by John Ferling
Rumors abounded regarding what Madison termed Hamilton’s “Jockey-ship” of electoral votes, leading Jefferson to conclude that Adams would be “cheated” out of the presidency by what he said was Hamilton’s trickery. Madison even predicted that the New Yorker’s scheming would force the issue into the House of Representatives, either from a tie or because no candidate received a majority of the votes. Throughout, Jefferson appeared unenthusiastic. “I had rather be thought worthy” of the presidency than to be elected president, he declared. Late in the fall, he told Madison that he hoped he would be defeated or, at worst, be elected vice president. One outcome “would leave me at home the whole year, and the other two thirds of it,” he said. However, in the event that Adams finished in a dead heat with any candidate, Jefferson instructed his friend to use his influence in the House to secure Adams’s election.37
The presidential electors met in December, and even before Christmas the public learned that Adams had been elected by a bare majority. Jefferson had finished second with three fewer votes, and was to become the vice president. As Jefferson had thought likely, Adams won every vote from New England, New York, and New Jersey. However, eighteen New England electors, fearful that Hamilton’s intrigue would deny victory to Adams, cast their second vote for assorted Federalists other than Pinckney. That opened the door for Jefferson, who ran well in the South—he swept every vote from South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee—and captured fourteen of the fifteen votes from Pennsylvania.
The outcome of the contest turned on two things. Adams won two electoral votes below the Potomac, one in Virginia and one in North Carolina. Had Jefferson won those votes, he would have nosed out Adams by a margin of seventy to sixty-nine. But had all the Yankee Federalists cast their second vote for Pinckney, the South Carolinian would have received seventy-seven votes, making him the second president of the United States, the outcome that Hamilton had longed to see. Yet, it was Hamilton’s connivance that may have cost Pinckney the election and put John Adams into the presidency.
Though it did not have an impact on the outcome, Burr’s fate in the contest had ominous long-term implications. Virginia’s twenty Republican electors were angered and disenchanted by Burr’s campaigning in New England, and only one of them voted for him. Much later, Burr angrily remarked that “Virginians … are not to be trusted,” and he emerged from the election with an ineradicable bitterness over what he believed had been his betrayal.38 Burr had also struck out in New England, failing to win any of its thirty-nine votes. Success there had always been problematic, but if any one individual was responsible for snatching votes away from him, it was Hamilton, who had worked hard to keep the Federalist electors in line and who now was crowing that the electoral results “will not a little mortify Burr.”39 In all likelihood, the former treasury secretary’s gloating got back to Burr, who could only conclude that for the third time in four years, Hamilton had played a major role in foiling his electoral ambitions.
Jefferson was the least disappointed loser of all time. If “I [have to] reappear at Philadelphia,” he said, it was best to return as vice president. “I have no inclination to govern men,” he told one correspondent. To another, he wrote: “Neither the splendor, nor the power, nor the difficulties, nor the fame, or [the] defamation” of the presidency held any appeal for him.40
Was Jefferson being truthful? Without a doubt. He was happy at home. He was aware that the Jay Treaty would likely damage relations with France, possibly bringing on a crisis with which he was not anxious to cope. And he knew that Washington’s presidency would be a tough act to follow. For the time being, it was better to leave the presidency to Adams.
Chapter 13
“The man is stark mad”
Partisan Frenzy
Hamilton did not attend Adams’s inauguration. Jefferson considered not attending, but in the end thought he must appear “as a mark of respect to the public,” and to silence the inevitable accusation that he considered “the second office as beneath my acceptance.”1
After an eleven-day journey, Jefferson reached Philadelphia two days prior to the inaugural ceremony. He called on Adams that same afternoon. It was their first meeting in four years, and it was friendly, though nothing of great substance was said. Back in December, on learning the outcome of the election, Jefferson had written a missive of great importance to the president-elect. Although he did not expect that Adams would believe him, Jefferson insisted that he had not wanted to win the contest. “I leave to others the sublime delights of riding in the storm,” Jefferson wrote. He predicted turbulent days ahead. The Jay Treaty would make an enemy of France, he warned, bringing on the gravest crisis since the Revolutionary War. Jefferson wished the incoming chief executive well. He advised that the extreme Federalists would demand war with France, but added that if Adams could “shun for us this war,” the “glory will be all your own.” Above all, Jefferson cautioned Adams about Hamilton, a man of great subtlety whose “spies and sycophants” abounded, and who would try to control the new administration.
