JEFFERSON'S LETTER GIVES WASHINGTON PAIN--HIS LETTERS TO LAFAYETTE
AND OTHERS--UNGENEROUS SUSPICIONS--WASHINGTON LAYS BEFORE HAMILTON A
SYNOPSIS OF COMPLAINTS AGAINST THE ADMINISTRATION--HAMILTON'S
REPLIES--HE DENOUNCES HIS ACCUSERS--COMPLETE RUPTURE BETWEEN
HAMILTON AND JEFFERSON--NEWSPAPER DISPUTES--FRENEAU'S
AFFIDAVIT--WASHINGTON ANNOYED AND ALARMED BY THE FEUD--SEEKS TO HEAL
THE BREACH--CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND THE CONTENDING
SECRETARIES--SPIRIT OF THAT CORRESPONDENCE--HOSTILITIES TO THE
EXCISE LAWS--THE PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION--ANOTHER EFFORT TO
RECONCILE THE DISPUTING SECRETARIES--WASHINGTON UNANIMOUSLY
RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Those portions of Jefferson's letter which related to public measures
gave Washington a great deal of pain. They formed the first strong
avowal of his able friend and coadjutor of his deep-seated suspicions of
living conspiracies against the liberties of the United States, and his
opposition to the measures which he considered the implements of treason
in the hands of the conspirators. They were the evidences of a schism in
the president's cabinet which destroyed its unity and prophesied of
serious evils.
Jefferson's correspondence at that period shows the bias of his mind;
and, in the light of subsequent experience, while we view him as a true
patriot, jealous of his country's rights, we can not but regard him as a
monomaniac at that time. He saw in every supporter of Hamilton and his
measures a conspirator, or the dupe of a conspirator; and he seemed,
vain-gloriously, to believe that his own political perceptions were far
keener than those of Washington and all the world beside. To Lafayette
he wrote: "A sect has shown itself among us, who declare they espoused
our constitution, not as a good and sufficient thing in itself, but only
as a step to an English constitution--the only thing good and
sufficient in itself, in their eyes. It is happy for us that these are
preachers without followers, and that our people are firm and constant
in their republican purity. You will wonder to be told that it is from
the eastward chiefly that these champions for a king, lords, and commons
come. They get some important associates from New York, and are puffed
up by a tribe of _Agioteurs_ which have been hatched in a bed of
corruption, made up after the model of their beloved England. Too many
of these stockjobbers and kingjobbers have come into our legislature--or
rather, too many of our legislature have become stockjobbers and
kingjobbers. However, the voice of the people is beginning to make
itself heard, and will probably cleanse their seats at the next
election."
To others he wrote in a similar vein; and he seemed to be constantly
haunted by the ghost of kings, lords, and commons, sitting in the seat
of the republican president and of the popular Congress.
Washington pondered these things with great anxiety, and on the
twenty-ninth of July he wrote a private and confidential letter to
Hamilton, in which he set forth, under twenty-one distinct heads, a
summary of objections to the measures of the administration, drawn
chiefly from Jefferson's letter to the president just alluded to.
"These," he said, "as well as my memory serves me, are the sentiments
which, directly and indirectly, have been disclosed to me. To obtain
light and to pursue truth being my sole aim, and wishing to have before
me explanations of, as well as the complaints on, measures in which the
public interest, harmony, and peace, are so deeply concerned, and my
public conduct so much involved, it is my request, and you would oblige
me by furnishing me with your ideas upon the discontents here
enumerated; and for this purpose I have thrown them into heads, or
sections, and numbered them, that those ideas may be applied to the
correspondent numbers."
Hamilton answered in the required form on the eighteenth of August. "You
will observe here and there," he remarked in his preface, "some
severity appears. I have not fortitude enough always to bear with
calmness calumnies which necessarily include me, as a principal agent in
the measures censured, of the falsehood of which I have the most
unqualified consciousness. I trust I shall always be able to bear as I
ought imputations of errors of judgment; but I acknowledge that I can
not 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. I rely on your goodness for the proper allowances."
