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Title: Jefferson and Hamilton
The struggle for democracy in America

Author: Claude G. Bowers

Release date: November 25, 2023 [eBook #72222]

Language: English

Original publication: NYC: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72222

Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEFFERSON
AND HAMILTON ***

PREFACE
CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS
INDEX
FOOTNOTES

JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON

THOMAS JEFFERSON
By Nancy Clifton M. Randolph after Thomas Sully

JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON
The Struggle for Democracy
In America

BY
CLAUDE G. BOWERS

AUTHOR OF ‘THE PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD’

With Illustrations

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY CLAUDE G. BOWERS

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TENTH IMPRESSION, JANUARY, 1927

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

PREFACE
All American history has since run along the lines marked out by the antagonism of Jefferson and
Hamilton. Our history is sometimes charged with a lack of picturesqueness because it does not deal
with the belted knight and the moated grange. But to one who considers the moral import of events, it
is hard to see how anything can be more picturesque than the spectacle of these two giant antagonists
contending for political measures which were so profoundly to affect the lives of millions of human
beings yet unborn.
John Fiske

I T is the author’s purpose, in developing the stirring story of the
Plutarchian struggle of Jefferson and Hamilton, to show that without
belted knights the period was picturesque and dramatic. The extraordinary
men who gave and took lusty blows did not, as some would have us think,
confine themselves to calm academic discussions of elemental principles.
The dignified steel engravings of the participants, with which we are
familiar, give no impression of the disheveled figures seen by their
contemporaries on the battle-field.
This battle-field was rich in movement and color. There was tragedy and
pathos, much of comedy, something of the grotesque. Here we shall meet
marching mobs, witness duels and fist-fights, turbulent mass meetings,
public dinners in groves and taverns, hangings in effigy, and champions of
democracy in the galleries of theaters, pelting the aristocrats in the pits, and
coercing the orchestras into playing ‘La Marseillaise.’ It was in the midst of
such scenes as these that Jefferson and Hamilton fought the battle of the
fundamentals.
The struggle of these two giants surpasses in importance any other waged
in America because it related to elemental differences that reach back into
the ages, and will continue to divide mankind far into the future. The
surrender at Yorktown ended one phase of the Revolution, but it was not
complete until, after twelve years of nationhood, it was definitively
determined that this should be not only a republic, but a democratic republic.
That was the real issue between Jefferson and Hamilton.
The passions of the period still persist, and much of myth has been built
up by idolaters and enemies about both leaders. It has seemed possible to the
author to tell the story of their struggle with complete justice to both. The
part each played in the creation of the Nation was essential. It has been the
purpose to depict these two men and their associates as they really were in

the heat of controversy, neither sparing their weaknesses nor exaggerating
their virtues; to paint them as men of flesh and blood with passions,
prejudices, and human limitations; to show them at close quarters wielding
their weapons, and sometimes, in the heat of the fight, stooping to conquer;
and to uncover their motives as they are clearly disclosed in the
correspondence of themselves and friends. This has necessitated the
demolishment of some fashionable myths, when myths have obstructed the
view to truth.
The facts as here set forth throw a vivid light on the causes of the collapse
of the Federalist Party, which, in the average of its leadership, was, perhaps,
the most brilliant, and certainly the most attractive, in American history. Men
of wonderful charm they were, but they were singularly lacking in an
understanding of the spirit of their times and country. They fell, as we shall
find, because they neither had nor sought contact with the average man, and
sternly set themselves against the overwhelming current of democracy.
Even so, we shall find an explanation of their distrust of popular
government in the illiteracy of the times, the exaggerated notions of freedom
that prevailed, and the levity with which so many looked on financial
obligations. It is easier to understand the Hamiltonian distrust of democracy
than to comprehend the faith of Jefferson—a faith of tremendous
significance in history. Quite as remarkable as his faith was the ability of
Jefferson to mobilize, organize, and discipline the great individualistic mass
of the towns, the remote farms along the Savannah, the almost unbroken
wilds of the Western wilderness. With a few notable exceptions, he was
forced to rely for assistance on lieutenants pathetically inferior to the group
of brilliant men who sat on the Federalist board of strategy. He won because
he was a host within himself, capable of coping single-handed against the
combined geniuses of the opposition in the field of practical politics.
A liberal use has been made of the newspapers of the period; not only of
the descriptions of actual events, but of the false rumors and stories that
entered into the creation of the prejudices that always play their part in the
affairs of men. In determining why a given result was forced by public
opinion, it is no more necessary to know what the truth was than to know
what the people who formed that opinion thought the truth to be.
Along with the struggles in Congress, the bickerings in streets, coffee-
houses, and taverns, the actions of mobs and mass meetings, it has been
thought important to show the part ‘society’ played in the drama—for it was

a significant part. This was inevitable in a clear-cut fight between democracy
and aristocracy. The elegant home of Mrs. Bingham was scarcely less
identified with the Federalists than was that of Lady Holland with the
English Whigs, or that of Madame Holland with the party of the Gironde.
The pettings which the Otises and Harpers there received after the battles in
the House were very real rewards to men of their temperament. The part
played by men and women of fashion in the politics of the time will appear
in the ostracism of Democrats from their charmed circle, when even
Jefferson, snubbed, was driven for solace to the solitude of the library of the
Philosophical Society.
Throughout the struggle we shall find the forces well defined—
aristocracy against democracy, and sometimes we shall see it illustrated with
theatrical exaggeration, as when the Philadelphia aristocrats of the army that
marched against the Whiskey Boys, on prancing horses and in broadcloth
uniforms, paraded their ragged, weather-beaten prisoners of the frontier
through the fashionable streets for the delectation of the ladies at the
windows.
It is impossible to treat of this period without giving to John Adams a
place apart. He was in some respects a tragic figure, and, though ludicrously
vain and often all but clownish in small things, we shall have occasion to
admire and respect his independence and courageous subordination of his
personal fortunes to the service of humanity and country in making the peace
with France. If at times the mere recitation of his personal weaknesses seems
like ill-natured ridicule, it should be borne in mind that this is necessary to
the explanation of why a statesman and patriot, so able and deserving, was
so unfortunate in his public career.
The purpose of the author is not to make out a case for or against
democracy, but to show how it came to the Republic, sometimes blundering
and making a fool of itself on the way; to re-create, if possible, an heroic,
picturesque, and lusty age; to make the men of the steel engravings flesh and
blood; to stage the drama of a day when real giants trod the boards.
Claude G. Bowers

CONTENTS

I. Days of Comedy 1

A depressing dawn—Pessimism of Ames and Madison—Petty jealousies
and ambitions—Federal Hall—Caliber of Congress—Adams’s triumphant
entry—His elation—Form and titles—‘Majesty’ or ‘Excellency’?—Adams
scorns ‘President’—‘What shall I be?’—Maclay’s amusement—Ellsworth
puzzled—‘How shall I behave?’—Carroll’s disgust—Debate on titles—
Maclay’s irreverence—Fenno’s plea for titles—Washington’s arrival and
reception—Scene at the inauguration—The inaugural ball—New York in
1789—Streets, lights, sanitation—Homes of celebrities—Auction block and
gallows—Funeral bells—Tea-gardens—Taverns—Theater—Washington at
the play—Maclay shocked—The wax-works—Social climbers—Cost of
living—Luxury of society—Its Tory tone—Ball at the French Minister’s—
The Court on Cherry Street—Snobbery and pretense—The Hamiltons
entertain—The dinners of the Pennsylvanians—Robert Morris’s stories—
The Wall Street promenade—The House of Gossip—Richmond Hill—
Washington’s dinners—Madison seeks revenue—Trickery of the merchants
—Enter the ‘moneyed class’—Power of removal—Washington and the
Senate—Hamilton’s appointment.

II. Hamilton: A Portrait 22

Appearance—Elegance—Mystery of origin—Precocity—In Santa Cruz—
Early ambition—At King’s College—Literary brilliancy—His eloquence—
Was he a military genius?—His aristocracy—Love of luxury—Government
by ‘gentlemen’—Respect for wealth—Contempt for democracy—
Preference for monarchy—His plan for a Constitution—Distrust of the one
adopted—Never reconciled—Work for its adoption—His genius analyzed
—Methods of work—Fighting qualities—Moral courage—Personal
integrity—Analysis of his strength and weakness—As a party leader—
Lovable traits—His conviviality—Fondness for women—His home life—
Attitude toward religion—Toward Washington.

III. Hamilton in the Saddle 43

Confidence in Hamilton in commercial circles—Report on Public Credit—
Reason not personally presented—Scene when read—Reactions of a radical
—Enthusiasm in commercial quarters—The discords—Hate of speculators
—‘In the interest of the rich’—Plan to bind moneyed class—Activity of
speculators—Public men involved—Rumors of Robert Morris—Fast-
sailing vessels—The gambling mania—Fenno defends speculators—The
debate on Funding—Gallery scenes—Jackson’s attack—Hamilton turns
lobbyist—Organizes his forces—Newspaper attacks—Portrait of Madison
—He proposes discrimination—Consternation—Gloom at the Knox dinner
—Hamiltonians attack—The debate—Sedgwick—Smith—Ames—The
gallery—Madison replies—Maclay’s plan—An old roué—Madison’s snub
—Discrimination voted down—Abuse of Madison—Reaction in the streets
—Assumption—A caucus of Hamiltonians—Robert Morris’s interest—
Opposition appears—Revolt of Southerners—The cause—Annihilation of
States—Wolcott reveals Hamilton’s motives—The debate—Hamiltonians
‘piped to quarters’—Fear of vote—Rumors of Vining—Activity of the
lobby—Lame and sick carried to House—Morris approaches Maclay—
Alarm of Hamiltonians—Scenes in the Senate—Assumption voted down—
Distress of Sedgwick, Wadsworth, Clymer, Fitzsimons—Scenes in coffee-
houses—Hamiltonian Senate on a strike—Threats of disunion—Press
comments—‘Bastard of Eastern speculators’—Jefferson reaches New York
—Hamilton tries bargaining—Early morning walk on the Battery—
Hamilton and Jefferson barter—Dinner at Jefferson’s—Madison agrees—
Assumption wins.

IV. Premonitions of Battle 69

Hamilton at high tide—Idol of business—Masterful manner in Cabinet—
New fortunes and class feeling—Hamilton’s excise—Welcomes test of
strength—Distillers aroused—Pennsylvania protests—Neutrality of
Jefferson and Madison—Street debates—House debate—Denunciations of
Jackson—Madison’s embarrassment—Liquor and morals—Giles approves
—Revenue agents in elections—Hamilton takes personal charge in Senate
—Meets with committee—Maclay’s rebuff—‘Hamilton fails in nothing’—
Bloodshed predicted—The National Bank—Hamilton’s powerful following

—Maclay notes drift of moneyed men—Debate in House—Madison attacks
monopoly and implied powers—Ames defends—Sectional significance of
vote—Fight in the Cabinet—Madison consulted by Washington—Asked to
reduce views to writing—Fear of veto—Ames explains Washington’s
hesitation—Ugly talk in New York—Hamilton and Jefferson break—The
battle of the press—Hamilton man of the hour—Given reception in New
York—Jefferson and Madison on a journey—Their intimacy—Their
association in the public mind—Significance of their journey—Pamphlet
duel of Burke and Paine—‘Rights of Man’ and Adams’s ‘Discourses of
Davilla’—Jefferson’s ‘preface’ to Paine’s pamphlet—Reference to Adams
—British Agent shocked—Also ‘Society’—Press joins the fray—Burke
versus Paine in country towns—Adams disgusted with Paine—Enraged by
Jefferson—J. Q. Adams attacks Jefferson and Paine—Defends English
institutions—The war in the press—Turmoil pleases Jefferson—
Embarrassed by the ‘preface’—Explains to Adams—Friends of democracy
aroused—Scandal of ‘scrippomony’—Swindlers’ harvest—Frenzy of
speculation—Press warns—Political phase—Scandal in choice of Bank
directors—Hamilton’s brilliant support.

V. Thomas Jefferson: A Portrait 92

Appearance—A woman’s impressions—His cold first look—Charm of
manner—Maclay’s impressions—His conversation—His frontier training—
Westerner with Eastern polish—Bred in democratic community—College
influences—Fights for democracy in Virginia—Associations in Paris—Life
there—Interest in peasants’ plight—Sympathy with dawning of French
Revolution—Chats with Gouverneur Morris—Consulted by leaders of
Revolution—His plan to save the monarchy—His humanity—Toward
Hessian prisoners—Against death penalty for minor offences—Against
degrading prisoners—Relations with servants—With slaves—Hostility to
slavery—Attitude toward religion—Toward the Constitution—Methods as
party leader—His tact—Persuasions of dinner table—Dislike of quarrels
and separations—Self-control—Justly estimates opponent’s strength—
Relations with Adams—His cunning—The art of mining—Practical
political methods—Serenity in storms—The artistic phase—Music—
Architecture—The scientific phase—Interest in natural history—Astronomy
—Inventions—Passion for agriculture—Life at Monticello.

VI. The Social Background 116

Complaints of Philadelphia prices and manners—The physical city—Streets
and gardens—Halls of Congress—Offices of Jefferson, Hamilton, and
Washington—Life in the taverns—In boarding-houses—Drinking-places—
Arrogance of the masses—Their social life—Public gardens—Streets by
night—Shops and shopping—Economic status of workers—The aristocracy
—Vanity of wealth—‘Elegance of dress’—Entertaining—Heavy drinking—
Risqués conversations—Burr’s wine—A dinner at Clymer’s—Hamilton and
Mrs. Church—Portrait of Mrs. Bingham—The Bingham mansion—Mrs.
Bingham’s hectic life—Monroe’s social blunder—Judge Chase’s
boorishness—A reception at Mrs. Bingham’s—The Morrises—Mrs. Walter
Stewart—Mrs. Samuel Powell—Mrs. Knox—Mrs. Hamilton—Mrs.
Wolcott—Mary Ann Wolcott—Pierce Butler—Mrs. William Jackson—
Foreign visitors—A scene at the British Legation—Country places—The
hunt—Dancing Assembly—The theater—Washington at the play—The
players—The circus—Home of Jefferson.

VII. Jefferson Mobilizes 140

Hamilton’s advantage in organization—Jefferson’s raw material—His
problem—The scattered masses—The disfranchised—Jefferson plans
amalgamation of local democratic groups—Busy with his pen—Hancock
and Sam Adams—Charles Jarvis—Ben Austin—Abraham Bishop—Politics
in Connecticut—Gideon Granger—Ephraim Kirby—John Langdon—
Matthew Lyon—George Clinton—The Livingstons—Aaron Burr—
Jefferson approaches Burr—Tammany—Jeffersonian leaders in
Pennsylvania—John Francis Mercer—The Virginia machine—Willie Jones
of Halifax—Nathaniel Macon—Timothy Bloodworth—James Jackson of
Georgia—Charles Pinckney—Jefferson’s iron discipline—He works on the
masses—Aristocrats shocked at his associations—Uses the press—John
Fenno—His relations with Federalist leaders—Launching of Freneau’s
paper—Its national appeal—Portrait of Freneau.

VIII. The Gage of Battle 161

Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures—Its reception—Hamilton’s plan for
factories at Passaic Falls—Appears before New Jersey Legislature for
charter—Visits site to select locations—Pamphlet attacks on his Passaic
project—Admirers subscribe for Trumbull portrait of him—He watches
Freneau’s paper—Its early tone—‘Brutus’ attacks funding system—Attacks
on Freneau’s paper—‘Work of foreigners’—Of a ‘junto’—‘Sidney’ assails
Hamilton and his policies—Other assaults in Freneau’s paper—Fenno to the
defense—Demolished by Freneau—Scene at the Morris house—The rivals
visit a factory—Washington’s hope for reconciliation—Fenno regrets lack
of King—Fenno versus Freneau—Fenno again crushed—Hamilton’s rage—
His ‘T.L.’ letter—Freneau’s reply—Hamilton’s anonymous attacks on
Jefferson—Seeks affadavit from Boudinot—Washington appeals for peace
—Hamilton’s reply—Jefferson’s—Hamilton continues—Madison attacks
Hamilton’s letter—Fenno fears duels—Jefferson holds aloof—Attack
postpones his plans to retire—‘It is a Fact’—Collapse of St. Clair’s
expedition—Jeffersonians attack Knox—Bubble of speculation bursts—
Press denounces the gamblers—The Duer failure—Business paralyzed—
Charged to funding system—The Clinton-Jay contest—Bitter campaign of
1792—Federalist pessimism—Maryland fight—Hamilton involved—In
North Carolina—In Kentucky—In Virginia—Hamilton’s cultivation of
Virginia Federalists—Adams opposed—Hamilton to the rescue—Carroll for
Vice-President—McHenry’s letter—Hamilton orders Adams to his post—
Press battle over Adams—Results.

IX. Hamilton’s Black Winter 185

A remarkable winter—Jeffersonians aggressive—Hamilton’s methods
challenged—Madison demands report on finances—Hints of corruption—
Threats of Duer—Blackmail of Reynolds—Explanation asked of Hamilton
—Scene in Hamilton’s office—In his home—His confession concerning
Mrs. Reynolds—Jeffersonians attack finances—Fight planned at Jefferson’s
—Portrait of Giles—Freneau creates atmosphere for assault—First Giles
Resolutions—Giles’s speech—Hamilton’s indignation—His candle-lit
office—His prodigious achievement—His friends’ enthusiasm—Criticism
of his enemies—Technical violation of law—Giles resolution of
condemnation—The political strategy—The caucus at Hamilton’s—The
debate—The night session—Madison sums up—Ames replies—The
vindication—Reactions of the press—Toast at Providence Society dinner—

Jeffersonians analyze the vote—‘Parties to the cause’—Jefferson finds bank
directors and speculators did it—A conference at Port Royal—John Taylor’s
pamphlet—End of the fiscal phase.

X. Ça Ira 207

The French Revolution—Its appeal to American democrats—A wave of
enthusiasm—At Baltimore—At Boston—At Charleston—Political
significance of the Revolution to America—Americans divide on issue of
democracy—Federalists opposed—Their action in the Senate—
Denunciations of France—Federalist scorn for Louis’s weakness—
Jefferson’s attitude—His instructions to Ministers—Hamiltonians capitalize
execution of King—‘Cato’ revived in Philadelphia—‘Capet has lost his
Caput’—Sorrow at Providence—‘Cordelia’ urges black rose for mourning
—Tide turns against the French—Jefferson’s disgust—Society mourns—
Jefferson and Madison on right to execute—George III joins coalition
—‘Monarchy versus Democracy’—Masses swing back to France—Under
the Bingham windows—Bitterness against England—Hamilton’s alarm—
Summons Washington from Mount Vernon—Hamilton’s misrepresentation
of England’s action—He usurps Jefferson’s functions—Prepares questions
for Cabinet council—Cabinet struggle—Neutrality Proclamation—
Madison’s anger—Protests of the streets—Genêt—His ovations—Jefferson
and Madison pleased—Hamiltonians plan cool reception in Philadelphia—
Popular protests—False report on Count de Noailles—Hysterical reception
—Washington cold—Press attacks Neutrality—A French craze—Mobs
march—The provocations—Scenes in theaters—Federalists mock—
Democratic clubs—Their political significance—How Neutrality fared—
Genêt’s madness—English outrages—‘Red Coats’ toasted—‘Pacifist’—
Jefferson orders Madison to reply—Attacks on Hamilton—The ‘Little
Sarah’—Jefferson and Genêt—Reactions against French—Madison meets it
—Cabinet confers on Genêt—Jefferson demands his recall—Society pro-
English—Party bitterness—Jefferson’s social ostracism—He resigns—
Washington’s efforts to dissuade him—A near duel—A scare in Boston—
Yellow fever in Philadelphia—Hamilton stricken—Jefferson’s Report on
Commerce—A party document—He retires to Monticello.

XI. Hectic Days 240

Madison’s Commercial Resolutions—Their political purpose—English
party aroused—Hamilton speaks by proxy—Madison avows retaliation—
The debate—Ames’s unfortunate speech—Arraignment of English outrages
and defense—‘An English agent here’—Press attacks on Madison—
Jeffersonians call town meetings—At Boston—At New York—At
Philadelphia—At Portsmouth—Ames and Smith hung in effigy—Vogue of
Smith’s speech in London—Hammond an English Genêt—British Orders in
Council—Seizure of American vessels—Retaliatory measures—
Hamiltonians plead for calmness—A mercenary patriot—English Minister
insulted—Jeffersonian press fans the flames—French outrage in Charleston
—Clamor for war—Hamiltonians plead for negotiations—Prefer Hamilton
to negotiate—His intimacy with British Minister and Agent—‘No. 7’—
Protests against Hamilton—A Federalist caucus—Hamilton selected—Veer
to Jay—His personality and character—His fatal admission—Fight against
his confirmation—Popular protests—Hamiltonian caucus prepares Jay’s
instructions—He sails—The ‘Whiskey Boys’—Their grievances—
Insurrection—Political phase—Hamilton welcomes military measures—
Demanding a law’s repeal is urging its violation—Attacks on Democratic
Societies—Their position—That of the Jeffersonian press—Hamilton goes
to war—‘Why Hamilton?’—‘Where is Knox?’—Hamilton plans a political
effect—Cruelty to prisoners—The chariot wheels of the conqueror—East
versus the frontier—Elections of 1794—Ames’s close call—Livingston’s
triumph—Gives Ames the ‘hypo’—In North Carolina—Fitzsimons defeated
—Jefferson’s summer—Dr. Priestley arrives—Cobbett’s attack—Life in
Philadelphia—Theater mobs—Washington attacks Democratic Societies—
Madison meets and defeats approval in House—The bitter debate—The
press battle—Foreshadowings of Alien and Sedition Laws.

XII. The Marching Mobs 266

Hamilton resigns—Fenno’s tribute—Bache’s comment—Madison’s—
Hamilton given dinner in Philadelphia—In New York—Greenleaf on the
banquet—Jay’s negotiations—Hamilton’s indiscretion—Jay’s treaty—
Hamilton’s disgust—Jefferson’s—Why Hamilton would not reject—His
reservations—Senate debates in secret—Withholds treaty from publication
—Hamilton doubts wisdom—Senator Mason—He gives treaty to press—
Bache’s comments on the secrecy—Mob at Goldbury’s wharf—
Philadelphia mob on the 4th—Jay burned in effigy—Dinner on Frankfort

Creek—Protest meeting in State House yard—‘Kick it to hell’—Rival
dinners in New York—Letter to ‘Sir John Jay’—Boston mobs—Charleston
mob—Rutledge denounces treaty—Mass meeting at Richmond—
Portsmouth mass meeting—Dinner to Langdon—In Vermont—In
Connecticut—In Rhode Island—In Delaware—Jay burned in effigy in
Georgia—Street brawls—Tavern quarrels—Washington’s hesitation—
Cabot anxious—Ellsworth disgusted—Randolph scandal—Washington
signs treaty—Appeals to Washington to make public plea—Bache attacks
him—Hamilton writes ‘Camillus’—Trouble with editor—British outrages
continue—Jeffersonians use them—Jefferson asks Madison to reply to
Hamilton.

XIII. The Drama of ‘96 289

Senate rejects Rutledge—Jefferson’s comment—Edward Livingston—
Portrait of Albert Gallatin—The Livingston Resolution—A constitutional
question—The debate—Cobbett’s offensive action—Gallatin’s speech—
Sedgwick’s sneer at the people—Resolutions adopted—Hamilton’s concern
—His advice to Washington—Fight on appropriations for treaty—Disunion
threats—Jefferson and Madison on Washington’s action—‘Still in leading-
strings’—Organizing outside sentiment during debate—Insurance
companies enter politics—Banks also—Boston mass meeting—Otis’s sneer
at Gallatin—Abuse of Gallatin—Intimidation—Federalist alarm—Portrait
of Fisher Ames—His physical collapse—The invalid’s slow journey to the
capital—Warrior borne on a stretcher—His sensational speech—
Hamiltonians’ delight—‘In the hands of Pitt’—The vote—The effect—
Jefferson during treaty fight—His health—The Mazzei letter—Presidential
election—Patrick Henry sounded by Hamiltonians—They choose Pinckney
—Thomas Pinckney—Adams versus Jefferson—Scurrility—Adet’s letter—
Hamilton’s scheme against Adams—His dislike of Adams—Adams or
secession—The results—Hamiltonian distrust of Jefferson as Vice-President
—Jefferson cultivates Adams—The undelivered letter—Jeffersonian press
complimentary to Adams—Federalist displeasure.

XIV. An Incongruous Portrait Gallery 315

A treacherous Cabinet—Portrait of John Adams—Of Timothy Pickering—
Of Oliver Wolcott—Of James McHenry.

XV. Comedy and Heroics 339

The crisis with France—Portrait of Gouverneur Morris—Compared with
Monroe—Monroe’s difficulties in Paris—Federalist intrigue against him—
Ignored by Pickering—Deceived by Jay—French indignation over Jay’s
treaty—Monroe’s recall—Pinckney refused—Hamilton proposes a mission
—Suggests Madison as one—War party’s opposition—Hamilton prevails—
Adams’s objections to Jefferson for the mission—He confers with Jefferson
—Latter discourages sending Madison—Ames proposes Cabot—Adams
names Gerry—Thinks Hamilton ‘in a delirium’—Adams’s Message—
Harrison Gray Otis—Robert Goodloe Harper—Debate on Reply to the
Message—Livingston attacks English party—Harper’s war speech—It is
popular in London—British Minister conspicuous on floor—Taps Harper
on shoulder—Dayton’s compromise—War party attacks him—Lyon shocks
the formalists—Is attacked—His hot reply—‘Porcupine’ assails him—Mass
attack on Jefferson—His silence—Luther Martin attacks him—Is insulted at
Harvard—‘Porcupine’s’ abuse—Jefferson drops society—English party
jeers memory of Franklin—Hisses Paine—First toast to Women’s Rights—
Abuse of Swanwick—Of Mrs. M’Lean—Of Giles—Press comments on
Hamilton’s Reynolds pamphlet—Brilliant social season for Federalists—
Scene at Adams’s dinner table—Porcupine’s Gazette—William Cobbett—
Rival banquets—Discourtesy to Monroe—Dinner in his honor—He confers
with party leaders—Gallatin’s conclusions—Lyon-Griswold fight—Press
comments.

XVI. Hysterics 362

Hamiltonians bent on war—Hamilton runs the government—Bitterness of
debates—Harper’s wild war speech—Petitions against arming ships—
Adams’s ‘insane message’—Hamilton in the wings—Sprigg Resolution—
Harper’s blunder—X Y Z papers—Partisan abuse—Jefferson disheartened
—War clouds lower—Jefferson’s view of X Y Z—Madison’s—Monroe’s—
War hysteria—Adams greets young warriors of capital—A drunken mob—
Attack on Bache’s house—Adams alarmed—The ‘terror’ of Fast Day
—‘Hail Columbia’—Resented by Jeffersonians—Author rewarded—War
hawks beat tom-toms—Hamilton urges Washington to stir the country—
Ames demands war at once—Return of Marshall—His ovation—Partisan

purpose—Capitalization of Pinckney’s return—Hamilton writes philippics
against France—Jefferson asks Madison to reply—‘Porcupine’s’ war
propaganda—War party keeps presses busy with Harper’s speech—Other
war pamphlets—Clergy joins war hawks—‘Why so much anger in the heart
of a divine?’—Terrorizing Jeffersonians—Jefferson ready—Bache assaulted
—Hamilton goes gasconading—His amazing letter—Democrats fight for
time—Jefferson insulted—Ostracized—Spied upon—Mail opened—
Abusive toasts—Persecution of Lyon—Of Livingston—Of a Boston editor
—The Alien Law—Hatred of the Irish—Political reason—Jeffersonians and
English Whigs versus Hamiltonians and Pitt—Hamiltonians and Irish
Rebellion—King’s part—Otis’s ‘wild Irish’ speech—Sedition laws
proposed—Hamilton shocked at original bill—Mobbing Democrats in
debate—Livingston’s speech on Alien Bill—Wild talk in Sedition Bill
debate—Yellow fever again—Dr. Rush—Death of Fenno—Of Bache—
Elections of ‘98—Washington an active and extreme partisan—Marshall’s
campaign—Opposes Alien and Sedition Laws—‘Porcupine’s’ comment—
Reign of Terror begins—College degrees for Federalists—‘Patriot’ mobs—
Jeffersonians discharged from jobs—A Bishop’s sermon.

XVII. The Reign of Terror 386

Arrest of Matthew Lyon—A ludicrous trial—Cruel treatment—Loathsome
cell—Protest of Green Mountain Boys—Lyon in jail elected to Congress—
Plans to rearrest him—His fine subscribed—Dramatic scene on release—
Ovations en route to Congress—Persecution of the Reverend J. C. Ogden—
Imprisoned—Assaulted by soldiers—Arrest of Anthony Haswell—His
offense—Brutal treatment—Trial—Ovation on release—Case of David
Brown—The comedy case of Richard Fairbanks—Ames’s plea—
Persecution of Adams of the Chronicle—Resentment of public—Trial—
Dana’s bitter charge—Adams in jail—Visited by Sam Adams—William
Duane—The Saint Mary’s Church ‘riot’—Arrest—Trial—Dallas
excoriation—Acquittal—Rearrest—Case of Thomas Cooper—Chase on the
bench—His conduct—Cooper imprisoned—Refuses pardon—Dinner on
release—The Callender case—Chase’s boast—His conduct—Lawyers
refuse to proceed—Case of Judge Peck—Public sentiment aroused—
Political effect—Case of Charles Holt—The list of victims—Use of Alien
Law—Case of John D. Burk—Of Moreau de Saint Merys—Toasting Alien
and Sedition Laws—Harper’s jeer—Mass meetings demanding repeal—

Congressional speakers for repeal mobbed—A conference at Monticello—
Portrait of John Breckenridge—Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions—As
viewed at the time—Answers of Legislatures—Fight in Massachusetts—By
Senator John Bacon—And Aaron Hill—Abuse of Bacon—Stoning of Hill’s
house—Porcupine preaches right of secession.

XVIII. Adams Pulls down the Pillars 412

‘Hamilton’s war’—Hamilton for commander—Adams’s veto—Cabinet
conspired for Hamilton against Adams—McHenry’s trip to Mount Vernon
—The trick turned—Adams’s revolt—Hamilton’s activities—Wolcott’s—
The Essex Junto’s—Working on Washington—His letter to Adams—
Latter’s retort—Exclusion of Jeffersonians from commissions—Washington
in accord—Hamilton’s charge—Adams overruled on Burr—And
Muhlenberg—Moderate Federalists protest extremes—Jeffersonian sarcasm
—Hamilton organizes for war—His difficulties—Scolds McHenry—
Decline of war spirit—Jefferson fears insurrection over taxes—eight per
cent interest—‘Damned army will ruin the country’—Jeffersonians
capitalize eight per cent—Fries Rebellion—Hamilton in Philadelphia—
Soldier outrages—On Jacob Schneider—On Duane—‘Porcupine’s’ delight
—Militarism rampant—Recruiting lags—Clergy to the rescue—Attempt to
revive war fever—Army for domestic purposes—Desertions—Discussions
on executions—Logan goes to Paris—Federalist alarm—War unnecessary
—Why Otis knew it—Cries of ‘treason’—Logan learns French wish peace
—Snubbed by Pickering—By Washington—The Logan Law—
Jeffersonians fight—Harper exposed—Case of Gerry—The Miranda
conspiracy—Hamilton’s part—His plan to wipe out the States—Adams
consults Cabinet on negotiations—Is ignored—Conspirators frame Message
—Adams’s amendment—Hamiltonians caucus to force declaration of war
—Defeated—Pickering sulks—Adams nominates an envoy—Enemies
caucus—Committee calls—Porcupine attacks—Retreats—Compromise on
mission—Some Hamiltonian letters—An Adams dinner—Procrastination—
Working on Adams—Cabot calls—Adams’s summer—Adams at Trenton—
Talks with Hamilton—With Ellsworth—A Cabinet meeting—Envoys sail—
Rage of Hamiltonians—Dreary winter in Philadelphia—Marie Bingham’s
escapade.

XIX. ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ 440

Enter John Marshall—The Ross Bill—Withheld from public—Duane gets
and prints it—Protests—Marshall’s disaffection—Working on Marshall—
He wrecks the bill in the House—What Jefferson had done—His platform
—Jeffersonian leaders in South Carolina—‘Rye House Plot’—Jefferson at
home—New York election—Aaron Burr—Compared with Hamilton—
Hamilton takes charge—His plan—His caucus and ticket—Burr’s system of
espionage—His personal machine—Tammany—Caucuses at his home—
Plans Assembly ticket of national figures—Labors with Gates, Clinton, and
Livingston—Wins consent—Shock to Hamilton—Attacks on Clinton and
Gates—Merchants mobilized—Burr organizes—His brilliant work—
Campaigning with the lowly—The election—Hamilton’s proposal to Jay—
Burr for Vice-President—Federalist losses in New England—Caucus agrees
on Adams and C. C. Pinckney—Adams’s rage over New York—Scene with
McHenry—Pickering dismissed—Hamilton’s letter to Pickering—His
excitement—Reactions of Hamiltonians—They plan defeat of Adams—
Adams toasts ‘proscribed patriots’—An anti-Adams session of the
Cincinnati—Hamilton’s New England tour—His political purpose—Sees
Governor Gilman in New Hampshire—Meets rebuff in Rhode Island—A
meeting of the Essex Junto—At Salem—At Ipswich—At Newburyport—
Hamilton’s unfortunate statement—Jeffersonian ridicule—Hamilton grasps
the situation.

XX. Hamilton’s Rampage 464

Hamilton plans coercion of Federalist electors—Letter to Carroll—Enemies
in Adams’s camp—Wolcott’s treachery—Cabot doubtful—Noah Webster
deserts Hamilton for Adams—Attitude of press—Jeffersonians attack
Hamilton—Their campaign—The Dayton scandal—‘Adams a
monarchist’—Langdon’s signed statement—Corroboration from New
Haven—Webster’s slur at the poor—Fenno’s fatal pamphlet—Secession
talk of Federalists—Wolcott’s father—Letters of ‘Pelham’—Those of
‘Burleigh’—Reply of ‘Rodolphus’—Jeffersonian progress in New England
—In Connecticut—Abraham Bishop—His Phi Beta Kappa oration—
Political preachers—The Reverend Cotton Smith’s slander—Jefferson’s
comment—The Reverend Dr. Abercrombie—Duane attacks—Dr. Lynn

electioneers for Pinckney—Rebuked by Jeffersonian woman—Persecution
of Jeffersonian clergymen—Pamphlets on Jefferson’s religion—Ridicule of
Federalists’ religious pose—‘Diary’ of Fayton—Federalists seek Catholic
votes—Hamilton plans personal attack on Adams—Seeks aid of Adams’s
Cabinet—Writes pamphlet—Burr gets and publishes—Editor of New York
Gazette explains—Hamilton’s case against Adams—Cabot’s criticism—
Major Russell’s floundering—Jeffersonian press attacks Hamilton—
Pamphlet replies—Hamilton eager to answer—Friends dissuade—Election
tricks—In Pennsylvania.

XXI. Democracy Triumphant 486

Washington City—Morris’s cynical description—Mrs. Adams’s—The
physical town—Lodgings—Social life—Jefferson calls on Adams—His
lodgings at Conrad’s—Others at Conrad’s—Federalist conspiracy to elect
Burr—Hamilton’s indignation—His attempt to dissuade his party—A drama
in letters—Morris and Jay join Hamilton—Others desert—Harper calls on
Morris—Plan to prevent an election—Burr’s aloofness—He hears from
Harper—Burr’s letter to General Smith—Hamilton wins McHenry—
Pickering’s preference for Burr—Bayard’s embarrassment—Sedgwick for
Burr—Federalist caucus agrees on Burr—Hamilton makes serious charge—
His depression—The serenity at Conrad’s—Jefferson’s non-political letters
—Visitors pack the town—Federalist press in the contest—Gallatin surveys
the field—Jefferson’s secret plan—He writes Burr—Writes scientific
friends on bones—Hamilton’s final shot at Wolcott dinner—A Washington
snowstorm—Nicholson carried in bed to Capitol—Scenes during all-night
voting—The drama of the struggle—Jefferson during the voting—
Approached by Morris—Conspirators surrender—Adams notified—
Jefferson takes leave of Senate—Morris’s resolutions of thanks—The die-
hards protest—Inaugural crowds—Creating new judges—Adams rewards
Wolcott—Adams’s flight—Sedgwick’s—Breakfast at Conrad’s—Jefferson
sworn in by Marshall—‘All Federalists, all Republicans’—Mrs. Smith
pours tea—Epilogue.

Books, Pamphlets, Newspapers, and Magazines Cited or Consulted 513

Index 519

ILLUSTRATIONS
Thomas Jefferson Frontispiece
From a copy of the Thomas Sully portrait, painted by Nancy Clifton
M. Randolph, wife of Thomas Jefferson Randolph IV, a lineal
descendant of Jefferson
Alexander Hamilton 22
From an engraving by E. Prud’homme after a miniature by Archibald
Robertson
Mrs. William Bingham 128
From an engraving in Rufus Wilmot Griswold’s Republican Court after
the painting by Gilbert Stuart
Four Hamiltonians 140
Fisher Ames
From a portrait by Gilbert Stuart
Robert Goodloe Harper
From a painting
George Cabot
From a woodcut after a pastel of Cabot at the age of sixteen, the only
known portrait
Gouverneur Morris
From an engraving after a portrait by Thomas Sully
Four Jeffersonians 148
Albert Gallatin
From a portrait by Gilbert Stuart
Edward Livingston
From an engraving by E. Wellmore after a drawing by J. B. Longacre
William Branch Giles
From a miniature painted in Washington in 1812, reproduced in
heliotype in The Centennial of Washington’s Inauguration, by Clarence
Winthrop Bowen
James Madison

From a portrait by Thomas Sully
Facsimile of Hamilton’s Letter to Oliver Wolcott
Appointing Him Auditor in the Treasury Department 332
From the original pasted in George Gibbs’s own copy of his
Administrations of Washington and Adams
The Griswold-Lyon Fight in the House 360
From a contemporary cartoon
‘Mad Tom in a Rage’ 384
From a contemporary cartoon typical of the Federalist attacks on
Jefferson

JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON
The Struggle for Democracy in America

CHAPTER I

DAYS OF COMEDY

I

W HEN Fisher Ames, exuberant over his unhorsing of Samuel Adams,
and eager to try his lance on others, reached New York to take his
place in the House of Representatives, he was disgusted to find few
indications that a new government was about to be established. Wandering
about the narrow, crooked streets he encountered few colleagues. That was
the beginning of his cynicism.
A week after the date set for the opening of Congress but six Senators had
appeared, and a circular letter was sent to the others urging their immediate
attendance. Two weeks more and neither House nor Senate could muster a
quorum.[1] Ames could see little improvement on the ‘languor of the old
Confederation,’ but expected an organization of the House within a day or
two. A Virginian, lingering in Philadelphia with a slight indisposition, was
expected momentarily and the Representatives from New Jersey were on the
way. But there was nothing definite on which to base such fair hopes of the
Senate.[2] The next day Madison wrote Washington in a similar vein.[3] This
seeming indolence or indifference was the subject of pessimistic
conversations among the members in town as they meandered about the
streets. Revenue was being lost—‘a thousand pounds a day’; credit was
going; the spirit of the new experiment was sinking. ‘The people will forget
the new government before it is born,’ wrote Ames. ‘The resurrection of the
infant will come before its birth.’[4] Already petty jealousies and ambitions
were manifesting themselves, with much intriguing for the honor of being
messengers to notify the President and Vice-President of their election.[5]
The little city was overrun with job-hunters. Even before the gavel fell on
the first session, there were discussions of removing the capital elsewhere
because of ‘the unreasonable expense of living,’ in New York.
It was not until April 2d, almost a month late, that a quorum was formed
in the two houses. The following day George Washington was elected
President, John Adams Vice-President, and messengers started for Mount
Vernon and Braintree. Confronted by the most momentous governmental

task in history, the men on whom fell the burden of creating a new nation
had consulted their personal convenience about starting. It was not a
promising beginning.

II

If the lawmakers had been derelict, the people of New York had not. They
at least appreciated the possibilities of a capital. The task of designing
Federal Hall in which Congress was to meet had been entrusted to L’Enfant
—who was to win undying fame by planning the city of Washington—and
he had done his work well—some thought too well. Ames was rather
delighted over the fact that it had cost ‘20,000 pounds York money,’ but
Ames was a lover of luxury, and the more democratic Wingate, while
conceding that the city had ‘exerted itself mightily,’ was afraid it had done so
‘excessively.’[6] In truth there was dignity and beauty in the stately arches
and the Doric columns, in the lofty vestibule paved with marble and lighted
from an ornate dome, in the design and decorations of the chambers, with
their graceful pilasters and their crimson draperies. There was richness
enough to disturb the republican souls of members from the rural districts
and the small towns.[7] Among the members who sat down amidst these
surroundings were a number who were nationally known and brilliant, but
the majority were comparatively obscure and mediocre. Looking over his
colleagues, the enthusiastic and impressionable Ames found himself ‘less
awed and terrified’ than he had expected; for while it was ‘quite a republican
assembly’ because ‘it looks like one,’ he could see few ‘shining geniuses.’[8]
To the more experienced Madison, the outlook was not so pleasing. ‘I see on
the list of Representatives a very scanty proportion who will share in the
drudgery of business,’ he wrote.[9]

III

After a triumphant journey, constantly interrupted by ovations and
addresses, by the thunder of artillery, the clatter of cavalry, and the ringing of
bells, John Adams reached the city, took his seat beneath the canopy of
crimson velvet in the Senate and began his reign. The ceremony and
adulation of his progress from Braintree had gone to his head. Almost
immediately he began to mimic the manners and parrot the language of the
Old World court circles, until even the aristocratic Ames was moved to
regret his ‘long absence’ from the country because of which he had ‘not so

clear an idea of the temper of the people as others who have not half his
knowledge in other matters.’[10]
With the approach of Washington, the Senate, partly under the inspiration
of Adams, began to grapple soberly with the problem of form and titles.
Even before the arrival of Adams, when every one was ‘busy in collecting
flowers and sweets ... to amuse and delight the President ... on his arrival,’
the prosaic Roger Sherman had ‘set his head to work to devise some style of
address more novel and dignified than “Excellency.” ’ There was an ominous
growl from the skeptics who doubted the propriety, and some ribald laughter
from the wits. A caricature had even appeared under the caption ‘The Entry,’
representing the President on an ass, and in the arms of his man Billy
Humphreys, who was shouting hosannas and birthday odes, while the Devil
looked on with the comment:
‘The glorious time has come to pass
When David shall conduct an ass.’[11]

It was to require more heroic treatment than this, however, to cool the
senatorial ardor for high-sounding names. Even before Adams had been
elected, he had participated in serious discussions in Boston as to whether
the President should be called ‘Majesty,’ or ‘Excellency,’ or nothing at all.
Of course the Senators and Representatives should be given the honest
English title of ‘Most Honorable’ for Major Russell in the ‘Centinel’ had
been doing that all along. But the time for decision had come. The President
was approaching. It had been decided that on his arrival at the Senate
Chamber for his inauguration, he was to be met at the door by Adams,
conducted to a chair, and informed that both houses were ready to attend him
when he took the oath. But how should he be addressed? Should it be as ‘Mr.
Washington,’ ‘Mr. President,’ ‘Sir,’ ‘May it please your Excellency,’ or what?
Adams took his troubles to the Senate. Should it be as ‘Excellency,’ as in the
army? Adams was free to admit that he preferred it to ‘Mr. President,’ which
‘would put him on a level with the Governor of Bermuda.’
There were Senators who instantly caught the importance of the point.
One proposed the appointment of a committee to determine.[12] But these
troubles came, not singly, but in battalions. What was Mr. Adams to do when
Washington was in the Chamber? He did not know whether the framers of
the Constitution ‘had in view the two Kings of Sparta or the two Consuls of
Rome when they formed it,’ He could not tell whether the architect of the

building, in making his chair wide enough for two, had the Constitution
before him. He was Vice-President—but he was also President of the Senate.
‘When the President comes into the Senate, what shall I be?’ he asked
plaintively. ‘I cannot be President then. I wish gentlemen to think what I
shall be.’
It was a solemn moment. Adams, with an air of distress, sank into his
chair. The silence was depressing. The leveler from the frontier of
Pennsylvania, Maclay, found ‘the profane muscles of his face in tune for
laughter,’ but controlled himself. Ellsworth, a practical man, was seen
feverishly turning the pages of the fundamental law. At length he rose to
announce the result of his research. It was clear enough that wherever the
Senate was, ‘there, sir, you must be at the head of them.’ But—‘here he
looked aghast as if some tremendous gulf yawned before him’—but ‘further,
sir, I shall not pretend to say.’[13]
Thus the great day arrived to find the Senate caught unawares by a new
crisis. Adams had just risen to explain that Washington would probably
address the Congress, and to ask instructions as to ‘how I shall behave.’ It
was a congenial subject for discussion. Lee of Virginia rose to explain the
ways of the Lords and the Commons. Izard of South Carolina, who had been
educated abroad and wished it understood, told how often he had been in the
Houses of Parliament. Lee had observed that, while the Lords sat, the
Commons stood. True, admitted Izard, but there were no seats for the
Commons. Adams here interrupted to tell the Senate how often he too had
been in Parliament. Old Carroll of Carrollton, who lived like a lord, but did
not think like one, grumblingly suggested that it did not matter what the
English did.
And just then—consternation! The Clerk of the House was at the door!
How should he be received? The discussion was feverishly resumed. Lee,
getting his cue from the Commons again, was sure that he should be met at
the door by the Sergeant-at-Arms with his mace on his shoulder. Confusion
worse confounded—the Speaker and members of the House were now at the
door! Members left their seats in their embarrassment, the doors were
opened, the House filed in. Some one had blundered![14]
Meanwhile, with increased animation, the debate over the title for the
President was resumed. Of course there should be titles, said Lee. Venice,
Genoa, Greece, Rome—all had them. Ellsworth began to find virtue in
kings; Izard was impressed with the antiquity of kingly government. Old

Carroll, grumbling—or laughing—as usual, did not care for kings. But the
President’s title—what should it be? Ellsworth thought ‘President’ common.
Adams eagerly added that there were ‘presidents of fire companies and
cricket clubs.’ ‘Excellency?’—suggested by Izard. ‘Highness?’—proposed
by Lee. ‘Elective Highness?’[15]
At length it was settled—‘His Highness the President of the United States
and Protector of the Rights of the Same.’ Adams was disgusted. ‘What will
the common people of foreign countries; what will the soldiers and sailors
say to “George Washington, President of the United States”? They will
despise him to all eternity.’[16]
The rabid republicans began to laugh. Speaker Muhlenberg dubbed
Maclay, ‘Your Highness of the Senate.’ Maclay himself, usually sardonic,
grew facetious in debate, and thought the title satisfactory if the President
was really high ‘and gloriously greased with a great horn of oil’ to make him
conspicuous. Even Robert Morris complained that the Congress was also
‘Protector of the Rights of the People.’[17] But alas, it was a case of love’s
labor lost, for when the ponderous title reached the House, James Madison
quietly announced that the Constitution had given the head of the State a title
—‘President of the United States’; and so it has been from that day to this.
The more thoughtful had witnessed the tempest in a teapot with some
misgivings. Madison thought the success of the Senate plan would have
‘given a deep wound to our infant Government’;[18] and Ames thought it ‘a
very foolish thing to risk much to secure’ and wished ‘that Mr. Adams had
been less disguised.’[19] But they who continued for twelve years to refer to
‘the court’ were not content. A correspondent of Fenno’s ‘Gazette,’ the ‘court
journal,’ continued to plead for ‘titles of distinction’ and to pray piously that
Congress would ‘not leave the important subject to chance, to whim, caprice,
or accident.’[20]

IV

In the midst of these acrimonious discussions of the flubdubbery of
ceremonials, and with Adams proposing that the Sergeant-at-Arms be called
‘Usher of the Black Rod,’[21] Washington reached New York. A black mass
of humanity awaited him in the rain at the water-front, peered down upon
him from roofs and windows. The roaring of cannon and the pealing of bells
apprized the crowd that the ornate barge the city had provided to ‘waft His
Excellency across the bay’[22] had been sighted. The thirteen pilots in white

uniforms who manned the barge were conspicuous as it moved on to the
accompaniment of cheers to the Wall Street wharf. As it swept alongside the
landing, bands on the banks joined in the noisy welcome of the cannon and
the bells. When Washington, in a plain suit of blue and buff, rose to descend
‘the stairs covered with crimson trapping, the shouts of the populace
drowned the combined noises of the mechanical devices.’[23]
Declining the use of carriages, he proceeded with his party and the
committee on foot down Wall Street to Pearl, then Queen, and up the full
length of that then fashionable thoroughfare, which boasted a sidewalk that
would accommodate three walking abreast, to the house prepared for him on
Cherry Street. The crowd followed, men, women, and children, masters and
men. There at the house they left him; and a few moments later he returned
down Pearl Street to the home of Governor George Clinton to dine. That
night the houses of the city were illuminated. The monarch had entered his
capital. To the masses he was the maker of a nation; to the world of fashion
he was the creator of a court.[24]
The day of inauguration found the city fluttering with flags, colorful with
decorations, Wall Street fairly screaming with the spirit of festivity. Wreaths
and flowers hung from windows. A reverential throng packing Wall, Broad,
and Nassau Streets watched the great man enter the Hall; and a few minutes
later he appeared upon the balcony of the Senate Chamber—a gallant figure
in deep brown, ‘with medal buttons, an eagle on them, white stockings, a
bag and sword’[25]—to take the oath.
The keen eyes of Alexander Hamilton surveyed the scene from his home
across the street.
Thence back to the Senate Chamber where the inaugural address, in
trembling hands, was read with difficulty because of the shaking paper. The
erratic but loyal Maclay was pained to find that his hero was not ‘first in
everything.’[26] Thence back to the house on Cherry Street.
Never had the little city been so picturesquely and brilliantly illuminated
as on that night of general rejoicing. Transparent paintings shone all over the
town—that at the bottom of Broadway ‘the finest ever seen in America.’[27]
It was a beautiful evening, ‘and no accident cast the smallest cloud upon the
retrospect.’[28]
A few evenings later, an inaugural ball was given by the Assembly in
their rooms on Broadway above Wall Street. The President ‘was pleased to

honor the company with his presence,’[29] and ‘every pleasure seemed to be
heightened’ as a result.[30] There, too, was ‘His Excellency the Vice-
President,’ and members of Congress with their families, officers of the
army, the Ministers of France and Spain. ‘Joy, satisfaction and vivacity was
expressed on every countenance.’[31] Each lady, passing the ticket-taker, was
presented with a fan made in Paris, with an ivory frame containing a
medallion portrait of Washington in profile. ‘A numerous and brilliant
collection of ladies’ it was, according to the impressionable reporter, all
dressed ‘with a consummate taste and elegance.’[32]
Society awoke that night to the fact that a nation had been created and a
capital established on the Hudson, and it fairly titillated at the prospect of the
gayety of a ‘court.’

