FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES.--PARTY JEALOUSIES.--OPERATIONS AGAINST THE
INDIANS.
Congress re-assembled on the 4th of January (1790), but a quorum of
the two Houses was not present until the 8th, when the session was
opened by Washington in form, with an address delivered before them in
the Senate chamber. Among the most important objects suggested in the
address for the deliberation of Congress, were provisions for national
defence; provisions for facilitating intercourse with foreign nations,
and defraying the expenses of diplomatic agents; laws for the
naturalization of foreigners; uniformity in the currency, weights, and
measures of the United States; facilities for the advancement of
commerce, agriculture, and manufactures; attention to the post-office
and post-roads; measures for the promotion of science and literature,
and for the support of public credit.
This last object was the one which Washington had more immediately at
heart. The government was now organized, apparently, to the
satisfaction of all parties; but its efficiency would essentially
depend on the success of a measure which Washington had pledged
himself to institute, and which was yet to be tried; namely, a system
of finance adapted to revive the national credit, and place the public
debt in a condition to be paid off. At the close of the war the debt
amounted to forty-two millions of dollars; but so little had the
country been able to fulfil its engagements, owing to the want of a
sovereign legislature having the sole and exclusive power of laying
duties upon imports, and thus providing adequate resources, that the
debt had swollen, through arrears of interest, to upwards of
fifty-four millions. Of this amount nearly eight millions were due to
France, between three and four millions to private lenders in Holland,
and about two hundred and fifty thousand in Spain; making altogether,
nearly twelve millions due abroad. The debt contracted at home
amounted to upwards of forty-two millions, and was due, originally, to
officers and soldiers of the revolutionary war, who had risked their
lives for the cause; farmers who had furnished supplies for the public
service, or whose property had been assumed for it; capitalists who,
in critical periods of the war, had adventured their fortunes in
support of their country's independence. The domestic debt, therefore,
could not have had a more sacred and patriotic origin; but in the long
delay of national justice, the paper which represented these
outstanding claims, had sunk to less than a sixth of its nominal
value, and the larger portion of it had been parted with at that
depreciated rate, either in the course of trade, or to speculative
purchasers.
The debt, when thus transferred, lost its commanding appeal to
patriotic sympathy, but remained as obligatory in the eye of justice.
In public newspapers, however, and in private circles, the propriety
of a discrimination between the assignees and the original holders of
the public securities, was freely discussed. Beside the foreign and
domestic debt of the federal government, the States, individually,
were involved in liabilities contracted for the common cause, to an
aggregate amount of about twenty-five millions of dollars; of which,
more than one-half was due from three of them; Massachusetts and South
Carolina each owing more than five millions, and Virginia more than
three and a half. The reputation and the well-being of the government
were, therefore, at stake upon the issue of some plan to retrieve the
national credit, and establish it upon a firm and secure foundation.
The Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Hamilton), it will be remembered,
had been directed by Congress to prepare such a plan during its
recess. In the one thus prepared, he asserted, what none were disposed
to question, the propriety of paying the foreign debt according to its
terms. He asserted, also, the equal validity of the original claims of
the American creditors of the government; whether those creditors were
the original holders of its certificates or subsequent purchasers of
them at a depreciated value. The idea of any distinction between them,
which some were inclined to advance, he repudiated as alike unjust,
impolitic, and impracticable. He urged, moreover, the assumption, by
the general government, of the separate debts of the States,
contracted for the common cause, and that a like provision should be
made for their payment as for the payment of those of the Union. They
were all contracted in the struggle for national independence, not for
the independence of any particular part. No more money would be
required for their discharge as federal, than as State debts. He
recommended, therefore, that the entire mass of debt be funded; the
Union made responsible for it, and taxes imposed for its liquidation.