He then, under the head of _Objections and answers respecting the
administration of the government_, ably justified all measures which
distinguished that administration. When treating upon the charges that
"the funding of the debt had furnished effectual means of corruption of
such a portion of the legislature as turned the balance between the
honest voters whichever way it was directed," he manifested much
indignation. "This is one of those assertions," he said, "which can only
be denied, and pronounced to be malignant and false. No facts exist to
support it. The asserters assume to themselves, and to those who think
with them, infallibility. Take their words for it, they are the only
honest men in the community." "As far as I know," he said, "there is not
a member of the legislature who can properly be called a stockjobber or
a paper-dealer. There are several of them who were proprietors of public
debt in various ways; some for money lent and property furnished for the
use of the public during the war, others for sums received in payment of
debts; and it is supposable enough that some of them had been purchasers
of the public debt, with intention to hold it as a valuable and
convenient property, considering an honorable provision for it as a
matter of course.
"It is a strange perversion of ideas, and as novel as it is
extraordinary, that men should be deemed corrupt and
criminal for becoming proprietors in the funds of their
country. Yet I believe the number of members of Congress is
very small who have ever been considerable proprietors in
the funds. As to improper speculations on measures
depending before Congress, I believe never was any body of
men freer from them."
To the charge that the federalists contemplated the establishment of a
monarchy, Hamilton said: "The idea of introducing a monarchy or
aristocracy into this country, by employing the influence and force of a
government continually changing hands towards it, is one of those
visionary things that none but madmen could meditate, and that no wise
man will believe.
"If it could be done at all, which is utterly incredible, it
would require a long series of time, certainly beyond the
life of any individual, to effect it. Who then would enter
into such a plot? for what purpose of interest or ambition?
"To hope that the people may be cajoled into giving their
sanctions to such institutions is still more chimerical. A
people so enlightened and so diversified as the people of
this country can surely never be brought to it but from
convulsions and disorders, in consequence of the arts of
popular demagogues.
"The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a
subversion of the republican system of the country is by
flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their
jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into
confusion and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of
anarchy or want of government, they may take shelter in the
arms of monarchy for repose and security."
The rupture between Hamilton and Jefferson was now complete, and the
violence of party spirit manifested by the Gazettes of Fenno and Freneau
was greatly augmented. The latter became more and more personal in his
attacks upon the administration; and Hamilton, who was held up by name
as a monarchist at heart, believing that the assaults originated in the
hostility of Jefferson, in whose office Freneau was employed, at length
turned sharply upon his assailant. Over an anonymous signature he
inquired, in Fenno's paper, whether the government salary given to
Freneau was paid him for translations, or for calumniating those whom
the voice of the nation had called to the administration of public
affairs; whether he was rewarded as a public servant, or as a disturber
of the public peace by false insinuations. "In common life," he said,
"it is thought ungrateful for a man to bite the hand that puts bread in
his mouth; but if a man is hired to do it the case is altered."
Again he said, after giving a history of the establishment of Freneau's
paper: "An experiment somewhat new in the history of political
manoeuvres in this country; a newspaper instituted by a public
officer, and the editor of it regularly pensioned with the public money
in the disposal of that officer.... But, it may be asked, is it possible
that Mr. Jefferson, the head of a principal department of the
government, can be the patron of a paper the evident object of which is
to decry the government and its measures? If he disapproves of the
government itself, and thinks it deserving of his opposition, can he
reconcile it to his own personal dignity and the principles of probity
to hold an office under it, and employ the means of official influence
in that opposition? If he disapproves of the leading measures which have
been adopted in the course of his administration, can he reconcile it
with the principles of delicacy and propriety to hold a place in that
administration, and at the same time to be instrumental in vilifying
measures which have been adopted by majorities of both branches of the
legislature, and sanctioned by the chief magistrate of the Union?"
This brought out an affidavit from Freneau, in which he exculpated Mr.
Jefferson from all complicity in the establishment, the conduct, or the
support of his paper.
