On New Year’s Day 1795 President Washington entertained members of Congress at his house with a repast of cake and wine. The next morning Pickering’s nomination went to the Senate, together with the fine treaties he had obtained from the Six Nations and the Oneidas. While the month was as quiet in Philadelphia as the weather was mild, the President longed more and more to return to the life of a planter. “I can religiously aver,” he wrote Edmund Pendleton, “that no man was ever more tired of public life, or more devoutly wished for retirement than I do.”
On January 28 the President showed manifest satisfaction in a letter to the commissioners of the Federal City:
It has always been a source of serious reflection and sincere regret with me that the youth of the United States should be sent to foreign countries for the purpose of education. . . . We ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds from being too strongly and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems before they are capable of appreciating their own. For this reason, I have greatly wished to see a plan adopted by which the arts, sciences, and belles lettres could be taught in their fullest extent. . . .
If, therefore, he declared, a plan for a national university in the Federal City could be devised and set in motion, he would endow the project with his fifty shares of Potomac Company stock.
Hamilton’s departure from office was imminent and, he was retiring just as the House of Representatives entertained proposals for the gradual extinction of the public debt, some $78,000,000 which the government had assumed under Hamilton’s stewardship of national finance. On January 16, the day debate on redemption of the debt reached momentary climax in the House, Hamilton announced his wish to submit sweeping recommendations on the subject. Caught unaware, Republicans acceded to his request, but further debate was postponed. Three final communications from Hamilton came to the President’s desk on Saturday the thirty-first; Washington notified the Secretary formally on Monday that his resignation was accepted. “In every relation which you have borne to me,” the President testified, “I have found that my confidence in your talents, exertions and integrity has been well placed.” This same day Oliver Wolcott, Comptroller of the Treasury since 1789, was named as Hamilton’s successor. By the middle of February, as a plan for debt reduction took shape in the House, the retired Secretary was en route with his family to their home in Albany.
Washington submitted to Congress on February 4 a report Randolph had drafted on the Dutch loan, a subject the President thought “extremely interesting and urgent.” More interesting yet would be the next official mail from England, for the last day of January had at last brought unofficial news that Jay had concluded a treaty with the British late in November. The text of the treaty should come in time to be delivered to the Senate before adjournment of Congress on March 3. Meanwhile the President had private correspondence to answer and routine duties to perform. On February 17 he conferred with the Secretary of War on a matter which alarmed both men; that morning he sent to Congress copies of two recent acts of the legislature of Georgia which had thrown open some fifty million acres of Indian land to purchase by speculators. Georgia was giving legal countenance to a dangerous practice which Washington thought might “deeply affect the peace and welfare of the United States.” Congress, he hoped, would take appropriate action.
Sudden severe weather and an incidence of pleurisy in Philadelphia made Congress anxious to adjourn, but still the European mail yielded no communication from Jay. The President was obliged to announce in a confidential message February 28 that nothing had come. There was fresh news from Wayne to offset this disappointment: preliminary articles of a treaty of peace had been approved by chiefs of the four principal tribes of the Northwest. Fourteen bills, most of them of minor importance, came for Washington’s signature on March 2 and 3. Late on the third, just before adjournment, the President notified Adams and each Senator individually that their presence in a special session would be required on June 8, 1795, to deliberate upon “certain matters touching the public good.” If Washington’s language was guarded, it was because he was increasingly unsure that a treaty with Great Britain actually had been concluded. If indeed Jay had signed a treaty in November, where was it?
On March 7 the long wait ended. David Blaney, a homeward-bound Virginian whom Jay had entrusted to deliver a set of the important papers, reached Randolph’s office that morning after a hard ride from Norfolk, his port of debarkation. Evidently Jay’s originals had gone astray, for these letters and documents were third copies, but the papers were complete and their seal unbroken. Here, at last, was the text of the “Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation” signed by Jay and Lord Grenville on November 19, together with dispatches to the Secretary of State and a letter to the President. Jay’s words to Randolph were those of a man who had done his best: “I have no reason to believe or conjecture that [a treaty] more favorable to us is attainable.” To Washington he wrote simply, “It must speak for itself. . . . To do more was not possible.”
Jay’s meaning came clear as soon as the twenty-eight articles had been examined closely. Certainly their terms appeared to be much more advantageous to Great Britain than to the United States. Only Article Two, England’s pledge to evacuate the western posts, seemed a real achievement for Jay—and this was marred by a condition that complete withdrawal need not be effected until June 1, 1796. The third article gave Canadian trappers, traders and Indians free access to the Northwest Territory and use of its rivers, the Mississippi included; Americans were granted the same privileges, however valueless, in Canada. Under the fifth and sixth articles, provision was made for eventual establishment of commissions to study the question of boundaries and the intricate problem of pre-Revolution debts owed to British merchants. Article Seven provided joint arbitration on recent American losses at sea as a result of illegal captures by English commanders. The remainder of the treaty dealt with conditions on which trade between the two nations was to be regulated in the future. Rules for commercial reciprocity between the United States and the British homeland were the usual ones in this kind of agreement, but Washington scarcely could have been satisfied with Article Twelve. Here the important intercourse between the United States and the British West Indies was tilted heavily in favor of English carriers. Only American ships of seventy tons or less could engage in this traffic; British merchant vessels of any capacity were allowed to compete. Worse was the stipulation that no American ship could clear a West Indies port, or any British port, with certain cargoes bound for France or a neutral station. These cargoes were largely the products for which France was willing to pay a premium. A final blow came as Washington read the eighteenth article: England reserved the right to declare and seize, whenever she chose, all foodstuffs and provisions as contraband of war.
