Washington

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  As Ames finished Justice James Iredell turned to John Adams, who sat beside him in the gallery, and exclaimed in tears, “My God! How great he is!” From Federalists on the floor there came a cry, “The Question!”—but Republicans were shouting, “Committee, Rise!” When Abraham Venable of Virginia urged one more day’s discussion for so important a vote, seventy members agreed and the committee adjourned. The next morning Federalists brought in more petitions; Nathaniel Smith held the floor for half an hour, obviously to use time; and Speaker Jonathan Dayton followed with remarks that upheld Ames’s logic and complemented his effort. Finally a Republican who had criticized the treaty, Gabriel Christie of Maryland, announced he would vote for it. The question was put to the Committee of the Whole. A tie—49 in favor, 49 against—left the decision to Chairman Frederick Muhlenberg, whose vote would carry the treaty to the House in open session or kill it in committee. Muhlenberg, a Pennsylvania Republican, was a Federalist this day. He voted in the affirmative.

  The grand debate was over, the crisis surmounted, the treaty safe. Those ten Republicans who endorsed the appropriation one day would do so the next; their opposition had been dissipated by petitions and demolished by the dialectics of Ames. In open session on April 30, by 51 to 48, the House formally approved funds for the treaty in the sum of $80,808. Federalists scarcely could contain their joy.

  Washington had followed with deepest concern the debate in each day’s newspaper, but while it raged he kept his own counsel. Throughout April he wrote not a word to any correspondent on the subject of the treaty. Finally on May 1 he was free to express himself. “Few,” he wrote Charles Carroll at Annapolis, “. . . conceive that the real question was not whether the Treaty with Great Britain was a good or bad one; but whether there should be a treaty at all without the concurrence of [the] House . . . No occasion more suitable might ever occur to establish the principle and enlarge the power they aimed at . . . [They] resolved to attempt at every hazard to render the treaty-making power a nullity without their consent; nay worse, to make it an absolute absurdity . . . These measures . . . have not only brought the Constitution to the brink of a precipice, but the peace, happiness and prosperity of the Country into imminent danger.” A week later he wrote meaningfully to Jay: “These things do . . . fill my mind with much concern and with serious anxiety. Indeed, the troubles and perplexities which they occasion, added to the weight of years which have passed over me, have worn away my mind more than my body.” Then Washington made reference to “ease and retirement” which he thought “indispensably necessary” to his health “during the short time I have to stay here.” He hoped circumstances would not “prevent the public annunciation of [his retirement] in time to obviate a waste or misapplication of votes at the election . . . in December next, upon myself.” It was clear that the President meant to retire at the expiration of his term.

  On the day that Washington wrote Jay, a letter to Hamilton dealt with one of those “troubles and perplexities” from which there seemed no escape. Hamilton had forwarded a communication from Gouverneur Morris which warned that the French Directory was about to send a special envoy to the United States. The diplomat would be escorted by a war fleet, and the French would demand “in the space of fifteen days a categorical answer to certain questions.” The President was shocked by this intimation. He wrote Hamilton:

  . . . I cannot bring my mind to believe that they seriously mean, or that they could accompany this envoy with a fleet, to demand the annihilation of the Treaty with Britain in fifteen days; or that war, in case of refusal, must follow as a consequence. Were it not for the unhappy differences among ourselves, my answer would be short and decisive, to this effect: “We are an independent nation and act for ourselves . . . We will not be dictated to by the politics of any nation under Heaven, farther than treaties require of us.” Whether the present or any circumstances should do more than soften this language, may merit consideration. But if we are to be told by a foreign power . . . what we shall do and what we shall not do, we have independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.

  To the delight of many Federalists, who already thought of him as an excellent presidential candidate, Thomas Pinckney was returning home after five years in the diplomatic service. His successor at the Court of St. James’s, Hamilton advised, should be Rufus King, who was “tired of the Senate and . . . will resign at all events.” The President decided to appoint King. His nomination went to the Senate May 19 and was confirmed the next day. Then, on the twenty-eighth, Washington named John Quincy Adams as Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal. Adams’ appointment to Lisbon and Humphreys’ transfer to Spain with equivalent rank necessitated a new appropriation of $23,500. Republicans in the House objected, but the funds were approved by vote of 39 to 25.

  If he needed the reminder, a note from Hamilton turned the President’s thoughts in May to the “public annunciation” of his retirement. Hamilton, who was to ”re-dress. . . the body” of such an announcement, felt it “important that a thing of this kind should be done with great care and much at leisure, touched and retouched.” Washington agreed. His draft of a valedictory address, which incorporated ten paragraphs written by Madison in 1792, now was ready for Hamilton’s inspection. The President sent the manuscript to New York remarking: “My wish is that the whole may appear in a plain style and be handed to the public in an honest, unaffected, simple garb.”

