FRENCH POLITICS
If any proof were wanting of how completely Madison had gone over to the
opposition, he gave it in the memorable attack upon the secretary of the
treasury in the spring of 1793, within four days of the close of the
second session of the Second Congress. It was hoped by that proceeding
to overwhelm Hamilton with disgrace, and that the President would feel
himself obliged to expel him from the cabinet. When the resolutions with
this aim were offered, a member said that delicacy, decency, and every
rule of justice had been violated; "a more unhandsome proceeding he had
never seen in Congress;" he might have remained a member to this day,
and, save for the attempts in our time to expel John Quincy Adams and
Joshua R. Giddings, not have changed his opinion.
In the course of the preceding year Hamilton, under various signatures,
had met his opponents in the newspapers. But it was a veil, not a visor,
behind which he fought; for everybody knew from whom came the vigorous
blows that he dealt about him right and left. It was a boast always of
Jefferson that he never condescended to newspaper controversy; but it
was pretty well understood that he himself did not enter upon that
rather unsatisfactory mode of warfare because he preferred the safer
method of fighting by proxy. Hamilton never was in doubt as to who was
his real antagonist, and he aimed his blows over the heads of his petty
assailants to where he knew they would hit home. They left bad bruises
upon his colleague in the cabinet. Among other papers of the time,
though not a newspaper article, was an official letter to the President,
in which Hamilton defended his principles and his measures. Early in
1792 the President, longing to escape the toils of public life and to
spend the rest of his days in tranquillity, had consulted Madison and
his two secretaries, Jefferson and Hamilton, upon the propriety of his
declining a reelection. He soon changed his mind, influenced, perhaps,
as much by the dissensions, so evident in the expostulations of his
friends, as by the expostulations themselves. He deprecated this open
feud between his secretaries as a public misfortune, and sought, if he
could not reconcile them, to silence it. That the Federalists were
monarchists, as Jefferson and Madison never ceased asserting, he knew
was not true, without the emphatic and indignant declarations of
Hamilton, Adams, and other leading men of that party, when they
condescended to notice a charge which they deemed so absurd that it was
difficult to believe that anybody could make it in earnest. But, while
he knew there was no real danger from that quarter, he could not fail
to see that the reverence and love in which he was held constituted a
bond of unity, so long as he remained chief magistrate; and he may have
felt that, should he retire, there was no other common tie strong enough
at that moment to hold together a Union, the possible dissolution of
which was, both at the North and at the South, considered with calmness,
sometimes with complacency, and, when party passion was at a red heat,
even as a thing to be prayed for. At any rate, the President consented
to take the advice of the counselors whom he had consulted; but in
asking that advice he unwittingly aggravated the quarrel among them
which caused him so much uneasiness.
Jefferson, in the arguments he set forth both in conversation and by
letter to influence Washington's decision, dwelt upon the unhappy
condition of public affairs. It was a storm which he himself meant to
get out of by retiring to Monticello, though he thought it was
Washington's duty to remain at the helm and keep an eye to windward.
This unhappy condition of affairs, he said, had all come from the course
pursued by the secretary of the treasury, and was the natural
consequence of the acts of Congress in relation to the public debt, the
Bank, excise, currency, and other important measures passed in
accordance with the secretary's policy. Whether this policy was meant to
destroy the Union, subvert the republic, and establish a monarchy upon
its ruins, at any rate such must be the inevitable result of those
mischievous measures. He urged this view of the subject with such
pertinacity that Washington, either because he was impressed by so much
earnestness, or because he was curious to know how the assertions could
best be answered, sent them to Hamilton, with other objections of a
similar character from other persons, and asked for a reply. No names
were given, but it is not likely that Hamilton was at any loss in
guessing where such strictures upon his administration of affairs came
from. "I have not fortitude enough," he said in his answer, "always to
hear with calmness calumnies which necessarily include me as a principal
object in the measures censured, of the falsehood of which I have the
most unqualified consciousness.... I acknowledge that I cannot be
entirely patient under charges which impeach the integrity of my public
motives or conduct. I feel that I merit them in no degree, and
expressions of indignation sometimes escape me in spite of every effort
to suppress them." There were only two men in the country whom he could
have had in mind when he wrote such words as these. In all Washington's
career there is nowhere a stronger proof of his strong will,
self-reliance, and passionless impartiality than that he could stand
between two such furnaces as Hamilton on one side and Jefferson and
Madison on the other, both glowing at the intensest white heat, while he
remained usually as calm and as unmoved as if breathing the softest,
balmiest, and gentlest airs of a day in June. But all this personal
controversy in the public prints, and in the official intercourse of the
cabinet, left on both sides an intense exasperation, which could not
fail to have a controlling influence in the conduct of political
parties. Whether Jefferson was conscious or not--and whatever his
feeling was, Madison shared it with him--that in this paper warfare he
was signally defeated, the attempt to ruin Hamilton by an attack upon
him in Congress followed, if it was not the consequence of, the
mortification of defeat.