The feud between Hamilton and Jefferson gave Washington great concern
and no little mortification. Both ministers discharged the duties of
their respective offices to the entire satisfaction of the president. He
had endeavored, on his own part, not to allow his private views to
interfere with them in the performance of those duties; but he now found
himself compelled to take part in the dispute. That part was the noble
one of pacificator. He desired most earnestly to heal the breach, and on
the twenty-third of August he wrote to Jefferson on the subject. After
referring to the hostilities of the Indians, and the possible intrigues
of foreigners to check the growth of the United States, he said:--
"How unfortunate and how much to be regretted is it, that while we
are encompassed on all sides with armed enemies and insidious
friends, internal dissentions should be harrowing and tearing our
vitals. The latter, to me, is the most serious, the most alarming,
and the most afflicting of the two; and, without more charity for
the opinions and acts of one another in governmental matters, or
some more infallible criterion by which the truth of speculative
opinions, before they have undergone the test of experience, are to
be forejudged, than has yet fallen to the lot of fallibility, I
believe it will be difficult, if not impracticable, to manage the
reins of government, or to keep the parts of it together; for if,
instead of laying our shoulders to the machine after measures are
decided on, one pulls this way and another that, before the utility
of the thing is fairly tried, it must inevitably be torn asunder,
and, in my opinion, the fairest prospect of happiness and
prosperity that ever was presented to man will be lost, perhaps for
ever.
"My earnest wish and my fondest hope, therefore, is that instead of
wounding suspicions and irritating charges there may be liberal
allowances, mutual forbearances, and temporizing yieldings on all
sides. Under the exercise of these, matters will go on smoothly
and, if possible, more prosperously. Without them, everything must
rub; the wheels of government will clog; our enemies will triumph,
and, by throwing their weight into the disaffected scale, may
accomplish the ruin of the goodly fabric we have been erecting.
"I do not mean to apply this advice or these observations to any
particular person or character. I have given them in the same
general terms to other officers of the government; because the
disagreements, which have arisen from difference of opinion, and
the attacks which have been made upon almost all the measures of
government and most of its executive officers, have for a long time
past filled me with painful sensations, and can not fail, I think,
of producing unhappy consequences at home and abroad."
To Hamilton he wrote three days afterward, expressing his regret that
subjects could not be discussed with temper on the one hand, or
decisions submitted to without the motives which led to them improperly
implicated on the other. "When matters get to such lengths," he said,
"the natural inference is that both sides have strained the cords beyond
their bearing, and that a middle course would be found the best, until
experience shall have decided on the right way, or (which is not to be
expected, because it is denied to mortals) there shall be some
infallible rule by which we could forejudge events.
"Having premised these things, I would fain hope that liberal allowances
will be made for the political opinions of each other, and, instead of
those wounding suspicions and irritating charges with which some of our
gazettes are so strongly impregnated, and which can not fail, if
persevered in, of pushing matters to extremity and thereby tearing the
machine asunder, that there may be mutual forbearance and temporizing
yielding _on all sides_. Without these, I do not see how the reins of
government are to be managed, or how the union of the states can be much
longer preserved.... My earnest wish is that balsam may be poured into
all the wounds which have been given, to prevent them from gangrening,
and from those fatal consequences which the community may sustain if it
is withheld."
These letters were answered by Hamilton and Jefferson on the same day
(September the ninth), one dated at Philadelphia and the other at
Monticello. "I most sincerely regret," wrote Hamilton, "the causes of
the uneasy sensations you experience. It is my most anxious wish, as far
as may depend upon me, to smooth the path of your administration, and to
render it prosperous and happy. And if any prospect shall open of
healing or terminating the differences which exist, I shall most
cheerfully embrace it, though I consider myself as the deeply injured
party. The recommendation of such a spirit is worthy of the moderation
and wisdom which dictated it. And if your endeavors should prove
unsuccessful, I do not hesitate to say that, in my opinion, the period
is not remote when the public good will require _substitutes_ for the
_differing members_ of your administration. The continuance of a
division must destroy the energy of government, which will be little
enough with the strictest union. On my part there will be the most
cheerful acquiescence in such a result.