  His expectation that Congress would rise before the end of May was unfulfilled, but the President enjoyed relief from public pressures in the closing weeks of the session. Aside from a request to Congress for funds to establish civil authority in the posts of the Northwest, no national business required his attention save the routine signing of bills. One was a measure to admit the Southwest Territory into the Union as a sixteenth State, Tennessee. A meeting with the newly arrived British Minister, Robert Liston, may have borne out Pinckney’s estimate of the diplomat as “a sensible, well informed man of pleasing manners and dispassionate temper.” The unofficial call of another Englishman, Thomas Twining, must have afforded diversion, for this traveler had just come from India and the service of the Governor-General, Lord Cornwallis. The visitor later recorded:

  So completely did [the President] look the great and good man he really was, that I felt rather respect than awe in his presence . . . Although his deportment was that of a general, the expression of his features had rather the calm dignity of a legislator than the severity of a soldier.

  Congress adjourned June 1 and Ames, who thought it remarkable “we should finish and leave the world right side up,” came to dinner the next afternoon. Then, on the fifth, Washington sent word to Pearce at Mount Vernon: “. . . there is yet a good deal for me to do before I can leave the Seat of Government. My present expectation, however, is that I shall be able to do this tomorrow week.” On June 12, the evening before his departure, in his first letter in months to Humphreys, he opened a troubled heart as he wrote:

  I am attacked for a steady opposition to every measure which has a tendency to disturb the peace and tranquility . . . But these attacks, unjust and unpleasant as they are, will occasion no change in my conduct; nor will they work any other effect in my mind than to increase the anxious desire . . . to enjoy in the shades of retirement the consolation of having rendered my Country every service my abilities were competent to . . . Malignity, therefore, may dart her shafts, but no earthly power can deprive me of the consolation of knowing that I have not . . . been guilty of a wilful error, however numerous they may have been from other causes.

  The pressure of recent weeks made the prospect of a Mount Vernon visit more than ever welcome. Even now, there would be one delay to hold him from his cherished destination for a matter of two days; he must allow ample time for matters in the Federal City. There and at Georgetown on June 18 and 19 Washington did what he could to facilitate a much needed loan from Holland. He also emphasized the need for constant supervision of the buildings by t
hose in authority and pointed out irregularities and delays that had occurred because the commissioners had been inaccessible.

  On the twentieth, as his carriage moved along the last miles towards Mount Vernon, Chief Executive deferred to plantation proprietor. Scarcely had he shaken the dust of the road when on June 25 information came from Hamilton which, Washington feared, might require his early return to Philadelphia. An American merchant ship, the Mount Vernon, had been seized by the French privateer Flying Fish off the Delaware coast. Regardless of the specific circumstances, the President saw that France was determined to continue such captures in its resentment against Anglo-American commerce. He wrote at once to Wolcott and the Secretary of State. Pickering was requested to call a meeting of the Cabinet and report its consensus to him. He wished particularly to know their views on two points: whether Adet should be asked to explain the incident, and whether the President had power during recess of the Senate to send a special envoy to Paris for the purpose of giving and requesting explanations in the present strained relationship between the two countries.

  By July 8 the President’s mind was made up—he would recall the American Minister at Paris. Once he had read Pickering’s letter of July 4 and the enclosed opinions of the department heads, his decision was firm. The Cabinet criticized Monroe’s failure to present his government’s views faithfully. Whether this was because of an undue attachment for France or mistaken judgment on Monroe’s part, the unfortunate result was the same and something must be done. As soon as he had examined the papers bearing on Monroe, Washington sent them to Attorney General Lee, then in Alexandria, and requested his prompt opinion. Lee’s view was that Monroe’s recall was “indispensably necessary.” With removal of the Minister one problem would be resolved, but another would be created by the necessity of finding someone to replace him. The new envoy must be inclined to promote the neutral policy of the administration and, “as far as the nature of the case will admit, be acceptable to all parties.” Consequently the post was offered to John Marshall, in whose letter Washington enclosed another to be forwarded to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, in event Marshall refused.

  It appeared to Washington that French discontent with the American government had its origin in Monroe’s neglect of diplomatic duty. But his own course was clear. “The Executive have a plain road to pursue, namely: to fulfill all the engagements which his duty requires; be influenced beyond this by none of the contending parties; maintain a strict neutrality, unless obliged by imperious circumstances to depart from it; do justice to all, and never forget that we are Americans; the remembrance of which will convince us that we ought not to be French or English.” Good news came at last with Pinckney’s acceptance of the post at Paris.

