PARTY VIOLENCE
When, in July, 1793, Jefferson notified the President of his wish to
resign from the Cabinet, Hamilton's resignation had already been before
the President for several weeks. Ever since the removal of Congress to
Philadelphia, Hamilton's circumstances had become less and less able to
endure the strain of maintaining his official position on a salary of
$3500 a year. He had fully experienced the truth of the warnings he had
received that, if he gave himself to the public service, he might spend
his time and substance without receiving gratitude for his efforts or
credit for his motives. His vocation for statesmanship, however, was too
genuine and his courage too high for such results to dishearten him. He
had now accomplished what he had set out to do in securing the adoption of
the measures which established the new government, and he no longer
regarded his administrative position as essential to the success of his
policy. Meanwhile the need had become urgent that he should resume the
practice of his profession to provide for his family. It was not in his
nature, however, to leave the front when a battle was coming on, and,
although he gave early notice of his intention so that Washington should
have ample time to look about for his successor, the resignation was not
to become effective until Congress had met and shown its temper. According
to Jefferson, Washington once remarked to him that he supposed Hamilton
"had fixed on the latter part of next session to give an opportunity to
Congress to examine into his conduct." Although Hamilton had made up his
mind to retire, he intended to march out with flying colors, as became the
victor on a hard-fought field. So far, he had met and beaten all enemies
who had dared to assail his honor; he meant to beat them again if they
renewed the attack, and he had word that one encounter was coming more
formidable than any before.
Hamilton's success in carrying his measures through Congress, by sheer
dexterity of management when numbers were against him, added intense
bitterness to the natural chagrin felt by the defeated faction. Men like
Jefferson and Madison were subject to traditions of behavior that required
them to maintain a certain style of public decorum no matter how they
might rage in private. But new men with new manners were coming on the
scene, and among them the opposition to Hamilton had found a new leader--
William Branch Giles of Virginia. He was a Princeton graduate of the class
of 1781, had studied for the bar, and had been admitted to practice in
1786. To the full legal equipment of the period he added an energy and an
audacity that speedily brought him legal and political distinction. He was
active and outspoken in advocating the adoption of the new Constitution,
at a time when popular sentiment in Virginia was strongly inclined to be
adverse. He had no hesitation about undertaking unpopular causes, and
hence British debt cases became a marked feature of his practice. Virginia
State law had suspended the recovery of debts due British subjects until
reparation had been made for the loss of negro slaves taken away by the
British during the war, and until the western posts had been surrendered.
But the peace treaty of 1783 stipulated that creditors on neither side
should meet with lawful impediment in the recovery of debts, and by the
new Constitution treaties had become part of the law of the land. On the
basis of a national jurisdiction in conflict with the Virginia statutes,
Giles acted so energetically, that he himself related that by 1792 he had
been employed in at least one hundred British debt cases, and was "as
successful in collecting monies under judgments as is usually the case
with citizens."
Comprehension of the true nature of the struggle in which Giles became
conspicuous must start with the fact that the Constitution was reluctantly
accepted and with great uneasiness as to possible consequences. In the
Virginia convention of 1788, it was declared that the new Constitution was
essentially a scheme of the military men to subject the people to their
rule. This argument was not so much met as avoided by the declaration that
there could be no tyranny while Washington lived. The rejoinder was
obvious: what if he should not be able to withstand military influence?
What if, in spite of him, the government should be given a dangerous
character that would develop after he passed away? Jefferson had felt
misgivings on this score from the first, and Madison experienced them as
soon as differences on practical measures arose between himself and
Hamilton. Jefferson and Madison wanted the government to be made
respectable but not strong. Hamilton saw what they could not see--and
indeed what few at that time could see--that a government cannot be made
respectable without being made strong.
Washington was probably without any clear views of his own on
constitutional questions, and what evidence there is on this point
supports Jefferson's claim that Washington was more disposed to confide in
him and in Madison than in Hamilton. When Jefferson relinquished the State
Department, Washington proposed to give Madison the post, but was told he
would not think of taking it. Washington then transferred Randolph to the
position because he could not get anybody else of suitable capacity.
