Part 6

[Footnote 65: Washington's Writings, Vol. X. p. 236.]

It is much to have the wish to preserve a just medium; but the wish, though accompanied with firmness and ability, is not always enough to secure it. Washington succeeded in this, as much by the natural turn of his mind and character, as by making it his peculiar aim; he was, indeed, really of no party, and his country, in esteeming him so, did no more than pay homage to truth.

A man of experience and a man of action, he had an admirable wisdom, and made no pretension to systematic theories. He took no side beforehand; he made no show of the principles that were to govern him. Thus, there was nothing like a logical harshness in his conduct, no committal of self-love, no struggle of rival talent. When he obtained the victory, his success was not to his adversaries either a stake lost, or a sweeping sentence of condemnation. It was not on the ground of the superiority of his own mind, that he triumphed; but on the ground of the nature of things, and of the inevitable necessity that accompanied them. {111} Still his success was not an event without a moral character, the simple result of skill, strength, or fortune. Uninfluenced by any theory, he had faith in truth, and adopted it as the guide of his conduct. He did not pursue the victory of one opinion against the partisans of another; neither did he act from interest in the event alone, or merely for success. He did nothing which he did not think to be reasonable and just; so that his conduct, which had no systematic character, that might be humbling to his adversaries, had still a moral character, which commanded respect.

Men had, moreover, the most thorough conviction of his disinterestedness; that great light, to which men so willingly trust their fate; that vast power, which draws after it their hearts, while, at the same time, it gives them confidence that their interests will not be surrendered, either as a sacrifice, or as instruments to selfishness and ambition.

{112}

His first act, the formation of his cabinet, was the most striking proof of his impartiality. Four persons were selected by him; Hamilton and Knox, of the federal party; Jefferson and Randolph, of the democratic. Knox was a soldier, of integrity, of moderate abilities, and easily influenced; Randolph, a restless spirit, of doubtful probity, and little good faith; Jefferson and Hamilton were both sincere, honest, enthusiastic, and able,--the real heads of the two parties.

Hamilton deserves to be ranked among those men, who have best understood the vital principles and essential conditions of government; not merely of a nominal government, but of a government worthy of its mission and of its name. In the Constitution of the United States, there is not an element of order, strength, and durability, to the introduction and adoption of which he did not powerfully contribute. Perhaps he believed the monarchical form preferable to the republican. Perhaps he sometimes had doubts of the success of the experiment attempted in his own country. Perhaps, also, carried away by his vivid imagination and the logical vehemence of his mind, he was sometimes exclusive in his views, and went too far in his inferences. {113} But, of a character as lofty as his mind, he faithfully served the republic, and labored to found and not to weaken it. His superiority consisted in knowing, that, naturally, and by a law inherent in the nature of things, power is above, at the head of society; that government should be constituted according to this law; and that every contrary system or effort brings, sooner or later, trouble and weakness into the society itself. His error consisted in adhering too closely, and with a somewhat arrogant obstinacy, to the precedents of the English constitution, in attributing sometimes in these precedents the same authority to good and to evil, to principles and to the abuse of them, and in not attaching due importance to, and reposing sufficient confidence in, the variety of political forms and the flexibility of human society. There are occasions, in which political genius consists, in not fearing what is new, while what is eternal is respected.

The democratic party, not the turbulent and coarse democracy of antiquity or of the middle ages, but the great modern democracy, never had a more faithful or more distinguished representative than Jefferson. {114} A warm friend of humanity, liberty, and science; trusting in their goodness as well as their rights; deeply touched by the injustice with which the mass of mankind have been treated, and the sufferings they endure, and incessantly engaged, with an admirable disinterestedness, in remedying them or preventing their recurrence; accepting power as a dangerous necessity, almost as one evil opposed to another, and exerting himself not merely to restrain, but to lower it; distrusting all display, all personal splendor, as a tendency to usurpation; of a temper open, kind, indulgent, though ready to take up prejudices against, and feel irritated with, the enemies of his party; of a mind bold, active, ingenious, inquiring, with more penetration than forecast, but with too much good sense to push things to the extreme, and capable of employing, against a pressing danger or evil, a prudence and firmness which would perhaps have prevented it, had they been adopted earlier or more generally.

{115}

It was not an easy task to unite these two men, and make them act in concert in the same cabinet. The critical state of affairs at the first adoption of the Constitution, and the impartial preponderance of Washington alone could accomplish it. He applied himself to it with consummate perseverance and wisdom. At heart, he felt a decided preference for Hamilton and his views. "By some," said he, "he is considered an ambitious man, and therefore a dangerous one. That he is ambitious, I shall readily grant; but it is of that laudable kind, which prompts a man to excel in whatever he takes in hand. He is enterprising, quick in his perceptions, and his judgment intuitively great." [Footnote 66]

[Footnote 66: Washington's Writings, Vol. XI. p. 312.]

