George Washington
Page 72
23. To Henry Lee, 16 October 1793, GWP; from Jefferson, 28 December 1793, GWP; Proclamation on Expeditions Against Spanish Territory, 24 March 1794, GWP.
24. Fifth Annual Message, 3 December 1793, GWP.
25. From Henry Lee, 17 September 1793, GWP; to Richard Henry Lee, 24 October 1793, GWP; Eugene Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790–1800, New York: Columbia University Press (1942), 13–15; Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Organization, 1789–1801, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (1957), 63–64.
26. To Edmund Randolph, 24 December 1793, GWP; to U.S. Senate, 24 January 1794, GWP.
27. From Edmund Randolph (and note 2), 1 March 1794, GWP; General Advertiser (Philadelphia), March 7, 1794.
48. TROUBLES WITHIN
1. To Anthony Whitting, 21 April 1793, GWP.
2. The Federalist, No. 12, in Cooke, The Federalist; William D. Barber, “‘Among the Most Techy Articles of Civil Police’: Federal Taxation and the Adoption of the Whiskey Excise,” WMQ 25:58, 63 (1968).
3. Barber, “‘Among the Most Techy Articles of Civil Police,’” 72; Hamilton, “Report on the Difficulties in the Execution of the Act Laying Duties on Distilled Spirits,” 5 March 1792, PAH.
4. Mary K. Bonsteel Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” J. of American Hist. 73:15, 19 (1986); Berkin, A Sovereign People, 3, 21; “Petition Against Excise,” Henry Adams, ed., The Writings of Albert Gallatin, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. (1879), 1:3.
5. To the United States Senate and House of Representative, 25 October 1791, GWP.
6. Hamilton, “Report on the Difficulties in the Execution of the Act Laying Duties on Distilled Spirits,” 5 March 1792, PAH; “George Clymer to the Secretary of the Treasury,” 10 October 1794, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:148; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 33.
7. From Hamilton, 20 January 1794, GWP (enclosing Report of the Commissioner of Revenue); to United States Senate and House of Representatives, 21 January 1794, GWP.
8. From the Democratic Society of Washington County, Pennsylvania, 24 March 1794, GWP; from Kentucky Citizens, 24 May 1794, GWP; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 44; Flexner 4:157–58; from Knox, 12 May 1794, GWP; Cabinet Opinion, 13 May 1794, GWP; to Randolph, 11 April 1794, GWP; to Henry Lee, 26 August 1794, GWP. Washington made the same point in a letter to a relative in autumn 1794 (to Burgess Ball, 25 September 1794, GWP):
The Democratic Society of [Philadelphia] (from which the others have emanated) were instituted by Mr. Genêt for the express purpose of dissension, and to draw a line between the people & the government, after he found the officers of the latter would not yield to the hostile measures in which he wanted to embroil this country.
Two weeks later, Washington complained again about the societies and “their diabolical leader G___t, whose object was to sow sedition; to poison the minds of the people of this country; and to make them discontented with the government of it.” To Daniel Morgan, 8 October 1794, GWP.
9. Leland D. Baldwin, Whiskey Rebels: The Story of a Frontier Uprising, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press (1939), 107–8, 284–86.
10. Hamilton compiled the full list of depredations by the anti-tax insurgents, and that list later was reprinted in newspapers. From Hamilton, 5 August 1794, GWP; Draft of a Proclamation Concerning Opposition to the Excise Law, 7 September 1792, GWP, note 1; Dunlap and Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), August 21, 1794; Gazette of the United States and Daily Evening Advertiser (Philadelphia), August 21, 1794.
11. From Abraham Kirkpatrick, 28 July 1794, GWP; from Hamilton, 2 August 1794, GWP; Jeffrey A. Davis, “Guarding the Republican Interest: The Western Pennsylvania Democratic Societies and the Excise Tax,” Pennsylvania Hist. 67:32, 48 (2000).
12. General Advertiser (Philadelphia), August 8, 1794; from Hamilton, 12 August 1794, GWP (note 2, discussing enclosed letter from Isaac Craig to Knox).
13. To Charles Mynn Thruston, 10 August 1794, GWP; from Hamilton, 2 August 1794, GWP; from Randolph, 5 August 1794, GWP; from Mifflin, 5 August 1794, GWP. Both War Secretary Knox and Attorney General Bradford agreed with Hamilton’s recommendation. From Knox, 4 April 1794, GWP; from Bradford, 5 April 1794, GWP.
14. Proclamation, 7 August 1794, GWP; from Randolph, 5 August 1794, GWP; Davis, “Guarding the Republican Interest,” 49; Flexner 4:167.
15. From Randolph, 17 July 1794, GWP; from Bradford, 14 July 1794, GWP.
16. From Bradford, 17 August 1794, GWP; from the Commissioners Sent to Western Pennsylvania, 24 September 1794, GWP; Proclamation, 25 September 1794, GWP.