In February, 1793, Mr. Giles, a representative from Virginia, offered a
series of resolutions calling upon the President for certain information
relating to the finances. They were a bold attack upon the secretary of
the treasury, and, should it prove that they could not be satisfactorily
answered, would convict him of mismanagement of the financial affairs of
the government, of a disregard of law, of usurpation of power, and even
of embezzlement of the public funds. Any reasonable ground for believing
such charges to be well-founded would be quite sufficient to bring the
secretary to trial by impeachment. There was probably little doubt at
the moment as to whence this blow came; for though the hand might seem
the hand of Esau, the voice was the voice of Jacob. Behind Giles was
Madison; and behind Madison, of course, was Jefferson. Mr. John C.
Hamilton, in his "History of the Republic," asserts that the resolutions
were still--when he wrote, twenty-five years ago--in the archives of
the State Department at Washington, in Madison's handwriting; and he
further declares that Giles assured Rufus King that Madison was their
author.
Hamilton's reply, so far as any intentional wrong-doing was imputed to
him, was conclusive. There had been technical violations of acts of
Congress in one instance, but it was only to carry out the acts
themselves. Congress had, three years before, passed two acts
authorizing the negotiation of two loans, one for twelve million dollars
for the discharge of the foreign debt, and another for two million
dollars to be used at home. It had been convenient, and had conduced to
the success of the negotiation, to offer in Holland to contract a loan
for fourteen million dollars, without the unnecessary, and to foreigners
probably the confusing, statement that the authority for borrowing that
amount was derived from two separate acts of Congress. It was only in
this borrowing of the money that there was any seeming disregard of the
letter of the law. The loans and their purposes were kept entirely
distinct in the accounts of the department. Other questions touching the
management of these loans were so clearly and frankly explained that
nothing but the captiousness of party could refuse to be satisfied. On
one point--the charge of an alleged deficit--the opposition was
absolutely silenced. The secretary indignantly explained that the
sum--as anybody could have known for the asking from any officer in the
Treasury Department--which was made to appear as missing was in credits
for customs bonds not yet due, and bills of exchange on Europe sold but
not yet paid for.
Though there was enough of decency, or of prudence which took the place
of decency, to drop the insinuation that the secretary had stolen what
had never been in his possession, it was not so with the rest of the
accusations. Only four days before Congress was to adjourn, Giles
offered another set of resolutions. These assumed that the defiance of
law and unwarranted assumption of power, which, at first, were only
suggested by the inquiries, were now proved to be true by the
explanations that had been given. The indictment, therefore, was made to
include the verdict and the sentence; the criminal was accused, was to
be found guilty, and condemned to capital punishment in one proceeding,
without the privilege of trial, or a recognition of the right to be
heard. The argument of the resolutions was, that certain acts were a
violation of law; that the secretary had committed all those acts; and
therefore it was the will of the House that the facts be reported to the
President. The presumption obviously was, that the President would
immediately dismiss from office a disgraced and faithless public
servant. But the prosecution was an utter failure. The largest vote
received for any of the resolutions was only fifteen; that on the others
was from seven to twelve, in a quorum of from fifty to sixty members.
