The Great Divide

by Thomas Fleming

  Would this have changed Madison and Jefferson’s conviction that Washington was a passive tool of Federalist “Anglomen”? Probably not. Men in the grip of an ideology have little or no interest in contrary facts.

  In Philadelphia, the seething Democratic-Republicans in the House of Representatives were spoiling for a brawl that would make the President their humbled servant. On Washington’s sixty-fourth birthday, a Federalist congressman made a motion to adjourn for a half hour and call on the President to give him their best wishes. The proposal was put to a vote, and lost 50-38. Few people in the City of Brotherly Love paid the slightest attention to this snub. Madison nervously informed Jefferson that the birthday was celebrated in the city with “unexampled splendor.” Church bells clanged and cannon boomed a salute, while a veritable horde of well-wishers crowded into and around the executive mansion.3

  A jittery Congressman Madison continued to perfect his plan to ambush the Jay Treaty. His weapon was the Constitution’s provision that money bills had to originate in the House. The treaty had several provisions that would require an expenditure of about $80,000. He intended to argue that this meant the House could veto the Jay Treaty. His supposedly retired mentor at Monticello thought this was a brilliant idea.

  The war of words began on March 1 when the President sent the treaty to the House with a confirmation that it was the law of the land. British ratification had yet to arrive, so he was not yet asking for the money to fund it. Nevertheless, Congressman Livingston of New York leaped to his feet and demanded that the President transmit to the House all the correspondence about the treaty, including Jay’s instructions. Madison shuddered. He told Jefferson that “the state of the business” was much too precarious for such a move.4

  The House plunged into a wild debate, with the Federalists firing back at the Democratic-Republicans for trying to rewrite the Constitution. For a while, it looked like the Jeffersonians were winning. “At present,” Madison told the ex-secretary of state, a majority of the House favored a Constitutional right to refuse to pass laws for executing a treaty. It came down to the question of whether “the people’s chamber,” as the Democratic-Republicans called the House, should vote money for a treaty that offended their pro-French sensibilities.5

  The master of Monticello was delighted with the crisis. He told Monroe in Paris that a “precedent” was about to be set that would change everyone’s “construction” [interpretation] of the Constitution. It would transfer “the powers of legislation” from the President and the Senate to the entire Congress.

  As things stood, Jefferson continued, laws were being legislated by the first two entities, and anyone and everyone with whom the President signed a treaty. Indian chiefs and Algerine pirates were writing laws Americans had to obey. The former Secretary of State became so enthralled with his own arguments in favor of giving the House of Representatives a role in foreign policy, he told Monroe maybe “annihilating the whole treaty making power” of the president and Senate, “except as to making peace,” might be the best way to go. Seldom did Jefferson more nakedly expose his hostility to the Constitution’s separation of powers and its wariness of majority rule—the essence of the national charter.6

  Beyond all doubt, Jefferson told Madison, the Jay Treaty was the issue on which such a large reversal of the current Constitution could deservedly be based. “The rights, the interest, the honor and faith of our nation” were in danger of being “grossly sacrificed.” Jefferson reiterated his conviction that a “faction has entered into a conspiracy with the enemies of their country to chain down the legislature at the feet of both.” It was time to undo this awful crime and rescue the nation from “the incomprehensible acquiescence of the only honest man [Washington] who has assented to it.” Otherwise, they would have to exclaim “Curse on his virtues, they have undone his country.”7

  If ever a great man allowed his own arguments to make him a victim of paranoia, this letter was a prime example. Jefferson’s aberration was reinforced when he learned that Madison had put Livingston’s demand for the treaty’s papers to a vote and it had carried by an encouraging 62–37. But this was only the first round in an epic brawl. Back to the House came President Washington’s response—an absolute refusal. He said the House of Representatives had no right to see the documents. He cited the theoretically secret journal of the Constitutional Convention to prove that there were strong reasons why the treaty making power was confined to the president and the Senate.

