Jefferson and Hamilton

by John Ferling

  Leaving behind his pregnant wife—who suffered a miscarriage in his absence—Hamilton on October 4 donned full military regalia and rode west with the president.57 At Carlisle, Washington took charge of a larger army than he had commanded much of the time during the Revolutionary War. Being back in military surroundings was an intoxicant for Hamilton. He was swept up by cadence of marching soldiers, the stirring sounds of drums and fifes, and the sight of Washington in his familiar old uniform astride his white charger. Hamilton, on his mount, was ready for glory.

  Washington did not linger with the army. Unwilling to tarnish his reputation by killing American citizens, the president soon departed for Mount Vernon, surrendering command to Governor Lee. Hamilton displayed no reluctance to spill blood. He vengefully called those who defied federal law “madmen” and “wicked insurgents.” Denying that he was “a quixot,” Hamilton loudly proclaimed that every whiskey rebel must be “skewered, shot, or hanged on the first tree.” He even pressed fellow Federalists in Congress to enact a “law regulating a process of outlawry” so that the insurgents’ property might be confiscated and those who fled could be hunted down and legally killed. The utmost “vigour” was essential, he said, in order to root out the “political putrefaction of Pennsylvania.”58

  The pomp and ceremony of the first days at Carlisle soon gave way to reality. Once the army began its westward march, appalling supply shortages persisted. The “troops are every where a head of their supplies,” Hamilton complained. Not long passed before he called what was happening an embarrassment. Next, he began to suspect chicanery on the part of teamsters and businessmen. “I directed some Cloathing to be forwarded. Not an iota of them has arrived,” he fulminated a week into the march. For that matter, “Not a shoe, blanket or ounce of ammunition” had reached the men. Pennsylvania’s autumn nights were chilly, and men suffered from “nakedness,” just as their predecessors had in the War of Independence. Frantically, Hamilton wrote to authorities in Philadelphia: “For God’s sake … Let some cloathing come forward.”59 The officers, of course, lived more comfortably, just as in the last war. It was a pattern that prompted the author of the most complete history of the Whiskey Rebellion to write: “The journals of officers often read like tourist guides to taverns and scenery along the route, while enlisted men’s diaries recounted weeks of hunger and cold.”60

  The campaign provided Hamilton with little glory, as the insurgents did not put up a fight. The army rounded up some 150 suspected rebels, many of whom were treated harshly before being released. Only 20 were held for prosecution, and they were forced to make a pitiless winter’s march across Pennsylvania to Philadelphia to stand trial. Hoping they would be treated unsparingly, Hamilton confided to the president that he longed for the judiciary to make examples of them as “traitors.” Ultimately, just 2 of the whiskey rebels were convicted. One was an imbecile, the other a madman. Washington pardoned both.61

  Jefferson neither defended nor assailed the whiskey rebels, but he was appalled by Washington’s decision to send “such an armament against people at their ploughs.” He saw hypocrisy in the administration’s patience in the face of “the kicks and scuffs of our [British] enemies” on the high seas, yet its haste at “arming one part of the society against another.” It was clear to him that Hamilton was behind the use of force. Raising the army, said Jefferson, answered the treasury secretary’s “favorite purposes of strengthening government and increasing the public debt; and therefore an insurrection was announced and proclaimed and armed against, and marched against, but could never be found.”62

  Jefferson was not surprised that in his absence Hamilton had come close to becoming America’s equivalent of a prime minister, but he was shocked by what came next. In his annual State of the Union address, Washington defended his action, attributing the insurgency to the Democratic-Republican Societies, which through the “arts of delusion” had “fostered and embittered” the “passions” of the western farmers.63 It was a theme that would be repeated throughout American political history by those who cried that dissent was unfounded and due to the manipulation of the likes of “reds” and “outside agitators.”

  Republicans were furious. In its official response to the speech, the House of Representatives pointedly refused to censure the Democratic-Republican Societies. Jefferson was no less outraged, as he saw Washington’s remarks as a direct assault on free speech. Believing he had long since divined Hamilton part and parcel, Jefferson now understood something else. As Madison put it to him, the president’s actions and speech amounted to the “final triumph” of the Federalists, for they had brought Washington into their camp. Jefferson concurred.64

  Chapter 12

  “A colossus to the antirepublican party”

  The Election of 1796

  Soon after returning from western Pennsylvania, Hamilton notified Washington of his intention to leave the cabinet at the end of January 1795. As the treasury secretary had already postponed his retirement for eighteen months, Washington made no attempt to dissuade Hamilton, though the president acknowledged that he had always wished to prevent his leaving. Thereafter, in a nearly identical letter to the one he had written when Jefferson departed, Washington thanked Hamilton for his steadfast service and loyalty.1

  Skepticism greeted newspaper accounts that Hamilton was forced to return to private life by his “poverty,” but it was true.2 He was in debt. Unlike a host of today’s public figures, Hamilton had not grown rich from public service. But he estimated that within five or six years of reopening his law practice, he would be on his feet again.3