In the course of the debate Mr. Madison had said that "his colleague
[Giles] had rendered a service highly valuable to the legislature, and
no less important and acceptable to the public." The House showed by its
votes how very far it was from agreeing with him. But Fisher Ames wrote
about that time: "Madison is become a desperate party leader, and I am
not sure of his stopping at any ordinary point of extremity." If it be
really true that he instigated this attack upon Hamilton, and was the
author of the resolutions, using Giles as his tool to get them before
the House, Ames's reflection was not uncharitable.
It would not be just, however, to leave the impression that the
hostility shown in this affair was purely personal. Both Jefferson and
Madison had a hearty hatred for Hamilton which would have been greatly
gratified could they have made it the plain duty of the President to put
him out of the Treasury Department a dishonored and ruined man. But this
particular outbreak of their enmity was intensified by their sincere and
earnest enthusiasm for France. They were quite willing to bring Hamilton
to grief at any time because he was Hamilton; they were more than
ordinarily exasperated against him just now because in recent newspaper
and other controversies he had altogether got the better of them; but in
this particular instance they wanted to punish him because of delay of
payments in discharge of the indebtedness of the United States to
France. This was the essential delinquency at which the Giles
resolutions were pointed. The difficulty was, not that the secretary of
the treasury was not careful enough of the public money, but that he was
too careful. He insisted upon being quite certain, when paying off a
public debt, that he was paying it to the right persons, and that no
risk should be incurred of its being demanded a second time. He felt
there was no such certainty about payments to France. The king was
dethroned; but it was not wise, the secretary thought, to be hasty in
recognizing revolutionary governments. It was a republic to-day; it
might be a regency to-morrow; a monarchy again the third day. It was
more prudent to await a reasonable period for the evidence of permanency
on one side or the other. Those old enough to remember the late war of
the rebellion know how important the maintenance of this doctrine was in
regard to the recognition of the rebel confederacy by England and
France.
But to all this Jefferson did not in the least agree; neither did
Madison. They were in full, even passionate, sympathy with the men who
brought Louis XVI. to the guillotine. Money, they knew, was needed, and
it was a crime against liberty to delay payment when payment was due to
the French government. With Hamilton the question was, not whether the
revolutionists ought to be, but whether they were, France. With
Jefferson and Madison they were France, because they ought to be.
Hesitation to acknowledge that the Revolution was the nation, they
thought, could only come from an "Anglican party," the "enemies of
France and of Liberty," who would lead the American people "into the
arms and ultimately into the government of Great Britain,"--to use the
terms in which Madison spoke, a little later, of the Federalists. Which
of these men, in this regard at least, were the thoughtful and prudent
statesmen, and which were _doctrinaires_, nobody now, probably,
questions. The larger proportion of the people, however, were then
carried away by the enthusiasm for the French revolutionists. It was so,
no doubt, at first without much distinction of party; but it was
inevitable, when the government should be called upon to take some
decisive stand in relation to European politics, that the country should
divide into two hostile camps; or, rather, that the two camps already
existing should become more hostile to each other than ever. It is not
necessary to assume that the mass of the people gave themselves up to
any very hard thinking about the matter. For the most part they
followed, as the way is with parties, the political leaders to whom they
were already accustomed, never doubting that not to do so would be
treacherous to the gratitude America owed to France, and to the cause of
liberty and democracy, which, in the hands of the Frenchmen, was
hurling monarchs from their thrones--at least one monarch from his, and
more, it was hoped, would follow. But when the revolution ran into the
terrible excesses of a later stage, if any Federalists had wavered in
their allegiance to their chiefs they soon returned, persuaded that the
wild and bloody anarchy of Paris was not the road that led to the
establishment of a wise and safe popular government.
There was no need now of pretexts for quarreling; real causes came fast
enough. France declared war against England, and the United States had
its part to play in this strife of giants. Its real interest was to keep
out of trouble; and, if all were agreed on that point, it does not seem
that there should have been much difficulty in saying so. "It behooves
the government of this country," wrote Washington to Hamilton, "to use
every means in its power to prevent the citizens thereof from embroiling
us with either of those powers, by endeavoring to maintain a strict
neutrality." It is difficult to conceive of a man being sincerely
desirous of helping neither one side nor the other; of injuring neither
one side nor the other; of maintaining, so far as help or harm could go,
an attitude of absolute impartiality towards both,--it is difficult to
conceive of such a man quarreling with the word "neutrality" as applied
to his position. But Jefferson, nevertheless, quarreled with it; not
frankly and directly as a thing he did not want, but captiously and
hypercritically objecting to the word to cover his dislike to the thing
itself. "A declaration of neutrality," he said, "was a declaration that
there should be no war, to which the Executive was not competent."
