Part 48 (1/2)
7. Footnote: Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton's maiden name was Frances Ba.s.sett. She was the daughter of Colonel Ba.s.sett, an intimate friend of Was.h.i.+ngton.
8. Footnote: ”Administrations of Was.h.i.+ngton and Adams.”
9. Footnote: This event was announced to the President by the minister plenipotentiary of France, at Philadelphia, in February, 1793. Through the Secretary of State an answer was returned, of which the following is an extract:
”The President receives with great satisfaction this attention of the executive council, and the desire they have manifested of making known to us the resolution entered into by the National Convention, even before a definitive regulation of their new establishment could take place. Be a.s.sured, sir, that the government and the citizens of the United States view with the most sincere pleasure every advance of your nation towards its happiness, an object essentially connected with its liberty; and they consider the union of principles and pursuits between our two countries as a link which binds still closer their interests and affections.
”We earnestly wish, on our part, that these our mutual dispositions may be improved to mutual good, by establis.h.i.+ng our commercial intercourse on principles as friendly to natural right and freedom as are those of our governments.”
CHAPTER VI.
WAs.h.i.+NGTON INAUGURATES THE SYSTEM OF NEUTRALITY. 1793.
As the time approached for the expiration of Was.h.i.+ngton's first term of office as President of the United States, a great deal of anxiety was felt lest he should determine on a final retirement from public life. It was well known that he had originally accepted the office with extreme reluctance, that his attention to its duties had impaired his health, and that he was very desirous to pa.s.s the remainder of his life in retirement and repose. But at the same time it was felt that a crisis in public affairs was impending which imperatively demanded the whole force of his character and the whole influence of his popularity to sustain the government. Even at the period when the Federal government was first inaugurated, the call of his country to give it strength and permanence was not more urgent than that which now summoned him to save it from the rage of party spirit. Troubles and difficulties were also threatening the country from abroad as well as internal factions at home, and the true friends of the country felt that none but Was.h.i.+ngton was equal to the emergency. He received many letters urging his continuance in office. Three of these were from members of the cabinet--Jefferson, Hamilton, and Randolph.
Jefferson expressed himself as follows:
”When you first mentioned to me your purpose of retiring from the government, though I felt all the magnitude of the event, I was in a considerable degree silent. I knew that to such a mind as yours persuasion was idle and impertinent; that, before forming your decision, you had weighed all the reasons for and against the measure, had made up your mind on full view of them, and that there could be little hope of changing the result. Pursuing my reflections, too, I knew we were some day to try to walk alone, and if the essay should be made while you should be alive and looking on, we should derive confidence from that circ.u.mstance and resource if it failed. The public mind, too, was then calm and confident, and therefore in a favorable state for making the experiment. Had no change of circ.u.mstances supervened, I should not, with any hope of success, have now ventured to propose to you a change of purpose. But the public mind is no longer so confident and serene, and that from causes in which you are no ways personally mixed.
”The confidence of the whole Union is centered in you. Your being at the helm will be more than an answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead the people in any quarter into violence or secession.
North and South will hang together, if they have you to hang on; and if the first corrective of a numerous representation should fail in its effect, your presence will give time for trying others not inconsistent with the union and peace of the States.
”I am perfectly aware of the oppression under which your present office lays your mind, and of the ardor with which you pant for retirement to domestic life. But there is sometimes an eminence of character on which society have such peculiar claims, as to control the predilection of the individual for a particular walk of happiness and restrain him to that alone arising from the present and future benedictions of mankind. This seems to be your condition, and the law imposed on you by Providence in forming your character and fas.h.i.+oning the events on which it was to operate, and it is to motives like these and not to personal anxieties of mine or others, who have no right to call on you for sacrifices, that I appeal from your former determination, and urge a revisal of it, on the ground of change in the aspect of things. Should an honest majority result from the new and enlarged representation, should those acquiesce, whose principles or interests they may control, your wishes for retirement would be gratified with less danger, as soon as that shall be manifest, without awaiting the completion of the second period of four years. One or two sessions will determine the crisis, and I cannot but hope that you can resolve to add one or two more to the many years you have already sacrificed to the good of mankind.
”The fear of suspicion that any selfish motive of continuance in office may enter into this solicitation on my part obliges me to declare that no such motive exists. It is a thing of mere indifference to the public whether I retain or relinquish my purpose of closing my tour with the first periodical renovation of the government. I know my own measure too well to suppose that my services contribute anything to the public confidence or the public utility. Mult.i.tudes can fill the office in which you have been pleased to place me, as much to their advantage and satisfaction. I, therefore, have no motive to consult but my own inclination, which is bent irresistibly on the tranquil enjoyment of my family, my farm, and my books. I should repose among them, it is true, in far greater security, if I were to know that you remained at the watch, and I hope it will be so. To the inducements urged from a view of our domestic affairs I will add a bare mention of what indeed need only be mentioned, that weighty motives for your continuance are to be found in our foreign affairs. I think it probable that both the Spanish and English negotiations, if not completed before your purpose is known, will be suspended from the moment it is known, and that the latter nation will then use double diligence in fomenting the Indian war.