"I trust, sir, that the greatest frankness has always
marked, and will always mark, every step of my conduct
toward you. In this disposition, I can not conceal from you
that I have had some instrumentality of late in the
retaliations which have fallen upon certain public
characters, and that I find myself placed in a situation not
to be able to recede _for the present_.
"I considered myself as compelled to this conduct by
reasons, public as well as personal, of the most cogent
nature. I _know_ that I have been an object of uniform
opposition from Mr. Jefferson, from the moment of his coming
to the city of New York to enter upon his present office. I
know from the most authentic sources that I have been the
frequent subject of the most unkind whispers and
insinuations from the same quarter. I have long seen a
formed party in the legislature, under his auspices, bent
upon my subversion. I can not doubt, from the evidence I
possess, that the _National Gazette_ was instituted by him
for political purposes, and that one leading object of it
has been to render me and all the measures connected with my
department as odious as possible. Nevertheless, I can truly
say, that, except explanations to confidential friends, I
never, directly or indirectly, retaliated or countenanced
retaliation till very lately. I can even assure you that I
was instrumental in preventing a very severe and systematic
attack upon Mr. Jefferson by an association of two or three
individuals, in consequence of the persecution which he
brought upon the vice-president by his indiscreet and light
letter to the printer, transmitting Paine's pamphlet.
"As long as I saw no danger to the government from the
machinations which were going on, I resolved to be a silent
sufferer of the injuries which were done me. I determined to
avoid giving occasion to anything which could manifest to
the world dissentions among the principal characters of the
government--a thing which can never happen without weakening
its hands, and in some degree throwing a stigma upon it.
"But when I no longer doubted that there was a formed party
deliberately bent upon the subversion of measures, which in
its consequences would subvert the government; when I saw
that the undoing of the funding system in particular (which,
whatever may be the original merits of that system, would
prostrate the credit and honor of the nation, and bring the
government into contempt with that description of men who
are in every society the only firm supporters of government)
was an avowed object of the party, and that all possible
pains were taking to produce that effect by rendering it
odious to the body of the people, I considered it as a duty
to endeavor to resist the torrent, and, as an effectual
means to this end, to draw aside the veil from the principal
actors. To this strong impulse, to this decided conviction,
I have yielded, and I think events will prove that I have
judged rightly.
"Nevertheless, I pledge my honor to you, sir, that if you
shall hereafter form a plan to reunite the members of your
administration upon some steady principle of co-operation, I
will faithfully concur in executing it during my continuance
in office; and I will not, directly or indirectly, say or do
anything that shall endanger a feud."
Mr. Jefferson answered Washington, that no one regretted the dissentions
in the cabinet more than himself. "Though I take to myself," he said,
"no more than my share of the general observations of your letter, yet I
am so desirous even that you should know the whole truth, and believe no
more than the whole truth, that I am glad to seize every occasion of
developing to you whatever I do or think relative to the government, and
shall therefore ask permission to be more lengthy now than the occasion
particularly calls for, or would otherwise, perhaps, justify.
"When I embarked in the government, it was with a determination to
intermeddle not at all with the legislature, and as little as possible
with my co-departments. The first and only instance of variance from the
former part of my resolution I was duped into by the secretary of the
treasury, and made a tool for forwarding his schemes, not then
sufficiently understood by me; and of all the errors of my political
life, this has occasioned me the deepest regret.... If it has been
supposed that I have ever intrigued among the members of the legislature
to defeat the plans of the secretary of the treasury, it is contrary to
all truth.... That I have utterly, in my private conversations,
disapproved of the system of the secretary of the treasury I acknowledge
and avow; and this was not merely a speculative difference. His system
flowed from principles adverse to liberty, and was calculated to
undermine and demolish the republic by creating an influence of his
department over the members of the legislature. I saw this influence
actually produced, and its first fruits to be the establishment of the
great outlines of his project, by the votes of the very persons who,
having swallowed his bait, were laying themselves out to profit by his
plans; and that, had these persons withdrawn, as those interested in a
question ever should, the vote of the disinterested majority was clearly
the reverse of what they made it. These were no longer the votes, then,
of the representatives of the people, but of deserters from the rights
and interests of the people."
