The Great Divide

by Thomas Fleming

  It is more than a little significant that Madison never sent Washington a word so much as hinting that he might refuse to serve. When Jefferson wrote from France that he assumed “General Washington will be called to the presidency,” Madison said nothing to raise even an iota of a doubt.4

  Several years later, Madison admitted that during his visits to Mount Vernon, Washington had revealed “embarrassments” about accepting the office. He pointed out that he had dramatically announced his retirement from public life when he resigned as commander of the Continental Army. Ever the realist, Washington knew how meanspirited people could be, especially when aroused by political or ideological rancor. It was a fear that would later become a fact.

  Madison was too realistic himself to deny the possibility. He offered the worried general a way to deal with it. As soon as the new government was operating smoothly, and the country’s prosperity was well established, Washington could return to private life. It would be proof that he had meant what he said at his first withdrawal from public service. If by unhappy chance he should die in office, Madison guaranteed that he and others would take pains to guard his reputation against slurs that he was an insatiably ambitious hypocrite. Privately, Madison may have been pleased that this tactic made it almost certain Washington would refute Thomas Jefferson’s prediction that presidents would rule for life.5

  Although Washington continued to tell some correspondents that he felt unqualified for the complexities of the job, he admitted to others that much as he dreaded the sacrifice of his privacy, “the occasion was still greater.” By the spring of 1789, he was wryly telling Henry Knox that his trip to New York to be inaugurated would resemble “a culprit that is going to his place of execution.” Realistically, it made no sense for a man “in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares” to undertake this new task.6

  This was not false modesty at work. Washington was fifty-seven, and he often noted that he did not come from a long-lived family. He was also troubled by his lack of a formal education—a loss he had tried all his life to repair by omnivorous reading. But he often sensed a certain condescension in the company of college graduates such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Nevertheless, he permitted his nomination for president and soon learned that on February 4, 1789, he had been chosen unanimously by the electoral votes of all the states.

  It was a unique endorsement—and a stark contrast to the political contest that had erupted for the vice presidency. After some debate, the federalists had agreed to back John Adams, to give New England a feeling of semi-equality in the new government. The anti-federalists pushed Governor George Clinton, whom Madison regarded as a catastrophe in the making.

  Hamilton, operating in New York, did not entirely agree. He thought Clinton, as a vice president, would reconcile many moderate anti-federalists and perhaps cement the Union. Washington said he was ready to work with either man. But Madison and others had too many doubts about Clinton, and his candidacy faltered. Many other electors voted for favorite sons from their own states. Adams was chosen with little more than half the total of Washington’s unanimous elevation. New England’s candidate began brooding about this shortfall almost instantly, with unfortunate consequences in the not-too-distant future.7

  At Mount Vernon, Washington had a new worry: his inaugural address. He asked his secretary, Colonel David Humphreys, to write a draft. The former aide-de-camp was one of a group of Connecticut wordsmiths known as “The Hartford Wits.” The result was a seventy-two page monstrosity, which would have taken two or three hours to deliver. It not only defended Washington’s decision to return to public life, it presented an entire legislative program.

  Washington rushed a message to Madison, asking him to work out a way that he could send him a letter with no fear of anyone reading it. The confidential letter, since lost, enclosed Humphreys’ draft. Madison stopped at Mount Vernon on his way to his seat in the new Congress and spent a day writing a speech that retained only one idea from Humphreys’s draft. It asked Congress to consider amendments to protect the people’s liberty.

  The new speech, which Washington edited slightly, was four pages long. It urged Congress to think nationally and asked the blessings of God on the new government. Washington may have added a few words about his acceptance of this task as a duty, which overcame his feelings of “incapacity as well as disinclination.” That disposed of his uneasiness about returning to public life.

  The speech was only one item in a veritable agenda that Washington discussed with Madison. The topics explained why he wanted his young partner in Congress. At the top of the president-elect’s concerns was the status of the western territories. He showed Madison letters from frontiersmen warning that the British were intriguing with the Indians to drive the Americans out of these fertile lands between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. At least as important was the need to obtain free access to the Mississippi, and restore America’s ruined credit by generating federal income with a tariff on imports.8

  Since Madison would reach New York first, Washington asked his help in finding him a comfortable but modest house, befitting a republican president. They also discussed important matters of protocol. How should the president handle the hundreds of people who would want to see him? Should he accept invitations to dine out? Should he return calls, as the custom of the day required? Madison promised to consult fellow congressmen and see how they felt about these and similar questions.

  Also probably discussed was the need for talented men as the president’s assistants. The phrase “cabinet officer” had not yet been invented. Washington and Madison spoke of them as “auxiliary offices.” For the moment, they saw four posts: a secretary of the Treasury, a secretary of state, an attorney general, and a secretary of war. Washington hoped—but doubted—that his friend, Robert Morris, would take charge of the Treasury. The Philadelphia tycoon was absorbed in running a worldwide business empire. Washington’s second choice was Alexander Hamilton; Madison enthusiastically endorsed him.