  Madison was shocked by the totality of the President’s stand. Drifting into his own brand of paranoia, he was convinced that a message from Hamilton in distant New York was behind this reply. The fiendish Federalists were ready to “hazard” Washington’s reputation “to save the faction agst the Reps of the people.” The Congressman raved to Jefferson that the journal of the [Constitutional] Convention was “to be kept sacred until called for by some competent authority.” Madison asked his mentor how this principle could be “reconciled with the use he [Washington] has made of it?” So far gone was the Congressman’s once objective judgment, he did not seem to think the President was a competent authority.8

  The House Democratic-Republicans now resorted to a caucus—the first use of this political weapon in American history. They obviously were hoping to keep everyone in line. Madison was soon telling Jefferson there was “sufficient firmness” displayed to make him think they would win the contest. But a great deal depended on whether they could avoid “an overt recontre with the Executive.” It is fascinating, the way President Washington’s former partner could not pronounce his name when Madison went head-to-head with him. Then Washington became an abstraction, “The Executive.” Was guilt at work here? Deep in Madison’s mind, did he know he was betraying Washington—and the Constitution—by his all-out embrace of Jefferson?9

  Going for the jugular, Madison proposed two wily resolutions, declaring that the House was not claiming a right to make treaties, only to judge of “the expedience of treaties…on legislative subjects.” The other asserted the congressmen had no obligation to tell the president what use they planned to make of the papers they were demanding. Both carried by 57–35, Madison triumphantly reported to Jefferson. Emboldened, he became as inflamed as Edward Livingston. He declared that the House should refuse to vote the money that the treaty was requesting. Instead, a new treaty should be negotiated, presumably by someone other than an “Angloman” like John Jay.10

  Suddenly, the Democratic-Republicans began to hear things that lessened their confidence. Huge rallies in favor of the treaty were taking place in every major city. Bankers, merchants, and other community leaders were vociferously denouncing Madison and his supporters as warmongers and madmen. A dismayed Madison was soon reporting to Monticello that their majority had somehow “melted” to eight or nine votes. Previously inflamed Democratic-Republican congressmen were finding excuses to rush home to see sick wives or children in distant states.11

  Next came a battle between the best orators on both sides. Pennsylvanian Albert Gallatin made one of the more noteworthy assaults, speaking in a thick French-Swiss accent, which did nothing to disguise his all-out approval of France and detestation of England. On the other side, the Federalist champion, Fisher Ames, was seriously ill; he wavered beside his chair more than once, seemingly on the brink of collapse. But his ninety minutes of denunciation of the attempt to dismiss the Jay Treaty were mesmerizing. Many consider it one of the half-dozen historic speeches in Congress’s oratorical history. Madison could only watch as shaken Democratic-Republicans continued to melt away from his majority.

  Then came a blow from an even more unexpected quarter. Thomas Pinckney’s treaty with Spain had arrived on the President’s desk on his birthday. It was as generous and comprehensive as the early reports had predicted. Fearful of a British-American alliance, Spain had broken its ties with Britain and was eager to do everything to mollify the United States into becoming a semi-ally. The Spaniards assured the President that
the Mississippi would soon be an American waterway and New Orleans would welcome ships eager to buy grain from Kentucky and the western counties of Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. Madison nervously reported to Monticello that these hitherto passionately Democratic-Republican counties were sending numerous petitions in favor of Jay’s Treaty. Worse, the Senate was talking of not ratifying the Spanish treaty until Madison and his followers accepted John Jay’s document.12

  A distraught Madison began telling his equally aghast mentor at Monticello that “the Banks, the British Merchts, the insurance comps” were “influencing individuals [in Congress] and frightening others” by “sounding the tocksin (sic) of foreign war and domestic convulsions.” Soon Vice President Adams was wryly noting that “Mr. Madison looks worried to death. Pale, withered, haggard.” The next vote on Madison’s no-treaty resolution was 49–49. The chairman of the Committee of the Whole, a Democratic-Republican of course, took a deep breath and voted to accept the treaty. It was finis to Madison’s—and Jefferson’s—dreams of unconstitutional pro-French glory.13