Jay’s pact had fallen woefully short of the objectives of his assignment. Nowhere was there reference to compensation for slaves carried off during the Revolution. Nor was there acknowledgment of the claim for losses arising out of England’s retention of the western posts. The treaty failed to restrict the flagrant practices of the British admiralty—search and impressment; it did nothing to credit the cherished American principle that free ships made their cargoes free. Yet the final product of Jay’s extended negotiation did dispel for the United States the imminence of war against the most formidable naval power in the world. With all its limitations, Jay’s treaty did seem to guarantee peace; this was its basic accomplishment, a great one. As the Constitution required the consent of the Senate to ratification, the treaty would have to remain for three months in the custody of the Executive. The President and the Secretary of State agreed that its text must be kept exclusively in their confidence until the instrument could be delivered to the Senate for verdict. Perhaps by that time Jay would be home from England and able to defend his handiwork against attacks which seemed inevitable.
Washington had not seen Mount Vernon for eight months. With spring before
him, the President’s weekly letters to Pearce grew more detailed in instruction and deeper in concern. As soon as the condition of the roads permitted, he would make a brief visit to Virginia. Before he took leave of Philadelphia, he meant to clear his mind of the persistent vexation of Indian affairs. Now that Congress had risen without adopting a measure to avert possible hostilities between the Creeks and the State of Georgia, Washington thought it necessary “to take up the subject upon a full and comprehensive scale, that some systematic plan may be resolved on and steadily pursued during the recess.” He asked Pickering to study the question and devise a program. Towards the end of March the Secretary of War had ready careful instructions for Governor Blount of the Southwest Territory and for James Seagrove, Indian agent in Georgia. The President wished to consider also the situation of the northwest frontier. Accordingly, he requested Pickering to develop a plan for establishment of the Presque Isle garrison on Lake Erie and prepare orders for Wayne’s peace negotiation with the hostile tribes.
On April 2 the President and Martha gave a formal dinner to which the English, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch ministers brought their wives. Two days later Washington signed credentials for David Humphreys, returning to the Barbary States as Commissioner Plenipotentiary after a short visit to America. His own departure for Mount Vernon could not be too soon, but a rainstorm on April 13 delayed it one day more.
In his passage south the President’s attention necessarily was fixed on a complexity of problems that awaited him in the Federal City. Thomas Johnson, former Federal commissioner, had written graphically: “The success of the City has now become important to your reputation. It is a favorite object with you and not less so with me, though the reward will be as unequal as our powers and merits. For you will stand as the first figure . . . whilst I shall be junk in the undistinguished group in the background.” Johnson’s carping tone was the result of a dispute between him and the incumbent commissioners. Washington regretted this altercation between the present commissioners and “one of the old set” and in March had asked Lear to investigate discreetly. In Georgetown on April 19 the President was disappointed to find that Lear was in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He did see Johnson and talked briefly with Commissioners Carroll and Stuart. Then Washington encountered William Thornton and quickly perceived that this commissioner was inimicable towards Johnson. When Thornton declared he would forward all evidence in the dispute to Mount Vernon at once, Washington saw a way to say good-bye and hurried across the Potomac in time to reach his door before nightfall.
It had been the President’s hope “to take a transient view of the situation of my private concerns,” but there was little time for this in the single week he planned to remain at Mount Vernon. A letter arriving on April 25 recalled the President’s thoughts disagreeably to Philadelphia. Randolph had written to say that the Dutch Minister Resident, Van Berckel, had dismissed his counsul, Heinaken, and desired the United States to take formal notice of the action. Compliance in this would be tantamount to a renewal of American recognition of the United Netherlands. This would be awkward, for it was known unofficially that unrest prevailed in Holland—that the government was tottering as French agitators attempted to erect a “Batavian Republic” on the Jacobin model. Would the Secretary of State please conduct a Cabinet study of Heinaken’s case and have written opinions assembled when the President returned?
Late on Sunday April 26 Washington began his return ride to Philadelphia. In Georgetown on the twenty-eighth he chose Alexander White, a lawyer of Frederick County, to fill the vacancy among the commissioners of the Federal District which had been created by the resignation of Carroll. The President was back at the seat of government by noon on May 2, his desk clear of urgent business. He was aware of a deepened estrangement between Secretary of State Randolph and Minister Fauchet and received the warning of Gouverneur Morris that the new rulers in Paris meant to annul the Franco-American treaties of 1778. But in the month that followed the President’s most significant occupation was with the projects of Secretary of War Pickering towards a fresh negotiation with the Creeks.