But it was only in 1798, in the freedom of his retirement, that Washington spoke so explicitly. While in office, and between his two secretaries, he maintained towards them a strict reserve, and testified the same confidence in them both. He believed both of them to be sincere and able; both of them necessary to the country and to himself. Jefferson was to him, not only a connecting tie, a means of influence, with the popular party, which was not slow in becoming the opposition; but he made use of him in the internal administration of his government, as a counterpoise to the tendencies, and especially to the language, sometimes extravagant and inconsiderate, of Hamilton and his friends. {116} He had interviews and consultations with each of them separately, upon the subjects which they were to discuss together, in order to remove or to lessen beforehand their differences of opinion. He knew how to turn the merit and the popularity of each with his own party, to the general good of the government, even to their own mutual advantage. He skillfully availed himself of every opportunity to employ them in a common responsibility. And when a disagreement too wide, and passions too impetuous, seemed to threaten an immediate rupture, he interposed, used exhortation and intreaty, and, by his personal influence, by a frank and touching appeal to the patriotism and right-mindedness of the two rivals, he at least postponed the breaking forth of the evil which he could not eradicate.

{117}

He dealt with things with the same prudence and tact as with men; careful of his personal position, starting no premature or superfluous question; free from the restless desire to regulate every thing and control every thing; leaving the grand bodies of the State, the local governments, and the officers of his administration, to act in their appropriate spheres, and never, except in a case of clear and practical necessity, pledging his own opinion or responsibility. And this policy, so impartial, so cautions, so careful to embarrass neither affairs nor itself, was by no means the policy of an inactive, uncertain, ill-compounded administration, seeking and receiving its opinions and direction from all quarters. On the contrary, there never was a government more determined, more active, more decided in its views, and more effective in its decisions.

It had been formed against anarchy and to strengthen the federal union, the central power. It was entirely faithful to its office. At its very commencement, in the first session of the first Congress, numerous great questions arose; it was necessary to put the Constitution in vigorous action. {118} The relations of the two branches of the Legislature with the President; the mode of communication between the President and the Senate in regard to treaties and the nomination to high offices; the organization of the judiciary; the creation of ministerial departments; all these points were discussed and regulated. A work of vast labor, in which the Constitution was, to some extent, given over a second time to the strife of parties. Without ostentation, without intrigue, without any attempt at encroachment, but provident and firm in the cause of the power which was intrusted to him, Washington, by his personal influence, by an adherence openly given to sound principles, had a powerful influence in causing the work to be carried on in the same spirit which presided over its beginning, and to result in the dignified and firm organization of the government.

His practice corresponded with his principles. Once fairly engaged with public business and parties, this man who, in the formation of his cabinet, showed himself so tolerant, enjoined and observed, in his administration, a strict unity of views and conduct. {119} "I shall not, whilst I have the honor to administer the government, bring a man into any office of consequence knowingly, whose political tenets are adverse to the measures which the general government are pursuing; for this, in my opinion, would be a sort of political suicide." [Footnote 67]

[Footnote 67: Washington's Writings, Vol. XI. p. 74.]

"In a government as free as ours," he wrote to Gouverneur Morris, at that time residing in London, "where the people are at liberty, and will express their sentiments, (oftentimes imprudently, and, for want of information, sometimes unjustly,) allowances must be made for occasional effervescences; but, after the declaration which I have made of my political creed, you can run no hazard in asserting, that the executive branch of this government never has suffered, nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity, nor give its sanction to any disorderly proceedings of its citizens." [Footnote 68]

[Footnote 68: Washington's Writings, Vol. XI. p. 103.]

In matters, also, of mere form, and foreign to the usual habits of his life, he was enlightened and directed by a wise tact, a sure instinct as to what is suitable and proper, a regard to which is itself one of the conditions of power. {120} The ceremonials to be observed towards the President became, after his election, a grave party question. Many federalists, passionately attached to the traditions and splendor of monarchy, exulted when at a ball they had succeeded in causing a sofa to be placed on an elevation two steps above the floor of the hall, upon which only Washington and his wife could be seated. [Footnote 69] Many of the democrats saw in these displays, and in the public levees of the President, the premeditated return of tyranny, and were indignant, that, receiving at a fixed hour, in his house, all those who presented themselves, he made them only a stiff and slight bow. [Footnote 70]

[Footnote 69: Jefferson's _Memoirs_, Vol. IV. p. 487. ]

[Footnote 70: Washington's Writings, Vol. X. p. 99.]