  A despairing Madison tried for a consolation prize, a preamble calling the treaty objectionable but acceptable, if the British promised to stop seizing American cargoes and seamen. A mournful final report went to Monticello: “A few wrongheads” had abandoned the party and the preamble lost by one vote. The game was truly over now. Madison could only add a self-pitying bulletin. The business “had been the most worrying and vexatious that [he] ever encountered.”

  At the end of May, as Congress headed for adjournment, a badly wounded Madison summed up the debacle for his commander in chief. “The people have been everywhere made to believe that the object of the H of Reps in resisting the treaty was war; and have thence listened to the summons ‘to follow where Washington leads.’” Was it mere coincidence that this avoidance of war was the central reason why the President had accepted the treaty?14

  Gradually, the weary Madison would discover another outcome of his attempt to cross swords with George Washington. Henceforth, the President regarded him as a traitorous former partner and ex-friend. He seldom wrote to or spoke to James Madison again. Never again was he invited to Mount Vernon. While Washington’s disillusionment was silent and accumulative, others in the political arena were less inclined to say nothing. They rejoiced in Madison’s new status as the ex-champion of Democratic-Republicanism. One of the more malevolent Federalist writers, a recent British arrival who used the nom de plume “Peter Porcupine,” declared that Madison had dwindled to “a mere aide de camp without even the hope of retrieving his reputation.”15

  As Congress adjourned, Madison seemed to agree with him. “A crisis which ought to have been so managed as to fortify the Republican cause has left it in a very crippled condition,” he glumly informed Jefferson. From Monticello came a mournful valedictory: “Republicanism must lie on its oars, resign the vessel to its pilot [Washington] and resign themselves to the course he thinks best for them.”16

  Gone were the claims of Hamilton’s secret advice and innuendos about the President’s incipient senility. Were Jefferson and Madison tacitly admitting they had been defeated by a shrewder politician? Of course not. But the high priest of the American incarnation of the French Revolution and his chief acolyte came very close to admitting this unswallowable truth.

  The attacks on the President by newspapermen did not cease with this victory in the House of Representatives. Typical was an open letter from William Duane, one of Philadelphia’s nastiest editors. He accused Washington of a “tyrannical act” in refusing the House’s demand for the papers, of creating “fatal forms of state secrecy” and conspiring to attach “monarchical privilege to the presidency.” Meanest—or silliest—of all was the claim that hypocrisy—the knowledge that all these acts were virtually crimes—had caused the President’s “bright countenance” to fade like a wilting flower.

  Benjamin Franklin Bache filled his paper with similar attacks. On June 30, he commented that only George Washington had anything to celebrate on the fast approaching Fourth of July. How long, he all but shrieked, would the American people allow themselves “to be awed by one man”?

  The President grimly told his ex-aide, David Humphreys, that such attacks “will occasion no change in my conduct.” He insisted that not once in his seven years as president had he been guilty of a “willful [deliberate] error.” When Congress adjourned on June 1, Fisher Ames wryly remarked that he was amazed to find the world was still “right up.” Washington may have had similar feelings, as he and Martha headed south to Mount Vernon for the first time in eight months.17

  Early in July, when the President had barely begun to enjoy the tranquility that he so badly needed, a letter from Thomas Jefferson disturbed his vacation. The ex-secretary of state informed the President that he had just read in Benjamin Bache’s Aurora a leaked copy of a document Washington had circulated among his cabinet members in 1793. It was a list of the issues raised by the outbreak of war between France and England, including the question of America’s obligations under the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with France. During the House debate on the Jay Treaty, this document had been introduced by the Democratic-Republicans, in an attempt to prove that Washington had always intended to sever America’s ties with France.