Mr. Jefferson then proceeded to justify his opinions and conduct, and to
defend himself against Hamilton's charges in Fenno's paper, which were:
first, that he (Jefferson) had written letters from Europe to his
friends in America to oppose the constitution while it was depending;
second, with a desire not to pay the public debt; third, with setting up
a paper to decry and slander the government. Jefferson pronounced all
these charges false. He declared that no man approved of more of the
constitution than himself--vastly more than Hamilton did; and that he
was ever anxious to pay the public debt. "This," he said, "makes exactly
the difference between Colonel Hamilton's views and my own. I would wish
the debt paid to-morrow; he wishes it never to be paid, but always to be
a thing wherewith to corrupt and manage the legislature."
Mr. Jefferson acknowledged that he favored the establishment of
Freneau's newspaper for reasons already alluded to,[38] because he
thought juster views of European affairs might be obtained through
publications from the _Leyden Gazette_ than any other foreign source.
"On the establishment of his paper," said Mr. Jefferson, "I furnished
him with the _Leyden Gazettes_, with an expression of my wish that he
would always translate and publish the material intelligence they
contained; and I continued to furnish them from time to time, as
regularly as I received them. But as to any other direction or
indication of my wish, how his press should be conducted, what sort
of intelligence he should give, what essays encourage, I can protest,
in the presence of Heaven, that I never did by myself or any other,
directly or indirectly, write, dictate, or procure any one sentiment
or sentence to be inserted _in his or any other gazette_, to which my
name was not affixed, or that of my office."
While Jefferson avowed his desire for harmony in the cabinet, he felt
the lash of Hamilton too keenly to accept reconciliation with him. He
avowed his intention to retire from his office at the close of the
president's term; and intimating an intention to make an appeal to the
country over his own signature, he said: "To a thorough disregard of the
honors and emoluments of office I join as great a value for the esteem
of my countrymen; and conscious of having merited it by an integrity
which can not be reproached, and by an enthusiastic devotion to their
rights and liberty, I will not suffer my retirement to be clouded by the
slanders of a man whose history, from the moment at which history can
stoop to notice him, is a tissue of machinations against the liberty of
the country which has not only received and given him bread, but heaped
its honors on his head."[39]
The spirit of Jefferson's letter afforded Washington no hope for
reconciliation between the secretaries. The contrast between his and
Hamilton's was remarkable. Hamilton held affectionate, courteous,
forbearing, and patriotic language toward the president; Jefferson's
exhibited much of the opposite qualities; and his implacable hatred of
the man whom he had scourged into active retaliation is very marked. It
gave Washington great pain, for he had the highest esteem for the
contestants.
At that time there were grave reasons why officers of the cabinet
should for the moment forget personal difficulties, and come as a unit
to the aid of the president. There were signs of disorder, and violence,
and serious insurrection in the land. The excise law enacted in 1791,
and modified and made less offensive during the last session of
Congress, was yet vehemently opposed in some parts of the country. In
western Pennsylvania, in particular, hostility to it had become the
sentiment of an organized party, and combinations were formed to prevent
the execution of it. A public meeting was held at Pittsburgh on the
twenty-first of August, at which resolutions were adopted disapproving
of the law, and appointing a committee to correspond with other
committees in different parts of the Union on the subject. It was really
a rebellious movement, as the temper of their closing resolution
indicated.[40]
Information of these proceedings having reached the secretary of the
treasury, he sent to the president all necessary papers on the subject
for his information, assuring him that he should submit to the
attorney-general the question whether the persons composing the meeting
at Pittsburgh had not committed an indictable offence. He gave it as his
opinion that it was expedient to exert the full form of the law against
the offenders. "If this is not done," he said, "the spirit of
disobedience will naturally extend, and the authority of the government
will be prostrated. Moderation enough has been shown: it is time to
assume a different tune." In subsequent letters he recommends the
issuing of a proclamation on the subject by the president, and sent a
draft of one to Washington. The president approved the measure,
submitted it to Jefferson, and on the fifteenth of September he issued a
proclamation, countersigned by the secretary of state, in which he
warned all persons to desist from such unlawful combinations and
proceedings, and requiring all courts, magistrates, and officers to
bring the offenders to justice. Copies of this proclamation were sent to
the governor of Pennsylvania, and also to the chief magistrates of North
and South Carolina, where a similar defiance of law has been manifested.
