by John Ferling
The campaign to increase the power of Congress continued, however. Washington warned Congress that the officers’ forbearance had limits. The near mutiny had been quelled, he seemed to say, but next time, things might turn out differently. A few weeks later, Washington also sent to the states an address warning that the survival of the Union hinged on giving “a tone to our Federal Government.” While his exhortations may have persuaded Congress to embrace commutation, the push for a general revenue system went nowhere. An impost amendment was sent to the states yet again, but it was watered down. It was to last for only twenty-five years and was to be collected by the states. A backlash against the treachery of the army’s officers was partly to blame, but more important, the sense of urgency evaporated once definitive word arrived in March that a preliminary peace treaty had been signed in Paris. The long war really was coming to an end. By mid-summer 1783 the army had been reduced from some eleven thousand men to barely two thousand. It could no longer use scare tactics to stampede Congress or the states. In the new environment, those like Hamilton who favored what would be called “consolidation”—strengthening the powers of the national government and making it sovereign over the states—were voices in the wilderness. In 1785 the impost amendment, the first step toward consolidation, failed when it was spurned by New York.31
Hamilton had failed to achieve his goal. In some respects, however, what may have been most important for Hamilton in the long run was that the Newburgh episode had a transformative effect on his connection with Washington. Their relationship had been strained since the dustup at headquarters two years earlier, but even though Washington understood that Hamilton had sought to further the army’s cause by using its officers “as mere Puppits” in order “to establish Continental funds,” the commander in chief drew closer to the young congressman.32
As Washington said nothing about Hamilton at the time, his feelings about his former aide are hard to discern from this distance in history. Washington must have realized, if he had not previously, that Hamilton’s star was ascending. Hamilton was exceptionally intelligent, a gifted writer, a man of maniacal energy, and he was well connected to those who wielded considerable influence and power in mercantile and financial circles. Hamilton seemed to possess the qualities necessary for leadership, and indeed in no time he had become a key figure in Congress. What is more, Hamilton was extraordinarily ambitious, perhaps dangerously so, for his having intrigued to use the army as leverage with civil authorities had been astonishingly risky. Washington must have been grateful to have had Hamilton on his side during the Newburgh episode. After all, it was Hamilton who had played the seminal role in making Washington appear to be the essence of moderation in contrast to the hotheads among the officers who had supported insurgency. What is more, Washington knew better than anyone the essential role that Hamilton had played in the destruction of the commander’s foes, Lee and Gates. If nothing else, Washington saw with clarity that Hamilton was a force to be reckoned with.
Washington did not look for friends. He judged others in terms of whether they were enemies or could be of help to him. Hamilton had been indispensable as an aide-de-camp, and it was likely he could be crucially important to Washington in the postwar world. In fact, the commander soon opened a correspondence with Hamilton in which he carefully probed for information about what was occurring in Congress.33 But Washington was not without feelings, and on more than one occasion he evinced a warmth toward Hamilton that was extremely rare in his other relationships. On some level, Washington may have sensed similarities between Hamilton and his own beloved older stepbrother Lawrence, who had been his role model. It may have been that Washington saw in Hamilton the man he might have become had he, too, been blessed with a formal education. Possibly, Washington was struck by the parallels between himself and his former aide. Both men burned for glory and were savvy political players, even manipulators. Washington excelled at controlling his passions, though his exceptional self-control had come only with age and experience. Hamilton, while equally canny, could be swept up by his own emotions. Possibly, Washington believed that in time Hamilton would also learn greater self-discipline, and ultimately become more like Washington himself. Perhaps Washington was simply captivated by Hamilton, as were so many others. Conceivably, too, Washington saw menacing qualities in Hamilton that nudged him to assure that his former aide remained a loyal follower, not an enemy.
Hamilton judged others more or less as did Washington. He could have left Washington to the wolves during the Newburgh episode, but instead he had alerted him to the danger. Hamilton had adroitly understood that the officers’ plot would in the long run be ruinous to his ends, but he understood that Washington could be useful to him and to his cause. For his part, Washington believed that he could put his trust in Hamilton, and the general wanted this rising young star on his side.
Hamilton once let slip that he regarded the eight months he served in Congress as an “apprenticeship.”34 Despite his repeated pledges to retire from public life, Hamilton saw this first political office as a foundation for other things. Though he could not know what the future held, better than most he knew of life’s vicissitudes from firsthand experience. Congressional experience, he evidently assumed, would be useful in countless ways.
Characteristically, Congressman Hamilton worked hard. Congress repeatedly turned to him for important assignments, and he served on numerous committees. None rivaled in importance the committee constituted in April to prepare for the coming peace. The new American nation would share borders with potentially hostile neighbors, for under the preliminary peace, Great Britain was to retain Canada while Florida was to be returned to Spain. There were also Indian affairs to be considered, as the vast expanse of trans-Appalachia to the Mississippi River, which was to be part of the United States, was occupied by Native Americans. The committee began its work by asking Washington for his thoughts.