  But “envenomed pens” would not run dry for lack of subject. Even while Washington and Hamilton were busy shaping paragraphs for the President’s message of farewell, Republicans were exerting themselves to make certain Washington would have need of a valedictory. The edge of invective was sharpened every morning by new or renewed charges in their gazettes. Many Federalists still were uncertain of Washington’s intentions; some hoped and believed he would not decline the office, others feared and believed he would retire. There was speculation as well as accusation. Jefferson predicted that the Federalist party “will run Mr. [Thomas] Pinckney, in which they regard his southern position rather than his principles.” The question in Washington’s mind was not whether he would say farewell, but when and how it best could be done. A cursory reading of Hamilton’s “Original Major Draft” for the Address, based on the paper the President had sent him, was pleasing as to content, but Washington was doubtful about the great length the paper was taking.

  On August 17 Washington set out for Philadelphia on a journey that promised to be arduous. By the time of his departure he knew, unhappily, that Pearce’s rheumatic pains would compel the plantation manager to resign. Washington had been well pleased with Pearce, but search for a suitable replacement began at once. Business in the Federal City consumed most of the seventeenth, but on the eighteenth the master of Mount Vernon wrote to James Anderson, a likely applicant referred to him by Col. John Fitzgerald.

  Not until he reached Philadelphia on the evening of August 21 could Washington know the contents of a letter received at Mount Vernon on the tenth. This was a communication from Monroe, dated March 24, 1796, and written in cipher. It disclosed that the French Directory was offended by Washington’s letter of December 22, 1795, to Gouverneur Morris, which had fallen into their hands. Whether Monroe’s cipher communication further tried the President’s patience, it scarcely had been decoded when he authorized Pickering to send the American Minister’s official notice of recall without delay.

  At this pause in a possible crisis, Washington again could turn attention to his valedictory. He had gone carefully over the most recent draft by Hamilton and found it superior to all the others. Further revision seemed unnecessary but since Hamilton had suggested it, Washington would forward the piece once more for the New Yorker’s scrutiny, with the request that it be returned shortly. It was vital that it appear well ahead of the time for choosing Presidential electors.

  Only publication of his valedictory and the necessity of a talk with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney now held him at the seat of government. When Pinckney arrived he was furnished with copies of Morris’ letter of July 3, 1795, and of Washington’s reply, to which, according to Monroe, the Directory had taken exception. Certain of the President’s correspondence with Monroe also was enclosed in a letter Washington wrote Pinckney on September 12. These documents might prove useful in appraising the situation in Paris, he thought.

  On the fifteenth the President submitted a copy of his valedictory to the Cabinet for review. Then on the sixteenth he received David C. Clay-poole of the American Daily Advertiser. Washington explained that he had some thoughts and reflections on the occasion of his retirement in the form of a Farewell Address and desired Claypoole’s paper “to usher it to the world.” Monday September 19 was agreeable to both as the date for publication.

  “I have the consolation to believe,” Washington had written in his Farewell, “that while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.” At the moment that he looked forward to the joys of private life, he looked backward in acknowledgment—of opportunity for service, honors bestowed on him by the people, their confidence and constancy “in situations in which not unfrequently want of success had countenanced the spirit of criticism.” His invocation forever would be: “That your Union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete. . .” After greetings, acknowledgments, and good wishes, might have come the final farewell. Actually, these remarks became merely the introduction to more compelling passages. Washington’s first theme was that of inseparable union. Only through “a government for the whole” could there be “efficacy and permanency” in a union. Religion and morality, two “great pillars of human happiness,” the President continued, were indispensable to “private and public felicity.” Nor, he counselled, can it be expected “that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Here he inserted a paragraph on education: “Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” As an important source of security, “cherish public credit,” he specified. In nothing was Washington more earnest or eloquent than in his plea for a true neutrality. “Observe good faith and justice towards all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all,” he exhorted, but—his warning rang out—”Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure yo
u to believe me, fellow citizens), the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake.” He proceeded to further advice: “. . . Even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand. . . . ’Tis folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another. . . . There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation.” These, he said, were the “counsels of an old and affectionate friend” who dared not hope they would make “the strong and last impression I could wish.”

  A few more remarks, personal and poignant, and Washington was done. “How far in the discharge of my official duties,” he said, “I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. . . . I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.” The closing paragraphs declared him to be “unconscious of intentional error” but “nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.” And then the last words of the Farewell: “. . . I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize without alloy the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free Government, the ever favorite object of my heart and the happy reward . . . of our mutual cares, labors and dangers.”