17. From Henry Lee, 3 September 1794, GWP; from Daniel Morgan, 24 September 1794, GWP; from Tobias Lear, 24 September 1794, GWP; from Randolph, 30 September 1794, GWP; Gazette of the United States (Philadelphia), October 1, 1794; from Randolph, 2–3 October 1794, GWP; Diary, 30 September and 1 October 1794, GWP.
18. To Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Citizens, 6 October 1794, GWP.
19. To Randolph, 8 October 1794, GWP; from Randolph, 11 October 1794, GWP; to Randolph, 16 October 1794, GWP.
20. To John Jay, 1–4 November 1794, GWP.
21. Jefferson to James Monroe, 26 May 1795, PTJ; to Jay, 18 December 1794.
22. Hamilton to Henry Lee, 20 October 1794, PAH; William Findley, History of the Insurrection in the Four Western Counties of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia: Samuel Harrison Smith (1796), 187; from Timothy Pickering, 2 November 1795, GWP.
23. To Henry Lee, 20 October 1794, GWP.
24. To the United States Senate and House of Representatives, 19 November 1794, GWP.
25. Proclamation, 2 January 1795, GWP.
26. For war secretary, Washington would have preferred Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who declined the position. From C. C. Pinckney, 24 February 1794, GWP.
49. THE FIGHT FOR PEACE
1. Bradford Perkins, The First Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1795–1805, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press (1955), 23.
2. Flexner 4:131; from Randolph, 2 March and 14 March 1794, GWP; from Thomas Mendenhall, 14 March 1794; Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 389, 391; Bemis, “Washington’s Farewell Address,” in Kaufman, Washington’s Farewell Address, 106, note 6; Walter Stahr, John Jay, New York: Continuum (2005), 313; to George Clinton, 31 March 1794, GWP; from Knox, 4 April 1794, GWP; to Knox, 4 April 1794, GWP; Madison to Jefferson, 12 March 1794, PJM; to Richard Henry Lee, 15 April 1794, GWP.
3. Flexner 4:153; Madison to Jefferson, 25 May 1794, PJM; from Knox, 10 April 1794, GWP.
4. Gazette of the United States, March 28, 1794; Herman LeRoy to Rufus King, March 30, 1794, in King, Correspondence 1:557; Oliver Wolcott Jr. to Oliver Wolcott Sr., 16 April 1794, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:135; to Tobias Lear, 6 May 1794, GWP.
5. From Randolph, 6 April 1794, GWP; from Hamilton, 14 April 1794, GWP; John Jay to Sarah Jay, 15 April 1794, in Henry P. Johnston, ed., The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons (1893) 4:3; to Jay, 15 April 1794, GWP; Stahr, John Jay, 315, 322–23; Jay to Henry Lee, 11 July 1795, in Johnston, Jay Papers 4:178; Jay to Randolph, 20 August 1795, in Johnston, Jay Papers 4:186; Perkins, The First Rapprochement, 19, 21.
6. To Randolph, 15 April 1794, GWP; “Message Nominating John Jay as Envoy to Great Britain,” 16 April 1794, in American State Papers: Foreign Relations, Washington: Gales and Seaton (1833) 1:447.
7. “Notice of John Jay’s Power as Envoy Extraordinary to Great Britain,” 6 May 1794, GWP; Flexner 4:144. The West Indies treaty provision also proved problematic. Several British colonial governors were already allowing American ships to trade in their ports because they desperately needed American food supplies; placing the question before the negotiators risked losing that advantage. Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 400.
8. To Gouverneur Morris, 25 June 17
94, GWP; from Knox, 10 April 1794, GWP. When Washington learned of the incendiary British statement to the Indians, he could only report the incident to Jay in a letter that was likely to arrive after the negotiations were over. To Jay, 30 August 1794, GWP; from George Clinton, 9 September 1794, GWP. The letter to Jay reported statements by another British official in Canada that echoed the earlier, warlike remarks. Washington added that he would wait to hear what the British leaders in London said before reacting to statements by colonial officials.
9. Stahr, John Jay, 333; Rufus King to Oliver Wolcott Jr., 19 March 1795, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:191.
10. To John Adams, 3 March 1795, GWP; Madison to Monroe, 11 March 1795, PJM.
11. John J. Reardon, Edmund Randolph: A Biography, New York: Macmillan Publishing (1974), 289; from Randolph, 20 April 1795.
12. Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 41–42; Bemis, Jay’s Treaty, 259–61; Flexner 4:204–7.
13. Oliver Wolcott Jr. to John Marshall, 9 June 1806, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:242; Edmund Randolph, A Vindication of Edmund Randolph Written by Himself, and Published in 1795, Richmond: Charles H. Wynne (1855), 18–19.