The plan was reported to the House by Mr. Hamilton, the 14th of
January, but did not undergo consideration until the 8th of February,
when it was opposed with great earnestness, especially the point of
assuming the State debts, as tending to consolidation, as giving an
undue influence to the general government, and as being of doubtful
constitutionality. This financial union of the States was reprobated
not only on the floor of Congress, but in different parts of the
Union, as fraught with political evil. The Northern and Eastern States
generally favored the plan, as did also South Carolina, but Virginia
manifested a determined opposition. The measure, however, passed, in
Committee of the Whole, on the 9th of March, by a vote of 31 to 26.
The funding of the State debts was supposed to benefit materially the
Northern States, in which was the entire capital of the country; yet,
South Carolina voted for the assumption. The fact is, opinions were
honestly divided on the subject. The great majority were aiming to do
their duty--to do what was right; but their disagreement was the
result of real difficulties incident to the intricate and complicated
problem with which they had to deal.
At this juncture (March 21st), when Virginian discontents were daily
gaining strength, Mr. Jefferson arrived in New York to undertake the
duties of the Department of State. He had just been in Virginia, where
the forms and ceremonials adopted at the seat of our government were
subjects of cavil and sneer; where it was reported that Washington
affected a monarchial style in his official intercourse, that he held
court-like levees, and Mrs. Washington "queenly drawing-rooms," at
which none but the aristocracy were admitted, that the manners of both
were haughty, and their personal habits reserved and exclusive.
The impressions thus made on Jefferson's mind, received a deeper stamp
on his arrival in New York, from conversations with his friend
Madison, in the course of which the latter observed, that "the
satellites and sycophants which surrounded Washington, had wound up
the ceremonials of the government to a pitch of stateliness which
nothing but his personal character could have supported, and which no
character after him could ever maintain."
Thus prepossessed and premonished, Jefferson looked round him with an
apprehensive eye, and appears to have seen something to startle him at
every turn. We give, from his private correspondence, his own account
of his impressions. "Being fresh from the French revolution, while in
its first and pure stage, and, consequently, somewhat whetted up in my
own republican principles, I found a state of things in the general
society of the place, which I could not have supposed possible. The
revolution I had left, and that we had just gone through in the recent
change of our own government, being the common topics of conversation,
I was astonished to find the general prevalence of monarchial
sentiments, insomuch, that in maintaining those of republicanism, I
had always the whole company on my hands, never scarcely finding among
them a single co-advocate in that argument, unless some old member of
Congress happened to be present. The furthest that any one would go in
support of the republican features of our new government, would be to
say, 'the present constitution is well as a beginning, and may be
allowed a fair trial, but it is, in fact, only a stepping stone to
something better.'"
Alexander Hamilton, though pledged and sincerely disposed to support
the republican form, with regard to our country, preferred
_theoretically_, a monarchial form; and, being frank of speech, and,
as Gouverneur Morris writes, "prone to mount his hobby," may have
spoken openly in favor of that form as suitable to France; and as his
admirers took their creed from him, opinions of the kind may have been
uttered pretty freely at dinner-tables. These, however, which so much
surprised and shocked Mr. Jefferson, were probably merely speculative
opinions, broached in unguarded hours, with no sinister design, by men
who had no thought of paving the way for a monarchy. They made,
however, a deep impression on his apprehensive mind, which sank deeper
and deeper until it became a fixed opinion with him, that there was
the desire and aim of a large party, of which Hamilton was the leader,
to give a regal form to the government.
The question of the assumption of the State debts was resumed in
Congress on the 29th of March, on a motion to commit, which was
carried by a majority of two; the five members from North Carolina
(now a State of the Union) who were strongly opposed to assumption,
having taken their seats and reversed the position of parties on the
question. An angry and intemperate discussion was revived, much to the
chagrin of Washington, who was concerned for the dignity of Congress;
and who considered the assumption of the State debts, under proper
restrictions and scrutiny into accounts, to be just and reasonable. On
the 12th of April, when the question to commit was taken, there was a
majority of two against the assumption.