Whatever Washington's personal inclinations may have been, he was in a
position in which he had to act. Hamilton was the only one whom he could
find to show him the way, and thus circumstances more and more compelled
Washington to accept Hamilton's guidance, while at the same time it seemed
increasingly clear to the opposition that it was above all things
necessary to crush Hamilton. This state of sentiment must be kept in mind
in order to make intelligible the rabid violence of the party warfare
which had long been going on against Hamilton, and which--now that
Jefferson had left the Cabinet--was soon to be extended to Washington
himself.
When Giles went to the front in this war, both Jefferson and Madison were
busy behind the firing line supplying munitions. Giles was elected in 1790
to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Theodorick Bland, and took his
seat in the third session of the First Congress. The assumption bill had
been passed, but that was only the first of the series of financial
measures proposed by Hamilton, and Giles followed Madison's lead in
unsuccessful resistance to the excise and to the national bank. Giles was
re-elected to the Second Congress, which opened on October 24, 1791. In
the course of this session he became the leader of the opposition, not by
supplanting Madison but through willingness to take responsibilities from
which Madison, like Jefferson, shrank, because he, too, preferred activity
behind the scenes. This situation has often occurred in parliamentary
history--a zealous party champion scouting the scruples and restraints
that hampered the official leadership, and assuming an independent line of
attack with the covert favor and assistance of that leadership. In the
effort to crush Hamilton a series of raids was led by Giles, whose
appetite for fighting could never be extinguished no matter how severe
might be his defeat.
After much preliminary skirmishing which put heavy tasks on Hamilton in
the way of getting up reports and documents, a grand attack was made on
January 23, 1793. A series of resolutions, in drafting which Madison and
Jefferson took part, was presented, calling for minute particulars of all
loans, names of all persons to whom payments had been made, statements of
semi-monthly balances between the Treasury and the Bank, and an account of
the sinking fund and of unexpended appropriations,--all from the beginning
of the government until the end of 1792. The resolution required Hamilton
to complete and state all the accounts of the Treasury Department up to a
period only a little over three weeks before the resolutions were
presented, and to give a detailed transcript of particulars. But
the Treasury accounts were in such perfect order, and so great was
Hamilton's capacity for work, that the information called for was promptly
transmitted in reports dated February 4, February 13, and February 14. At
the same time Hamilton hit back by observing that the resolutions "were
not moved without a pretty copious display of the reasons on which they
were founded," which "were of a nature to excite attention, to beget
alarm, to inspire doubts."
Giles was soon able to renew the attack. Jefferson and Madison helped him
to prepare a series of nine resolutions which were presented on February
27. They specifically charged Hamilton with violation of law, neglect of
duty, transgression of the proper limits of his authority, and indecorum
in his attitude towards the House. The series ended with a resolution that
a copy should be transmitted to the President. The proceeding was a sort
of impeachment, framed with the purpose not of bringing Hamilton to trial
but of forcing him out of the Cabinet. The charges against him were purely
technical and were actuated by malevolence. Hamilton, though not allowed
to come into the House to defend himself, nevertheless participated in the
debate indirectly by writing the speech delivered by William Smith and
credited to him in the Annals of Congress. It was so generally felt in
Congress that the resolutions were founded on nothing more substantial
than spite that Giles could not hold his forces together, and as the
debate proceeded the number of his adherents dwindled. The House began
voting at a night session on March 1st. After the third resolution had
been defeated by a vote of 40 to 12, an attempt was made to withdraw the
others, but such action was refused, and one by one the remaining
resolutions were defeated by increasing numbers until only seven voted
with Giles at the last, among them James Madison. It was a signal triumph
for Hamilton. But his enemies were not disposed to accept the decision as
final, and Jefferson thought it might be revised at the next session.
It was not until the Second Congress that the old factions finally
disappeared and the formation of national parties began. The issue
over the adoption of the Constitution had produced Federalists and
Anti-Federalists, but with its adoption Anti-Federalism as such became a
thing of the past. Opposition to the Government had to betake itself to
the political platform provided by the successful introduction of the new
system of government, and was obliged to distinguish itself from official
Federalism by attacking not the Constitution but the way in which the
Constitution was being construed and applied. The suspicion, jealousy, and
dislike with which the new government was regarded, in many quarters were
reflected from the beginning in the behavior of Congress. There was from
the first a disposition to find fault and to antagonize, and as time went
on this disposition was aggravated by the great scope allowed to
misunderstanding and calumny from the lack of direct contact between
Congress and the Administration. In founding a new party, Jefferson only
organized forces that were demanding leadership. He consolidated the
existing opposition, and gave it the name "Republican Party," implying
that its purpose was to resist the rise of monarchy and the growth of
royal prerogative in the system of government which was introduced by the
adoption of the Constitution. It is clear enough now that the implication
was mere calumny; the notion that Washington was either aiming at monarchy
or was conniving at it through ignorance was a grotesque travesty of the
shameful situation that actually existed; but fictions, pretenses,
slanders, and calumnies that would never have been allowed utterance if
the Administration and Congress had stood face to face now had opportunity
to spread and infect public opinion. Hence the tone of extreme rage that
dishonors the political contention of the period and the malice that
stains the correspondence of the faction chiefs.
Although a distinct party opposition appeared and assumed a name during
the Second Congress, it disavowed as yet any opposition to Washington
and represented its actual attempts to thwart the measures of the
Administration as efforts to counteract Washington's evil advisers. The
old constitutional tradition that the king can do no wrong, which still
lingered in American politics, tended to an analogous elevation of the
presidential office above the field of party strife, while leaving the
President's Cabinet advisers fully exposed to it, just as in the case of
the ministers of the Crown in England. Allowance must be made for the
effect of this tradition when judgment is passed on the political
activities of the period. Considered with regard to present standards of
political behavior, the course of Jefferson in fomenting opposition to the
Administration of which he was a part wears the appearance of despicable
intrigue. There was nothing mean or low about it, however, in the opinion
of himself and his friends, and even his enemies would have allowed it to
be within the rules of the game. Jefferson did his best to defeat in
Congress measures adopted by Washington on the advice of Hamilton, and he
also did his best to undermine Washington's confidence in Hamilton. In his
personal dealings with Washington, Jefferson had every advantage, for he
had Washington's ear and could, more readily than Hamilton, direct the
currents of unconscious influence that produce the will to believe. But
Jefferson's animosity kept tempting him to overplay his hand in a way that
was fatal in the face of an antagonist so keen and so dexterous as
Hamilton.
In a letter of May 23, 1792, Jefferson presented to Washington an
elaborate indictment of Hamilton's policy as a justification of his own
behavior in organizing an opposition party in Congress. He charged
Hamilton with subverting the character of the Government by his financial
measures, the logical consequence of which would be "a change from the
present republican form of government to that of a monarchy." Hence the
need for organizing "the Republican party who wish to preserve the
government in its present form." Washington thought over the matter, and--
according to Jefferson--reopened the subject in a personal interview on
July 10. Being now fully apprised of Jefferson's case, Washington himself
prepared a brief of it, divided into numbered sections, and applied to
Hamilton for a statement of his ideas upon the "enumerated discontents,"
framed so "that those ideas may be applied to the correspondent numbers."
The proceeding is a fine instance of the care which Washington exercised
in forming his opinions. Of course, as soon as charges of corruption and
misdemeanor were reduced to exact statement the matter was put just where
Hamilton wanted to get it, and in the grasp of his powerful hands its
trashy character was promptly displayed. It is needless to go into
details, now that public loans, the funding of floating indebtedness in
excess of current income, and the maintenance of a national banking system
to supply machinery of credit, are such well recognized functions that the
wonder is how any statesman could have ever thought otherwise. Jefferson's
arguments, when read with the prepossessions of the present day, are so
apt to leave an impression of absurdity that they constitute a troublesome
episode for his biographers.
Jefferson's maneuvering utterly failed to injure Hamilton in Washington's
esteem, but it did have the effect of so thoroughly disgusting
Washington with public life that at one time he was determined to
refuse a reelection, and even went so far as to ask Madison to prepare a
valedictory address for him. He consented to serve another term most
reluctantly, and not until he had been besought to do so by the leaders on
both sides. Jefferson was as urgent as was Hamilton. While Washington was
still wavering, he received a strong letter from Edmund Randolph that
doubtless touched his soldierly pride. The letter closed with this sharp
argument:
"You suffered yourself to yield when the voice of your country summoned
you to the Administration. Should a civil war arise, you cannot stay at
home. And how much easier will it be to disperse the factions, which are
rushing to this catastrophe, than to subdue them after they shall appear
in arms? It is the fixed opinion of the world, that you surrender nothing
incomplete."
An appeal of this character was the most effective that could possibly be
addressed to Washington, but in consenting he grumbled over the hardship
of having to keep in active service at his time of life after already
having served for so long a time. He complained that his hearing was
getting bad and that "perhaps his other faculties might fall off and he
not be sensible of it."
Acquiescence in Washington's candidacy made it practically impossible for
the Republican party to manifest its true strength. The compliment of
Republican support was awarded to Governor Clinton of New York, who
together with Washington received all the electoral votes of Virginia,
New York, North Carolina, and Georgia. A stray electoral vote from
Pennsylvania brought Clinton's total up to 50, whereas John Adams received
77 votes which re-elected him as vice-president. Jefferson received only
four electoral votes, all from Kentucky, but his poor showing in this
election was wholly due to the intricacy of the electoral system, and his
party meanwhile developed so much strength that when the Third Congress
met on December 2, 1793, the Republicans were strong enough to elect the
speaker.
Undeterred by this circumstance, Hamilton forced the fighting. The
Jeffersonians had been excusing the defeat they had received in attacking
Hamilton in the previous Congress on the ground that the House had acted
without allowing sufficient time for due examination of the evidence. This
plea supplied to Hamilton an occasion for prompt action. Exactly two weeks
after the meeting of Congress he addressed a letter to the Speaker, in
which he declared: "Unwilling to leave the matter on such a footing, I
have concluded to request of the House of Representatives, as I now do,
that a new inquiry may be, without delay, instituted in some mode, most
effectual for an accurate and thorough investigation; and I will add, that
the more comprehensive it is, the more agreeable it will be to me."
Giles promptly took up the challenge, and moved the appointment of a
committee to examine the state of the Treasury Department in all its
particulars. Pending action by the House, a new complication was
introduced, which, though meant as a blow at Hamilton, resulted in a
signal triumph for him. His enemies got hold of a discharged clerk of the
Treasury Department by means of whom they now tried to counteract the
effect of Hamilton's challenge. Two days after Hamilton's letter to the
Speaker, a memorial from Andrew G. Fraunces was laid before the House
making charges which amounted to this: that there was a combination
between Hamilton and other officers of the Treasury Department to evade
payment of warrants so that they could be bought up for speculative
purposes. Hamilton's request for an investigation was allowed to lie on
the table, but the memorial from Fraunces was referred to a select
committee of which Giles was a member. This circumstance turned out to be
much to Hamilton's advantage. Giles was an erect, bold, manly foe; he
could not stomach the sort of testimony upon which depended the charges
against Hamilton's personal integrity, and he concurred in a report on
Hamilton finding that the evidence was "fully sufficient to justify his
conduct; and that in the whole course of this transaction the Secretary
and other officers of the Treasury have acted a meritorious part towards
the public."
Giles, while exonerating Hamilton of the charge of dishonesty, did not
desist from pressing his motion for further investigation of the Treasury
Department. But he admitted that imputations upon the Secretary's
integrity had been quite removed, and he now urged that "the primary
object of the resolution is to ascertain the boundaries of discretion and
authority between the Legislature and the Treasury Department." In thus
shifting his ground he presented a new issue in which the House--and
indeed Giles's own party associates--took little interest. The fact was
that the attack on Hamilton had failed, that the purpose of showing
him to be unworthy of Washington's confidence had been abandoned as
impracticable, and that all that remained was a proposal that the House
should again engage in a laborious investigation of the desirability of
attempting a new delimitation of the functions of the Treasury Department
and of Congress. But this, of course, did not concern Hamilton. He had
acted under existing laws and with responsibilities which were defined by
them. If Congress saw fit to make new laws, the consequences would fall
upon his successor in office, not upon him since he was about to retire.
If Congress made fetters for the Secretary, it might even be that some
member of Giles's own party would have to wear them. Thus, however Giles's
latest proposal might be viewed, it was not attractive. Moreover, it was
presented at a time when the House had much more urgent matters to
consider. The country was wild with excitement over the retaliating orders
and decrees of Great Britain and France, which subjected American
interests to injury from both sides. Giles and Page appear to have been
the only speakers on the resolution when it was taken up for consideration
on February 24, 1794, and both disclaimed any intention of reflecting
upon Hamilton. The resolution received decent interment by reference to a
committee, with no one objecting. The practical conclusion of the matter
was that Hamilton had beaten his enemies once more and beaten them
thoroughly.
Before resigning his office, Hamilton added still another great
achievement to his record of illustrious service in establishing public
authority. The violent agitation against the excise act promoted by the
Jeffersonians naturally tended to forcible resistance. One of the counts
of Jefferson's indictment of Hamilton's policy which had been presented to
Washington was that the excise law was "of odious character ... committing
the authority of the Government in parts where resistance is most probable
and coercion least practicable." The parts thus referred to were the
mountains of western Pennsylvania. The popular discontent which arose
there from the imposition of taxes upon their principal staple--distilled
spirits--naturally coalesced with the agitation carried on against
Washington's neutrality policy. At a meeting of delegates from the
election districts of Allegheny county held at Pittsburgh, resolutions
were adopted attributing the policy of the Government "to the pernicious
influence of stockholders." This was an echo of Jefferson's views. But the
resolutions went on to declare: "Our minds feel this with so much
indignancy, that we are almost ready to wish for a state of revolution and
the guillotine of France, for a short space, in order to inflict
punishment on the miscreants that enervate and disgrace our Government."
This was an echo of the talk in the political clubs that had been formed
throughout the country. The original model was apparently the Jacobin club
of Paris. The Philadelphia club with which the movement started, soon
after Genet's arrival, adopted the Jacobin style of utterance. It declared
its object to be the preservation of a freedom whose existence was menaced
by a "European confederacy transcendent in power and unparalleled in
iniquity," and also by "the pride of wealth and arrogance of power"
displayed in the United States. Writing to Governor Lee of Virginia,
Washington said that he considered "this insurrection as the first
formidable fruit of the Democratic Societies."
Hamilton moved warily, doing whatever lay in his power to smooth the
practical working of the system in the hope of "attaining the object of
the laws by means short of force." But such was the inflamed state of
feeling in western Pennsylvania that no course was acceptable short of
abandonment by the Government of efforts to enforce the internal revenue
laws. During 1793, there were several outrageous attacks on agents of the
Government, and the execution of warrants for the arrest of rioters was
refused by local authority. People who showed a disposition to side with
the Government had their barns burned. A revenue inspector was tarred and
feathered, and was run out of the district. The patience with which the
Government endured insults to its authority encouraged the mob spirit. On
July 16, 1794, the house of Inspector Neville was attacked by a mob, and,
when he appealed to the local authorities for protection, he was notified
that there was such a general combination of the people that the laws
could not be executed. Neville, a revolutionary veteran of tried valor,
was able to obtain the help of an officer and eleven soldiers from Fort
Pitt, but the mob was too numerous and too well-armed to be withstood by
so weak a force. After a skirmish in which the mob fired the buildings and
the place became untenable, the troops had to surrender. Soon after this
affair, a convention of delegates from the four western counties of
Pennsylvania was called to meet on August 14 to concert measures for
united action. Organized insurrection had, in fact, begun.
"The Government," said Washington, "could no longer remain a passive
spectator of the contempt with which the laws were treated." But when he
called for Cabinet opinions, the old variance at once showed itself.
Randolph thought that calm consideration of the situation "banishes every
idea of calling the militia into immediate action." He pointed out that
the disaffected region had more than fifteen thousand white males above
the age of sixteen, and that sympathy with the insurgents was active in
"several counties in Virginia having a strong militia." There was also the
risk that the insurgents might seek British aid, in which case a severance
of the Union might result. Randolph also enlarged upon the expense that
would attend military operations and questioned whether the funds could be
obtained. He advised a proclamation and the appointment of commissioners
to treat with the insurgents. Should such means fail, and should it appear
that the judiciary authority was withstood, then at last military force
might be employed.