Publicly, Washington and Hamilton spoke of preparing for the defense of the United States, though in fact both were adherents of what historian Richard Kohn termed a “vigorous nationalism.” Washington wanted a strong United States that could rapidly open the region beyond the Appalachians, territory that had been closed to expansion for twenty years. Hamilton was more interested in strengthening the United States against possible predatory behavior by the great powers in Europe, and he likely already had dreamed of encroaching on Spanish America. Both Washington and Hamilton were mortified by state sovereignty and the new nation’s “total disability” to cope with the national interest, as Hamilton put it.35 Both knew how close the United States had come to losing the Revolutionary War. Neither wanted to chance another national emergency with an emasculated national government, and neither wanted American soldiers to suffer again as they had during the War of Independence. Both had hazarded everything during the long struggle to create the new American nation, and both fervently wished to assure its survival.
In May, Washington submitted his recommendations. He said with a straight face that he was opposed to “a large standing Army,” but he advocated the maintenance of a peacetime army of 2,600, a force several times larger than Great Britain had kept in the colonies before the French and Indian War. He urged that the soldiery be garrisoned along the Canadian border, the Ohio River, here and there on the Atlantic coast, and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. He additionally suggested drastic revisions in the militia system. Washington, who had looked with contempt on militiamen since the French and Indian War, championed a plan that would compel each state’s militia to conform to national standards with regard to organization, equipment, arms, and training. To see that this was done, he advised Congress to name a national inspector general to enforce the regulations. While Hamilton was pushing for economic consolidation, General Washington was doing the same with regard to the military.36
The lone member with a military background, Hamilton dominated the committee. It ultimately issued a report that adhered to Washington’s
recommendations, differing only in that it proposed a standing army even larger than the commander had recommended.37 Hamilton rushed matters, hoping that Congress might act before word arrived of the official end to hostilities. He succeeded, but to no avail. Late in June, four days after the committee submitted its report, Congress was forced from Philadelphia by a mutiny among soldiers in the Pennsylvania line. When the congressmen reassembled in Princeton, the nationalist delegates tried to save matters by inviting Washington to town. He came and plumped for the report, but few in Congress were sympathetic. To many, it sounded as if Washington and Hamilton were espousing a peacetime garrison state, and some feared that once a standing army was sanctioned, it would inevitably grow by leaps and bounds. The nationalists’ plan died. Within two years, the United States army had shrunk to a few hundred men.38
Hamilton was ready to leave Congress when it fled Philadelphia, but he stayed on for four additional weeks until word of the definitive peace treaty arrived.39 He spent the month drafting a resolution urging Congress to summon a constitutional convention. Military necessity required a more robust national government, he said. He justified augmenting the powers of Congress as essential for funding commutation and compensating creditors who had “cheerfully lent their money” during the war. He proposed a new national government with separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and he advocated that Congress be vested with the power to levy taxes, regulate trade, and superintend military matters. He also sought the elimination of the Articles’ stipulation requiring the assent of two-thirds of Congress to pass bills of “principal importance.”40
Hamilton recorded his thoughts at nearly the moment that Jefferson, at Monticello, was writing Notes on the State of Virginia, a book that included his latest draft constitution for Virginia. Hamilton’s emphasis could not have been more different. Hamilton was absorbed with establishing a sovereign and powerful national government capable of protecting the national interest. Jefferson, in contrast, was driving to achieve uniform representation and universal manhood suffrage for free white males, with the ultimate goal of giving every citizen “an equal voice in the direction of its concerns.” As Hamilton’s core conviction was that “Inequality is inherent,” he believed that representation should reflect wealth, and he was silent about social justice, popular self-rule, and facilitating the realization of the will of the people.41
Hamilton never introduced his resolution. He knew it would be futile to do so in “the present state of things.” That is not to say that he intended to abandon his quest for consolidation. He was leaving office, supposedly forever, though it seems apparent that Hamilton planned to watch for an opportunity to continue the fight, to wait on events and changing sentiments. He knew that the new American nation had “so far happily escaped” its perilous situation, as he put it in the resolution that he drafted, but “it would be unwise to hazard a repetition of the same dangers and embarrassments in any future war … or to continue this extensive empire under a government unequal to its protection and prosperity.”42
In July, a month prior to Washington’s arrival in Princeton, Hamilton resigned and left for home. “We have now happily concluded the great work of independence,” Hamilton exalted, but he quickly added: “much remains to be done to reach the fruits of it.” He knew that during his eight months in Congress he had achieved nothing to remedy “the inefficacy of the present confederation.” Nothing could be done, he sighed, until there was a “return to reason.”43
No one did more than Madison to get Jefferson back into public life. Madison believed that Jefferson had much to offer the country and also feared for the welfare of his friend, isolated at home with his dark, melancholy memories. Two months after Martha Jefferson’s demise, Madison persuaded Congress to once again offer Jefferson a position among the peace commissioners in Europe, a post he had declined a year earlier. This time, Jefferson jumped at the chance for a “change of scene,” telling Madison that he would “lose no time … preparing for my departure.” He still grieved, and would for a very long time. Twenty months after Martha’s death, he acknowledged his pervasive “gloom” and spoke of the “sun of life” having crested and subsided for him. Many years later, in his memoirs, Jefferson seemed to say that he had accepted the diplomatic position in 1782 more from a desire to escape Monticello than from a yearning to serve “the public interests.”44
He reached Philadelphia just after Christmas, about two weeks before General McDougall and his fellow officers arrived from Newburgh to urge commutation and spread rumors of a possible officers’ mutiny.45 Hamilton, of course, was a member of Congress, and it is probable that he met Jefferson sometime during the Virginian’s nearly seventy-five days in town, especially as both counted Madison as a friend.