V

Now let us take a turn around the city and familiarize ourselves with the
setting of the drama. It will not take long, for the little city of thirty-five
thousand was compactly built. Broadway, the most promising and
pretentious of the thoroughfares, was paved only to Vesey Street—beyond
that, mud. The houses, most of them modest, were surrounded by gardens.
From the west side of Broadway to the west side of Greenwich, the town
was well built up from Bowling Green to Reade. Beyond that, only the
hospital and a few widely scattered houses. On the east side, building
extended as far north as Broome. Were we on a shopping expedition we
should seek Nassau and William, the heart of the retail district, passing on
the former many attractive homes including that of Aaron Burr. Were we
bent on a promenade, to meet the ladies and the dandies, we should betake
ourselves to Wall, where, notwithstanding the auctioneers, the shoemakers,
the grocers, the tailors, the confectioners, the peruke-makers, we should pass
handsome homes. Perhaps we should jostle the statesmen emerging from the
boarding-houses along the way.
These narrow, crooked streets we should find more tolerable by day than
by night. The street lamps were at wide intervals and frequently unlighted. If
we escaped a highwayman in the night, we should be lucky to escape the
mud of the poorly paved sidewalks, and if we did not bruise our shins by
collision with the town pumps, we should be fortunate not to stumble over a
pig. Off somewhere in the darkness we should probably hear the curses of
some unfortunate wanderer fallen over an obstruction, the grunting of hogs

rooting in the gutters, the barking of innumerable dogs.[33] The long line of
negroes bearing burdens toward the river might pique our curiosity did we
not know that they were the sewage carriers of the city doing their nightly
routine work.
Even by day we should find traveling not without its risks, for many of
the streets were torn up for improvements.[34] Thus ‘the Hon. Mr. Huger,’
thrown from his sedan chair and painfully bruised, lays claim to immortality
in the pages of Maclay[35] and in the yellowing sheets of Fenno’s journal.[36]
Faring forth in search of the political celebrities, we should not have far to
go, for most were herded in boarding-houses. Hamilton lived comfortably at
Broad and Wall Streets, Burr around the corner on Nassau. Jefferson was
soon realizing his dream of comfort on Broadway after living in a little
house in Maiden Lane. Randolph, the Attorney-General, had found a modest
place in the country for two hundred and fifty dollars with ‘an excellent
pump of fresh water.’[37] Knox was living beyond his means on Broadway,
and Adams was at Richmond Hill. But most of the lawgivers found
boarding-houses more congenial to their purses. Thus, within a few steps on
Great Dock Street we should find Robert Morris, Caleb Strong, Pierce
Butler, Fisher Ames, and Theodore Sedgwick; in Maiden Lane, James
Madison; on Smith Street, Charles Carroll, and on Water Street, Oliver
Ellsworth.
Turning from the celebrities to the lowly and the base, we could visit the
slave market which was then active, for there were more than two thousand
negroes in bondage in the city. While the orators at Federal Hall were
speaking reverently of liberty, the hammer of the auctioneer was knocking
down negro girls to the highest bidder, and the local papers were running
‘rewards’ for the capture of runaway slaves.[38] Were we in the mood to walk
to the end of the pavement on Broadway, we could regale ourselves, in the
grove where the City Hall now stands, with a view of the gallows enshrined
in a Chinese pagoda where the executioners competed successfully at times
with the debaters in attracting the curious. There, too, stood the whipping-
post.[39] In the midst of so much that was grim, little wonder that the
statesmen resented the frequent ringing of funeral bells. ‘The gentlemen
from the country complain exceedingly of this noisy, unmeaning and absurd
custom,’ wrote ‘A Citizen’ to his favorite paper. ‘This is the moment to
abolish it, and give an evidence of a disposition to please them.’[40] But it is

not of record that the ‘gentlemen from the country’ were permitted to
interfere with the privileges of the dead.
Were we to turn from these grim specters to amusement, we could get a
conveyance at one of the city’s six livery stables to carry us into the country
to the Florida tea-gardens on the North River; thence to Perry’s on the
present site of Union Square, or to Williamson’s, near the present site of
Greenwich and Harrison.[41] But were our mood of darker hue, we could
find no dearth of entertainment at the taverns. When Congress quarreled and
struggled at Federal Hall, and Washington dwelt on Cherry Street, one
hundred and thirty-one taverns were licensed in the city to which flocked all
manner of men. There, with liquor or ale, we could enjoy a cock-fight and
pick the winner, or gather about the table and gamble at cards. Laborers,
loafers, sailors, criminals infested these dives, and if we preferred cleaner
company, we might get an invitation to the Black Friars, the one social club
in the city.[42] Or, if more intellectual entertainment were desired, it could be
found in the wooden building painted red on John Street, a stone’s-throw
from Saint Paul’s Church where Washington had his pew, where the Old
American Company regaled the people of the pit, the boxes, and galleries
with the plays of Shakespeare, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Garrick, and some of
indifferent merit.[43] Here ‘The Father,’ by William Dunlap, the historian of
the American theater, had its first presentation—a notable event, since
Washington, a spectator, was seen to laugh at the comedy.[44] Indeed, his
health permitting, the President was frequently seen in his box which bore
the arms of the United States, and the press was not amiss in keeping the
public informed when the great man went to the play.[45] He had been in the
house on Cherry Street but a few days, when, disregarding the frowns of the
purists, he went to see the ‘School for Scandal.’ Two days before, the ‘Daily
Advertiser’ had gayly hinted of the prospective visit. ‘It is whispered that
“The School for Scandal” and “The Poor Soldier” will be acted on Monday
night for the entertainment of the President,’ it said. And then it added, by
way of gentle admonition to the players: ‘Mrs. Henry ought on this occasion
to condescend to give passion and tenderness to Maria.... Mrs. Henry ought
to act Norah and improve the delightful farce by the melody of her voice.
Mrs. Henry ought to take no offense at the suggestion.’[46] We may be sure it
was a festive occasion, for Fenno’s ‘court journal’ said that ‘there was a most
crowded house and the ladies, who were numerous, made a most brilliant
appearance.’[47] One sour Senator in the presidential party did not take

kindly to the play. ‘I think it an indecent representation before ladies of
character and virtue,’ he wrote—and there were ladies in the party![48] The
President, however, was pleased to go again quite soon to see ‘The
Clandestine Marriage,’ again subjecting ‘ladies of character and virtue’ to
temptation, for Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Knox were with his party when ‘Mrs.
Henry and Mrs. Morris played with their usual naïveté and uncommon
animation’ due to ‘the countenance of such illustrious auditors.’[49]
Other forms of entertainment, all too few, were not neglected by the
celebrities. ‘The President and his Lady and family and several other persons
of distinction were pleased to honor Mr. Bowen’s wax-works exhibit with
their company at 74 Water Street’—looms among the announcements of the
‘court journal.’[50]

VI

Nor were the entertainments dependent wholly upon the residents and
governmental dignitaries. The little city was bravely simulating the airs of a
real capital. The social climbers, hearing of the ‘court’ flocked to town from
the four corners with their wives and daughters.[51] The cost of living
mounted alarmingly, and the rental of suitable houses was prohibitive to
many. Oliver Wolcott, hesitating about accepting a place paying fifteen
hundred dollars a year, had been assured by Ellsworth that a house could be
had for two hundred dollars, wood for four dollars a cord, hay for eight
dollars a ton, but that marketing was twenty-five per cent higher than at
Hartford.[52] But soon after his arrival, the discouraged official was writing
his father that ‘the expense of living here will be greater than I had
imagined.’[53] The leading tavern, on the west side of Broadway, near Cedar,
was a modest establishment with immodest prices.[54] And to make matters
worse, ‘society’ had set a giddy pace.
We are especially interested in this society because Jefferson, on his
arrival, was shocked at its unrepublican tone. The inner or select circle did
not number more than three hundred.[55] A French traveler was impressed
with its tendency to luxury, its love of grandeur, and ostentatious display.
‘English luxury,’ ‘English fashions,’ the women in ‘the most brilliant silks,
gauzes, hats, and borrowed hair,’ the men, more modest as to dress, but
taking ‘their revenge in the luxury of the table’ and in smoking cigars from
the Spanish islands.[56] The Loyalist families were forward in asserting their
social prerogatives in the shadow of the Republican ‘Court.’ Did they not

have money and the prestige of having wined and dined and danced with the
officers of His Majesty in the days of the occupation? None more
conspicuous than the Henry Whites with a fine house on Wall Street, with
one son in His Majesty’s army, another a rear admiral in His Majesty’s navy.
About the Misses White—‘so gay and fashionable, so charming in
conversation, with such elegant figures’—the young blades gathered like
moths about the flame. Giddy were the parties there, the men Beau
Brummels in the extreme of fashion, and out of the few fugitive pictures we
catch a glimpse of Mrs. Verplanck dancing a minuet ‘in hoop and petticoats,’
and a young beau catching cold from ‘riding home in a sedan chair with one
of the glasses broken,’ after partaking too freely of hot port wine.[57]
Balls and teas there were aplenty, but ‘society’ preferred to dine and talk.
Hamilton in his home on Wall Street gave frequent dinners insinuating when
not boldly proclaiming his doubts of the people. Van Breckel, the Dutch
Minister, entertained lavishly, making his dining-room the resort of the little
foreign circle—and every one tried to keep up the pace.
It was the pace that killed—financially. The Henry Knoxes then began
their journey toward bankruptcy, living elaborately on Broadway,
maintaining horses and grooms, five servants, and giving two dinners a
month. Almost a ninth of his salary went for wine alone. What with his own
hair-dressing, and that of the expansive Lucy, who wore her hair, after the
extreme fashion, ‘at least a foot high, much in the form of a churn bottom
upward,’ the family account with Anthony Latour, hair-dresser, was no small
matter,[58] and his annual deficit was a third of his salary.
Nor was the Secretary of War unique. The social life was a hectic swirl of
calls, teas, entertainments. ‘When shall I get spirit to pay all the social debts
I owe?’ wrote one lady of quiet tastes.[59] It was harvest-time for the
dressmakers, the jewelers, the hair-dressers. The ball given in compliment to
Washington by the French Minister called for special costumes, for there
were ‘two sets of Cotillion Dancers in complete uniforms; one set in that of
France and the other in Buff and Blue,’ while the ladies were ‘dressed in
white with Ribbands, Bouquets and Garlands of Flowers answering to the
uniforms of the Gentlemen.’[60] And so with other functions equally gay.
But after all, the ‘court’ had come to town, and if there was no Majesty on
Cherry Street, it was not because the ‘court set’ did not pretend it so. The
illusion of vanity was fostered by the snobbery of Fenno of the ‘court
journal.’ When Madame Washington arrived, ‘conducted over the bay in the

President’s barge rowed by thirteen eminent pilots in handsome white dress,’
the editor enumerated the ladies who had ‘paid their devoirs to the amiable
consort of our beloved President.’ There were ‘the Lady of His Excellency
the Governor, Lady Sterling, Lady Mary Watts, Lady Kitty Duer, La
Marchioness de Brehan, the ladies of the Most Honorable Mr. Langdon, and
the Most Honorable Mr. Dalton ... and a great many other respectable
characters.’[61] This was too much for ‘A Republican’ who worked off his
fury in a scornful letter to the opposition paper referring to the ‘tawdry
phraseology,’ to the ‘titular folly of Europe’s courts,’ and suggesting that we
‘leave to the sons and daughters of corrupted Europe their levees, Drawing
Rooms, Routs, Drums, and Tornedos.’[62] It was to require more than this,
however, to jar the high-flying Fenno from the clouds, and his readers were
soon informed that ‘His Excellency the Vice-President, His Excellency the
Governor of the State, and many other personalities of the greatest
distinction will be present at the theater this evening.’ It was not for nothing
that the pedagogue pensman from Boston had launched his paper with the
hope ‘that the wealthy part of the community will become patrons of this
publication.’[63] The ‘inconveniency of being fashionable’ was impressed
upon one Senator on finding a colleague, who, having ‘set up a coach,’ and,
embarrassed in his plans by the irregular adjournments, was wont to sit alone
in the Chamber ‘in a state of ennui’ as much as ‘two or three hours’ waiting
for his carriage ‘to take him three or four hundred yards.’[64]
But while there was much of this ridiculous affectation, society was not
without its charms; for Mrs. Hamilton had her days for receiving, and her
drawing-room was brilliant, and all the more interesting because her
vivacious sister, Mrs. Church, just back from London, bringing with her ‘a
late abominable fashion of Ladies, like Washwomen with their sleeves above
their elbows,’ was there to assist.[65] And all the men were not on stilts, for it
is on record that the congressional delegation from Pennsylvania would
occasionally break through the ‘court circle’ to dine from three to nine, and
indulge in ‘a scene of beastial badness’ with Robert Morris proving himself
‘certainly the greatest blackguard in that way.’[66] There was the usual small
gossip to bring the soarers to earth. The cream served at the table of Mrs.
Washington was not the best. Mrs. Morris had been compelled to ‘rid herself
of a morsel’ of spoiled food there, but ‘Mrs. Washington ate a whole heap of
it.’[67] Mrs. Knox amused the Mother Grundys because so fat, and her

blundering misuse of words caused much tittering behind fans and much
whispering among her friends.
But it was on the Wall Street promenade that the gossips depended for
their choicest morsels. The Wall Street of that day was just beginning to
displace Pearl as the abode of fashion. True, there were a few business
houses, a tavern, a fashionable caterer, a jeweler, but from Broadway to
Pearl there was a row of substantial residences in which dwelt people of
importance. It was there in the promenade that the political celebrities were
encountered, but more appealing to the gentlemen of pleasure were the fine
ladies who passed in their finery—gay silks and satins—walking or taking
the air luxuriously in their sedan chairs. The cronies of Dan McCormick, the
unsnared and lordly entertainer, who gazed out of the windows of his House
of Gossip at Number 39, and from his front steps surveyed the parade with
the eyes of connoisseurs, must have been trying to the modesty of the timid
—but perhaps none such passed that way. If they laughed over the latest
blunders of Mrs. Knox as she hove into sight like a huge ship in full sail, and
made merry over the sister of the French Consul as she was borne
luxuriously along in her sedan chair, we may be sure that they were
appreciative of the pretty. And these crowded the narrow street for the
promenade, quite as much bent on amusement and flirtation as the men
about town on the steps of the House of Gossip.
For it was an age of gallantry, the men quite as vain as the women dared
be, and there, in addition to political celebrities, paraded the local blades of
society in their white buzz wigs, their three-cornered hats, and silver shoe
buckles. Here the elegant Hamilton in banter with a blushing belle, there the
courtly Burr bowing over the hand of a coquette unafraid of the fire, and
yonder Dr. John Bard, who prescribed pills for the fashionable, pounding the
pavement with his heavy cane as he walked along smiling a bit sardonically
upon his patients. And, swinging along like a symphony, a dandy in a scarlet
coat with mother-of-pearl buttons, a white silk waistcoat embroidered with
colored flowers, black satin breeches, white silk stockings, and a cocked hat,
an Irish miniature painter out for an airing and to give the ladies a treat. Here
—on Wall Street—was Vanity Fair.[68]
Albeit the Vice-President had not then become the social head of the
Nation, society liked nothing better than an invitation to Richmond Hill, the
home of Adams, a mile and a half from the city. Even Abigail was delighted,
for her home reminded her ‘of the valley of Honiton in Devonshire,’ with its

avenue of forest trees, its shrubbery, its green fields, its pastures full of
cattle, and the Hudson ‘white flecked with sails.’[69] Here at the dinner-table
statesmen and their wives and the social leaders contrived to talk like ladies
and gentlemen of the court, and Jefferson thought in a language foreign to a
republic. But good talk it was, and good dinners, we may be sure, even
though the French Consul did take his cook to Richmond Hill with the
explanation that he had had experience with New York dinners.[70] There
was enough elegance at Richmond Hill to encourage the Adams coachman
to put on airs that offended the groundlings as he drove through the streets.

VII

But it was about the ‘court’ on Cherry Street that the interest of society
centered. It was a plain brick mansion with five windows looking out on
Cherry Street and as many on Franklin Square. The furniture was plain, and
Madame Washington had sent by sea from Mount Vernon numerous articles
of luxury and taste—pictures, vases, ornaments presented by European
admirers. Here the first President in the first days of the Republic received
visitors, gave dinners and receptions, consulted with his Cabinet. The
following year he moved to a more commodious house on Broadway below
Trinity Church.
The great man had entered upon his physical decline when he assumed
the Presidency, and many found him changed—‘pale, almost cadaverous,’
his deportment ‘invariably grave,’ his sobriety barely stopping short of
sadness. Even at Mrs. Washington’s drawing-rooms, when beautiful girls
swarmed about him, his face never softened to a smile.[71] It is more than
probable that he was not a little bored by the artificial restraints imposed
upon him by his advisers on etiquette who had aristocratic notions of the
dignity of his position. Both Hamilton and Adams were responsible for
planning his isolation from the people. Did citizens seek a meeting? This
was a matter for the chamberlain or gentleman-in-waiting. Should he give
public entertainments? Not at all—only small dinners. Could he make calls?
Very guardedly, and with ‘few attendants,’ but formal visits should be
reserved for the rare occasions when ‘an Emperor of Germany or some other
sovereign should travel in the country.’[72] Thus it came to pass that he found
himself with a ‘court chamberlain’ in the flamboyant Colonel Humphreys,
who reveled in ceremony, and on one occasion moved Parson Weems’s
perfect man to profanity.[73] When the erstwhile host of Fraunces Tavern was

selected as the presiding deity of the kitchen, he appeared in the papers as
‘Steward of the Household.’[74] He too tried the great man’s patience and
outraged his sense of economy by serving a shad early in the season that had
cost two dollars, and the royal fish was devoured by the ‘Steward of the
Household’ in the kitchen.[75]
But on state occasions the highfaluting notions of his advisers prevailed,
and he rode forth in regal magnificence in the finest coach ever seen in
America, a marvelous thing in shape and color, decorated with cupids and
festooned with flowers. Thus he lumbered through the streets drawn by four
horses except when driving to Federal Hall, when six were necessary.
And so they who dreamed of royal pomp were pleased with the progress
made, and at the dinner tables wagging tongues dwelt ecstatically on the
advantages of monarchical government, and Fenno’s ‘court journal’ began
the publication of ‘The Discourses of Davila,’ by the Vice-President. Thus,
when Jefferson arrived the following spring to meet society at the dinner
tables, he was filled with ‘wonder and mortification’ to find that ‘politics
was the chief topic, and a preference for kingly over republican government
... evidently the favorite sentiment.’[76]
But we may be sure that no such sentiments were heard at the President’s
dinners, which appear to have been dull, formal, and silent enough. No fault
could be found with the food, drink, or service. Even the gout-pestered
Maclay found one of these dinners ‘the best of the kind I was ever at,’[77]
and the more easily pleased Iredell was immensely delighted with the wine.
[78] But such silence, such solemnity! ‘The most solemn dinner ever I sat at,’
wrote Maclay. ‘Not a health drank, scarce a word said until the cloth was
taken away.’ Then Washington filled his glass and solemnly drank to the
health of each of his guests by name. Then ‘everybody imitated him, and
such a buzz of “health, sir,” and “health, madame,” and “Thank you, sir,”
and “Thank you, Madame,” never had I heard before.’ Then another
prolonged silence—and the ladies retired—and the dinner was over.[79]
Months later, Maclay dined at the President’s again. ‘The President seemed
to bear in his countenance a settled aspect of melancholy,’ he wrote. ‘No
cheering ray of convivial sunshine broke through the cloudy gloom of settled
seriousness.’ The great man was evidently bored—much company forced
upon him that he would gladly have shunned. Cold, serious to melancholy,
silent, he sat and ‘played on the table with a knife and fork like a drum
stick.’ So it was at the previous dinner when, retaining his fork as the cover

was removed, he ‘played with the fork, striking on the edge of the table with
it.’[80]
Here we may leave him playing on the table with his fork, and turn to the
proceedings at Federal Hall.

VIII

Madison soon verified his fear that few members of Congress could be
relied upon for constructive work. Then, as ever after, this fell to the
industrious few, of whom Madison himself was by odds the most dependable
and wise. Petty ceremonies and formalities continued to disturb the serenity
of some. When a member took exception to the reference in the minutes to a
Presidential message as a ‘most gracious speech,’ as imitative of the
parliamentary references to addresses from the throne, Adams was all but
shocked to suffocation. As for himself he preferred ‘a dignified and
respectable government,’ but the point was pressed and the offensive words
erased.[81] Receiving a letter addressed to him as ‘His Excellency,’ Adams
took the sense of the Senate on the propriety of opening it. Robert Morris
dryly remarked that their Majesty, the people, could write as they wished,
and that crisis passed.[82] When a Bishop was mentioned in the minutes as
‘Right Reverend,’ and Maclay snorted his disapproval, Adams, in righteous
wrath, informed him that ‘the government will never be properly
administered until titles are adopted in the fullest manner.’[83]
But all the while James Madison, constructive, profound, was seeking to
drag his colleagues of the divine afflatus from the clouds to the working of
the untilled field. Money was needed—more even than titles—and precious
time was being squandered. In an earnest appeal, he begged for the
postponement of the consideration of a permanent fiscal system in the hope
of persuading the suppliants for tariff aid to wait awhile. But it was of no
avail. Privilege entered the halls of Congress in the very beginning. When, at
length, a measure was framed, the merchants of New York, Philadelphia, and
Boston made common cause to hold it back. They had ordered heavily in
anticipation of such a law and were determined to prevent its enactment until
their goods arrived. The whole thing smacked of scandal. The merchants had
already added the amount of the duties to the price of the goods on their
shelves, increasing their profits while depriving the Government of the
necessities of life. With the Government starving for revenue, the mercantile
interest, with the aid of members, held it off until July 4th, and then it was

passed with the proviso that it should be inoperative until August 1st. Many,
says a noted historian, thought this ‘the first instance of a series in which the
action of government turned in favor of the moneyed class.’[84]
The creation of the executive departments next called forth acrimonious
discussions. Should the finances be in the hands of a man or a commission?
Where could be found a single man capable of such a task? The Republic
would be endangered were one man to have command of three or four
millions. Then, too, the Cabinet was liable to be looked upon by the
President as of more consequence than the Senate. A system of favoritism
would be established, and oligarchy confirmed, the liberties of the people
destroyed.[85] And the power of removal—who should possess that? Some
wanted to lodge the power in the President, others in the Senate. Madison
favored the former.[86] But others could not see it that way. What! exclaimed
one statesman, give the power to the President? Why, ‘ministers would
obtrude upon us to govern and direct the measures of the legislature and
support the influence of their master.’ A new Walpole would arise.[87] ‘Good
God,’ cried another, ‘authorize in a free republic ... by your first act, the
exertion of a dangerous royal prerogative in your Chief Magistrate!’[88] The
result was the striking out of the authorization of the President to remove on
the ground that it was implied in the Constitution. Madison took this view,
and it was to rise against him in his later battles with Hamilton over the
implied powers.
This jealousy between the executive and legislative departments soon
found some justification in the action of Washington himself. It was late in
the summer of the first year that he appeared in the Senate with General
Knox to get ‘advice and consent’ to some propositions respecting a treaty
with the Southern Indians. With cold dignity he took his place beside Adams,
with Knox near at hand. The latter passed him a paper which he, in turn,
gave to Adams, who began to read. The windows were up and the purport
was all but lost in the rumble of carriages on Wall Street.
‘Do you advise and consent?’ asked Adams.
A Senator suggested that in a matter of importance new to the Senate, it
was the duty of Senators first to inform themselves. Storm-clouds appeared
on the presidential countenance. Some one moved postponement of action
on the first article, then the second—and third. Finally, the motion was made
that the whole be referred to a senatorial committee.

Up Washington ‘started in a violent fret.’ The motion defeated the
purpose of his coming. He had brought along the Secretary of War who
knew all that it was necessary for the Senate to know. The reference to the
committee would mean delay and time was pressing. Then, making a virtue
of necessity, he agreed to the postponement, and withdrew ‘with sullen
dignity.’
‘I cannot be mistaken,’ wrote a Senator that evening in his boarding-
house, ‘the President wishes to tread on the necks of the Senate.
Commitment will bring the matter to discussion, at least in the committee,
where he is not present. He wishes us to see with the eyes and hear with the
ears of his Secretary only. The Secretary to advance the premises, the
President to draw the conclusions, and to bear down our deliberations with
his personal authority and presence.... This will not do with Americans.’[89]
This fear, accentuated by the incident referred to, was to grow into a
conviction a little later, when a more domineering and masterful figure than
Washington or Knox appeared upon the scene. By many his advent had been
eagerly awaited. To the leaders his identity was known, for the genius of
Alexander Hamilton as a financier had been established, and his ambition
was surmised.[90] His aspirations were supported by the mercantile interests
generally, and the political forces they controlled. Even they who were to
become his political enemies were favorable to his selection—preferring him
to John Jay, who was considered. There is something of irony in the letter
written to Jefferson by Madison to the effect that Hamilton was ‘best
qualified for that species of business, and on that account would be preferred
by those who know him personally.’[91]
To most he promised to be a successful administrator of finance, and only
the few among his intimates foresaw his rapid rise to the brilliant leadership
of a powerful party. Certainly there could have been but few to take alarm on
reading in the ‘Daily Advertiser’ on September 12, 1789, the simple
announcement of one of the most momentous events in the political history
of the country:
The President of the United States has been pleased to make the
following nominations of Officers for the Department of the Treasury:
Alexander Hamilton, Esq. of this city, Secretary.
Nicholas Everleigh, Esq. of South Carolina, Comptroller.

And the Senate of the United States having taken the said nominations
into consideration were pleased to advise and consent to the same.

CHAPTER II

HAMILTON: A PORTRAIT

I

T HE genius for whom the Nation had been waiting, who walked briskly
and with a martial air[92] into the Treasury, and sat down at the almost
effeminate mahogany desk with the women’s faces carved upon the legs,
to bring order out of chaos, looked the leader. Not that he was of
commanding stature, for he was but five feet seven in height, with a figure of
almost boyish slimness. It was rather in his soldierly erectness and the
dignity of his bearing that he impressed. If his carriage suggested the camp,
the meticulous care of his dress hinted of the court, for he was something of
an elegant in his attire. We have one striking picture of him in a blue coat
with bright buttons, the skirts unusually long, with a white waistcoat, black
silk small-clothes, white silk stockings;[93] another in fine lace ruffles.[94] It
is quite impossible to think of him as unfit for an instant summons to a court
levee or a ladies’ drawing-room, albeit Wolcott, who saw him first in his
office, thought him ‘a very amiable plain man.’[95] It was an age of frills and
fancies among the men of the aristocracy and his very conservatism would
have dissuaded him from the slightest departure from the conventions.
It was his head and features that denoted the commander. His well-
shaped, massive, and symmetrical head, with its reddish fair hair turned back
from his forehead, powdered and collected in a queue behind, was not so
likely to attract attention as his pronounced features. These were unique in
that rarest of all combinations of beauty and strength. He was handsome
enough to be attractive to women, with his fair complexion and almost rosy
cheeks, his well-moulded lips, and dark, almost violet, deep-set eyes that
could smile as sweetly and seductively as any gallant’s.

And yet these lips could be firm and stern, and the soft, mirthful eyes could
freeze and flash. If women were to observe the softer nature, the politicians
were to note the man of relentless will disclosed in the firm, strong jaw.
Graceful and debonair, elegant and courtly, seductive and ingratiating,
playful or impassioned, he could have fitted into the picture at the Versailles
of Louis XV, or at the dinner table at Holland House. No one born in the
atmosphere of courts could have looked the part more perfectly.
And yet, such was his origin that the envious Adams could sneer at him
as ‘the bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar,’[96] and it was not without reason that
Gouverneur Morris, meditating his funeral oration, and his ‘illegitimate
birth,’ contrived a mode ‘to pass over this handsomely.’[97] Even the
sympathetic researches of Mrs. Atherton have failed to lift the mystery of his
origin and family. All we know is that he was born of an irregular relation,
without the intervention of the clergy,[98] between an unprosperous Scotch
merchant of the West Indies and a brilliant and beautiful daughter of the
French Huguenots. Even his parentage by the man named Hamilton was
doubted, on circumstantial evidence, by so ardent a friend as Pickering, who
thought he had found the father in a physician.[99] Whoever the father—and
the Pickering Papers are not convincing—there is no doubt that Hamilton
inherited his genius from his brilliant, passionate, high-strung mother.
Nor does the mystery end with his birth. Pickering was half persuaded
that the mother lived into the manhood of her son, but the church records at
Saint Kitts bear out the claims of the family that she died in 1768. It is not
easy to account for the rather morbid relations later between Hamilton and
his father and brother. Both appear to have been a worthless sort. For years
Hamilton was ignorant of his father’s whereabouts, which does not appear to
have bothered him much.[100] Later there was some correspondence looking
to a possible reunion in America, out of which nothing came.[101] At
intervals money passed from the great man in America to the indigent old
man in the West Indies,[102] but at no time does it appear that Hamilton had
any thought of visiting his father in the isle of his childhood. It was a long
cry from the squalid life in the West Indies to Mrs. Bingham’s drawing-
room, and the genius turned his back upon the past.

II

There is nothing so inexplicable in this amazing man as the precocity of
his genius. There is a suggestion of it in the younger Pitt, but he had sat from

infancy at the feet of Chatham. To the easy-going natives of his natal isle this
passionate, fiery-tempered, supersensitive boy, dreaming of power, must
have seemed an exotic. As a mere child he appeared to sense that his field of
conquest lay across the sea. He was planning a career while his companions
were absorbed in childish games. His early range of knowledge and reading
was remarkable. In his passion for literature he was unconsciously moulding
one of the weapons for his successful assault on fame; through the pages of
Plutarch he was lifting himself above the drab slothful surroundings to the
companionship of the great.
Sometimes fate was serving his destiny when he felt himself a captive
beating against his cage. Thus, in the counting-room at Santa Cruz he was
mastering business methods and absorbing the commercial spirit on which
he was later to predicate his philosophy of government.[103] The business
letters he wrote were preparations for the framing of his ‘Report on the
Public Credit.’ Even then it was a peculiarity of his genius that he could
write on business matters without clipping the wings of his fancy. He
seemed born with a mastery of words, a rare gift of expression. When a
hurricane swept the islands the description he wrote for a paper became the
talk of the West Indies. Only a little while before he was rebelling against the
‘groveling ambition of a clerk,’ and passionately writing that he ‘would
willingly risk his life but not his character to elevate his station.’ These were
the aspirings of a boy not yet thirteen. ‘I shall conclude by saying, I wish
there was a war.’ Here we have a vivid light upon his character.[104]
The description of the hurricane made his fortune. Dreaming of rising by
the sword, it was his pen that rallied friends who raised the money to send
him to America for an education. Through all his days he was to aspire to
glory through the sword, little knowing that he was winning immortality
with his pen.
The Little Corsican touching the soil of France, the little West Indian
landing in America—there is a striking analogy: both dreaming of martial
glory in the land of strangers; both obsessed with a morbid ambition
sustained by the rarest powers of application.
The records of the years preceding the Revolution are but vague, though
we get glimpses of the genius forging his weapons in the boy at the grammar
school at Elizabethtown poring over books till midnight, to rise at dawn to
continue his studies in the quiet of a near-by cemetery; practicing prose
composition; writing an elegy on the death of a lady; composing the

prologue and the epilogue of a play,[105] and, at Kings College (Columbia),
amazing his companions by the energy of his mind, and puzzling pedestrians
by talking to himself as he walked for hours each day under the great trees of
Batteau (Dey) Street.[106] Here, too, an occasional display of the eloquence
of maturity, enriched by the glow of genius, set him apart.
Then came the Revolution. ‘I wish there was a war!’ cried the boy of
thirteen. And war came to find the lad of nineteen as eager to seize its
opportunities as was the Corsican youth when ordered to clear the streets of
Paris.

III

The war was to prove his genius, not as a soldier, but as a writer and
constructive thinker on governmental matters. He was a natural journalist
and pamphleteer—one of the fathers of the American editorial. His
perspicacity, penetration, powers of condensation, and clarity of expression
were those of a premier editorial writer. These same qualities made him a
pamphleteer without a peer. That he would have shone with equal luster in
the reportorial room of a modern paper is shown in his description of the
hurricane, and in his letter to Laurens picturing vividly the closing hours of
Major André.[107] From the moment he created a sensation, with ‘A Farmer
Refuted,’ in his eighteenth year, until, in the closing months of his life, he
was meeting Coleman surreptitiously in the night to dictate vigorous
editorials for the New York ‘Evening Post’ he had established,[108] he
recognized his power. No man ever complained more bitterly of the attacks
of the press; none ever used the press more liberally and relentlessly to
attack.
In ‘A Farmer Refuted,’ the maturity of the thought, the severity of the
reasoning, the vigor of the onslaught, the familiarity with history and
governmental processes displayed, denoted the hand of one seasoned in
controversy. The sprightliness, wit, humor, sarcasm, suggested more than
talent. The evident joy in the combat, with the air of assurance, was that of
the fighter unafraid. These are the qualities that were to run through all of
Hamilton’s literary work. Nowhere in the literature of invective is there
anything more vitriolic than the attack on a war speculator and profiteer,
under the signature of ‘Publius.’[109] This tendency to bitter invective will
appear, as we proceed, in Hamilton’s attacks on Jefferson and Adams.

But usually he appealed to reason, and then he was at his best. Thus, in
‘The Continentalist,’ urging a more perfect union and a more potent
government, and in his letter to James Duer,[110] we are impressed with the
writer’s intimate knowledge of conditions, his constructive instinct, his
vision.[111] And thus, especially do these appear in ‘The Federalist’—one of
the most brilliant contributions to the literature of political science in the
world’s history. It will be impossible to comprehend the genius of Hamilton,
his domination of his party, and his power, despite his unpopularity with the
masses, without a foreknowledge of his force with the pen. It was his scepter
and his sword.

IV

His power as an orator was unsurpassed in any assembly that called it
forth, but with very few exceptions he did not appear before the multitude.
He swayed the leaders and won them to his leadership. There was little of
fancy in his speeches, scarcely any appeal to the emotions, but he spoke with
enthusiasm and an intensity of conviction. Force, clearness, fire—‘logic on
fire’—and a rapid fusillade of impressively directed facts—with these he
usually swept all before him. The comparatively few speeches which have
come down to us fail to explain his power. The stories of audiences moved
to tears are scarcely in keeping with the absence of the slightest attempts at
pathos or appeals to the emotions. Kent, who heard him in court, recalled,
long after Hamilton was dead, ‘the clear, elegant and fluent style, and
commanding manner.’[112] Physically, he was far from imposing, but it is
easy to imagine the virility of his manner, the flash of his conqueror’s eye. In
the New York Convention called to pass on the Constitution, it was the force
and persuasiveness of his arguments that converted a hostile majority. Later
Congress was to refuse him permission to present personally his reports on
the ground that he might unduly sway its judgment; and Jefferson was to
resent his interminable and passionate ‘harangues’ in the Cabinet room. But
these exhibitions of his eloquence advanced his political career by
impressing the leaders with the brilliancy of his intellect.

V

It is significant that, while he was not vain of his power as a writer and
orator, he lived and died firmly convinced of his genius as a soldier. In the
earliest of his letters we have his longing for a war. His son and biographer

was impressed with the fact that, ‘while arms seemed to be his predominant
passion, the world was at peace.’[113] He never faced the prospect of a war
without seeing an opportunity for distinction. At a time when he abhorred
the French Revolution, and all associated with it, he wrote of Napoleon as
‘that unequalled conqueror, from whom it is painful to detract.’[114]
Was he a military genius? We have nothing on which to base a judgment.
In the Revolution we see him attracting the attention of Washington by his
military alertness on the heights of Harlem. At Monmouth we see his horse
shot under him as he dashes into the fray with a recklessness that looked to
the commander like a courting of death. Throughout his services in the
military household of Washington, where he became all but indispensable in
a secretarial capacity and in diplomacy, he chafed under the conviction that
his place was in a position of command. One of his friends declared that ‘the
pen of our army was held by Hamilton; and for dignity of manner, pith of
matter, and elegance of style, General Washington’s letters are unrivaled in
military annals,’ but the youthful Hamilton felt that he should have been the
army’s sword.[115] The vision of the renown of the military conqueror was
ever before him. The war was an opportunity for glory, and he was missing
it. ‘I explained to you candidly my feelings in respect to military reputation,’
he wrote Washington when seeking a separate command, ‘and how much it
was my object to act a conspicuous part in some enterprise that might
perhaps raise my character as a soldier above mediocrity.’[116] At Yorktown
he took desperate chances in an effort for renown.[117] We shall find him
leaving the Treasury to command soldiers sent to put down the western
insurrection, with no possible occasion for it beyond his preference for the
saddle and the sword. And when war with France loomed large, we shall
find him resorting to importunity and intrigue to get the command over the
protest of the President.
Was Hamilton a Napoleon? He thought himself of the race of military
masters. He had the courage, the coolness under fire, and the audacity, but
nothing that he did disclosed more genius than was shown by Aaron Burr.
Had the chance come, he might have justified his own high pretensions as a
military genius—but it did not come. He died with his boyhood ambition to
command great armies unrealized—and undimmed.[118]

VI

His association of a strong military establishment with a strong and stable
government was due in large measure to his temperament. He was
essentially an aristocrat. From the moment of his arrival in America, he
cultivated only the élite. His most partisan biographer has painted his portrait
in a sentence—‘His sympathies were always aristocratic, and he was born
with a reverence for tradition.’[119] There is nothing more contradictory in
his career than the lowliness of his origin and his inherent passion for the
lofty. This charity student moved in mansions as to the manor born. He had
lived on terms of comparative intimacy with the aristocratic Washington of
the camp, with Lafayette who brought something of the flavor of Old World
aristocracy, and he married into one of the proudest of the manorial families,
but his love of grandeur was inherent. He luxuriated in elegant society and
fine houses, loved fine laces as an adornment, and, without having ever seen
the interior of a gallery, at least affected a partiality for the fine arts,
collecting such prints as his purse permitted, painting some himself, and
advising Mrs. Washington in the purchase of paintings.[120]
His ideal of government was the rule of ‘gentlemen’—the domination of
aristocrats; on the theory that these, with a certain prestige to maintain, were
more jealous of their honor and above the vulgar strivings for mere place.
[121] Thus it was impossible for him to conceive of a strong and capable
government over which the aristocracy did not have sway.[122] Long before
the Constitutional Convention we find him writing Morris on financial
matters, setting forth the importance of creating an alliance between
government and men of wealth.[123] One of his most enthusiastic panegyrists
has illustrated his ideal: ‘The nearest approach to it is the popular conception
of the empire of Japan—a mass of intelligent humanity, reckless of their
lives, yet filled with the joy of life, eager for distinction, hungry for success,
alert, practical, and merry; but at the same time subordinate, humbly and
piously subordinate, to a pure abstraction.’[124] But this abstraction had to be
aristocracy—never democracy; for he believed that democracy could only
lead to anarchy.[125] Temperamentally hostile to democracy in the beginning,
maintaining that attitude to the end, he never appreciated and always
despised public opinion, and in 1794 he frankly confessed to Washington
that he ‘long since learned to hold public opinion of no value.’[126] This
distrust of the people, contempt for democracy, and reliance on strong
government supported by wealth, and, if need be, sustained by standing

armies, were carried by him into the Constitutional Convention and there
proclaimed with all the tremendous force of his personality.

VII

Unless we divest ourselves of the Hamiltonian myths in reference to the
Constitution, an intelligent comprehension of his political character will be
impossible. We must rid ourselves of the fallacious notion that he was
satisfied with the Constitution or believed it adequate. No one contributed
more mightily to making the Constitutional Convention possible. In the
preliminary convention at Annapolis, no one did more to crystallize
sentiment for it, and it was his persuasive pen that wrote the history-making
address there determined upon. About his dining-table in New York he did
yeoman service in coaxing skeptical and reluctant members of Congress to
call a convention. There, under a simulation of gayety, his eloquence and wit
and banter made converts of the most stubborn—a service of immeasurable
value.[127]
But in the Convention itself he played no such part as is popularly
ascribed to him. After the presentation of his own plan in the early stages, he
played an inconspicuous part, and much of the time he was not only absent
from the Convention, but out of the State. This was not because of
indifference to the event, but to a realization that he could accomplish
nothing for his plan.[128]
This plan was a direct contradiction of that which was adopted. There is
nothing conjectural about that fact—the records are indisputable. We have
the plan, the brilliant five-hour oration in its behalf, the brief from which he
spoke. These have come down to us, not from his enemies, but from his
partial biographers, his son the editor of his ‘Works,’ and the report of
Madison on the authenticity of which he himself passed. This plan provided
for the election of a President for life; for Senators for life or during good
behavior, and by electors with a property qualification; and for the crushing
of the sovereignty of States through the appointment by the President of
Governors with a life tenure and the power to veto any act of the State
legislatures, though passed unanimously. Not only was the President enabled
under this plan to negative any law enacted, but he had the discretionary
power to enforce or ignore any law existing.[129] Though his President,
serving for life, was not called a king, he was to be armed with more
arbitrary power than was possessed by the King of England. His English

eulogist does not overstate when he says that ‘what he had in mind was the
British Constitution as George III had tried hard to make it,’ and failed
because the English people would not tolerate it.[130] This interpretation of
Hamilton’s purpose is reënforced by another of his most brilliant disciples
who asserts that ‘Hamilton’s governor [President] would have been not
dissimilar to Louis XIV and could have said with him, “L’état c’est moi.” ...
Thinly veiled, his plan[131] contemplated an elective king with greater
powers than those of George III, an imitation House of Lords, and a popular
House of Commons with a limited tenure.’[132] Even so this plan confessedly
fell far short of his conception of an ideal government. In the brief for his
speech[133] we are left in no doubt as to his partiality for a monarchy, in
which the aristocracy should have a special power. ‘The monarch ... ought to
be hereditary, and to have so much power that it would not be his interest to
risk much to acquire more.’ As for the aristocracy, ‘they should be so
circumstanced that they can have no interest in a change.’[134] We should be
‘rescued from the democracy.’[135] As to the republican form of government
—‘Republics are liable to corruption and intrigue,’[136] and, since ‘a
republican government does not admit of a vigorous execution, it is therefore
bad.’[137]
Later, in one of his few discussions, he said that ‘those who mean to form
a solid republican government ought to proceed to the confines of another
government.’[138] His republic, and in his great speech he had conceded that
no other form would be accepted by the people, ‘was to be an aristocratic as
distinguished from a democratic republic, and the power of the separate
States was to be effectually crippled.’[139] In one of his brief Convention
talks he said of the States that ‘as States he thought they should be
abolished.’[140] Even after the Constitution had been adopted, he believed
that one of the objects of administration should be ‘to acquire for the federal
government more consistency than the Constitution seems to promise for so
great a country,’ to the end that it ‘may triumph altogether over the state
governments and reduce them to an utter subordination, dividing the large
States into simpler districts.’[141] Such were the ideas urged by Hamilton in
the forceful five-hour speech which Gouverneur Morris thought the most
brilliant intellectual exhibition he had ever witnessed. After this exhaustive
exposition, he took but little part. Toward the close he explained his
comparative silence: ‘He had been restrained from entering into the
discussions by his dislike of the scheme of government in general.’[142] This

distaste did not diminish as the Convention closed its labors, and he accepted
the Constitution in the end ‘as better than nothing.’[143] His motive for
joining in recommending it to the people is conclusively shown in his last
Convention utterance: ‘No man’s ideas are more remote from the plan than
my own are known to be; but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and
convulsion on one side, and the chance of good to be expected from the plan
on the other?’[144]
Nor did he ever lose faith in his own plan, or gain confidence in the
Constitution which was adopted.[145] Just before retiring from the Cabinet he
avowed himself a monarchist who had ‘no objections to a trial being made
of this thing of a republic.’[146] Two years before his death he wrote bitterly
to Morris of his support of a Constitution in which he had never had faith
‘from the beginning,’ in which he described it as ‘a frail and worthless
fabric.’[147] And the night of his death, when his bosom friend and confidant
was meditating the funeral oration he was to deliver on the steps of Trinity
Church, he wrote in his diary, ‘He was in principle opposed to republican
and attached to monarchical government, but then his opinions were
generally known and have been long and loudly proclaimed. His share in the
forming of our Constitution must be mentioned, and his unfavorable opinion
cannot therefore be concealed.’[148]
If, however, he was a tremendous factor in making any Constitutional
Convention possible, he was to be even more essential in securing the
ratification of the document he disliked—and it is here that he rises to the
pinnacle of patriotic statesmanship, and earns the eternal gratitude of the
Republic. When on that summer day, on a packet floating lazily down the
Hudson, he subordinated his personal preferences to the public good, and sat
down to the writing of the first number of ‘The Federalist,’ he reached the
very acme of his greatness. Had he done nothing else, his fame would have
been as eternal as the Nation he helped to make. Thus does he take his
rightful place among the greatest nation-builders of all time.

VIII

The qualities of strength and weakness accounting for the successes and
failures of his political leadership are easily found in an analysis of his
character. As is true of most genius, his was three fourths hard work. From
his earliest boyhood he had learned the value of system. Nothing was
permitted to disturb the programme by which he regulated his days and

nights. We may surmise that he was his own most relentless taskmaster from
the rules he wrote for the guidance of his favorite son. This almost monastic
schedule denotes the system by which he governed his own life.[149] He
never completed his education, and the exactions of politics and his
profession never made him a stranger to his library. Here, surrounded by his
family, he ministered to an insatiable mind. Never tiring of the classics, he
kept pace with the printing-press, and Mrs. Church rummaged about the
book-stalls of London to supply him with all the new worth-while
publications. Thus the ‘Wealth of Nations’ was in his hands as soon after its
appearance as a boat could cross the sea.[150] His manner of study was
intensive, absorbing, and he fairly lashed his mind and memory to their
allotted tasks. Walking the floor while reading and studying, it was a
comment of his friends that with equal exertion he could have walked from
one end of the country to the other.[151]
Quite as remarkable as the intensity of his application was his abnormal
capacity for sustained exertion. He thought nothing of sitting over a paper
‘until the dawn dimmed his candles.’[152] Talleyrand’s comment on finding
lights in his office in the early morning is famous. It was not unusual for him
to ponder a problem long and earnestly until he had thought it through, then
to retire to sleep regardless of the hour of the night, and after a while to arise,
refresh himself with a cup of strong coffee, seat himself at his table, and
work on with great rapidity for six, seven, or eight hours without rest. The
resulting product of his pen was so perfect, we are assured, such was his
felicity of expression, that it seldom required revision.[153]
This tenacity was one of the factors in his leadership. He was never a fair-
weather fighter. Opposition only whetted his appetite for battle. Nor was he
easily discouraged. Explaining to a friend who wished to carry the news to
New York of the situation in the Poughkeepsie Convention, that the
members stood two to one against the ratification of the Constitution, he
concluded with grim emphasis: ‘Tell them the Convention shall never rise
until the Constitution is adopted.’[154]
Along with this tenacity, he had an illimitable moral courage which made
it easy for him to fight for a cause without counting the cost. The real
Hamilton is seen in his defense of the persecuted Tories at the close of the
Revolution; in his fighting his way through a mob eager for the blood of the
Tory president of Columbia College to hold it at bay with his indignant
eloquence; in his letter to Jay against the destruction of the notorious

Rivington Press by a mob.[155] This reverence for law and the constituted
authority was the mainspring of his political character, and he always had the
moral courage to stand for both when cowardice would have recommended
compromise.
To these qualities must be added another which gave character to his
leadership—he was personally honest. Called to a station where he might
easily have enriched himself, as did many of his friends, he retired to private
life poorer than when he entered the public service. Small wonder that
Talleyrand was astounded at such disinterestedness and restraint. There was
no affectation in his letter lamenting his inability to succor some immigrants
from France. ‘I wish I was a Crœsus; I might then afford solid consolation to
these children of adversity, and how delightful it would be to do so. But now,
sympathy, kind words, and occasionally a dinner are all that I can
contribute.’ And at the time he wrote great fortunes had been built on the
financial system he had created. So impeccable was he in this regard that his
great political protagonist, writing an estimate of his character in the calm of
his closet, recorded him as ‘disinterested, honest and honorable in all private
transactions.’[156] Profound as a thinker, exhaustive as a student, moving in
eloquence, powerful with the pen, logical in his reasoning, constructive in
his methods, tenacious in the advancement of his plans, possessed of the
courage of his convictions, personally honest in public and private action, he
possessed qualities of leadership that drew high-minded men about, and to,
him. But he unhappily had the weakness of his strength that was to operate
disastrously upon his political fortunes. It is impossible to understand his
ultimate failure as a leader without a reference to his temperamental
deficiencies.

IX

As a party leader he was singularly lacking in tact, offensively
opinionated,[157] impatient and often insulting to well-meaning mediocrity,
and dictatorial. He did not consult—he directed. He did not conciliate—he
commanded. In the Cabinet he was to offend Jefferson early because
Hamilton ‘could not rid himself of the idea that he was really the prime
minister.’[158] It was not diplomatic to order Adams back to his post of duty
in Philadelphia in the manner of one addressing a subordinate. Nor was it
considerate to write to McHenry, who adored him, and was doing the best
his limited ability would permit: ‘Pray take a resolution adequate to the

emergency and rescue the credit of your department.’[159] These outbursts of
impatience and this intolerance of weakness were forgiven by the strong, but
treasured against him by smaller and more envious minds, and the time was
to come when, with his field marshals loyal, he was to have few colonels and
captains, and practically no privates. He was a failure in the management of
men, and only his superior genius made it possible for him to dominate so
long.
There was much of egotism and some vanity behind this dictatorial
disposition. This was inherent and incurable. The lowliness of his origin, the
phenomenal rapidity of his rise, the homage properly paid him for the
brilliancy of his youthful efforts with voice, pen, and sword, all tended to
convince him of his superiority. No one knew or lamented his egotism more
than men who loved him. Morris went weeping from his death-bed to write
his intimate opinion in his diary that he was ‘vain and opinionated.’[160]
Cabot, who clung to him like a lover, wrote him frankly: ‘I am bound to tell
you that you are accused by respectable men of egotism.’[161] A descendant
and biographer concedes his vanity, taking issue with Hamilton’s son who
had foolishly, but naturally, denied it in his biography.[162] His self-
sufficiency is evident in his letter to Laurens: ‘It is my desire to preserve
myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness
independent of the caprices of others.’[163] But were we without these
confessions from his friends, we should find them in his letters. What more
amazing and amusing than his letter to Schuyler explaining with gusto and
some swagger his quarrel with Washington.[164] Even at the age of twenty-
three and while serving in a secretarial capacity to one of the foremost
figures of all time, he was placing himself on an equality at least with
Washington and writing glibly of ‘what we owed to each other.’ This spirit of
self-exaltation was to drive many of the minor leaders of his party from him,
and to lead him, in the end, to the supreme folly of his pamphlet attack on
Adams which was hopelessly to cripple, if not completely destroy, his
influence.
Even more serious than his flamboyant egotism was his queer lack of
judgment in the handling of men. It was an irreparable blunder to force the
election of his father-in-law to the Senate from New York over Chancellor
Livingston who had superior claims. It was a temporary triumph that drove
one of the most powerful families in the State into the ranks of his enemies.
[165] Only the most execrable taste can pardon the undignified writing of

anonymous attacks on a colleague of the Cabinet.[166] His blunder in the case
of the Schuyler election could be excused by his lack of political experience,
but his most sympathetic biographer admits that ‘middle age instead of
ripening his judgment, warped it.’[167] His was a nature of eternal youth, and
in many respects the indiscretions of boyish exuberance cursed him to the
end.
If these personal weaknesses were to weaken him with the leaders of the
second rank, his unpopularity with the rank and file was to come from his
lack of sympathy for, and understanding of, the American spirit. No one
realized it more than he. In justice it must be said that he honestly tried to
suppress his doubts of America; but in moments of depression he burst forth
with expressions that bear the marks of long incubation. ‘Am I a fool—a
romantic Quixote—or is there a constitutional defect in the American mind?’
he wrote King. ‘Were it not for yourself and a few others I would adopt the
reveries of De Paux, as substantial truths, and could say with him that there
is something in our climate which belittles every animal, human or
brute.’[168] And toward the close of his life he wrote Morris: ‘Every day
proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me.
You, friend Morris, are a native of this country, but by genius an exotic. You
mistake if you fancy that you are more of a favorite than myself, or that you
are in any sort upon a theatre suited to you.’[169] This touch of the exotic, of
which he himself was painfully conscious, was not lost upon his political
enemies. ‘Thus ignorant of the character of this nation, of Pennsylvania, and
of his own city and State of New York, was Alexander Hamilton,’ wrote
Adams.[170] But it was left for another to ‘discover the real secret of his
confusion as to the American character—he had never known the spirit, or
had the training, of the New England town meeting.[171] A marvelous genius,
he thought in terms of world politics at a time when America was creating a
new spirit and system of her own. It was not to weaken his work as the
creator of credit, but it was to dim his vision as an American leader.

X

If he possessed traits that made him thoroughly hated by some, he had
other qualities that bound his friends to him with bonds of steel. He
commanded affection because he was himself affectionate. His letters to his
wife were uniformly tender and playful. He was idolized by his children. His
comrades in the army loved him because he not only shared their hardships,

but at times helped them to necessities out of his own all but empty pockets.
He was sensitive to the sufferings of many refugees in Philadelphia and New
York, and he would often direct his wife to send money and delicacies to the
women and children.[172] We have many instances of his generosity, like his
attempt to spare Andre the humiliation of the scaffold, and his letter to Knox
protesting against the execution of British officers in retaliation for the
murder of an American.[173] Among the young French officers he was
idolized because of his merry disposition and the cleverness and brilliancy of
his conversation. While prone to hold aloof from the mass, he was a ‘good
fellow’ among those whom he considered his social equals. In social
assemblies of both sexes he fairly sparkled with boyish enthusiasm.[174] In
stag affairs, where he was immensely popular, we may be sure that he was
nothing of a prude. It is not of record that he often drank to excess, but like
most men of his time he loved his wine, and we have it on the best authority
that he sometimes took a wee bit too much.[175] On these convivial occasions
he could always be prevailed upon to sing his one and only song:

‘We’re going to war, and when we die
We’ll want a man of God near by,
So bring your Bible and follow the drum.’