On the 26th the House was discharged, for the present, from proceeding
on so much of the report as related to the assumption. Jefferson, who
had arrived in New York in the midst of what he terms "this bitter and
angry contest," had taken no concern in it; being, as he says, "a
stranger to the ground, a stranger to the actors in it, so long absent
as to have lost all familiarity with the subject, and to be unaware of
its object." We give his own account of an earnest effort made by
Hamilton, who, he says, was "in despair," to resuscitate, through his
influence, his almost hopeless project. "As I was going to the
President's one day, I met him [Hamilton] in the street. He walked me
backwards and forwards before the President's door for half an hour.
He painted pathetically the temper into which the legislature had been
wrought; the disgust of those who were called the creditor States; the
danger of the _secession_ of their members, and the separation of the
States. He observed that the members of the administration ought to
act in concert; that though this question was not of my department,
yet a common duty should make it a common concern; that the President
was the centre on which all administrative questions ultimately
rested, and that all of us should rally around him, and support, with
joint efforts, measures approved by him.... I proposed to him to dine
with me the next day, and I would invite another friend or two, bring
them into conference together, and I thought it impossible that
reasonable men, consulting together, coolly, could fail, by some
mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise which was to save
the Union. The discussion took place. I could take no part in it but
an exhortatory one, because I was a stranger to the circumstances
which should govern it. But it was finally agreed, that whatever
importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the
preservation of the Union and of concord among the States, was more
important, and that, therefore, it would be better that the vote of
rejection should be rescinded, to effect which some members should
change their votes. But it was observed that this pill would be
peculiarly bitter to the Southern States, and that some concomitant
measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them. There had
before been projects to fix the seat of government either at
Philadelphia or at Georgetown on the Potomac; and it was thought that,
by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown
permanently afterwards, this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree
the ferment which might be excited by the other measure alone. So two
of the Potomac members (White and Lee, but White with a revulsion of
stomach almost convulsive) agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton
undertook to carry the other point. In doing this, the influence he
had established over the eastern members, with the agency of Robert
Morris with those of the Middle States, effected his side of the
engagement."
The decision of Congress was ultimately in favor of assumption, though
the form in which it finally passed differed somewhat from the
proposition of Hamilton. A specific sum was assumed ($21,500,000), and
this was distributed among the States in specific portions. Thus
modified, it passed the Senate, July 22d, by the close vote of
fourteen to twelve; and the House, July 24th, by thirty-four to
twenty-eight.
The question about the permanent seat of government, which, from the
variety of contending interests, had been equally a subject of violent
contest, was now compromised. It was agreed that Congress should
continue for ten years to hold its sessions at Philadelphia; during
which time the public buildings should be erected at some place on the
Potomac, to which the government should remove at the expiration of
the above term. A territory, ten miles square, selected for the
purpose on the confines of Maryland and Virginia, was ceded by those
States to the United States, and subsequently designated as the
District of Columbia.
One of the last acts of the Executive during this session was the
conclusion of a treaty of peace and friendship with the Creek nation
of Indians, represented at New York by Mr. M'Gillivray, and thirty of
the chiefs and head men. By this treaty (signed August 7th), an
extensive territory, claimed by Georgia, was relinquished, greatly to
the discontent of that State; being considered by it an unjustifiable
abandonment of its rights and interests.
Congress adjourned on the 12th of August. Jefferson, commenting on the
discord that had prevailed for a time among the members, observes,
that in the latter part of the session, they had reacquired the
harmony which had always distinguished their proceedings before the
introduction of the two disagreeable subjects of the Assumption and
the Residence: "these," said he, "really threatened, at one time, a
separation of the legislature _sine die_."
Washington, too, however grieved and disappointed he may have been by
the dissensions which had prevailed in Congress, consoled himself by
the fancied harmony of his cabinet. Singularly free himself from all
jealousy of the talents and popularity of others, and solely actuated
by zeal for the public good, he had sought the ablest men to assist
him in his arduous task, and supposed them influenced by the same
unselfish spirit. Yet, at this very moment, a lurking spirit of
rivalry between Jefferson and Hamilton was already existing and daily
gaining strength. Jefferson, who, as we have intimated, already
considered Hamilton a monarchist in his principles, regarded all his
financial schemes with suspicion, as intended to strengthen the
influence of the treasury and make its chief the master of every vote
in the legislature, "which might give to the government the direction
suited to his political views." Under these impressions, Jefferson
looked back with an angry and resentful eye, to the manner in which
Hamilton had procured his aid in effecting the measure of assumption.