It was true that the Executive was not competent to declare that there
should be no war; it was not true that the use of the word "neutrality"
could have any such application to the future as to prevent Congress,
when it should assemble, from declaring war should it see fit to do so.
But meanwhile, Congress not being in session, and no exigency having
arisen that made it desirable in the President's judgment to call an
extra session, he, with the assent of the cabinet,--for Jefferson did
not venture upon direct opposition,--issued a proclamation "to exhort
and warn the citizens of the United States carefully to avoid all acts
and proceedings whatsoever" that might interfere with "the duty and
interest of the United States" to "adopt and pursue a conduct friendly
and impartial towards the belligerent powers." The objectionable word
was left out in deference to Mr. Jefferson, who, really preferring that
there should be no proclamation at all, hoped to take the sting out of
it by the omission of a phrase. It was the thing said, not the way of
saying it, that the President insisted upon, as it was his duty to
preserve the peace till the legislature should declare for war, and his
inclination to preserve it altogether.
It can hardly be doubted that Jefferson and his friends saw as plainly
as the other party saw how perilous to the interests of the United
States a foreign war would probably be. But, while professing a desire
to avoid it, they were far more anxious, apparently, to give aid, moral
as well as material, to France, with whose revolutionary struggles they
sympathized so deeply, than they were to avoid offense to England, whom
they hated and would gladly see crippled. Not to be an enemy of England
they held was to be an enemy of France; and not of France merely, but of
the "rights of man." They could not or would not comprehend any wisdom
in moderation, any prudence in delay. It is curious to see how party
animosity blinded even the best of them. The objection to the word
"neutrality" was a mere quibble; for the proclamation called upon all
good citizens to maintain at their peril that state which, in all
dictionaries, neutrality is defined to be. Mr. Jefferson, in instructing
as secretary of state the American ministers abroad as to the attitude
assumed by the government, could find no better term than "a fair
neutrality." The fact was, the Republican leaders wished to avoid taking
any positive stand, partly because delay might be a help to France, and
partly in obedience to the law of party politics, in opposition to the
other side. They were not at first quite sure of their ground, and
wanted to gain time. Mr. Madison seems to have waited about six weeks
before he could venture upon a positive opinion as to the proclamation.
The newspapers helped him to a knowledge of party opinion, and party
opinion helped him to make up his own. "Every 'Gazette' I see,"--he
wrote in June, about eight weeks after the proclamation was
published,--"every 'Gazette' I see (except that of the United States
[Federalist]) exhibits a spirit of criticism on the Anglified complexion
charged on the Executive politics.... The proclamation was, in truth, a
most unfortunate error." A week before, he had been seemingly cautious
even in writing to Jefferson. Then he had observed that newspaper
criticisms aroused attention, and he had heard expressions of surprise
"that the President should have declared the United States to be neutral
in the unqualified terms used, when we were so notoriously and
unequivocally under eventual engagements to defend the American
possessions of France. I have heard it remarked, also, that the
impartiality enjoined on the people was as little reconcilable with
their moral obligations as the unconditional neutrality proclaimed by
the government is with the express articles of the treaty." He adds: "I
have been mortified that on these points I could offer no _bona fide_
explanations that might be satisfactory." He was not in doubt long,
however. Mr. Jefferson sent him within two or three weeks a series of
papers by Hamilton, under the signature of "Pacificus," in defense of
the proclamation, and urged him to reply. This Madison undertook to do
at once, and in five papers, under the signature of "Helvidius," he
took up all the points in dispute.
The question relating to treaty obligations was the more serious. By the
treaty of 1778 the United States had guaranteed "to his Most Christian
Majesty the present possessions of the Crown of France in America." An
attempt on the part of Great Britain to take any of the French West
India Islands would involve the United States in the war. How, then, Mr.