His one serious weakness was an inordinate fondness for women which was
to involve him in the one serious scandal of his career. It was McHenry who
wrote to Pickering, another friend: ‘Far be it from me to attempt to palliate
his pleasures, the indulgence in which Mr. Hamilton himself publicly
lamented.’[176] It was Otis who wrote of his ‘liquorish flirtation’ with a
married woman at a fashionable dinner party.[177] It was Lodge who, in
touching on his overpowering passions, refers to his ‘relations, which had
an unenviable notoriety.’[178] It is Oliver who says that ‘his private
shortcomings cannot be denied,’[179] and that ‘in private life Hamilton was
not always vigilant.’[180] It is the historian of ‘The Republican Court’ who
records that ‘it is true that Hamilton was something of a roué.’[181] And it
was reserved for a descendant to remind us of the story of the alleged
relations with the celebrated Madame Jumel, who, in old age, made an
unsuccessful attempt to live with Aaron Burr,[182] and of the gossip, which
he discredits, that his relations with his sprightly sister-in-law, Mrs. Church,
were more tender than they should have been.[183] This same descendant,
writing with professional authority, explains these moral delinquencies on
the theory that, like other men of genius and great intelligence, he was
prone to ‘impulsively plunge into the underworld in obedience to some
strange promptings of their lower nature.’[184]
And yet, such are the strange inconsistencies of the temperamental—
nothing could have been more beautiful than his home life. His endearing
traits are evident in the passionate devotion of all who knew the Hamilton
of the hearth. If the ties that bound Angelica Church to him were not more
tender than they should have been, her letters indicate something akin to
love.[185] His wife, who must have suffered tortures over the confessions of
the Reynolds pamphlet, clung to him with a faith born perhaps of an
understanding of how much he must have resisted. If he sometimes broke
his vows, there can be no doubt that the shrine of his heart was at his hearth.
‘Colonel Beckwith tells me that our dear Hamilton writes too much and
takes no exercise, and grows fat,’ wrote Angelica Church to Mrs. Hamilton
from London. ‘I hate both the word and the thing, and I desire you to take
care of his health, and his good looks.’[186] Here we have the suggestion of

another frailty which makes all the more notable the intensity of his
sustained efforts and the magnitude of his achievements—the delicacy of
his health. The first, and possibly the last, medical service rendered by
McHenry on becoming a member of Washington’s military family was to
prescribe for Hamilton and make suggestions as to his diet. Early in the war
he who was never robust contracted a malarial infection from which he
suffered every summer throughout his life.[187] His correspondence is
sprinkled throughout with references to his health.[188] While in no sense an
invalid, the magnitude and multiplicity of his labors despite a chronic
physical disability measure the power of mind over matter and indicate
something of his unyielding will.

XI

In view of the sincere or simulated interest in religion shown by
Hamilton where political interests were involved, it would be interesting to
know just what he thought and felt. The records here are slight. During his
youth he passed through the period of religious exaltation not uncommon in
the average life. Not only was he attentive to public worship, but he prayed
fervently and with eloquence in the seclusion of his room.[189] About this
time he wrote a hymn, ‘A Soul Entering into Bliss,’ which is said to have
had some literary merit.[190] We hear no more concerning his religious
fervor for many years until he pretended, if he did not feel, an intense
indignation against the revolutionary reaction aimed at the church
establishment in France. He was shocked that ‘equal pains have been taken
to deprave the morals as to extinguish the religion of the country.’[191]
A few years more, and, with the fall of his party, he outlined to Bayard a
‘Plan of Conduct’ for Federalists with a view to its rehabilitation, and
proposed an association to be denominated ‘The Christian Constitutional
Society,’ having for its objects ‘the support of the Christian Religion’ and
‘the support of the Constitution.’[192] This hints strongly of the Old World
idea of the union of Church and State. In Connecticut the clergy had been
the shock troops of Federalism, and it is quite possible that the political
advantage of an alliance between the Church and his party appealed to
Hamilton.
At any rate, he was a member of no church. One of his descendants
assures us that ‘he was a man of earnest, simple faith, quite unemotional in

this respect, so far as display was concerned, but his belief was very
strong.’[193] Strong as it was, it never led him to the altar.
Leaving his idol’s death-bed, Oliver Wolcott wrote his wife that ‘Colonel
H. in late years expressed his conviction of the truths of the Christian
Religion, and his desire to receive the Sacrament—but no one of the clergy
who have yet been consulted will administer it.’[194] At length, life ebbing
away, a bishop consented after being earnestly solicited the second time.
Thus in his dying hour, Hamilton declared: ‘It has for some time past been
the wish of my heart, and it was my intention to take an early opportunity of
uniting myself to the church.’ The natural deduction from the meager
information we have is that his intensive political and professional activities
and consuming ambitions gave him little time to meditate on religion. He
certainly never gave it the consideration of his greatest political opponent
whom his party attacked as an enemy of Christianity. But he used the
Church, whenever possible, to advance his political views—and with effect.
Quite as problematical as his religious feeling was his attitude toward
Washington. It was the policy of the Federalists to capitalize politically the
popularity of the man of Mount Vernon, and they succeeded, as we shall
find, to a marked degree. Even so, some of Hamilton’s most partial
biographers[195] have commented on the absence of any deep affection
between the two, and Dr. Hamilton is not convincing with his observation
that his ancestor signed his letters to Washington, ‘Very affectionately.’[196]
As a matter of fact none of his letters to Washington denote real affection.
This would be more impressive, however, but for the singular absence of
the note of affection in all his political correspondence. But in one of his
letters we find the very opposite of either affection or admiration. This was
his letter to General Schuyler on the occasion of Hamilton’s withdrawal
from Washington’s military family, and it does not speak well for the
reliability of his son’s biography that he deliberately mutilated the letter. It
was in this that he wrote that he had found his chief ‘neither remarkable for
delicacy or good temper’ and complained of his ‘self love.’ Here we have
the confession that ‘for three years past I have felt no friendship for him and
have professed none.’[197]
In his letter to Lear, the secretary, when Washington died he probably
came perilously near to summing up his attitude in a sentence: ‘I have been
much indebted to the kindness of the General, and he was an Aegis very
essential to me.’ And then, the significant postscript: ‘In whose hands are

his papers gone? Our very confidential situation will not permit this to be a
point of indifference to me.’[198]

Such a man was Hamilton, a Colossus, brilliant, fascinating, daring, and
audacious—a constructive statesman of the highest order, a genius of the
first rank, with all the strength and the weaknesses of genius. Such the man
who sat down at the mahogany desk to write the documents that were to
give credit to a nation and a programme to a party.

CHAPTER III

HAMILTON IN THE SADDLE

I

T HERE was quite enough in the picture of the handsome, penniless
Hamilton, at the age of thirty-two, striding upon the national scene with
the air of a conqueror to undertake the solution of the problem on which
the existence of the young Republic depended, to appeal to the popular
imagination. The mystery and romance of his history, the dash in his
manner, the shimmer of his genius, interested all and fascinated many of his
contemporaries. The audacious gayety with which he faced his task
imparted a feeling of confidence to those who did not know, as many did,
just what was in his mind. He set to work with an enthusiasm that smacked
of inspiration, for it was a task to his taste.
With the startling effect of a magician at his tricks he created the
machinery of his complicated department, selected his assistants with
discrimination, trained them with meticulous care in their duties, outlined
his plans for revenue immediately required, and sat down with joy to the
preparation of his ‘Report on the Public Credit,’ which was to proclaim the
public faith and establish the Nation’s credit.
The mere presence of this youthful figure at the mahogany desk
commanded confidence. Here was a man who was primarily interested in
the rights of property, who believed in the sanctity of contracts and had the
courage of his convictions. Even as he was writing his ‘Report,’ he loomed
large as the man of the hour. His close associates foresaw the nature of his
recommendations. The mercantile and financial interests plumed
themselves upon a triumph. Within a month after his appointment a
contemporary rhymester put in verse the counting-room conception of the
man:
’...young Hamilton’s unshaken soul
The wayward hosts of anarchy control—
And while the Senate with his accents rung
A full conviction followed from his tongue.’[199]

His plans, given in confidence to some, were soon whispered among the
politicians and the merchants of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, and
the market price of public securities in the cities rose fifty per cent two
months before Congress convened.
It was not until in early January that the ‘Report’ was read in House and
Senate. His wish to present it personally was denied, not by his political
enemies as his partial biographers contend, but by the supporters of his
plan.[200] In the galleries of the House eager speculators were closely
packed. They overflowed and filled the lobbies. Some were drawn by mere
curiosity, some were the original creditors who had waited long for their
reward, but the greater number were speculators, who, in anticipation of
such a recommendation, had bought freely of the skeptical holders at
ridiculously low prices. Not a few of these poured forth into Wall Street at
the conclusion with the exhilarating knowledge that a fortune was within
their grasp.
In the Senate the ‘Report’ was heard in secret and in ‘awful silence,’ for
the elder statesmen met behind doors closed and locked. Most of these
listened with approval, but the rheumatic Maclay, who had been puzzled for
some time with ‘the extraordinary rise in public securities,’ wrote that night
in his journal that Hamilton ‘recommends indiscriminate funding, and, in
the style of the British Minister, has sent down his bill.’ There were some
complaints that ‘a committee of speculators in certificates could not have
formed it more to their advantage.’ In truth, ‘it occasioned many serious
faces,’ and Maclay himself was ‘struck of a heap.’[201] But the prevalent
note was one of jubilation. In New York, enthusiasm in the coffee-houses;
in Boston, ‘great applause’;[202] in other commercial cities, Philadelphia,
Charleston, Baltimore, approbation, with reprobation for objections.[203]
All men of honor sympathized with the purpose of discharging the debt.
The repudiationists were among the ignorant and the vicious. Few at the
moment found fault with the funding system, though some would have
preferred a speedy liquidation through the sale of the public lands. Then—
suddenly—a low murmur of protest, followed by acrimonious attacks.
Thousands of the original creditors had been ‘swindled’ out of their
certificates for a song—were these, who rendered Revolutionary services,
to be taxed to ensure exorbitant profits to the speculators? Why should the
Federal Government assume the debts contracted by the separate States—
debts unevenly distributed? And what was the purpose of the proposal that

the Government should be prohibited from paying more than two per cent
of the principal a year? The indignation of the insurgents, at first a glimmer,
became a flame. The greater part of the certificates were in the hands of the
prosperous who had taken advantage of the necessities of the original
holders—Revolutionary soldiers, small farmers, hard-pressed country
merchants. The funding system would tax all the people to pay to the rich a
hundred cents on the dollar for evidence of debts that had cost them fifteen
and twenty. With the people taxed to pay the interest—it was proposed to
perpetuate the debt. Thus, for generations, perhaps, as many reasoned, the
Government would operate for the enrichment of the few already rich, and
the masses would pay the piper.
Had Hamilton been disposed to frankness, he would have smiled his
acknowledgment of the charge. One of his biographers has conceded that
through this system he hoped to ‘array property on the side of the
Government,’ by giving it a financial interest in the Government, and ‘to
assure to the property of the country a powerful influence upon the
Government.’[204] Having ‘been unable to introduce a class influence into
the Constitution by limiting the suffrage ... with a property qualification,’ he
hoped through his financial system to accomplish his purpose in another
way.[205]
There was nothing diabolical in the plan—coming from one who looked
upon the masses as lawless and unfit for self-government. His obsession
was a strong, stable government—and to sustain it he required the
interested devotion of the propertied class. The astonishing thing is that the
comparatively crude Maclay from the wilds of Pennsylvania and the
leather-lunged James Jackson from sparsely settled Georgia should have
caught the full significance of it all before it dawned on Jefferson and
Madison. The latter thought the ‘Report’ ‘well digested and illustrated,’ and
‘supported by very able reasoning,’ but after a while he, too, was depressed
with the injustice to the original creditors who ‘were most instrumental in
saving their country,’ and concluded there was something ‘radically wrong
in suffering those who rendered a bona fide consideration to lose seven
eighths of their dues, and those who had no particular merit toward their
country to gain seven or eight times as much as they advanced.’[206]

II

Meanwhile, speculation was manifesting itself with incredible audacity
and mendacity. The greater part of the securities in the hands of original
creditors were in the hands of soldiers, farmers, and merchants in the
remote interior. To most of these, they had come to mean so much worthless
paper. No telegraph could flash the news into the back country of Georgia
and North Carolina that Congress was about to legislate to par the promises
to pay. Weeks or months would pass before the proceedings in New York
could be known and comprehended by holders of the paper living in the
woods of the Carolinas or on the banks of the Savannah. Poor, and mostly
ignorant, they had no correspondents in the coffee-houses to write them of
the activities at Federal Hall; and even if they had, it required weeks for a
letter to reach them.
But members of Congress knew what to expect—for they were the
actors in the drama; and their friends, the capitalists and merchants of the
cities, knew—for they had been informed. The unscrupulous and
adventurous soldiers of fortune on the scene comprehended the opportunity
at a glance. The day after the ‘Report’ was read, the city buzzed with the
gossip of the speculators. One Senator, making calls in the congressional
circle, found it almost the sole topic of conversation. He heard that Robert
Morris of the Senate, who had been consulted by Hamilton, ‘must be deep
in it, for his partner ... had one contract for $40,000 worth.’ It was
whispered that ‘General Heister had brought over a sum of money for Mr.
Morris for this business.’ Senator Langdon, it was noted, was living with a
Mr. Hazard ‘who is an old and intimate friend of Mr. Morris,’ and he
admitted that he had followed buying certificates for some time past.’ ‘Ah,’
said the visiting Senator, ‘so you are one of the happy few who have been
let in on the secret’—and Mr. Hazard seemed abashed. It was understood
that Representative Fitzsimons of Philadelphia was likewise concerned in
the business.
Four days after the ‘Report’ was read, ‘expresses with very large sums of
money on their way to North Carolina for purposes of speculation in
certificates’ splashed and bumped over the wretched winter roads, the
drivers lashing the straining horses. Two fast-sailing vessels, chartered by a
member of Congress who had been an officer in the war, were ploughing
the waters southward on a similar mission—and this scandalous proceeding
was to be mentioned frequently in the subsequent debates. ‘I really fear,’
wrote Maclay, ‘the members of Congress are deeper in this business than

any others.’[207] Whether they were deeper or not, they were deep enough,
and numerous enough to hold the balance of power in the body that
legislated the certificates to par. These ranged from Robert Morris, the chief
legislative agent of Hamilton in the Senate, to Fisher Ames, who was his
most eloquent defender in the House.[208] In later years Jefferson was to
record in justice to Ames that his speculative activities had been greatly
exaggerated and that he had acted as an agent in the enterprises of his
Boston friends, Gore and Mason.[209]
So thoroughly did this money-madness take possession of the minds of
men that even the puritanic John Quincy Adams was to write his father,
without a homily, that by September of 1790, Christopher Gore, the richest
lawyer in Massachusetts, and one of the strongest Bay State members of
Hamilton’s machine, had ‘made an independent fortune in speculation in
the public funds’; and that other leaders of the bar[210] had ‘successfully
engaged in speculation’ by playing at ‘that hazardous game with moneys
deposited in their hands’ by clients at a distance. They took the chance of
becoming ‘masters of sums to an equal amount before they have been
called upon for payment.’[211] Maclay thought ‘there is no room to doubt
but that a connection is spread over the whole continent on this villainous
business.’[212] Everywhere men with capital—and a hint—were feverishly
pushing their advantage by preying on the ignorance of the poor. Thus,
paper held for years by the private soldiers was coaxed from them for five,
and even as low as two, shillings on the pound by speculators, including
leading members of Congress, who knew that provision for the redemption
of the paper had been made.
In all this, Hamilton had no part and no responsibility beyond having
made indiscreet disclosures of which his friends availed themselves, and
through buying and selling through his agents in New York and
Philadelphia for his brother-in-law.[213] Just how he viewed the scandalous
proceedings in the earlier stages we do not know. They were not without
defense from his supporters. The obsequious John Fenno took notice of the
gossip with a defense of speculation in the ‘Gazette.’ Were not moneyed
men ‘the props of the infant credit of the United States?’[214] The dark
insinuations of the gossips, the criticism of the ‘rabble,’ we may be sure
caused Hamilton no concern. Surveying the field at the beginning of the
battle, he must have been content. He saw the financiers, the commercial
interests of the large centers, including the speculators, enlisted under his

banner. The influential Society of the Cincinnati, composed of
Revolutionary officers, men of means who had been able to hold on to their
paper, gave dignity to his cause. With its compact organization in every
State, and its system of correspondence, it was an engine of tremendous
power. The social and intellectual circles were flying his flag. He looked
upon his work and called it good.

III

With the first discussion in the House, it was apparent that speculation
was to play a conspicuous part in the debates. The speculators packed the
galleries, overflowed into the lobby, causing the complacent Theodore
Sedgwick of Massachusetts, himself a speculator, to insist that the ‘ardent
expectations of the people on this subject want no other demonstration than
the numerous body of citizens assembled within these walls.’ The effect
was different on the pugnacious Jackson of Georgia. ‘Since this Report has
been read,’ he shouted, with a contemptuous glance at the eager gallery, ‘the
spirit of speculation ... has arisen and been cherished by people who had
access to information the Report contained, that would have made a
Hastings blush to have been connected with, though long inured to preying
on the vitals of his fellow man. Three vessels, sir, have sailed within a
fortnight from this port freighted for speculation.’[215]
The unctuous Sedgwick was melting suavity. Speculation within
reasonable bounds was not bad, but action should be taken with all possible
speed to stop it; and the troublesome Jackson returned to the attack—this
time on New York City. He wished to God Congress had met in the woods
and out of the neighborhood of a populous town. The gallant veterans,
driven by economic necessity to the wilderness, were being robbed by these
speculators of the pittance a grateful country had bestowed. Since the
assumption of State debts was proposed, why not postpone action until the
various legislatures could express the sentiment of the States? ‘Then these
men may send out other vessels to countermand their former orders; and
perhaps we may yet save the distant inhabitants from being plundered by
these harpies.’[216]
This line of attack had not been anticipated, and Hamilton was not the
man to take anything for granted. His well-groomed figure was seen
moving nervously about the lobbies of Federal Hall, within a few days after

the commencement of the debate. One of his enemies observed that he
‘spent most of his time running from place to place among the
members.’[217] In the evenings he gathered his more influential supporters
about him at his home. At his table he brought his most seductive charms to
bear upon the doubting. Time was all-important and indefinite delay might
be fatal.
With the thunder of Jackson’s ugly charges reverberating through the
streets, taverns, coffee-houses, Hamilton was ‘moving heaven and earth for
his funding system.’ The commercial interests and the members of the
Cincinnati hastened to join the lobby, which began to seek out the wavering
or the doubtful in their lodging-houses. A fashionable minister found his
way to the quarters of Speaker Muhlenberg and Senator Maclay to extol the
policies of the dynamic young Secretary, and ‘argued as if he had been in
the pulpit.’ Time, too, for a redoubling of effort, for there were rumors that
Madison, the strongest man in the House, had been unpleasantly impressed
with the fast-sailing vessels and the expresses jolting over the roads
southward. A bitter attack had appeared in one of the papers which gossip
ascribed to the popular George Clinton.[218]
In the House—still harping were the foes on speculation, when with a
benevolent expression Sedgwick rose with saccharine urbanity to regret the
vice of speculation, and declare himself ‘totally disinterested,’ albeit he was
financially concerned. It was only his distress over speculation that
admonished him to speedy action to minimize the evil. It was really
unfortunate that so much heat had been engendered. After all, were not ‘a
great and respectable body of our citizens creditors of the United States?’ It
would be tragic were these animosities to create ‘factions among the
people.’
‘A danger there?’ bellowed Jackson, the incorrigible infant terrible. ‘Do
not gentlemen think there is some danger on the other side? Will there not
be grounds for uneasiness when the soldier and the meritorious citizen are
called upon to pay the speculator more than ten times the amount they ever
received from him for their securities?’[219]
Meanwhile the fight was spreading from Federal Hall to the newspapers
where congressional courtesy imposed no restrictions on the temper.
Sinister stories were finding their way into print. ‘Several officials in
conjunction with Robert Morris and wealthy contractors “were” at the

bottom of this new arrangement.’ If it succeeded, Robert Morris would
benefit $18,000,000, Jeremiah Wadsworth would profit $9,000,000 and
Governor George Clinton would make $5,000,000.[220]
It was under these conditions, with the speculators packing the galleries,
with the lobbyists, legitimate and illegitimate, buzzing through the
corridors, with the most amazing rumors floating about the streets, that
James Madison, who had remained silent heretofore, rose in a crowded
House to fire the first fun in the Jeffersonian war on the financial policies of
Alexander Hamilton.

IV

Here was a man at whom the Federalist leaders dare not sneer. A
stranger, looking down from the gallery, would have been at a loss to
understand the deference with which members hung upon his words. His
personal appearance was disappointing. The short little man dressed in
sober black, with a bald head, and a little protuberant in front, whose lower
limbs were slight and weak,[221] was surely not meant to ride on the
whirlwind and direct the storm. The impression of physical weakness he
conveyed did belie the fact. In the mild blue eyes there was much to suggest
the meditative philosopher, nothing to hint of the fighter. His voice was so
weak that even in the cozy little chamber he could scarcely be heard.[222]
He spoke in low tones, without gesture or excitement, almost like a man
communing with himself in the seclusion of his closet. And yet he
commanded a hearing vouchsafed to few. It was the triumph of character.
Here, too, was a man with a background second to none in the infant
Republic. An ailing body had obsessed him in youth with the premonition
of an early death, and, feeling the futility of entering on any pursuit, he had
sought consolation in his books. He not only consumed, he assimilated. He
not only read, he thought. Thus he became something more than a learned
man—he developed into a political philosopher ‘worthy to rank with
Montesquieu and Locke.’[223] At the time he rose to propose an amendment
to Hamilton’s plan there was not a man in America who was his peer in the
knowledge of constitutional law or history. Nor was there a man, either,
whose support Hamilton more eagerly coveted. Even the jealous Ames
conceded him to be ‘our first man,’ consoling himself for the concession
with the comment that ‘I think him too much of a book politician and too

timid in his politics,’ and that ‘he speaks decently as to manner and no
more.’[224]
But the ill-natured jealousy of the more ornamental Ames failed to take
account, as most of his colleagues did, of the important practical use to
which he had put his knowledge of the battles he had fought and the
victories he had won. No one in either branch of Congress or at the head of
any of the departments had approached his services in the framing of the
Constitution. It was his genius that conceived the Virginia plan which
became the basis of the agreement. At many critical junctures his speeches
had dissipated the gathering darkness with their light. His pen, unknown to
many at the time, had recorded the story of the Convention. His
contributions to ‘The Federalist’ had been quite as important, if not so
numerous, as those of Hamilton; and the fight he waged in the Virginia
Convention for ratification was quite as Titanic and conclusive as that of
Hamilton in New York, but with this difference—Hamilton was confronted
by Melancthon Smith, while Madison had to cross swords with Patrick
Henry, with the powerful George Mason and the accomplished Pendleton.
He was not an orator of frills and fancies, magnetic and dramatic,
appealing to the passions and emotions, but he was formidable in debate. In
the speeches of none of his contemporaries is found such erudition, more
driving logic, such tact and moderation of statement, or greater nobility of
sentiment, fairness, justice. If they are a bit heavy in their sobriety, the
occasion called for something remote from theatrical frivolity. His grace
was in his reasoning, not his rhetoric—and yet his style would have given
him a foremost place at Saint Stephen’s.
It is not surprising that such a man should not have been a favorite with
the crowd. There was a diffidence in his manner, a formality and precision
in his method, a quiet dignity in his bearing that discouraged familiarity. He
was too absorbed in his work to fit in with the social festivity of his time.
Only at his own table and among his intimates did he appear in the rôle of
‘an incessant humorist’ and ‘keep the table in roars of laughter over his
stories and his whimsical way of telling them.’[225] Even his letters read like
state papers. But there were a few, greater than Ames, who appreciated him.
These were the three most important personages of his time—Washington,
Hamilton, and Jefferson.

Washington consulted him and made use of his pen. Hamilton cultivated
him. Jefferson loved him as a son. His relations with the latter were no less
than beautiful. Through many years they constantly interchanged visits,
corresponded regularly, and traveled together whenever possible. A
strikingly incongruous pair they must have seemed as they plodded along
country roads together, or rode to and from Philadelphia together in
Jefferson’s carriage—the tall, thin, loose-jointed, and powerful master of
Monticello, and the short, frail, bald-headed Madison. But the incongruity
was in their physical appearance only, for they had much in common—a
common sweetness of disposition, a common code of political principles
and morals, a common liberality of views, and a common passion for
knowledge. The older man paid tribute to his protégé’s qualities long after
both had passed from active public life: his ‘habits of self-possession which
placed at ready command the rich resources of his luminous and
discriminating mind’; his language ‘soothing always the feelings of his
adversaries by civilities and softness of expression’; his ‘pure and spotless
virtue which no calumny has ever attempted to sully’—all qualities that
made him a congenial companion for the philosopher who shared them in a
large degree.[226] Observing Jefferson’s happiness at the inauguration of his
successor, a lady who knew them both intimately wrote what all who knew
them felt: ‘I do believe father never loved a son more than he loves Mr.
Madison.’[227] But when Madison rose that cold February day to make his
first attack on Hamilton’s programme, he acted on his own volition and
without consultation with the man who was to be his chief.

V

The character of Madison’s speech in favor of discrimination between
the original holders and the purchasers of securities was not so open to
attack as that of the impulsive and loose-thinking Jackson. He began in a
manner to conciliate his hearers, matching Hamilton in his insistence on the
sanctity of the debt and the necessity for its discharge. The question is—to
whom is the money due? There could be no doubt in the case of the original
holders who had not alienated their securities. The only rival pretensions
were those of the original holders who had assigned and the present holders
of the assignments.
‘The former may appeal to justice,’ he said, ‘because the value of the
money, the service or the property advanced by them has never been really

paid to them. They may appeal to good faith, because the value stipulated
and expected is not satisfied by the steps taken by the Government. The
certificates put in the hands of the creditors, on closing their settlements
with the public, were of less value than was acknowledged to be due; they
may be considered as having been forced on the receivers. They cannot
therefore be adjudged an extinguishment of the debt. They may appeal to
the motives for establishing public credit, for which justice and faith form
the natural foundation. They may appeal to humanity for the sufferings of
the military part of the creditors who never can be forgotten while sympathy
is an American virtue.’
Admitting that the purchaser also had a claim, he proposed a plan
designed, as he thought, to do justice to both—to pay the original holder in
full, and, where there had been an assignment, the assignee to receive the
highest market value and the original holder whatever remained over.[228]
The plan spread consternation. At the Knoxes’ dinner table that night, where
members of Congress and diplomats were gathered, it was almost the sole
topic of conversation. In the coffee-houses, where the speculators gathered
about their mugs, Madison was denounced as a dreamer and an enemy of
public faith. The more cautious regretted the insurmountable difficulties of
the scheme. This was felt by Madison as the one legitimate argument in
opposition, and writing Jefferson three days later he made the admission
with the suggestion that ‘they might be removed by one half the exertions
that will be used to collect and color them.’[229] It was not until four days
later that the Hamiltonian leaders attacked the plan with their heavy
artillery. One by one they rushed to the assault. ‘It is not pretended,’ cried
Sedgwick, ‘that any fraud or imposition has been practiced’—which is
precisely what was charged. If the original holders lost, it was their own
fault. It was too bad. He really sympathized with their misfortunes. But
business was business. There was ‘no fraud on the part of the holder,’
echoed Laurance of New York—who knew that the town was humming
with the charge. At any rate, ‘the general opinion of men of property is in
favor of it.’ No public bodies like Chambers of Commerce were against the
Hamilton plan. As for ‘the people’—newspapers and pamphlets could not
be taken as expressive of public opinion. William Smith of Charleston had
heard few advocates of discrimination ‘in society.’ As for the newspapers,
they appeared on both sides. And why so much sympathy with the original
holders?

It was reserved for Ames, whose friend Gore was getting rich on
speculation, to take a stouter stand. Why should not ‘the seller who sold for
a trifle be taxed to pay the purchaser?’ he asked. ‘He certainly ought to fare
as other citizens do. If he has property, then the plea of necessity is
destroyed; if he has none, then his taxes will be a mere trifle.’ And public
opinion against it? Then ‘all the more duty on Government to protect right
when it may happen to be unpopular; that is what Government is framed to
do.’ Away with maudlin sentiment—it was not the function of the State to
‘rob on the highway to exercise charity.’[230]
Meanwhile the commercial organizations of the larger towns were
summoned to the field against discrimination, and they responded—even in
Richmond. ‘It is the natural language of the towns,’ wrote Madison, ‘and
decides nothing.’[231] As the debate proceeded, Wall Street swarmed with
the curious who could not get into the House where the speculators packed
the galleries, and lined up deep behind the railing in the rear of the chamber.
Petitions began to pour in. Passions rose. ‘I do not believe the crowd in the
gallery consists of original holders,’ shouted one speaker with a
contemptuous glance at the covetous group bending over the railing.[232]
Soldiers! ‘Poor soldiers!’ sneered Wadsworth—he who had sent the two
fast-sailing vessels to the South—‘I am tired of hearing about the poor
soldiers. Perhaps soldiers were never better paid in any part of the
country.’[233]
Two days later, Madison returned to the attack in a speech unusually
spirited for him. Only when he had parted with his self-respect ‘could he
admit that America ought to erect the monuments of her gratitude, not to
those who saved her liberties, but to those who had enriched themselves on
her funds.’ It was his last effort. He had spent himself to the utmost. A
spectator entering the House late in the day found him ‘rather jaded.’[234]
He had incurred the hate of the Hamiltonians without having consolidated
all the opposition in favor of his plan.
Three days later—it was Sunday—that extreme democrat Senator
Maclay, who was indifferent to Madison’s plan because opposed to funding
altogether, sat down in his boarding-house and framed a plan of his own
looking to the extinguishment of the debt through the sale of public lands.
Having satisfied himself, he went forth in search of Thomas Scott, his
colleague. But ‘shame to tell it—he a man in years and burdened with
complaints—had lodged out and was not home yet.’ Pity that ‘a good head

should be led astray by the inordinate lust of its concomitant parts.’ At
length the old ‘roué’ was found, and he urged that it be submitted to
Madison at once.
The next day found Maclay indignantly chafing at Madison’s lodging-
house because it was ‘a long time’ before he appeared. As the radical from
Pennsylvania read his plan, it seemed to him that Madison ‘attended to no
one word, being so much absorbed in his own ideas.’ Maclay handed him
the paper, and Madison handed it back without glancing at it. Alas, thought
the radical, ‘his pride seems of the kind that repels all communications.’[235]
It was not an easy task to organize the forces of Democracy.
The next day Madison’s plan was voted down. It was found long
afterward that of the sixty-four members of the House, twenty-nine were
security-holders.

VI

One thing, however, had been accomplished—the public interest had
been awakened. The tongue of criticism had been loosened. The man in the
street began to hold forth. It was all beyond him—as problems of finance
were beyond Madison himself; but he could understand that a policy had
been adopted that would be advantageous to the rich, profitable to the
speculator, and mean loss to the common soldier. In the commercial centers
of the cities Madison became anathema. Young Adams reported to his father
that in Boston ‘Mr. Madison’s reputation has suffered from his conduct,’
albeit so respectable a character as Judge Dana had adopted Madison’s
views.[236] The immediate reaction through letters to the papers was so
bitter that Fenno was moved to a homily under the caption, ‘Honor Your
Rulers,’ in which he pointed to such outrageous derelictions as expressions
of doubt concerning the propriety of the proceedings of Congress.[237]
These expressions had gone far beyond a mere questioning of the wisdom
of Congress. ‘A War Worn Soldier’ thought it ‘happy there is a Madison
who fearless of the blood suckers will step forward and boldly vindicate the
rights of the widows and orphans, the original creditors and the war worn
soldier.’[238] Another ‘Real Soldier’ described ‘the poor emaciated soldier,
hungry and naked, in many instances now wandering from one extreme part
of the country to another.... But thank God there lives a Madison to propose
justice....’[239] An uglier and more pointed note was struck by ‘A Farmer’ in

Pennsylvania. ‘Would it not be a good regulation,’ he wrote, ‘to oblige
every member of Congress ... to lay his hand on his heart and to declare that
he is no speculator; and that he did not come forward to claim for himself
the price of the blood or the limb or the life of the poor soldier?’[240]
Another wrote to ‘gentlemen who by superior wealth have monopolized the
public securities’ that if honor and public faith called for the maintenance of
the paper at par then, there was more occasion for it ‘when they were in the
hands of those poor people to whom they were justly due, who had
implicitly pinned their faith on your sheaves.’[241] ‘An Old Soldier’ recalled
Washington’s pledge to see justice done the common soldier. ‘Ample means
are said to be now about to be provided, not for their relief, but to enable
eight or nine hundred per cent gain on the purchase money of the
speculator.’[242] ‘Ah well,’ wrote ‘A Citizen’ of Boston, ‘Madison, Jackson
and others in favor of discrimination in funding the public debt have
probably immortalized their memories.’[243]
Their letters probably reflect the talk among the workers on the wharves,
the pioneers on the fringe of the forests, the gossips of the taverns. Rightly
or wrongly, a spirit of resentment had been aroused—a feeling in the breast
of many that their interests were being subordinated by the Government.
This sentiment was to grow and to increase the trouble of Hamilton in the
next step toward the adoption of his funding system.

VII

With the easy victory, however, the Hamiltonians entered with gayety
upon the next step—the Assumption of the State debts—determined to rush
it through. On the very night of the day discrimination was defeated, the
Pennsylvania delegation, on the suggestion of Robert Morris, met at the
lodgings of Representative Fitzsimons of Philadelphia to ‘consider’ the
matter of Assumption. One glance convinced the keen-eyed Maclay that the
meeting was for ratification, not for consideration purposes. ‘By God,’
swore Morris, ‘it must be done!’ George Clymer, another of the Hamilton
Reliables, bubbled with enthusiasm over the advantage that would accrue to
Pennsylvania. Maclay was embarrassed by the almost affectionate
comradery of some of his colleagues. Why should the delegation not hold
weekly social sessions and work in harmony? Fitzsimons’s lodgings would
be the very place to meet. Yes, agreed Morris, and they could have wine and
oysters.[244]

A few days later Muhlenberg, returning to Maclay’s lodgings from a
levee at the presidential mansion, declared with intense emphasis that the
State debts must be assumed—which impressed the suspicious Senator as
‘the language of the Court.’[245]
But it was not to be so simple as all that. Assumption, argued many,
would but extend the scope of the operations of the hated speculators. It
was another move to mortgage the Government to the capitalists. The
greater part of the speculating gentry were in the North; they would soon
accumulate all the State certificates of the South into their own hands and
one section would be paying taxes to increase the fortunes of a favored
class in another.
There was another reason for the revolt of the Southerners—which,
reversed, would have operated quite as powerfully on the Northerners. The
States with the largest unpaid debts were in the North, Massachusetts with
the greatest debt of all. Virginia, which led the opposition, had liquidated
most of her debt. There is nothing inexplicable in the objections of the
Virginians, who had paid their debt, to being taxed to help pay the debt of
Massachusetts and Connecticut.
This was appreciated by many in the North, and a citizen of Stockbridge,
Massachusetts, writing for a New York paper, thought it unfair. If the
‘leveling system’ was vicious as applied to men, it was quite as bad when
applied to States. Then, too, ‘the public creditors, the most opulent part, of
the community, would, by this means, be detached from the interest of the
State Governments and united to that of the general Government.’ This
aimed at the annihilation of the State Governments and the perpetuation of
the debt.[246] Thus an attack began on the general policy of funding, taking
an ugly form, appealing to class prejudices. ‘A number of drones are
brought into society and the industrious bee is forced to furnish them with
all the honey of its search.’[247]
But this opposition from the unimportant meant nothing to Hamilton. In
those days, and for many days to come, it was only necessary to know what
Oliver Wolcott[248] said or wrote to know what his master thought. Writing
his father about this time, Wolcott gives us sketchily the operations of
Hamilton’s mind. This matter of assumption was connected with ‘the
engine of government.’ Since ‘the influence of the clergy, the nobility and
the army’ was impossible, ‘some active principle of the human mind can be

interested in the support of the Government.’ It would never do to have
‘civil establishments,’ but there was an influential class in existence—the
moneyed class. They could and should be bound by interest to the general
Government. What more ‘active principle’ of the human mind than the
desire for wealth? And if the capitalists looked to the Federal rather than to
the State Governments for their money, what better ‘engine of government’
than that? ‘For these reasons,’ wrote Wolcott, ‘I think the State debts should
be assumed.’ True, it would make the debt of the United States
‘inconvenient,’ the taxes would be ‘burdensome,’ and ‘will appear to be just
only to those who believe that the good attained is more important than the
evil which is suffered.’[249]
It was fear of the effect of these ‘burdensome taxes’ on the popularity of
the Federal Government that led some men, including Madison, into
opposition.[250] Some of the Hamiltonians were alarmed, fearing that ‘such
bold politics are unfitted to ... the infant resources’ of the young Republic.
[251] Every enemy of Assumption was not hostile to the central Government,
but all who were jealous of the sovereignty of the States were in opposition.
Rufus King, the brilliant and virile Hamiltonian leader in the Senate, was
convinced that in New York ‘the anti-federalists think that the advantages to
be derived to the State from the retention of that debt are so great and
important that they stand ready to accede to any terms which the creditors
may propose.’[252] About the same time the unreconciled Patrick Henry was
writing James Monroe that ‘it seems to be a consistent part of a system I
have ever dreaded,’ and that the ‘subserviency of Southern to Northern
interests are written in Capitals on its very front.’[253]
Such was the atmosphere in which the second battle began.

VIII

On the opening of the debate one champion of Assumption[254] let the
cat out of the bag with the statement that ‘if the general Government has the
payment of all the debts, it must of course have all the revenue, and if it
possesses the whole revenue, it is equal, in other words, to the whole
power.’ ‘Yes,’ cried the irrepressible Jackson in stentorian tones, ‘if it lulls
the Shays of the North it will rouse the Sullivans of the South’—and the
fight was on.

Almost immediately Assumption became confused with the whole
system of funding, and a week after Madison had made his argument
against the former, he was compelled to return to a defense of the latter, not
as something he desired, but as a necessity imposed by unescapable
conditions. Madison was too much of a statesman to be a demagogue.
Very soon, Maclay, watching the proceedings in the House with ferret
eyes, thought he observed ‘the rendezvousing of the crew of the Hamilton
galley.’ He found that ‘all hands are piped to quarters.’ The plan to force a
vote on March 8th was abandoned toward evening, and that night he heard
it was to await the arrival of Representative Vining of Delaware, and to give
Hamilton time ‘to prepare him properly.’[255]
There was some mystery about Vining, and wild rumors were afloat that
some one had said that he would give the new arrival a thousand guineas
for his vote. ‘A thousand guineas,’ snorted Maclay, with a twinge in his
gouty knee, ‘they could get him for a tenth that sum.’
Meanwhile, there was feverish activity among Hamilton’s supporters in
Congress and out. Government officials left their desks to become
lobbyists. The clergy turned politicians and solicited. The speculators were
active. The members of the Cincinnati were mobilized and marched. Two
Congressmen, one lame, the other sick, were carried to the House to meet a
possible emergency. Another, planning to leave town, was ordered to his
post.[256] The friends of Assumption were becoming uneasy. Letters in
opposition were pouring in from men like Doctors Rush and Logan of
Philadelphia and were being peddled about by Maclay to members of the
Pennsylvania delegation. Alas, that he should have found ‘a woman in the
room’ with old man Scott again.[257]
These activities so wrought upon the nerves of Robert Morris that he
sought a new avenue of approach to his erratic colleague. Would Maclay
join Morris in some land speculations? The former was suspicious, but
interested.[258] For several days Morris talked land—the play continuing for
eleven days. The debate was becoming bitter. The able, bitter-tongued
Ædanus Burke of South Carolina made a ferocious attack on Hamilton, and
the lobbies, coffee-houses, streets, buzzed with talk of a duel.[259]
The distress among Hamilton’s friends increased. In the Senate, shut off
from the curious eyes of the public, feelings could be manifested with some
abandon. Ellsworth and Izard ‘walked all the morning back and forward.’

Strong of Massachusetts and Paterson of New Jersey ‘seemed moved but
not so much agitated.’ King ‘looked like a boy who had been whipped.’ And
the hair on Schuyler, a heavy speculator and father-in-law of Hamilton,
‘stood on end as if the Indians had fired at him.’[260]
But courage was revived, and there was unwonted activity. Most of
Washington’s household joined the lobby—Humphreys, Jackson, and
Nelson, his secretaries—and were particularly attentive to Vining. This was
the result of a caucus of Hamilton’s supporters the night before when the
decision was reached to risk a vote.
Three days later, the chance was taken, and Hamilton lost by two votes.
The scene was dramatic. Sedgwick made an ominous speech and, on being
called to order, took his hat and left. ‘A funeral oration,’ sneered Maclay.
When he returned he seemed to have been weeping. Even the eyes of the
self-contained Fitzsimons ‘were brimming full’ as he went about ‘reddened
like scarlet.’ Clymer, ‘always pale,’ was ‘deadly white,’ his lips quivering.
But ‘happy impudence sat on Laurance’s brow.’ Wadsworth, who was
financially interested, ‘hid his grief under the rim of a round hat,’ and
Boudinot,[261] another speculator, left his distress naked to his enemies
—‘his wrinkles rose in ridges and the angles of his mouth were depressed
and assumed a curve resembling a horse shoe.’[262]
The speculators poured out of the galleries and into the coffee-houses
and taverns to relieve their feelings with oaths over a mug. The air was
electric—and cause enough. Many speculators or their agents had been
scouring the back country of the Carolinas and Georgia for months buying
up State securities on the assumption that they would be funded. They had
bet on a sure thing—and lost.

IX

For a moment the friends of Assumption appeared to lose interest in the
new Government. Some acted as though the experiment launched by the
Constitution had failed and was not worth a ceremonious burial. The
interest of Congress lagged, and in the Senate, where the Assumptionists
were strongest, business was practically abandoned. In less than an hour
after it was called to order, Rufus King would move an adjournment.[263] It
was a gloomy and cold April—the distant hills and even the house-tops
covered with snow.[264] ‘The Eastern members talk a strange language,’

wrote Madison to Monroe. ‘They avow, some of them at least, a
determination to oppose all provisions for the public debt which does not
include this, and intimate danger to the Union from a failure to assume.’[265]
Senator Johnson of North Carolina found ‘the gentlemen who are in favor
of assumption ... very sore and impatient under their defeat.’[266] Not a few
of the Federalists began to speak and write pessimistically of the doubtful
value of the Government. From his library at Beverly, George Cabot could
see the danger of ‘division, anarchy and wretchedness,’[267] and if the States
seized the opportunity to ‘provide honestly for their creditors ... the general
government would be ruined irrevocably.’ But the thing that pained Cabot
most was the attitude of Madison. Had he changed his principles?[268]
In the Hamiltonian press the comments were funereal. Fenno’s paper
teemed with indignant protests and savage attacks on the State
‘demagogues’ who were ‘hankering after popularity at home.’[269]
‘Americanus,’ paying tribute to Hamilton and his funding plan, found it
‘wantonly destroyed’ and ‘in broken pieces at the several shrines of
ambition, avarice and vanity.’[270]
Yet all the scribes were not similarly depressed. A writer in the ‘New
York Journal,’ describing the birth and death of Assumption, worked the
advocates of the measure into a frenzy. He pictured it as ‘the bastard of
Eastern speculators who have lost their puritanic manners’—the ‘brat’
having been brought into the world ‘by the dexterous application of the
forceps.’ Thus it was injured by the ‘violence of the delivery,’ but ‘Dr. Slop’
had hoped to save it by having it bathed ‘in Yankee rum.’ ‘The unfortunate
child was presented to the baptismal font by Granny Fitzsimmons; and Mr.
Sedgwick, who is gifted with canting talents, officiated as priest, baptized
the infant, and his name stands on the parish books as Al—ex—der
Assumption.’ But alas, ‘the child of promise who would have redeemed the
Eastern States from poverty and despair is now no more.’[271]
But Hamilton was not despairing—he had just begun to fight.

X

It was under these conditions that an event of tremendous import
occurred. On Sunday a stage-coach lumbered up to the tavern on Broadway,
and a tall, travel-worn man emerged and entered the hostelry. Momentous

as was the meaning of his arrival, it claimed but scant notice in the papers
of the city.
‘On Sunday last, arrived in this city, Thomas Jefferson, Esq., Secretary
of State for the United States of America.’[272]
There is nothing in the press or the correspondence of the time to
indicate the slightest appreciation of the significance of this accession to
governmental circles. No doubt Madison was among the first to greet him,
but of this we have no evidence. For two weeks Jefferson had been upon the
road from Richmond, resting a day at Alexandria where an eighteen-inch
snow caused him to send his carriage on by water and take the public stage.
The roads were wretched and there was little opportunity for restful sleep.
Occasionally the long-legged traveler left the stage to mount his horse for
exercise. Thus he rode to the field of battle.

XI

As Hamilton surveyed the wreckage of the field, he saw an opportunity.
There was another bitter battle pending over the selection of the site of the
permanent capital. Might he not bargain a bit and trade enough votes for
Assumption? The site of the capital was a matter of indifference to him. No
sentimental ties bound him to any State or community. No dust sacred to
him rested anywhere in American soil. He was ready to go with any group
that could contribute enough votes to make Assumption sure. Philadelphia
—New York—the Susquehanna—Baltimore—the Potomac—a mere
bagatelle to him. In the fact that it was more than that to others he saw his
chance. Could the Virginians or the Marylanders who had opposed
Assumption pay him in votes for a capital at Georgetown, or even
Baltimore? Could Robert Morris whip the stubborn Pennsylvanians into
line for a capital in Philadelphia or on the Susquehanna? True, Washington
favored Georgetown, but that meant nothing to Hamilton if Georgetown
could not bring Assumption. It is a myth of history that he was tenderly
considerate of the wishes of his chief: the facts to sustain it do not appear.
Far more important to him was the fact that Madison and Carroll favored
Georgetown. They had votes.
The intense bitterness over the struggle called for infinite diplomacy and
sagacity in negotiation. The papers of the country were filled with ill-

natured letters on the fight which was no more in evidence in Congress than
in the bar-rooms of the competing cities. Ames, like Hamilton, cared little
about the site if he could but get Assumption, and was disgusted with the
‘despicable grogshop contest, whether the taverns in New York or
Philadelphia shall get the custom of Congress.’ Sedgwick had become a
‘perfect slave to the business,’ and ‘Goodhue frowned all day long and
swears as much as a good Christian can....’[273]
By early June the bargaining stage had been reached. One day Tench
Coxe, of the Treasury, and Jackson, one of Washington’s secretaries, called
at the lodgings of Fitzsimons and Clymer with the bald proposition to trade
the permanent residence to Philadelphia for enough Pennsylvania votes to
pass Assumption. Taking this as a hint from Hamilton, Robert Morris wrote
him that early the next morning he should be taking a walk on the Battery,
and if any propositions were open he would be very glad to have the
Secretary of the Treasury join him in his constitutional. Thus, long before
many of the statesmen had enjoyed their coffee, Hamilton and Morris paced
up and down at the deserted Battery. With Walpolean directness, Hamilton
went to the point. He needed one vote in the Senate and five in the House.
If Morris could assure him these, he could give assurance, in return, that the
permanent residence would be given to Germantown or the Falls of the
Delaware. Morris promised to consult his colleagues—but how about the
temporary residence for Philadelphia? After thinking it over, Hamilton sent
word that he would not think of bargaining on the temporary residence.[274]
For several days these negotiations continued. The Pennsylvanians moved
with a deliberation that tried Hamilton’s patience. A few days later he
threatened his Philadelphia friends with the possibility of the New-
Englanders going to Baltimore or the Potomac.[275]
Meanwhile, Hamilton had been thinking seriously of Jefferson. They
met as strangers, knowing one another well by reputation. Their feelings
were friendly. There were innumerable reasons why they should ultimately
fly at each other’s throats, but that was in the future. One June day they met
at the presidential mansion on Broadway, and, leaving at the same time,
Hamilton saw his opportunity.
There was a picture for an artist to paint—Hamilton and Jefferson, arm
in arm, walking along Broadway discussing the possibilities of a bargain.
With all the persuasiveness of his eloquence, Hamilton dwelt on the very
real danger of disunion if Assumption failed. With subtle diplomacy he

seemed to throw himself trustfully on Jefferson’s mercy. A great struggle for
independence—a promising young nation—and was all to be lost? The
South wanted the capital, the North wanted Assumption—could there not be
a common meeting-ground? Jefferson would see.
A dinner at Jefferson’s table in the house on Broadway. Men from the
South about the board. The topic—the pending bargain. A little later,
Hamilton was informed that an agreement could be reached. The word was
passed along the line. Even Madison satisfied himself that, since
Assumption could not be prevented, the bargain might as well be made—
but if there had been no bargain there would have been no Assumption. A
few nights later the Pennsylvania delegation entertained both Hamilton and
Jefferson at dinner. The latter impressed one guest with his ‘dignity of
presence and gravity,’ Hamilton with his ‘boyish giddy manner.’ Whatever
may have been the cause of the gravity of Jefferson, there was reason for
the giddiness of Hamilton—he had won![276]

XII

The attempt of Jefferson in later life to explain his part in the bargain
over Assumption, with the assertion that he had been deceived by Hamilton,
is in the nature of an alibi created after the crime. He was not a simple-
minded rustic, and his correspondence previous to the bargain shows that he
had given serious consideration to Assumption. He had been in daily
contact with Madison who had led the fight against it. A meticulously
careful student of the press, he unquestionably was familiar with every
objection to Assumption and funding which he afterward offered. He had
undoubtedly read Madison’s argument which had been published a month
after he reached New York. As late as June 20th, he was writing Monroe
that, unless the quarrel over Assumption and the residence was settled,
‘there will be no funding bill agreed to, our credit will burst and vanish, and
the States separate, to take care, every one of itself.’ Much as he would
prefer that the States pay their own debts, he could see ‘the necessity of
yielding to the cries of the creditors ... for the sake of the Union, and to save
it from the greatest of all calamities, the total extinction of our credit in
Europe.’[277] Here was justification enough for his action without resorting
to the fanciful story of his deception by Hamilton. ‘The question of
assuming the State debts has created greater animosities than I ever yet
saw,’ he wrote Dr. Gilmer a week after his letter to Monroe.[278] Thus he

knew precisely how the lines were drawn. Perhaps he did not appreciate at
the moment the political advantage of appearing on the side of the
opposition,—but he was not deceived. Nor was Madison imposed upon. He
accepted the bargain because ‘the crisis demands the spirit of
accommodation,’ albeit he wished it ‘considered as an unavoidable evil and
possibly not the worse side of the dilemma.’[279]
With many, however, the triumph of Assumption meant placing
Hamilton and his followers in an impregnable position; this, too, was the
idea of the Hamiltonians and great was their rejoicing. When the measure
passed the Senate, members of the lower House were packed behind the
iron railing, the smiling faces of Ames and Sedgwick conspicuous among
them. To the extremists in the opposition it seemed the end. ‘I do not see
that I can do any good here and I think I had better go home,’ wrote Maclay.
‘Everything, even to the naming of a committee is prearranged by Hamilton
and his group of speculators.’[280] And the Hamiltonians, who had raged
over the satirical article on the birth of Assumption, made merry over a
verse in Fenno’s journal:
‘The wit who bastardized thy name
And croaked a funeral dirge
Knew not how spotless was thy fame
How soon thou would’st emerge.’[281]

When Congress adjourned, Hamilton, rejoicing in his triumphs, turned
gayly to the next step in his programme, with more powerful influences
behind him than he had ever had before.