  The mere mention of this issue proved no such thing. Moreover, the President had adjourned the cabinet meeting before it was discussed. But Jefferson was in a frenzy about it. He was afraid Washington thought he was the leaker. The man who had retired from politics invoked “everything sacred and honorable” to deny it. Not content with this guarantee, Jefferson launched into a passionate assurance that he had never written for any newspaper. Except for a single essay, he had never even corrected a political article composed by a friend. He had heard that a “miserable tergiversator [liar]” had told Washington he was “engaged in the bustle of politics and in turbulence and intrigue against the government.”

  It is painful to indict Jefferson for a bold-faced lie. These words suggest, 1: A defeated Jefferson feared Washington’s wrath; 2: In spite of all the evidence that he had experienced firsthand, Jefferson still regarded Washington as some sort of uneducated simpleton, whom he, the brilliant graduate of the College of William and Mary, could manipulate at will.

  Continuing, the man from Monticello claimed to be sure Washington did not believe this “tergiversator,” but he felt compelled to reiterate how much he loathed “political discussion” and only rarely even expressed an opinion when asked explicitly by a friend. Jefferson now asked the President to search his files and return to him a document written by Alexander Hamilton that Jefferson had given him when they were embroiled with Citizen Genet and the ship Little Sarah. Mr. Jefferson’s explanation for this request? “One loves to possess arms though they hope never to have occasion for them. They possess my paper in my own handwriting. It is just I should possess theirs.”

  One is left wondering why this brilliant man did not see any incongruity in these words from someone who repeatedly insisted he had no interest in politics, and even loathed the word. Is it further evidence that Jefferson considered the President too far gone in senility or original simplicity or both to ask this question?

  Washington’s reply soon made it clear that he had asked himself this question. He undoubtedly noted that his former friend and cabinet member did not mention writing political letters. As we have seen, Jefferson produced these in abundance, and Washington, who had once proved himself adept at finding out what his enemies were thinking while fighting a war, almost certainly had learned about more than a few of these exercises. The President began by admitting that people had told him that Jefferson had circulated “derogatory” opinions about him. In fact, they said Jefferson “denounced” him as a man in the grip of a “dangerous influence.”

  Washington, of course, knew this “influence” was named Alexander Hamilton. He proceeded to remind Jefferson that there were “as many instances when he decided against as in favor o
f the person alluded to.” He also reminded him that in all the issues they had debated during Jefferson’s cabinet years, as president, his sole interest had been to find the truth and make the right decisions. He never for a moment suspected Mr. Jefferson would be so insincere as to think otherwise. At the same time, he never saw himself—or anyone else—as infallible. That was something only a “party man” thought. He had never been one of these people. “The first wish of my heart, if parties did exist, was to reconcile them.”

  Then came a blast that became nothing less than a lecture on the danger of political extremism. Until the last year or two, Washington wrote, “I had no conception that parties would, or even could go the length I have been witness to.” While he was using “his utmost exertions to establish a national character of our own, independent…of every nation of the earth, and wished, by steering a steady course, to preserve this country from the horrors of a desolating war…I was accused of being the enemy of one nation and subject to the influence of another.” Every act of his administration was “tortured and the grossest and most insinuating misrepresentations made…The attackers resorted to “such exaggerated and indecent terms as could commonly be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or a common pickpocket.

  “But enough of this…”

  The President regained control of his temper. He had said enough in more ways than one. Mr. Jefferson had been forced to read in considerable detail what he had perpetrated with his passion for “the French Revolution. “This letter made it clear that it had cost him the friendship of the greatest man of their era.

  Washington never wrote Jefferson another personal letter. Communication between them was, henceforth, in the words of one of Washington’s best biographers, James Thomas Flexner, “pure routine.” Unlike personal letters of earlier years, which were signed, “Affectionately yours,” the farewell for this final one was a perfunctory “With great esteem.”18