Washington and the American Republic Part 18

Up to this time, the opposition had not ventured to show any disrespect to Washington. He had wisely avoided a.s.suming in any degree the character of a leader of a party, and had labored with conscientious zeal for the public good, without the least regard to private friendships, or with feelings of enmity toward personal friends who had deserted his administration. Madison was now a leader of the opposition, yet Washington esteemed him none the less, because he believed him to be honest and patriotic.

But now, party rancor was gradually usurping the place of that veneration which every man felt for the character of Washington; and that jealousy of everything aristocratic in fact or appearance which was at that moment inaugurating a republic in France, with a baptism of blood, hesitated not to show personal disrespect to the president. The people in different parts of the Union, with spontaneous affection, prepared to celebrate the birthday of Washington on the twenty-second of February, 1793, with b.a.l.l.s, parties, visits of congratulation, etc. Many members of Congress were desirous of waiting upon the president, in testimony of their respect for the chief magistrate of the republic, and a motion was made to adjourn for half an hour for that purpose, when quite an acrimonious debate ensued. The opposition, with real or feigned alarm, denounced the proposition as a species of homage unworthy of republicans; a tendency to monarchy; the setting up of an idol for hero-worship, dangerous to the liberties of the nation! Freneau's paper condemned the birthday celebration; and in view of the great dangers to which the republic was exposed by the monarchical bias of many leading men, a New Jersey member of the republican party in the house moved that the mace carried by the marshall on state occasions--"an unmeaning symbol, unworthy the dignity of a republican government"--be sent to the mint, broken up, and the silver coined and placed in the treasury. The peculiar state of public feeling at that time, irritated by prophets of evil, affords a reasonable excuse for these jealousies.

Washington was not unmindful of these signs, and the necessity of paying due respect even to the prejudices of the people; and as the time for his second inauguration was drawing near, he asked the opinions of his cabinet concerning the forms to be used on that occasion. Jefferson and Hamilton proposed that he should take the oath of office privately at his own house, a certificate of the fact to be deposited in the state department. Knox and Randolph proposed to have the ceremony in public, but without any ostentatious display. Washington's opinion coincided with the latter; and at a cabinet meeting held on the first of March, Mr. Jefferson being the only absentee, it was agreed that the oath should be administered by Judge Cushing, of the supreme court of the United States, in public, in the senate chamber, on the fourth of the month, at twelve o'clock at noon, and that the "president go without form, attended by such gentlemen as he shall choose, and return without form except that he be preceded by the marshall."

Accordingly, a little before twelve o'clock, the president rode from his residence to the Congress hall in his cream-colored coach drawn by six horses, preceded by the marshall, as proposed, and accompanied by a great concourse of citizens, and took the oath in the senate chamber.

The heads of departments, foreign ministers, members of Congress, and as many spectators as could find room in the apartment, were present.

Previous to the administration of the oath by Judge Cushing, Washington arose and said:--

"Fellow-citizens: I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its chief magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of the United States of America. Previous to the execution of any official act of the president, the const.i.tution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence; that if it shall be found, during my administration of the government, I have in any instance violated, willingly or knowingly, the injunction thereof, I may, besides incurring const.i.tutional punishment, be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony."

The oath was then administered, and the president returned to his residence as he came.[42]

It was with sincere reluctance that Washington entered upon the duties of the office of chief magistrate of the nation for a second term. "To you," he said in a letter to Colonel Humphreys (then abroad) soon after his inauguration--"To you, who know my love of retirement and domestic life, it is unnecessary to say, that in accepting this reappointment I relinquish those personal enjoyments to which I am peculiarly attached.

The motives which induced my acceptance are the same which ever ruled my decision when the public desire--or, as my countrymen are pleased to denominate it, the _public good_--was placed in the scale against my personal enjoyments and private interest. The latter I have ever considered as subservient to the former; and perhaps in no instance of my life have I been more sensible of the sacrifice than at the present; for at my age the love of retirement grows every day more and more powerful, and the death of my nephew will, I apprehend, cause my private concerns to suffer very much."[43]

On account of this death, Washington made a hurried visit to Mount Vernon in April, and while there the important intelligence reached him that France had declared war against England and Holland, an event which prophesied a general European war. Almost simultaneously with this intelligence came that of the execution of King Louis, by order of the National Convention of France. The king, who had been a mere shuttle-c.o.c.k of faction for two years, was beheaded on the twenty-first of January, with circ.u.mstances of brutality which make humanity shudder.