CHAPTER IV

PREMONITIONS OF BATTLE

I

H AMILTON was at the high tide of his popularity and power when
Congress next convened in Philadelphia. His funding system had
established the Nation’s credit, and the genius and daring of the
brilliant young man of thirty-three were on every tongue. The ‘Maryland
Journal’ claimed ‘respectable authority’ for the assertion that in Quebec he
was ‘supposed equal to the celebrated Mr. Pitt, and superior to the Prime
Minister of any other court in Europe.’[282] Among the merchants and
people of wealth and property he was acclaimed the savior of the State.
Everywhere he was the idol of the aristocracy.
And, in the saddle, he was riding hard. Although his was the second
position in the Cabinet, he thought of himself as the Prime Minister.
Washington was a constitutional monarch. The other members of the
President’s official family were his subordinates. His policies were the
policies of the Government, and to question them was hostility to the State.
In the Cabinet meetings his manner was masterful to a degree. Considering
himself Prime Minister, he felt no delicacy about interfering in the
departments of his colleagues. Even Knox, who adored him, resented his
determination to make all the purchases for the Department of War. When
the War Secretary resisted, Hamilton had a compliant Congress pass a law
giving him that privilege—an absurdity that continued as long as he was in
the Cabinet.[283] The soft-spoken, mild, and courteous Jefferson, who
preferred the ways of conciliation and persuasion, observed the dictatorial
airs of his masterful young associate with a surprise that hardened to
distaste.
But the feeling awakened among the masses by the failure to
discriminate in the matter of the securities, and by Assumption, was
increasing in intensity. The common soldier had not profited by these
policies. The farmer and the mechanic could see no benefit to themselves,
but among speculators, some of them members of Congress, they observed

evidence of new-found wealth. These were building finer houses, riding in
coaches where they had previously walked, and there was an ominous
rumbling and grumbling beneath the surface, to which the Hamiltonians
were oblivious or indifferent. After all, this was merely the whining of the
ne’er-do-wells of the taverns and the illiterates of the farms.
The work was only begun, and there could be no turning back now. The
assumption of the State debts called for the tapping of new sources of
revenue. This would increase the burdens of the people, but what would
they have? They could not eat their cake and have it too—could not have a
strong government without paying the price. Utterly unmindful of the
complaining of the people of no importance, Hamilton turned resolutely to
his task and prepared his excise tax for the consideration of Congress.

II

In raising money to meet the obligations of Assumption, it was the
purpose of Hamilton to resort to direct taxation as little as possible, and to
make luxuries bear the burden. This directed his attention to the domestic
manufacture of spirits—luxury to some, but a very real necessity to others.
This was particularly true in the States where distilleries were plentiful.
That it would call forth a protest from some quarters, he had no doubt, and
he rejoiced in the certainty of combat. Strong man that he was, he went
forth in shining armor to establish the right of the Government to an internal
revenue. He knew that excise taxes were obnoxious, albeit necessary, and
he sought the chance to vindicate the right of the Government to do the
necessary, unpopular thing.
Instantly the challenge was accepted in Pennsylvania where whiskey
stills abounded in the Alleghanies. Some of the State’s representatives in
Congress were instantly on their toes, denouncing the plan as arbitrary and
despotic. In the Legislature, Albert Gallatin, a remarkable young man, soon
to prove himself the only member of the opposition capable of coping with
Hamilton in the field of finance, framed a reply, denouncing the plan as
‘subversive of the rights, liberty and peace of the people.’ In the midst of
excitement—for the Legislature sat in Philadelphia—the reply was debated
and adopted by an overwhelming majority.
But the opposition was comparatively weak. Jefferson and Madison were
hostile to the principle, but there had been a bargain on Assumption to

which they were parties. They could not deceive themselves as to the
necessity. If Jefferson raised a finger to prevent the passage of the bill, he
covered his tracks. Even Giles, soon to become the most vehement leader of
the Jeffersonian party, at first looked upon it with some favor. Madison
could see no escape.
Among the masses throughout the country, however, the obscure orators
were busy in the bar-rooms, on the streets, and at the crossroads. The
character of the discussion among the people is indicated in imaginary
conversations by a writer in a Baltimore paper. A friend of the excise fares
forth into the streets and meets its enemies. ‘An outrage!’ cried one. ‘Had
we not gone to war with England on a tax?’ ‘Ah,’ but, says the defender,
‘then we were taxed by another country and without representation, while
here we tax ourselves through our chosen representatives.’ ‘Yes,’ but, says
Rumor, ‘under the excise act men can break into the people’s houses.’
‘Wrong,’ says the defender; ‘the law provides no such arbitrary power.’
‘But,’ persists the enemy, ‘we shall be eaten up by excise officers.’ ‘Silly,’
says the defender; ‘numerically these officials will be unimportant.’ Then
the defender encounters one candid enemy of the measure. ‘I hate the
excise,’ he cries, ‘because it strengthens the Government by providing
effectually for its necessities; and the Government which lays it because it
is a Government of vigor.’ Whereupon the defender praises him as an
honest man.[284]
The moment the Excise Bill was presented in the House, the ever alert
Jackson was ready with a motion to strike out the essential part of the first
clause. ‘The mode of taxation was odious, unequal, unpopular, and
oppressive, more particularly in the Southern States,’ where under the hot
Southern skies spirituous liquors were more than salutary—they were
necessary. Why deprive the masses of ‘the only luxury they enjoy’? Why
impose upon the American people an excise that had been odious in
England from the days of Cromwell, and which had been reprobated by
Blackstone?
Yes, added an indignant Virginian,[285] ‘it will convulse the Government;
it will let loose a swarm of harpies, who, under the domination of revenue
officers, will range through the country, prying into every man’s house and
affairs, and like a Macedonian phalanx bear down all before them.’ The
mercantile interests were paying their duties with promptitude? He was
tired of these encomiums. ‘The increase in the revenue has served to

enhance the value of the public securities, of which it is well known they
hold a very considerable portion.’[286]
On the second day, Madison went on record as opposed to the principle
and in favor of the measure. The only question to be considered was the
necessity for the revenue—and that was indisputable. He personally would
prefer direct taxes, but the majority of the people were against them. Of all
forms of the excise, that on ardent spirits impressed him as the least
objectionable.
But, demanded Jackson, disappointed at Madison’s failure to join in the
assault, why not other taxes—taxes on salaries, pensions, lawyers? Because,
answered Laurance, the Assumption calls for revenue, and this is the best
way to raise it. True, added another,[287] and he had ‘not found a single
person against it’—and this in Philadelphia where the Legislature was
sitting! What! exclaimed Timothy Blood worth of North Carolina, why
‘people to the southward universally condemn the tax.’ Yes, indeed,
contributed another, especially in North Carolina, ‘where the consumption
of ardent spirits is ten times greater than in Connecticut.’
Up rose Sedgwick in conciliatory mood. He was not impressed with ‘the
considerations of morality,’ and could not think that the tax ‘would be
attended with any sensible inconvenience.’ There certainly was no thought
of using military force in its collection. And then it was that Giles, who,
next to Madison, was the most fervent and able of the Jeffersonians,
astonished many by giving his hearty approval to the tax as necessary ‘to
the honor, peace and security’ of the country.[288]
Thus for days the debate continued with its reiterations, until a new note
was struck with a proposed amendment, aimed at Hamilton whose
audacious methods and successive successes were causing grave concern in
some quarters, to prohibit revenue agents from interfering in elections.
These officers in their work, said Samuel Livermore, ‘will acquire such a
knowledge of persons and characters as will give them great advantage and
enable them to influence elections to a great degree.’ ‘Impolitic in respect to
law, repugnant to the Constitution, and degrading to human nature,’
protested Ames. It would prevent self-respecting men from taking the
places, added Sedgwick. When the vote was taken, the amendment was
defeated with both Madison and Giles voting against it.

It was not until the House took up the duration of the tax that the great
battle began, and under the leadership of Giles, who had hitherto given it
his support.[289] But Madison was not impressed, and in the vote on placing
a limitation on the operation of the bill he was found with the Hamiltonians
—and there he stood on the final vote.
Even in the Senate the attempt to defeat the measure was continued, and
while Hamilton was strongest in that body, the energetic young Secretary
took nothing for granted. It was not enough that the committee considering
the bill had been packed with his supporters; he took personal charge. For
several days he walked briskly into the room and took his place at the table,
after which the doors were closed and locked. The worried Maclay, who
was preparing the case against the measure on behalf of the distillers,
sensed a conspiracy. When Adams hastened an adjournment of the Senate
while the committee was sitting, the victim of the gout put him down as
‘deep in the cabals of the Secretary.’[290] Preparing a list of distillers who
would be affected, on which to base an argument, Maclay knocked at the
committee room. The door opened and the eager eye of the Senator caught a
glimpse of Hamilton at the table before Robert Morris closed it, as he
stepped outside. With his suspicions confirmed, the gruff old Democrat left
his papers with his colleague and turned away. ‘I suppose no further use
was made of it,’ he commented.[291] When the bill passed four days later, he
thought ‘war and bloodshed ... the most likely consequence’; and concluded
that ‘Congress may go home’ since ‘Mr. Hamilton is all-powerful and fails
in nothing he attempts.’[292]
The same conclusion had been reached by Jefferson before. Just after the
passage of the bill, he was writing a friend of his fears of the effect of the
policies of the Treasury upon the people. Even though they were right,
‘more attention should be paid to the general opinion.’ The excise had
passed—the Bank Bill would pass. Perhaps the only corrective for ‘what is
corrupt in our present form of government’ would be an increase in the
membership of the House ‘so as to grant a more agricultural representation
which may put that interest above that of the stock jobbers.’[293]
Jefferson had reached the end of his patience, and was preparing to
challenge the pretensions, policies, and power of his ardent and dictatorial
young colleague.

III

It was inevitable that a national bank should be a feature of Hamilton’s
financial system. Long before a national government loomed large as a
probability, he had conceived the plan, and with the temerity of youthful
audacity had solemnly outlined it in letters to Robert Morris.[294] With the
opportunity before him, he moved with confident strides to his purpose, and
the day after his recommendation of an excise reached Congress, his
‘Report on the Bank’ was read. His rare familiarity with the principles of
finance, the history of banking, and the banking experiences of nations
made his ‘Report’ a persuasive document.[295] Its adoption was as inevitable
as its submission. He was on the very peak of his power. Commerce and
wealth in all the cities were saluting him, for his policies were in their
interest, and the professional and intellectual class had been won by the
dazzling success of his daring undertakings. In House and Senate he
numbered among the registers of his will the greater part of the strong and
the brilliant. Somehow, too, the impression was prevalent that he was the
favorite instrument through which Washington wrought his plans. If the
small farmers and the mechanics seemed acquiescent, it only meant that
they were inarticulate—but inarticulate they were as this dashing figure
moved on from triumph to triumph with a shouting multitude of merchants,
lawyers, politicians, and speculators in his wake.
Thus, when the Bank Bill reached the Senate, Maclay expressed the
general feeling in the comment that ‘it is totally in vain to oppose this
bill.’[296] Ten days later, he was all the more convinced at a dinner where he
met Morris and sat between two ‘merchants of considerable note,’ and
observed, on mentioning the Bank, that they were ‘magnetically drawn to
the contemplation of the moneyed interest.’[297]
If the bill passed the Senate without a conflict, it was not to get through
the House without a skirmish which was to mark, as some historians think,
the definite commencement of party warfare.
The House debate was brief but sharp, though pitched upon a higher
plane than some preceding discussions. There was some questioning of the
necessity of a bank; some criticism of the monopolistic features of the bank
proposed; but Madison, who spoke at the beginning, furnished the dominant
theme in his challenge to the constitutionality of such an institution. There
was certainly no specific authorization of congressional power in the
Constitution. This was conceded by Hamilton, who boldly evoked the
doctrine of implied powers. It required no abnormal perspicacity to foresee

the unlimited possibilities of these. Here was something read into the
Constitution that would, rightly or wrongly, have made its ratification
impossible had it provided a specific grant of such power. Hamilton and
many of his lieutenants had been frankly dissatisfied with the powers that
had been conceded by the people; and here was an opening for the
acquisition of power that the people would have refused. This to-day—what
to-morrow?
When Madison rose to oppose the Bank, we may be sure that it was after
many intimate conversations with Jefferson. He spoke in low tones and with
his customary dignity and precision and without abuse, and his argument
was not susceptible to an easy assault. After all, ‘the Father of the
Constitution’ knew something about his child.
‘The doctrine of implication is always a tender one,’ he said. ‘The danger
of it has been felt by other governments. The delicacy was felt in the
adoption of our own; the danger may also be felt if we do not keep close to
our chartered authorities.... If implications thus remote and thus multiplied
may be linked together, a chain may be formed that will reach every object
of legislation, every object within the whole compass of political economy.’
More than that—‘It takes from our constituents the opportunity of
deliberating on the untried measure, although their hands are also to be tied
by the same terms.’ More still—‘it involves a monopoly which affects the
equal rights of every citizen.’[298]
On the next day Fisher Ames made his defense of the doctrine of implied
powers. The argument of Madison had impressed him as ‘a great speech,’
but steeped in ‘casuistry and sophistry.’ He thought Madison had wasted his
time, however, in reading the debates on constitutional powers in the
various State ratifying conventions—not at all to the purpose. ‘No man
would pretend to give Congress the power,’ he wrote, ‘against a fair
construction of the Constitution.’[299]
But the clever Ames had no intention of making such a frank admission
on the floor. He was a practical man and he defended the Hamiltonian
doctrine with eloquence and vigor.[300] With these two speeches, the debate
might as well have closed, but it continued long enough to permit the
Hamiltonian Old Guard to say their pieces. Giles argued and Jackson raved
in opposition, and the measure passed with a margin of nineteen votes.

It is significant that nineteen of the twenty votes in opposition were
those of Southern members, the only Northerner in the list being Jonathan
Grout of Massachusetts, a Democrat, who did not return to the next
Congress. Like preceding Hamiltonian measures, this meant the
concentration of the financial resources of the country in the commercial
North to the disadvantage of the agricultural South. But this was not the
only reason. With the Southerners, among whom banks were a rarity, and
the Westerners, to whom they were as meaningless as the canals on Mars,
the advantage of such an institution was not felt. In both sections anything
that hinted of monopoly was abhorrent. Thus, in addition to the
constitutional difference, there was an economic conflict that was sectional
in its nature.

IV

But the battle was not yet won. The conflict was transferred to the
Cabinet, for Washington was not at all convinced that there was no
constitutional prohibition. Not only did he withhold his signature till the last
minute, but there are reasons to believe that he had a veto in mind almost to
the end. For Madison, with whose part in the framing of the Constitution he
was familiar, he had a profound respect. Having discussed the bill with
Jefferson informally, Washington requested written opinions from both
Jefferson and Randolph, the Attorney-General. Both were in complete
accord with the conclusions of Madison. The opinion of Jefferson,
expressed with all his force of reasoning, was a powerful challenge to the
doctrine of implied powers.[301]
It was at about this time that Washington summoned Madison to the
Morris house, which served as the Executive Mansion in Philadelphia, to
invite a fuller expression of his views. The great man listened in silence,
and Madison thought with sympathy, while the little giant of the
Constitutional Convention, out of the wealth of his learning and experience,
poured forth his reasons for opposition. Not once, but several times, the
little figure of Madison must have been seen entering the Morris house in
those days of suppressed excitement, for there were numerous conferences.
As the ten-day period followed for the affixing of the presidential signature
was drawing to an end, and Washington requested his friend to reduce his
objections to writing, Madison assumed that it was a veto message he was

asked to frame. Nor was it a far-fetched assumption, for on more than one
occasion the President had made use of Madison’s pen.[302]
Meanwhile the Hamiltonians, at first puzzled, became alarmed. From the
temper of their talk in Philadelphia, Madison was convinced that in the
event of a veto they were ready for open opposition to Washington, backed
by the wealth and influence of the powerful.[303] Ugly, silly stories,
reflecting upon the great personage on whom the Hamiltonians found it
profitable to claim a monopoly, were set afloat. Fisher Ames gave currency
in Boston to the theory that Washington was influenced by the fear that the
establishment of a financial capital in Philadelphia would prevent the
removal of the political capital to the banks of the stream that washed the
boundary of Mount Vernon.[304] If some discretion was used in
Philadelphia, where the grumbling was confined to the fashionable
drawing-rooms, no such circumspection was observed in New York, where
the meanest motives were ascribed to the President, and among the
speculators and Tory sympathizers open threats were made. Madison heard,
while there a little later, that ‘the licentiousness of [these] tongues exceeded
anything that was conceived.’[305] This struggle marked a definitive break
in the relations of Hamilton and Jefferson. The dictatorial disposition of the
former would brook no opposition, and he was temperamentally incapable
of a differentiation between political opposition and personal hostility. The
fact that Jefferson, in response to a command from Washington, had written
an opinion against the Bank could bear only one interpretation—‘asperity
and ill humor toward me.’[306] The fact that Washington accepted
Hamilton’s view, did not, however, shake Jefferson’s faith in the President,
and in defeat nothing so ill-tempered escaped him as flowed in a stream
from the Federalists when threatened with defeat. Within a month after
Hamilton had won his fight, Jefferson, in commenting to a friend on what
he conceived to be a dangerous trend, wrote that ‘it is fortunate that our first
executive magistrate is purely and zealously republican’—the highest praise
he could bestow.[307]
The press was not verbose in its comments on the bill, albeit Freneau
fought it in the ‘Federal Gazette.’[308] The ‘Pennsylvania Gazette’ was
ungraceful in defeat. Denouncing the Bank as ‘a proposition made to the
moneyed interest,’ it commented on its ‘preparations to subscribe,’ and
found ‘the terms ... so advantageous that no equal object of speculation is

perhaps presented in any quarter of the globe.’[309] Fenno offered his best in
a verse:
‘The States as one agree that this is right
Let pigmy politicians rave and write.’[310]

Thus the First Congress closed its labors with no little rhapsodizing in
the press over the results. A New York paper offered an epitaph of
glorification,[311] which a Boston paper condensed into the simple comment
that it had ‘established public confidence and credit, reconciled the jarring
interests of discontented States, and cemented the people in the bonds of
harmony, peace and love.’[312]
One man, at least, had cause for jubilation. In two years Hamilton had
risen to a position of commanding power, proved his genius in constructive
statesmanship, accomplished everything he had set out to do, made himself
the idol of the wealthy and the powerful, the recognized leader of the
influential commercial class, the acknowledged head of a brilliant and
militant party. His friends were comparing him to Pitt, then in the heyday of
his power—and he was only on the threshold. So great was the enthusiasm
in commercial circles that he made a special trip to New York to accept the
homage of the Chamber of Commerce at a reception, to linger a week
among his worshipers, and to return to Philadelphia reinvigorated by the
wine of idolatry pressed to his lips.[313] At that moment he was on the top of
the world.

V

Meanwhile, Jefferson and Madison drove out of Philadelphia together on
one of those journeys of recreation during which politicians so often plan
the strategy of war. Historians have found more in this journey than is to be
discovered in the record. The trip through New England probably had no
other object than that of pleasure and enlightenment. The relations of these
two men were beautiful and went far beyond a mere congeniality in
political opinions. There was a marked similarity in their characters. Both
scholarly in their tastes, the books that interested one were certain to appeal
to the other. Here were two men whose spirits were in accord. It is easy to
think of them as sitting the candle out in converse about the winter fire, or
as sitting far into the night in silence, each finding pleasure in the mere

presence of the other. Such a relationship had grown up through the years.
They thought alike, found similar enjoyment in agricultural pursuits, and in
the many little things of common life.
‘What say you,’ wrote Jefferson just before the beginning of the much-
discussed journey, ‘to taking a wade into the country at noon? It will be
pleasant above head at least, and the party will finish by dining here.
Information that Colonel Beckwith[314] is coming to be an intimate with
you, and I presume not a desirable one, encourages me to make a
proposition which I did not venture as long as you had your agreeable
congressional society about you; that is to come and take a bed and plate
with me.... To me it will be a relief from the solitude of which I have too
much; and it will lessen your repugnance to be assured that it will not
increase my expenses an atom.... The approaching season will render this
situation more agreeable than Fifth Street, and even in the winter you will
not find it disagreeable.’[315] It required no assiduous and cunning
cultivation by Jefferson to wean Madison away from Hamilton. The
relations of the first two far antedated those of the last. Madison had agreed
with Hamilton on the necessity for a more permanent and substantial union.
They had fought together for the ratification of the Constitution, but such
were their temperamental differences that the breach which quickly
appeared was inevitable when it came to the determination of the policies of
that union. While Jefferson was still in Paris, Madison, without consulting
his friend, was foreshadowing the policy of the future Jeffersonian party in
his fight for discrimination against England in the revenue measure of the
first congressional session. He proposed discrimination between the original
creditors and the speculators before he had the opportunity to discuss the
subject with Jefferson. If there was an accord with the latter, it was due less
to the influence of one upon the other than to the similarity of their
thinking. The little man with the mild, almost shy expression, who rode out
of Philadelphia with Jefferson that spring of 1791, was much too big to
have been led around by the nose by any of his contemporaries.
As early as the spring of 1791, the names of the two were associated in
the minds of many as the prospective leaders of a party that would
challenge the purposes of the Federalists. Answering a series of articles in
the ‘Maryland Journal,’ some one advised the author of how to make his
opinions worth while. ‘Keep always before your eyes the steps by which
Jefferson and Madison have gradually ascended to their present

preëminence of fame. Like them you must devote your whole leisure to the
most useful reading. Like them you must dive into the depths of philosophy
and government.’[316] Thus they were already associated in the public mind,
and there was some whispering among the Federalist leaders when they set
forth in their carriage.
Bumping and splashing over the rough tree-lined roads those spring
days, they unquestionably discussed the political situation, but these
discussions were only the continuation of others that had been proceeding
throughout the previous fall and winter. If politics was the object of the
journey, they were both remarkably successful in covering their tracks.
There is nothing in the letter Jefferson wrote his daughter Mary to indicate
anything more than a pleasure jaunt.[317] In a letter to his other daughter,
Martha, we hear much of fishing for speckled trout, salmon, and bass, of the
strawberries in bloom, of vegetation and agricultural conditions—but
nothing of politics.[318] To his son-in-law he wrote descriptions of historic
places, of botanical objects and scenery, and of running foul of the blue law
in Vermont prohibiting traveling on Sunday.[319] The one reference to the
journey in the correspondence of Madison merely says that ‘it was a very
agreeable one, and carried us through an interesting country, new to us
both.’[320] In none of these letters do we find a single reference to politics or
politicians.
Something is made of the call of the travelers on Burr and Livingston
when in New York, and on Governor Clinton at Albany; but their conduct
would have been suspicious only if they had failed to observe the ordinary
amenities of social life in calling upon the leading public characters in the
towns through which they passed. Still we may safely surmise that they
found time while waiting for the fish to bite to exchange views on the
necessity of organizing an opposition to the Federalists. It is even possible
that out of these conversations on country roads actually sprang the
Democratic Party, but there is no evidence.

VI

On his return to Philadelphia, Jefferson found himself the center of a
remarkable newspaper controversy. Fascinated by the beauty of Marie
Antoinette, Edmund Burke of England had written his bitter attack, not only
on the excesses of the French Revolution, but upon its democratic

principles as well. It was the fashion in those days to conceal a hate of
democracy under the cloak of a simulated horror over the crimes of the
Terrorists. Thomas Paine had replied to Burke with his brilliant and
eloquent defense of democracy, ‘The Rights of Man.’ In American circles
where democracy was anathema, and even republicanism was discussed
with cynicism, the Burke pamphlet was received with enthusiasm. It was
not until some time later that ‘The Rights of Man’ reached New York, albeit
its nature was known and there had been a keen curiosity to see it. Early in
May, Madison had promised Jefferson to secure a copy as soon as possible.
He understood that the pamphlet had been suppressed in England, and that
Paine had found it convenient to retire to Paris. ‘This,’ he wrote, ‘may
account for his not sending copies to friends in this country.’[321] At length a
single copy arrived and was loaned by its owner to Madison, who passed it
on to Jefferson. He read it with enthusiasm. Here was a spirited defense of
democracy, and of the fight the French were waging for their liberties; here
an excoriation of the prattle in high social and governmental circles of the
advantage, if not necessity, for titles of nobility. Here was not only an
answer to Burke, but to John Adams, whose ‘Discourses of Davilla’ had
been running for weeks in Fenno’s paper, and had been copied extensively
in other journals with a similar slant. Jefferson was immensely pleased.
Before he had finished with it, the owner had called upon Madison for
its return, as arrangements had been made for its publication by a
Philadelphia printer. It was agreed that Jefferson should send it directly to
the print shop, and in the transmission he wrote a brief explanation of the
delay, and added: ‘I am extremely pleased to find it will be reprinted here,
and that something is at length to be publicly said against the political
heresies which have sprung up among us. I have no doubt our citizens will
rally a second time round the standard of “Common Sense.” ’
To this note he attached so little importance that he kept no copy. With
astonishment he found that the printer had used his note as the preface, with
his name and official title as Secretary of State. The general conviction that
the word ‘heresies’ was meant to apply to the Adams papers sufficiently
indicates the popular interpretation of their trend. The storm broke.
Major Beckwith, the British Agent, hastened to express his pained
surprise to Washington’s Secretary at the recommendation by the Secretary
of State of a pamphlet which had been suppressed in England. The secretary
was sufficiently impressed by the scandalized tone of the aristocratic

society of Philadelphia, which was usually lionizing some degenerate
members of the European nobility, to write his chief in detail. When
Randolph dined with Mrs. Washington, Lear retailed it to him, and the
suggestion was made that Jefferson should know. Thus there was something
more than a tempest in a teapot. Everywhere men were partisans of the
pamphlets of Burke or Paine, the aristocrats on one side, the democrats on
the other, the stoutest of the republicans everywhere delighted with ‘The
Rights of Man.’ This was true in even the small towns and the villages of
far places. One traveler passing through Reading was surprised to find the
two pamphlets the ‘general topic of conversation,’ and he was assured of
the delight that awaited him in the reading of Paine’s.[322] All too long had
the Americans been drugged with Fenno’s deification of the upper classes—
with John Adams’s ‘Discourses’ on the necessity of ‘distinctions’—and here
was old ‘Common Sense’ back again in the old form slashing the aristocrats
fore and aft. The press responded to the popular demand, and everywhere
‘The Rights of Man’ was being published serially to be eagerly read by the
thousands who had not seen the pamphlet. But it was not all one-sided. If
the ‘Painites’ wrote furiously in some papers, the ‘Burkites’ were prolific in
Fenno’s and a few others. In the fashionable drawing-rooms a poll would
have shown a decided preference for the defender of aristocracy who had
wept so eloquently over the woes of a frivolous Queen. Nowhere was Burke
so popular and Paine so loathed as in the home of Adams, the Vice-
President. ‘What do you think of Paine’s pamphlet?’ asked Dr. Rush, to
whom society was cooling because of his democratic tendencies. The
second official of the Republic hesitated as if for dramatic effect, and then,
solemnly laying his hand upon his heart, he answered, ‘I detest that book
and its tendency from the bottom of my heart.’ Indeed, most of the
Federalists were frankly with Burke. ‘Although Mr. Burke may have carried
his veneration for old establishments too far, and may not have made
sufficient allowance for the imperfections of human nature in the conflict of
the French Revolution,’ wrote Davie to Judge Iredell, ‘yet I think his letter
contains a sufficient amount of intelligence to have rescued him from the
undistinguishing abuse of Paine.’[323]
With most of the Federalist leaders in sympathy with Burke, few
ventured to attack Paine in the open. Not so with Adams who was
spluttering mad over the Jefferson ‘preface.’ He was positive that the
publication of Paine’s pamphlet in this country had been instigated by his

former colleague at Paris.[324] To him the pamphlet of Paine, the ‘preface’
of Jefferson, the acclaim for both on the part of the people was but a
devilish conspiracy of Jefferson’s to pull him down. ‘More of Jefferson’s
subterranean tricks.’ And with this conviction, John Quincy Adams, the son,
then in Boston, took up a trenchant pen to write the articles of ‘Publicola’
for the ‘Centinel,’ sneering at the Jeffersonian note to the printer, assailing
Paine and democracy, and stoutly defending the governmental forms of
England. So well did he discharge his filial duty that his articles were
published in pamphlet form in England by the friends of Burke, and many
of the Federalist papers reproduced them as they appeared.
Then the newspaper battle began in earnest. Many indignant democrats
rushed to the attack of ‘Publicola’ with all the greater zest because of the
belief that ‘Publicola’ was none other than ‘Davilla’ himself. ‘America will
not attend to this antiquated sophistry,’ wrote one, ‘whether decorated by
the gaudy ornaments of a Burke, the curious patch-work of a Parr to which
all antiquity must have contributed its prettiest rags and tatters, or the
homely ungraceful garb which has been furnished her by Mr. John
Adams.’[325] Another suggested that ‘Publicola’ would soon cease to write
since ‘the time for the new election is approaching,’ although the
‘Discourses’ might be continued without danger since ‘dullness, like the
essence of opium, sets every reader to sleep before he has passed the third
sentence.’[326] As for ‘Publicola,’ his letters were ‘being brought forward to
persuade the people that an hereditary nobility, and, of consequence, high
salaries, pomp and parade are essential to the prosperity of the country.’[327]
In Boston, where the letters were appearing, ‘Agricola’ and ‘Brutus’ began
spirited replies in the rival paper.[328] Other writers, with less grace and
force, joined in the fray. Who are to constitute our nobility, demanded
‘Republican,’ our moneyed men—the speculators? If so ‘Dukes, Lords and
Earls will swarm like insects gendered by the sun,’ and the worn-out soldier
who had been tricked out of his paper would have the satisfaction of
‘bowing most submissively to their lordships while seated in their
carriages.’[329]
But Adams was not without his defenders. ‘An American’ declared that
all the abuse was ‘designed as a political ladder by which to climb.’
Miserable creatures! ‘Ages after the tide of time has swept their names into
oblivion, the immortal deeds of Adams will shine on the brightest pages of
history.’[330] ‘The Ploughman’ indignantly resented the insinuation that

Adams had written the ‘Publicola’ letters. In truth, ‘his friends consider Dr.
Adams as being calumniated’ by having such sentiments ascribed to him.
[331] To all the ‘hornets’ that were buzzing about Adams, Fenno felt he could
be indifferent, for they had no stings. They were merely nonentities trying
to give consequence to their scribblings by appearing to be answering the
Vice-President.
Meanwhile, Jefferson was keenly enjoying the turmoil. We wish it were
possible to trace it all to his contrivance, for nothing could have served his
purpose better. To have foreseen that the writing of a few simple lines
would have awakened the militant republicanism of the country and have
aroused the democratic impulses of the inert mass would have been
complimentary to his political genius. But this is not the only instance
where a clever politician with the reputation of a magician has stumbled
forward. There is no doubt that Jefferson was astonished and embarrassed
on learning that the printer had made an unauthorized use of his personal
note. He admitted to Washington that he had Adams’s writings in mind, but
that nothing was more remote from his thoughts than of becoming ‘a
contributor before the public.’ However, he was not impressed with the
reflections on his taste. ‘Their real fear,’ he added, ‘is that this popular and
republican pamphlet ... is likely ... to wipe out all the unconstitutional
doctrines which their bellwether, Davilla, has been preaching for a twelve-
month.’[332] This explanation was enough for Knox, who wrote accordingly
to Adams,[333] but not enough for Jefferson who sent a frank explanation to
Adams with an expression of regret. In generous mood, the latter accepted
the explanation with the protestation that their old friendship was ‘still dear
to my heart,’ and that ‘there is no office I would not resign rather than give
a just occasion for one friend to desert me.’[334]
Madison, to whom Jefferson had sent a similar explanation, had assumed
that there had been a mistake or an imposition, but he could see no reason
for indignation on the part of Adams or his friends. ‘Surely,’ he wrote, ‘if it
be innocent and decent for one servant of the public to write against its
government, it cannot be very criminal or indecent in another to patronize a
written defence of the principles on which that Government is founded.’[335]
However much Jefferson may have regretted the unauthorized use of his
letter, he rejoiced in its effect. He wrote Paine that the controversy had
awakened the people, shown the ‘monocrats’ that the silence of the masses
concerning the teachings of ‘Davilla’ did not mean that they had been

converted ‘to the doctrine of king, lords and commons,’ and that they were
‘confirmed in their good old faith.’[336] The incident had established
Jefferson in the public mind as the outstanding leader of democracy, had set
the public tongue to wagging on politics again. More was involved in the
pamphlets of Burke and Paine than differences over the French Revolution.
The keynote of Burke’s was aristocracy and privilege; that of Paine’s was
democracy and equal rights. The former was the gospel of the American
Federalists; the latter the covenant of the American Democracy. Studying
the reactions with his characteristic keenness, Jefferson was convinced that
the time was ripe to mobilize for the inevitable struggle.

VII

‘What do you think of this scrippomony?’ Jefferson wrote to Edward
Rutledge in the late summer. ‘Ships are lying idle at the wharfs, buildings
are stopped, capital withdrawn from commerce, manufactures, arts and
agriculture to be employed in gambling, and the tide of public prosperity ...
is arrested in its course.... I imagine that we shall hear that all the cash has
quitted the extremities of the nation and accumulated here.’[337] As he
wrote, Jefferson had before him the report of the craze which had just
reached him in a letter from Madison in New York. ‘Stock and scrip the
sole domestic subjects of conversation ... speculations ... carried on with
money borrowed at from two and a half per cent a month to one per cent a
week.’[338]
Men grown reckless with the frenzy of the intoxication were resorting to
fraud to rob the Government, many taking out administration papers for
deceased soldiers who had left no heirs. ‘By this knavery,’ wrote Madison at
an earlier period, ‘a prodigious sum will be unsaved by the public, and
reward the worst of its citizens.’ And suppose one of the clerks of the
account offices is not proof against the temptation?[339]
By the middle of the summer (July 10th) Bank stock had risen as much
in the market in New York as in Philadelphia with the feeling that there was
a certainty of gain. A scramble had set in ‘for so much public plunder.’ The
meticulously scrupulous Madison, with his lofty notions of official
propriety, was shocked to find ‘the members of the Legislature who were
most active in pushing this job openly grasping the emoluments.’ Schuyler,
the father-in-law of Hamilton, was to be the head of the directors of the

Bank ‘if the weight of the New York subscribers can effect it.’ Stock-
jobbing monopolized all conversation. The coffee-houses buzzed with the
gamblers.[340]
Meanwhile, from the high-placed to the ordinary scamp, men maddened,
by the money-itch, were resorting to ordinary crime to get possession of
public paper. In some places clever counterfeiters were driving through the
country under the pretext of examining securities with the idea of purchase
and cleverly exchanging the worthless for the real.[341] In the South and in
the remote parts of Maine, swindlers were scouring the woods for State
notes, lying to the uninformed and ignorant about their value, and getting
them for a song. ‘What must be the feelings of the widow and orphan,’
wrote a correspondent of a Philadelphia paper, ‘when they find themselves
thus defrauded of a great part of their little all, and that, not unlikely, the
earnings of their late husbands and fathers, who died in the service of their
country, by these pests of society who ought to be despised?’[342] But greed
knew no shame. An appalling picture: members of Congress feathering their
nest through their legislative acts, counterfeiters robbing the unwary,
common crooks stealing from the Government by posing as the
administrators of the dead, and distinguished members of the Boston Bar,
like Otis and Gore, speculating with their clients’ money without their
knowledge or consent.
So sinister was the situation that notes of warning began to appear in the
newspapers. The ‘Pennsylvania Gazette’ found that speculators had ‘turned
raving mad, and others so agitated that they appear on the borders of
insanity.’[343] Fenno tried vainly to restore sobriety to the drunk—for
Hamilton himself was shocked and not a little concerned.[344] Better be
careful about parting with Bank scrip, warned the ‘New York Daily
Advertiser.’ Efforts were being made to buy up all the scrip in the city ‘and
for this purpose a powerful combination was formed ... on Saturday night to
reduce the price.’[345] Beware of another South Sea Bubble, warned
‘Centinel’ in the same paper. ‘The National Bank stock has risen so high, so
enormously above its real value, that no two transactions in the annals of
history can be found to equal it....’[346]
From Boston came similar stories of the madness. All the while the New
York papers were publishing day-by-day quotations on the scrip.[347] By
August 15th the mania was at its height. ‘It has risen like a rocket,’ wrote an
amused scribbler. ‘Like a rocket it will burst with a crack and down drops

the rocket stick. What goes up must come down—so take care of your pate,
brother Jonathan.’[348] The craze was becoming ridiculous. The sane and the
honest looked upon it as a spectacle. Above the angry cries in the market-
place rang the laughter of the observers who kept their heads. Some put
their scoffing into verse:
‘What magic this among the people,
That swells a Maypole to a steeple?’[349]

Suddenly the bubble showed signs of bursting. A New York bank stopped
discounting for some of the speculators. Messengers hurried forth with the
ominous news, horses’ hoofs hammering the Jersey roads to Philadelphia,
where there was consternation and a falling-off in buying.[350] Pay-day had
not yet come, but it was on the way, and men began to regain their senses.
Then came the emergence of the political phase. ‘Does history afford an
instance,’ asked one observer, ‘where inequality in property, without any
adequate consideration, ever before so suddenly took place in the world? or
the basis of the power and influence of an Aristocracy was created?’[351] A
Boston paper commented significantly on the ease with which the mere
opening and closing of the galleries of Congress could serve the purposes of
speculation. ‘How easily might this be done should any member of
Congress be inclined to speculate.’[352]
Thus the talk of a ‘corrupt squadron’ in the First Congress was not the
invention of Jefferson—it was the talk of the highways and the byways, the
coffee-houses and the taverns, and we find it recurring in the
correspondence of the public men of the period. Everywhere sudden
fortunes sprang up as if by magic. There was a rumbling and grumbling in
the offing. With the people thinking more seriously of Madison’s fight for
discrimination, he began to loom along with Jefferson as a prospective
leader against the ‘system.’ With the discovery that the law had been
violated in the subscription of more than thirty shares, it was hoped that it
would ‘draw the attention of Madison ... immediately on the meeting of
Congress’ and that ‘the whole proceedings ... be declared nugatory.’[353]
Then came the election of Bank directors in the fall, and indignation
flamed when the prizes went to leaders in the Congress that had created the
Bank—to Rufus King, Samuel Johnson of North Carolina, William Smith
of South Carolina, Jeremiah Wadsworth of the ‘fast sailing vessels,’ John

Laurance of New York, William Bingham of Philadelphia, Charles Carroll
of Carrollton, George Cabot, Fisher Ames, and Thomas Willing, the partner
of Robert Morris.
Members of Congress had speculated heavily and profitably on their
knowledge of their own intent in legislation; they were owners of bank
scrip of the Bank they created, and their leaders were on the board of
directors. There was talk among the people of a ‘corrupt squadron,’ and
Jefferson did not invent the term; he found it in the street and used it.
Though Hamilton, scrupulously honest, was not involved in proceedings
that were vicious, if not corrupt, many of his lieutenants were, and that, for
the purposes of politics, made an issue.
But Hamilton was in the saddle, booted and spurred, and riding hard
toward the realization of his conception of government, followed by an
army that fairly glittered with the brilliancy of many of his field marshals,
and which was imposing in the financial, social, and cultural superiority of
the rank and file; an army that could count on the greater part of the press to
publish its orders of the day, and on the beneficiaries of its policies to fill its
campaign coffers. And it was at this juncture that Jefferson began the
mobilization of an army that would seem uncouth and ragged by
comparison. The cleavage was distinct; the ten-year war was on.
As a preliminary to the story of the struggle, it is important to know
more of the character and methods of the man who dared challenge
Hamilton’s powerful array and something of the social atmosphere in
Philadelphia where the great battles were fought.

CHAPTER V

THOMAS JEFFERSON: A PORTRAIT

I

I N the personal appearance of Thomas Jefferson there was little to denote
the powerful, dominating leader and strict disciplinarian that he was.
Unlike Hamilton, he did not look the commander so much as the rather
shy philosopher. The gruff Maclay, on seeing him for the first time, was
disappointed with his slender frame, the looseness of his figure, and the ‘air
of stiffness in his manner,’ while pleased with the sunniness of his face.[354]
He was of imposing height, being more than six feet, and slender without
being thin.[355] All contemporaries who have left descriptions refer to the
long, loosely jointed limbs, and none of them convey an impression of
grace. His hair, much redder than that of Hamilton, was combed loosely
over the forehead and at the side, and tied behind. His complexion was
light, his eyes blue and usually mild in expression, his forehead broad and
high. Beneath the eyes, his face was rather broad, the cheek-bones high, the
chin noticeably long, and the mouth of generous size. The casual glance
discovered more of benevolence than force, more of subtlety than
pugnacity. Nor, in that day of lace and frills, was there anything in his garb
to proclaim him of the élite. His enemies then, and ever since, have made
too much of his loose carpet slippers and worn clothes, and the only thing
they prove is that he may have had the Lincolnian indifference to style.
Long before he made his ‘pose’ in the President’s house for the benefit of
the groundlings, we find a critic who was to be numbered among his
followers complaining because his clothes were too small for his body.[356]
The truth, no doubt, is that he dressed conventionally, because men must,
and was careless of his attire.
Certain it is that when she first met him, Mrs. Bayard Smith, who had
been unduly impressed with the Federalist references to the ‘coarseness and
vulgarity of his manners,’ was astonished at the contradiction of the
caricature by the man. ‘So meek and mild, yet dignified in his manners,
with a voice so soft and low, with a countenance so benign and intelligent’
she found him.[357] In truth there was enough dignity in his manner to

discourage the stranger on a first approach, as Tom Moore found to his
disgust. Even Mrs. Smith thought his ‘dignified and reserved air’ chill at
first;[358] and a French admirer who made a sentimental journey to
Monticello thought him somewhat cold and reserved.’[359] ‘The cold first
look he always cast upon a stranger’[360] appears too often in the
observations of his contemporaries to have been imaginary.
As some have found fault with his dress, others have criticized a
slovenly way of sitting—‘in a lounging manner, on one hip commonly, with
one of his shoulders elevated much above the other’;[361] while another—a
woman too—was charmed at the ‘free and easy manner’ in which he
accepted a proffered chair.[362] The natural deduction from the
contradictions is that he seated himself as comfortably as possible with little
regard to the picture in the pose. There is a manifest absurdity in the idea
that the man who moved familiarly in the most cultured circles of the most
polished capital in Europe could have been either impossible in dress or
boorish in manner.
But there is one unpleasant criticism of his manner that cannot be so
easily put aside—a shiftiness in his glance which bears out the charge of his
enemies that he was lacking in frankness. The most democratic member of
the first Senate, meeting him for the first time, was disappointed to find that
‘he had a rambling vacant look, and nothing of that firm collected
deportment which I expected would dignify the presence of a Secretary or
Minister.’[363] Another found that ‘when speaking he did not look at his
auditor, but cast his eyes toward the ceiling or anywhere but at the eye of
his auditor.’[364] This weakness was possibly overemphasized, for he was
notoriously shy.
Aside from this, there is abundant evidence that there was an ineffable
charm in his manner. One who objected to his ‘shifty glance’ was favorably
impressed with ‘the simplicity and sobriety’ of his deportment, and found
that while ‘he was quiet and unobtrusive ... a stranger would perceive that
he was in the presence of one who was not a common man.’[365] He was
free of the affectations of pedantry, courteous and kindly, modest and
tolerant. Thus he appeared to excellent advantage in conversation, and, with
one exception, all who knew him and have left their impressions found him
an entertaining and illuminating talker. Maclay, who was certainly not the
most competent of judges, thought his conversation ‘loose and rambling,’
and yet admitted that ‘he scattered information wherever he went, and some

even brilliant sentiments sparkled from him.’[366] It is probable that the
gout-racked radical confused conversation with set speeches, and quite as
possible that on this particular occasion, when Jefferson was meeting with a
curious senatorial committee, he was not inclined to tell all he knew.
Certainly the polished nobleman, familiar with the most intellectual
circles of Paris, who found his ‘conversation of the most agreeable kind,’
and that he possessed ‘a stock of information not inferior to that of any
other man,’ and ‘in Europe ... would hold a distinguished rank among men
of letters,’ was quite as competent a judge as the Senator from the
wilderness of Pennsylvania.[367] Among men his manner of conversation
was calm and deliberate, without the Johnsonian ex-cathedra touch, and yet
he ‘spoke like one who considered himself as entitled to deference.’[368]
Among friends, and particularly women, he appears to have been
deferential and captivating in his tactful kindness. Then when, ‘with a
manner and voice almost femininely soft and gentle,’ he ‘entered into
conversation on the commonplace topics of the day,’ at least one woman
found that ‘there was something in his manner, his countenance and voice
that at once unlocked [her] heart.’[369]
Such was the Jefferson seen superficially by his contemporaries.

II

Those who prefer to think of Jefferson as an aristocrat, born to the
purple, who departed from the paths of his fathers, refer only to the
maternal ancestry. The American founder of this branch of the family liked
to think of himself as the descendant of gentlemen of title and of the half-
brother of Queen Mary. Jefferson preferred to dismiss this claim on the
aristocracy with the statement that his mother’s family traced ‘their
pedigree far back in England and Scotland, to which let every one ascribe
the faith and merit he chooses.’ From the Randolphs he probably inherited
his love of beauty, his fondness for luxury, but they failed utterly to transmit
to him any aristocratic notions of government. There was a reason—his
father was a middle-class farmer, and it was from him and his early
environment that he received his earliest and most lasting political
impressions.
This father was no ordinary man. Physically a giant, he was big in mind
and strong in character. By the light of the log fire in the evenings, he was

wont to read Shakespeare, Swift, and Addison to his family. An ardent
Whig with advanced democratic ideas, he as a magistrate manifested
sympathy for the plain people.[370] His thousand acres at Shadwell were in
the wilderness and on the frontier, and his son was as much a Westerner in
his boyhood as is the boy of Idaho to-day, for the West is a relative term.
This Western boy at the most impressionable age was sent to school in
Louisa County, which was then the hot-bed of radical democracy and
Presbyterian dissent. The natives about him were in buckskin breeches and
Indian moccasins, and, with no coat over their rough hunting shirts, they
covered their heads with coon-skin caps. It was a long cry from the polished
circles of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia to this typical Western scene;
if one was the East, the other was the West. The small proprietor farmers
lived in crude cabins, and theirs was the hard lot of the pioneer. Thus
Jefferson’s training was that of the Westerner.[371]
The boy was father to the man. When he entered college at
Williamsburg, he found himself in the headquarters of the aristocracy, for
there, at the capital, the lords of the land had their winter homes where
lavish hospitality was displayed. Into this society Jefferson was thrown, and
he moved therein as to the manor born—at heart a Western man with
Eastern polish.[372] It was not for nothing that there was Randolph blood in
his veins.
Even as he moved among the hard-drinking, fox-hunting imitators of the
English squires, his sympathies were enlisted in the growing democratic
movement of the small farmers among the upper rivers, the tobacco-
growers, the hunters and trappers of the Alleghany slopes. The western
counties, then the western frontier, had been populated by the Scotch-Irish
and Germans—earnest, hard-working, hard-thinking men, who wrestled
with nature as with their consciences, built churches in the woods, and
school-houses in the clearing. These men were democrats, and their cause
became the cause of Jefferson even while he was in college. Volumes have
been written to explain Jefferson, but it was reserved for Professor William
E. Dodd to do it in a paragraph:

It is not difficult ... to see how the great principle of Jefferson’s life—
absolute faith in democracy—came to him. He was the product of the first
West in American history; he grew up with men who ruled their country
well, who fought the Indians valiantly.... Jefferson loved his backwoods
neighbors, and he, in turn, was loved by them.[373]
If in college he was confirming his faith in democracy, born of his
schooling in the land of the small farmers, he was burnishing his weapons
for the fight. It is significant that he disliked Blackstone and liked Coke
because he found the former a teacher of Toryism and the latter a reflector of
the philosophy of the Whigs. His training in the law was thorough, for he
studied under George Wythe, with whom both Marshall and Clay received
their legal schooling. The friendship of Professor Small encouraged his
natural spirit of toleration and investigation; and at the ‘palace’ of Francis
Fauquier, the gay and brilliant royal governor—‘a gentleman of the school
of Louis XV translated into England by Charles II, and into English by Lord
Chesterfield’[374] he formed his literary tastes and learned the virtues of
literary style. Thus assiduous in his studies, reasonably circumspect in his
morals, and profiting immeasurably by contact with superior minds, he was
receiving an intensive preparation for his future labors. In the seclusion of
his room he communed with Coke and Milton, Harrington and Locke, and
the time was to come when his most notable literary production was to
disclose, in word and phrase, the influence of the latter. Locke, not
Rousseau, was the well from which he drew; and there is no sillier assertion
in history than that his democracy was born of association with the men of
the French Revolution.

III

Long before there were levelers in France, Jefferson was a leveler in
Virginia; and because he was a leveler in Virginia, the reactionaries who
resented his reforms were afterward to charge his democracy to the influence
of the levelers of Paris. His democracy was inherent, in part inherited from a
pioneer father. His dislike of the aristocratic system amounted to a prejudice,
and he could not bear the novels of Scott because of his detestation of the
institutions of medieval times.[375] Having written the Declaration of
Independence in the house of a bricklayer, he declined a reëlection to
Congress to enter the House of Burgesses in Virginia to revamp the

institutions of the State along democratic lines. When he finished his work
there, he had made himself one of the foremost democrats of all times—and
the French Revolution was still in the distance.
The Virginia system had been made for caste society; the landed
aristocracy were as much a caste as that in England—minus the titles. They
had the same love of land, the same obsession that the alienation of any part
of their possessions was treason to the family. Through the system of entail,
the lands and slaves of the aristocracy could be passed on down through the
generations, proof against the extravagance and inefficiency of the owners
and the attacks of creditors. The law of primogeniture was designed to serve
the same general end of preventing the disruption of the great estates. With a
fine audacity, Jefferson sallied forth quite gayly to attack them both. Even
Henry thought this was radicalism gone mad. Pendleton was more hurt than
outraged. The aristocratic members of his mother’s family looked upon him
as a matricide. Undaunted by the hate engendered, he put his hand to the
plough and kept it there until he had ploughed the field and prepared it for a
democratic harvest. His friend Pendleton begged a compromise on
primogeniture giving the eldest son a double share of the land. ‘Yes,’ replied
the leveler, ‘when he can eat twice the allowance of food and do double the
allowance of work.’ It was his purpose to eradicate ‘every fibre of ancient or
future aristocracy.’[376] The outraged landed aristocracy never forgave him.
He was the first American to invite the hate of a class, and from the
beginning he turned his back on the aristocracy and made his appeal to the
middle-class yeomanry.[377] All this was behind him when he went to Paris
before the Revolution there began. There the tall, slender American in the
elegant house on the Grande Route des Champs Elysées, with its extensive
gardens and court, was an impressive figure. ‘You replace Doctor Franklin, I
hear,’ said Vergennes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. ‘I succeed him,’
Jefferson replied; ‘nobody could replace him.’ There could have been no
more ingratiating reply, for his predecessor had been greatly admired and
loved.
No one could have found the conversation of the salons and dinner tables
more congenial. His manners were those of a man of the world, and he
shared the French fondness for speculative talk, and the French knack of
spicing gravity with frivolity. Even his table tastes were similar. He ate
sparingly and preferred the light wines. Both his natural hospitality and his
respect for the dignity of his position spread the reputation of his lavish

table; and while he gave no great parties, gay and frequent dinners were the
rule. Lafayette ran in and out constantly; members of the diplomatic set
found Jefferson’s house an agreeable meeting-place; the young French
officers who had served in America liked his company, and De la Tude, the
wit, who had served thirty-five years in prison for writing an epigram on
Pompadour, enlivened many an evening with his reminiscences. American
tourists were captivated by his civilities, introductions to celebrities,
itineraries for profitable trips. Like Franklin before him, he charmed the
beautiful women of the court with his wit and humor, and the eloquence of
his conversation. He loved the promenades and shops, and was constantly
alert for something unusual to send his friends at home—rare books for
Madison, Monroe, and Wythe, a portable table for Madison, an artistic lamp
for Lee. And yet he was far from an elegant idler, and his days were
laboriously passed; mornings at his office, afternoons given to country
walks, evenings to society, art, music. He found time for elaborate and
illuminating reports that are models in diplomatic literature and which
exacted tribute from even John Marshall. Feeling frequently the need of
absolute seclusion for his work, he had rooms in the Carthusian Monastery
on Mount Calvary where silence was enjoined outside the rooms, but where
he had the privileges of the garden.
‘I am much pleased with the people of this country,’ he wrote a lady. ‘The
roughness of the human mind is so thoroughly rubbed off with them, that it
seems one might glide through a whole life without a jostle.’[378] And in
another letter, the same impression: ‘Here it seems a man might pass a life
without encountering a single rudeness.’[379] But if he loved the society of
Paris, he was not, like Morris, seduced into an acceptance of its system. His
passion for democracy did not permit him to judge the happiness of a nation
by the luxuries of the court and aristocracy. He struck out into the country to
judge for himself of the condition of the peasants, looked into the pots on the
fire to see what they ate, felt their beds to see if they were comfortable. He
inquired into the wages and the working conditions of the artisans of the
cities—and his conclusions were unavoidable, of course. ‘It is a fact,’ he
wrote, ‘in spite of the mildness of their governors, the people are ground to
powder by their form of government. Of twenty million people supposed to
be in France, I am of opinion there are nineteen million more wretched,
more accursed in every circumstance of human existence than the most
conspicuously wretched individual in the whole United States.’[380] And to

another: ‘I find the general fate of humanity here most deplorable. The truth
of Voltaire’s observation offers itself perpetually, that every man here is
either the hammer or the anvil.’[381] He was shocked by a system that
dedicated the sons of peasants as cannon fodder in remote wars precipitated
by the whims of a prostitute; that winked at the debauchery of their wives
and daughters; that gave men to the Bastile for the expression of a criticism;
that crushed the people with intolerable taxation to sustain the luxury of a
few; that forced the poor to live on food not fit for a stray dog in a city
slums, and which awed the masses into submission to such conditions by the
bayonets of the soldiery. This was the France of which he thought in the day
when his sympathy with the Revolution was to damn him with the
Federalists’ taunt of ‘Jacobin’ and ‘anarchist.’
Such being his observations and views, he rejoiced in the popular
awakening in the dawning days of the Revolution. Witnessing the meeting of
the Assembly of the Notables, a fascinated spectator of the razing of the
Bastile, listening, deeply moved, to the audacious eloquence of Mirabeau, he
wrote, with the joy of the reformer, to Washington that ‘the French nation
has been awakened by our Revolution.’ It was in those days that Gouverneur
Morris, the friend of Hamilton, was accustomed to drop in on Jefferson for a
chat on the situation, and their friendly disagreements were soon to appear in
a party division in America. ‘He and I differ,’ wrote Morris in his diary, ‘in
our system of politics. He with all the leaders of liberty here is desirous of
annihilating distinctions of order.’[382] And yet he was not hostile to the King
or the monarchy. He hoped for reforms, freely granted. Louis he found
‘irascible, rude, very limited in his understanding,’ with ‘no mistress,’ but
governed too much by the Queen—‘devoted to pleasure and expense, and
not remarkable for any other vices or virtues.’[383] As the storm-clouds
lowered and the easy-going monarch remained inert, he became less tolerant.
‘The King, long in the habit of drowning his cares in wine, plunges deeper
and deeper. The Queen cries but sins on. The Count d’Artois is
detested.’[384] And a month later: ‘The King goes for nothing. He hunts one
half the day, is drunk the other, and signs whatever he is bid.’[385]
As the future Terrorists ascended from the cellars and descended from the
garrets, and occasional riots gave premonitory signs of the bloody days
ahead, he reported to Jay that the rioting was the work of the ‘abandoned
banditti of Paris,’ and had no ‘professed connection with the great national
reformation going on.’[386]

All this time he was being constantly consulted by Lafayette and the
moderate leaders who were to become the members of the attractive but
unfortunate party of the Gironde. They even met at his dinner table to make
plans, without notifying him of their intent, and his voluntary explanation to
the Minister was received with the expression of a hope that he might be
able to assist in an accommodation of differences. He did, in fact, propose a
plan, which, had it been accepted, might have saved the monarchy. It was his
suggestion that Louis step forward with a charter in his hands, granting
liberty of the person, of conscience, of the press, a trial by jury, an annual
legislature with the power of taxation, and with a ministry responsible to the
people.[387] These associations and these views are conclusive as to the
absurdity that he was permeated with the theories of Jacobinism and brought
them back to the United States. He was the same kind of Jacobin as
Lafayette. His interest was the interest in democracy and popular rights that
he had taken with him when he sailed for Europe. Mirabeau was still
laboring to save the monarchy with reforms when Jefferson returned to
America on leave.