  Friends understood his plight, though even they doubted Hamilton when he said that he never planned to return to public life.4 He was only forty, three years younger than Washington had been when he had taken command of the Continental army and the same age as Jefferson when the war ended. Moreover, Hamilton confided to acquaintances that he expected his legal work to be “much less” satisfying than his years as treasury secretary. Attentive friends saw him as restless and ambitious, not especially interested in personal wealth but obsessed with the power and authority of the national government. They had heard him admit that Jeffersonianism “haunts me every step I take” and remark that a part of him believed that Jefferson would not long remain in retirement. They had also heard him express concern that public opinion was swinging away from the Federalists. Some had heard him state that it was “Torture” to watch Madison and Aaron Burr, among other Republicans, as they “sported with” the destruction of the “good footing” he had fabricated for the nation through his funding and banking systems. Friends knew that Hamilton was convinced that the Jeffersonians would harm the nation, even that they loved the United States less than he did. They heard him wonder: “Am I then more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American Ground?”5

  Hamilton spent several leisurely weeks with his family in Albany, but as summer approached he rented a house and office in Manhattan and resumed his legal practice. He had been tending to the law only a month before Washington reached out to him.

  Just days after Hamilton departed Philadelphia, the president received the treaty that John Jay had negotiated. Washington was disappointed. One look at the Jay Treaty must have convinced him that Jefferson had been correct all along in saying that Great Britain would not alter its stance toward America. While London agreed to pay compensation for the damages that had resulted from its seizure of American ships and cargoes, it refused to liberalize its trade policies with America. Nor would London shorten its outlandishly lengthy list of contraband items, indemnify slave owners for their chattel taken away by British armed forces during the late war, or recognize the right of neutrals to trade with whomever they wished in wartime. Furthermore, Jay’s negotiations produced nothing new with regard to America’s western problems. His accord replicated the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1783: Britain was to evacuate the northwest posts and Americans were to pay the prewar debts owed Britis
h creditors. The president was most disappointed by Article XII. He had hoped that London would open its West Indian ports to American shipping. Instead, only small American ships—vessels about one-fifth the size of ordinary merchant ships—would be permitted to trade in those ports, and in addition, America’s merchants were forbidden to re-export goods from the West Indies to other parts of the world.

  Washington knew the Jay Treaty would trigger a firestorm. He also knew that the pact’s rejection might set in motion a trail of events leading to war with Britain and its ally Spain, two powerful nations whose colonies stretched along the flanks and hindquarters of the United States. Washington wanted peace, fearing disaster for the weak, strife-torn United States in another round of warfare. He opted to submit the treaty to the Senate, where the Federalists held precisely the two-thirds majority needed for ratification. To help assure this outcome, the president kept the terms of the treaty secret until the Senate met. It was a savvy move that prevented a lengthy onslaught in the Republican press prior to Senate action, and it worked. Voting along political and sectional lines, the Senate ratified the Jay Treaty, though its approval was conditional on the exclusion of Article XII. Every Federalist voted for ratification, every Republican against it; 90 percent of those voting for ratification represented northern states, and 70 percent who voted against it were from southern or western states.

  Once ratification was out of the way, Washington had to decide whether to accept the treaty. He first asked Hamilton to assess the accord. It was the president’s first communication with Hamilton in the four months since the treasury secretary had left his cabinet. Washington had not inquired about Hamilton’s well-being in retirement—nor had he asked Jefferson how he was doing—and in a businesslike letter devoid of niceties, he simply requested Hamilton’s opinion.6

  Hamilton responded within a couple of days with a six-thousand-word answer. He analyzed the treaty article by article, quibbling about much of the wording, as if to say that he might have done a better job, though on the whole he was positive. In 1789 Hamilton had told Colonel Beckwith that the United States would agree to trade in the British West Indies even if London restricted the size of America’s vessels; however, he now objected to Article XII, calling it “unprecedented & wrong.” Even so, he urged acceptance of the treaty, asserting that it “closes … as reasonably as could have been expected the controverted points between the two countries.” Hamilton added that the Jay Treaty not only assured that the United States would regain its western posts, “an object of primary consequence in our affairs,” but also, and above all, it would enable the United States to escape “the dreadful war which is ruining Europe.”7

  On very nearly the same day that Hamilton first saw the treaty, Jefferson received a copy from one of Virginia’s two senators. Jefferson’s reaction could hardly have been more different. Though he did not speak out publicly, Jefferson told correspondents that the accord was “infamous,” “a monument of folly or venality,” and a “treaty of alliance between England and the Anglomen of this country against … the people of the United states.” Even at the risk of war, Jefferson said he preferred reciprocity to the Federalists’ treaty with their “patron-nation.”8

  Hamilton meanwhile wasted little time before publicly defending the treaty. His action was part of another astute strategy on the part of the president. Washington might have accepted the treaty in mid-July, as there is no reason to believe that his views differed in the least from those of Hamilton, but he wanted public opinion to form in support of the treaty before he acted. Washington claimed that he was awaiting the advice of “dispassionate” men before making up his mind, but Hamilton was the only person he consulted, and the president had his answer within three weeks of the Senate’s vote. Having gotten Hamilton’s opinion, Washington as much as asked his former secretary to publicly defend the Jay Treaty against its attackers, who he said were howling “like … a mad-dog.” Washington even coached him on what to say in defense of the treaty.9

