SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT PHILADELPHIA--CONSEQUENCES OF THE
REMOVAL--RENTING OF THE PRESIDENTIAL MANSION--WASHINGTON'S PRUDENCE
AND ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED--THE PRESIDENT AND FAMILY IN
PHILADELPHIA--MRS. WASHINGTON'S RECEPTIONS--GAYETY IN THE
METROPOLIS--WASHINGTON AND HIS PUBLIC DUTIES--HIS SECOND ANNUAL
MESSAGE AND ITS SUGGESTIONS--HAMILTON'S NATIONAL BANK
SCHEME--OPPOSITION TO IT--A BANK ESTABLISHED--NEW TARIFF SCHEME
ADOPTED--EXCISE LAW--ESTABLISHMENT OF A MINT--INDIAN AFFAIRS--ST.
CLAIR APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE NORTHWEST--ADJOURNMENT OF
CONGRESS.
Philadelphia, as we have already observed, was chosen to be the
residence of the federal government for ten years; and there, in the
courthouse, on the first Monday in December, 1790, the first Congress
assembled to hold their third session.
The removal of the seat of government from New York had caused much
dissatisfaction in that quarter, while many Philadelphians experienced
equal dissatisfaction, but for different reasons. Rents, prices of
provisions, and other necessaries of life, greatly advanced. "Some of
the blessings anticipated from the removal of Congress to this city are
already beginning to be apparent," wrote a Philadelphian. "Rents of
houses have risen, and I fear will continue to rise shamefully; even in
the outskirts they have lately been increased from fourteen, sixteen,
and eighteen pounds, to twenty-five, twenty-eight, and thirty. This is
oppression. Our markets, it is expected, will also be dearer than
heretofore."
Washington was subjected to considerable personal annoyance by the
change. During the recess of Congress, he commissioned Mr. Lear, his
private secretary, to rent a house for his use in Philadelphia. One
owned by Robert Morris appeared to be the most eligible of all; but,
for a long time, Washington could not procure an answer to his prudent
question, "What will be the rent?" Both the state and city authorities,
through committees, had offered to provide at their own expense a home
for the president; but Washington declined the generous offer. He
preferred the independence of a resident in his own hired house; and he
was also convinced that the offer was made because of a desire to have
Philadelphia become the permanent residence of the government. The
erection of a presidential mansion would be an argument in favor of the
scheme. Washington preferred a more southern location. He was to choose
the spot. He wished to have his views unbiassed; so he refused all
offers to lessen his expenses at the cost of the city of Philadelphia,
or of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Time after time Washington wrote to Lear about the rent of Morris's
house. "He has most assuredly," he said, "formed an idea of what ought
to be the rent of the tenement in the condition he left it; and with
this aid, the committee ought, I conceive, to be as little at a loss in
determining what it should rent for, with the additions and alterations
which are about to be made, and which ought to be done in a plain and
neat, and not by any means extravagant, style." He was satisfied that
the committee were delaying with the intention of having the rent paid
by the public; and he foresaw that he might be subjected to heavy bills
of expense in fixing and furnishing the house in an extravagant manner.
"Let us for a moment suppose," he said, "that the rooms (the new ones, I
mean) were to be hung with tapestry, or a very rich and costly paper,
neither of which would suit my present furniture; that costly ornaments
for the bow-windows, extravagant chimney-pieces and the like, were to be
provided; that workmen, from extravagance of the times, for every twenty
shillings' worth of work would charge forty shillings; and that
advantage would be taken of the occasion to newly paint every part of
the house and buildings; would there be any propriety in adding ten or
twelve-and-a-half per cent. for all this to the rent of the house in its
original state, for the two years that I am to hold it? If the solution
of these questions is in the negative, wherein lies the difficulty of
determining that the houses and lots, when finished according to the
proposed plan, ought to rent for so much? When all is done that can be
done," he added, "the residence will not be so commodious as that I left
in New York, for there (and the want of it will be found a real
inconvenience at Mr. Morris's) my office was in the front room below,
where persons on business immediately entered; whereas, in the present
case, they will have to ascend two pairs of stairs, and to pass by the
public rooms as well as the private chambers, to get to it."[29]
It must be remembered that Washington refused to receive a salary for
his services as president of the United States, but stipulated that the
amount of his expenses should be paid by the government. In regulating
these expenses, he was as careful to avoid extravagance as if his
private purse had to be drawn upon to pay. In New York he lived
frugally,[30] and he resolved to continue, in Philadelphia, the same
unostentatious way of living, not only on his own account, but for the
benefit of those connected with the government who could not afford to
spend more than their salaries. His example had a most salutary effect.