IV

Jefferson was a humanitarian ahead of his time. His humanity spoke
above the passions of the Revolution in his letter to Patrick Henry against
the mistreatment of the German prisoners. ‘Is an enemy so execrable,’ he
wrote, ‘that though in captivity his wishes and comforts are to be
disregarded and even crossed? I think not. It is for the benefit of mankind to
mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.’[388] These captives,
interned near Monticello, came to love the master on the hill for his efforts
to lighten the burdens of their captivity.[389] A little later, in the Virginia
Legislature, we find him opposing the death penalty except for treason and
murder, and the policy of working convicts on the highways and canals.
‘Exhibited as a public spectacle,’ he wrote, ‘with shaved heads and mean
clothing, working on the highroads produced in the criminals such a
prostration of self-respect, as, instead of reforming, plunged them into the
most desperate and hardened depravity.’[390] It was novel then to hear men
speaking of reform instead of punishment.
That this humanitarian impulse was not confined to people at a distance is
shown in his relations to his own servants, both the employees and the
slaves. A woman of fashion commented on ‘the most perfect servants at the

White House’ during his eight years there and the significant circumstance
that ‘none left.’[391] But we must turn to his relations with his slaves to find
him at his best. One picture will suffice. It is on the occasion of his return to
Monticello from his French mission. At the foot of the hill all the slaves in
their gaudiest attire are assembled to greet him. The carriage appears down
the road. The slaves, laughing, shouting, rush forward to welcome him,
unhitch the horses to draw the carriage up the steep hill, some pulling, some
pushing, and others huddled in a dark mass close around the vehicle. Some
kiss his hands, others his feet, and it is long after he reaches the house before
he is permitted to enter. This was long before the day when correspondents
with cameras pursued public men and demonstrations were staged.[392] Here
was a master who loved his slaves.
Nor can there be any possible doubt as to his hostility to slavery. One of
the features of his Virginia reforms was abolition. While he failed, he never
doubted that ultimately the chains would fall. ‘Nothing is more certainly
written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free’ he wrote in
his ‘Autobiography.’[393] A little later, referring to his strictures on slavery in
his ‘Notes on Virginia,’ he expressed a desire to get them to the young men
in the colleges. ‘It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the
one now in power, for these great reformations.’[394] Declining membership
in a society for abolition in France on the ground that his official status
would make improper a demonstration against an institution his own people
were retaining, he said that ‘it is decent of me to avoid too public a
demonstration of my wishes to see it [slavery] abolished.’[395] Without any
of this evidence, his hostility to slavery would be irrefutably established by
the Ordinance of the Northwest Territory, in the handwriting of Jefferson in
the archives of the Nation, prohibiting slavery in any of the States that might
be carved therefrom after the year 1800.

V

Such is the persistency of falsehood that Jefferson has come down to us
vaguely as an atheist and an enemy of the Christian religion. Since this
charge is to play a part in the political story we are about to tell, it calls for
some attention. He was brought up in the Church of England, and his earliest
recollection was of saying the Lord’s Prayer when his dinner was delayed.
[396] He planned at least one church and contributed to the erection of others,
gave freely to Bible Societies, and liberally to the support of the clergy. He

attended church with normal regularity, taking his prayer book to the
services and joining in the responses and prayers of the congregation. No
human being ever heard him utter a word of profanity. During the period of
his social ostracism by the intolerant partisans of Philadelphia, he passed
many evenings with Dr. Rush in conversation on religion.[397] ‘I am a
Christian,’ he once said, ‘in the only sense in which Jesus wished any one to
be—sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others.’ On one
occasion when a man of distinction expressed his disbelief in the truths of
the Bible, he said, ‘Then, sir, you have studied it to little purpose.’[398] While
the New England pulpits were ringing with denunciations of this ‘infidel’
and old ladies, unable to detect the false witness of the partisan clergy, were
solemnly hiding their Bibles to prevent their confiscation by the ‘atheist’ in
the President’s House, he was spending his nights in the codification of the
‘Morals of Jesus,’ and through the remainder of his life he was to read from
this every night before retiring.[399] In his last days he spent much time
reading the Greek dramatists and the Bible, dwelling in conversation on the
superiority of the moral system of Christ over all others. In his dying hour,
after taking leave of his family, he was heard to murmur, ‘Lord, now lettest
Thy servant depart in peace.’[400]
The reason for the myth created against him is not far to seek. Just as the
landed aristocracy of Virginia pursued him with increasing venom because
of his land reforms, the clergy hated him for forcing the separation of
Church and State. When he made the fight for this reform, it was a crime not
to baptize a child into the Episcopal Church; a crime to bring a Quaker into
the colony; and, according to the law, a heretic could be burned. If the latter
law was not observed, that compelling all to pay tithes regardless of their
religious affiliations and opinions was rigidly enforced. This outraged
Jefferson’s love of liberty. The Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists, who
were making inroads on the membership of the Established Church, were
prosecuted, and their ministers were declared disturbers of the peace and
thrown into jail like common felons. Patrick Henry and his followers fought
Jefferson’s plan for a disestablishment—but he won.[401] The ‘atheist’ law,
which was never forgiven by the ministers of Virginia and Connecticut, was
simple and brief:
No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship,
place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested or
burdened in his mind or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his

religious opinions or belief; but all men shall be free to profess, and by
argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and the same
shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
Here we have the secret of the animus of the clergy of the time—but there
were other reasons. In his ‘Notes on Virginia’ he did not please the orthodox,
and Dr. Mason, a fashionable political minister of New York City, exposed
him in the pulpit, holding him up to scorn as a ‘profane philosopher’ and an
‘infidel.’ Discussing the theory that the marine shells found on the high
mountains were proof of the universal deluge, Jefferson had rejected it.
‘Aha,’ cried Mason, ‘he derides the Mosaic account’; he ‘sneers at the
Scriptures’ and with ‘malignant sarcasm.’ When Jefferson, referring to the
tillers of the soil, wrote that they were ‘the chosen people of God if ever He
had a chosen people,’ and referred to Christ as ‘good if ever man was,’ the
minister charged him with ‘profane babbling.’[402]
His view of creation is set forth in a letter discussing a work by
Whitehurst. He believed that a Supreme Being created the earth and its
inhabitants; that if He created both, He could have created both at once, or
created the earth and waited ages for it to get form itself before He created
man; but he believed that it was created in a state of fluidity and not in its
present solid form. This was his infidelity. He probably did not believe that
Jonah was swallowed by the whale—and that was enough to damn him. But
if he was not a Christian, the pulpits are teeming with atheists to-day.[403]

VI

We have seen that Hamilton had no faith in the Constitution, but did
yeoman service for its ratification; we have the charge that Jefferson was
hostile to both; and the truth is that he was hostile to neither and favorable to
both. The evidence is overwhelming.
When the new form of government was under consideration, he proposed
‘to make the States one in everything connected with foreign nations, and
several as to everything purely domestic,’ and to separate the executive,
legislative, and judicial branches.[404] He was bitterly hostile to any plan
based on the monarchical idea, and advised its friends ‘to read the fable of
the frogs who solicited Jupiter for a King.’[405] When the Convention met, he
wrote Adams that it was ‘really an assembly of demigods,’ but regretted that
they began their deliberations ‘by so abominable a precedent as that of tying

up the tongues of the members.’[406] His first impressions of the completed
document were unfavorable. In a letter to Adams he complained of the
reëligibility of the President.[407] To another correspondent he complained
that the proposed system would merge the States into one without protecting
the people with a bill of rights.[408]
Writing to Madison, he went more into detail, balancing the good against
the bad. He liked the separation of the departments, endorsed the lodging of
the power of initiating money bills with the representatives of the people,
and was ‘captivated with the compromise of the opposite claims of the great
and little States’; but he insisted that a bill of rights ‘is what the people are
entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what
no just government should refuse or rest in inference.’ Professing himself
‘no friend to a very energetic government’ as ‘always oppressive,’ he added
that should the people approve the Constitution in all its parts he should
‘concur in it cheerfully in hopes that they will amend it whenever they think
it works wrong.’[409]
Little more than a month later he had become an ardent friend of
ratification. ‘I wish with all my soul,’ he wrote, ‘that the nine first
Conventions may accept the Constitution, because this may secure to us the
good it contains, which I think great and important. But I equally wish that
the four latest Conventions, whichever they may be, may refuse to accede to
it till a declaration of rights is annexed.’[410]
When the Massachusetts Convention accepted with ‘perpetual
instructions to her Delegates to endeavor to secure reforms,’ he was
delighted,[411] and the same day he wrote another correspondent of his
pleasure at the progress made toward ratification. ‘Indeed I have presumed
that it would gain on the public mind as I confess it has on my own.’[412]
When South Carolina acted, he wrote E. Rutledge his congratulations. ‘Our
government wanted bracing,’ he said. ‘Still we must take care not to run
from one extreme to another; not to brace too high.’[413] When the requisite
nine States had ratified, he wrote Madison in a spirit of rejoicing. ‘It is a
good canvas on which some strokes only want retouching. What these are I
think are sufficiently manifested by the general voice from North to South
which calls for a bill of rights.’[414]
After the ratification, he wrote Madison in praise of ‘The Federalist,’
describing it as ‘the best commentary on government ever written,’ and
admitting that it had ‘rectified’ him on many points.[415] In the same vein he

wrote to Washington, expressing the hope that a bill of rights would be
speedily added.[416] In the spring of 1789 he wrote another that the
Constitution was ‘unquestionably the wisest ever yet presented to men.’[417]
And after the Bill of Rights had been added, he wrote to Lafayette that ‘the
opposition to the Constitution has almost totally disappeared’ and that ‘the
amendments proposed by Congress have brought over almost all’ of the
objectors.[418]
Years afterward, when he wrote his ‘Autobiography,’ he reviewed his
reactions on the document: ‘I received a copy early in November,’ he wrote,
‘and read and contemplated its provisions, with great satisfaction.... The
absence of express declarations, ensuring freedom of religious worship,
freedom of the press, freedom of the person under the uninterrupted
protection of the Habeas Corpus & trial by jury in civil as well as in criminal
cases excited my jealousy; and the reëligibility of the President for life I
quite disapproved. I expressed freely in letters to my friends, and most
particularly to Mr. Madison and General Washington, my approbations and
objections.’[419] His recollections were true to the facts as conclusively
shown in the correspondence to which reference has been made.
He was no more opposed to the Constitution and its ratification than he
was an atheist.

VII

This brings us to Jefferson the creator and leader of a party, and his
methods of management. Here he was without a peer in the mastery of men.
He intuitively knew men, and when bent upon it could usually bend them to
his will. He was a psychologist and could easily probe the minds and hearts
of those he met. In his understanding of mass psychology, he had no equal.
When a measure was passed or a policy adopted in Philadelphia, he knew
the reactions in the woods of Georgia without waiting for letters and papers.
This rare insight into the mass mind made him a brilliantly successful
propagandist. In every community he had his correspondents with whom he
communicated with reasonable regularity, doing more in this way to mould
and direct the policies of his party than could have been done in any other
way. Seldom has there lived a more tireless and voluminous letter-writer.
With all the powerful elements arrayed against him, he appreciated the
importance of the press as did few others. ‘I desired you in my last to send
me the newspapers, notwithstanding the expense,’ he wrote a friend from

Paris.[420] Believing that the people, in possession of the facts, would reach
reasonable conclusions, he considered newspapers a necessary engine of
democracy. ‘If left to me,’ he once wrote, ‘to decide whether we should have
a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I
should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.’[421] There is not a
scintilla of evidence to confute his stout contention that he never wrote for
the papers anonymously, but the evidence piles mountain high to prove that
he constantly inspired the tone of the party press.
In his personal contacts he was captivating—a master of diplomacy and
tact, born of his intuitive knowledge of men. Perhaps no better illustration of
his cleverness in analyzing men can be found than in his letter to Madison on
De Moustier, a newly appointed French Minister to the United States. ‘De
M. is remarkably communicative. With adroitness he may be pumped of
anything. His openness is from character, not affectation. An intimacy with
him may, on this account, be politically valuable.’[422]
In his leadership we find more of leading than of driving. He had a genius
for gently and imperceptibly insinuating his own views into the minds of
others and leaving them with the impression that they had conceived the
ideas and convinced Jefferson. To Madison this was a source of keen delight.
[423] Jefferson was the original ‘Easy Boss.’ His tact was proverbial. He
never sought to overshadow or overawe. Inferior men were not embarrassed
or depressed in his presence. He was amazingly thoughtful and considerate.
In a company he instinctively went to the assistance of the neglected. Thus at
a dinner party, a guest, long absent from the country, and unknown to the
diners, was left out of the conversation and ignored. In a momentary silence,
Jefferson turned to him. ‘To you, Mr. C., we are indebted for this benefit—’
he said, ‘no one deserves more the gratitude of his country.’ The other guests
were all attention. ‘Yes, sir, the upland rice which you sent from Algiers, and
which thus far succeeds, will, when generally adopted by the planters, prove
an inestimable blessing to our Southern States.’ After that the neglected
guest became the lion of the dinner.[424] Thoughtfulness in small things—
this entered not a little into Jefferson’s hold on his followers.
It was at the dinner table that he planned many of his battles. He did not
care for the stormy and contentious atmosphere of a caucus. He was not an
orator. In the Continental Congress he was disgusted by the ‘rage for
debate.’[425] Later he was to find his lot in the Cabinet intolerable because he
and Hamilton were constantly pitted against each other ‘like cocks in a pit.’

He was not afraid of a fight, but the futility of angry controversy repelled
him. It was this which made him a delightful dinner host—all controversial
subjects that might offend were taboo. If his position were warmly
controverted, he changed the subject tactfully. It was never the opposition
that interested him, but the reason for it; and with rare subtlety he would
seek to obliterate the prejudice, if it were prejudice, or to remove the
misunderstanding if it were ignorance of facts. Thus he won many victories
through a seeming retreat.[426]
Unescapable quarrels and separations were minor tragedies to him. He
long sought to get along with Hamilton. He advised his daughters to be
tolerant of disagreeable people and acted on his own advice. Fiske has
explained him in a sentence: ‘He was in no wise lacking in moral courage,
but his sympathies were so broad and tender that he could not breathe freely
in an atmosphere of strife.’[427] Thus considerate of his foes, he never hurt
the sensibilities of his friends through offensive methods. He liked to gather
his lieutenants about him at the table and ‘talk it out’—each man free to give
his views. Here he ironed out differences, dominating by the superiority of
his intellect and fascinating personality while appearing singularly free from
domination.
In his power of self-control Jefferson had another advantage over his
leading political opponents. There was something uncanny in his capacity to
simulate ignorance of the hate that often encompassed him. To the most
virulent of his foes he was the pink of courtesy. He mastered others by
mastering himself. And because he was master of himself, he had another
advantage—he kept his judgment clear as to the capacity and character of his
opponents. One may search in vain through the letters of Hamilton for
expressions other than those of contemptuous belittlement of his political
foes. Jefferson never made that mistake. He conceded Hamilton’s ability and
admired it. Visitors at Monticello, manifesting surprise at finding busts by
Ceracchi of Hamilton and Jefferson, facing each other across the hall,
elicited the smiling comment—‘opposite in death as in life.’ There never
would have been a bust of Jefferson at ‘The Grange.’ Through the long years
of estrangement with Adams, Jefferson kept the way clear for the restoration
of their old relations. Writing Madison of Adams’s faults, he emphasized his
virtues and lovable qualities. When the bitter battles of their administrations
were in the past and a mutual friend wrote that the old man at Quincy had
said, ‘I always loved Jefferson and always shall,’ he said, ‘That is enough for

me,’ and set to work to revive the old friendship. Thus the time came when
in reply to Jefferson’s congratulations on the election of John Quincy Adams
in 1824, Adams wrote: ‘I call him our John because when you were at the
Cul de Sac at Paris, he appeared to me to be almost as much your boy as
mine.’[428] This capacity for keeping his judgment clear of the benumbing
fumes of prejudice concerning the qualities of his enemies was one of the
strong points of his leadership.
This does not mean that in practical politics Jefferson was a ‘Miss Nancy’
or a ‘Sister Sue.’ This first consummate practical politician of the Republic
did not consider it practical to underestimate the foe, nor to dissipate his
energy and cloud his judgment by mere prejudices and hates. He was not an
idealist in his methods, and this has given his enemies a peg on which to
hang the charge that he was dishonest. He was an opportunist, to be sure; he
never refused the half loaf he could get because of the whole loaf he could
not have. He trimmed his sails at times to save his craft—and this was
wisdom. He compromised at the call of necessity. He was hard-headed and
looked clear-eyed at the realities about him. He was cunning, for without
cunning he could not have overcome a foe so powerfully entrenched. He was
as elusive as a shadow, and this has been called cowardice—but it was
difficult to trap him in consequence. His antipathy to the frontal attack has
often been referred to with contempt, but, leading a large but unorganized
army against one of tremendous power, he preferred the methods of
Washington in the field—which was to avoid the frontal attack with his
ragged Continentals against the trained and disciplined army. Because of
these conditions he was given to mining. When apparently quiescent, he was
probably sowing discord among his foes—his part concealed. This was
hateful to the Federalists—just as the tactics of Frederick were hateful to the
exasperated superior forces against him.
Jefferson was the most resourceful politician of his time. For every
problem he had a solution. He teemed with ideas. These were his shock
troops. If he seemed motionless, it was because by a nod or look he had put
his forces on the march. Like the wiser of the modern bosses, he knew the
virtue of silence. When in doubt, he said nothing. When certain of his
course, he said nothing—to his foes. It was impossible to smoke him out
when he preferred to stay in. In the midst of abuse he was serene. And he
was a stickler for party regularity.[429] He appreciated the possibilities of
organization and discipline. When money was needed for party purposes, his

friends would receive a note: ‘I have put you down for so much.’ When the
party paper languished, he circulated subscription lists among his neighbors,
and instructed his friends to imitate his example. He was never too big for
the small essential things, and he was a master of detail—very rarely true of
men of large views. His energy was dynamic and he was tireless. He never
rested on his arms or went into winter quarters. His fight was endless. The
real secret of his triumph, however, is found in the reason given by one of
his biographers: ‘He enjoyed a political vision penetrating deeper down into
the inevitable movement of popular government, and farther forward into the
future of free institutions than was possessed by any other man in public life
in his day.’

VIII

No American of his time had such versatility or such diversified interests.
He was asked to frame the Declaration of Independence because of his
reputation as a writer. Adams has told the story: ‘He brought with him a
reputation for literary science and a happy talent for composition. Writings
of his were handed about[430] remarkable for their peculiar felicity of
expression.’ It was the ‘Summary View’ which elicited the admiration of
Edmund Burke. A more ambitious effort, his ‘Notes on Virginia’ were
written during the fatal illness of his wife, and while he was confined to the
house two or three weeks by a riding accident.[431] It was a valuable
contribution to the natural, social, economic, and political history of the
State, with a number of eloquent passages and fascinating pages.
He had an artistic temperament, loved music, and at the beginning of his
career we find him busy planning his garden at Monticello, and practicing
three hours a day on his loved violin, under the instructions of an Italian
musician. His hospitality to the Hessian prisoners is partly explained by a
mutual love of music. Returning from an absence to find ‘Shadwell,’ his
early home, in ashes, he inquired anxiously about his books. ‘Oh, my young
master,’ exclaimed the distressed slave, ‘they were all burnt, but we saved
your fiddle.’[432]
Loving art in all its forms, he was fond of the company of artists. It was
he who arranged in Paris for Houdon to go to America to make the statue of
Washington.[433] He entertained Trumbull in the French capital,
accompanying him to Versailles to see the King’s art collection, and urged
him to remain in Paris and study.[434] He was delighted with architectural

beauty and lingered about the masterpieces. From Nesmes, he wrote
enthusiastically to a woman friend: ‘Here I am, Madame, gazing whole
hours at the Maison Quarree, like a lover at his mistress. This is the second
time I have been in love since I left Paris. The first was with a Diana at the
Chateau de Laye-Epinaye in Beaujolais, a delicious morsel of sculpture, by
M. A. Soldtz. This you will say was in rule, to fall in love with a female
beauty; but with a house. No, Madame, it is not without a precedent in my
own history. While in Paris I was violently smitten with the Hotel de
Salm.’[435] When the Capitol at Richmond was in contemplation, he urged
the construction of the most beautiful edifice possible as a model to be
emulated in other buildings; drew some plans himself; examined those of
Hallet, was captivated with those of Thornton, and urged their acceptance.
‘Simple, noble, beautiful,’ he wrote home.[436]
And yet, so many-sided was this man, that he was a utilitarian and
scientist as well as artist. In Europe he was thought a philosopher, and
Humboldt came to America to pass many hours under his roof. A perusal of
his letters discloses the intensity and range of his interests. He was entranced
with clocks, and we find him writing David Rittenhouse reminding him of ‘a
kind promise of making me an accurate clock,’[437] and later to Madison of a
watch he had made for himself and inquiring if his friend wished one.[438]
He summoned a Swiss clock-maker to Monticello who died on the mountain
and is buried in the enclosure with his patron. He put the noted Buffon to
rout in Paris on points in natural history.[439] Admiring the red men, he spent
years collecting their vocabularies.[440] When in Paris he heard that an
Arabic translation of Livy had been found in Sicily, and importuned the
chargés des affaires of Naples to make inquiries, and was much excited to
hear that such a translation had been found ‘and will restore to us seventeen
of the lost books.’[441] In the midst of the political diversions and social
distractions of Paris he found time to write at length on the ‘latest
discoveries in astrology.’[442] As early as the summer of 1785, when Pilatre
de Rozière made his fatal attempt to cross the English Channel in a balloon,
we find him eagerly discussing the possibilities of the aeronautical science.
[443] A newly invented lamp pleased him and he sent one to a friend from
Paris.[444] The use of steam in the operation of grist mills interested him and
he found time to witness the test.[445] Even the absorbing drama of the
French Revolution in its early stages did not lessen his interest in Paine’s
iron bridge, and he attended its exhibition,[446] and finding the inventor

hesitating between ‘the catenary and portions of a circle,’ he sent to Italy for
a scientific work by the Abbe Mascheroni.[447] Fascinated by inventions, he
was, himself, the inventor of a plough.

IX

Interested as he was in art and inventions, his heart was with the country
life and the farmer’s lot. He was never happier than when, in the early
morning, mounted on one of his beloved horses, he rode over his broad acres
at Monticello, observing with a perennial zest the budding of the trees in
spring, the unfolding of the flowers, the ripening of the harvest. Wherever he
was, throughout his life, he longed for the house he had made on the hill, the
broad fields, the family circle and the servitors and slaves. There he was lord
of the domain. If he employed Italian gardeners, they conformed to his ideas.
If he had a supervisor, it was he himself who determined what should be
planted and where—where the orchards should be, what trees should be set
and their location; and even the vines and shrubs, the nuts and seeds, the
roots and bulbs claimed his personal attention. Even his hogs were named,
and when one was to be killed, he designated it by name.[448] There, too, he
lived in an atmosphere of affection. There he had taken his bride, a woman
of exquisite beauty, grace, and loveliness; there his children had been born,
and there, all too soon, their mother died. He was passionately devoted to her
and there was no successor. To the daughters who were left he became both a
father and a mother, resulting in an intimacy seldom found between father
and daughters. In Paris he would not permit even his trusted servant to do
their shopping, reserving that duty for himself. Always patient, never harsh,
and ever sympathetic, he was the ideal parent.[449]
Though he did not remarry, he was fond of the society of women and they
of his. The few letters to women that have been preserved are masterpieces
of their kind, sprightly, playful, sometimes beautiful. His relations with the
women of the Adams family are shown in a note to John Adams’s married
daughter, written from Paris: ‘Mr. Jefferson has the honor to present his
compliments to Mrs. Smith and to send her the two pair of corsets she
desired. He wishes they may be suitable, as Mrs. Smith omitted to send her
measure. Times are altered since Mademoiselle de Samson had the honor of
knowing her; should they be too small, however, she will be so good as to
lay them by a while. There are ebbs as well as flows in this world. When the
Mountain refused to go to Mahomet, he went to the Mountain.’[450] In Paris

he formed a few cherished friendships with women, notably with Mrs.
Cosway, Italian wife of an English painter, a woman of charm, beauty, and
intellect, with whom he corresponded. One of his letters, the dialogue
between the Head and the Heart on her departure for England, is unique and
sparkling.[451] He appreciated the exquisite Mrs. Bingham whom he met in
Paris, and his chiding letters to her after her return to America must have
pleased that artificial lady immensely.[452] He was a friend of the Comtesse
De Tesse whose mind he admired,[453] and of Madame De Corney whose
beauty attracted him. ‘The Bois de Boulogne invited you earnestly to retire
to its umbrage from the heats of the sad season,’ he wrote her gallantly. ‘I
was through it to-day as I am every day. Every tree charged me with this
invitation.’[454]
Such was Thomas Jefferson who took upon himself the organization of
the forces of democracy, when its enemies were in the saddle, booted and
spurred, and with a well-disciplined and powerful army at their back. None
but an extraordinary character could have dared hope for victory, and he was
that, and more. Democrat and aristocrat, and sometimes autocrat;
philosopher and politician; sentimentalist and utilitarian; artist, naturalist,
and scientist; thinker, dreamer, and doer; inventor and scholar; writer and
statesman, he enthralled his followers and fascinated while infuriating his
foes.

CHAPTER VI

THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND

I

‘I F New York wanted any revenge for the removal,’ wrote Mrs. Adams to
her daughter soon after reaching Philadelphia, ‘the citizens might be
glutted if they could come here, where every article has been almost
doubled in price, and where it is not possible for Congress and the
appendages to be half as well accommodated for a long time.’[455]
Reconciliation for the removal was not complete several months later when
Oliver Wolcott wrote his father complaining that ‘the manners of the people
are more reserved than in New York.’[456] Even so he had ‘seen nothing to
tempt [him] to idolatry,’ after having seen ‘many of their principal men,’ and
he had no apprehensions of ‘self-humiliating sensations’ after a closer
acquaintance.[457] It was not with unrestrained enthusiasm that the officials
took up their residence in the greater city, with its population of more than
60,000. ‘The Philadelphians,’ according to the indignant comment of
Jeremiah Smith, ‘are from the highest to the lowest, from the parson in his
black gown to the fille de joie or girl of pleasure, a set of beggars. You
cannot turn around without paying a dollar.’[458]
To the visitor entering by coach on Front Street and rumbling up to the
City Tavern the prospect did not seem so black as to those who received
their first impressions from the water-front. These beheld ‘nothing ... but
confused heaps of wooden store houses, crowded upon each other’—and,
behind the wharves, Water Street, narrow, shut in by the old bank of the
river, dirty, filthy, stinking.[459] Could he have looked down upon the city
from some convenient hill, he would have found something to revive his
drooping spirits in the compactness of the town and the substantial character
of the houses. The principal streets of the period were Front, Second, Third,
and Fourth, and beyond Sixth there were scarcely any habitations. No one
thought of building on Arch or Chestnut Streets west of Tenth, where the
land was thickly dotted with frogponds.[460] Practically all of business and
fashion was to be found east of Fourth Street, and the visitor or official
sojourner could congratulate himself on the ease with which he could get

about from place to place. An English tourist, observing that with the
exception of Broad and High Streets the thoroughfares were not more than
fifty feet in width, found them suggestive of ‘many of the smaller streets of
London except that the foot pavement on either side is of brick instead of
stone.’[461]
If the filth of the odorous water-front, the narrowness of the streets, and
the frogponds on the outskirts, so audible in the night, were depressing, the
houses, attractive, and in many instances architecturally pretentious, hinted
of comfort and solidity if not of opulence. The fact that almost all were
constructed of brick was not lost upon the travelers.[462] In the more
congested districts these houses had a shop on the first floor.
The streets, with their red-brick foot pavements and rows of trees, making
them fragrant after summer rains, and drearily murmurous in the winter
winds, were paved with pebbles in the middle,[463] with a gutter made of
brick or wood, and lined with strong posts to protect the area of the
pedestrians.[464] The trees, mostly buttonwood, willow, and Lombardy
poplars, had been brought over from Europe some years before by William
Hamilton.[465] At frequent intervals town pumps offered refreshment to the
thirsty, or, in the night, an accommodating hanging-post for the inebriate
staggering home from one of the popular taverns.[466] Not without its charm
was a walk through the streets of Philadelphia in the days when Hamilton
and Jefferson were exchanging shots, with the poplars and willows to shut
off the sun, the pumps to minister to the comfort, and with most of the
houses offering to the view a garden filled with old-fashioned flowers—
lilacs, roses, pinks, and tulips, morning-glories and snowballs with gourd
vines climbing over the porches. In the case of the more imposing mansions
there were more elaborate gardens with rare flowers and shrubbery, but in
many of these wealth claimed its privilege and shut off the view from the
common folk who could only catch the fragrance.[467]
The visitor on public business bent found all the governmental centers
close together. If interested in the debates at Congress Hall, erected for the
purpose at Sixth and Chestnut Streets next to the State House, the smallest
child could direct him. If a person of no special importance, he could find his
way into the commodious gallery of the House, and, looking down upon the
chamber, a hundred by sixty feet, with its three semi-circular rows of seats
facing the Speaker’s rostrum—‘a kind of pulpit near the center’[468]—could
find Ames busy at his circular writing-desk, Madison on his feet or

Sedgwick in conference with a lobbyist. If fortunate he might be admitted to
the space on the floor beneath the gallery. But it was not so easy to penetrate
to the more sacred precincts of the Senate on the floor above where the self-
constituted guardians of the covenant and the rights of property held
themselves aloof from the gaze of the vulgar. Perhaps, if he really prized the
privilege, he might look down from some point of vantage on the State
House Garden where the statesmen were wont to take the air and compose
their thoughts.
Did he have business with Jefferson? It was only a little way to the three-
story brick residence at High and Eighth Streets which had been taken over
for the purposes of the State Department. With Hamilton? It was but a few
steps to the old Pemberton mansion near Chestnut and Third, with its well-
cultivated garden in the rear where the indefatigable human dynamo worked
far into the night.[469] With the President? It was but a short distance from
Jefferson’s office to the Morris house.
At the time Washington moved in, the Morris house was one of the most
distinguished in the city, a dignified and impressive brick mansion, with two
large lamps in front, and with ample gardens to proclaim it the abode of a
personage of consequence. It was under its roof that Washington had lived as
the guest of Morris while presiding over the Constitutional Convention. It
was not without difficulties and annoyances that the house was taken over.
The banker was lustily praised by his friends for his sacrifice in abandoning
his home, but it appears to have been a sacrifice similar to that of managing
the finances of the Revolution. One writer questioned whether ‘giving up a
house of moderate dimensions for 700 pounds a year can be deemed a great
sacrifice ... when ... the President was accommodated in this city [New York]
with a much more elegant house at 400 pounds per annum.’[470] Even
Washington, who was Morris’s intimate friend, was distressed at the
difficulty in persuading him to fix the rental, and wrote Lear that he could
not understand the Senator. He would be willing to pay as much as he paid in
New York, and even more if there was not clear extortion. The owner finally
fixed the rental at three thousand dollars a year.[471] Thus Washington moved
in, and there the Presidents lived until the capital was moved to Washington.
There, if properly presented, the visitor might call to receive the rather
cold, stately bow of Washington or even drink a cup of tea with Mrs.
Washington. In the case of a levee, he was sure to be welcome. But if his
social status did not suffice to justify the crossing of the threshold, he might,

if he were patient, see the great man as he drove forth in his ornately
decorated coach; or, better still, see him emerge on foot with his secretaries,
Lear and Jackson, one on either side, with cocked hats on their heads, the
aides a little in the rear. If he had the temerity to follow at a respectable
distance, he would have been surprised, perhaps, to find that the President
did not converse with his secretaries while on his walks.[472]

II

It was not joy unconfined to be interned in any of the hotels or taverns of
Philadelphia at any time while it was the capital. In the journals of tourists
who sojourned there we encounter no enthusiastic encomiums, even for
O’Eller’s, which owes something of its glamour in perspective to the fact
that the Assembly dances were held in its ballroom. It was infinitely better,
at any rate, than the Sign of the Sorrel Horse on Second Street, which comes
down to us as a ‘bad one.’[473] The City Tavern, scene of numerous political
demonstrations, concededly one of the best, would have been better rid of
vermin that infested the beds.[474] The London Tavern, which had its days as
the ‘principal hotel,’ was ‘deficient in comfort’ even at its best,[475] and the
Indian Queen distinguished itself as the scene of a doleful robbery when
some of Ames’s colleagues lost their linen, and thirty thousand dollars in
securities, and he escaped only because his name on his trunk assured the
‘partial rogues’ that ‘nothing was to be got by taking it away.’[476] In 1794,
the Golden Lion or the Yellow Cat at Eighth and Filbert Streets was a
favorite because of its well-drawn beer and porter; and the visitor, pushing
through the smoke-laden air to drink malt liquor from a pewter mug, would,
likely as not, find Governor Mifflin or General Knox of the Cabinet enjoying
their mugs along with the mechanics and clerks.[477] But it was not necessary
to sleep in the beds of the Yellow Cat to quaff its liquors, and after a brief
experience with the taverns the tourist would be likely to follow the example
of Thomas Twining and seek more comfortable and sanitary quarters in
some of the numerous rooming-houses that catered particularly to members
of Congress. The choicest of these resented the idea that they were other
than the private houses of gentlemen accommodating political personages—
this particularly true in the case of Francis, the Frenchman, at whose house
on Fourth Street, Vice-President Adams had a room.[478] In these private
rooming and boarding-houses, in which the majority of the celebrities lived,
an abundant table, clean agreeable rooms, and the congenial companionship

of colleagues made an appeal. At Francis’s the head of the table was reserved
for Adams, and all the ceremonial forms were scrupulously observed,
although he frequently had his meals served in his rooms. It was not until he
had escaped from the Indian Queen and found lodgings ‘at the house of Mrs.
Sage’ that Ames began ‘to feel settled and at home.’[479] This hiving had its
comedies, sometimes its scandals, and occasionally its romances, as on the
day Senator Aaron Burr took James Madison to call upon the winsome
daughter of his landlady, and history was made in the candlelit parlor of the
boarding-house.
Quiet and home-like, at least, these boarding-houses of our early
statesmen, and if they had no bars, they were in close proximity to many that
were of good repute. The members of the Legislature sometimes were
known to discuss important measures at Geisse’s Tavern over the mugs,[480]
were wont, on adjournment, to linger at Mr. O’Eller’s for his incomparable
punch,[481] and to celebrate the ending of a session with an evening of
conviviality at ‘Mr. Burns tavern on Tenth Street.’[482] Gentlemen riding
along the banks of the Schuylkill could seldom resist the impulse to
dismount at the tavern of Metz—for these drinking-houses were kindly
placed among a people intolerant of puritanism.[483]
Going forth into the streets to mingle with the common people was a
revelation to the polished tourist from the old lands. Here they found nothing
of the humility of the lowly to which they were accustomed. The mechanics
and common laborers took the theory of equality seriously. One traveler
found ‘the lower sort of people’ lacking in good manners[484] and observed
that a well-dressed stranger, asking a polite question, was almost certain of
an impudent answer.[485] These were the men who were to man the societies
fashioned after those of the Parisian radicals, to rally passionately to the
support of the French Revolution, and to supply Jefferson with his shock
troops—and sometimes shocking troops—in his fight for the
democratization of the Republic.
These, too, in their desperate striving for equality were moved to
imitations of the spendthrift practices of the rich. Even the servants and the
negroes gave elaborate balls which Liancourt found ‘destitute of the
charming simplicity of the fêtes of our peasants.’[486] The women appeared
in dresses beyond their means; the laborer and his lady rode in coaches to the
dance, where an elaborate supper was served, with liquid refreshments.
Sundays found the public-houses of the environs packed with the men of the

factories and shop, borne thither, with their families, in chairs. There was
much drinking and spending with gambling on the fights arranged for their
delectation.[487] At Harrowgate Gardens, two miles out on the New York
road, and Gray’s Gardens on the Schuylkill, they flocked to drink tea or
liquor, to dance, promenade, or flirt, and on summer nights the young men of
all stations were lured to them by the promise of romance. Even the grave
and reverend statesmen could not, in all cases, resist the call. Gay and
wicked some must have thought the scene—with the painted women of the
town a bit brazen in their fishing for men. ‘We have Eves in plenty, of all
nations, tongues and colors,’ wrote Oliver Wolcott to his wife from Gray’s
Gardens where he had taken refuge from the yellow fever, ‘but do not be
jealous—I have not seen one yet whom I have thought pretty’—leaving her
to imagine the possibilities should one such appear.[488] And yet, pleasure-
loving as the population was, the nights were reasonably quiet. About the
time the city assumed the dignity of a capital, there was little to disturb the
tranquillity of the night after ten o’clock beyond the voice of the watchman,
or the footsteps of some night-hawk wending his way by the light of the
street-lamps ‘placed like those in London.’[489] But five years later, a visitor
who recalled that in 1794 it was unusual to meet any one at night, or to hear
any noises after eleven o’clock, found that the nocturnal annoyances
continued far later into the night.[490]
It was by day, however, that the city made its best impression. The
luxury-loving people, the wealth and extravagance of the social leaders
insisting upon London and Parisian styles, the commercial traditions of the
community gave to its shopping district an elegance found nowhere else in
America. The houses of the importers and wholesalers, some maintaining
their own ships, were found, for the most part, on Front and Water Streets.
When in the spring and autumn the ships came in, and the great boxes of
English dry-goods were stretched along the pavement of Front between Arch
and Walnut Streets to be opened, it was a thrilling event to the
Philadelphians. Fluttering about them were the retail merchants—for most of
these in the days of the city’s political preëminence were women—
exclaiming ecstatically over the contents. Soon the goods were transferred to
the shops, which even a Frenchman found ‘remarkable for their
neatness’[491]—due, no doubt, to the sex of the proprietors. What more
fascinating than to stand before the great show windows—something new—
at Mrs. Whiteside’s fancy dress-goods shop, with exquisite cloths and

dresses hung full length and festooned to best advantage after the manner of
Bond Street, London. Did it add anything to the appeal to know that the
proprietress had come from London? Alas, no doubt. Thither the ladies from
the mansions drove in their carriages to make their purchases, and thence,
perhaps, for something more, to the South Second Street store of the smiling
Mrs. Holland, and then on, perchance, to Mrs. Jane Taylor’s at the Sign of
the Golden Lamb.[492] And then, having ministered to the materialistic
yearnings of vanity, as like as not milady directs the coachman to stop at
Bell’s British Book Shop on Third Street, near Pearl, lest the lord and master,
in placing his order with his London agent, overlooked something she would
not miss.
An easy, patrician life for some of these Philadelphians, but not for all.
The workman receiving a dollar a day and board, and with the smallest
houses on the outskirts renting for three hundred dollars a year, found it far
from a frolic to make both ends meet. The middle-class employees of the
stores and industries, paying from eight to twelve dollars a week for board,
without wine, candles, or fire, could have found little to interest them in Mrs.
Whiteside’s show windows, for, while the clerks were courteous and the
merchant polite, the cost of her goods was far in excess of that on Bond
Street.[493] But it is not with these of the more humble order that we are
concerned just now. It is quite possible that the curious Jefferson, who had a
habit of prying into the living conditions of ‘people of no importance,’ may
have wondered how these lived, but the social environment of the majority
of the statesmen was far removed from the common people. It is with the
world of fashion that we are concerned.

III

No society in America could have been less in harmony with the spirit of
democracy, for nowhere was class consciousness and caste pride more
pronounced. ‘Those who constitute the fashionable world are at best a mere
oligarchy, composed of a few natives and as many foreigners,’ wrote Otis to
his wife.[494] ‘I might have believed myself in an English town,’ said
Viscount de Chateaubriand.[495] An Englishman noted that ‘amongst the
upper circles ... pride, haughtiness, and ostentation are conspicuous; and it
seems that nothing could make them happier than that an order of nobility
should be established, by which they might be exalted above their fellow
citizens, as much as they are in their own conceit.’[496] A French nobleman

could not escape the observation that ‘the English influence prevails in the
first circles and prevails with great intolerance.[497] And Otis, who liked the
tone himself, was much impressed with the discovery that ‘the women after
presentations to the court of George III or Louis XVI transplanted into
Philadelphia society the manners of the English aristocracy and the fashions
of Paris.’[498] During the days of the British occupation, the cream of society
had reveled with the British officers, and many of these had resumed their
places in the society of the republican capital without abandoning their
former views. This English tone was to be felt by Jefferson a little later when
his sympathy with the French Revolution was to enter into his policies. From
the beginning these pro-English aristocrats were to draw political lines in
social intercourse, and in time Otis was to record that ‘Democratic
gentlemen and their families, no matter how high their social qualifications,
were rigidly ostracised by the best society.’[499] Along with this went a rather
vulgar deification of the dollar, and, strangely enough, a lack of polite
hospitality to the stranger. ‘What is justly called society,’ wrote Liancourt
whose ideas had been fashioned at Versailles, ‘does not exist in this city. The
vanity of wealth is common enough.’ The picture he paints is not a pretty
one. It shows a flamboyant rich man flauntingly displaying ‘his splendid
furniture, his fine English glass, and exquisite china,’ to the stranger invited
to come to ‘one ceremonious dinner,’ and then dismissing him for another
who had not ‘seen the magnificence of the house, nor tasted the old
Madeira.’ This, we are told, was the routine for all who came from Europe
—‘philosophers, priests, literati, princes, dentists, wits and idiots.’ But alas,
‘the next day the lionized stranger is not known in the street except he be
wealthy.’[500] However much they may have fallen short in manners, they
yielded nothing to Versailles in dress. This ‘elegance of dress’ astonished
Chateaubriand, and Liancourt was amazed at ‘the profusion and luxury’ in
‘the dresses of their wives and daughters.’ At balls, ‘the variety and richness
of the dresses did not suffer in comparison with Europe.’ The brilliant note
was assiduously sought in costumes, and there was much copying of the
subjects of Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds. One foreigner noting the
‘immense expense on their toilet and head dress’ thought it ‘too affected to
be pleasing.’[501] But by common consent these grand dames and belles were
beautiful, with their sparkling eyes, graceful forms, and the brilliancy of
their complexions.

If this aristocracy was neglectful of the stranger who had no golden key
to its interest, it was not because of a dearth of entertaining. Here there was a
hectic activity—dinners, dances, breakfasts, teas, parties enough to satisfy
the most insatiate passion for such excitement. Throughout the season the
great houses were ablaze with light, and if, as Mrs. Adams complained, there
was much the same company in all, it was congenial company, and the
intimacy of the contact allowed a familiarity that sometimes verged on the
risqué. In less than a month after her arrival, Mrs. Adams was appalled at
‘the invitations to tea and cards in the European style,’[502] and was
complaining that she ‘should spend a very dissipated winter if [she] were to
accept one half the invitations, particularly to the touts or teas and cards with
even Saturday night ... not excepted.’[503] A little later Aaron Burr was being
swamped with ‘many attentions and civilities—many invitations to dine,
etc.’[504] If Burr declined, as he wrote his wife, the handsome young Otis,
who loved the company of women, was not so coy. ‘I have dined once with
Cuttling at Mrs. Grattan’s,’ he wrote home, ‘once at Yznardi’s [Spaniard who
spent much time in Philadelphia] in great stile; and yesterday in the country
with Jonathan Williams [nephew of Franklin]. I am engaged for next
Christmas with Mrs. Powell, but with nobody for the Christmas after
next.’[505]
At these functions—heavy drinking—flirting—risqué talk. Even a
German was shocked to find that at public dinners each person would often
consume six bottles of Madeira.[506] Only Burr was hard to satisfy. ‘I despair
of getting genuine Trent wine in this city,’ he wrote Theodosia. ‘There never
was a bottle of real unadulterated Trent imported here for sale. Mr. Jefferson,
who had some for his own use, has left town.’[507] But if there was no Trent,
Madeira flowed in streams, beer and ale, punch and whiskey and champagne
could be had for the asking, and there was asking enough, even at parties and
dinners. Even Hamilton, who drank with moderation, sometimes became
‘liquorish’ at the table, and on one occasion made rather free with another
man’s wife to the husband’s indignation until mollified with the assurance of
his spouse that she ‘did not like him at all.’ Even so, thought the irate
husband, Hamilton ‘appears very trifling in his conversation with
ladies.’[508] And ‘trifling’ indeed must have been much of the talk.
Thus it was at a dinner at Clymer’s, a leading member of the House.
Present, Otis, the Binghams, the Willings—the top cream of the aristocracy.
Aha, cried the vivacious sister of Mrs. Bingham, referring to the host’s

newly acquired stomacher, and mentioning the touching case of the Duke of
York, recently married to the Duchess of Württemberg who was compelled
to cut a semi-circle out of his table to give access to his plate. Mrs. Bingham
coyly expressed sympathy for the Duchess. (Bursts of laughter and
applause.) But Clymer, not to be outdone, turned to his married sister with
the comment that he would ‘soon be able to retort this excellent jest on her.’
(Renewed laughter and more applause.) It was an hilarious occasion, the
applause ‘would have done credit to a national convention’ and ‘Miss Abby
and Miss Ann did not disguise their delight nor their bosoms.’[509] On now
to a dinner at Harrison’s, who married a sister of Mrs. Bingham, where one
of the guests, ‘after rallying Sophia ... upon her unfruitfulness,’ led to a
‘natural but not very flattering transition’ which ‘introduced Mrs. Champlin
and her want of prolific qualities as a seasoning for the Canvas Backs.’[510]
But let us hurry on to a third dinner, with Hamilton, his vivacious sisters-in-
law, Mrs. Church and Miss Schuyler. A lively company! Mrs. Church, ‘the
mirror of affectation,’ who is ‘more amusing than offensive’ because so
affable and free from ceremony; and, still more lively, Miss Schuyler ‘a
young wild flirt from Albany, full of glee and apparently desirous of
matrimony.’ Mrs. Church drops her shoe bow, Miss Schuyler picks it up and
fastens it in Hamilton’s button-hole with the remark, ‘I have made you a
knight.’ ‘But what order?’ asks Mrs. Church, ‘he can’t be a knight of the
garter in this country.’ ‘True, sister, but he would be if you would let him.’
Wine, women and song—such the spirit in some of the great houses in
moments of abandon. But it would be unfair to leave the impression these
incidents would convey. There were brilliant men of vast achievement, and
women of extraordinary charm and cleverness moving behind these
curtained windows. Let us meet them in the mansion of Mrs. Bingham—the
uncrowned queen of the Federalist group—the woman without a peer.

IV

None of the three capitals of the country have produced another social
leader of the cleverness, audacity, and regality of Mrs. William Bingham.
During the eight years of the domination of the Federalists, of whom her
husband was one of the leaders, there was no public character of the first
order who did not come under the influence of her fascination. By birth,
environment, nature, and training she was fitted to play a conspicuous part in
the social life of any capital in the world. The daughter of Willing, the

partner of Robert Morris, she was the favored of fortune. Some years before
her birth, her father, inspired by sentimental motives, built the mansion on
Third Street in which she was born, and patterned it after the ancestral home
in Bristol, England. There, surrounded by all the advantages of wealth, her
beauty unfolded through a happy childhood. The pomp and pride of great
possessions did not imbue her with a passion for republics or democracy.
She was destined to play a part in a rather flamboyant aristocracy, and was
as carefully perfected in the arts and graces of her sex as any princess
destined to a throne. In the midst of the Revolution, in her sixteenth year, she
married William Bingham who combined the advantages of wealth, social
position, and a capacity for political leadership.
She was only twenty, when, accompanied by her husband, she went
abroad to captivate court circles with her vivacity, charm, and beauty. At
Versailles, the gallants, accustomed to the ways and wiles of the most
accomplished women of fashion, were entranced. At The Hague, where she
lingered awhile, the members of the diplomatic corps fluttered about the
teasing charmer like moths about the flame. In the court circles of England
she suffered nothing in comparison with the best it could offer, and the
generous Abigail Adams, thrilling to the triumph of the young American,
found her brilliancy enough to dim the ineffectual fires of Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire. Five years of familiarity with the leaders in the
world of European fashion and politics prepared her to preside with stunning
success over the most famous political drawing-room of the American
capital.
It was after their return from Europe that Mrs. Bingham moved into the
imposing mansion on Third Street built on the ample grounds of her
childhood home. All the arts of the architect, landscape gardener, and
interior decorator had been drawn upon to make a fit setting for the mistress.
The garden, with its flowers and rare shrubbery, its lemon, orange, and citron
trees, its aloes and exotics, was shut off from the view of the curious, only
mighty oaks and the Lombardy poplars visible above the wall—‘a
magnificent house and gardens in the best English style.’[511] The
furnishings were in keeping with the promise of the exterior. ‘The chairs in
the drawing-room were from Seddon’s in London of the newest taste, the
back in the form of a lyre, with festoons, of yellow and crimson silk,’
according to the description of an English tourist. ‘The curtains of the room
a festoon of the same. The carpet, one of Moore’s most expensive patterns.