14. From Randolph, 24 June 1795, GWP; Perkins, The First Rapprochement, 35; to Randolph, 21 October 1795, GWP; Reardon, Edmund Randolph, 296; Randolph, Vindication, 19; Philadelphia Aurora, June 29, 1795.
15. Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, New York: Penguin Press (2004), 489–90; Oliver Wolcott Jr. to Mrs. Wolcott, 8 July 1795, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:209; Fisher Ames to Oliver Wolcott Jr., 10 September 1795, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:228; William Plumer, “Autobiography,” Papers of William Plumer, Box 12, Reel 4, 60, LOC (Jay burned in effigy in Rye, New Hampshire); Stahr, John Jay, 336–337; Aurora (Philadelphia), August 27, 1795; Connecticut Courant, August 3, 1795; Perkins, First Rapprochement, 34.
16. “Caius,” in Aurora (Philadelphia), July 21, 1795; “Cassius,” in Maryland Journal, July 20, 1795; from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Citizens, 17 July 1795, GWP; from New York Citizens, 20 July 1795, GWP; from Charleston, South Carolina, Citizens, 22 July 1795, GWP; from Baltimore Citizens, 27 July 1795, GWP; from Richmond, Virginia, Citizens, 30 July 1795, GWP; from Petersburg, Virginia, Citizens, 1 August 1795, GWP; from Savannah, Georgia, Citizens, 1 August 1795, GWP; from Norfolk County, Virginia, Citizens, 5 August 1795, GWP; from Moore Furman, Trenton, New Jersey, 6 August 1795, GWP; from Suffolk County, New York, Citizens, 6 August 1795, GWP; from Wilmington, Delaware, Citizens, 8 August 1795, GWP; from Bordentown, New Jersey, Citizens, 10 August 1795, GWP; from Caroline County, Virginia, Citizens, 11 August 1795, GWP; from Sussex County, Virginia, Citizens, 12 August 1795, GWP; from Newport, Rhode Island, Citizens, 14–20 August 1795, GWP; from Cheraws District, South Carolina, Citizens, 15 August 1795, GWP; from Morris County, New Jersey, Citizens, 15 August 1795, GWP; from Fredericksburg, Virginia, Citizens, 18 August 1795, GWP; from Culpeper County, Virginia, Citizens, 20 August 1795; from Burgess Ball, 28 July 1795, GWP.
17. To Hamilton, 3 July 1795, GWP; from Randolph, 12 July 1795, GWP; Hamilton, “Remarks on the Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation lately made between the United States and Great Britain,” 9–11 June 1795, PAH; Diary, 15 July 1795, GWP.
18. From the New York Chamber of Commerce, 21 July 1795, GWP; from York, Pennsylvania, Citizens, 17 August 1795, GWP; Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 493–94; Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 435–36.
19. To Boston Selectmen, 28 July 1795, GWP.
20. To Randolph, 3 August 1795, GWP; from James Ross, 3 August 1795, GWP; from John Adams, 10 August 1795, GWP; to Randolph, 31 July 1795, GWP.
21. To Hamilton, 29 July 1795, GWP; Todd Estes, “The Art of Presidential Leadership: George Washington and the Jay Treaty,” VMHB 109:127, 137, note 11; to Randolph, 29 July 1795, GWP.
22. Fauchet portrayed Randolph as warning that the president might be swayed from loyalty to France by “the dark maneuvers of some men.” Randolph, Vindication, 10–11. In other dispatches that came to light later, Fauchet quotes Randolph as attributing the dispatch of settlement commissioners to Western Pennsylvania during the rebellion as “due to the influence of Mr. Randolph over the mind of the president,” and also warning that others were attempting to “mislead the president in paths which would conduct him to unpopularity.” Randolph, Vindication, 33.
23. “Notes of a Conversation with George Washington,” 6 August 1793, PTJ; from Randolph, 10 November 1793, GWP; from Randolph, 7 July 1795, GWP; from Pickering, 31 July 1795, GWP.
24. To David Stuart, 5 August 1795, GWP; Diary, 11 August 1795, GWP; Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:243–44.
25. Before leaving for Mount Vernon nearly a month earlier, Washington had asked the secretary of state to draft the papers required to implement the alternative approaches, but had never received them from Randolph. The president, according to Wolcott, was unhappy with that failure, but that annoyance seems too small a matter to have driven his decision on the Jay Treaty. Oliver Wolcott Jr. to John Marshall, 9 June 1806, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:243–44; Oliver Wolcott Jr. to Jedediah Morse, 16 July 1795, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:212 (citing British naval superiority).