Madison's friends might well ask, as in the letter just quoted he said
they did, could "the President declare the United States to be neutral
in the unqualified terms used, when we were so notoriously and
unequivocally under eventual engagements to defend the American
possessions of France"? Hamilton's ground was that the treaty, by its
terms, was "a defensive alliance," and therefore not binding in this
case, inasmuch as the present war against England was offensive; and
that, besides, the treaty was in suspension, as France herself was, in a
sense, in suspension, having only a provisional government, the
permanent and legitimate successor to which was uncertain. But an
important point was gained, it was thought, in the decision to receive
Genet as the French minister. Hamilton, still acting in accordance with
that cautious policy which he thought to be, in such a crisis, the most
judicious, questioned whether a minister from the provisional government
in Paris should be recognized without reservations. Such an ambassador
might be followed presently by another accredited by a new power in the
revolutionary progress. This would, at the least, be an awkward dilemma
not to be recovered from without the loss of some dignity by the
government of the United States. But this point also was yielded in
deference to Jefferson, and much to his mortification the concession
turned out to be before he was many weeks older.
"I anxiously wish," Madison wrote to Jefferson, "that the reception of
Genet may testify what I believe to be the real affections of the
people." He was amply gratified. From Charleston, where he landed, to
Philadelphia, Genet was received with the warmest enthusiasm by all who
sympathized with France, and by that larger number among Americans who
are always ready to hurrah for anything or anybody that has caught the
popular fancy. Madison watched his progress with great interest, and
apparently with some misgivings. Writing again a few days later to
Jefferson, he says that "the fiscal party in Alexandria was an overmatch
for those who wished to testify the American sentiment." Indeed, he
thinks it certain, he says in the same letter, "that Genet will be
misled if he takes either the fashionable cant of the cities or the cold
caution of the government for the sense of the public,"--falling
himself, before he reaches the end of the sentence, into the cant of
assuming neutrality in the government to be only a "mask" behind which
to hide its "secret Anglomany." But he was quite mistaken in supposing
that Genet was likely to be misled, or led at all, by anybody. He was
almost capable, as General Knox said, of declaring the United States a
department of France, and of levying troops here to reduce the Americans
to obedience. The man's conduct, if it had not been so outrageous, would
have been ludicrous in its assumption of power, its disregard of the
laws of the country, and its defiance of the government. Within three
months of his arrival Jefferson himself was constrained to acknowledge
that he had developed "a character and conduct so unexpected and so
extraordinary as to place us in the most distressing dilemma, between
our regard for his nation, which is constant and sincere, and a regard
for our laws, the authority of which must be maintained; for the peace
of our country, which the executive magistrate is charged to preserve;
for its honor, offended in the person of that magistrate; and for its
character, grossly traduced in the conversations and letters of this
gentleman." Though this was in an official letter, it gave, no doubt,
Jefferson's real opinion; for no man had more reason than he for
resenting the conduct of the irrepressible Frenchman. Jefferson has been
accused of too much familiarity with the French minister in private, and
of tardiness in the discharge of his own duty as secretary where it was
likely to clash with the other's schemes. Genet himself complained that
he was thrown over by Jefferson after receiving from him every
encouragement. This is, of course, true, but not in the least
discreditable to Jefferson. When Genet arrived in Philadelphia, he was,
although he had already committed some illegal acts in Charleston,
profuse in his promises of good behavior. The secretary of state had
welcomed him as the representative of France and the Revolution, and
naturally he meant to make the most he could out of him, for the sake of
the Republican party, as well as for the sake of the sacred cause of
"liberty, equality, and fraternity." But he soon saw that he was dealing
with one who was a cross between a mountebank and a madman, as we learn
from a letter of Madison to Jefferson, written within two months of
Jefferson's first interview with Genet. "Your account of Genet," says
the letter, "is dreadful. He must be brought right if possible. His
folly will otherwise do mischief which no wisdom can repair."
The mischief dreaded was that the administration party would take
advantage of the insolent and outrageous conduct of the French minister
to show the folly of precipitancy, and to gain popularity and strength
for itself. Madison soon writes to Jefferson to acquaint him with the
reaction taking place in Virginia, "in the surprise and disgust of those
who are attached to the French cause, and who viewed this minister as
the instrument for cementing, instead of alienating, the two republics."