Washington smiled at both the delight and the indignation, and persisted in the regulations, surely very modest, which he had adopted. "Were I to give indulgence to my inclinations, every moment that I could withdraw from the fatigue of my station should be spent in retirement. That it is not, proceeds from the sense I entertain of the propriety of giving to every one as free access as consists with that respect which is due to the chair of government; and that respect, I conceive, is neither to be acquired nor preserved but by observing a just medium between much state and too great familiarity." [Footnote 71]

[Footnote 71: Washington's Writings, Vol. X. p. 100.]

{121}

More serious embarrassments soon put his firmness to a more severe test. After the establishment of the Constitution, the finances formed a question of vast importance to the republic, perhaps the principal one. They were in a state of extreme confusion; there were debts of the Union, contracted at home and abroad; debts of individual States, contracted in their own names, but in behalf of the common cause; warrants for requisitions; contracts for supplies; arrears of interest; also other claims, different in their character and origin, imperfectly known and not liquidated. And at the end of this chaos, there were no settled revenues, sufficient to meet the expenses which it imposed.

Many persons, and, it must be acknowledged, the democratic party in general, were unwilling that light should be thrown into this chaos by assuming all these obligations, or even by funding them. {122} They would have imposed upon each State its debts, however unequal the burden might have been. They would have made distinctions between the creditors; classifications founded upon the origin of their claims and the real amount of what they had paid for them. In short, all those measures were proposed which, under an appearance of scrupulous investigation and strict justice, were in reality nothing but evasions to escape from or reduce the engagements of the state.

As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton proposed the opposite system;--the funding and the entire payment, at the expense of the Union, of all the debts actually contracted for the common benefit, whether with foreigners or Americans, and whoever were the contractors or the present holders, and whatever was the origin of the claims;--the laying of taxes sufficient to secure the redemption of the public debt;--the formation of a national bank, capable of aiding the government in its financial operations, and of sustaining its credit.

{123}

This system was the only moral and manly one; the only one in conformity with honesty and truth. It strengthened the Union, by uniting the States financially, as they were united politically. It established American credit, by this striking example of fidelity to public engagements, and by the guaranties which it afforded for their fulfilment. It fortified the central government by rallying around it the capitalists, and by giving it powerful means of influence over them and through them.

At the first movement, the opponents of Hamilton did not dare to make any open objection; but they exerted themselves to lessen the authority of the principle, by contesting the equal fairness of the debts, by discussing the honesty of the creditors, and by exclaiming against the taxes. Partisans of local independence, they rejected, instead of viewing with satisfaction, the political consequences of a financial union, and demanded, in virtue of their general principles, that the States should be left, as to the past as well as for the future, to the various chances of their situation and their destiny.

{124}

American credit seemed to them to be bought at too dear a price. They would obtain it, as necessity might require, by means less burdensome and more simple. They found fault with the theories of Hamilton respecting credit, the public debt and its redemption, and banks, as difficult to be understood and fallacious.

But the ultimate effect of the system especially excited their wrath. The aristocracy of wealth is a perilous ally to power; for it is that which inspires the least esteem and the most envy. When the question was on the payment of the public debt, the federal party had on their side the principles of morality and honor. When the public debt, and the speculations founded upon it, were becoming a means of sudden wealth, and perhaps of unlawful influence, the severity of morals passed over to the democratic party, and integrity lent its support to envy.

Hamilton sustained the contest with his usual energy, as pure in his motives as he was firm in his convictions; the head of a party still more than a financier; and, in the administration of the finances, always chiefly occupied with his political object, the foundation of the state, and the strength of its government.

{125}

The perplexity of Washington was great. A stranger to financial studies, he had not, upon the intrinsic merit of the proposed questions, a personal conviction derived from knowledge. He felt their justice and their political utility. He had confidence in Hamilton, in his judgment and his virtue. Still, as the debate was prolonged and objections were multiplied, some of them disturbed his mind and others troubled his conscience; and he asked himself with some embarrassment, whether all the reasons were indeed on the side of the government.

I know not which is the more worthy of admiration, the impartiality which inspired these doubts, or the firmness with which, in the final result and after every thing had been well considered, he always sustained Hamilton and his measures. This was a step of great political sagacity. Though it might have been true, that some fallacies were mingled with the financial measures of the Secretary of the Treasury, and some abuses with their execution, a far higher truth predominated in them; by laying the foundation of the public faith, and by closely connecting the administration of the finances with the policy of the State, he gave to the new government, from the first moment, the consistence of an old and well-established authority.