The room papered in the French taste, after the style of the Vatican in
Rome.’[512] The halls, hung with pictures selected with fine discrimination in
Italy, gave a promise not disappointed in the elegance of the drawing-rooms,
the library, the ballroom, card-rooms, and observatory.[513] To some this
extravagant display of luxury was depressing, and Brissot de Warville, who
was to return to Paris to die on the guillotine as a leader of the ill-fated party
of the Gironde, held the

MRS. WILLIAM BINGHAM

mistress of the mansion responsible for the aristocratic spirit of the town. It
was a pity, he thought, that a man so sensible and amiable as Bingham
should have permitted a vain wife to lead him to ‘a pomp which ought
forever have been a stranger to Philadelphia.’ And all this display ‘to draw
around him the gaudy prigs and parasites of Europe,’ and lead ‘to the
reproach of his fellow citizens and the ridicule of strangers.’[514] But if the
French republican was shocked, even so robust a democrat as Maclay was so
little offended that he was able to write after dining at the mansion that
‘there is a propriety, a neatness, a cleanliness that adds to the splendor of his
costly furniture and elegant apartments.’[515]
And ‘the dazzling Mrs. Bingham,’ as the conservative Abigail described
her,[516] what of her? The elegance and beauty which has come down to us
on canvas prepares us for the glowing descriptions of contemporaries. Hers
was the type of patrician beauty that shimmered. She was above the medium
height and well-formed, and in her carriage there was sprightliness, dignity,
elegance, and distinction. Sparkling with wit, bubbling with vivacity, she had
the knack of convincing the most hopeless yokel introduced into her
drawing-room by the exigencies of politics that she found his personality
peculiarly appealing. Daring at the card-table, graceful in the dance, witty in
conversation even though sometimes too adept with the naughty devices of a
Congreve dialogue, inordinately fond of all the dissipations prescribed by
fashion, tactful in the selection and placing of her guests at table, she richly
earned the scepter she waved so authoritatively over society.[517] What
though she did sometimes stain her pretty lips with wicked oaths, she swore
as daintily as the Duchess of Devonshire, and if she did seem to relish
anecdotes a bit too spicy for a puritanic atmosphere, she craved not the
privilege of breathing such air.[518]
Hers the consuming ambition to be the great lady and to introduce into
American society the ideas and ideals of Paris and London. Did Jefferson
gently chide her for her admiration of French women? Well—was she not
justified? Did they not ‘possess the happy art of making us pleased with
ourselves?’ In their conversation could they not ‘please both the fop and the
philosopher?’ And despite their seeming frivolity, did not these ‘women of
France interfere with the politics of the country, and often give a decided
turn to the fate of empires?’ In this letter to the man she admired and liked,

while loathing his politics, we have the nearest insight into the soul of the
woman.[519]
But these graver ambitions were not revealed to many who observed her
mode of life, her constant round of dissipations, her putting aside the
responsibilities of a mother, leaving her daughters to their French
governesses until the tragic elopement of Marie with a dissipated nobleman,
and the apprehension of the pair after their marriage at the home of a
milliner in the early morning. Hers were not the prim notions of the average
American of her time. It was Otis, not she, who was shocked to find Marie
so thinly dressed in mid-winter that he was ‘regaled at the sight of her whole
legs for five minutes together,’ and wondered ‘to what height the fashion
would be carried.’[520] Swearing, relating risqué stories, indulging in
dissipations night after night, shaming her motherhood by her affected
indifference or neglect, the fact remains that the breath of scandal never
touched her until the final scene when in her early thirties they bore her on a
stretcher from the home of her triumphs in the vain hope of prolonging her
life in the soft air of the Bermudas.
And so to her dinners, dances, parties, the clever men of the Federalist
Party flocked, with only a sprinkling of Jeffersonians, for, though Jefferson
himself could always count on a gracious reception from the hostess, he was
not comfortable among the other guests. Always the best was to be had there
—and the newest. Did she not introduce the foreign custom of having
servants announce the arriving guests, to the discomfiture of Monroe?
‘Senator Monroe,’ called the flunky.
‘Coming,’ cried the Senator.
‘Senator Monroe’—echoed a flunky down the hall.
‘Coming as soon as I can get my greatcoat off,’ promised the Senator.
But we may be sure that no expression of amusement on the face of the
beaming Mrs. Bingham added to his embarrassment.
‘A very pretty dinner, Madame,’ said the intolerable Judge Chase, after
looking over the proffered repast, ‘but there is not a thing on your table that I
can eat.’
An expression of surprise or resentment on the hostess’s face? Not at all.
What would the Judge relish? Roast beef? Very well—and a servant received
his orders and soon hurried back with beef and potatoes to be gluttonously

devoured and washed down with a couple of bottles of stout ale instead of
French wines.
‘There, Madame,’ said the Judge, made comfortable, ‘I have made a
sensible and excellent dinner, but no thanks to your French cook.’
And he never knew from the lady’s pleased expression that she thought
him an insufferable bore.
Such the woman whose home was to be to the Hamiltonians what
Madame Roland’s was to the Girondists, and Lady Holland’s to the English
Whigs. Now let us peep into the drawing-room and observe the men and
women who bowed to her social scepter.

V

In deference to Mrs. Bingham we shall permit the servant to announce
these visitors as they arrive.
‘Mr. and Mrs. Robert Morris.’
No doubt about their importance, for he was as intimate with Washington
as she with Mrs. Washington, and such was her intimacy that she was
frequently referred to as ‘the second lady in the land.’ It was she who
accompanied Mrs. Washington from Philadelphia to New York after the
inauguration, and during the spring and autumn the two might frequently be
seen under the trees at ‘The Hills,’ the Morris farm near the city, enjoying
the view of the river and such pastoral pictures as were offered by the
imported sheep and cattle grazing on the rolling hills. Of Mrs. Morris it was
said that ‘so impressive is her air and demeanor that those who saw her once
seldom forgot her.’[521] She had dignity, tact, and elegance, and, like Mrs.
Washington, no respect for ‘the filthy democrats.’ She was a thorough
aristocrat. Her husband, banker, merchant, Senator, was of imposing height,
his merry blue eyes, clear complexion, and strong features denoting
something of his significance; and he had the social graces that captivate and
hold. His wealth alone would have made him a commanding figure in the
society of the time and place. Some generations were to settle on his grave
before he was to appear as the martyr who had sacrificed a fortune to liberty,
for there was a different understanding in his day.[522] A natural aristocrat,
ultra-conservative because of his business connections and great
possessions, if he was tolerant of the experiment in republicanism, he took
no pains to conceal his contempt of democracy—in Senate or drawing-room.

‘Mrs. Walter Stewart.’
Another of the intimate circle of the Washingtons who dwelt in a fine
house next door to the Morrises, she was one of the most brilliant and
fascinating women with whom Mrs. Bingham liked to surround herself. A
long way she had traveled from her girlhood home as the daughter of Blair
McClenachan, the ardent democrat who was to help burn Jay’s Treaty,
welcome Genêt, and to follow Jefferson, for she was the wife of the rich
General Stewart, and had been seduced by the glitter of the aristocracy. Like
Mrs. Bingham, she had had her fling with the nobility in London, Paris,
Berlin, and Rome, and had returned to open her house for some of the most
elaborate entertaining of her time. In striking beauty, conversational charm,
and a caressing manner, she rivaled Mrs. Bingham at her best. About her
dinner table the leaders of the Federalist Party were frequently found.[523]
‘Mrs. Samuel Powell.’
An interesting lady, ‘who looks turned fifty,’[524] enters to be greeted by
the hostess as ‘Aunt.’ A courteous, kindly woman, almost motherly in her
manner, she talks with the fluency and ease to be expected of the mistress of
the famous house on ‘Society Hill.’[525] No one of Mrs. Bingham’s guests
who has not promenaded on summer evenings in the Powell gardens, the
walks lined with statuary.[526]
‘General and Mrs. Knox.’
An impressive figure, the Secretary of War, his height carrying the two
hundred and eighty pounds not ungracefully, his regular Grecian nose, florid
complexion, bright, penetrating eyes giving an attractive cast to his
countenance. They who know him best suspect that he enjoys too well the
pleasures of the table, but love him for a kindliness that temper cannot sour,
a sincerity and generosity that know no bounds, a gayety that his dignity
cannot suppress—a fine sentimental figure with a Revolutionary
background. What though he had been a bookseller before he eloped with a
lady of quality, he was too keenly appreciative of the advantages of
aristocracy to have much patience with the queer notions of Tom Jefferson,
whom he liked. He rubbed his shins when Hamilton stumbled over a chair.
And Mrs. Knox—she must have been a dashing belle in her romantic
youth, for despite her enormous weight, she was still handsome with her
black eyes and blooming cheeks.[527] Passing her girlhood in the Loyalist
atmosphere of an aristocratic home, she had never become reconciled to the

impertinence of the people, and even during the war her adoring Henry had
been moved to warn her against sneering openly at the manners and speech
of the people of Connecticut. ‘The want of refinement which you seem to
speak of is, or will be, the salvation of America,’ he wrote.[528] But hers was
the more masterful nature and his democracy was to capitulate to her
aristocracy in the end.[529] But—whither goes the lady from the drawing-
room so quickly? Ah—of course, it is to the card-room, for was it not the
gossip that ‘the follies of a gambling wife are passed on to the debits of her
husband?’[530] In the morning, no doubt, she will run in on Mrs. Washington
at the Morris house, for they are very close.
‘Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Hamilton.’
What a romantic picture he makes in the finery that sets him off so well—
brilliant eyes sparkling, eloquent lips smiling, a courtly figure bending over
the hostess’s hand. Only a moment for the lightest kind of banter with the
ladies, and he is off to the Pemberton mansion to work far into the night.
Mrs. Hamilton will linger a little longer, an appealing type of woman, her
delicate face set off by ‘fine eyes which are very dark’ and ‘hold the life and
energy of the restrained countenance.’[531] Hamilton had found her in the
Schuyler homestead at Albany, ‘a brunette with the most good-natured, dark
lovely eyes,’[532] gentle, retiring, but in the home circle full of gayety and
courage. Weeks and months sometimes found her missing from the social
circle, for with her, in those days, life was just one baby after another.
‘Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Wolcott, and Miss Wolcott.’
A pleasing personality was that of the handsome protégé of Hamilton,
breathing the spirit of jollity, given to badinage, capable, too, of serious
conversation on books and plays. He loses himself in the lively throng, but
his infectious laughter is as revealing of his presence as the bell of Bossy in
the woods. But we are more interested in his companions. Mrs. Wolcott was
all loveliness and sweetness, grace and dignity, and such was the appeal of
her conversation that one statesman thought her ‘a divine woman’; another,
‘the magnificent Mrs. Wolcott’; and the brusque Senator Tracy of her State,
on being assured by a condescending diplomat that she would shine at any
court, snorted that she even shone at Litchfield.[533] Even so the eyes of the
younger men are upon Mary Ann Wolcott, sister of the Federalist leader, a
pearl of her sex, combining an extraordinary physical beauty with opulent
charms, and a conversational brilliance unsurpassed by any woman of the
social circle. Very soon she would marry the clever, cynical Chauncey

Goodrich and take her place in official society in her own right. The
Wolcotts, we may be sure, read Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’ with amazement and
disgust.
‘Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Sedgwick.’
A magnificent type of physical manhood, the face of one accustomed to
command and sneer down opposition; a woman of elegance and refinement,
typical of the best New England could offer in a matron.
‘Pierce Butler.’
A handsome widower this man, maintaining an elegant establishment in
Philadelphia, who affected to be a democrat, and carefully selected his
associates from among the aristocracy, a South Carolinian with a certain
reverence for wealth.
‘Mrs. William Jackson.’
An equally charming but less beautiful sister of the hostess, now wife of
one of Washington’s secretaries, a favorite at the Morris mansion, and with
no time for thinking on the grievances of the yokels and mechanics—an
American prototype of the merry ladies of Versailles before the storm broke.
Among the foreign faces we miss the tall figure of Talleyrand whose
Philadelphia immoralities shocked the French Minister, and whose affairs
with a lady of color[534] excluded him from the Bingham drawing-room. But
there is Viscount de Noailles who had proposed the abolition of feudal rights
in the early days of the French Revolution; and Count Tilley, the dissipated
roué planning an elopement with his hostess’s daughter with the connivance
of her French governess; and Brissot de Warville, enlightened political
idealist of France soon to fall beneath the knife of Robespierre. There, too,
the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt who was redolent of courts, and the
Baring brothers of London, bankers, soon to marry the Bingham girls.
A veritable Vanity Fair, many clever, some brilliant, most skeptical of
republics, idolatrous of money and distinctions, and few capable of
discriminating between anarchy and democracy. Such was the social
atmosphere of the capital when the fight to determine whether this should be
a democratic or aristocratic republic was made.

VI

We have an English-drawn picture of an evening at the British Legation
with many American guests gathered about the blazing fire. The Consul is

‘descanting on various subjects, public and private, as well as public and
private characters, sometimes with unbecoming levity, sometimes with
sarcasm even more unbecoming.’ An English guest was afraid that such talk
‘could hardly fail to be offensive to ... many of the guests and to the good
taste of all.’ But could this English gentleman have listened in on the
conversations at Mrs. Bingham’s, Mrs. Morris’s, or Mrs. Stewart’s, he might
have concluded that these reflections on certain public characters were
altogether pleasing to the principal figures in the society of the capital.[535]
And could he have returned a little later to find society chuckling over the
display in the windows of a newspaper office of the pictures of George III,
Lord North, and General Howe, he might have decided that there was a
pronouncedly pro-English party in America. Had he driven about the
environs, among the hills, and along the banks of the rivers, he would have
seen country houses of the aristocracy—Lansdowne, the seat of the
Binghams; Bush Hill, where the Adamses lived at first; Woodford, and other
country places to suggest similar seats in his own land. And had he been
meandering in the neighborhood of Horsehead’s or Chew’s Landing, seven
or nine miles out, he might have been startled at the familiar English picture
of gentlemen in bright coats, the pack in full cry after the fox.[536] And
having made these observations he could have found some extenuation in
the conversation in the British Minister’s house.
The snobbery of class consciousness entered into even the Dancing
Assembly which held forth at frequent intervals at O’Eller’s, in a ballroom
sixty feet square, with a handsome music gallery at one end, and the walls
papered after the French style.[537] The suppers at these dances were mostly
liquid,[538] and, since it is on record that on hot summer days ladies and
gentlemen could count on a cool iced punch with pineapple juice to heighten
the color, it may be assumed that the Assembly suppers were a success.[539]
The fact that the young ladies sometimes took two pair of slippers, lest they
dance one out, hints of all-night revels.[540] And the expulsion from
membership of a young woman who had dared marry a jeweler tells its own
tale.[541] At the theater, which was usually crowded,[542] the aristocrats and
democrats met without mingling, for the different prices put every one in his
or her place, and if wine and porter were sold between acts to the people in
the pit ‘precisely as if they were in a tavern,’[543] the aristocracy paid eight
dollars for a box,[544] and an attaché, in full dress of black, hair powdered
and adjusted in the formal fashion, and bearing silver candlesticks and wax

candles, would meet Washington at the entrance and conduct him with much
gravity to the presidential box, festooned with red drapery, and bearing the
United States coat of arms.[545] ‘The managers have been very polite to me
and my family,’ wrote Mrs. Adams. ‘The actors came and informed us that a
box is prepared for us. The Vice-President thanked them for their civility,
and told them he would attend whenever the President did.’[546] On these
occasions, when the highest dignitaries of the State attended, a stranger,
dropped from the clouds, would have scarcely thought himself in a republic.
At the theater he would have found a military guard, with an armed soldier
at each stage door, with four or five others in the gallery, and these assisted
by the high constables of the city and police officers.[547] There was no
danger threatening but the occasion offered the opportunity for pompous
display so tempting to the society of the city.
At first the statesmen had to content themselves with the old Southwark
Theater, which was dreary enough architecturally, lighted with oil lamps
without glasses, and with frequent pillars obstructing the view.[548] But the
best plays were presented, by good if not brilliant players, and the
aristocracy flirted and frolicked indifferent to the resentful glances of the
poorer classes in less favored seats. It reached the climax of its career just as
the new theater was about to open with the then celebrated tragic actress,
Mrs. Melmoth—and soon afterward, the new Chestnut Street Theater
opened its doors and raised its curtain. The opening was an event—the
public entranced. Two or three rows of boxes, a gallery with Corinthian
columns highly gilded and with a crimson ribbon from capital to base.
Above the boxes, crimson drapery—panels of rose color—seats for two
thousand. ‘As large as Covent Garden,’ wrote Wansey, ‘and to judge by the
dress and appearance of the company around me, and the actors and scenery,
I should have thought I had still been in England.’[549] And such a company!
There was Fennell, noted in Paris for his extravagance, socially ambitious,
and handsome, too, with his six feet of stature, and ever-ready blush, about
whom flocked the literary youth of the town. Ladies—the finest trembled to
his howls of tragedy and simpered to his comedy. There, too, was Harwood,
who had married the granddaughter of Ben Franklin—a perfect gentleman;
and Mrs. Oldmixon, the spouse of Sir John, the ‘beau of Bath,’ who divided
honors in his day with Nash and Brummel; and Mrs. Whitlock, whom her
admirers insisted did not shine merely by the reflected glory of her sister,
Mrs. Siddons.

Quite as appealing to both aristocrat and democrat was the Circus at
Twelfth and Market Streets, established in 1792 by John Ricketts whose
credentials to society were in his erstwhile connection with the Blackfriars
Bridge Circus of London. Washington and Martha occasionally witnessed
the performances, quite soberly we may be sure, and the ‘court party’ thus
got its cue if any were needed. The proprietor riding two horses at full
gallop, Signor Spinacuta dancing daringly on a tight rope, a clown tickling
the risibilities of the crowd and mingling Mrs. Bingham’s laughter with that
of Mrs. Jones, her washwoman, women on horseback doing stunts, and a
trained horse that could leap over other horses without balking—such were
the merry nights under the dripping candles.[550]
Then there was Bowen’s Wax Works and museum of curiosities and
paintings and the museum of Mr. Peale—and under the same roof with the
latter the reading-room of the Philosophical Society, where Jefferson was to
find a sanctuary in the days when he was to be anathema in the fashionable
drawing-rooms.
Frivolity, extravagance, exaggerated imitation of Old-World dissipations,
could scarcely have been suited to Jefferson’s taste; but when he wished for
society of another sort he could always run in on Rittenhouse to discuss
science, or on Dr. Rush who mixed politics with powders, or, better still, he
could drive out to ‘Stenton,’ the beautiful country house of Dr. James Logan
and his cultured wife, approached by its glorious avenue of hemlocks. There
he could sit under the trees on the lawn or walk in the old-fashioned gardens
or browse in the fine library. There before the huge fireplace in the lofty
wainscoted rooms he could sit with the Doctor and discuss the aristocratic
tendencies of the times—and this he frequently did. Despite his democracy,
Jefferson lived like an aristocrat. He had found a place in the country near
the city where the house was ‘entirely embosomed in high plane trees with
good grass below,’ and there, on warm summer days, he was wont to
‘breakfast, dine, write, read, and entertain company’ under the trees. Even in
its luxury, his was the home of the philosopher. It was under these plane
trees that he worked out much of the strategy of his political battles.[551]
Such was the social background for the struggle of Hamilton and Jefferson
—with little in it to strengthen or encourage the latter in his fight.

CHAPTER VII

JEFFERSON MOBILIZES

I

W HEN Jefferson assumed the task of organizing the opposition to the
policies of the Federalists all the forces most susceptible to
organization and intelligent direction were arrayed upon the other side.
The commercial interests, constituting Hamilton’s shock troops, had their
organizations in all the larger towns and in a crisis could be speedily
mobilized in the smaller. The various Chambers of Commerce were
Federalist clubs that could be summoned to action on a day’s notice. The
financial interests, always in close formation when not sleeping on their
arms, could be ordered to the front overnight. The live-wire speculators
whose fortunes had sprung up magically were on their toes to do battle for
the system that had enriched them, and eager to do the bidding of the
magician who had waved the wand. The greater part of the intellectuals,
lawyers, doctors, professors, preachers, were enthusiastic champions of
Hamiltonian policies—and because of their prestige these were powerful
factors in the moulding of opinion. And, most serious of all, from Jefferson’s
point of view, the major portion of the press was either militantly
Hamiltonian or indifferently democratic. In the drawing-rooms were heard
the sentiments of the Chambers of Commerce—in glorification of
materialism.
The rich, the powerful, and their retainers among the men of the
professions, were bound to the Federalist by a common interest in property
and a common fear of the masses. Since the policies of Hamilton were
frankly in the interests of the commercial classes, their supporters were
found largely in cities and towns of the commercial North—within easy
reach. A word from the chief to his leaders in the capital—Ames and Cabot
of Massachusetts; King, Schuyler, and Lawrence of New York; Wolcott and
Ellsworth of Connecticut; Morris, Bingham, and Fitzsimmons of
Pennsylvania; Dayton of New Jersey; McHenry of Maryland;

FISHER AMES ROBERT GOODLOE HARPER
GEORGE CABOT GOUVERNEUR MORRIS

Smith and Harper of South Carolina—a word from these to the
commercial leaders in their States, and from these a word to those under
obligations to them—the small merchants operating on credit—and the
coffee-houses buzzed, the Chambers of Commerce acted, editors plied their
pens, preachers thundered from pulpits, and even at the social functions they
danced and flirted in the war paint of the party.
As Jefferson surveyed the field, he observed that his great antagonist’s
organization was but a consolidation of organizations previously existent—
and these imposing in their representation of wealth, intellect, and social
prestige. Hamilton could snap his fingers, and the merchants came; could lift
his hand, and the officers of the Cincinnati were in the saddle; could wave
his wand, and Fenno, Russell, and other potent editors would instantly do his
bidding, and the preachers of New England scarcely waited for the sign to
pass the devil by to damn democracy.
But Jefferson had his eye on other forces, numerically stronger, if less
imposing. The farmers, comprising ninety per cent of the Nation, were
resentful of policies that pampered the merchant and left them out in the
cold. The private soldiers of the Revolution, less respected then than when
Webster made his Bunker Hill address, were embittered because their
securities had gone for a song while speculators had waxed wealthy on the
sacrifice. The more robust republicans were shocked at the aristocratic
affectations of their rulers and the tone of the Federalist press. The excise
law was hated in the remote sections, and unpopular with the masses
everywhere. The doctrine of implied powers had alarmed the friends of State
sovereignty. There was an undercurrent of feeling, which Jefferson, with ear
marvelously keen for rumblings, caught, that laws were passed for the few at
the expense of the many. And it was being bruited abroad that in high
quarters there was a disposition to cultivate England to the neglect of France.
Everywhere through the South and West there was a bitter resentment of
government by and for the East.
Including all, and more important than any single one, there was a fervent
spirit of democracy running through the land, while the Federalist leaders
were openly denouncing the democrats. ‘Looking simply at the field of
American history,’ says Professor Anson D. Morse, ‘it would be just to

enumerate among the causes of the Democratic Party all influences which
from the beginning of the colonial period carried forward at a really
marvelous rate the democratization of the American character.’[552] The
country was really democratic before there was a party of democracy.
Jefferson knew it; Hamilton never suspected it, or, suspecting, determined to
override the sentiment. Therein lies the original cause of the ultimate
triumph of Jefferson, and the evidence that the Federalist Party was
foredoomed to ultimate failure.
But how to reach, galvanize, vitalize, organize this great widely scattered
mass of unimportant, inarticulate individuals—that was the problem that
confronted Jefferson. Ninety-five per cent of the people lived in the country
or in villages. Communication was difficult. There were for them no
Chambers of Commerce, no coffee-houses, no Faneuil Halls. Thousands had
no idea what was going on outside the boundaries of their isolated farms and
villages. If the masses in the cities were in sympathy with democracy—and
they were—comparatively few of these were permitted to vote. Under the
John Jay Constitution of New York, as late as 1790, only 1303 of the 13,330
male residents of voting age in New York City were allowed to vote with the
property qualification deliberately designed for their disfranchisement.[553]
In Vermont alone, of the New England States, no property qualification
attached to the suffrage, albeit in New Hampshire any male paying tax,
however small, was qualified. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
Connecticut great numbers were excluded by their poverty. Thus, in the
beginning, the thousands of hewers of wood and drawers of water in the
towns and cities of the North were lost to all practical purposes. But all of
the common folk were not disfranchised, and they who had the vote were
splendid material for a militant organization. They had a genius for practical
politics when under the orders of a drill master, and were not too fastidious
for the grime and sweat of the polling-places. One of these was worth a
dozen dandies from Mrs. Bingham’s circle on election day.[554] There was
abundant material for a party—if it could be assembled and coordinated.

II

As Jefferson’s mild eye surveyed the field, he found in almost every State
local parties, some long in existence, fighting for popular rights as they
understood them; but their fights had been waged on local issues. The party
he was to create was to fight in precisely the same cause—on the national

field. Here, then, was something already at hand. Why not consolidate these
local parties into one great national organization, and broaden the issue to
include the problems of both State and Nation? The local leaders? Why not
make them field marshals in command of the Massachusetts division, the
North Carolina division, Pennsylvania and Maryland divisions?
The philosopher-politician took up his pen, for he had learned in the
organization of the Revolution what could be done through correspondence.
Out under the plane trees he was to sit at his table writing—to Sam Adams,
to Rutledge, to John Taylor, to Willie Jones. Under his roof and at his table
conferences with Madison, Monroe, Giles, Bloodworth, became
commonplace. ‘Oh, I should note that Mr. Jefferson, with more than Parisian
politeness, waited on me at my chamber this morning,’ wrote Maclay. ‘He
talked politics, mostly the French difference and the whale fishery.’[555] A
very cautious approach, we may be sure, for the master politician and
psychologist thoroughly understood the little vanities, prejudices, and
weaknesses of that singularly suspicious democrat. Quite different would
have been a conversation with Gallatin or Monroe. Taking an inventory of
prospective lieutenants in the States, and comparing the material with that
against him, he could not but have realized his disadvantage. Brilliant men
are prone to flutter about the rich and powerful, and nothing succeeds like
success with the strong. No chance for him to ride to war surrounded by
such scintillating company as that which encircled Hamilton—but here and
there was a man who shimmered in the sun.
In Massachusetts, home of Ames, Cabot, and Sedgwick, Jefferson could
count on two men who surpassed any of this famous group in service in the
making of the Republic, but, strange as it may seem in perspective, old Sam
Adams and John Hancock were not in good standing with the staid business
men of Boston. Their republicanism was too robust, their devotion to the
principles of the Declaration too uncompromising for the materialists, who
appeared, for the most part, on the battle-field after the fight was won, to
claim the fruits of the victory. Sam Adams had lost his race for Congress to
Fisher Ames who had dallied with his books when the ragged Continentals
were struggling in the field. When the clever politicians of the Essex Junto
exchanged letters, these erstwhile Revolutionary heroes of the dark days
were seldom mentioned with respect; but they had their following in the
streets and among those who had shared in the perils they had faced. Upon
these two Jefferson could rely.

But there were others, more active and militant in the Boston of those
days in the building of the party of democracy. Foremost in the fight, and
most annoying to the ruling oligarchy, was the brilliant Dr. Charles Jarvis,
who was a powerful orator[556] whose social status, on a par with that of
Otis, raised him above the condescension or contempt of the moneyed
aristocracy, and whose ability was beyond the reach of disparagement.[557]
Through many years of leadership in the legislature he ‘had made the rights
of man his pole star.’[558] No one did so much to organize and vitalize the
masses, for he could pass from the legislative hall to the public platform
without any diminution of power. As in the former he could match the best
in argument, on the latter no one knew better how to direct the storm.
‘Jarvis’s electioneering influence in this town is very great,’ wrote John
Quincy Adams to his father.[559]
As a file leader, organizer, agitator, he had powerful support in the robust,
rough-hewn rope-maker, Ben Austin, who wrestled under the rules of catch-
as-catch-can, mingled with the element that Ames and Cabot considered
vulgar, and under the signature of ‘Honestus’ dealt telling blows in letters
that the mechanic could understand. ‘Rabid essays,’ they were—judged by
the standard of the élite.[560] Sam Adams, John Hancock, Austin, and Jarvis
—these were the Jeffersonian leaders in the Old Bay State. Less aggressive,
but often valuable, was James Sullivan, orator, leader of the Bar, letter-writer
and pamphleteer, whose vigorous mind, powers of application, and
indomitable courage were to render yeoman service.
In the other New England States the democrats were less fortunate. In
Connecticut, ruled with an iron hand by an oligarchy of preachers,
professors, and reactionary politicians, the prospects were dark enough, but
even there the Jeffersonians found a leader capable of coping with the best
of the opposition in the hard-hitting, resourceful Abraham Bishop, who was
a veritable scandal and stench to the gentlemen of the cloth and of the
counting-room. Nowhere in America was such an amazing combination of
Church and State. Election days were celebrated with religious services, and
the sermons were party harangues, described by the irreverent Bishop as
consisting of ‘a little of governor, a little of Congress, much of politics, and a
very little of religion—a strange compote, like a carrot pie, having so little
ingredients that the cook must christen it.’[561] The ruling Council of the
State was so organized that the system was an impregnable stronghold
beyond the reach of the people. Nowhere on American soil anything so un-

American or unrepublican. It did its work behind doors closed and barred.
The Congregational clergy were the Cossacks of Connecticut Federalism,
laying the lash of their furious denunciation on the backs of critics. It
required more than a majority to rule under this system, and more than
ordinary courage to challenge its pretensions.[562] The good Doctor Dwight
of Yale was busy damning democrats to perdition. A little later Gideon
Granger and Ephraim Kirby were to take their place beside Bishop, and with
the aid of the ‘American Mercury’ of Hartford and the ‘New London Bee’ to
give blow for blow. But the fighting was against desperate odds, the
Federalists strongly entrenched on a steep hill, the ascent to which could be
raked with canister.
‘The masses are disfranchised,’ cried Bishop. ‘Yes, poor porpoises,’
sneered Noah Webster the Federalist who was soon to become editor of a
New York paper launched by Hamilton.[563] But Bishop and his little coterie
were fighters, and Jefferson took them to his heart.
In New Hampshire, Jefferson had to bide his time. Among the members
of the Senate no one had a better record of unselfish Revolutionary service
than John Langdon. Practical, hard-headed, unimaginative, a lover of money,
he had accumulated some wealth in mercantile pursuits. Fond of company,
pleasing and unaffected in his manner, impressive in appearance, his
senatorial toga became him well.[564] When Hamilton’s financial plans were
pending, he gave them his support, and, alas, profited not a little, but from
the beginning the keen-eyed Jefferson discerned the traits that were
ultimately to separate him from the Hamiltonians. Within two years Langdon
had assumed the leadership of the Jeffersonians in New Hampshire, but as
late as 1798, according to the recollection of a famous Jacksonian, ‘with the
exception of Langdon and a few sterling patriots there could not be said to
be in this State a party favorable to the principles of Thomas Jefferson.’[565]
In Vermont the situation was somewhat similar, albeit the opportunities
there were greater in the absence of a property qualification for the vote.
There, too, was Matthew Lyon, of whom we shall hear much, whose
fanatical devotion to democracy was a heritage from a father who had paid
the penalty of his patriotism on the gallows in Ireland; whose hatred of
aristocracy was but a reaction to the memory of his days of poverty.
Possessing a genius for business, and succeeding, he was irresistibly drawn
to politics, where his Celtic humor, his energy, impetuosity, and sincerity
surrounded him with friends. His radicalism became a flaming torch that

lighted up the granite hills. Not for nothing was he born in the land of the
Donnybrook Fair, for he loved a fight or a frolic, and he was to have much
of both. Enlisting in the Jeffersonian fight in the beginning, he was to fight
unceasingly, take blows, and know the degradation of a cell. There was a
degree of felony in democracy in the New England of the last days of the
eighteenth century.
In Rhode Island, Jefferson sought vainly for an effective leader, though
the field was fertile because of the lingering hostility to centralization and
the poverty and debts of the people.
Leaving New England, the leader found much to interest him in New
York. There was that sturdy, indomitable champion of State rights, and
inveterate enemy of aristocracy, George Clinton, an uncompromising
republican of Cromwellian audacity and decision, with an unequaled hold on
the confidence and affections of the people. There, too, were the
Livingstons, mortally offended by the political stupidity of Hamilton in
defeating the brilliant Chancellor’s aspirations for the Senate. Had this
numerous and powerful family a conference one night to discuss the affront
and to emerge a unit in opposition?[566] Whatever the cause, the effect was
clear—the Livingston clan was only too eager to join the insurgents, and this
was not lost on the astute politician of Monticello. Chancellor Robert R.
Livingston, convincing orator, erudite lawyer, profound statesman,
fascinating personality, possessing the glamour of wealth and tradition so
important to a Jeffersonian leader in New York with its commercial princes
and barons of the soil—here was a man to be cultivated with all the finesse
of which Jefferson was capable. The master of Monticello could speak the
language of the master of the New York manor house.
And Burr? Just what Jefferson expected of Burr is a mystery unsolvable.
He appreciated his brilliancy and professional prestige, but were the
penetrating eyes blind to the weaknesses of character? Just a little while
before Burr had joined with Hamilton against Clinton, and Federalist votes
had sent him to the Senate. There, to be sure, he had arrayed himself on the
popular side, but could he be relied upon? He had played a lone hand,
holding aloof from the Clintonians and the Livingstons, and dining often at
the table of Hamilton; but that he was singled out for assiduous cultivation
we may be sure. No one was closer to Jefferson than Dr. Rush when, in the
early fall of 1792, the latter wrote a wheedling note to Burr. ‘Your friends
everywhere,’ wrote the Doctor, ‘look to you to take an active part in

removing the monarchical rubbish of our government. It is time to speak out
or we are undone.’[567] Previous to this, Jefferson had been most courteous
in permitting the charming Senator from New York to examine papers in the
archives of the State Department until Washington interposed.[568]
Clinton, Livingston, and Burr—a triumvirate that caught Jefferson’s
fancy; but he was interested in opportunities in New York having no direct
connection with any of the three. The less imaginative Maclay had seen in a
parade of the Sons of Tammany only ‘a grotesque scene,’ with the members
‘in Indian dresses,’ and while he had addressed them at a dinner he had
concluded that ‘there is some kind of a scheme’ which was ‘not well
digested as yet.’[569] Jefferson made it his business to learn more. He found
that the strange organization was an answer, in part, to the Cincinnati which
stood, in the popular mind, for aristocracy; that it was rabidly republican and
wholly democratic; that it sympathized with the revolutionists in France, and
resented the property disqualifications of our own Revolutionary soldiers for
the suffrage, while the wealthy, notoriously friendly to England when these
soldiers fought, were being accorded political recognition and place. Here
was a society after his own heart, here a method to make the masses felt—a
combination and coördination of their efforts. All over the land the hundreds
of thousands of inarticulate, unimportant, ineffective, commonplace friends
of democracy, and in one city these had been given a voice, an arm, a
rostrum. It was not ‘grotesque’ to Jefferson. He did not join these imitation
red men in their wigwam, nor drink of their ale, but John Pintard the chief
became his friend and idolater, and with him the great man talked. The non-
partisan society grew more and more democratic, soon intensely partisan,
and at Tammany dinners the welkin rang to the toast to ‘Thomas Jefferson.’
New York became a cock-pit from the start.
But when the Jeffersonian board of strategy turned to New Jersey, the
problem was more difficult. No outstanding leader, strong in the faith, stood
ready to mount and ride. There, true, the Janus-faced Jonathan Dayton was
ready to flirt with any force that might serve his personal ends. He was a
speculator—and worse. Supporting and profiting from the Hamilton policies,
he smiled on the Jeffersonians significantly.
In Pennsylvania there was the nucleus of a party and virile men to lead it
—men like Mifflin, who, despite his drunkenness, was popular and a power;
like Maclay, who had the force that intense conviction brings in spite of

temperamental handicaps; men like Alexander J. Dallas, aggressive, daring,
able; men utterly unfit for

ALBERT GALLATIN EDWARD LIVINGSTON
WILLIAM BRANCH GILES JAMES MADISON

the rough-and-tumble combats of practical politics whose characters and
abilities made them potent in the fight—like Rush the physician,
Rittenhouse the scientist, Logan the philosopher, and, looming above the
tops of the Western forests, a young giant and genius, Albert Gallatin.
In Delaware, nothing; in Maryland, John Francis Mercer, fighter and
intriguer, sapper and miner, agitator and organizer, with whom democracy
was a religion, Hamilton a devil, and Jefferson a saint. In Virginia, a
sparkling galaxy, Madison, Monroe, the accomplished Pendleton, the
resourceful Giles, the extraordinary John Taylor of Caroline.
In North Carolina, Jefferson found a leader cut from his own pattern, an
aristocratic democrat, a radical rich man, a consummate politician who
made the history that lesser men wrote without mentioning his name, Willie
Jones of Halifax. His broad acres, his wealth, his high social standing were
the objects of his pride, and he lived in luxury and wore fine linen while the
trusted leader of the masses, mingling familiarly with the most uncouth
back-woodsman, inviting, however, only the select to partake of the
hospitality of his home. There was more than a touch of the Virginia
aristocrat of the time in his habits—he raced, gambled, hunted like a
gentleman. Like Jefferson he was a master of the art of insinuation, a
political and social reformer. He loved liberty, hated intolerance, and
prevented the ratification of the Constitution in the first State Convention
because of the absence of a Bill of Rights. There he exerted a subtle
influence that was not conspicuous on the floor. If he was neither orator nor
debater, he was a strategist, disciplinarian, diplomat, who fought with velvet
gloves—with iron within. A characteristic portrait would show him puffing
at his pipe in the midst of his farmer followers, suggesting, insinuating,
interspersing his political conversation with discussions of the crops,
farming implements, hunting dogs, horses. An Anthony in arousing the
passions by subtle hints, he was an Iago in awakening suspicions.[570] Here
was the man with the stuff that Jefferson required, generous and lovable in
social relations, in politics relentless, hard as iron. He was the Jefferson of
North Carolina—‘a man ... the object of more hatred and more adoration
than has ever since lived’ in that State.[571] Nor did he stand alone without
assistants, for there was Nathaniel Macon, honest, intense, man of the soil

who loved his few acres, his dogs and horses, and his class; and there was
Timothy Bloodworth whose fierce adherence to democracy and fanatical
hatred of privilege may have been a poignant reflection of his poverty.
Jones, the aristocratic lord of many acres; Macon the representative of the
small farmer; Bloodworth the artisan, smithy at the forge, watchmaker,
wheelwright, as well as preacher, doctor, and cultivator of the soil: his
radicalism was born in suffering and in suffering he had grown.[572]
In Georgia, Jefferson had equal cause for satisfaction. There were small
farms, poor industrious men, ardent republicans, with the frontiersmen’s
natural democracy and the debtors’ suspicions of concentrated wealth allied
with governmental power. And there to lead them was James Jackson, idol
of the people, a boisterous, impassioned orator whose eloquence often gave
more heat than light. Historians have been prone to sneer at him, but this
man who came as a child from Devonshire in England to take his place
three years later in the army of Washington, and to receive the keys of
Savannah from the British ten years after his arrival, was something more
than an upstart. He who refused the governorship of his State when twenty-
one, and six years after leaving his English home, to take his chances in the
field, was scarcely an object for jest. He was a power as a leader and was to
strike Titan blows in the cause that Jefferson nationally led.[573]
In South Carolina, dominated by rich commercial Charleston, Jefferson
long looked in vain for a leader for his cause. A friend of the Pinckneys and
the Rutledges, they held aloof or joined their fortunes with Hamilton. Only
toward the close did Charles Pinckney, the most eloquent, resourceful, and
magnetic of his family, part company with his cousins to lunge and lash
with gusty joy for the man of Monticello.
Such were the leaders on whom Jefferson was dependent in welding the
popular parties in the various States into a strong national army marching in
step, with a common policy and purpose.

III

Had Jefferson been even richer than Hamilton in brilliant leaders, he
would not have made the latter’s fatal blunder of assuming them to be
enough. He was too much the practical politician to be impressed with a
brilliant staff of officers—without privates. He set out to arouse the masses,
mobilize, drill, and lead them. Above all, it was his intention to lead. Within

a year, Ames was to observe with desperation and disgust the divisions
among the Federalists and to comment that ‘Virginia moves in a solid
column ... the discipline of the [Jefferson] party is as severe as the Prussian’
and ‘deserters are not spared.’[574]
The first necessity was to get the men to discipline. A vast number of the
masses had no conception of their political power and were indifferent to
the vote. Thousands over the country were disfranchised by property
qualifications, and one of the prime purposes of the new party would be to
break these down. The immediate problem was to awaken the interest of
those who, having the vote, did not appreciate the privilege. With many of
these, this was due to the lack of political consciousness; with others, to the
feeling that it was useless for the unimportant to attempt to influence
governmental action. To the latter it would be necessary to prove the
possibilities of the concerted action of large numbers of uninfluential men
—and there was the Society of Tammany pointing the way. No
squeamishness in the mobilization either—the possession of the vote was
enough. Soon, very soon, strange, disturbing things would be seen even in
New England—cabinetmakers, shoemakers, mechanics perking up on
politics, with evidence of organization here and there. Federalist leaders
would soon be complaining that organization was conspiracy against the
‘government.’ In New Hampshire they would be calling those uniting for
political action ‘insurgents.’ The insolence of the Jeffersonians appealing to
the people for support would be frowned upon as degrading. ‘Of course,’
said a Massachusetts paper, ‘there can be but two parties in a country—the
friends of order and its foes.’[575]
And such people! The very riff-raff that one would never invite into
one’s parlor—‘desperate, embarrassed, unprincipled, disorderly, ambitious,
disaffected, morose men.’[576] Were not these the propertyless who wasted
their earnings in a grogshop?[577] And who were these petty agitators? Who
but ‘Jacobins’ holding forth ‘in the bar-rooms of Rhode Island and Vermont
and trying to stir up opposition.’[578] Wretched offal after all—but what a
pity that Jefferson should countenance, least of all cultivate, such people.
‘Mr. Jefferson appears to have shown rather too much of a disposition to
cultivate vulgar prejudices,’ wrote Wolcott, and ‘accordingly he will
become popular in the ale-houses.’[579]
Miserable ‘Jacobins!’ Disreputable clowns of the bar-rooms! And such
unthinkable methods! Here—there—everywhere, when a few men could be

gathered together, some one appeared to deliver free lectures on practical
politics. And such subjects! ‘Discipline’; ‘How to Make Men Follow their
File Leaders.’[580]

IV

In arousing and consolidating the widely scattered democrats, Jefferson
instantly appreciated the importance of a national newspaper to the end that
the farmer in Georgia, the planter in Virginia, the frontiersman in western
Pennsylvania, the mechanic in Boston, the shopmen of Rhode Island, and
the reds of Tammany sipping their ale in the New York tavern, might all talk
the same language at the same time. True, the Jeffersonians were not
without able editorial support. There was Thomas Greenleaf pounding away
vigorously in the ‘New York Journal’; Thomas Adams hammering merrily
in the Boston ‘Independent Chronicle’; and in Philadelphia, Benjamin
Franklin Bache was making a mild show of opposition in his ‘Pennsylvania
Daily Advertiser.’ But these were independent supporters, not ‘organs,’ and
it was an ‘organ’ that was needed—something to meet the Hamilton organ
which was becoming increasingly offensive to the democrats.
In estimating the sincerity of the simulated shock of the Federalists when
the Secretary of State encouraged the establishment of a paper to support
his principles, it is well to bear in mind that the Secretary of the Treasury
had done precisely the same thing two years before. Then, as always,
politicians were shocked at the turpitude of their opponents. Just how John
Fenno came to establish the ‘Gazette of the United States’ is an
impenetrable mystery. He was in his thirty-eighth year when he appeared at
the home of Rufus King, perhaps the ablest of Hamilton’s supporters, with a
letter of introduction from Christopher Gore, a member of the inner council
of Boston Federalism who afterward waxed wealthy on speculation in the
funds. The record is meager as to Fenno’s previous career beyond the
revelation that he was born in Boston and taught for several years in the Old
South Writing School. In the letter to King, we have the assurance of Gore
that Fenno’s ‘literary accomplishments are very handsome’; that Gore had
known him long and could testify that ‘his honor and fidelity are
unquestionable’; and, strangely enough, that ‘his talents as the editor of a
public paper are unrivaled in this commonwealth.’ As John Russell was then
editing the ‘Columbian Centinel,’ the tribute would seem strained but for
the intimation that the strength and sparkle of that able journal was due to

Fenno’s contributions; and since the ‘Centinel’ suffered no apparent loss on
his leaving Boston, even this theory seems absurd.
If his origin is a mystery, the purpose of his call on King was made clear
enough in the letter of introduction. The ‘unrivaled’ editor sought
encouragement for the establishment of a newspaper through arrangements
for ‘obtaining the patronage of Congress’ in the printing of its journals and
official papers. If something of the sort could be arranged, Gore was
positive that Fenno would prove ‘capable of performing essential service in
the cause of Federalism and good government.’[581]
The conversation was evidently agreeable, assurances of some sort were
manifestly given, and within a few weeks the ‘Gazette of the United States’
was making its appearance. That Hamilton, who was intimately identified
with King, was consulted, we may he sure; and within four years the
relations between Fenno and Hamilton were so confidential that the former
felt no hesitancy in appealing in a letter to the latter for a loan of two
thousand dollars. Months before, the editor had submitted a schedule of his
debts and credits to the head of the Treasury. The two had talked over the
financial difficulties of the paper. The appeal for the loan was not lightly
brushed aside. Hamilton wrote to King of the troubles of ‘poor Fenno,’ and
proposed that if King would raise a thousand dollars in New York, he would
himself undertake to raise a similar amount in Philadelphia. It is to be
assumed that the money was raised, for the paper continued to appear. It is
significant that in his letter to Hamilton, the editor wrote as one who had
rendered faithful service and was entitled to consideration.[582]
From the beginning Fenno had liked to think of himself as the editor of
‘the court journal.’ Possessing considerable merit, it is impossible to turn its
yellowing pages even now without being oppressed with a sense of
sycophancy and snobbery. There was a fawning on wealth and kow-towing
to power in most of the leading articles. The tone was pronouncedly pro-
English and all Hamiltonian. Democracy was anathema. The critics of the
policies of the leader of the Federalists were inciters to disorder. All the
influence of the Federalist leaders was exerted to throw all possible
governmental patronage into his office.
Hamilton had his paper before Jefferson got his own.[583] It was to meet
these conditions that James Madison and Governor Henry Lee conceived
the notion of persuading Philip Freneau, ‘the poet of the Revolution,’ to

establish a newspaper in Philadelphia. This fiery petrel of democracy was
eking out a mere existence on a New York newspaper when Madison, who
had been his roommate at Princeton, made the proposal. This was due in
part to personal affection and the feeling that the poet’s sufferings and
losses in the Revolution entitled him to some consideration, but in large
measure to the purity of his republicanism and his zeal for the popular
cause. ‘I entertained hopes,’ wrote Madison later, ‘that a free paper, meant
for general circulation, and edited by a man of genius of republican
principles and a friend of the Constitution, would be some antidote to the
doctrines and discourses circulated in favor of Monarchy and
Aristocracy.’[584] With the view to giving some slight protection to a
precarious enterprise, Madison sought a clerkship for his college friend in
one of the governmental departments. Nor was it to Jefferson that he first
applied.[585] The outcome, however, was the offer of a clerkship of foreign
languages in the State Department at a salary of two hundred and fifty
dollars a year. He accepted, went to Philadelphia, and established the
‘Federal’ or ‘National Gazette.’
The leaders of the new party were plainly pleased with the prospect.
Jefferson himself did not scruple to solicit subscribers among his Virginia
neighbors. Henry Lee, who was to desert to the enemy later, sent in
subscriptions through Madison, in a letter rejoicing because the paper ‘is
rising fast into reputation,’ and lamenting because of the precariousness of
its arrival.[586] ‘His paper in the opinion here,’ wrote Madison
acknowledging Lee’s letter, ‘justifies the expectations of his friends, and
merits the diffusive circulation they have endeavored to procure it.’[587]
The Philadelphians awoke with a start to find that an entirely new note
had been struck in political journalism. Within a few weeks, the ‘Federal
Gazette’ was being extensively copied in the papers over the country. Bache
in his ‘Advertiser’ caught something of Freneau’s fire and audacity, and
began to take a firmer, bolder tone. Fenno found himself forced to defend
himself and his friends in almost every issue. Men and even women
scanned its columns eagerly and with emotions determined by their political
prepossessions. Within a few months the poet-editor was being hotly
debated by the two leading papers of Boston. ‘As all the friends of civil
liberty wish at all times to be acquainted with every question which appears
to regard the public weal,’ said the ‘Independent Chronicle,’ ‘a great
number of gentlemen in this and neighboring towns have subscribed for the

Federal Gazette published by Mr. Philip Freneau at Philadelphia; and it is
hoped that Freneau’s Gazette, which is said to be printed under the eye of
that established patriot, Thomas Jefferson, will be generally taken in the
New England States.’[588] What! wrote a correspondent in the ‘Centinel,’ is
this an avowal that Jefferson is the real editor? A paper hostile to religion
and government! ‘Surely T. Adams ought to be well founded in his
affections before he brings forward Mr. Jefferson as the patron of such a
Gazette.’[589]
Within a short time Freneau had aroused the savage rage of the
Federalist leaders and the zealous loyalty of the democrats everywhere.
Here was a man who was not awed by power, and, brushing aside mild
criticism and vapory innuendoes, struck hard and mentioned names. Soon
the Jeffersonian farmers in Georgia were talking what he was writing, and
Jeffersonian editors generally were following his lead. In the bar-rooms of
Rhode Island men of no consequence were reading the paper aloud over
their mugs, and David Rittenhouse in the library of the Philosophical
Society was chuckling over its vicious thrusts. Just then ‘friends of the
Constitution’ among the Federalists began to regret a certain provision in
the Bill of Rights and to begin the slow incubation of the Sedition Law.
That incomparable political preacher, Timothy Dwight, began to denounce
papers as the ‘vice’ of the people in the new settlements, and another pious
gentleman of the cloth thundered from the pulpit: ‘Many of you in spite of
all the advice and friendly warnings of your religious and political fathers
have taken and continue to take and read Jacobin papers, full of all manner
of mischief and subtlety of the Devil.’[590] The hand-to-hand fighting of
Hamilton and Jefferson was forced by the lusty blows of Freneau, who
deserves to be something more than a name in the Plutarchian struggle.

V

Philip Freneau had richly earned the right to hold and express opinions
concerning the destiny of his country. Many years before the Revolution,
his Huguenot ancestors had come over from France, and for years his was a
well-known name in the best circles of New York City where he was born.
His childhood had been passed on the thousand-acre estate of his father
near the battle-field of Monmouth, in a fine old mansion fashioned after the
colonial style, with a great hall running through it, and large porticoes
commanding a view of a beautiful country. The house was served by many

domestic slaves. Near by rose Beacon Hill, thickly timbered, and from the
peak could be seen the lower bay and the blue waters of the Atlantic. There
his early childhood was passed under the tender care and training of a
mother of rare intelligence. From her he caught a love of poetry, and of the
things of which poetry is made. The spirit of his liberty-loving ancestors
was strong within him. He had all the impulsiveness, the fighting courage
of the Gael. When not at his studies, he wandered alone into the woods and
upon the hill where he could brood dreamily upon the mystery of the sea.
On the site where the battle of Monmouth was to be fought, he began the
study of Greek and Latin in his tenth year. Even as a child he had a hot
passionate hatred of oppression, an unfathomable contempt for hypocrisy,
and an ardent love of beauty. All this he put into childish verse.
When he entered Princeton (Nassau Hall), great events were beginning
to unfold. The patriots of Massachusetts, protesting against an English law,
had been declared rebels, the leading offenders had been ordered across the
sea for trial, the troops of General Gates had marched into Boston. The
college was a hot-bed of sedition. That superb patriot, John Witherspoon,
was president, and among the students who gathered in the evening in the
room that Freneau shared with Madison, were ‘Light Horse’ Harry Lee,
Aaron Burr, William Bradford, destined to close an exceptionally promising
career as a member of Washington’s Cabinet, and Brockholst Livingston.
Nothing that Freneau ever said or did in after-life that was not
foreshadowed at Princeton can be found. His tongue was sharp, and his pen
dripped the vitriol of satire. He wrote much verse, and long before the
Declaration of Independence, he had a hatred of kings. Even thus early in
his ‘Pyramid of Kings,’ he made profession of his democracy.
‘Millions of slaves beneath their labors fainted,
Who were here doomed to toil incessantly,
And years elapsed while groaning myriads strove
To raise this mighty tomb—and but to hide
The worthless bones of an Egyptian king.’