In this matter Washington proceeded with great prudence and caution. He
felt indignant at the great outrage thus offered to the government, but
was unwilling to employ force while more peaceful measures were left
untried. "I have no doubt," he said, "the proclamation will undergo many
strictures; and, as the effect proposed may not be answered by it, it
will be necessary to look forward in time to ulterior arrangements:"
that is to say, the employment of regular troops as a last resort.
As Washington intimated it might not, the proclamation produced no
salutary effect. Too many of the civil magistrates themselves were
concerned in the insurrectionary movements, and the few who were not
were totally incapable of maintaining the sovereignty of the laws. With
moderation the government instituted legal proceedings against the
offenders; liquors distilled in the rebellious counties were seized on
their way to market by revenue officers; and the agents of the army were
directed to purchase only those spirits upon which a duty had been paid.
Having their interests thus touched, the manufacturers of liquors would
gladly have complied with the laws, but the people would not allow them.
Subsequently, more serious defiance of the laws in western Pennsylvania
compelled the president to order a military force into that region. This
we will consider hereafter.
At the middle of October, Washington made another and last effort to
restore peace to his cabinet. Jefferson had recently returned to
Philadelphia, and his first care was to forward to the president
extracts from his letter written while the adoption of the constitution
was pending, Washington wrote to him on the eighteenth, and said: "I did
not require the evidence of the extracts, which you enclosed to me, to
convince me of your attachment to the constitution of the United States,
or of your disposition to promote the general welfare of this country:
but I regret, deeply regret, the difference in opinions which have
divided you and another principal officer of the government, and I wish
devoutly there would be an accommodation of them by mutual yieldings.
"A measure of this sort would produce harmony and consequent good in our
public councils. The contrary will inevitably introduce confusion and
serious mischiefs--and for what? Because mankind can not think alike,
but would adopt different means to attain the same end. For I will
frankly and solemnly declare, that I believe the views of both of you to
be pure and well meant, and that experience only will decide with
respect to the salutariness of the measures which are the subjects of
dispute. Why, then, when some of the best citizens in the United
States--men of discernment, uniform and tried patriots, who have no
sinister views to promote, but are chaste in their ways of thinking and
acting--are to be found some on one side and some on the other of the
questions which have caused these agitations, should either of you be so
tenacious of your opinions as to make no allowances for those of the
other? I could, and indeed was about to, add more on this interesting
subject, but will forbear, at least for the present, after expressing a
wish that the cup which has been presented to us may not be snatched
from our lips by a discordance of action, when I am persuaded there is
no discordance in your views. I have a great, a sincere esteem and
regard for you both, and ardently wish that some line may be marked out
by which both of you could walk."
Washington's efforts were unavailing. The breach between Hamilton and
Jefferson was too wide and deep to be healed, and the president
determined to check, as much as possible, if he could not control their
hostility. In one thing, however, these men, sincere patriots at heart,
perfectly agreed, namely, a desire that Washington should consent to a
re-election. As we have already observed, such being the universal wish
of the people, Washington reluctantly consented, and he was again chosen
president of the United States by a unanimous vote of the electoral
college.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] See page 198
[39] For the correspondence in full, see Hamilton's Works, volume iv;
Sparks's Life and Writings of Washington, volume x; Randall's Life of
Jefferson, volume ii.
[40] The following is the resolution referred to: "That, whereas some
men may be found amongst us, so far lost to every sense of virtue and
feeling for the distresses of this country as to accept offices for the
collection of the duty: _Resolved_, that in future we will consider such
persons as unworthy of our friendship, have no intercourse or dealings
with them, withdraw from them every assistance, withhold all the
comforts of life which depend upon those duties that as men and
fellow-citizens we owe to each other, and upon all occasions treat them
with that contempt they deserve; and that it be, and is hereby, most
earnestly recommended to the people at large to follow the same line of
conduct toward them."