An illustrative case may be cited. When Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut,
was appointed first auditor of the treasury, he, like a prudent man,
would not accept the office until he could visit New York, and ascertain
whether he could live upon the salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year.
He came to the conclusion that he could live upon one thousand, and he
wrote to his wife, saying: "The example of the president and his family
will render parade and expense improper and disreputable." What a
significant commentary!
The rent of Morris's house was at last fixed at three thousand dollars
a year; and on the twenty-second of November Washington set out for
Philadelphia, accompanied by his family, in a chariot drawn by four
horses. They were allowed to travel without parade, and on reaching
Philadelphia, on the twenty-eighth, they found their house ready for
their reception. Yet it was nearly a month before they were prepared to
receive company. Mrs. Washington's first _levee_ or reception in
Philadelphia was on Friday, the twenty-fifth of December, where,
according to eye-witnesses, there was an assemblage of "the most
brilliant, beautiful, well-dressed, and well educated women that had
ever been seen in America."
The season opened gayly. "I should spend a very dissipated winter,"
wrote the vice-president's wife to a friend, "if I were to accept one
half the invitations I receive, particularly to the routs, or
tea-and-cards." The city, for a few weeks after the assembling of
Congress, appeared to be intoxicated. But Washington and his wife were
proof against the song of the syren. They could not be seduced from
their temperate habits in eating, drinking, and sleeping, by the scenes
of immoderate pleasure around them. They held their respective _levees_
on Tuesdays and Fridays, as in New York, without the least ostentation;
and Congressional and official dinners were served in a plain way,
without any extravagant displays of plate, ornament, or variety of
dishes. Mrs. Washington's _levees_ always closed at nine o'clock. When
the great clock in the hall struck that hour, she would say to those
present, with a complacent smile, "The general always retires at nine,
and I usually precede him." In a few minutes the drawing-room would be
closed, the lights extinguished, and the presidential mansion would be
as dark and quiet before ten o'clock as the house of any private
citizen.
Washington entered upon his public duties with great energy on his
arrival in Philadelphia. His health was almost perfectly restored, and
subjects of profound interest demanded the attention of Congress. That
body assembled on the sixth of December, and on the eighth, in the
presence of both houses sitting in the senate-chamber, the president
delivered, in person, his second annual message. He opened by
congratulating Congress on the financial prosperity of the country, the
import duties having produced, in a little more than thirteen months,
the sum of one million, nine hundred thousand dollars. He had without
difficulty obtained a loan in Holland for the partial liquidation of the
foreign debt; and, in consequence of the increasing confidence in the
government, certificates of the domestic debt had greatly increased in
value. He informed them that Kentucky was about to ask for admission
into the Union as a sovereign state. He called their attention to the
Indian war commenced in the northwestern territory; and after some
allusion to the disturbed state of Europe, growing out of recent events
in France, he suggested measures for the protection of American commerce
in the Mediterranean sea, where it was continually exposed to the
depredations of corsairs of the Barbary powers.
He called their attention to regulations concerning the consular system
that had been proposed and partially established; to the creation of a
mint, the right of coinage being delegated to the federal government
alone; to a uniform system of weights and measures; to a reorganization
of the post-office system, and a uniform militia.