He asserts that "the Anglican party is busy, as you may suppose, in
making the worst of everything, and in turning the public feelings
against France and thence in favor of England." In a sense this must
have been true. The "fiscals," the "Anglomanys," the "Anglican party,"
the "monarchists,"--which were Mr. Madison's pet names for his old
friends,--were good enough politicians to take great satisfaction in
keeping well stirred and in lively use the muddy waters into which their
opponents had floundered. They were not, probably, careful always to
remember that France was neither the better nor worse, neither the wiser
nor the less wise, because one of the mad fanatics, bred of the
Revolution, had found his way, unfortunately, to the United States as a
minister plenipotentiary. But, on the other hand, it was not true that
there was any "Anglican party," in the sense in which Madison used the
term,--a party led by men who were "the enemies of France and of
liberty, at work to lead the well-meaning from their honorable
connection with those [the French people] into the arms and ultimately
into the government of Great Britain." Washington said that he did not
believe there were ten men in the United States, whose opinions deserved
any respect, who would change the form of government to a monarchy. But
if there were only ten men in the country whose opinions, in the
estimate of Jefferson and Madison, were not worth much, Washington was
among them. The affection and reverence, with which he was regarded by
the people, they would have been glad to appeal to on behalf of their
own party; but it is easy to read between the lines in Jefferson's
"Ana," and in his and Madison's correspondence, that they looked upon
the President as the dupe of his secretary of the treasury. Not that
they were ever wanting in terms of respect and even of veneration for
the President, but the tone was often one of pitiful regret almost akin
to contempt.
"I am extremely afraid," Madison wrote to Jefferson, "that the President
may not be sufficiently aware of the snares that may be laid for his
good intentions by men whose politics at bottom are very different from
his own." Again he says, a few days later: "I regret extremely the
position into which the President has been thrown. The unpopular cause
of Anglomany is openly laying claim to him. His enemies, masking
themselves under the popular cause of France, are playing off the most
tremendous batteries on him.... It is mortifying to the real friends of
the President that his fame and his influence should have anything to
apprehend from the success of liberty in another country, since he owes
his preeminence to the success of it in his own. If France triumphs, the
ill-fated proclamation will be a millstone, which would sink any other
character and will force a struggle even on his." Yet it is certain that
Washington was not in the least doubt as to his own political
principles; that he was never in danger of being inveigled into the
betrayal of those principles, whatever they might be; and that he was
quite capable of due care for his own reputation.
If Madison did not know that these tears over Washington, if sincere,
were quite uncalled for, Jefferson was not in the least deceived. He
records in his "Ana" that the President, referring to certain articles
that had recently appeared in Freneau's "Gazette," said that "he
considered those papers as attacking him [Washington] directly; for he
must be a fool indeed to swallow the little sugar-plums here and there
thrown out to him; that in condemning the administration of the
government they condemned him, for if they thought there were measures
pursued contrary to his sentiments, they must conceive him too careless
to attend to them, or too stupid to understand them." Again, some months
later, the President, alluding to another article in Freneau's
paper,--that "rascal Freneau," as he called him,--said "that he despised
all their attacks on him personally, but there never had been an act of
the government--not meaning in the executive line only, but in any
line--which that paper had not abused. He was evidently sore and warm,"
continues the candid secretary, "and I took his intention to be, that I
should interpose in some way with Freneau, perhaps withdraw his
appointment of translating clerk in my office. But I will not do it."
These frank and indignant avowals of feeling and opinion were not, if we
may believe Jefferson, unusual with Washington, even in cabinet
meetings; and it seems hardly likely that Madison, who was on the most
friendly and intimate terms with the President, could have been so
ignorant of how he felt and thought as to suppose him the mere dupe of
designing men. The truth is, probably, that Madison did not, any more
than Jefferson, believe this. It was only a bit of party tactics to
assume, lest the President should have too much influence over the minds
of the people, that, in the hands of the wicked "Anglicists," he was as
clay in the hands of the potter. The two friends, whether in writing or
by speech they lamented and excused the unhappy position, as they were
pleased to call it, of the President, must have appeared to each other
like the Roman augurs in Gerome's picture.