Towards the end of May the President and the Secretary of State were in daily expectation of the arrival of Jay from England. In the partisan opinion of Republican John Beckley their eagerness for Jay’s return betrayed a deep fear that the treaty would fail in the Senate if its architect did not appear beforehand to explain and support his work. Beckley proceeded to hint that Randolph was weary of the Secretaryship and longed to replace Jay in the chair of Chief Justice. Jay’s resignation from the Court had become imminent by reason of his election as Governor of New York. Confirmation of Jay’s victory preceded by just two days his debarkation at New York on May 28. The envoy notified Randolph that evening that his unsettled state of health would not permit a journey to Philadelphia at the moment. On June 1 he wrote to ask Randolph to visit him in New York. The Secretary of State ruled out this possibility and set forth instead seven questions on Jay’s negotiation with Grenville, “thrown together from memory only,” but admittedly in search of “views more striking than those which have originated with myself.” Jay had written philosophically in February “that no attainable settlement or treaty would give universal satisfaction.” To this belief he held. His reply to Randolph was so matter-of-fact as to be of no use in the formulation of a presidential message to accompany the treaty in its hour of trial.
Speculation was frenzied over the probable fate of the treaty at the hands of the Senate, over the consequences at home and abroad if ratified and if not. On June 8, the day designated for the special session, twenty-four members of the Senate had taken their seats. Caleb Strong and John Langdon came that morning to inform the President that a quorum existed; Washington replied he would deliver the treaty and pertinent documents immediately, and did so with only the barest message of transmission.
Washington received regular news of the debate that now engaged the Senate in closed chambers. Federalist Senators moved in phalanx to strike down two motions which proposed an immediate publication of the treaty and pertinent papers. Republican Senators muttered and tightened their line of battle. By the fifteenth both sides were poised for a war of dialectics—and Article XII provided the material for contention. This was the “West India article,” which allowed small American ships to trade with the British islands but forbade reexportation of their produce to Europe. Federalists saw real inequity in the clause and recognized it as a large obstacle to ratification. Better to remove the barrier themselves, they thought, than to permit it to become a rallying point for hostile opinion. On the sixteenth, Federalist tacticians shifted attention to other sections of the treaty and the next day made a motion to approve the remaining twenty-seven articles and “recommend . . . further friendly negotiations” on Article XII. Deliberation of the proposal occupied the Senate the rest of the week.
The debate was of such significance that the President found it difficult to turn his mind to routine matters, but he was diverted briefly by the arrival of a new envoy from France. He was Pierre Adet, sent by the Directory to replace the representative of the fallen Jacobins, Fauchet. Adet was the third young man in two years to come from France with full ministerial powers; Washington hoped he would prove more a diplomat than Fauchet or Genet.
On June 22 deliberations in the Senate took an alarming turn. Aaron Burr, the able New York Republican, moved that further consideration of the treaty be postponed and that the Executive be asked to reopen negotiation on seven points. Burr’s motion was killed on the twenty-third, but it stimulated a defection in Federalist solidarity which made the next day one of crisis and climax. When John Adams’s gavel summoned the Senate to order on June 24, Jacob Read of South Carolina, a newly seated Federalist whose regularity was taken for granted, asked that an addition be made to the motion of June 17: England should be required to make compensation for Negroes carried away during the Revolution. Federalist managers persuaded Read to withdraw his unexpected proposal
, but the Federalist column appeared to be weakening. Republicans took the offensive with a sweeping suggestion to reject the treaty forthwith and recommend that the President “continue his endeavors . . . to adjust the real causes of complaint” between the United States and Great Britain. The initiative then passed to the Federalists, who urged an immediate roll call on their motion to consent to all of the treaty except Article XII. The motion carried 20 to 10. By exactly the Constitutional requirement of a two-thirds vote, the Senate had agreed to a conditional ratification of Jay’s treaty.
Washington could not know what was expected of him at this juncture. The language of the Senate was inconclusive. It might imply that the President should draft and submit immediately a substitute for Article XII; then, on approval of the new clause, he would be free to ratify the treaty provisionally and send it to England for change. This, thought Randolph, was what the Federalist majority wished Washington to do. The question of procedure, he felt, would involve “some critical, delicate and hazardous points.” Apparently without formal request the Secretary offered his observations: “If [the President] sends an article already drawn, it will be asked: Why did he do so? . . . Does he mean to exhibit his approbation of the treaty so strikingly?. . . Does he mean to ratify it now, so as to render it unnecessary for the treaty to come back to himself after the new suspending article is inserted?” Randolph’s remarks were enough to convince Washington that a revised article should not be submitted at this time. But ought he acknowledge the action of the Senate in some other way? In the view of the Secretary, Washington’s possible choices were three. He could be silent; or make a “positive declaration” of his understanding of the intention of the Senate; or offer a “qualified declaration,” together with a casual sketch of Article XII as the Executive planned to recast it. Randolph advocated no particular course. Washington made his choice without looking elsewhere for counsel. He would remain silent; the Senate would adjourn without word from him.
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