His death had been long predestinated by the ferocious men who ruled France, and, to accomplish it with a semblance of justice, he had been accused of crimes of which he was utterly innocent. Even at the last moment, when standing before the implement of death, he was made to feel the brutality of men in power. He looked complacently upon the vast mult.i.tude who came to see him die, and was about to say a few words, when the officer in charge, with ferocious emphasis, said, "_No speeches! come, no speeches!_" and ordered the drums to be beaten and the trumpets to be sounded. Louis was heard to say, "I forgive my enemies; may G.o.d forgive them, and not lay my innocent blood to the charge of the nation! G.o.d bless my people!" Thus perished a monarch, patriotic and amiable, but too weak in intellectual and moral power to control the terrible storm of popular vengeance which a long series of abuses had engendered.

For many months Washington had watched with great anxiety the manifestations of public feeling in the United States while the b.l.o.o.d.y work of the French Revolution was progressing. He saw with alarm the spirit of that Revolution, so widely different from that which had shaken off the fetters of kingly rule in America, working insidiously into the const.i.tution of the politics of the United States, and pa.s.sion a.s.suming the control of reason in the minds of his people. This was specially manifested by an outburst of popular feeling when the proclamation of the French republic reached America, and news that French arms had made a conquest of the Austrian Netherlands. Forgetting the friendship of Holland during our war for independence, and the spirit of genuine liberty (of which that, flaunting its b.l.o.o.d.y banners in France, was but a ferocious caricature) which had prevailed in the Netherlands and made it the asylum of the persecuted for conscience'

sake for centuries, the people of Boston and other places held a celebration in honor of the temporary victory. In the New England capital there was a grand barbecue. An ox was roasted whole, and then, decorated and elevated upon a car drawn by sixteen horses, the flags of France and the United States displayed from its horns, it was paraded through the streets, followed by carts bearing sixteen hundred loaves of bread and two hogsheads of punch. These were distributed among the people; and at the same time a party of three hundred, with Samuel Adams (lieutenant-governor of Ma.s.sachusetts) at their head, a.s.sisted by the French consul, sat down to dinner in Faneuil hall. To the children of all the schools, who were paraded in the streets, cakes were presented bearing the inscription, "_Liberty and Equality_." By public subscription, the sums owed by prisoners for debt, in jail, were paid, and the victims were set free. There was a general jubilee in Boston on that barbecue day.

With a similar spirit the news of the death of the king was hailed by the leaders of the republican party in the United States; and when intelligence of the French declaration of war against England went over the land, a fervor of enthusiasm in favor of the old ally was awakened which called loudly for compliance with the spirit and letter of the treaty of 1778, by which the United States and France became allies in peace and war. By that treaty the United States were bound to guarantee the French possessions in America; and by a treaty of commerce executed at the same time, French privateers and prizes were ent.i.tled to shelter in the American ports, while those of the enemies of France should be excluded.

There was now a wide-spreading sentiment in favor of an active partic.i.p.ation with France, on the part of the United States, in her struggles against armed Europe; and many, in the wild enthusiasm of the moment, would not have hesitated an instant in precipitating our country into a war. Indeed, for a while, the universal sentiment was a cheer for republican France, whose Convention had declared, in the name of the French nation, that they would grant fraternity and a.s.sistance to every people who wished to recover their liberty; and they charged the executive power to send the necessary orders to the generals "to give a.s.sistance to such people, and to defend those citizens who may have been, or who may be, vexed for the cause of liberty."

Filled with the spirit of this declaration, and charged with the performance of political functions seldom exercised by _diplomats_, Edmund Charles Genet--"Citizen Genet," as he was termed in the new nomenclature of the French republic--came to America at this time, as the representative of that republic, to supersede the more conservative M. Ternant. Genet was a man of culture, spoke the English language fluently, possessed a pleasing address, was lively, frank, and unguarded, and as fiery as the most intense Jacobins could wish. He arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, on the eighth of April, five days after the news of the French declaration of war reached New York. His presence intensified the enthusiasm with which the country was then glowing; and for a moment, until sober reason a.s.sumed the sceptre, all opposition to the revolutionary sentiment was swept away by the tide of popular zeal for a cause that seemed identical with that which secured independence to the United States. "Is it wonderful," says the latest biographer of Jefferson, "that American popular sympathy swelled to a pitch of wild enthusiasm, when an emissary came from the new republic, surrounded with its prestige; proclaiming wild, stirring doctrines; declaring the unbounded affection of his country for the United States; scorning the arts of old diplomacy, and mixing freely with the democratic ma.s.ses; not declining to talk of the important objects of his mission in promiscuous a.s.semblies of plain working men; and exhibiting in his deportment that practical democracy, that fraternity, which men in his position, of English blood, never exhibit?"[44]