Hamilton held that "a competent force of militia should be called forth
and employed to suppress the insurrection, and support the civil
authority." It appeared to him that "the very existence of the Government
demands this course." He urged that the force employed ought "to be an
imposing one, such, if practicable, as will deter from opposition, save
the effusion of the blood of the citizens, and serve the object to be
accomplished." He proposed a force of twelve thousand men, of whom three
thousand were to be cavalry, and he advised that, in addition to the
Pennsylvania militia, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia should each
contribute a quota.
All the members of the Cabinet except Randolph concurred in Hamilton's
opinion. The practical execution of the measures was entrusted to
Hamilton, who acted with great sagacity. Some appearance of timidity and
inertia in Pennsylvania state authority was indirectly but effectually
counteracted by measures which showed that the military expedition would
move even if Pennsylvania held back. Although some troops were to gather
at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, others were to meet at Cumberland Fort,
Virginia. The business was so shrewdly managed that Pennsylvania state
authority fell obediently into line, and the insurgents were so cowed by
the determined action of the Government that they submitted without a
struggle. Washington thought that this event would react upon the clubs
and "effectuate their annihilation sooner than it might otherwise have
happened." A general collapse among them certainly followed, and they
disappeared from the political scene.
It is in the nature of precaution that the more successful it is the less
necessary it appears to have been, and thus the complete success of
Hamilton's management furnished his enemies with a new argument against
him of which they afterwards made great use. The costly military
expedition that had no fighting to do was continually held up to public
ridicule. That the expense was trifling in comparison with the objects
achieved must deeply impress any one who examines the records of the
times. A mistake might have been fatal to the existence of the Government.
It has become so powerful and massive since that time, that we can hardly
realize what a rickety structure it then was, and how readily, in less
capable hands, it might have collapsed.
Randolph, then Secretary of State, seems to have been in a panic. Fauchet,
the French minister at that time, reported to his government that Randolph
called upon him and with a grief-stricken countenance declared, "It is all
over; a civil war is about to ravage our unhappy country." He represented
to Fauchet that there were four men whose talents, influence, and energy
might save it. "But debtors of English merchants, they will be deprived of
their liberty if they take the smallest step." He wanted to know whether
Fauchet could lend "funds sufficient to shelter them from English
persecution." Fauchet's letter was captured by the British and made
public. Randolph's explanations did not clear up the obscurity that
surrounds the affair. His version was that the four men were flour
merchants who were being pressed by their creditors "and that the money
was wanted only for the purpose of paying them what was actually due to
them in virtue of existing contracts." Even on his own showing it was a
shady transaction, and he retired from Washington's Cabinet under a cloud.
Washington always had difficulty about the composition of his Cabinet. A
capable man had been found to succeed Randolph as Attorney-General in the
person of William Bradford, an able Pennsylvania lawyer, but he died in
1795, and was succeeded by Charles Lee of Virginia. When Knox resigned in
1794, the vacancy was filled by transferring to the War Department
Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, who had previously served as
Postmaster-General. When Hamilton retired, January, 1795, he was
succeeded by Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut, who had been Comptroller of
the Treasury. After Randolph had been discredited by the Fauchet
letter, the office of Secretary of State went a-begging. It was offered to
William Paterson of New Jersey, to Thomas Johnson of Maryland, to Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, but all these men declined.
Washington got word that Patrick Henry, the old antagonist of the
Constitution, was showing Federalist leanings in opposition to Jefferson
and Madison, and Henry was then tendered the appointment, but he
too declined. Others were approached but all refused, and meanwhile
Pickering, though Secretary of War, also attended to the work of the State
Department. The matter was finally settled by permanently attaching
Pickering to the State Department, while the vacancy thus created at the
head of the War Department was filled by James McHenry, an appointment
which Washington himself described as "Hobson's choice."
Hamilton, although out of the Cabinet, still remained a trusted adviser,
and he rendered splendid service at a dangerous crisis. In spite of the
fact that the Jay treaty had been ratified by the Senate in June, 1795, it
was an issue in the Fall elections that year. Jefferson held that the
treaty was an "execrable thing," an "infamous act, which is really nothing
more than a treaty of alliance between England and the Anglo-men of this
country against the Legislature and the people of the United States."