Unfortunately, Adams never read Jefferson’s letter. Before mailing it, Jefferson asked Madison to read it. Madison was aghast. The “general air” of the letter might tie Jefferson’s hands in the event that he subsequently wished to speak out against Adams’s policies, Madison thought. As for Hamilton’s anticipated machinations, let Adams cope with that problem. Jefferson relented. The letter was never sent, and possibly because of that a closer relationship between the incoming vice president and president, one filled with many candid discussions, was aborted. Relations between Jefferson and Adams were destined to be distant and ill-tempered during the next four years.2
Though it may not have made a difference, it is possible that had Adams read Jefferson’s warning about Hamilton’s spies and toadies, the incoming president might have made different choices when selecting the members of his cabinet. Instead, Adams retained those who had served Washington, a collection of individuals whose first loyalty was to Hamilton. Adams’s decision was baffling, as he had to know of their affinity for Hamilton. James McHenry, who stayed on as secretary of war, had been the best man at Hamilton’s wedding, and Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott had served for four years as comptroller of the Treasury under Hamilton. Timothy Pickering, the disputatious secretary of state, had never been as close to Hamilton as the others, but the two had known each other since their days as fellow officers in the Continental army. From innocence and inexperience—Adams had never served in an executive capacity—the new chief executive never suspected that these men, two of whom were fellow Yankees, would betray the president they served. But if Adams could not see his folly, Jefferson could. He immediately concluded that the “Hamiltonians by whom he is surrounded … are only a little less hostile to him than to me.”3
On the day after their pleasant meeting, twenty-four hours prior to his inauguration, Adams called on Jefferson. The incoming president wanted to talk about relations with France. The Directory, revolutionary France’s latest government, regarded the Jay Treaty as an abrogation of the Franco-American alliance, and it soon announced its intention of seizing neutral vessels carrying British goods. Word of French confiscations on the high seas had begun to reach America. During their second visit, the incoming president asked Jefferson to sail to Paris and, as Jay had done in London, seek to negotiate an accommodation. Jefferson immediately declined, pleading not only that he was “sick of residing in Europe” but also that it would be improper for the vice president to be away for what would be at least a year. Adams next proposed Madison for the assignment. Madison’s appointment would have launched Adams’s presidency on a nonpartisan note, but given the Virginian’s solid Republican credentials, his embassy might have reassured France’s leaders of America’s friendship. Jefferson approached his friend, but Madison, who was frightened of sailing, declined.4 Had it not been for Madison’s twin negatives—his counsel against Jefferson’s demonstration of solidarity with Adams and
his refusal to undertake the diplomatic mission—the course of the next four years might have been quite different.
On Inauguration Day—prior to learning of Madison’s decision—Adams informed his treasury secretary that he had indirectly approached the Virginian about a diplomatic mission to France. Wolcott exploded, telling Adams that he and his cabinet colleagues would resign if Madison was appointed. Three weeks earlier, Hamilton had confided to a member of his party that any display of nonpartisanship by Adams would be resisted. Hamilton wanted “a united and a vigorous administration,” he said, and to this he added a stunning admission: “If Mr. Adams has Vanity”—that is, should he attempt to chart an independent course—“a plot has been laid to take hold of it.” Wolcott’s action laid bare the intrigue that Hamilton had entered into with the cabinet. Hamilton and his devotees had conspired to bend the president of the United States to their will.5
Hamilton won the initial skirmish. Adams relented, telling his cabinet that he would instead appoint a three-member commission to sail for France. The president deferred a decision on the commission’s composition for sixty days, until Congress gathered for a special session that he had called. All three cabinet members quickly wrote to Hamilton to learn his thoughts on the commission, and one even sent along the rough draft of the president’s speech to the looming session of Congress. “I beg you … to communicate to me your ideas,” Pickering pleaded. McHenry implored Hamilton to consider himself still a member of the cabinet, beseeching him to provide advice so that “I might avail myself of your experience, knowledge and judgment.” Wolcott confided that he respected Hamilton’s opinion and would adhere to whatever his former boss advised.6
Hamilton replied to each of his allies, giving them surprising marching orders. He recommended the inclusion of a Republican, even possibly Madison, on the president’s three-member commission. (Wolcott was now amenable to Madison sailing for France, though with the “utmost reluctance.”) Hamilton also wanted the navy augmented and the army expanded by twenty-five thousand men. As the Republicans would respond that these measures were being taken “to provoke a war,” he advised the cabinet officers to take the line that these national security measures were being “done towards preserving peace.”7
While Hamilton pulled strings in the cabinet, friends voiced his foreign policy views in Congress. Hamilton’s uneasiness shined through. He feared that France was winning the land war in Europe and that the Bank of England—what he called Great Britain’s “vital part”—was teetering on the edge of collapse. Should such an “evil” transpire, London likely would be compelled to make peace, which would “leave us alone to receive the law from France.” Moreover, with Britain out of the war, Hamilton claimed that France, driven by “a spirit of domination and Revenge,” and shackled with a huge army “that she will be glad to get rid of,” would invade the United States. The scenario that Hamilton envisaged may have been wildly improbable, but it was designed to foster military preparedness, an objective he had long relished to consummate his fiscal-military state.8