When Congress had agreed to Jefferson’s inclusion on the team of peace commissioners, it was already aware that negotiations were under way in Paris. In mid-February, before Jefferson could sail, news arrived that the preliminary peace accord had been signed. Congress instructed him to wait for further word. He languished for six agonizing weeks. Finally, on April 1, Congress suspended his appointment.46
Having gotten away from the gloom of Monticello, Jefferson was in no hurry to return home. He swung by Richmond, most likely to meet with the principal assemblymen and inquire about being added to the state’s congressional delegation. He eventually arrived home in May, five months after his departure, and he remained at Monticello for six months. Jefferson need not have lingered at home for such a long time, as he learned in June that he had been appointed to Congress. He said merely that he was obliged “to stay pretty closely at home for some time to get my affairs into such a state as they may be left.” Considering that only recently he had anticipated a protracted absence, one that could have lasted for years, his excuse was unpersuasive.47 More likely, given the talk swirling that summer that a convention was imminent for drafting a new constitution for Virginia, Jefferson—as had been the case in 1776—preferred participating in that endeavor to sitting in Congress. But when the movement for a new constitution failed, Jefferson, on October 16, at last set off for Congress. He left Polly and the infant Lucy Elizabeth with Elizabeth Eppes—his late wife’s half-sister—but took eleven-year-old Patsy with him.
Jefferson traveled first to Philadelphia, where he arranged for Patsy to study with a French tutor and live with the widowed mother of a friend. On the very day he arrived in Princeton, the peripatetic Congress voted to move to Annapolis. When it reconvened on November 25, Jefferson at last became a congressman once again. He did not serve with Hamilton, who had resigned four months earlier.
Jefferson had been eager to serve in Europe, and it is possible he believed that serving in Congress would lead to his appointment to an overseas diplomatic post. Indeed, that may have been a factor in his decision to have Patsy study French. All Americans had known in early spring that the end of the war was at hand. News of the definitive peace, the Treaty of Paris—in which Great Britain recognized American independence and also terminated hostilities with France and Spain—reached Congress shortly before Jefferson took his seat. In fact, on the very day that Jefferson reentered Congress, the British army evacuated New York and General Washington led the Continental army in a victory parade down Broadway, a festive return to Manhattan, from which the rebel forces had been driven in 1776. A month later, two days before Christmas, Jefferson watched as Washington appeared before Congress and resigned his commission.48 Jefferson was the only delegate who had been a member of Congress in 1775 on the day when Washington set off for the front to take command of the Continental army.
If Jefferson hoped Congress would quickly dispatch envoys to Europe, he was disappointed. A month after he reached Annapolis, only six states were represented. The lack of a quorum “stops all business,” he reported. In January there was still an insufficient number of congressmen present to meet. Toward the end of February he yet again complained that “we cannot make a house.”
Congress, he said, had not met “above 3 days … in as many weeks.”49
Never one to idle away his time, Jefferson toiled with his committee assignments, preparing for the day when Congress would again be able to take up business. He wrote thirty-one reports in four months, some uninvited. For instance, he drafted a paper on coinage, proposing the dollar as the unit of coinage and a simple proportional plan of values for different coins. His recommendations were adopted in 1785, a year after he left Congress.50
Jefferson also kept busy by planning an exacting study schedule for Patsy. “If you love me then, strive … to acquire those accomplishments which I have put in your power,” he added. He also instructed her to at all times to be “cleanly and properly dressed…. Nothing is so disgusting” to men as “want of cleanliness and delicacy” in a woman, as it inevitably leads to the conclusion that the female is “a sloven or slot.”51
In March, with a sufficient number of delegates at last present, Congress opted to grapple with one pressing issue while it was possible to do something. “We shall immediately try what we can do with the Western country” was how Jefferson put it.52 Trans-Appalachia had suddenly become an urgent concern. Not only had the United States just received the area as far west as the Mississippi River in the Treaty of Paris, but settlers had also begun flooding across the mountains almost as soon as Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. Order, and possibly peace with the Indians who inhabited the region, required that some form of governance be established.