Giles, who had been in close consultation with Jefferson, moved with
characteristic energy to translate Jefferson's views into congressional
action.
The Fourth Congress met on December 7, 1795, and although a Federalist,
Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey was elected Speaker, the Republicans
were strong enough to tone down the reply to the President's address
by substituting for an expression of "undiminished confidence" an
acknowledgment of "zealous and faithful services," which expressed
"approval of his course." On March 24, 1796, the House by a vote of 62 to
37 adopted a resolution calling upon the President to lay before it his
instructions to Jay, "together with the correspondence and the other
documents relative to said treaty." Advised by Hamilton and sustained by
his whole Cabinet, Washington replied on March 30, by declining to comply
because concurrence of the House was not necessary to give validity to the
treaty, and "because of the necessity of maintaining the boundaries fixed
by the Constitution between the different departments." The House retorted
by a resolution declaring its right to judge the merits of the case when
application was made for an appropriation to give effect to a treaty.
Debate on this issue, which is still an open one in our constitutional
system, began on April 14 and continued for sixteen days. Madison opposed
the execution of the treaty, but the principal speech was made by Giles,
whose argument covers twenty-eight columns in the _Annals_. As the
struggle proceeded, the Jeffersonians lost ground. It became evident that
weighty elements of public opinion were veering around to the support of
the treaty as the best arrangement attainable in the circumstances. The
balance of strength became so close that the scales were probably turned
by a speech of wonderful power and eloquence delivered by Fisher Ames. A
decision was reached on April 30, the test question being on declaring the
treaty "highly objectionable." Forty-eight votes were cast on each side
and the Speaker gave his decision for the negative. In the end, the House
stood 51 to 48 in favor of carrying the treaty into effect. Only four
votes for the treaty came from the section south of Mason and Dixon's
line.
During the agitation over the Jay treaty the rage of party spirit turned
full against Washington himself. He was blackguarded and abused in every
possible way. He was accused of having shown incapacity while General and
of having embezzled public funds while President. He was nicknamed "the
Step-Father of his country." The imputation on his honor stung so keenly
that he declared "he would rather be in his grave than in the Presidency,"
and in private correspondence he complained that he had been assailed "in
terms so exaggerated and indecent as could scarcely be applied to a Nero,
a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pickpocket." The only rejoinder
which his dignity permitted him to make is that contained in his Farewell
Address, dated September 17, 1796, in which he made a modest estimate of
his services and made a last affectionate appeal to the people whom he had
so faithfully served.
The Farewell Address was not a communication to Congress. It was issued in
view of the approaching presidential election, to give public notice that
he declined "being considered among the number of those out of whom a
choice is to be made." The usual address to Congress was delivered by
Washington on December 7, 1796, shortly after the opening of the second
session of the Fourth Congress. The occasion was connected in the public
mind with his recent valedictory, and Congress was ready to vote a reply
of particularly cordial tenor. Giles stood to his guns to the last,
speaking and voting against complimentary resolutions. "He hoped gentlemen
would compliment the President privately, as individuals; at the same
time, he hoped such adulation would never pervade the House." He held that
"the Administration has been neither wise nor firm," and he acknowledged
that he was "one of those who do not think so much of the President as
some others do." On this issue Madison forsook him, and Giles was voted
down, 67 to 12. Among the eleven who stood by Giles was a new member who
made his first appearance that session--Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. In
later years, when Giles's opinions had been modified by experience and
reflection, he regretted his attitude towards Washington. It is due to
Giles to say that he did not stab in the dark. He had qualities of
character that under better constitutional arrangements would have
invigorated the functions of the House as an organ of control, but at that
time, with the separation that had been introduced between the House and
the Administration, his energy was mischievous and his intrepidity was a
misfortune to himself and to his party.
Washington's term dragged to its close like so much slow torture. Others
might resign, but he had to stand at his post until the end, and it was a
happy day for him when he got his discharge. His elation was so manifest
that it was noticed by John Adams. Writing to his wife about the ceremony
the day after the inauguration, Adams remarked that Washington "seemed to
me to enjoy a triumph over me. Methought I heard him say, 'Ay! I am fairly
out, and you fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest.'"