At nearly the same moment, Jefferson outlined his thoughts on what he called the “awful crisis.” His ideas had hardly changed since he had left Washington’s cabinet. They were driven by the dominion that he believed London exercised over America. Great Britain had always “wished a monopoly of commerce and influence with us,” he said, and it had “in fact obtained it.” He labeled America’s merchants “false citizens.” They “thr[e]w dust into the eyes” of “their dependants” in northern port cities and farm towns, hoping to convince them that it was in their best interest to perpetuate America’s servile relationship with Britain. He called the merchants and financiers the “most influential characters” in the northern states, and charged that they “possess[ed] our printing presses,” that is, that they controlled the lion’s share of the newspapers across the land. Through that “powerful engine,” they not only wielded incredible national influence but also hoped to “force” the president “to proceed in any direction they dictate.” Had the Jay Treaty been rejected, Jefferson believed that they would have destroyed the Union rather than gone to war with Britain. Had they not feared being left to stand alone, they would already have taken the United States to war with France. Jefferson yearned to avoid war, to “keep out of the broils of Europe.” He supported sending a commission to France to negotiate a settlement, and prayed that Adams would have the freedom to do so. In the meantime, he appealed to northern friends, as he had done when he undertook his botanizing tour, to join with southern Republicans in the search for “some means of shielding ourselves … from foreign influence, commercial, political, or in whatever other form it might be attempted.” Overstatement danced throughout what Jefferson said, but at bottom he understood his foes perfectly, and he could not have been more on target in his fears that Hamilton would after all succeed in controlling Adams.9
Jefferson doubted that Adams could withstand the powerful forces that hoped to control his foreign policy, and in the spring of 1797 the vice president met several times with Joseph Philippe Létombe, the French consul-general at Philadelphia. In essence, Jefferson cautioned about the Federalist extremists and how they might force Adams to their side. But he also advised that Adams would likely be president for only one term, an indication perhaps that Jefferson was already contemplating building an effective Republican opposition and seeking the presidency in 1800. Time was on the side of improved Franco-American relations, he said. “It is for France, great, generous, at the summit of her glory, to pretend to take no notice, to be patient, to precipitate nothing, and all will return to order” after the Adams presidency.10
As the spring dragged on, the crisis deepened. Between his inauguration and the convening of the special session of Congress in May, Adams learned that France had refused to accept Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, whom Washington had dispatched to Paris—much as he had sent Jay to London. Adams required no coaching from his cabinet to greet Congress with a pugnacious speech, and he asked for all that Hamilton had urged as part of a military preparedness campaign, save for enlarging the army. But Adams wished to give negotiations one more chance. He proposed sending a three-member commission to Paris that included the rebuffed Pinckney, together with John Marshall of Virginia and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. The cabinet exploded when Adams suggested Gerry, a Republican, and pushed instead for Rufus King, whom Hamilton wanted. But in the end, the secretaries acquiesced. Two of the three were Federalists, just as Hamilton had wished.11
Jefferson, who was unaware of what had transpired between the president and his advisors, was satisfied with Adams’s handling of the crisis. Moreover, Jefferson appeared contented with his decision to return to public life. As he had expected, the vice presidency was a “tranquil and unoffending station” that enabled him to spend up to eight months each year at Monticello.12 With ample free time, he accepted the presidency of the American Philosophical Society, which Franklin had created to encourage scientific inquiry. The vice president corresponded and met with others who were interested in science, and even prepared a paper that contrasted the size of European and American animals, a study based on fossil remains. In Philadelphia, Jefferson lived in Francis’s Hotel, where he rented a suite of rooms, and dined twice daily at a common table with several congressmen and senators, both Republicans and Federalists. (Jefferson said he “never deserted a friend for differences of opinion.” Were people to mingle only with those of like mind, he said, “every man would be an insulate being.”)13 From his residence, Jefferson had only a short walk to Congress Hall, where he presided over the daily meetings of the Senate, sitting behind a desk in a red morocco chair atop the dais. Hour after hour, he listened to speech after interminable speech, saying nothing. He could vote only in the event of a tie, and as the Federalists held a lopsided majority in the Senate, voting was not in the offing.
But Jefferson’s experiences were not entirely pleasant. As the political battles grew more passionate,
he remarked that unlike previous days when friendships had persisted despite “warm debates and high political passions,” now “Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch their hat.” Jefferson grieved that many had erected an impenetrable “wall of separation” between themselves and former friends, and sadly noted that numerous old acquaintances now “declined visiting me.” He lamented the changed atmosphere. It “is afflicting to peaceable minds,” he declared, adding, “passions are too high … to be cooled in our day.”14
The incendiary political atmosphere grew from a sense that the choices to be made in the 1790s were life changing. For instance, many who had long enjoyed a privileged social standing feared the loss of their elite status if French Jacobinism—supposedly embodied by Jefferson and espoused by the Republican Party—triumphed in America. There were businessmen, and those who clung parasitically to them, who were certain that their prosperity was inextricably tied to Britain’s victory in the European war. Against them, at least half the population prayed for a French victory, fearful that a triumphant Britain would result in the slow, steady erosion of American independence, and also that London’s victory would ensure that the conservative elements predominant in America before 1776 would reestablish their mastery.