Under the encouragement of Witherspoon, all the patriotic fire within him
burst into flame.
Long before Washington, Adams, or Franklin were dreaming of a
republic and absolute independence, this was his dream. During the time he
was supposed to be poring over Coke and Blackstone, he was feverishly

plying his pen writing political articles for the press. He was a rebel by
nature. He wrote deliberately to arouse a burning hatred of tyranny and a
militant love of liberty. He sang the songs of hate, and read and studied the
Roman and French satirists to perfect himself in the art he was to use so
effectively later. When the war began he threw himself into the struggle. A
pathetic little figure, this—a mere wisp of a boy charging on ahead to smash
the connection with England, only to find that the other patriots had no such
thought. They were fighting for rights within the empire, not for
independence. Even then he was too radical for his times or the comfort of
his associates. They were thinking of rights, and he of liberty—and in sheer
disgust he sailed away to Jamaica.
There was the illusion of liberty on the sea and there was beauty and
poetry, and there was opportunity, too, to prepare himself for the part he
was to play a little later. It was always his joy to be prepared. On that
voyage he perfected himself in the science of navigation. In the languorous
air of Santa Cruz he luxuriated in the beauties of nature at its richest, and
sought to transcribe to paper all he saw and felt. He had an irresistible
impulse for creation—a poet’s passion for expression.[591] But even here he
was a rebel born to protest. Slavery at its worst was all about him—and he
hit it hard in his descriptions.
It was while a guest of the Governor of Bermuda, writing love sonnets to
the fair daughter of his host, that the news came of the Declaration of
Independence. This was the sort of rebellion Freneau could understand, and
he hurried home to find that a battle had been fought at his very door, and
that the cushions of the Tennant church he had attended had been stained
with blood. Instantly he took out letters of marque and reprisal from the
Continental Congress, and put to sea to battle with the British ships.
Plunging patriotically with all his means he had a ship built for his own use,
named it the Aurora, and sought the enemy. In a battle his ship was struck,
and it was as a prisoner on the deck of an enemy vessel that he saw his ship,
his fortune, sink beneath the waves. The rest was torture and a living death.
The Scorpion on which he was confined was a miserable old hulk converted
into a prison ship, reeking with foul smells and rank disease, and into this
he was packed where the accommodations were not fit for swine. One by
one he saw his fellows perish from disease and neglect, listened in the night
to their shrieks of pain and dying groans. When verging on death, he was
transferred to the Hunter which some sardonic soul had dubbed a ‘Hospital

Prison Ship.’ Its horrors have come down to us in his own poems with its
bitter execration of the Hessian doctor.
‘Here uncontrolled he exercised his trade,
And grew experienced by the deaths he made;
By frequent blows we from his cane endured
He killed at least as many as he cured.’

At length he was exchanged. Leaving the vessel with a raging fever, with
pains in his joints that made walking a torture, he turned toward home,
going through the woods ‘for fear of terrifying the neighbors with [his]
ghastly looks.’[592] This was the background against which he was to view
Washington’s policy of neutrality in the war between France and England.
He hated England from that hour to his death.
Broken in health almost beyond hope of redemption, his ship sunk, his
money gone, the war still on, he turned to his other weapon and took up the
pen. ‘The Prison Ship’ helped to fire the patriots shivering about the cold
camps. The poem of contemptuous imprecation, in imitation of Horace, on
the treason of Arnold, fanned their wrath. That on the victory of Paul Jones
heartened the downcast. Poem followed poem, copied throughout the
country, many published on strips of paper and distributed through the
army. Some were posted in conspicuous places where they could be
committed to memory. Paine wrote ‘The Crisis’ in prose, Freneau wrote of
the crisis in verse; both were a tonic for the wavering. Even Washington did
not then speak of him as ‘that rascal Freneau’ and that characterization even
from Washington cannot rob him of the glory of having been ‘the Poet of
the Revolution’ who gave his health, his entire fortune, almost his life, and
all his heart to the cause of liberty.
The close of the war found him in New York barely existing on crumbs
from the table of an editor. His was a familiar figure in the Merchants’
Coffee-House at Wall and Water Streets where leading men congregated.
The problem then was to get the necessities of life, and literary work was
not then included among the means. This was the condition in which
Madison found him. He knew the story of his poet friend, and thus it came
about that the plan was made for the ‘Federal Gazette.’ He was ideally fitted
for the task. It called for one who could write in the language of the people,
could wield a scorpion lash, whose heart was in the cause—and no greater
master of invective was in view, no keener satirist. He required no tutoring,

and he would accept no orders. He was a rebel still, a radical, a crusader for
democracy, who looked with amusement on ‘aristocracy,’ with hatred on
monarchy. He was an original thinker, a breaker of idols, an iconoclastic
genius. He had the wit, the keenness, the quickness, the felicity of his
French blood, the stern firmness of the Huguenot mind. He was a gusty
warrior with a lusty blade and he kept it shining in the sun.
Soon Philadelphia found him a familiar figure in its streets—a rather
little man with slightly stooped shoulders, thin yet muscular, who walked
briskly like one who knew where he was going. In his office at his work he
was more imposing, for there one could note the high intellectual brow, the
dark gray deep-set eyes that sometimes blazed under the slightly drooping
lids. Usually pensive in repose, his face lighted with animation when he
talked. His manners were courteous and refined and women found him
interesting and gallant. Nor was this democrat a Marat in dress—he wore
the small-clothes, the long hose, the buckled shoes, and cocked hat, long
after others had accepted less picturesque fashions. He had no vanity, no
ambition for place or power, and no fear of either. He wore no man’s collar
and he was no man’s man. He was a law unto himself.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GAGE OF BATTLE

I

T HERE was little in the reception of Hamilton’s famous ‘Report on
Manufactures’ during the congressional session of 1791-92 to
foreshadow the part it was to play in American politics. Bristling with
facts and figures laboriously assembled, the plea for protection and bounties
for manufacturers was plausibly presented. Foreseeing the hostility of the
farmers, the most persuasive arguments were reserved for them. The
diversification of industry would increase the demand for the products of
the farm; the elimination of foreign competition would decrease the cost of
manufactured goods; and the certainty of immigration would prevent any
labor shortage with agriculturists. Better still, the factories would afford the
farmers an opportunity to put their wives and children to work in the mills.
[593] Four sevenths of the employees of the cotton mills of England were
women and children, and many of the latter of ‘tender age.’[594] In the
making of nails and spikes young boys were able to do the work.[595] As to
the constitutional objection, that was disposed of by the doctrine of implied
powers.
The newspapers, including Freneau’s, ran the report in full, but nothing
came of it for the moment. No one was shocked at the idea of working
women and children of tender age. After a while a writer in Freneau’s paper
warned that a new field was being opened ‘for favoritism, influence and
monopoly.’[596] Madison wrote to Pendleton that ‘if Congress can do
whatever in their discretion can be done with money ... the Government is
no longer a limited one.’[597] But this ‘Report’ resulted in less controversy
than any that had preceded. There was no storm—just a bare stirring of the
leaves.
But Hamilton was not content to allude to brighter worlds—he led the
way. Long before, he had been impressed with the industrial possibilities of
beautiful Passaic Falls in New Jersey, midway between New York and
Newark at the very door of the market. Just how long he was in interesting

moneyed men in his ambitious plans for a great national manufactory there,
we do not know. But even before the publication of his ‘Report,’ he had
personally appeared with others interested before the New Jersey
Legislature to ‘elucidate anything that may appear obtuse’ in the request for
a charter.[598] It was only a little trip from Philadelphia to Trenton. Then,
one summer day, a group of men appeared at the Falls to purchase land and
select the precise sites for the various mills, and the small but masterful
figure of Hamilton was the center of the group. All sorts of things would be
manufactured, cotton mills predominating, and it would become—this city
of Paterson—the industrial capital of the Republic. Major l’Enfant was
summoned to the task of making this industrial beehive beautiful, and he
responded.[599] Soon there were grumblings among the farmers, outraged
because the charter that Hamilton’s influence had secured gave the
company the right to dig canals on any man’s land. The other manufacturers
were indignant because the new factory was to be free from taxation for ten
years, and its employees were to be excused from military services except
in cases of dire necessity. ‘A Manufacturer’ wrote a vehement protest,
mentioning Hamilton by name, and denouncing the act of the legislature as
vicious beyond comparison.[600] Soon the Philadelphia papers were
advertising that the five letters ‘To the Yeomanry,’ in pamphlet form,
complaining of the privileged nature of the corporation and of the part
played by Hamilton, could be had at the various stores of the city.
But Hamilton was not concerned with the grumblings of the groundlings,
for he was at high tide. In New York men had subscribed for a portrait of
him by Trumbull, and the subscription lists ‘were still open in the coffee-
house.’[601] He had become the idol of the most powerful class. A little later,
Trumbull’s work completed, ‘the best that ever came from his pencil,’ it
was placed temporarily in the old city hall in New York.[602] The obscure
boy from the West Indies had become an institution in the city of his
adoption. Even so Hamilton was ever vigilant. He had not liked the Freneau
project from the start, and he was watching it like a hawk.

II

When the poet-journalist took an office on High Street and began the
publication of his paper, there was little to justify grave apprehensions. In
his first issues the editor had pledged himself to the support ‘of the great
principles on which the American Revolution was founded,’ and while this

smacked of the jabberings of Sam Adams, Hancock, and Jefferson, it was
probably only a gesture. The tone of the early editions was temperate,
almost academic. The ordinary reader must have thought it harmless
enough, but Hamilton, who used the press effectively himself, examined the
articles more critically. There were phrases creeping in, innocently, perhaps,
that Fenno would have scorned. The idea that ‘public opinion sets the
bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign of every free
one,’[603] would never have soiled the pages of the ‘Gazette of the United
States.’ The little essays on politics and government were sprinkled all too
freely with these disturbing suggestions. Only an essay on ‘Nobility’—but
why make it the vehicle for the thought that ‘the downfall of nobility in
France has operated like an early frost toward killing the germ of it in
America.’[604] With Fenno chiding the critics of officials, what more
unfortunate than Freneau’s assertion that ‘perpetual jealousy of the
government’ is alone effectual ‘against the machinations of ambition,’ and
his warning that ‘where that jealousy does not exist in a reasonable degree
the saddle is soon prepared for the back of the people.’[605] A defense of
parties coupled with a denunciation of privilege,[606] stiff criticism of
ministerial inefficiency apropos of the St. Clair expedition; forceful protests
against the excise law;[607] and then an article by ‘Brutus’ on the funding
system which could not be ignored—these were bad enough. That system,
said ‘Brutus,’ had given undue weight to the Treasury Department ‘by
throwing the enormous sum of fifty million dollars into the hands of the
wealthy,’ thus attaching them to all the Treasury measures ‘by motives of
private interest.’ Having combined the great moneyed interest, it had been
made formidable by the Bank monopoly. Out of it all had come the
‘unlimited excise laws and imposts’ that ‘anticipated the best resources of
the country and swallowed them all up in future payments.’ Because the
certificates had fallen to the wealthy, ‘the industrious mechanic, the
laborious farmer and poorer classes generally are made tributary to the
latest generation.’[608] Rights of property? Yes—but there is property in
rights.[609] Be loyal to the Union? Yes, but who are the enemies of the
Union? ‘Not those who favoring measures which, pampering the spirit of
speculation, disgust the best friends of the Union.’ ‘Not those who promote
unnecessary accumulations of the debts of the Union.’ Not those ‘who study
by arbitrary interpretations and insidious precedents to pervert the limited
government of the Union into a government of unlimited discretion.’[610]

With Freneau hitting his stride, the Federalists began to lose their
patience. Soon the ‘United States Chronicle’ of Providence learned that the
‘very extraordinary productions’ were probably ‘the work of some
foreigners who wish to reduce the funds in order to purchase.’[611] The
‘Centinel’ of Boston warned that Freneau’s paper was ‘supported by a junto
for electioneering purposes’ and was filled with ‘the most absurd
misrepresentations of facts, or falsehoods highly injurious to the prevailing
character and principles of our government and people.’[612]
But it took the articles of ‘Sidney’ to force the fighting. These were open
attacks on Hamilton and his principles and were written with a punch. He
assailed the House for abdicating its power to originate money bills to the
Secretary of the Treasury. To delegate that duty was to lie down on a job.
And such ‘reports’! Arguments! Pleas! Sophistries! Thence to the major
attack. ‘If we admit that the Secretary is a fallible mortal, and, however
great his capacity may be, that he is liable to mistakes or to be imposed
upon, or, in range of hypothesis, if we suppose these possible cases, that his
political principles do not correspond with the genius of the government, or
with public opinion; or that he embraces the interests of one class in
preference to the interests of the other classes,—I say admitting any or all
of these circumstances to be possible, then the ministerial mode of
influencing the deliberations of Congress practiced since the change of the
government, is more dangerous than even that which is pursued but loudly
complained of in Britain.’[613] These attacks by Sidney continued with
painful regularity, and Freneau’s paper became a scandal in the best-
regulated families in Philadelphia. Others joined in the fray. ‘A Citizen’
from a remote section, who had visited the capital to ‘know more of men
and measures,’ speedily convinced himself that many members of
government ‘were ... partners with brokers and stock jobbers, and that the
banking schemes have been too powerfully and effectually addressed to
their avarice.’[614] ‘Centinel’ warned that ‘the fate of the excise law will
determine whether the powers of government ... are held by an aristocratic
junto or by the people.’[615] With the pack in hot pursuit of his idol, Fenno
rushed to the defense with a denunciation of the ‘mad dogs’ and ‘enemies of
the government.’ ‘Ah,’ replied Freneau, welcoming the fight, ‘I will tell a
short story that will put the matter in a proper light. A pack of rogues once
took possession of a church ... held in high veneration by the inhabitants of
the surrounding district. From the sanctuary they sallied out every night,

robbed ... all the neighbors, and when pursued took shelter within the
hallowed walls. If any one attempted to molest them there, they deterred
him from the enterprise by crying, “Sacrilege,” and swearing they would
denounce him to the inquisition as a heretic and an enemy of the Holy
Mother Church.’[616] And Freneau persevered in his perversity. Right
joyously he returned to the scandal of speculation. ‘It is worthy of notice
that no direct denial has ever appeared of the ... multiplied assertions that
members of the general government have carried on jobs and speculations
in their own measures even while those measures were depending.’[617]

III

An interesting picture was presented the day after the appearance of this
attack: Emerging from the doorway of the Morris house was a distinguished
party. Washington himself, sober and stately, with his matronly spouse;
Hamilton, alert and suave, with little Betty; and a tall, loose-jointed man of
pleasing aspect whom spectators instantly recognized as Jefferson. Entering
carriages they drove away to visit Mr. Pearce’s cotton manufactory. No one
knew better than Washington that a crisis had been reached in the relations
of his ministers. But a few days before he had sat pondering over a letter
from Jefferson. It dealt with the reason for the growing distrust in
government, the fiscal policy of Hamilton, the disposition to pile up debt,
the corruption in Congress—and it announced a determination to retire
from the Cabinet.[618] Washington, greatly distressed, had earnestly
importuned him to remain. He had agreed to stay on awhile, but the
quarreling was becoming intolerable.
At the factory the little party entered, pausing to examine the machinery
and comment upon it, Hamilton the irreproachable gentleman, courteous,
amusing, pleasant, Jefferson observing all the amenities of the occasion. It
was their last social meeting in small company. But if Washington, who had
invited them, hoped thus to persuade them to drop their quarrel, he was
foredoomed to disappointment. The cause of their disagreement was
elemental and eternal. They returned to the Morris house after a pleasant
diversion—and the fight went on.

IV

In early June, Fenno and Freneau were lashing each other with much
shouting. But the editor of the Hamilton paper played constantly into the
hands of his opponent. He lamented the appearance of a ‘faction,’ meaning
party, because factions mean convulsions under a republican government. It
would not be so serious if there were a king, because ‘a king at the head of
a nation to whom all men of property cling with the consciousness that all
property will be set afloat with the government, is able to crush the first
rising against the laws.’[619] There must have been high glee among the
cronies of Freneau in the office on High Street when they read it. ‘King,’
‘men of property’—Freneau could not have dictated the comment for his
purpose better. ‘Your paper is supported by a party,’ charged Fenno. Yes,
agreed Freneau, if ‘by a party he means a very respectable number of anti-
aristocratic, and anti-monarchical people of the United States.’[620] But, not
to be diverted, the poet-editor returned persistently to his indictment.
‘Pernicious doctrines have been maintained’—‘Members of Congress
deeply concerned in speculating and jobbing in their own measures ... have
combined with brokers and others to gull and trick their uninformed
constituents out of their certificates.’[621]
‘The names—give us the names,’ demanded Fenno. ‘That reminds us,’
said Freneau, ‘of the impudence of a noted prostitute of London, who,
having a difference with a young man, was by him reproached for her
profligacy, and called by the plain name of her profession.... “I’ll make you
prove it or pay for it,” said she. Accordingly, she sued the young man for
defamation of character, and although half the town knew her character, yet
nobody could prove her incontinency without owning himself an
accomplice, and the defendant was lost for want of evidence and obliged to
pay heavy damages. Thus it is when any man talks of speculators—“prove
the fact, sir”—as if, indeed, the men who hired out the pilot boats and the
brokers who negotiated the securities would come forward to expose their
employers and themselves.’[622]
Thus with charge on charge, with sarcasm and satire, especially the
latter, Freneau constantly increased the intensity of his assaults. These
slashing and insidious attacks did not reach the citizens of Philadelphia only
—they were copied far and wide. The paper itself went into every State.
Men were discussing and quoting it on the streets, in the coffee-houses of
New York, on the stage-coaches jolting between the scarcely broken forests
of remote places, about the fireplace in the cabin in the woods. No one had

followed it with greater rage than Alexander Hamilton. One day Fenno’s
‘Gazette’ contained a short letter bearing the signature ‘T. L.,’ which started
the tongues to wagging all the way from O’Eller’s grogshop to Mrs.
Bingham’s drawing-room.
Mr. Fenno: The editor of the National Gazette receives a salary from the
Government. Quere—Whether this salary is paid him for translations, or
for publications, the design of which is to vilify those to whom the voice of
the people has committed the administration of our public affairs—to
oppose the measures of government, and by false insinuations to disturb the
public peace?
In common life it is thought ungrateful to bite the hand that puts bread in
its mouth; but if a man is hired to do it, the case is different.
Freneau’s paper had become dangerous, Fenno was unable to meet its
onslaughts, and thus, anonymously, Hamilton took up his pen.[623]

V

It was at this time that Hamilton first shocked his friends with the
disclosure of his temperamental weakness that was to destroy his
leadership. Persuaded that Freneau’s journal was established for the primary
purpose of wrecking him, he saw red, lost his customary poise and self-
control, and, throwing discretion to the winds along with his dignity as a
minister of State, he entered the lists as an anonymous letter-writer. We
search in vain through the correspondence of his friends for evidence of
approval.
The attack was met by Freneau with a certain dignity. Reproducing the
‘T. L.’ letter he wrote:
The above is beneath reply. It might be queried, however, whether a man
who receives a small stipend for services rendered as French translator to
the Department of State, and as editor of a free newspaper admits into his
publication impartial strictures on the proceedings of government, is not
more likely to act an honest and disinterested part toward the public, than a
vile sycophant, who obtaining emoluments from government, far more
lucrative than the salary alluded to, finds his interest in attempting to poison
the minds of the people by propaganda and by disseminating principles and
sentiments utterly subversive of the true republican interests of the country,

and by flattering and recommending every and any measures of government
however pernicious and destructive its tendency might be to the great body
of the people. The world is left to decide the motive of each.[624]
This controversy of mere journalists did not interest Hamilton. He was
out gunning for bigger game. Thoroughly convinced that Jefferson was
responsible for much of the contents of Freneau’s paper, he hoped to draw
his colleague into an open newspaper fight and, if possible, drive him from
the Cabinet. The relations of the two Titans had been growing more and
more hostile. They disputed across the table in the council room, and at rare
times seemed at the point of blows. Hamilton knew Jefferson’s opinions of
his policies—and similar opinions were appearing in the paper edited by a
clerk in his rival’s office. Nor were they slovenly, superficial articles. They
were the work of close observers and clever controversialists. Not only was
he ignorant of the fact that many of these were the work of Madison, that
Brackenridge wrote some, George Tucker, editor of the American edition of
Blackstone, some,[625] but he ridiculously underestimated the capacity of
Freneau. These articles were strong, stinging, effective, and therefore
Jefferson wrote or dictated them. He would drag Jefferson into the arena
and have it out.
Thus, in his letter of August 4, he contemptuously dismissed the editor
as ‘the faithful and devoted servant of the head of a party,’ and launched his
personal bitter attack on Jefferson. If he wished to attack ‘the Government,’
why didn’t Jefferson resign?[626] ‘Can he reconcile it to his own personal
dignity, and the principles of probity, to hold an office under it, and employ
the means of official influence in that opposition?’ Besides, he was an
enemy of the Constitution. He had been opposed to it and had written his
objections ‘to some of his friends in Virginia.’[627] Four days later, Freneau
denied in an affidavit published in Fenno’s paper that Jefferson had any
connection with the ‘National Gazette’ or had written or dictated a line. The
same day, in his own paper, he raised the curtain on Hamilton’s nom de
plume, with a comment that ‘all is not right with certain lofty-minded
persons who fondly imagined their ambitious career was to proceed without
check or interruption to the summit of their wishes.’ To which he added that
‘the devil rageth when his time is short.’[628] In his letter of August 11th,
Hamilton dismissed the denial unimpressively. At this moment he thought
himself hot on the trail. Elias Boudinot, he recalled, had once told him of

the part Madison had played. If he could get an affidavit from Boudinot!
Acting on an impulse, he wrote him that ‘a friend’ was writing the attacks
on Jefferson. He had mentioned the Boudinot conversation to that ‘friend’
who was anxious to have an affidavit. ‘It is of real importance that it should
be done,’ he wrote. ‘It will confound and put down a man who is
continually machinating against the public happiness.’[629] But Boudinot
does not appear to have had any stomach for the mess, albeit he, like every
one else, must have known that the ‘friend’ was Hamilton himself. No
affidavit was forthcoming.
While he was waiting vainly for the affidavit, an anonymous writer in
Freneau’s paper, referring to Hamilton’s assaults, made a counter-charge.
What about ‘the immaculate Mr. Fenno’? Did he not have the printing of
the Senate, ‘the emoluments of which office are considerable?’ Did he not
‘enjoy exclusively the printing of the Treasury department where it seems
he has rendered himself a particular favorite?’ Was he not already ‘making
his approaches to another office on Chestnut Street [the Bank],’ and in a fair
way to secure ‘if not already in possession of the business appertaining
thereto?’[630]
On August 18th, Hamilton appeared again to sneer at Freneau’s
announcement that he would pay no attention to the charges until the author
came forward to make them in the open. ‘It was easily anticipated that he
might have good reasons for not discovering himself, at least at the call of
Mr. Freneau, and it was necessary for him to find shelter.’
Freneau’s affidavit! scoffed a writer in Hamilton’s organ. He had no faith
in it. The editor had certainly not sworn upon the Bible. Had he taken the
oath on Jefferson’s ‘Notes on Virginia’?[631]
But Hamilton was already discovered. No one there was in public life
from Washington down who did not know the author. The amazing
spectacle was the talk of the taverns and the dinner tables, and was
beginning to assume the proportions of a scandal. Washington was shocked
and aggrieved. He would stop it.

VI

On August 26th he tried his art of conciliation, appealing to both
Hamilton and Jefferson, albeit, as he knew, the latter had not written a line.
Both replied in September, Hamilton admitting the authorship of the

articles, and declared his inability ‘to recede now.’ He had been forced to
write. He had been ‘the object of uniform opposition from Mr. Jefferson’;
‘the object of unkind whispers and insinuations from the same quarter’; and
he had evidence that the ‘National Gazette’ had been instituted by Jefferson
‘to render me and all the objects connected with my administration odious.’
He had been most patient. In truth, he had ‘prevented a very severe and
systematic attack upon Mr. Jefferson by an association of two or three
individuals, in consequence of the persecution he brought upon the Vice-
President by his indiscreet and light letter to the printer, transmitting Paine’s
pamphlet.’[632]
Jefferson replied that in private conversation he had ‘utterly
disapproved’ of Hamilton’s system, which ‘flowed from principles adverse
to liberty and calculated to undermine and demolish the Republic by
creating an influence of his department over members of the legislature.’ He
had seen this influence ‘actually produced’ by ‘the establishment of the
great outlines of his project by the votes of the very persons who, having
swallowed his bait, were laying themselves out to profit by his plans.’ Then,
too, Hamilton had constantly interfered with his department, particularly in
relation to England and France.[633] As to Freneau, he hoped he ‘would give
free place to pieces written against the aristocratic and monarchical
principles.’ He and Fenno, he said, ‘are rivals for the public favor. The one
courts them by flattery, the other by censure, and I believe it will be
admitted that the one has been as servile as the other has been severe.’
Then, turning again to Hamilton: ‘But is not the dignity and even decency
of government committed when one of its principal Ministers enlists
himself as an anonymous writer or paragraphist for either the one or the
other of them?’ As for criticism of governmental measures, ‘no government
ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will. If
virtuous, it need not fear the free operation of attack and defense. Nature
has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth, either in religion,
law, or politics. I think it is as honorable to government neither to know nor
notice its sycophants, as it would be undignified and criminal to pamper the
former and persecute the latter.’[634]
Thus ended Washington’s attempt to intervene. Hamilton had refused to
discontinue his attacks, and, within two days after replying to Washington’s
appeal, he was again appearing in the ‘Gazette of the United States.’

VII

Even while Hamilton and Jefferson were writing their letters, the fight
was proceeding merrily, if bloodlessly, in the papers. ‘Aristides,’ none other
than Madison, had gone to the defense of his leader in an article in Fenno’s
paper on Jefferson’s attitude toward the Constitution. No one was so well
qualified to know, unless it was Washington himself. He had sat in the
Convention, a leading figure, and listened to Hamilton’s speeches and
proposals, and had been in correspondence with Jefferson. It was not this
defense that made Fenno restive. It was a pointed attack. ‘It is said, Mr.
Fenno, that a certain head of a department is the real author or instigator of
these unprovoked and unmanly attacks on Mr. Jefferson—and that the time
of that gentleman’s departure from the city on a visit to his home was
considered as best suited to answer the design it was intended to effect.’
‘Unmanly attack’ and an insinuation of cowardice! Fenno took the
precaution to add a note warning that no further letters would be printed
containing ‘personal strictures’ unless the name of the author was furnished
‘in case of emergency.’ Coffee and pistols—was it coming to that?[635]
Freneau had no such concern, for on the same day a writer in his paper
referred to the ‘base passions that torment’ Hamilton, and called upon the
author of the anonymous articles to ‘explain the public character who on an
occasion well known to him, could so far divest himself of gratitude and
revolt from the spirit of his station as to erect his little crest against the
magnanimous chief who is at the head of our civic establishment, and has
on many free occasions since spoken with levity and depreciation of some
of the greatest qualities of that renowned character; and now gives himself
out as if he were his most cordial friend and admirer, and most worthy of
public confidence on that account.’[636]
Two days after refusing Washington’s request for a cessation, Hamilton
returned to the attack in answer to the charge of the ‘National Gazette’ that
he had not liked the Constitution, and had pronounced the British monarchy
the most perfect government. All this he stoutly denied. The records and
debates of the Constitutional Convention were then under secrecy, and
members who had heard his speeches were under the ban of silence. He felt
safe. This is the most amazing letter of the series.
And so the dismal affair dragged on. Another letter appeared reiterating a
connection between Jefferson and Freneau; another charging that Jefferson

was opposed to the Constitution and against paying the public debt; still
another complaining of Jefferson’s interference with the Treasury
Department. Then another on Jefferson and the Constitution, and finally,
two months after Washington’s appeal, demanding that Jefferson, who
remained in the Cabinet on the earnest solicitation of Washington,
withdraw. ‘Let him not cling to the honor or emolument of an office,
whichever it may be that attracts him, and content himself with defending
the injured rights of the people by obscure or indirect means.’
Meanwhile, Jefferson had refused to be drawn into the controversy
personally. The situation had become painful—the Philadelphia drawing-
rooms lifting their brows at him. His official associations were unpleasant,
but he never touched pen to a paper intended for publication. Only in his
personal letters did he pour forth his bitterness against his colleague. ‘The
indecency of newspaper squabbling between two public Ministers,’ he
wrote Edmund Randolph, ‘has drawn something like an injunction from
another quarter. Every fact alleged ... as to myself is false.... But for the
present lying and scribbling must be free to those who are mean enough to
deal in them and in the dark.’[637] He had hoped for an early retirement, and
the attacks had indefinitely postponed the realization of his desire. ‘These
representations have for some weeks past shaken a determination which I
had thought the whole world could not have shaken,’ he wrote Martha.[638]
Meanwhile, the small-fry partisans were busy in all the papers. The effect,
on the whole, had been favorable to Jefferson, making him the idol of the
democrats everywhere. ‘It gives us great pleasure,’ said a Boston paper, ‘to
find that the patriotic Jefferson has become the object of censure, as it will
have a happy tendency to open the eyes of the people to the strides of
certain men who are willing to turn every staunch Republican out of office
who has discerning to ken the arbitrary measures, and is honestly sufficient
to reveal them.’[639] To the ‘Independent Chronicle’ the ‘slander and
detraction’ of men like Jefferson seemed ‘a convincing proof of the badness
of the cause behind it.’[640] The onslaught had in no wise weakened
Jefferson’s faith in the effectiveness of the ‘National Gazette.’ The smoke
had not lifted from the field when he was rejoicing because it was ‘getting
into Massachusetts under the patronage of Hancock and Sam Adams.’[641]
Even Freneau found the democrats rallying around him.

It is a Fact [wrote a correspondent] that immense wealth has been
accumulated into a few hands, and that public measures have favored that
accumulation.
It is a Fact that money appropriated to the sinking of the debt has been
laid out, not so as most to sink the debt, but so as to succor gamblers in the
funds.
It is a Fact that a Bank law has given a bounty of from four to five
million dollars to men in great part of the same description.
It is a Fact that a share of this bounty went immediately into the pockets
of the very men most active and forward in granting it.
These, Mr. Freneau, are facts—...severe, stubborn, notorious facts.[642]

VIII

Thus Hamilton’s remarkable attack had only whetted the appetite of the
Jeffersonians for battle—and a national campaign was in progress. The
unanimous reëlection of Washington was universally demanded, but why
should the ‘aristocratic’ and ‘monarchical’ author of ‘The Discourses of
Davilla’ be chosen again? At any rate, efforts could be made to change the
political complexion of Congress.
There were mistakes, blunders, tragedies, that could be used to affect
public opinion. What more shocking than the humiliating collapse of the
General St. Clair expedition against the Indians in the western country?
Gayly enough had the unfortunate commander set forth with twenty-three
hundred regular troops and a host of militiamen. There had been a scarcity
of provisions and inadequate preparations. Hundreds of soldiers, consumed
with fever, shaken with chills, had vainly called for medicine. Many died,
hundreds deserted in disgust, and finally but fourteen hundred worn and
weary, sick and hungry men remained to face the enemy. It was easy
enough to blame St. Clair, and, as he passed through the villages en route to
the capital, the people flocked about to hiss and jeer.
But why the lack of proper preparations? Why the insufficiency of the
commissary? Even the officials in Philadelphia were prone to find
extenuations for the failure of St. Clair. A correspondent of the Boston
‘Centinel,’ dining with some of the first official characters where the tragic
collapse of the expedition had been discussed, found ‘not one expression
dropped to his prejudice.’[643] The Jeffersonians were aiming higher than St.

Clair. There was Knox, Secretary of War—what had he to say in defense of
the honesty of the army contractor, to the negligence of the quartermaster?
The House investigating committee bore heavily on these two in its report
—but who was responsible for the cupidity of the one and the inefficiency
of the other? Soon the Jeffersonian press was attacking Knox with
distressing regularity, picturing him as the ‘Philadelphia Nabob.’[644] Was
he not squandering public money on ‘splendor’ and ‘extravagance’? Soon
the more irresponsible of the gossip-mongers were whispering that he had
profited financially. ‘Infamous!’ screamed the Federalist press. ‘The public
monies have never been in the hands of Mr. Knox.’[645] ‘But who made
arrangements with the dishonest contractor?’ replied the Jeffersonians.
‘Who selected the quartermaster who let the soldiers starve?’
All through the summer and autumn this was the talk in the taverns and
coffee-houses, but with the bursting of the bubble of speculation a far more
effective weapon of assault was at hand. To this inevitable outcome of the
gambling mania Jefferson had looked forward with the utmost confidence.
He had seen money ‘leaving the remoter parts of the Union and flowing to
[Philadelphia] to purchase paper’; had seen the value of property falling in
places left bare of money—as much as twenty-five per cent in a year in
Virginia. Extravagance, madness everywhere.[646] As a result in the remoter
sections the hatred of the speculator had reached the stage of hysteria.
‘Clouds, when you rain, bleach him to the skin,’ prayed a Georgia paper.
‘When you hail, precipitate your heaviest globes of ice on his ill-omened
pate. Thunders, when you break, break near him, shatter an oak or rend a
rock full in his view. Lightning, when you burst, shoot your electric streams
close to his eyelids. Conscience, haunt him like a ghost.... Ye winds, chill
him; ye Frost, pinch him, freeze him. Robbers meet him, strip him, scourge
him, rack him. He starved the fatherless and made naked the child without a
mother.’[647] Even the Worcester correspondent of the orthodox Boston
‘Centinel’ complained that ‘as soon as one bubble bursts another is blown
up’ and ‘we are in the way of becoming the greatest sharpers in the
universe’—all ‘assuredly anti-republican.’[648] When a town meeting was
advertised for Stockbridge, a village wit penciled on the poster the purpose
of the conference: ‘To see if the town will move to New York and enter into
the business of speculation.’[649] While publishing these letters and stories
the Federalist organ in Boston did it with the sneer: ‘They who are in—

Grin. They who are out—Pout. They who have paper—Caper. They who
have none—Groan.’[650]
Then in April, with the failure of Colonel Duer in New York the crash
came. Many went to ruin in the wreckage, and New York became a
madhouse, with business paralyzed, and Duer taking to flight. He had been
among the most favored of the beneficiaries of Hamilton’s policies, rising
from opulence overnight, and he was among the first to fall from their
abuse.[651] The brutality and cowardice of the speculators intensified the
general contempt for the tribe. ‘Instead of exerting themselves to preserve
some kind of moral character,’ wrote a New York correspondent of the
‘Maryland Journal,’ ‘they are endeavoring to lower themselves still more by
descending to the mean level of fish women and common street
boxers.’[652]
All this was viewed by Hamilton with indignation and concern. He had
sought in every way to discourage the frenzy of speculation, and had used
his office to protect the public wherever possible. But it began with the
funding system—and with thousands that was enough. Instantly the
Jeffersonian press was hot on the trail. ‘Business has not been benefited by
Hamilton’s Bank,’ declared the ‘Independent Chronicle,’ ‘for a merchant
can scarcely venture to offer his note for $100, while a speculator can
obtain thousands for no other purpose than to embarrass commerce.’ Look
around and see who have obtained wealth. ‘Speculators, in general, are the
men.’ Thus, ‘the industrious merchant is forced to advance to the
government thousands, while the gambling speculator is receiving his
quarterly payments.’[653] A Maryland correspondent of Louden’s New York
‘Register’ ‘could not help thinking Mr. Madison’s discriminating
propositions would have prevented in great measure the exorbitant rage of
speculation.’[654] Meanwhile, Fenno was denouncing the critics as
‘anarchists’ and enemies of the Government, which only intensified their
rage. ‘Our objection is not to paying off the debt,’ protested an indignant
critic, ‘but to ... the excise, failure to discriminate, the play to speculation’;
and if all who shared these views could be assembled it ‘would make the
greatest army that ever was on one occasion collected in the United
States.’[655] In the Boston ‘Centinel,’ John Russell was taking a lighter tone.
‘The suffering yeomanry burdened with taxes? Why not simply eliminate
all State and National debts and forget them?’[656] The storm? What of it?
‘The Six Per Cents, a first rate, belonging to the fleet commanded by

Admiral Hamilton, notwithstanding several hard Country gales, and a
strong lee current setting out of the Hudson and Delaware is still working to
windward and bids fair to gain her destined port.’[657]

IX

With such attacks and counter attacks in the papers, the campaign of
1792 was fought, with the bitter gubernatorial battle between John Jay and
George Clinton in New York setting the pace in the spring. The Federalists
had set their hearts on the crushing of Clinton, and but for the frown of
Hamilton, Burr might have joined them in the attempt.[658] The campaign
was spectacular, and class feeling and prejudice played a part. Jay was an
aristocrat by birth and temperament, and this gave the Clintonians their cue.
Up, Plebs, and at ’em! An aristocrat against a democrat, the rich against the
poor. Had not Jay said that ‘those who own the country ought to govern it’?
Had not Jay’s Constitution disfranchised thousands on the score of their
poverty? Were not the speculators, the stock-jobbers, the bankers, the
gamblers, swindlers, and the forces of privilege supporting Jay?[659] The
result was the election of Clinton, on a technicality,[660] and instantly there
was an uproar, broken bones and bloody noses, coffee-house quarrels and
blows, wild talk of a revolutionary convention and the seating of Jay with
bayonets, and serious bloodshed was prevented only through the efforts of
Hamilton, Jay, and King. Never had party feeling run so high, and several
duels were fought in the course of a week.[661] The defeated or cheated
candidate was accorded the acclamations due a conqueror on his journey
from his judicial circuit to New York where he was given a testimonial
dinner.[662] The democrats were none the less jubilant because of the
questionable nature of their triumph, and at a dinner in honor of Clinton, the
Tammany braves rose to the toast, ‘Thomas Jefferson,’ and gave their war-
whoop.[663]
The bitterness in New York spread to various parts of the country where
the Jeffersonians were fighting brilliantly, with clever strategy, to gain seats
in the Congress. Some of the Federalists, who were to prove themselves
generally inferior except in a smashing charge, and incapable of
maintaining their morale in a siege or in reverses, were even then growing
pessimistic. ‘Perhaps you are not informed,’ wrote George Cabot to
Theophilus Parsons, ‘that in Pennsylvania and New York the opponents are
well combined and are incessantly active, while the friends discover a want

of union and a want of energy.’[664] And Parsons, in melancholy mood, was
convinced that the Government had ‘seen its best days.’[665] Woe to the
politician who enters the reminiscent stage when confronted by a virile
opponent looking to the future. There was little in the New England of 1792
to depress the Federalists. Only a little evidence that among the working-
men in Boston ‘heresies’ were making their way; only reports that ‘itinerant
Jacobins’ were haranguing the curious in the bar-rooms of Rhode Island and
Vermont; only the strange spectacle of ‘drill masters’ meeting with people
of no property or importance to organize them to battle for democratic
principles.[666] Only this, and a strange doctrine creeping into Vermont
papers. In choosing members of Congress who should be selected? asked a
‘Land Holder’ of that State. ‘What class of people should they represent?
Who are the great body of the people? Are they Lawyers, Physicians,
Merchants, Tradesmen? No—they are respectable Yeomanry. The
Yeomanry therefore ought to be represented.’[667] In Maryland a ferocious
fight was waged under the eyes of both Hamilton and Jefferson, for both
were interested in the fate of Mercer who had slashed right lustily at the
policies of Hamilton, making no secret of his belief that they were bottomed
on corruption. He had vitalized the democrats of Maryland, extending his
interest into districts other than his own, and arranging for candidates to
oppose the sitting Federalists in the House. McHenry, who kept Hamilton
informed of the progress of the fight, hoped to array the German Catholics
against the obnoxious Mercer through the intervention of Bishop Carroll,
whom he thought more influential than the better known Charles Carroll of
Carrollton.[668] A man was employed by the energetic McHenry to circulate
bills against Mercer, who fought back, and gave blow for blow. He was
charged with having said that Hamilton had tried to bribe him in the
Assumption fight;[669] that he was personally interested in the contract for
supplying the western army, and privately engaged in the purchase of
securities. This, Mercer was to disavow, and Hamilton’s friends were to
show that the conversation between the Marylander and the Secretary had
been in the presence of company and in jest.[670] Even so we may assume
that Mercer had painted the incident black. He let it be understood that
Washington wished his reelection, and the celerity with which the President
issued a denial was probably due to the importunity of Hamilton who did
not scruple to use him without stint to further the cause of his party.[671]

In North Carolina the Jeffersonians, under the crafty leadership of
picturesque Willie Jones, contested every inch of the ground, determined to
retire all the Hamiltonians from Congress, and before the impetuosity of
their charge the Federalists were forced to fight defensively and under a
cloud.[672]
In the new State of Kentucky the Jeffersonians were thoroughly
organized under the leadership of John Brown, a Virginian, educated at
Princeton and at Jefferson’s alma mater, who had fought through the War of
Independence. ‘Brown can have what he wants,’ Madison wrote his leader
in midsummer,[673] and he took the toga. In Virginia the Democrats were
strongly in the ascendancy. The influence of Jefferson had been
strengthened by the acquisition of Madison, and Hamilton, in the course of
the campaign, wrote his famous letter to Colonel Edward Carrington
attacking both in an effort to satisfy the Virginia Federalists of the justice of
his own position, but it was blowing against a tornado.[674] An amazing
campaign document—this letter.
Thus, in 1792, if the Jeffersonians had not yet perfected their
organization, they had forced sporadic fighting, and the result of the
congressional elections was greatly to strengthen them in the House.

X

It was clear quite early that the Jeffersonians would not permit Adams’s
reëlection to go unchallenged. The press had teemed with controversial
articles on his books for more than a year. As early as March his friends
took up the cudgels in his defense. ‘Homo’ in the Boston ‘Centinel’ warned
that ‘a detestable cordon of desperadoes’ were trying to destroy public
confidence in Adams by vilification.[675] Within three months, Hamilton
convinced himself that the opposition, in dead earnest, had concentrated on
Clinton, and hastened to warn Adams, who was enjoying the placidity of his
farm at Quincy.[676] It is interesting to observe that this plan to displace
Adams was interpreted by Hamilton as ‘a serious design to subvert the
government.’ If the candidacy of Clinton was annoying to Hamilton, the
warning he received in September of the possible candidacy of Aaron Burr
was maddening, and he fell feverishly to the task of denouncing the
ambitions of this ‘embryo Cæsar’ in letters to his friends.[677] Clinton ‘has
been invariably the enemy of national principles,’ he wrote General C. C.

Pinckney in ordering a mobilization for defense in South Carolina, and as
for Burr, he was a man of ‘no principles other than to mount, at all events,
to the full honors of the state, and to as much more as circumstances will
permit.’ Was Jefferson behind the conspiracy against Adams—Jefferson,
that man of ‘sublimated and paradoxical imagination, entertaining and
propagating opinions inconsistent with dignified and orderly
government?’[678] To John Steele in North Carolina he wrote in the manner
of a commander, to inform him ‘that Mr. Adams is the man who will be
supported by the Northern and Middle States.’ Of course, he had ‘his faults
and foibles,’ and some of his opinions were quite wrong, but he was honest,
and loved order and stable government.[679] Meanwhile, painful
complications were threatened in Maryland where a number of notables[680]
joined in a public letter rallying Marylanders to the support of Charles
Carroll of Carrollton.[681] This gave James McHenry, an idolater of
Hamilton, and still tortured by a persistent, and, as yet, ungratified itch for
office, his opportunity. He assumed the responsibility for whipping the
rebels back into line. These signers of the Carroll letter had been imposed
upon. The fight against Adams was a fight against the Constitution—in
keeping with the plan of the enemies of government to drive able men from
office. Had not Hamilton ‘whose attachment to the Constitution is
unquestionable’ been assailed with virulence? Yes, from ‘the master
workman in his craft down to the meanest of his laborers,’ all were engaged
in the dirty work. Thus the submission of Carroll’s claims at so late an hour
wore ‘a very doubtful and invidious aspect.’ Was it done ‘to get ten votes
against Adams or to promote Carroll’s election?’ Was any one so foolish as
to think that the Democrats in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia would
desert Clinton?[682] This letter, signed by ‘A Consistent Federalist,’ was
copied by all the Federalist papers of the country.
Meanwhile, Adams, lingering lovingly on his home acres, showed no
inclination to return to Philadelphia, and it was reported that he might not
appear to preside over the Senate until late in the session. This was an
appalling lack of tact. Hamilton, assuming the rights of the leader, did not
hesitate. ‘I learn with pain that you may not be here until late in the
session,’ he wrote the loiterer behind the firing lines. ‘I fear this will give
some handle to your enemies to misrepresent.... Permit me then to say it
best suits the firmness and elevation of your character to meet all events,

whether auspicious or otherwise, on the ground where station and duty call
you.’[683]
By November the press was hotly engaged in the controversy, but poor
Fenno was to have trouble with his correspondents who were to convert his
dignified journal into a cock-pit. Adams was both pelted and salved on the
same page. His writings proved him a monarchist at heart, wrote
‘Mutius.’[684] His writings would be appreciated more a century hence, said
a defender in the same issue. Had he not already been vindicated on one
point in the appearance of the ‘gorgon head of party’? Freneau cleverly
replied by quoting a laudatory article from an English paper paying tribute
to the governmental notions of ‘the learned Mr. Adams.’[685] Yes, wrote
‘Cornucopia’ in the ‘Maryland Journal,’ ‘it will require the whole strength
of the federalists to keep poor John Adams from being thrust out of the
fold.’[686]
And ‘poor John Adams’ was not entirely happy in his defenders. Why
not reëlect him, demanded ‘Philanthropos’ in a glowing tribute, for was he
not ‘a man of innocent manners and excellent moral character?’[687] ‘Why
not?’ echoed a scribe in Albany. He was ‘a reputed aristocrat, at the same
time an honest man, the noblest work of God.’[688] From ‘Otsego’ came a
more robust blow at Adams’s enemies as ‘the jacktails of mobocracy’
seeking the defeat of ‘the virtuous Adams’ because he was against ‘anarchy
and disorder.’[689] Wrong, wrote ‘Portius’ the next day, advocating Clinton.
‘Untinctured by aristocracy, and a firm republican, the patriots of America
look to him.’[690] ‘Titles, titles,’ sneered ‘Condorcet.’ ‘This rattle which so
peculiarly delights certain characters.... He never appears but in the full
blaze of office, as if every place he went was a Senate, and every circle
which he invited needed a Vice President.’[691] Thus, throughout the fall
and early winter the lashing and slashing went on, but when the time came
Adams was reëlected, albeit the result was a bitter humiliation to the proud,
sensitive spirit of the victor. Where Washington had been unanimously
reëlected, Adams had a margin of but twenty-seven votes. New York,
Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia had moved en masse into the Clinton
camp, and Kentucky had cast her vote for Jefferson. Five States had gone
over to the Jeffersonians, and the Federalists had been unable to get a
unanimous vote in Pennsylvania. But if Adams was hurt, Hamilton could
bear his pains, for the brilliant, dashing chief of the party preferred that the
uncongenial man from Braintree should not become too perky.

Thus ended the first year of actual party struggle—Hamilton a bit soiled
by his descent to anonymous letter-writing, Jefferson greatly strengthened
by his silence under assault; the Hamiltonians triumphant, but not exultant
over the reëlection of Adams, the Jeffersonians, having tasted blood, and
tested their weapons, more than ever eager for combat and rejoicing in their
congressional gains.
Hamilton had tried to drive Jefferson from the Cabinet, and failed. It was
now the latter’s turn.

CHAPTER IX

HAMILTON’S BLACK WINTER

I

T HE winter of 1792-93 was notable in many ways. Not within the
memory of the oldest inhabitant of Philadelphia had one so mild been
known. As late as February there had been no interruption in the
navigation of the Delaware, and the papers, making much of the catching of
shad, were predicting that ‘a considerable school may soon be expected.’ In
this, however, the sons of Ike Walton were to be disappointed, for a
snowstorm and a northwester soon put an end to fishing.[692] Even so, the
weather continued, for the most part, mild beyond the usual. Never had
society adorned itself with more frills and furbelows, danced more
feverishly, or pursued its pleasures with greater zest. The elegant new
Chestnut Street Theater threw open its doors for the entertainment the
mimic world can give, and the aristocracy, along with the plebeians, flocked
to the play, despite the pouting of the uppish Mrs. Bingham who had been
refused a box on her own terms. Even the venomous bitterness of the
politicians failed to dim the lights of the great houses, albeit the followers
of Jefferson were more and more given to understand that they were not
wanted among the elect. The events, moving rapidly in France, were
making a distinct cleavage here among the aristocrats and democrats. The
members of the old French nobility, who had left their country for their
country’s good, were giving the tone to the most fashionable dinner tables.
Out in the streets the ‘people of no particular importance’ were vulgarly
vociferous over the trials and tribulations of the King and Burke’s beautiful
Queen—and the Jeffersonians were taking their tone from the howlings of
this ‘mob.’
It was evident from the moment Congress convened that a tremendous
party struggle was impending. The incidents of the preceding summer had
left their scars. The Jeffersonians were embittered against Hamilton because
of his anonymous attacks, and nothing could have done more to unsheathe
their swords. The truce was over. Washington had permitted Hamilton to
continue his attacks by disregarding his request; they would not now permit

even Washington to interpose to save Hamilton from their assaults. The
elections had given them a confidence they had not had before. The next
Congress would not be so subservient to ‘the first lord of the Treasury.’[693]
The supercilious assumption of superiority on the part of the Federalist
leaders would henceforth be resented. The war would begin in earnest.
The line the attack would take was shown early when Fitzsimons, one of
Hamilton’s henchmen in the House, offered a resolution calling for the
redemption of so much of the public debt as the Nation had a right to
redeem, and asking Hamilton ‘to report a plan for the purpose.’ This was in
accordance with the custom which had grown up. From the moment he had
taken office, Hamilton had considered the members of the House,
constitutionally charged with the duty of framing money bills, as his
automatons. He would determine upon the plans himself, prepare the bills,
and call upon the House to pass them without too much discussion. He
would manage the finances himself and he would not be plagued by foolish
questions. For many months the committees to which his measures had
been referred had been of his own choosing. They were his followers, and,
not a few of them, beneficiaries of his policies.
The Fitzsimons Resolution was instantly challenged by the Jeffersonians
as a rather high-handed proposal under a republican form of government,
and Madison rose to suggest that the House should know the exact state of
the finances before measures were taken for the reduction of the debt. After
all, it was with the House, not with the Secretary of the Treasury, that
money bills should originate. At any rate, the House could not act
intelligently without having the facts in its possession. All too long had it
been patient without definite reports.[694]
The feeling of the masses over the by-products of the funding system
had by this time become deep-seated. Men who had voted to create the
Bank had been made members of the board of directors. The ne’er-do-wells
of yesterday were riding in coaches and building pretentious houses.
Hamilton was urging bounties or protective duties for manufacturers one
day and running over to the Falls of Passaic on the next to assist the
directors of a corporation, that was to profit by his recommendations, in
selecting the sites for the factories. Not a few honestly believed that he was
personally profiting through governmental measures. Almost from the
beginning, Senator Maclay had been suspicious of his integrity. This utterly
false impression grew out of the positive knowledge that some of

Hamilton’s closest political associates were speculating in the securities.
‘Hamilton at the head of the speculators, with all the courtiers, are on one
side,’ Maclay wrote in his diary.[695] Only a month before at Mount Vernon,
where Washington had begged Jefferson to reconsider his determination to
resign, the latter had charged the head of the Treasury with creating ‘a
regular system for forming a corps of interested persons who should be
steadily at the orders of the Treasury.’[696] In 1790, William Duer retired
from Hamilton’s office to become the king of the money-chasers, and,
going down to ruin in the financial crash of the preceding summer, was
sending out dire threats of startling revelations from the debtors’ prison.
Many honest men were quite ready to believe that these threats were aimed
at Hamilton.[697] It was under these conditions that a miserable creature by
the name of James Reynolds, in prison for a crime against the Treasury,
sought to blackmail his way out. He had papers in his possession to prove
some financial transactions with Alexander Hamilton. An obscure person of
a low order of mentality, he hinted at his use as a dummy in business in
which a member of the Cabinet did not care to appear. These facts reached
some members of Congress.