The two most important measures brought forward at the beginning of the
session were, a plan for a national bank, and a tax on ardent spirits
distilled within the United States. In a former communication to
Congress, the secretary of the treasury recommended the establishment of
a national bank, as a useful instrument in the management of the
finances of the country; and now, at the opening of a new session, he
presented a special report, in which the policy of such a measure was
urged with Hamilton's usual strength and acuteness of logic. He argued
upon premises resting on the alleged facilities afforded to trade by
banks, and the great benefits to be expected from a national one in a
commercial point of view. He chiefly dwelt upon the topic of the
convenience to the government of a paper medium in which to conduct its
monetary transactions, and especially as a ready resource for such
temporary loans as might from time to time be required.
Such reasons, utterly without force in the light of subsequent
experience, were wise and important at that time, and commended
themselves to the people of the United States, because they had not
forgotten the convenience afforded by the bank of North America,
established by Robert Morris in 1781, chiefly for the purpose of
assistance to himself in the difficult office of superintendent of
finance. That was the first experiment in America in the issue of a
currency redeemable at sight--a promissory note payable on demand--which
had been the practice of the bank of England for nearly a hundred years.
It was a system so much superior to the colonial loan-office plans, and
the scheme upon which the continental paper-money had been issued during
the earlier years of the war for independence, that the people generally
received Hamilton's recommendation with favor. But it met with
determined opposition in Congress. The anti-federal feeling which from
the close of 1789 had manifested itself, principally in criticisms upon
the federal constitution, now assumed the shape of a party opposed to
the financial policy of the administration. At the head of this
opposition was Mr. Jefferson, the secretary of state; and the herald's
trumpet for the tilt was sounded by the Virginia assembly, in the
adoption of a resolution, declaring so much of the late act of Congress
as provided for the assumption of the state debts "repugnant to the
constitution of the United States," and "the exercise of a power not
expressly granted to the general government." That clause of the act for
funding the continental debt, which restrained the government from
redeeming at pleasure any part of that debt, was denounced as "dangerous
to the rights, and subversive of the interests, of the people."
The bank project encountered very little opposition in the senate, where
the bill originated; but in the house it was assailed vehemently,
chiefly on the ground of its being unconstitutional. Its policy was
questioned, and the utility of banking systems stoutly denied. The
arguments on both sides, in relation to the constitutionality of the
measure (the constitution being utterly silent on the subject), assumed
on frequent occasions an extremely metaphysical tone. It was argued, in
favor of a bank, that the power to establish one was implied in the
powers delegated to Congress by the constitution to collect a revenue,
and to pay the debts of the United States, and in the authority
expressly granted to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying
those powers into execution.
On the twentieth of January 1791, the bank bill passed the senate
without a division, and on the eighth of February it passed the house of
representatives by a vote of thirty-nine to twenty. Before signing it,
the president requested the written opinion of each member of his
cabinet as to its constitutionality, and his reasons for such opinion.
They promptly complied. The cabinet was divided. Hamilton and Knox
strongly maintained that it was constitutional: Jefferson and Randolph
(the attorney-general) as strongly contended that it was
unconstitutional. Washington examined the whole subject with great
deliberation, and then put his signature to the act. That act gave a
charter to the institution limited to twenty years, and for that period
Congress renounced the power of establishing any other bank. The capital
was to be ten millions of dollars, divided into twenty-five thousand
shares of four hundred dollars each; eight millions to be subscribed by
individuals, and the other two millions by the United States. It was to
be managed by twenty-five directors, chosen annually by the
stockholders, and its headquarters were to be at Philadelphia.