  Hamilton required neither mentoring nor arm twisting to spring into action. The Jay Treaty was crucial for his economic program. In mid-July, he spoke at a public meeting outside New York’s City Hall, a gathering called by Republicans who wished to draft a statement beseeching Washington not to sign the treaty. A rowdy crowd of some five hundred mostly anti-treaty proponents were still present when Hamilton spoke late in the afternoon. Hecklers had a field day. Some tried to shout him down, others to silence him by “hissings, coughings, and hootings.” Rocks were hurled at him. According to a suspect story that circulated, Hamilton was struck in the head, after which he responded: “if you use such knock-down arguments, I must retire.” He did angrily storm off the speaker’s stand and soon thereafter came close to fisticuffs with some in the crowd. Still later on this busy, hot day, Hamilton challenged two men who verbally assaulted him to duels. One had slandered him by accusing him of cowardice for once having refused to fight a duel. Both accepted Hamilton’s challenges, though in the end cooler heads prevailed and the combatants never faced off on the dueling ground.10

  Hamilton subsequently spoke to friendlier audiences of merchants and Federalists, but his principal activity was to do as Washington wished. He wrote polemics that sought to alter public opinion. Hamilton collaborated with Senator Rufus King of New York to produce thirty-eight pieces in a series titled “The Defence.” Hamilton penned almost three-fourths of the essays, often churning out three a week, and he rushed his first into print only eight days after hearing from the president.

  Hamilton opened with his familiar slash-and-burn tactics. The foes of the Jay Treaty, he charged, were Francophiles who for years had been “steadily endeavouring to make the United States a party in the present European war.” What is more, the treaty’s opponents wished to prevent a normalization of relations with London in order to improve Jefferson’s chances of succeeding Washington. Thereafter, he largely elaborated on the points he had made privately to Washington. His most crucial argument was that the United States would not be adequately prepared for war for at least another decade. The beauty of the Jay Treaty was that it prevented immediate hostilities while buying time to resolve other issues that strained Anglo-American relations. It offered hope that “we may … postpone war to a distant period.”11

  Washington was pleased, and after reading the partisan assault on the Jeffersonians, the president congratulated Hamilton on the “satisfactory manner” of his response. By the time Hamilton’s eighth essay appeared, Washington had signed the treaty into law and privately told his confederate that he “sincerely regret[ted]” that he no longer was part of the cabinet. It was a sentiment the president never expressed to Jefferson.12

  Hamilton was unaware of perhaps the greatest compliment paid to him. It came from Jefferson, who recognized that Hamilton was at least in part responsible for a shift in public opinion toward the treaty. Even the merchants, Jefferson said, had originally been “open-mouthed … against the treaty,” but Hamilton had brought them around. Through what Jefferson called Hamilton’s “boldest act,” the “hue and cry” against the pact had been redirected onto its foes. To these tributes, Jefferson lauded what his adversary had been able to achieve: “Hamilton is really a colossus to the antirepublican party. Without numbers, he is an host within himself.”13

  Jefferson encouraged Madison to take on Hamilton in the press. Though Madison demurred, he fought the treaty in the House of Representatives by attempting to block the appropriations needed to implement the accord. Jefferson neither criticized nor endorsed such a strategy, though in a sense he had encouraged Madison, telling him that the Federalists “have got themselves into a defile.”14 Jefferson reasoned that in time, when the public understood that the Jay Treaty imperiled France, opinion would turn against the act. Madison gambled on that premise, but lost. He stretched out the battle deep into the spring of 1796, but ultimately lost the contest when the House agreed by a three-vote margin to appropriate the funds.
>
  During the nip-and-tuck battle, Washington had again encouraged Hamilton to “shew the impropriety” of Madison’s action. Hamilton immediately rushed out a broadside arguing that the House had no constitutional authority on the subject of treaties. The issue was stark: The “CONSTITUTION and PEACE are in one scale—the overthrow of the CONSTITUTION and WAR in the other.” Madison, he charged, was acting on behalf of a “VIRGINIA FACTION, constantly endeavoring” to plunge the United States into one of Europe’s “most dreadful Wars.” Jefferson and Madison thought that Washington’s foursquare support of the treaty had saved it, but with votes up for grabs even in New York’s delegation in the House, and the outcome razorthin, Hamilton’s last-ditch essay may have been no less crucial.15

  The long battle over the Jay Treaty was important in another sense. To this point, neither the Federalists nor the Republicans were true political parties, but the life-and-death issues at stake in this foreign policy clash caused both to begin construction of what one historian has called “national policy machinery.”16 The emergence of something resembling modern political parties may have been about to occur anyway. Rumors abounded that Washington, who would turn sixty-five just as his second term ended, planned to step down. If so, the election of 1796 would be the first real presidential election and party organization could be the difference between victory and defeat.