He now regarded it as a finesse by which he had been entrapped, and
stigmatized the measure itself as a "fiscal manoeuvre, to which he had
most ignorantly and innocently been made to hold the candle."
* * * * * * *
Frequent depredations had of late been made on our frontier
settlements by what Washington termed "certain banditti of Indians"
from the north-west side of the Ohio. Some of our people had been
massacred and others carried into deplorable captivity. The Indians of
the Wabash and the Miami rivers, who were the present aggressors, were
numerous, warlike, and not deficient in discipline.
Washington had deprecated a war with these savages, but finding all
pacific overtures unavailing, and rather productive of more daring
atrocities, he felt compelled to resort to it, alike by motives of
policy, humanity and justice. An act had been provided for
emergencies, by which the President was empowered to call out the
militia for the protection of the frontier; this act he put in force
in the interval of Congress; and under it an expedition was set on
foot, which began its march on the 30th of September from Fort
Washington (which stood on the site of the present city of
Cincinnati). Brigadier-General Harmer, a veteran of the revolution,
led the expedition, having under him three hundred and twenty
regulars, with militia detachments from Pennsylvania and Virginia (or
Kentucky), making in all fourteen hundred and fifty-three men. After a
march of seventeen days, they approached the principal village of the
Miamis. The Indians did not await an attack, but set fire to the
village and fled to the woods. The destruction of the place, with that
of large quantities of provisions, was completed.
An Indian trail being discovered, Colonel Hardin, a continental
officer who commanded the Kentucky militia, was detached to follow it,
at the head of one hundred and fifty of his men, and about thirty
regulars, under Captain Armstrong and Ensign Hartshorn. They followed
the trail for about six miles, and were crossing a plain covered by
thickets, when suddenly there were volleys of rifles on each side,
from unseen marksmen, accompanied by the horrid war-whoop. The trail
had, in fact, decoyed them into an ambush of seven hundred savages,
under the famous warrior Little Turtle. The militia fled, without
firing a musket. The savages now turned upon the little handful of
regulars, who stood their ground, and made a brave resistance with the
bayonet until all were slain, excepting Captain Armstrong, Ensign
Hartshorn, and five privates.
The army, notwithstanding, effected the main purpose of the expedition
in laying waste the Indian villages and destroying their winter's
stock of provisions, after which it commenced its march back to Fort
Washington. On the 21st of October, when it was halted about ten miles
to the west of Chillicothe, an opportunity was given Colonel Hardin to
wipe out the late disgrace of his arms. He was detached with a larger
body of militia than before, and sixty regulars, under Major Willys,
to seek and bring the savages to action. The accounts of these Indian
wars are very confused. It appears, however, that he had another
encounter with Little Turtle and his braves. It was a bloody battle,
fought well on both sides. The militia behaved bravely, and lost many
men and officers, as did the regulars; Major Willys fell at the
commencement of the action. Colonel Hardin was at length compelled to
retreat, leaving the dead and wounded in the hands of the enemy. After
he had rejoined the main force, the whole exhibition made its way back
to Fort Washington, on the banks of the Ohio.
Congress reassembled, according to adjournment, on the first Monday in
December, at Philadelphia, which was now, for a time, the seat of
government.
Congress, at its opening, was chiefly occupied in financial
arrangements, intended to establish the public credit and provide for
the expenses of government. According to the statement of the
Secretary of the Treasury, an additional annual revenue of eight
hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars would be required, principally
to meet the additional charges arising from the assumption of the
State debts. He proposed to raise it by an increase of the impost on
foreign distilled spirits, and a tax by way of excise on spirits
distilled at home. An Impost and Excise bill was accordingly
introduced into Congress, and met with violent opposition. An attempt
was made to strike out the excise, but failed, and the whole bill was
finally carried through the House.