These events excited the deepest anxiety in the mind of Washington. He had no confidence whatever in the men at the head of public affairs in France--the self-const.i.tuted government of that unhappy nation. "Those in whose hands the government is intrusted," he said in a letter to Governor Lee, "are ready to tear each other to pieces, and will, more than probably, prove the worst foes the country has." He deeply deplored the wild enthusiasm which was threatening to involve his country in the European war then kindling. "Unwise would we be in the extreme," he wrote to Gouverneur Morris a month before, "to involve ourselves in the contests of European nations, where our weight would be but small, though the loss to ourselves would be certain." With such views Washington hastened back to Philadelphia; for he foresaw the necessity for announcing the disposition of his country toward the belligerent powers, and the propriety of restraining as far as possible his fellow-citizens from taking part in the contest. He immediately despatched an express to Philadelphia with the following letter to Mr.

Jefferson, the secretary of state:--

"Your letter of the seventh was brought to me by the last post. War having actually commenced between France and Great Britain, it behooves the government of this country to use every means in its power to prevent the citizens thereof from embroiling us with either of those powers, by endeavoring to maintain a strict neutrality. I therefore require that you will give the subject mature consideration, that such measures as shall be deemed most likely to effect this desirable purpose may be adopted without delay; for I have understood that vessels are already designated as privateers and are preparing accordingly. Such other measures as may be necessary for us to pursue, against events which it may not be in our power to avoid or control, you will also think of, and lay them before me on my arrival in Philadelphia, for which place I will set out to-morrow."

Washington reached Philadelphia on the seventeenth, and on the nineteenth held a cabinet council, having on the previous day submitted to each member of his cabinet the following questions for their consideration:--

"I. Shall a proclamation issue for the purpose of preventing interferences of the citizens of the United States in the war between France and Great Britain, etc.? Shall it contain a declaration of neutrality, or not? What shall it contain?

"II. Shall a minister from the republic of France be received?

"III. If received, shall it be absolutely without qualifications; and if with qualifications, of what kind?

"IV. Are the United States obliged by good faith to consider the treaties heretofore made with France as applying to the present situation of the parties? May they either renounce them, or hold them suspended till the government of France shall be _established_?

"V. If they have the right, is it expedient to do either, and which?

"VI. If they have an option, would it be a breach of neutrality to consider the treaties still in operation?

"VII. If the treaties are to be considered as now in operation, is the guaranty in the treaty of alliance applicable to a defensive war only, or to war either offensive or defensive?

"VIII. Does the war in which France is engaged appear to be offensive or defensive on her part? or of a mixed and equivocal character?

"IX. If of a mixed and equivocal character, does the guaranty, in any event, apply to such a war?

"X. What is the effect of a guaranty such as that to be found in the treaty of alliance between the United States and France?

"XI. Does any article in either of the treaties prevent ships of war, other than privateers, of the powers opposed to France, from coming into the ports of the United States to act as convoys to their own merchantmen? Or does it lay any other restraint upon them more than would apply to the ships of war with France?

"XII. Should the future regent of France send a minister to the United States, ought he to be received?

"XIII. Is it necessary or advisable to call together the two houses of Congress, with a view to the present posture of European affairs? If it is, what should be the _particular_ object of such a call?"[45]

The cabinet meeting to consider these questions was held at the president's house. All the heads of departments and the attorney-general were present; and after a protracted discussion, it was unanimously determined that a proclamation should issue forbidding citizens of the United States to take part in any hostilities on the seas, with or against any of the belligerent powers, and warning them against carrying to any such powers any of those articles deemed contraband according to the modern usage of nations; and enjoining them from all acts and proceedings inconsistent with the duties of a friendly nation toward those at war. It was also unanimously agreed that a minister from the republic of France should be received. The remaining questions were postponed for further consideration.