  Washington thought Edmund Randolph would make an excellent attorney general, and Henry Knox a good secretary of war. Again, Madison liked both choices. As for secretary of state—could there be anyone better than Thomas Jefferson? Madison’s answer was predictably and enthusiastically affirmative. Washington asked Madison to write to him, and inquire “whether any appointment at home would be agreeable” to him. Madison promised the president-elect that he would do his utmost to persuade Jefferson. Neither man realized that they were writing finis to their partnership—and eventually, to their friendship.9

  In New York, Congress was slow to assemble. Not until April 1 did a quorum enable the representatives and senators to count the electoral ballots and declare Washington the president and John Adams vice president. Messengers were promptly dispatched to inform them, and Congress got down to the business of launching the nation. Madison introduced the first resolution, calling on his fellow politicians to create a revenue system to keep at bay the bankruptcy that had crippled the old Congress.

  Madison proposed import duties on a wide range of luxury items, such as wine, rum, tea, and cocoa, and lower “ad valorem” (according to value) charges on all other imports. He also called for higher tonnage duties on ships from countries with whom the United States had no commercial treaty. He had a very large target in view—the merchant fleet of His Britannic Majesty, George III.

  Instantly, there were arguments and dissensions. New Englanders cried that a high duty on rum would wreck their trade with the West Indies. Pennsylvania wanted a higher tariff to protect its infant iron industry. Southerners groused that tonnage discrimination would raise prices on their imports. Madison’s goal was to shift some American commerce from Great Britain to France. This proved to be a difficult sell. British credit was far easier to obtain, and southerners were ready and eager to resume doing business with merchants they knew and, in many cases, liked.

  Madison argued that they had a chance
to continue teaching the British the lesson they should have learned from the Revolution. George III’s ministers were treating their former subjects with the same arrogant presumption of superior power that had converted so many loyal colonists into rebels. London barred American ships from her West Indian islands and forbade British ships from seeking repairs in American ports. Only British ships could carry exports from the United States to the mother country. Ultimately, the House of Representatives agreed with Madison, but the bill died in the Senate, which lacked a leader with his persuasive powers.

  Fisher Ames, a talented orator who had emerged as New England’s spokesman, remarked that Madison was too “Frenchified” for his tastes. This hostility to America’s revolutionary allies pervaded most Yankee congressmen and not a few New Yorkers. Gotham’s merchants had a long history of trade with England. Madison blamed a lot of the resistance he encountered on the city’s “Anglicanism”—a term that he used in a non-religious way to describe the tilt toward London. These two clashing attitudes were a preview of the politics of the coming decade.

  At the end of the new government’s first month, politics were discarded on all sides to welcome George Washington to New York. His week-long journey from Mount Vernon had been a pageant of military escorts, cheering crowds, booming cannon, receptions, and salutes in verse and oratory in the towns and cities through which he passed. In Elizabeth, New Jersey, he was greeted by a congressional committee aboard an elaborately decorated fifty-foot barge, which carried him across New York Harbor to the city. Mounting crimson colored steps at Wall Street, he was met with the cheers of almost every man, woman, and child in the budding metropolis. The day ended with a dinner given by Governor Clinton and a stupendous display of fireworks in the night sky.

  Inauguration day began at noon when five congressmen, one of whom was Madison, called on the president-elect at his modest Cherry Street residence (long since swallowed by the approaches to the Brooklyn Bridge). Together they strolled down Wall Street to Federal Hall, where Washington was introduced to Congress. Next, on a portico of the building, while an immense crowd watched in respectful silence, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York administered the oath of office. As Washington completed the solemn words, shouts of “God Bless Our President” echoed across the harbor.

  Washington wore a dark brown American-made suit with a set of silver buttons featuring eagles with sunburst-like shields on their breasts. Thousands of watching admirers wore the same tribute to liberty and independence. After bowing to the cheers and shouts, Washington returned to the interior of Federal Hall and read his brief inaugural address in the Senate chamber. He spoke in a low, deep voice, without a trace of oratorical gestures, save for a flourish of his right hand when he spoke the words: “all the world.” Nevertheless, an orator as gifted as Fisher Ames was “overwhelmed with emotions of the most affecting kind.” He found the speech “an allegory in which virtue was personified…addressing those whom he would make her votaries.”

  Others were less gracious. Senator William Maclay, a blunt anti-federalist from western Pennsylvania, thought Washington looked “agitated and embarrassed” and read his speech as if the words were entirely new to him. (Maclay is probably best summed up by his opinion of the Constitution—“the vilest of all traps that was set to ensnare the freedom of an unsuspecting people.”) Madison never described his reaction to the inaugural address, but his feelings must have been at least as deep as Fisher Ames’s admiration. For the young Virginian, this was the culmination of almost two years of partnership with a unique man he had grown to like as well as respect.10

  During this first session of Congress (April–September 1789), Madison remained Washington’s confidential advisor. He was also busy on the floor of Congress. His chief task there was persuading his fellow legislators to pass a bill of rights. This proved to be a far from simple matter. The anti-federalists, although a minority in the new legislature, remained vocal and hostile to the Constitution. They tried to insert into the list of rights ingenious clauses that would restore various powers to the states at the expense of the federal government. Not until September was Madison able to win agreement for twelve amendments to submit to the states. The ten that a majority approved became the Bill of Rights that today’s Americans revere and admire.