{126}

The success surpassed the proudest expectations. Confidence appeared in men's minds, activity in business, and order in the administration. Agriculture and commerce flourished; credit rose rapidly. Society prospered with a sense of security, feeling itself free and well-governed. The country and the government grew strong together, in that admirable harmony which is the healthy condition of states.

Washington beheld with his own eyes, upon every point of the American territory, this spectacle so glorious and so delightful to him. In three public journeys, he slowly traveled over the whole Union, everywhere received with grateful and affectionate admiration, the only recompense worthy to affect the heart of a public man. {127} On his return, he thus wrote; "I am much pleased, that I have taken this journey. ... The country appears to be in a very improving state; and industry and frugality are becoming much more fashionable than they have hitherto been. Tranquillity reigns among the people, with that disposition towards the general government, which is likely to preserve it. ... The farmer finds a ready market for his produce, and the merchant calculates with more certainty on his payments. ... Every day's experience of the government of the United States seems to confirm its establishment, and to render it more popular. A ready acquiescence in the laws made under it shows, in a strong light, the confidence, which the people have in their representatives and in the upright views of those who administer the government." [Footnote 72]

[Footnote 72: Washington's Writings, Vol. X. p. 170.]

And almost at the same time, as if Providence had provided that the same testimony should go down to posterity from all parties, Jefferson wrote; "New elections have taken place for the most part, and very few changes made. This is one of many proofs, that the proceedings of the new government have given general satisfaction. ... Our affairs are proceeding in a train of unparalleled prosperity. {128} This arises from the real improvements of our government; from the unbounded confidence reposed in it by the people, their zeal to support it, and their conviction, that a solid union is the best rock of their safety." [Footnote 73]

[Footnote 73: Jefferson's _Memoirs_, Vol. III. pp. 93, 112.]

Thus, when the close of Washington's presidency approached, when the necessity of again selecting a chief magistrate for the nation was near at hand, a general movement was directed towards him, to entreat him to accept, a second time, the burden of office. A movement with great diversity, in spite of its apparent unanimity; the federal party wished to retain possession of the power; the democratic opposition felt, that the time had not come for them to aspire to it; and that the country could not dispense with the policy, nor with the man, they nevertheless had a distinct purpose of attacking. The public were fearful of seeing an interruption of that order and prosperity, so highly valued and so precarious. But, whether open or concealed, patriotic or selfish, sincere or hypocritical, the sentiments and opinions of all concurred to the same end.

{129}

Washington alone hesitated. His calm and penetrating mind found in his own disinterestedness a freedom, which preserved him from all illusion, both as to affairs and as to himself. The brilliant aspect, the really prosperous condition, of public affairs, did not conceal from his eyes the imminent perils of his situation. From abroad, the intelligence of the French revolution was already startling America. An unavoidable war, commenced with ill success, against the Indians, was requiring considerable efforts. In the cabinet, the disagreement between Hamilton and Jefferson grew very violent; the most urgent intreaties of the President failed to control it; it was almost officially displayed in two newspapers, the _National Gazette_ and the _United States Gazette_, fierce enemies under the name of rivals; the known editor of the former was a clerk in Jefferson's department. [Footnote 74]

[Footnote 74: His name was Freneau.]

Thus encouraged, the opposition press resorted to the most bitter violence, and Washington suffered great uneasiness on account of it. {130} He wrote to Mr. Randolph, the Attorney-General; "If government, and the officers of it, are to be the constant theme for newspaper abuse, and this too without condescending to investigate the motives or the facts, it will be impossible, I conceive, for any man living to manage the helm or keep the machine together." [Footnote 75]

[Footnote 75: Washington's Writings, Vol. X. p. 287. ]

In some parts of the country, especially in Western Pennsylvania, one of the taxes imposed for making provision for the public debt had awakened the spirit of sedition; numerous meetings of the people had declared that they would not pay it; and Washington was compelled to declare in his turn, by an official proclamation, that he would enforce the execution of the laws. In Congress itself, the administration no longer received so constant and powerful a support; Hamilton was, day after day, the object of the most animated attacks; the opposition were unsuccessful in the motions they made against him, but his own plans were not always adopted. {131} Finally, towards Washington himself, the language of the House of Representatives, always respectful and affectionate, was no longer so full or so tender; on the twenty-second day of February, 1793, the anniversary of his birth, a motion to adjourn the session for half an hour in order to go and pay their respects to him, after being warmly opposed, passed by only a majority of twenty-three votes.