II

On December 15th, two sober-faced members of the House and one
Senator filed into Hamilton’s office in the Pemberton mansion. The
Secretary knew them all and knew two of them as enemies. Frederick
Muhlenberg had served as a Speaker in the first House and was to resume
that post in the third. A strong character, the recognized leader of the
Germans, the foremost American Lutheran minister of his time, he had
played a conspicuous part in the Revolution and in the constructive work
that followed. Abraham Venable was a Representative from Virginia. The
Senator was James Monroe whose fanatical devotion to Jeffersonian ideals
and ideas had long since made him the object of Hamilton’s contempt.
As they took seats facing the masterful little man at the desk, they had
the manner of judges confronting a victim. None of them were finished in
the art of tactful speech. Bluntly they blurted forth their mission—they had
evidence of a mysterious connection between the Secretary of the Treasury
and James Reynolds. What had Mr. Hamilton to say to that? Even under the
least provocative circumstances, Hamilton was quick-tempered, and here
was something to arouse the lion in him. For a moment he raged in his

resentment. The visitors, a little moved, perhaps, stood their ground. They
had papers and the right to an explanation. His fury having consumed itself,
Hamilton realized that there was something to explain, and he was ready.
Would they meet him at his house that night? They would. The three men
rose, bowed, departed.
When they reached the Hamilton home that winter night, they found
Oliver Wolcott, the protégé of the host, there before them. In the presence
of these enemies it was wise to have one friend as a witness. The visitors
were received with the courtly courtesy of which Hamilton was capable,
and after they had found chairs about the table, he produced some papers of
his own, spreading them out by the candlelight, before him. Then, quite
calmly, and with an occasional touch of humor, he made a remarkable
confession.
It was the old story of a great man’s weakness. One summer day in 1791
a Mrs. Reynolds had appeared at his home with a pathetic story of her
desertion by her husband and a plea for funds to enable her to return to her
family in New York. Strangely enough, no description of this adventuress
has come down to us, but it is a reasonable presumption that she was
comely. The family of Hamilton was in the house. The master was moved.
Naturally he would accommodate her, but at the moment he had no money
with him. He would take her address and send or bring it in the evening.
That night the gods looking down from Olympus might have seen one of
their favorite earth-children furtively making his way through the dimly
lighted streets, away from the fashionable quarter into the section of cheap
boarding-houses. The woman received him in her room. It was the old story
of Cæsar and Cleopatra, albeit this was a Cleopatra of the more vulgar sort.
‘After that,’ said Hamilton, ‘I had frequent meetings with her at my own
house, Mrs. Hamilton and her children being absent on a visit to her
father.’[698] The comedy hurried on. At length he thought to bring it to a
termination, and it was then that Mrs. Reynolds proved herself a mistress of
her art. She was passionately in love. A separation would break her heart.
Here, surely, was a violent attachment—perhaps it would be better to break
off gradually. The lover was not lacking in the finer sensibilities, and then,
too, his vanity was pleased.[699] With the continuance of the amour, Mrs.
Reynolds, simulating a consuming passion, began to flood her innamorato
with tender epistles.[700] The climax was on the wing. One day an hysterical
note announcing the husband’s discovery of her infidelity, and warning that,

if no answer was forthcoming to the letter the Secretary would receive from
the irate husband, Mrs. Hamilton would be informed. Would it not be wise
to see him? Hamilton thought so and summoned Reynolds to his office. The
cunning rascal had his story ready: the wife discovered writing a mysterious
letter—a black messenger traced to the Hamilton house—the accused wife
on her knees confessing all.[701] After negotiations the heartbroken husband
decided that a thousand dollars would salve his wounded honor. ‘And I will
leave the town ... and leave her to Yourself to do for her as you think
proper,’ he added.[702]
In the midst of these painful revelations, Muhlenberg and Venable
declared themselves satisfied, but Hamilton insisted on telling the story to
the end. Then followed the most amazing part of the tale. The husband
invited his wife’s lover to resume the amour. Hamilton was coy. Mrs.
Reynolds added her plea in illiterate, pleading letters. The vanity of
Hamilton was likewise persuasive, and the comedy was resumed. When he
sought to escape notice by going by the back way, Reynolds was indignant.
‘Am I a person of such a Bad carector [character] that you would not wish
to be seen Coming to my house in the front way?’ he wrote.[703] This should
have put Hamilton on his guard, but he fell into the trap. A witness had been
provided in another blackmailer, Clingman, who had been a clerk in
Hamilton’s office, and was an unspeakable scoundrel. Then more money
was demanded. Mrs. Reynolds was again alarmed. Her husband was often
morose and beat her. At times he threatened to murder Hamilton. Loans
were made. This, then, was the nature of the mysterious financial relations
with Reynolds.
When the party rose to leave, Muhlenberg and Venable were apologetic
—but not so James Monroe. He bowed stiffly, the sternness of his features
unrelaxed, as the three passed out into the winter night. Hamilton had
vindicated his official honor at a painful sacrifice. It was understood that the
confession should be sacredly confidential, but in a sense he had lost. As he
sat with Wolcott before the fire after his tormentors had departed, he
realized that his enemies were out to wreck his official reputation. He may
have had a premonition of the storm that was about to break.

III

Nine days after the scene enacted by candlelight in Hamilton’s library,
the bill authorizing the President to negotiate a loan of two million dollars
to be applied to the reimbursement of a loan made of the Bank came up for
consideration in the House. William B. Giles, who was now dividing the
leadership of the Jeffersonians with Madison, was instantly on his feet with
a request for postponement. Perhaps some method could be found without
recourse to a new loan. It might be better to pay the loan by selling the
stock the Nation owned in the Bank. The watchful Sedgwick was shocked
at the suggestion. Dumping so much stock upon the market would reduce
the price and not enough money would be realized to meet the country’s
obligation to the Bank. It was a mild premonitory skirmish.[704]
Christmas Day brought an armistice, but the next day the discussion was
resumed, with Madison taking a leading part. Why was so much more to be
borrowed than was demanded by the Bank? To his personal knowledge a
large sum was lying idle and unappropriated in the Treasury. If this balance
was appropriated by the President, he wanted to know it. A delicate subject
to discuss, suggested Sedgwick. Not at all, thought Madison. It was time for
some ‘candid explanation.’ Was the appropriation lying dormant in the
Treasury, borrowed to meet the obligations to France, being demanded by
the country to which it was due? The important question concerned the
diverting of money appropriated to that specific purpose to the payment of
Bank installments. Could gentlemen justify themselves to their constituents
for such conduct? The debt to France was one of gratitude and justice, and
he wished the money could be sent thither on the wings of the wind. True,
the debt in whole was not yet due, but in the critical condition of our
benefactor, it would no doubt be particularly acceptable and he was
opposed to the diversion of any part of it.[705] Why two millions for the
Bank? demanded Giles. True, two hundred thousand dollars would be due
the Bank on January 1st, but why two millions? No one had offered an
explanation of how the money lying dormant was disposed of, or how it
was intended to dispose of it. No member rose to explain, and the bill was
lost.
During the next month the lobbies, boarding-houses, taverns, buzzed
with discussions of the finances of the country. After all, even the members
of the House, presumed to be familiar with the fiscal affairs of the Nation,
knew scarcely anything. They had appropriated blindly. There was
something uncanny in the silence. Would the raising of the curtain disclose

skeletons in the closet of the Treasury? At any rate, the House had a right to
the facts and figures. Throughout the month Madison and Giles were
frequently at the table or about the blazing fire at Jefferson’s. Here the
campaign was planned. The fight should be forced into the open on the
floor of the House. Jefferson could not participate, for manifest reasons, but
he could direct. Madison could assist in the preparation of the resolutions
and in the debate. Giles, who was a masterful debater, fearless and slashing
in attack, could sponsor the resolutions and lead in the assault. Because of
the part he then played, it has been the fashion to dismiss him flippantly
with a shrug and a sneer—but this is absurd. Giles of Virginia was
unsurpassed by any American debater of his time.

IV

Giles was a veritable D’Artagnan of debate, a gusty, lusty Gascon
transplanted to the tobacco-fields of Virginia, eager always for a fight or a
frolic, and lightning-swift with his blade. A blustering fellow, true, quick to
assert his rights and repel assault, he carried himself with a swagger that did
not endear him to the Federalists, who rather plumed themselves on having
a monopoly on that particular vice or virtue. But sneers at his ability are
absurd. He who won the admiration of Patrick Henry,[706] commanded the
confidence and respect of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, received the
discriminating praise of Randolph of Roanoke,[707] and the reluctant tribute
of Justice Story,[708] cannot be sneered from a respectable place in history
by a wretchedly unfair caricature by a partisan English biographer of one of
his enemies.[709]
The young Virginian who appeared in Philadelphia in the winter of
1790-91 was not prepossessing in appearance. Of average height, the
fullness of his person conveyed the impression of a squat figure. His face,
large, round, but colorless, bore none of the indications of genius, albeit
there was something of virility in his brown eyes that harmonized with the
robustness of his physique. One who knew him has recorded that he was of
fair complexion,[710] but another who heard him frequently in debate
commented on his dark color, and, since his hair and eyes were those of a
brunette, we may accept the latter as more probable than the former.[711] All
agree that he was careless in his dress, after the then prevailing Virginia
manner,[712] although we have the record of one dramatic appearance in the
Virginia Legislature, at the height of his renown, ‘elegantly dressed in blue

and buff’ and with the Gascon touch of being ‘booted and spurred, with a
riding-whip in his hand.’[713] If there was nothing imposing or picturesque
in his appearance, his manners were such as to make him stand out
conspicuously among his fellows. These were such as to impress the none
too finished Maclay that ‘the frothy manners of Virginia were ever
uppermost.’ It is easy enough to reconstruct the scene at Washington’s table
where Maclay met our Gascon, with Giles, the good liver, dwelling
unctuously on Virginia canvasback ducks, Virginia hams, Virginia chickens,
and the old Madeira, which was a little more mellow when drained from a
Virginia glass in a joyous Virginia dining-room. Proud of Virginia was this
provincial from the tobacco country, and proud as D’Artagnan himself of
his physical prowess, for didn’t he take more manual exercise than any man
in New England? No place like the Old Dominion where the living was
‘fast and fine,’ where from noon to night the people drank wine or cherry
bounce like gentlemen. Thus he thundered along, to the amazement of
Maclay, who observed that ‘he practiced on his principle every time the
bottle passed.’[714] The picture is no doubt true, for Giles was racy of his
native soil. The Amelia County of his early days was of the frontier, with all
that that implies of the primitive vices and virtues. The sparsely settled
country, with its miserable roads, lived very much to itself, and strangers
who ventured among its inhabitants were treated coldly. The living was
truly ‘fast and fine’ and rather loose, for the men were careless, indifferent
to dress, heavy drinkers, inveterate smokers, their conversations picturesque
with profanity; and they were fighters, too. Dumas’s three immortals would
have found it to their liking, and had they encountered young Giles at some
crossroads tavern they would have taken him to their hearts. The spirit of
independence flamed on every hearth, and the religious dissenters found it a
happy hunting-ground.[715] It was in this atmosphere that Giles grew up.
Like most of the Jeffersonian leaders, he was a frontiersman.
When he went to Princeton to complete his education, we get again the
D’Artagnan touch. He set forth like a Virginia gentleman with his negro
slave to serve him, no doubt kicking, cursing, and loving him all the way.
Then followed a law course at William and Mary—and then a law office
was opened in the little tobacco town of Petersburg. We are interested in
this period of his career only in that it throws light on his character and
capacity. He favored the ratification of the Constitution, and, as a fascinated
spectator of the debates in the Virginia Convention, formed a deep

admiration for Madison. In the evenings he argued for ratification at the
tavern, no doubt in the taproom. Hearing him one night, George Mason, a
leader of the opposition, made the comment that ‘he has as much sense as
one half of us, though he is on the wrong side.’[716] He was not, then, an
anti-Federalist on the Constitution.
Immediately on entering Congress at twenty-eight, he commanded
attention, for he had a genius for congressional life. He became at once a
giant in debate. When John Randolph, more cynic than flatterer,
pronounced Giles the Charles James Fox of the House, he referred to the
impression made by the Virginian in action. Fox was a student; Giles was
not. Fox was capable of sustained research; Giles was not. Fox was a lover
and reader of books, and Giles cared nothing for them. He bore a closer
resemblance to Mirabeau or Danton in his methods, absorbing his
knowledge from others in conversation. In the tavern, on the highway, at the
dinner table, he was a tireless talker, and by provoking his friends into
discussion he tested, corrected, and formed his impressions of events and
measures. His mind absorbed like a sponge, his memory was retentive. The
idea that Jefferson or Madison outlined his speeches for him is ludicrous.
He merely assimilated what they said—and then gave it out more forcefully
than either could in debate.[717]
It is impossible to reconcile the slurring references of some historians to
his manner in debate with the speeches that speak for themselves on the
musty pages of the ‘Annals of Congress.’ Here was a man speaking directly
to a purpose. No critic need kill off his Roman consuls, for there were none.
No craving here for a reputation for erudition. No mere rhetorical flourishes
to confuse the sense. No theatrical appeals to the emotions. No verbosity at
all—but ‘a clear, nervous expression, a well-digested and powerful
condensation of language,’ which could make an impression on the
scholarly Story. That great jurist, an unfriendly witness, could not hear him
without admiration. ‘He holds his subject always before him,’ he wrote,
‘and surveys it with untiring eyes; he points his objects with calculated
force and sustains his positions with penetrating and wary argument. He
certainly possesses great strength of mind.’[718]
Having prepared himself to meet all comers, he thus dashed to the
combat. Having assimilated all that he had absorbed, his native
resourcefulness and ready command of good plain English did the rest. He
spoke with the forceful fluency which was the best possible substitute for

eloquence. A powerful voice, a virile manner, compelled attention and
respect. Did an enemy attack him as he rushed along? He either crushed
him with brutal strength, or cleverly ducked the blow—and was on his way
again. Instinctively he knew when to strike and when to dodge. When on
the floor, he dominated the scene. This was the man, so much belittled,
whom Benton wrote down in cold deliberation as ‘the most accomplished
debater which his country has ever seen.’ This the man selected in the
conferences of Jefferson and Madison to lead the attack on the Secretary of
the Treasury.

V

During this period of waiting, with the gossips busy in the taverns and
the streets, Freneau was zealously seeking to create the right atmosphere for
the attack. With the Hamiltonians ascribing all prosperity to the policies of
their chief, Freneau and other editorial enemies were making much of the
protest of ‘Patriot,’ who had been ruined through the abuse of these fiscal
policies.
The tale is true [it ran]. I loved my country. In 1775, my only son fought
on Bunker Hill.... His mother sent the chair down to carry him home. She
wiped the blood from his face and dressed the wound in his breast. He died.
My neighbor, Smallacre ... said it was the proper reward for rebellion, but
that a halter would have been more proper. I persevered in the cause of
freedom. Congress wanted money—I called in my debts and sold all my
land excepting forty acres. In ... 1778 I had 12,000 in paper. I loaned the
whole, and when they were consolidated at forty for one I had a loan office
certificate for $300. In 1784 the General Court issued a large tax. As I could
obtain neither the interest or principal of my loan office note I was obliged
to sell it. My neighbor, Smallacre, saved his property from the waste of a
cause to which he was heartily opposed, and he appeared to buy my note at
Three Shillings for Twenty. By this means I paid my State tax of Nine
pounds, ten shillings and had four pounds left for town and parish taxes. As
my son was dead I was content to be poor.... My old chair and horse
remained.... My neighbor, Smallacre, has now become rich by purchase of
public securities from people distressed as I was. He tells me that our
Hancocks and our Sam Adams and those kind of men know how to pull
down a government, but do not know how to build one.[719]

Prosperity? Yes, but for whom? demanded the enemies of Hamilton,
poking the ‘Patriot’s’ protest under the nose of his defenders. With the
Hamiltonians crediting their idol with all the good things that had occurred,
Freneau was moved to mirthful verse:
‘Whales on our shores have run aground,
Sturgeons are in our rivers found—
Nay—ships have on the Delaware sailed,
A sight most new.
Wheat has been sown—
Harvests have grown—
On coaches now, gay coats of arms are borne
By some who hardly had a cent before—
Silk gowns, instead of homespun, now are seen,
Instead of native straw, the Leghorn hat,
And, Sir, ’tis true
(Twixt me and you)
That some have grown prodigious fat,
And some prodigious lean.’[720]

This press crusade against Hamilton was carried on along with much
laudation of Jefferson, inspired by the report of his decision to retire from
the Cabinet. ‘Mirabeau’ heard with distress that ‘the leader of democracy’
wished to ‘seek the peaceful shades’ to ‘solace himself with his favorite
philosophy.’ True, the sea had been made tempestuous for him, but ‘the
crew are his friends, and notwithstanding the endeavors of the officers to
raise a mutiny to supercede him ... his honest labor and firmness has
frustrated their wicked intentions and he rides triumphant.’ But with his
retirement ‘monarchy and aristocracy would inundate the country.’[721]
Right, agreed ‘Gracchus,’ ‘for though he has been in office near four years
he has never assumed the insolence of it. His department has been that of a
Republican and in no one action or expression has he manifested a
superiority over his fellow citizens.’[722]
Hamilton and his followers had frankly sought to drive Jefferson from
the Cabinet and failed; the plan was now complete for driving Hamilton
himself into private life.

VI

On January 23d, the result of the deliberations of Jefferson, Madison,
and Giles appeared when the latter rose in the House to present a set of

resolutions calling upon the President to submit complete reports on the
fiscal operations of the Government. To these the House was clearly
entitled. Nor was there anything violent or outrageous in Giles’s speech in
which he explained them. The House had been legislating for four years
‘without competent official knowledge of the state of the Treasury or
revenue.’ They had ‘engaged in the most important fiscal arrangements,’
and had ‘authorized a loan of the Bank ... for more than $500,000 when
probably a greater sum of public money was deposited in the Bank.’ They
were now on the point of authorizing a further loan of $2,000,000 in the
dark—and they were entitled to light. ‘I conceive that it is now time for this
information to be laid before the House.’[723] No one rose to object and the
resolutions were adopted.
To Hamilton, who looked upon Congress as a meddlesome body, they
appeared as something more than a bore. They were an imposition and an
insult. He was entrusted with the financial arrangements, and all he asked
was to be let alone. But he realized that such a lofty tone could not be
publicly assumed. Suppressing his indignation, he set to work with
meticulous care to prepare the fullest possible reports before the expiration
of the congressional session. His enemies thought to burden him with a task
that could not be performed in so short a time. Their strategy was to let the
resolutions with their implications seep in on the minds of the people
throughout the ensuing summer; his cue was to thwart them in that purpose,
to achieve the impossible, to meet the resolutions during the session, and
win a triumph.
Not for him, that winter, the gala nights at the new Chestnut Street
Theater, nor the dinners at the Binghams’, nor the dances at the Stewarts’,
nor the felicities of the hearth with Eliza at his side. His place was at the
Pemberton mansion, day and night, until the work was done. Oliver Wolcott
and the clerks were doomed to the same drudgery. Far into the night the
lights gleamed in the windows of the old house, and dark and deserted were
the streets when the workers made their way to their various homes after
dreary hours of poring over figures, assembling facts, and writing
explanations.
Within twelve days, the first report, with elaborate tables containing the
most minute details of transactions, was sent to the House. Two days later,
the second report was done and in. A week more and the third was sent.
Another six days, and the last was finished. The intense application, the late

hours, the nervous strain, told perceptibly on Hamilton, who was never
robust. The color left his cheeks when they were not flushed with
excitement. His nights were all but sleepless. His waning strength was
sustained by the driving force of his powerful mind. When it was over, even
Wolcott found that his routine business had fallen behind and that he would
‘be busy for some time to bring it up.’ To his father he apologized for
failure to answer letters. There was no time for letters. ‘The winter ... has
required every exertion which I could make.’[724]
As these voluminous reports poured in upon the House in rapid
succession, the Jeffersonians were amazed and the Hamiltonians beside
themselves with joy. A startling intellectual feat, to be sure. ‘I can recall
nothing from the British Minister in all the conflicts of party equal to it,’
wrote one admirer. ‘Even Neckar’s boasted account of the finances of
France ... is inferior, although that was the result of long study and elaborate
preparation, and Hamilton’s the work of a moment. Poor fellow, if he has
slept much these last three weeks I congratulate him upon it.’[725]
Wonderful reports, agreed the ‘Centinel’ of Boston. ‘The manly
unequivocable sentiments—the fair and accurate statements, and the
judicious arrangements ... must fix his character as a Patriot, a statesman,
and an able and honest financier.’[726] Yes, added another, ‘he will come
forth pure gold.’[727]
But his enemies were not so much delighted. They read and studied the
reports, complaining that the wizard of the speculators was up to his old
tricks. A maze of words, interminable sophistries, columns of confusing
figures, arguments instead of facts, and special pleading—no one could
understand these reports—such the verdict of the rank and file. To which
the Hamiltonians responded with a sneering verse:
‘The Secretary makes reports
When’er the House commands him;
But for their lives, some members say,
They cannot understand him.
In such a puzzling case as this
What can a mortal do?
‘Tis hard for ONE to find REPORTS
And understanding too.’[728]

But the leaders among the Jeffersonians were studying the reports and
finding a few things that they could understand. Evidence of corruption

they did not find, but they found technical violations of the law, an
indifference on Hamilton’s part to the clear intent of Congress in making
appropriations—quite enough, as they thought, on which to continue the
attack. Again Giles and Madison sat with Jefferson in his home going over
the reports, and framing the second set of resolutions with which it was
hoped to drive their enemy from the Cabinet.

VII

Three days before the end of the session, Giles presented his famous
resolutions in condemnation of Hamilton’s official conduct, based on the
disclosures in his reports. It does not matter who originally wrote them. A
scholarly historian[729] has produced proof of the part played by Jefferson.
In the very nature of things he must have had a part. Madison
unquestionably made suggestions and possibly revamped the copy
produced by Jefferson. Giles presented them, and they embodied the
conclusions of the three outstanding leaders of the opposition.
These resolutions, intemperately denounced from the day of their
appearance, set forth some novel theories, in view of the manner in which
the Treasury had been administered, but, read in the light of the present
regulations in the matter of appropriations, they are scarcely remarkable and
not in the least vicious. They set forth that ‘laws making specific
appropriations of money should be strictly observed by the administrator of
the finances’; that a violation of this rule was tantamount to a violation of
the Constitution; and charged that Hamilton had violated the law passed
August 4, 1790, making appropriations of certain moneys authorized to be
borrowed in the following particulars, viz.:
First, by applying a certain amount of the principal borrowed to the
payment of interest falling due upon that principal, which was not
authorized by that or any other law.
Secondly, by drawing part of the same moneys into the United States
without the instruction of the President.
They charged him with deviating from the President’s instructions, with
neglecting an ‘essential duty’ in failing to give Congress official
information of his proceedings in the transactions of the foreign loans.
More to the point, politically, was the charge that he ‘did not consult the
public interest in negotiating a loan with the Bank of the United States, and

drawing therefrom $400,000 at five per cent per annum, when a greater sum
of public money was deposited in various banks at the respective periods of
making the respective drafts.’ In conclusion, it was provided that a copy of
the resolutions should be transmitted to Washington.
The main thing proved by the investigation was something that required
no proof—that Hamilton had been managing the finances in the spirit of an
autocrat, a little contemptuous of the rights of Congress, a little indifferent
to the specific terms of the appropriations. These he had not hesitated to
juggle to suit his own purposes. In so doing he had been guilty of technical
violations of the law, but he had committed no crime. His hands were clean.
Yet money intended for France had not been paid, and money not intended
for the Bank had gone into its vaults. This was enough. Suspicion did the
rest.
The most censurable feature of the attack was the introduction of the
resolutions on the eve of adjournment. Jefferson, Madison, and Giles had no
idea that they would or could be disposed of before Congress should
automatically expire. Copies had gone to the papers of the four corners to
be read by the people, and it is probable that it was the intent that they
should have the summer and autumn to make their impression on the public
mind. It was manifestly an unfair advantage. But the Hamiltonians had no
thought of permitting any such delay. They were in a majority in the House.
In the Pemberton house, by candlelight, the Treasury clan was summoned to
a council of war, and they went forth to force the fighting to a speedy finish.
The reports had settled nothing with Hamilton’s enemies. ‘When
Catullus[730] invited America to look through the windows of his breast and
judge of the purity of his political motives, he did not invite in vain,’
exulted ‘Decius’ in the ‘National Gazette.’[731] Willing to meet his
accusers? sneered ‘Franklin.’ ‘Pardon me, sir, if I am one of those
unbelievers, who, placing no confidence in any of your professions, do
verily think that you neither wish, desire nor dare to meet full and fair
inquiry. Have you asked it, sir?’[732] These jeers and exultant cries were
intolerable. The vindication of the House must come speedily.
On the last day of February there was a preliminary skirmish, and on
March 1st, the contending armies were marshaled for a decisive struggle.
Sedgwick and the faithful Smith of South Carolina led off for Hamilton,
and Giles followed for the Resolutions. Fitzsimons of Philadelphia and

Laurance of New York City, both representatives of the commercial
interests, attacked, and Mercer of Maryland replied. Boudinot defended
Hamilton, and Madison rose to make the premier argument in
condemnation of the policies of the Treasury; and Ames, the most brilliant
of the Hamiltonian orators, who had been held in reserve for Madison,
replied. Thus the day wore on, darkness fell, and the candles had long been
lighted before the House adjourned for dinner. Seven o’clock found the
galleries packed, Senators upon the floor, favored spectators in the rear of
the Chamber packed in close. The leading drawing-rooms were dark that
night, for their mistresses looked down upon the drama of the black eyes
and bloody noses. The struggle continued far into the night.
Here let us pause to catch the drift of the speeches. The supporters of
Hamilton made the most of the failure to find any evidence of criminality.
‘They present nothing that involves self-interest or pecuniary
considerations.... Instead of anything being detected that would disgrace
Pandemonium, nothing ... which would sully the purest angel in Heaven.’
Thus spoke Smith. No longer ‘the foul stain of peculation,’ but ‘the milder
coloring of an illegal exercise of discretion and a want of politeness in the
Secretary of the Treasury,’ said Barnwell.[733] What if a critical examination
had revealed a deviation from the letter of the law, exclaimed Laurance.
Was that an excuse for sounding ‘the alarm from St. Croix to St. Mary’s?’
No corruption! cried Mercer, who had been forced to deny campaign
charges he had made. ‘I still entertain the opinion that there is corruption.’
The House was in turmoil, and the Marylander was sharply called to order.
On he plunged, recklessly fighting his way against calls to order.
No charge of corruption stained the lips of Madison, who moved on
solid ground. There had been a technical violation of the law, and he proved
it. There had been a disregard of the instructions of the President, and he
showed it. He went thus far, no farther, and he hammered home the facts. ‘I
will not deny,’ he said, ‘that there may be emergencies in the course of
human affairs of so extraordinary and pressing a nature as to absolve the
Executive from an inflexible conformity to the injunctions of the law. It is,
nevertheless, as essential to remember ... that in all such cases the necessity
should be palpable; that the Executive sanction should flow from the
supreme source; and that the first opportunity should be seized for
communicating to the Legislature the measures pursued, with the reasons of
the necessity for them. This early communication is equally enforced by

both prudence and duty. It is the best evidence of the motives for assuming
the extraordinary power; it is a respect manifestly due to the Legislative
authority.’ On this ground he stood, and there stood Giles.
The charges were dismissed by Ames, ex-cathedra-wise, with a shrug.
What if there had been a juggling of the funds? ‘It is impossible,’ he said
unblushingly, ‘to keep different funds, differently appropriated, so
inviolably separated as that one may not be used for the object of the other.’
Nothing criminal had been proved.[734]
One by one the resolutions were taken up and overwhelmingly voted
down—voted down even where Hamilton had admitted the charge and
justified his acts. Before the last vote was reached, many of the members,
worn by the excitement, the confinement, and fatigue, and confident of the
result, deserted their posts and wandered forth into the winter night.[735]

VIII

Hamilton had sought, through his anonymous letters, to drive Jefferson
from the Cabinet—and failed. Jefferson had tried, through this
investigation, to drive Hamilton from public life—and failed. The struggle
must go on. Each had caused the other some distress, each drawn a little
blood, but neither had inflicted a serious wound.
With the adjournment of Congress, the skirmishing was taken up all over
the country through the press. The Boston Federalists opened fire upon the
‘Boston Argus.’ It had published the resolutions, but not the Hamilton
reports. The resolutions had been carried on the same mail that conveyed
the vote of vindication, and the defeat of Giles had not been mentioned.
Infamous![736] ‘Marat’ proposed satirical resolutions declaring ‘highly
reprehensible’ every official ‘who by integrity, talents, and important
services ... conciliates the esteem and affections of the people.’[737]
Hamilton had come out pure gold, wrote a Philadelphian to a citizen of
Rhode Island. ‘The more it is rubbed, the more it will shine.’[738] A writer in
the ‘Connecticut Gazette’ was moved to a frenzy of indignation. ‘Dutch
Republicans murdered De Witt and ate his heart. Republicans banished
Aristides, the first, and condemned Socrates to Hemlock. And yet we have
confined the punishment of eminent services and ability to attempts to
degrade them from office by innuendoes, electioneering slanders, and
newspaper detraction. This however may be the prelude to eating and

banishing.’[739] A traveler in the Southern States wrote of the effect of the
investigation in Virginia. It had ‘opened the eyes of many who have hitherto
been under the explicit direction of a certain would-be umpire of the United
States.’[740] He found that prejudice had been created against Hamilton on
the ground that he ‘had not done as much as he ought to assist certain needy
men to their claims for services,’ but he was pleased to find that ‘the unjust
prejudice against the industrious patriot is decreasing daily.’[741]
Everything possible was done to make Hamilton’s vindication a veritable
triumph. When the Providence Society of New York met at Haut’s Tavern
for a dinner, the toast, ‘The Secretary of the Treasury—may his
distinguished talents and integrity command universal respect,’ was
received with shouts and the clicking of glasses.
But the Jeffersonians were unimpressed. ‘After all,’ they said, Hamilton
‘acknowledges the freedom taken with appropriations and strives to work
out an apology, rather than a justification.’[742] A week later, the ‘National
Gazette’ presented an analysis of the vote of which the Jeffersonians were
to make much. Vindication, indeed!—and by whom? Three were directors
of Hamilton’s National Bank. Fifteen or twenty were reputed to be
stockholders in the same institution. ‘Can these men be admitted as judges
—men who in fact are parties to the cause?’[743] All over the land the
Jeffersonians were making it uncomfortable for many members who had
voted to vindicate, and the Kentuckians soon had Christopher Greenup
begging for a suspension of judgment until he could explain.[744]
‘Vindicated!’ cried the Hamiltonians. ‘Yes, and by whom?’ answered the
Jeffersonians. ‘By Bank directors, by Bank stockholders who profited, by
congressional speculators in the funds.’

IX

Thus the Jeffersonians sought to explain their defeat and even turn it to
account. The master mind among them expressed no surprise at the result.
He drew up a list of the members who had voted the vindication, indicating
which owned Bank stock and which speculated in the funds. When
Jefferson journeyed back to renew his strength and courage on his beloved
hill, others of his party followed. A little later there was a movement of the
leaders to the country home of John Taylor of Caroline at Port Royal,
Virginia, where the conferences were continued. Thither went Giles,

Senator Hawkins of North Carolina, and Nathaniel Macon. The master of
Port Royal was a remarkable character, an ardent Republican, an earnest
champion of the agricultural interests, a robust, original thinker with
something of the political philosopher, an able writer, a dignified though
reluctant Senator. His mind ran much in the same groove with Jefferson’s
and Madison’s, both of whom were anxious to enlist him more actively in
their fight.
Just what occurred at the conferences that summer is not known. A few
months later, however, the probable fruit of the discussions appeared in
Philadelphia in the publication of a startling pamphlet, ‘An Examination of
the Late Proceedings of Congress Respecting the Official Conduct of the
Secretary of the Treasury.’ Here in an analysis of the vote the charge that
interested parties had furnished the majority was not only made, but names
were given. Of the thirty-five supporters of Hamilton, twenty-one were set
down as stockholders or dealers in the funds, and three as Bank directors.
Referring to the fervent declaration of Smith of Charleston that Hamilton
was as free from taint ‘as the purest angel in Heaven,’ the author of the
pamphlet commented that ‘it is well known that [Smith] holds between
three and four hundred shares in the Bank of the United States, and has
obtained discounts, ad libitum.’ As for Hamilton’s reports, they contained
vindications of his conduct ‘in certain particulars relative to which no
charge had been brought forward.’ His explanation of the shuffling of
appropriations was unimpressive. A deficiency in the appropriation? ‘In
such event it becomes his duty to state the fact simply and correctly to the
Legislature, that they might, in turn, furnish fresh and additional funds.’
Hamilton had done nothing of the sort. He had treated the House with
contempt and violated the law.
Here was clearly the answer of the Jeffersonians to the vote of the
House. It found its way to every city, town, and hamlet, to the cabin in the
Kentucky clearing, to the mansion of the master of many slaves on the river
James, to the pioneers about Fort Pitt on the far frontier. John Taylor of
Caroline had struck his blow.[745]
Thus the congressional battle merely served to accentuate the differences
of the parties. It marked, in great measure, the close of the purely fiscal
phase of the struggle. Neither Jefferson nor Madison was qualified to cross
swords with Hamilton in the field of finance. Giles was hopelessly
inadequate. A little later, a Jeffersonian leader was to join them whose

genius as a financier would be as far above all the Federalists, save
Hamilton alone, as Hamilton was superior to Giles, but he was still waiting
in the wings for Fate to give the cue for his appearance.
Even as Taylor wrote, a new issue had appeared, made to order for the
purposes of Jefferson.

CHAPTER X

ÇA IRA

I

U P to this time Jefferson had been fighting under a disadvantage. In the
field of finance he was unable to cope on equal terms with his great
protagonist. The mass of the people were not consciously concerned
with the Hamiltonian policies, few comparatively had been swindled by the
speculators, and, while they resented their neighbors’ sudden acquisition of
wealth, it was not easy to capitalize their discontent.
Then the French Revolution entered a more dramatic stage, captivating
the imagination of the multitude. As the real significance of the struggle
began to take form, with the crowned heads of the Old World marching in
serried ranks under the leadership of Brunswick on the French frontier, the
excitement was electric; and when they were turned back by the gallant
resistance of the Revolutionists the floodgates of enthusiasm broke. One
prolonged, triumphant shout went up from the masses. The ‘people of no
particular importance’ somehow felt that the victory was theirs. They had
been a little indifferent, these men of the shops, taverns, wharves, and the
frontier, over the disputed financial and economic policies of their country,
but they could understand the meaning of ‘liberty, equality, fraternity.’ It
meant democracy. Thus the news of the French victories shook the bells in
the New York steeples, Tammany celebrated with song, shout, and speech
in her wigwam, and the bung was knocked out of the barrel of illiterate
oratory in the beer saloons. These ‘people of no importance’ had been
inarticulate, and they were moved to eloquence. They had found a cause
they believed their cause—the cause of the people against privilege.[746]
The enthusiasm swept over the country, and the scenes of riotous joy at Mr.
Grant’s fountain tavern in Baltimore[747] were imitated at Plymouth,
Princeton, Fredericksburg, Norfolk, Savannah, Charleston, Boston,
Philadelphia.
In Boston there was a salute of cannon at the castle, and a picturesque
procession moved, fluttering French and American flags, bearing a roasted

ox of a thousand weight for the barbecue and a hogshead of punch to wash
it down, while girls and women waved from the windows, boys shouted
from the roofs, and the frenzied throng roared approval to the eloquence of
Charles Jarvis, the Jeffersonian leader, and to the Revolutionary poem by
‘Citizen’ Joseph Croswell.[748] The cheers of Boston were echoed back
from Charleston, where the artillery boomed in the day, mingling its
thunder with the bells of Saint Michael’s. Only ‘the pen of a Burke could
describe the scene on State Street’ packed with exultant humanity, with men
looking down from the chimney-tops, while ‘bevies of amiable and
beautiful women’ blessed the marchers with their smiles from the balconies
of the houses.[749] On to Saint Philip’s tramped the crowd for religious
exercises, for these men were not anarchists or criminals, but decent
citizens, moved to the depths by the defeat of the persecutors of France.[750]
And observing the unprecedented enthusiasm from his quiet corner,
Thomas Jefferson rejoiced. At length the masses were politically awake,
and the enemies of democracy had their answer.

II

The issues precipitated by the French Revolution had everything to do
with American politics—inevitably so. There were sentimental reasons for
the popular enthusiasm for the nation that had served America with men
and money; and there were economic reasons for the opposition in the fact
that the great merchants operated on English credit. But the political
significance of the divisions soon to appear have been persistently written
down, where they should be written up.
With some exceptions the Hamiltonian leaders were hostile to the
purposes of the French Revolution from the beginning. Here was a rising of
the people with a claim to power, and the keynote of Federalist policies was
distrust of the people; here was defiance of ‘authority,’ and they were
sticklers for constituted authority; here was a challenging of privilege, and
they honestly believed in privilege; here was democracy, and they hated it.
They were against it, just as Burke was against it, because it was an
iconoclastic movement, a trampling on tradition. The death of the King, the
slaughtering by the guillotine, the stupidity and infamy of Genêt, the
intemperance of the American ‘Jacobin clubs,’ the defiance of Washington’s
proclamation—on these they were to seize to neutralize or destroy the

popularity of the Revolution, but it was the proclaimed principles of the
Revolution that they hated.
In the Senate, where the Hamiltonians were dominant, this was evident
from the beginning. As early as December, 1790, when the resolutions of
condolence adopted by the National Assembly on the death of Franklin
were submitted to the Senate, Adams, in reading the letter from the
President of that body which accompanied them, referred sarcastically to
the writer’s titles, apropos of the action of the Assembly in abolishing titles
of nobility.[751] A few weeks later Oliver Ellsworth and Rufus King, the
ablest Federalists in the Senate, openly denounced the French, and ridiculed
their claims upon American gratitude, and when Maclay made indignant
protest, Ellsworth, taking snuff, pretended not to hear, Adams talked
audibly with Otis the secretary, and other Senators gathered in groups to
talk aloud. As early as February, 1791, the Hamiltonians in the Senate were
in no mood to listen to a defense of France.[752] Even the concession of a
constitution by Louis XVI was resented by the senatorial fathers of the
Federalist persuasion. The more democratic House adopted a reply praising
‘the wisdom and magnanimity’ shown in its formation and acceptance, but
when it reached the Senate, George Cabot objected to the word
‘magnanimity,’ Ellsworth supported him, the Federalists voted accordingly,
and it was stricken out. ‘Too many Frenchmen, like too many Americans,
panting for equality of persons and property,’ grumbled Adams as early as
April, 1790.[753] ‘We differed in opinion on the French Revolution,’ wrote
Adams in retrospect to Jefferson many years later.[754] Adams and
Hamilton, King and Ellsworth, Cabot and Ames, Jay and Bingham, looked
with mingled cynicism and alarm upon the Revolution from the moment it
began to take on a popular character and to aim at the destruction of
privilege.
Jefferson was just as ardent in its support. He knew the miserable state to
which the feudalistic institutions of the Bourbons had reduced the masses of
the people. He had seen justice bought and sold in France on the auction
block, the operations of the hideous game laws that threw open the
peasants’ fields to the trampling of the horses of the aristocracy, the bestial
poverty of the poor, the insulting of their wives and the debauching of their
daughters, with justice open-eyed and leering. He knew the wantonness of
Versailles, the drunkenness of the King, the profligacy of the Queen, and he
had no illusions as to the dignity of the law or the righteousness of the

authority in France. He had sat at the table with some of the noblest minds
in that country planning the regeneration of a society that was rotten to the
core.
But, more important to him, he was persuaded that the fate of the
American experiment was bound up with the success of the French
Revolution. From this opinion he was never to deviate one hair’s breadth.
[755] In January, 1792, he had instructed the American Minister in Paris that,
if circumstances forced an expression as to the French Government, it
should be ‘in conformity with the sentiments of the great mass of our
countrymen, who, having first in modern times taken the ground of
government founded on the will of the people, cannot but be delighted at
seeing so distinguished ... a nation arrive on the same ground and plant their
standard by our side.’[756] A little later he reminded the American Minister
in London that ‘we certainly cannot deny to other nations that principle
whereon our government is founded, that every nation has a right to govern
itself internally under what forms it pleases, and to change these forms at its
own will.’[757]
Thus, Jefferson was in sympathy with the purposes of the French
Revolution, and the Hamiltonians were hostile. To Jefferson it meant
republicanism, democracy, the end of privilege—and he wished it well; to
the Hamiltonians it meant democracy—and they wished it ill. When the
despots of Europe combined to crush it and force a degenerate king and
court on the bowed backs of the people, Jefferson’s heart was with the
untrained boys rushing to the defense of the frontiers; the heart of the
Hamiltonians was with the combination of the kings. And because the
masses of the American people were in sympathy with the French, Jefferson
rode on the crest of the wave in the closing days of 1792.

III

With the execution of the King, the political enemies of the Revolution,
simulating shock, ventured into the open. Fenno eagerly seized upon the
more graphic stories of the execution in the London papers and published
them in full, and soon he was printing sympathetic poems on the event.[758]
But the friends of the Revolution were not easily moved to compassion, and
one of the theaters in Philadelphia revived the play ‘Cato’ to the noisy
acclaim of frenzied partisans. The actors appeared before the curtain to sing

‘La Marseillaise,’ and the audience rose to join lustily in the chorus. Night
after night this was repeated. The Pittsburgh ‘Gazette’ published a brutal
pæan under the caption, ‘Louis Capet has lost his Caput,’ and this was
copied throughout the country.[759] But these more savage bursts of glee did
not meet with general approval, for when the news of Louis’s fate reached
Providence the people ‘fell into an immediate state of dejection, and in the
evening all the bells of the churches tolled.’[760] Many put on mourning,
and ‘Cordelia’ announced her purpose to wear, in mourning for the
martyred King, a black rose near the left breast, and ‘entreated her dearly
beloved sisters ... to follow her example.’[761] For a time the reaction was so
pronounced as to threaten the popularity of the Revolution, and it seemed
that half the Nation had turned monarchists overnight.
The Democrats were infuriated to find that the reaction was not confined
to the fashionable houses, but extended to the people in the streets. Even
from New Bedford came the protest that ‘the advocates of monarchy’ and
‘crocodile humanity defenders’ were insisting that ‘the succors from France
... proceeded wholly from Louis,’ and that he had really wished Frenchmen
to be free.[762] A citizen of Charleston was disgusted to see how ‘the death
of one man’ could ‘so affect the generality of the people’ of his city. ‘They
burst forth in the most vehement invectives ... against the whole French
nation—forgetting the thousands that said king had directly or indirectly
been the cause of their death.’[763] An ‘Old Soldier’ in Philadelphia was
shocked to find that ‘beer houses, taverns and places of public resort are
filled with panegyrics upon the measures of the British administration, and
our good allies, the French, are branded with every felonious epithet.’[764]
And why all this fuss? Had not letters been received from one who had
witnessed the execution with the assurance that ‘everything was conducted
with the greatest decency,’ and had not the writer, traveling over France
‘found the people quiet and generally approving of the public
measures?’[765] Thus the debate raged in drinking-places, on the streets, in
the highways, in the counting—and drawing-rooms—the enemies of the
principles of the Revolution perking up and taking heart and seeming in the
ascendant for a few days.
Meanwhile what of the leaders?
The Federalists were delighted with the reaction. Jefferson observed that
the ladies of Philadelphia ‘of the first circle are open-mouthed against the
murder of a sovereign, and generally speak those sentiments which their

more cautious husbands smother.’ Tennant, the French Minister, at length
‘openly hoisted the flag of monarchy by going into deep mourning for his
prince,’ and discontinued his visits to Jefferson, who interpreted it as ‘a
necessary accompaniment to this pious duty.’ More significant to the keen-
eyed politician was the observation that ‘a connection between him and
Hamilton seems to be springing up.’[766] Without indecent manifestations of
pleasure over the King’s death, Jefferson found some satisfaction with the
tendency to render ‘monarchs amenable to punishment like any other
criminal.’[767] Madison was quite as unresponsive to pity. ‘If he was a
traitor he ought to be punished like any other man,’ he wrote Jefferson.[768]
If these clever politicians were not impressed with the cries of
commiseration, it was due to their appraisement of the noise. It was the first
plausible and safe opportunity for the enemies of French democracy to
denounce the movement they despised, and they made the most of it. Even
so, for a few days the Hamiltonians were riding the crest of the wave.
Then another sea change.

IV

George III had joined the Coalition of the Kings, and the familiar
redcoats were marching with the rest to crush the Revolution, and
democracy. Here was something the masses could understand—monarchy
against republicanism, autocracy and aristocracy against democracy, kings
against people. The plain man of ‘no particular importance’ looked about to
see the effect. Yes, the old Tories who had hobnobbed with the British
officers while the ragged Continentals walked barefoot through the snows
of Valley Forge were partisans of England—against France. The duty of the
patriot was clear—France against England. The cry was spontaneous with
the masses, and rent the heavens. Even then we owed a debt to Lafayette.
Poor imbecile Louis was forgotten, the guillotine faded from the view. ‘Ça
Ira!’ Even the children of Philadelphia had learned enough French to sing
‘La Marseillaise,’ and they sang it right lustily even before the windows of
the Binghams. Did we not have a treaty with France that we had been glad
to sign? Was not our own existence involved in the European struggle now?
The Republic of France crushed by the allied monarchs to-day—our turn to-
morrow.

And the partisans of England—who were they? The old American
Tories, the rich merchants operating on English capital, the crooked
speculators fawning on the money-lenders of Europe, the aristocrats kow-
towing to the roués of a degenerate nobility in the homes of the moneyed
aristocracy, the politicians who excluded the poor man from the polls.
The effect of the English declaration of war was magical. Again the old
‘rabble’ that precipitated the American Revolution poured into the streets,
swarmed into the saloons, formed into processions and marched. And why
not? England was still our enemy, impressing our seamen, retaining our
western posts in defiance of the treaty, playing havoc with our commerce.
Were the pioneers on the fringe of the western forests in daily danger of the
tomahawk? England was responsible—so most of the argument ran. Now
was the time to stand up and be counted—for the two republics or the
Coalition of the Kings. Thus the reasoning, and it caught on and flashed and
flamed like a conflagration sweeping the sun-parched grass of the plains.
To Hamilton this new burst of frenzied friendship for the French was
alarming. Washington was at Mount Vernon. His immediate presence in
Philadelphia was imperatively needed. He and he alone could stem the
rising tide. It was setting in heavily against the English. On April 8th,
Hamilton sat at his desk writing his chief a confirmation of the war between
England and France with the sly comment that ‘the whole current of
commercial intelligence ... indicates thus far an unexceptionable conduct on
the part of the English Government toward the vessels of the United States.’
This, he added, ‘is received here with very great satisfaction as favorable to
the continuance of peace ... which may be said to be both universal and
ardent.’
As his pen traveled over the paper the ‘rabble’ was shouting for war in
the streets, and Jefferson was expressing the hope that the English
interference with our vessels would ‘not force us into war.’ If he could only
have looked over his rival’s shoulder as he wrote!
Washington hastened back to Philadelphia.

V

He immediately gathered his Cabinet about him for a momentous
decision. Genêt, young, dashing, audacious, had arrived in Charleston and
would soon present his credentials as the Minister of the French Republic.

He might even refer to the treaty in which we had pledged ourselves to
guarantee the French possessions in the West Indies, and to throw open the
ports of America to the prizes of the privateers of our ally while closing
them to her enemies. It was a treaty we had been delighted to get, and now
it rose to plague us—but there it was. Worse still, the people in the streets
understood the nature of the pledge.
It was not Hamilton’s way to concede to Jefferson a primacy where
foreign relations were involved, and he had not been inactive while
awaiting the return of Washington. Jay and King had been consulted
particularly as to the receiving of Genêt. Neither could find any pretext for
refusing to receive him; both thought he should be received with
qualifications. Uppermost in the minds of all three was the treaty—the
necessity of evading its obligations.[769] Having decided on the policy of
Jefferson’s department, Hamilton took no chances, and prepared the list of
questions to be submitted to the Cabinet, which Washington copied in his
own handwriting, but Jefferson was not deceived as to the authorship.[770]
There were no illusions on Jefferson’s part as to his position that April day
in the room in the Morris house. There was Hamilton, eager, not a little
domineering, who had prepared Washington’s questions on which the
Secretary of State had not been consulted; and Knox, big, pudgy, a bit
flamboyant, complacent, and proud of his utter subserviency to Hamilton;
and Randolph, with a legalistic mind capable of refining away any position
he might take.
Should Genêt be received?
Yes, said Hamilton, with qualifications. Yes, said Jefferson,
unqualifiedly. Yes, with qualifications, said Knox, dutifully echoing
Hamilton, and, says Jefferson, ‘acknowledging at the same time, like the
fool he is, that he knew nothing about it.’[771] Randolph agreed with
Jefferson.
Let him be received, said Hamilton, with the distinct understanding that
we must reserve for future consideration the binding force of the treaties.
There was no proof that Louis had been guilty, and evidence that the
republicans in France had actually premeditated a plan to get rid of
monarchical power.[772] There was no proof that the execution was an act of
national justice, and all the courts in Europe held a different view.[773] In
truth, ‘almost all Europe ... seems likely to be armed ... with the intention of

restoring ... the royalty in the successor of the deceased monarch.’[774] If
our treaty obligations proved disadvantageous, we should have the right to
renounce them.[775] Respect the right of a nation to change its form of
government? Yes. Receive its ambassador? Yes. But to throw our weight
into the scale for the new republic might be lacking ‘in national delicacy
and decorum.’[776] As to our obligations under the treaty, there were none,
for France was waging an offensive war. The coalition of the monarchs to
crush the republic forced the war? Perhaps—but France made the first
formal declaration of hostilities.[777]
Jefferson approached the question from a diametrically opposite point of
view. ‘The reception of the Minister at all,’ he said, ‘is an acknowledgment
of the legitimacy of their government; and if the qualifications meditated
are to deny that legitimacy, it will be a curious compound which is to deny
and admit the same thing.’ The abrogation of the treaties? ‘I consider the
people who constitute a society as the source of all authority in that nation,’
he said: ‘as free to transact their common concerns by any agents they think
proper; to change these agents individually, or the organization of them in
form or function whenever they please; that all the acts done by these
agents under the authority of the nation, are obligatory to them and inure to
their use, and can in no wise be annulled or affected by any change in the
form of government.... Consequently the treaties between the United States
and France were not treaties between the United States and Louis Capet, but
between the two nations of America and France; and the nations remaining
in existence, though both of them have since changed their forms of
government, the treaties are not annulled by these changes.’[778] All the
Cabinet agreed to a proclamation forbidding Americans from participating
in the war, to the unqualified reception of Genêt while holding the treaties
in abeyance, and to the issuing of a proclamation.
With the appearance of the proclamation, the storm broke.

VI

This had seemed inevitable to Jefferson from the beginning.[779]
Madison, then in Virginia, wrote that the proclamation ‘wounds the national
honor by seeming to disregard the stipulated duties to France,’ and ‘wounds
the popular feeling by a seeming indifference to the cause of liberty.’[780]

The party issue was made. The Hamiltonians were sympathetic toward
monarchical France, hostile to revolutionary France, friendly to England;
the Jeffersonians were friendly to revolutionary France, hostile to the
Bourbons, and unfriendly to the policy of Pitt in England. The heart of the
Hamiltonians beat in tune to the martial steps of the Coalition of the Kings
marching on the French frontier; that of the Jeffersonians was with the
French peasants hurrying to defend their soil and revolution. And the
overwhelming sentiment of the Nation was with Jefferson.
Instantly the Democratic masses saw in the coming of Genêt the
opportunity for the manifestation of their feelings. There was much in the
personality, appearance, and background of this ardent diplomat of the
Gironde to explain the fervent enthusiasm with which he was received.
Washington had been warned in advance by Morris, the Minister to France,
that he was an ‘upstart’—not a bad estimate, as it turned out, but the
President had abundant proof that all the French republicans were upstarts.
[781] He was not an upstart, however, in that he did not belong in the great
world of high politics and society. For almost half a century his father had
been in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and his celebrated sister, Madame
Campan, had been one of the ladies of Marie Antoinette, of whom he had
been a prime favorite. A familiar figure among the fashionable young
dandies of Versailles, he had served for a while as the secretary of one of
the brothers of the monarch. An extraordinarily brilliant youth, he had
translated the ‘History of Eric XIV’ at the age of twelve, with historical
notes of his own. Entering the diplomatic service, with the blessings of the
Queen, he had served as attaché at the courts of Berlin, Vienna, London,
and St. Petersburg. He spoke several languages with the fluency of a native.
A romantic figure, this young man, handsome, elegant in manner, eloquent
and entertaining in conversation, gracious, friendly, impulsive, with the
virtues to neutralize the vices of his years.
If the reception he received in the aristocratic city of Charleston was
enough to turn his head, it was nothing to the continuous ovation accorded
him as he proceeded slowly on his month’s journey to Philadelphia.
Farmers flocked to the rough roads to cheer him and offer him produce at a
loss. In every town he was a conquering hero, and everywhere he was
greeted with the strains of ‘Ça Ira’ and orators paid tribute to France and the
principles of its Revolution. The ringing of bells, the shouting of the
multitude wearing liberty caps and waving French flags—such the sights