The opponents of the bank, and especially Mr. Jefferson, presumed to
censure the president because, in the conscientious exercise of his
power, he made the act a law by affixing his signature. The secretary of
state had other than constitutional grounds for his opposition to the
measure. He had conceived an irrepressible distrust of Hamilton. It
seemed almost like a monomania. He considered the bank as one of the
engines in a scheme intended by Hamilton to make the national
legislature subservient to, and under the direction of, the treasury,
for the purpose of promoting his monarchical schemes. He afterward
affirmed that Washington was deceived by Hamilton, and that he did not
perceive the drift or effect of his financial schemes; and ungenerously
and unfairly remarked, that, "unversed in financial projects and
calculations and budgets, his approbation of them was bottomed on his
confidence in the man."
No person knew better than Mr. Jefferson the unfairness of this
assertion. None knew better than he how little Washington was prone to
be swayed in his judgment by partiality either toward a man or a
measure. He always weighed everything with the greatest care and most
profound wisdom, and the opinions of friends and foes were always
submitted to the alembic of his keen penetration, and the tests of his
almost unfailing sagacity, before they were acted upon. "Hamilton and
myself," wrote Jefferson, "were daily pitted in the cabinet like two
cocks." The personal resentments and consequent prejudices of the
secretary of state appear to have frequently warped his judgment and
fettered his generosity.
An increase of duties on imported spirits, and an excise tax on those
produced at home, in order to increase the revenue required by the
charges growing out of the assumption of the state debts, recommended by
the secretary of the treasury and submitted to the consideration of
Congress in the form of an act, excited warm discussion. An attempt was
made to strike out the excise, but failed; and after animated and
sometimes violent debates, it was carried by a vote in the house of
thirty-five to twenty-one.[31] The portion of the act relating to excise
was received with indignation in some parts of the country, and led, as
we shall hereafter observe, to actual insurrection in western
Pennsylvania.
The establishment of a national mint also occupied the attention of
Congress at this session. At the conclusion of the war for independence,
the continental Congress requested Robert Morris, the minister of
finance, to lay before them his views upon the subject of coins and
currency. The labor of preparing a report upon the subject was assigned
to the able assistant financier, Gouverneur Morris. It was prepared with
great care, and presented in 1782. Morris's first effort was to
harmonize the currency of all the states. He ascertained that the one
thousand, four hundred and fortieth part of a Spanish dollar was a
common divisor for the various currencies. Starting with that fraction
as a unit, he proposed the following table of moneys:--
Ten units to be equal to one penny.
Ten pence to one bill.
Ten bills, one dollar (about seventy-five cents of our present
currency).
Ten dollars one crown.
Congress debated the subject from time to time until 1784, when Mr.
Jefferson proposed a different scheme. He recommended four coins upon
the basis of the Spanish dollar, as follows:--
A golden piece of the value of ten dollars.
A dollar in silver.
A tenth of a dollar in silver.
A hundredth of a dollar in copper.
In 1785 Congress adopted Mr. Jefferson's scheme, and in 1786 made
provision for coinage upon that basis. This was the origin of our
decimal currency--the copper _cent_, the silver _dime_ and _dollar_, and
the golden _eagle_. Since then, several other coins of different values,
having the decimal basis, have been made of gold and silver; and a
smaller cent, made of metallic composition, has been coined.
Mr. Jefferson, soon after he came into the cabinet, urged the necessity
of a uniform and national coinage, "to banish the discordant pounds,
shillings, pence, and farthings of the different states, and to
establish in their stead the new denominations." The subject received
some attention during that session, and was agitated in the next (the
one we are now considering); but it was not until the second of April,
1792, that laws were enacted for the establishment and regulation of a
mint. Thereafter there was much delay, and the mint was not in full
operation until January, 1795. During that interval its performances
were chiefly experimental, and the variety of silver and copper coins,
now so much sought after by collectors, were struck. The most noted of
these is the "Washington cent," so called because it bore the head of
Washington on one side. It was a long time before Congress decided upon
a proper device for the coins, and the debates that occurred upon the
subject were interesting and sometimes amusing.