26. From Oliver Wolcott Jr., 26 September 1795, GWP; Independent Chronicle: and the Universal Advertiser (Boston), 14 September 1795, GWP. Local anti-treaty resolutions included: from Brunswick District, Virginia, Citizens, 24 August 1795, GWP; from Burke County, Georgia, Citizens, 25–27 August 1795, GWP; from Scott County, Kentucky, Citizens, 25 August 1795, GWP; from Amelia County, Virginia, Citizens, 28 August 1795, GWP; Address from Columbia County, Georgia, Citizens, 20 August 1795, GWP; from Kentucky Citizens, 7 September 1795, GWP; from Clarke County, Kentucky, Citizens, 8 September 1795, GWP. “Scipio,” Philadelphia Aurora and General Advertiser, November 20, 1795; “Portius,” Philadelphia Aurora and General Advertiser, September 30, 1795; “An Observer,” Philadelphia Aurora and General Advertiser, October 1, 1795, September 11, 1795; from “A Republican,” in Boston Independent Chronicle, September 3, 1795, GWP; “One of the People,” in The Argus, or Greenleaf’s New Daily Advertiser (New York), September 5, 1795, GWP. Some scholars have concluded that French representatives supported the treaty opponents. Michael F. Conlin, “The American Mission of Citizen Pierre-Auguste Adet: Revolutionary Chemistry and Diplomacy in the Early Republic,” PMHB 124:489, 492, 495–96 (2000); Alexander DeConde, “Washington’s Farewell, the French Alliance, and the Election of 1796” in Kaufman, Washington’s Farewell Address, 117–18; Bemis, “Washington’s Farewell Address,” in Kaufman, Farewell, 95.
27. Joseph Charles, “Hamilton and Washington: The Origins of the American Party System,” WMQ 12:217, 261 (1955); William Plumer, “Autobiography,” in William Plumer Papers, Box 12, Reel 4, 58, LOC; Fisher Ames to Oliver Wolcott Jr., 2 September 1795, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:229–30; George Cabot to Oliver Wolcott Jr., 13 August 1795, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:225; Oliver Ellsworth to Oliver Wolcott Jr., 20 August 1795, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:226; from James Ross, 22 August 1795, GWP; from Knox, 2 September 1795, GWP. Pro-treaty statements came from Philadelphia Subscribers, Merchants, and Traders, 20 August 1795, GWP; from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Citizens, 9 September 1795, GWP; from Greenbrier County, Virginia, Citizens, 20 September 1795, GWP; from Westmoreland County, Virginia, Citizens, 29 September 1795, GWP; from Frederick County Citizens, 2 December 1795, GWP.
28. Randolph, Vindication, 37; Reardon, Edmund Randolph, 308; Oliver Wolcott Jr. to John Marshall, 9 June 1806, in Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:243–44.
29. Gibbs, Wolcott Memoirs 1:244–46; Randolph, Vindication, 2–3; from Randolph, 19 August 1795.
30. Randolph, Vindication, 3–18.
31. Randolph, Vindication, 9–10, 12.
32. Several scholars have labored to exonerate Randolph of bribery charges, but have been less successful defending his reputation as an effective official. E.g., Irving Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” WMQ 7:179, 187 (1
950).
33. John Adams to Abigail Adams, 22 December 1795, AP; Jefferson to Monroe, 2 March 1796, PTJ; Madison to Jefferson, 26 January 1796, PJM; to Hamilton, 22 December 1795, GWP.
34. To Thomas Johnson, 24 August 1795, GWP; to Charles C. Pinckney, 24 August 1795, GWP; from Thomas Johnson, 29 August 1795, GWP; from Charles C. Pinckney, 16 September 1795, GWP; to Edward Carrington, 9 October 1796, GWP; to Patrick Henry, 9 October 1795, GWP; from Patrick Henry, 16 October 1795, GWP; from Hamilton, 5 November 1795, GWP.
35. To John Eager Howard, 19 November 1795, and 30 November 1795, GWP; to James McHenry, 20 January 1795, GWP; to John Marshall, 26 August 1795, GWP; from John Marshall, 31 August 1795, GWP; from Edward Carrington, 30 October 1795, GWP; from Charles Lee, 30 November 1795, GWP; Chervinsky, The Cabinet, 271, 282–83.
36. George Thacher to Wife, 8 December 1795, quoted in John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth, George Washington: First in Peace, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (1957) 7:220n; Donald R. Adams, Jr., “Wage Rates in the Early National Period: Philadelphia,” J. Econ. Hist. 28:404 (1968), 405–6, 418, 420; Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 441.
37. To United States Senate and House of Representative, 8 December 1795, GWP; to Pickering, 16 September 1795, GWP; to Hamilton, 10 November 1795, GWP.
38. From Edward Carrington, 6 December 1795, GWP; from John Jay, 14 December 1796, GWP; Benjamin Rush to Samuel Bayard, 1 March 1796, in Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush 2:768–69 note 2; to Gouverneur Morris, 4 March 1796, GWP.