Mr. Hamilton, in his former Treasury report, had recommended the
establishment of a National Bank; he now, in a special report, urged
the policy of the measure. A bill, introduced in conformity with his
views, was passed in the Senate, but vehemently opposed in the House;
partly on considerations of policy, but chiefly on the ground of
constitutionality. On one side it was denied that the constitution had
given to Congress the power of incorporation; on the other side it was
insisted that such power was incident to the power vested in Congress
for raising money.
The question was argued at length, and with great ardor, and after
passing the House of Representatives by a majority of nineteen votes,
came before the executive for his approval. Washington was fully alive
to the magnitude of the question and the interest felt in it by the
opposing parties. The cabinet was divided on it. Jefferson and
Randolph denied its constitutionality; Hamilton and Knox maintained
it. Washington required of each minister the reasons of his opinion in
writing; and, after maturely weighing them, gave his sanction to the
act, and the bill was carried into effect.
The objection of Jefferson to a bank was not merely on constitutional
grounds. In his subsequent writings he avows himself opposed to banks,
as introducing a paper instead of a cash system--raising up a moneyed
aristocracy, and abandoning the public to the discretion of avarice
and swindlers. Paper money might have some advantages, but its abuses
were inevitable, and by breaking up the measure of value, it made a
lottery of all private property. These objections he maintained to his
dying day; but he had others, which may have been more cogent with him
in the present instance. He considered the bank as a powerful engine
intended by Hamilton to complete the machinery by which the whole
action of the legislature was to be placed under the direction of the
treasury, and shaped to further a monarchial system of government.
[The opposite policy of these rival statesmen brought them into
incessant collision. "Hamilton and myself," writes Jefferson, "were
daily pitted in the cabinet like two cocks." In the meantime two
political parties were forming under their adverse standards.] Both
had the good of the country at heart, but differed as to the policy by
which it was to be secured. The Federalists, who looked up to Hamilton
as their model, were in favor of strengthening the general government
so as to give it weight and dignity abroad and efficiency at home; to
guard it against the encroachments of the individual States and a
general tendency to anarchy. The other party, known as republicans or
democrats, and taking Mr. Jefferson's view of affairs, saw in all the
measures advocated by the Federalists, an intention to convert the
Federal into a great central or consolidated government, preparatory
to a change from a republic to a monarchy.
The particulars of General Harmer's expedition against the Indians,
when reported to Congress, gave great dissatisfaction. The conduct of
the troops, in suffering themselves to be surprised, was for some time
stigmatized as disgraceful. Further troubles in that quarter were
apprehended, for the Miamis were said to be less disheartened by the
ravage of their villages than exultant at the successful ambuscades of
Little Turtle. Three Seneca chiefs, Cornplanter, Half Town and Great
Tree, being at the seat of government on business of their own nation,
offered to visit these belligerent tribes, and persuade them to bury
the hatchet. Washington, in a set speech, encouraged them in the
undertaking.
In the course of the present session, Congress received and granted
the applications of Kentucky and Vermont for admission into the Union,
the former after August, 1792; the latter immediately. On the 3d of
March the term of this first Congress expired.
As the Indians on the north-west side of the Ohio still continued
their hostilities, one of the last measures of Congress had been an
act to augment the military establishments, and to place in the hands
of the executive more ample means for the protection of the frontiers.
A new expedition against the belligerent tribes had, in consequence,
been projected. General St. Clair, actually governor of the territory
west of the Ohio, was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces to be
employed.
Washington had been deeply chagrined by the mortifying disasters of
General Harmer's expedition to the Wabash, resulting from Indian
ambushes. In taking leave of his old military comrade, St. Clair, he
wished him success and honor, but gave him a solemn warning. "You have
your instructions from the Secretary of War. I had a strict eye to
them, and will add but one word--Beware of a surprise! You know how
the Indians fight. I repeat it--_beware of a surprise!_" With these
warning words sounding in his ear, St. Clair departed.