During this short session, full official reports of Harmer's expedition
were laid before Congress; and his repulse, and the increasing danger to
the western settlements from the Indians on the frontier, caused that
body to authorize an addition to the standing military force of a second
regiment of infantry, nine hundred strong. By the same act the president
was authorised to appoint, for such term as he should think proper, a
major-general and a brigadier-general, and to call into service, in
addition to the militia, a corps of two thousand six months' levies, and
a body of mounted volunteers.
The conduct of the troops under Harmer was stigmatized as disgraceful.
It was thought proper to place the new expedition about to be organized
under the command of another officer. St. Clair was then at the seat of
government. He was governor of the Northwestern territory, and well
acquainted with the country and the movements of the Indians; and
Washington, having confidence in his old friend and companion-in-arms,
conferred upon him the general command. Yet suffering chagrin and
mortification because of the disasters to Harmer's expedition on account
of Indian ambuscades, the president, when he took leave of St. Clair,
warned him against them in a most solemn manner, saying: "You have your
instructions from the secretary of war. I had a strict eye to them, and
will add but one word--beware of surprise! You know how the Indians
fight. I repeat it--_beware of a surprise!_"
At that time, three famous Seneca chiefs from western New
York--Corn-Planter, Half Town, and Big Tree--were at the seat of
government, and offered to visit their dusky brethren in the Ohio
region, and try to persuade them to bury the hatchet. Washington, who
had a most earnest desire for peace with the savages, accepted their
offer, saying: "By this humane measure you will render these mistaken
people a great service, and probably prevent their being swept off the
face of the earth. The United States require that these people should
only demean themselves peaceably." He concluded his remarks with the
following words, which were indicative of a scheme for civilizing the
Indians which had occupied his mind for a long time: "When you return to
your country, tell your nation that it is my desire to promote their
prosperity, by teaching them the use of domestic animals, and the manner
that the white people plough and raise so much corn; and if, upon
consideration, it would be agreeable to the nation at large to learn
those arts, I will find some means of teaching them, at such places
within their country as shall be agreed upon."
With the admission of Kentucky and Vermont into the Union as sovereign
states, and providing for the increase and pay of the army, the first
Congress closed its labors. They had, within two years, performed a
great work; and no body of men, except those who composed the
continental Congress during the earlier years of the Revolution, so
fairly deserve our sincere gratitude as they. Within that time, with
Washington at their head, they had set in motion the machinery of the
federal government, laid the foundations of its policy, and placed the
United States firmly in the position of a leading nation among the
states of the world.
The term of service of the first Congress expired on the third of March,
1791; but Washington did not leave Philadelphia for Mount Vernon until
late in the month.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Washington's residence in New York was first at Osgood's house, No.
10 Cherry street, which by subsequent changes was made to front on
Franklin square. He afterward occupied the more commodious house of Mr.
M'Comb, where the French minister, M. de Moustier, had resided. It was
on Broadway, west side, below Trinity church. That was the one alluded
to in Washington's letter. An English traveller who visited the
president there described the drawing-room as "lofty and spacious; but,"
he added, "the furniture was not beyond that found in the dwellings of
opulent Americans in general, and might be called plain for its
situation. The upper end of the room had glass doors, which opened upon
a balcony, commanding an extensive view of the Hudson river and the
Jersey shore opposite."
[30] Mr. Custis relates that Fraunces, the steward, once purchased the
first shad of the season for the president's table, as he knew
Washington to be extravagantly fond of fish. He placed it before
Washington at table as an agreeable surprise. The president inquired how
much he paid for the shad. "Two dollars," was Fraunces's reply. "Take it
away," said the president--"I will not encourage such extravagance in my
house." Fraunces had no scruples of that kind, and the fish was devoured
by himself and other members of the household.
[31] The act imposed a duty varying from twenty to forty cents a gallon,
according to strength, on imported liquors; and an excise on domestic
liquors varying, according to the strength, from nine to twenty-five
cents a gallon on those distilled from grain, and from eleven to thirty
cents on those made from molasses or other imported product. Stringent
regulations were made for the collection of this excise.