”With my wishes for the future I shall, at the same time, express my grat.i.tude of the past, at least my portion of it, and beg permission to follow you, whether in public or private life, with those sentiments of sincere attachment and respect with which I am unalterably, dear sir, your affectionate friend and humble servant.”
Extract from Hamilton's letter:
”I received the most sincere pleasure at finding, in our last conversation, that there was some relaxation in the disposition you had before discovered to decline a re-election. Since your departure I have lost no opportunity of sounding the opinions of persons whose opinions were worth knowing on these two points: First, the effect of your declining upon the public affairs, and upon your own reputation; secondly, the effect of your continuing in reference to the declarations you have made of your disinclination to public life. And I can truly say that I have not found the least difference of sentiment on either point.
The impression is uniform, that your declining would be to be deplored as the greatest evil that could befall the country at the present juncture, and as critically hazardous to your own reputation; that your continuance will be justified in the mind of every friend to his country by the evident necessity for it.
”It is clear, says everyone with whom I have conversed, that the affairs of the national government are not yet firmly established; that its enemies, generally speaking, are as inveterate as ever; that their enmity has been sharpened by its success, and by all the resentments which flow from disappointed predictions and mortified vanity; that a general and strenuous effort is making in every State to place the administration of it in the hands of its enemies, as if they were its safest guardians; that the period of the next House of Representatives is likely to prove the crisis of its permanent character; that, if you continue in office, nothing materially mischievous is to be apprehended, if you quit much is to be dreaded; that the same motives which induced you to accept originally ought to decide you to continue till matters have a.s.sumed a more determinate aspect; that indeed it would have been better, as it regards your own character, that you had never consented to come forward than now to leave the business unfinished and in danger of being undone; that, in the event of storms arising, there would be an imputation either of want of foresight or want of firmness, and, in fine, that on public and personal accounts, on patriotic and prudential considerations, the clear path to be pursued by you will be again to obey the voice of your country, which it is not doubted will be as earnest and as unanimous as ever.
”I trust, sir, and I pray G.o.d, that you will determine to make a further sacrifice of your tranquility and happiness to the public good. I trust that it need not continue above a year or two more. And I think that it will be more eligible to retire from office before the expiration of the term of election than to decline a re-election.
”The sentiments I have delivered upon this occasion I can truly say proceed exclusively from an anxious concern for the public welfare and an affectionate personal attachment. These dispositions must continue to govern, in every vicissitude, one who has the honor to be very truly and respectfully, sir, yours, etc.”
Randolph wrote as follows:
”I have persuaded myself that this letter, though unconnected with any official relation, and upon a subject to the decision of which you alone are competent, will be received in the spirit with which it is written. The Union, for the sake of which I have encountered various embarra.s.sments, not wholly unknown to you, and sacrificed some opinions, which, but for its jeopardy, I should never have surrendered, seems to me to be, now, at the eve of a crisis. It is feared by those who take a serious interest in the affairs of the United States that you will refuse the chair of government at the approaching election. If such an event must happen indulge me, at least, in the liberty of opening to you a course of thought, which a calm attention to the Federal government has suggested, and no bias of party has influenced.
”It cannot have escaped you that divisions are formed in our politics as systematic as those which prevail in Great Britain. Such as opposed the const.i.tution, from a hatred to the Union, can never be conciliated by any overture or atonement. By others it is meditated to push the construction of Federal powers to every tenable extreme. A third cla.s.s, republican in principle, and, thus far, in my judgment, happy in their discernment of our welfare, have, notwithstanding, mingled with their doctrines a fatal error--that the State a.s.semblies are to be resorted to as the engines of correction to the Federal administration. The honors belonging to the chief magistracy are objects of no common solicitude to a few, who compose a fourth denomination.
”The fuel which has been already gathered for combustion wants no addition. But how awfully might it be increased were the violence, which is now suspended by a universal submission to your pretensions, let loose by your resignation! Permit me, then, in the fervor of a dutiful and affectionate attachment to you, to beseech you to penetrate the consequences of a dereliction of the reins. The const.i.tution would never have been adopted, but from a knowledge that you had once sanctioned it, and an expectation that you would execute it. It is in a state of probation. The most inauspicious struggles are past, but the public deliberations need stability. You alone can give them stability. You suffered yourself to yield when the voice of your country summoned you to the administration. Should a civil war arise you cannot stay at home. And now much easier will it be to disperse the factions which are rus.h.i.+ng to this catastrophe than to subdue them after they shall appear in arms? It is the fixed opinion of the world that you surrender nothing incomplete.
”I am not unapprised of many disagreeable sensations which have labored in your breast. But, let them spring from any cause whatsoever, of one thing I think I am sure (and I speak this from a satisfactory inquiry lately made), that, if a second opportunity shall be given to the people of showing their grat.i.tude, they will not be less unanimous than before.”
Was.h.i.+ngton's own views we learn from the following letter in answer to Randolph: