibility of the country, and will thus be taught to vindicate our rights with firmness, and to cultivate peace with sincerity.”
Since Washington had taken similar steps in previous crises, there is every reason to believe that the conception occurred to him spontaneously.* The recommendation also came in from various advisers.
A group of Federalist senators urged that the envoy be Hamilton.
At first, the Republicans opposed the idea of an executive mission that would take the initiative away from Congress. But when it became clear that Congress could achieve no action that did not point to war, the argument moved on to who should be appointed. The Republicans were as afraid of Hamilton as the Federalists were for him: they feared that the demon would either sell out the United States or be so effective at securing concessions from his British friends that he would succeed Washington as President.
Hamilton did not hide from Washington that he was all eagerness. Realizing that his Secretary of the Treasury did not possess “the general confidence of the country,” Washington hesitated to appoint him. Yet the pressure from his most valuable aide prevented the aging President from settling on anyone else. The Federalists, worried lest the whole proposition be allowed to lapse, finally persuaded Hamilton to withdraw. Hamilton then suggested Chief Justice Jay. Washington appointed Jay. It was not an ideal appointment, but where was Washington to find better?
The two men had worked together for years but had never been intimate. (Washington’s friendliest gesture had been to offer that his jackass should serve Jay’s mares at no charge.) Jay could bear no insult to his importance: he had taken violent umbrage at Washington’s reaction to his and King’s publication on Genêt. He was cold, grave, and withdrawn, self-righteous with the consciousness of belonging to one of the great leading families of New York. Lacking the tact that grew out of respect for public opinion, he had been led by his conscience into various extremely unpopular moves. But he was a potent leader in New York, and no other man in the United States had had more experience in foreign affairs. During the Revolution, he had been Minister to Spain. He had been one of the commissioners who had negotiated the peace treaty with England. Under the Confederation, he had been Secretary of Foreign Affairs.
Jay’s appointment might seem to tip the government towards the Federalists, but Washington saw a way to right the balance. In recalling Genêt, the French had requested the recall of Gouverneur Morris, who was suspected of royalist leanings. Washington resolved to send a Republican whom the French would be glad to receive. Robert R. Livingston, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs during the Revolution, refused. Madison refused. Washington refused (with his flair for diagnosing character) to appoint Aaron Burr. And so the offer descended to James Monroe.
Washington saw Monroe primarily as a young man who had been a brilliant officer during the Revolution and who later, as a senator from Virginia, had always been suave, gracious, mild-seeming, even if often in the opposition. That Monroe had been considerably more violent than his cronies Madison and Jefferson in his distrust of Washington’s policies Washington did not know.
Monroe was amazed to have the appointment offered him: “I really thought I was the last man to whom it would be made.” He consulted his political collaborators, who persuaded him that “I should accept upon the necessity of cultivating France.”
Having been unable to keep balance in his cabinet between Federalists and Republicans, Washington thus applied it to his foreign missions. Furthermore, he saw an advantage in sending to each of the belligerent powers a man whose personal attitudes would be agreeable to the governmental officials with whom he would have to deal. Washington assumed that both envoys, being American patriots, would put American interests first.
John Jay, the results of whose mission to England created the most painful problems Washington ever faced. Portrait by Joseph Wright (Courtesy of the New-York Historical Society)
He seems not to have been worried by the fact that the envoys would escape, by months of sailing across the ocean, from his dominating scrutiny. Always opposed to tying the hands of individuals dealing with problems at such a distance that he himself could not follow immediate developments—it was thus that he had allowed General Gates to consider himself so important and become so insubordinate—Washington agreed to give Jay the greatest possible latitude towards negotiating a new treaty with Great Britain. He assumed that both his appointees would, as they entered the government service, lay aside their party ties and become loyal members of the administration. They would, of course, conscientiously apply the impartial neutrality which was the government policy and also, Washington was convinced, the only intelligent option for a patriotic citizen of the United States.
Before he sailed, Jay consulted at length with the Federalist leaders on what terms he should seek, and, after he had reached London, he reported more fully to Hamilton than to the President and the Secretary of State. Monroe worked out with Jefferson a code that would enable him to communicate secretly with the leaders of the opposition.
* He had been instrumental in sending Colonel John Laurens to France during the Revolution; he had sent Gouverneur Morris to Britain.
FORTY-ONE
The Whiskey Rebellion
(1790–1794)
The British marched over the Canadian border into the United States and built a fort at the Forks of the Miami. To discredit at a single stroke both the President and the Jay mission, a Republican newspaper stated that Washington, having committed “an atrocious crime,” had sent Chief Justice Jay out of the United States so that, as President, he could not be constitutionally tried. From retirement on his rural hilltop, Jefferson recommended such violent pro-French intervention in the war as he had, when Secretary of State, labored to avoid.
Yet, however much the Republicans fumed, practical reality dictated that, in its official acts in relation to Great Britain, the United States await the outcome of the Jay mission. Congress was stymied. The embargo, after being extended for a second month, was voted down. The aggressive anti-British reprisals were voted down. Ruefully, Madison and Monroe agreed that the strength of the executive, based on the people’s faith in Washington, had ended in frustration what should have been a triumphant session for the pro-French Republicans.
But Hamilton had no cause for rejoicing. His official acts were for the second time investigated by the Republican-oriented House of Representatives. They could unearth no evidence that he had (as was widely charged) engaged in graft, but they did discover that he had on one occasion applied to domestic purposes funds appropriated for the foreign debt. Hamilton’s defense was that he had been authorized by Washington. Learning of the defense, Washington expressed “surprise and passion.” He refused to admit, despite Hamilton’s reminder that his memory was unreliable, that he might have given sanction verbally. Nor would Washington accept Hamilton’s claim that his allover trust in the Treasury Secretary’s probity made him almost automatically accept the financial measures Hamilton recommended.
Madison crowed that the Hamiltonians found Washington’s behavior “inexpressibly mortifying.” Hamilton himself, unable to believe that Washington would of his own volition treat him thus, blamed the malign influence of Randolph. However, he decided it was prudent to take a step he had not previously considered necessary: he wrote Washington withdrawing his several months old statement that he wished to resign towards the end of the present congressional session.
The pleasure Washington expressed at Hamilton’s willingness to stay “until the clouds over our affairs, which have come on so fast of late, shall be dispersed” would surely have changed to dismay had he overheard conversations between Hamilton and the British Minister, George Hammond. Hammond reported to his government Hamilton’s assurances that the United States would settle for very watered-down neutral rights and would, despite threats included in Jay’s instruction, never entangle herself by joining Russia, Sweden, and Denmark in an alliance to protect neutral shipping from British aggression. Many historians contend that this had a major effect on the outcome of Jay’s negotiation.
It was June, 1794, when Washington en route to a short Mount Vernon vacation, inspected from horseback some locks being erected for the Potomac Canal. On the rough terrain, his horse “blundered and continued blundering until by violent exertions
on my part to save him and myself from falling among the rocks, I got such a wrench in my back” that he subsequently found it impossible to ride and difficult to sit upright. This was the first physical injury the great athlete had suffered in all his long life. His aging bones had betrayed him.
Again—it seemed an inexorable fate—he was prevented from attending to plantation affairs. As he lay half-prone, Washington received a packet from the Democratic Society of Lexington, Kentucky. In it there was a letter to the society from a French inhabitant of Louisiana regretting that an American frontier army had not returned Louisiana to France. And there was an answering resolution demanding that the President and Congress give the King of Spain the choice of opening the Mississippi to navigation or fighting the United States.
Washington expressed anxiety lest Kentucky “force us either to support them in their hostilities against Spain or disavow and denounce them. War at this moment with Spain would not be war with Spain alone. The lopping off of Kentucky from the Union is dreadful to contemplate, even if it should not attach itself to some other power.”
No man stood higher in the estimation of the Kentucky Democrats than Jefferson. The ideal solution would be to send Jefferson to Spain as Jay had been sent to England. Although he had been informed—he did not believe it—that Jefferson was maligning him at the Monticello dinner table, Washington empowered Randolph to offer the appointment.
Jefferson replied that he was suffering from rheumatism and, in any case, “no circumstances … will ever tempt me to engage in anything public.” Washington thereupon delegated Thomas Pinckney, who could, while Jay was in London, temporarily leave his post as American Minister to Great Britain.
Washington- The Indispensable Man Page 34