  Meanwhile, Washington was relying on Madison in a variety of ways. When the House and Senate sent him welcoming addresses in response to his inaugural speech, the President asked Madison to draft answers to both of them. Privately, the two men were probably amused—both had excellent senses of humor—that in effect, Madison was answering himself three times. (He had written the House address.) There is a hint of a smile in Washington’s written request: “As you have begun, so I would wish you to finish, the good work in a short reply.”

  There was a serious side to this formality. The President’s replies established his role in communicating with Congress. Madison also played a part in another issue that would influence the politics of the next ten years. In the Senate, Vice President John Adams, who served as the presiding officer, and Senator Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, jointly decided that the president and vice president, and perhaps the senators, needed sonorous titles to give them the dignity and authority to function in a republic.

  When Adams learned that the House, under Madison’s guidance, had addressed Washington simply as the President of the United States, he demanded the formation of a Senate-House conference committee. There he declared that the president should be called “His Highness, the President of the United States and Protector of Their Liberties.” The vice president should have an equally resounding title. Madison was appalled—and so was Washington.

  The President confided to Madison that he feared people would suspect the gaudy title was “not displeasing to me” and communicate this nasty opinion to “the adversaries of the government.” This was exactly what Senator Maclay of Pennsylvania did. He informed his diary that “through the whole of this base business I have endeavored to mark the conduct of General Washington.” The senator was hoping to discover the President was behind the idea.11

  Both Washington and Madison thought the whole affair was trivial—but foresaw that anti-federalists might use it to smear the new government. Madison hoped rejecting titles would prove that neither Congress nor the President favored monarchy or aristocracy. In public, he referred to the Adams title as “tinsel” which “the manly shoulders” of the President did not need. But when he wrote to Thomas Jefferson about it, he was far less restrained. He said Adams’ proposal would have “given a deep wound to our infant government.”

  Jefferson called the titles “the most superlatively ridiculous thing I ever heard of.” It proved that Ben Franklin was right when he said Adams “was always an honest man, sometimes a great one but sometimes completely mad.” Jefferson wished Adams were with him in Paris. After witnessing what looked more and more like a revolution, if the Vice President had “one fiber of aristocracy left in his frame he would have been a proper subject for bedlam.”12

  Madison also advised Washington about his relationship to the Senate and played a key role in bolstering presidential independence. The Constitution gave the Senate to right to “advise and consent” on executive appointments. Some senators thought that gave them the power to decide whether the president could dismiss a federal official without Congress’s approval. Madison firmly disagreed and his influence prevailed.

  Similarly, some senators thought that they should have the right to decide, with the president, how much money a diplomat should be paid. Once more Madison backed presidential independence, and Washington soon pressured the Senate into passing a bill specifically endorsing this course. Washington had already written to the major nations of Europe, informing them that, henceforth, all communications with the United States should be addressed to him—not Congress.13

  When he was in office only two weeks, Washington asked Madison’s advice on how to find a “true medium�
� between opening his doors to all comers, and shutting them to everyone but selected friends. Washington sent similar requests for advice to John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. Adams predictably favored a style based on the pomp and ceremony he had seen at the court of George III. Hamilton urged him to bar any and all congressmen from access.

  The President and Madison worked out a plan that was a reasonable compromise between these extremes. For Tuesday “levees” Washington would wear gloves and a dress sword, and bow formally to each person who presented himself. On Thursday, he would host a dozen congressmen, foreign diplomats, and federal officials at a formal dinner. After Martha Washington arrived at the residence in late May 1789, she held Friday night receptions at which the President greeted visitors of both sexes in a more relaxed and informal style.

  Perhaps most important was Madison’s role in helping Washington choose the best available men to assist him in running the federal government. There was no shortage of volunteers, “A rage for office” swept the country after the inauguration. Over one thousand jobs, from revenue officials to clerks to postmasters to federal judges, awaited the President’s choices. Madison proved extremely helpful in finding pro-federalists in Virginia and Kentucky to build resistance to Patrick Henry.

  Both men soon realized, in Washington’s words, “it is in the nature of republicans (he was using the word to describe people who favored a government elected by the people) who are nearly in a state of equality, to be extremely jealous as to the disposal of all honorary or lucrative appointments.”14

  To make the right choice, the President investigated job seekers with the help of Madison and others. He especially wanted to know about a candidate’s previous support for the Constitution. Opinions of the candidate provided by men of local reputation also came into play. It was hard and often wearisome work. At one point, Washington wrote apologetically to Madison. “I am very troublesome but you must excuse me. Ascribe it to friendship and confidence, and you will do justice to my motives.” He asked his young colleague for the names of the men they had chosen for federal attorney and marshal for Kentucky, adding: “Forget not to include their Christian [first] names.”15