Moderate spirit did not prevail. Many townships declared for continued resistance and where favorable majorities did exist, the minorities were violent. By September 9 hope for amicable settlement was dwindling. Regretfully Washington approved orders for a general rendezvous of militia. On the nineteenth Philadelphians watched as infantry and horse left on the road westward. Five days later Washington received word from the commissioners that means of conciliation had been exhausted. The next day the President issued a final proclamation against the insurgents. Marching orders for the militia meant corresponding command for Washington. He would journey to Carlisle, where the militia of Pennsylvania and New Jersey were to assemble, then proceed to Bedford for the rendezvous of the army. There he would determine whether he should advance with the troops or return to Philadelphia for the opening of Congress on November 3.
Washington’s carriage drove from the door of his Philadelphia residence on September 30. With the President were Hamilton, who now held the dual Department of Treasury and War, and Bartholomew Dandridge, private secretary. In the late evening a messenger met them with an official packet for Washington. In it the President found a letter from Wayne which told of brilliant successes against Indians in the Northwest Territory. Complete victory had culminated on August 20 in the Battle of Fallen Timbers against a horde of two thousand savages and their British auxiliaries. The “mortifying defeat” of Harmar and the slaughter of St. Clair’s men at last were avenged. Welcome news that the far frontier was safe from hostile Indians made all the more significant the immediate problems of the nearer frontier, threatened by hostile Americans.
As the presidential coach crossed the Susquehanna October 4 the Philadelphia Light Horse were waiting to escort the General and his party over the seventeen remaining miles to Carlisle. Some distance outside the town they were met by Governors Mifflin and Howell. Troops at the camp formed a long line of passage for the President, who advanced on horseback. Citizens, as well as soldiers, showed their joy at sight of him. Washington began on the sixth a week the like of which he had not experienced since the Revolution.
Washington had reason to hope that present trials would emerge in early triumph. As soon as proper alinement and provisioning of the troops at Carlisle were assured, he would proceed to Williamsport, Fort Cumberland and Bedford. By the first of November, if possible, he would return to Philadelphia. Meanwhile, his Annual Address must be prepared, whether or not he would present it in person. Washington requested Randolph to arrange the subject matter topically and forward it at once. The Secretary of War now had returned from Maine and his suggestions also were sought. Randolph remained alert to Washington’s requests and kept his chief informed of affairs in other quarters—encouraging evidence of improved conditions in Kentucky and reassurances that fear of another epidemic in Philadelphia had dissipated.
Militia were continually pouring into Carlisle, many of them well uniformed and equipped; but their arrival was unsystematic. The sooner Mifflin and Howell could start their men to Bedford the better. Washington himself mapped the course and planned the timing of the march. He directed Mifflin in coordinating the various units and secured Gen. Edward Hand as Adjutant. Assignments for the principal officers posed no problems. Governor Lee would rank them all, and in the event that Washington need not accompany the troops beyond Bedford, would be their Commander-in-Chief. Mifflin was second in authority and Howell, third. The dates of commission would determine which of the two Major Generals, Daniel Morgan and William Irvine, would serve in fourth place. By October 9 militia were welding into an impressive Army, and Washington was pleased with their appearance and with the spirit they exemplified. Now that General Orders were ready, he could divert his attention from military matters to the “Whiskey Boys” themselves.
About seven o’clock on the morning of October 9, William Findley and David Redick, emissaries from the insurgents, appeared at the President’s quarters. Washington received them politely, and explained that other duties must postpone examination of the paper they put into his hands—resolutions unanimously passed at a second meeting of the committee at Parkinson’s Ferry on October 2—but that he would confer with them the following morning. Before the deputies returned, Washington studied the three resolves. The first was an attempt at explanation for failure to obtain universal signatures of compliance—not so much owing to opposition to law as to lack of time or information to achieve the proper sentiment; the second was an assurance of submission on the part of the committee and of a “general disposition” to submit; the third commissioned Findley and Redick to wait on the President and Mifflin with these resolutions in order that Washington might judge whether armed force was necessary. When the two Western delegates appeared at the appointed hour, Washington addressed the deputies a forceful indictment against the grave evil and immeasurable injury caused by the insurrection. Findley and Redick then zealously presented the case of the malcontents.
Washington acknowledged hopeful evidences disclosed in the reports but pronounced them not convincing enough to justify a countermand to the troops. Offices of inspection could not yet be safely established except in the shadow of the Pittsburgh garrison. The President reminded Findley and Redick that in the face of approaching winter he could not vacillate in the matter of a military expedition. What earlier might have sufficed to stay a marching order now must be strengthened by “unequivocal proofs of absolute submission.” Such proofs still were lacking; the Army would proceed over the mountains. Reluctant to close the conference on this unhappy note, the deputies sought a second interview. Washington, in the company of Hamilton, saw them again that afternoon, only to reiterate his resolve. The General assured them that revengeful behavior of the troops would not be tolerated; that their duty lay in support of civil authority, not in execution of the laws themselves. Every precaution would be taken to keep them subordinate, but there must be no armed resistance; he could not answer for the consequences if a single gun was fired by the insurgents.
Even before Findley and Redick had their last interview with the President the march of men from Carlisle to Bedford had begun. On October 12 Washington, Hamilton and their entourage started the journey to Fort Cumberland. Two days at Fort Cumberland sufficed for a survey of the troops and gave opportunity for a review of plans with General Lee. Washington was pleased with what he found, and his spirits rose accordingly. The 3200 well provisioned men soon would be augmented by seventeen hundred additional soldiers from Virginia. A variety of reports and rumors caught up with the President at Fort Cumberland. Intelligence from the western counties was consistent; the people were alarmed but not yet completely chastened; submission was in proportion to the fear of nearby forces; let the Army withdraw and the rebellion again would rise. The Army would not withdraw.
The General was met outside Bedford by officers of distinction and was lodged in the town “very comfortably.” Homage to the President bore the exquisite compliment of dignity. Admiration of the crowds gathered in Bedford streets was the more impressive because it was silent. The same scarcely could be said of public response at the seat of government, for criticism of the President had not been lacking in the East. Republicans found pleasure in the charges of Westerners that the administration had sought an excuse to raise arms against them. Washington continued to denounce the Democratic Societies as fomenters of this antagonism; he was of a mind to reproach them in his forthcoming address to Congress. Nor was silence an attribute of Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Franklin and editor of the Philadelphia avidly Republican Aurora, and when Washington made known his plan to return by the end of October, he wished it understood that Bache’s impertinence in challenging his right to command the Army during a session of Congress had no influence on that decision.
On the twentieth staff officers met for a final conference with Washington and Lee. It was decided to put the Army in motion by October 23 and converge the two wings on Parkinson’s Ferry. Full instructions for Lee were finis
hed, but the departing Commander-in-Chief wished still to write a farewell message to the militia. It was addressed to Lee to be published with General Orders. Once again Washington emphasized the priority of civil over military discipline—his unvarying political principle. As he climbed into his carriage October 21, his most particular good-bye was said to Hamilton, who would proceed with Lee at the head of the left wing. By noon October 28 the Chief Executive was again in Philadelphia.
Since the session of Congress was to open November 3, Washington turned immediately to the preparation of his annual message. Randolph had promised to have a draft “in sufficient forwardness” on the President’s return, but so much diverse communication had gathered in the past month that Washington would be compelled to read for hours to acquaint himself with the closer points of each piece of national business.
Washington did not have to hurry a final draft of his address to Congress. Neither the Senate nor the House was ready for business on November 3, and a week and a day passed before the House alone could count a quorum. This gave the President time to make thoughtful choice of matters to be emphasized and words with which to portray them. A month earlier Randolph had suggested that the moment was at hand to deliver a fatal blow to the widespread Democratic Societies. Washington needed little support for his conviction that the clubs must be chastised. He would discuss the insurrection roundly in his message to Congress, and he would censure the Democratic Societies in an explicit way.
By November 6 the language of the address had been chosen, but thoughts of the insurrection disturbed the Chief Executive for at least two weeks more, though letters from Hamilton came in almost every post and were reassuring. By the second week of November he was detailing a plan for seizure of stills and mass arrests to begin on November 12 in Washington County. On the fifteenth he wrote that, though twenty leaders already were confined, “the bad spirit is evidently not subdued” and it appeared “indispensable” that a military force be left to police western Pennsylvania that winter. Two days later some 150 insurgents were under guard and awaiting civil trial at Pittsburgh, and Lee’s Army stood ready for the homeward march. Maj. Gen. Daniel Morgan was assigned to camp for the winter on the Monongahela with a small body of troops, and Hamilton notified the President November 19 that the Army was in motion and that he was setting out for Philadelphia. Only when Washington received this word did his last apprehension disappear.
CHAPTER / 22
Mention of Wayne’s dramatic victory over the Indians would lend cheer to the Annual Address, but Washington might have wished that later news from the Northwest had been as auspicious as the account of the battle of August 20. Wayne was again complaining of poor recruitment and urging a large army to insure the peace of the pioneer country. Nor was there promising word from Timothy Pickering, who had been sent to Canandaigua to reaffirm the friendship of Joseph Brant and the Six Nations. More disquieting would be the omission from Washington’s text of any news of improvement in relations with Great Britain. Jay’s communications could be considered encouraging to a limited degree only. As yet there had been no dispatch from Monroe, though it was said unofficially that the Jacobins had fallen from power in July and that he had been received at Paris. The European war could be expected to proceed on a large scale, for, despite domestic upheaval, France had enjoyed spectacular success in the summer campaign. Reflective of this was Fauchet’s attitude, which had become abrasive in recent months, but Randolph maintained that it was more important than ever to keep France in “good humor” because the outcome of Jay’s negotiation with the British was so uncertain. Finally, on November 18, the Senate formed its quorum and to a joint committee of legislators who visited him that afternoon Washington announced his intention to address Congress the next day.
Almost his first words gave the clue that Washington meant to describe at some length the background, incipiency and suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion, and he was fully twenty minutes on this topic. He had, he declared, done all in his power to preserve and defend the Constitution as the oath of office required. Then came the President’s plea: “On you, gentlemen, and the people by whom you are deputed, I rely for support.” The rest of his text Washington finished in five or six minutes. Wayne’s victory, he said, was decisive, but always the object of Indian policy would be peace rather than punishment. To the House he directed a request for some plan to redeem the public indebtedness. On external affairs he could declare only that the Executive continued to strive for amity with every power. He made pointed reference to recent domestic dissensions caused by the spread of the so-called Democratic Societies. In closing he urged all Americans to “implore the Supreme Ruler of nations to spread His holy protection over these United States, to turn the machinations of the wicked to the confirming of our Constitution, to enable us at all times to root out internal sedition, and to put invasion to flight. . . .” Washington then handed copies of the address to the Vice President and the Speaker. The audience stood at silent attention as he left the chamber.
On November 20 the President’s office transmitted to Congress all documents on the Pennsylvania insurrection, as well as reports from Wayne and the Georgia frontier. The next day Washington advised the Senate of his plan to send Thomas Pinckney from London to Spain as envoy extraordinary. Although he continued to have full confidence in William Short, now the sole Minister at Madrid, it was his hope that a special mission would bring to “a happy and speedy issue” the protracted negotiation for commercial rights on the Mississippi. So aware was the President of growing unrest in Kentucky that already he had dispatched Col. James Innes to Lexington to assure disgruntled Westerners that their needs had not been forgotten.
It did not take the Senate long to make formal acknowledgment of the President’s annual message. On the twenty-third Adams brought the Senate in a group to Washington’s house and read the statement which had been adopted the day before. The Senate approved unequivocally the use of militia by the President and shared his condemnation of “the proceedings of certain self-created societies.” Washington replied gratefully, but he was to be disappointed if he expected the House to render promptly like acknowledgment. That body found itself so divided by the tenor of the address that a debate of five days’ duration followed the introduction of a draft reply on November 24. Madison, its principal author, had phrased a paragraph so as to withhold any specific endorsement of the measures of the Executive in the realm of foreign relations; but after sustained argument the Virginian and his Republican cohorts retreated somewhat on this point. They retreated not at all in the face of a Federalist resolution to include an expression approving the President’s denunciation of the Democratic Societies. Madison’s draft with a minor amendment was adopted November 28, and the next day Washington met the legislators who came to deliver the formal statement of the House. The address was polished, but there was nowhere the hint of a reference to the clubs. The President noted this and replied politely but briefly. Later the same day he signed an act by which Congress authorized the Executive to station a corps of militia in western Pennsylvania for a limited time.
A resolution of thanks to General Wayne was approved on December 4, and Congress fell quiet for many days thereafter. Together with weekly letters to Pearce, Washington found time for correspondence on a matter that had been in the back of his mind since he returned to Philadelphia. As he had expressed to Adams in November, it was an old opinion of his that “a national university in this country is a thing to be desired,” and he looked forward to “a full and free conversation” with the Vice President on that subject. His hope was that a university would be built in the Federal City and, thinking of his fifty shares in the Potomac Company as an endowment for this purpose, he asked Randolph to consult with Madison “to mature the measures which will be proper for me to pursue in order to bring my designs into view.”
Since both Hamilton and Knox were about to leave the Cabinet, Washington’s great concern at the moment was the
choice of their successors. Hamilton had notified the President that he wished to be relieved on the last day of January; Knox mentioned early in the month that December 31 would be his last day, and a formal note to that effect came to Washington’s desk on the twenty-eighth. In acknowledgment, the President assured Knox of “my most perfect persuasion that you have deserved well of our country,” and two days later sent to Congress the long summation by the Secretary of War on the condition of the frontier. Knox was sharply critical of the encroachments of pioneers upon Indian land guaranteed by treaty; he suggested that punishment for violations be meted out to white man and red man alike. Washington added his own comment that “the disorders and the great expenses which incessantly arise upon the frontiers are of a nature and magnitude to excite the most serious considerations.” As yet there was no hint of Hamilton’s successor; but the new Secretary of War would be an experienced Indian negotiator, Postmaster General Timothy Pickering.
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