In the excited state of the public mind, and the proclivity of the popular feeling toward sympathy with France, Washington's proclamation met with the severest censures. Neither his unbounded popularity nor the reverence for his character, as a wise, and honest, and patriotic man, were proof against the operations of that feeling; and the proclamation was a.s.sailed with the greatest vehemence. Every epithet in the vocabulary of the opposition party was applied to it. It was stigmatized as a royal edict, an unwarrantable and daring a.s.sumption of executive power, and an open manifestation, of the president and his political friends, of partiality for England and hostility to France. And it seems fair to infer, from his letters at that time, that Mr. Jefferson, who reluctantly voted in the cabinet for the proclamation, governed by his almost fanatical hatred of Hamilton and his sympathy with the French regicides, secretly promoted a feeling so hostile to the administration.

The wisdom of the proclamation,[46] and the position of neutrality which the government of the United States a.s.sumed at that time, was soon apparent, and has been fully vindicated by the logic of subsequent events.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] Hildreth's History of the United States, Second Series, i, 405.

[42] An eye-witness of the scene when Washington read his annual message to Congress has left a pleasant account of it on record. "As the president alighted, and, ascending the steps, paused upon the platform, looking over his shoulder, in an att.i.tude that would have furnished an admirable subject for the pencil, he was preceded by two gentlemen bearing long white wands, who kept back the eager crowd that pressed on every side to get a nearer view. At that moment I stood so near that I might have touched his clothes; but I should as soon have thought of touching an electric battery. I was penetrated with a veneration amounting to the deepest awe. Nor was this the feeling of a schoolboy only; it pervaded, I believe, every human being that approached Washington; and I have been told that, even in his social and convivial hours, this feeling, in those who were honored to share them, never suffered intermission. I saw him a hundred times afterward, but never with any other than that same feeling. The Almighty, who raised up for our hour of need a man so peculiarly prepared for its whole dread responsibility, seems to have put an impress of sacredness upon His own instrument. The first sight of the man struck the heart with involuntary homage, and prepared everything around him to obey. When he 'addressed himself to speak,' there was an unconscious suspension of the breath, while every eye was raised in expectation.

"The president, having seated himself, remained in silence, serenely contemplating the legislature before him, whose members now resumed their seats, waiting for the speech. No house of worship, in the most solemn pauses of devotion, was ever more profoundly still than that large and crowded chamber.

"Washington was dressed precisely as Stuart has painted him in Lord Lansdowne's full-length portrait--in a full suit of the richest black velvet, with diamond knee-buckles, and square silver buckles set upon shoes j.a.panned with the most scrupulous neatness, black silk stockings, his shirt ruffled at the breast and wrists, a light dress-sword; his hair profusely powdered, fully dressed, so as to project at the sides, and gathered behind in a silk bag, ornamented with a large rose of black riband. He held his c.o.c.ked hat, which had a large black c.o.c.kade on one side of it, in his hand, as he advanced toward the chair, and when seated, laid it on the table.

"At length, thrusting his hand within the side of his coat, he drew forth a roll of ma.n.u.script, which he opened, and rising held it in his hand, while, in a rich, deep, full, sonorous voice, he read his opening address to Congress. His enunciation was deliberate, justly emphasized, very distinct, and accompanied with an air of deep solemnity, as being the utterance of a mind profoundly impressed with the dignity of the act in which it was occupied, conscious of the whole responsibility of its position and action, but not oppressed by it."

[43] This was George A. Washington, to whom had been intrusted the management of affairs at Mount Vernon during the master's absence at the seat of government. He was seized with alarming symptoms of pulmonary disease early in 1792. He was greatly beloved by Washington, and his sickness gave the president much pain, and was a frequent topic in letters to his friends. To Lafayette he wrote as early as June, 1792:--

"I am afraid my nephew George, your old aid, will never have his health perfectly re-established. He has lately been attacked with the alarming symptoms of spitting large quant.i.ties of blood, and the physicians give no hopes of restoration, unless it can be effected by a change of air and a total dereliction from business, to which he is too anxiously attentive. He will, if he should be taken from his family and friends, leave three fine children, two sons and a daughter. To the eldest of the boys he has given the name of Fayette, and a fine-looking child he is."

To General Knox he wrote:--

"I thank you most sincerely for the medicine you were so obliging as to send for my nephew, and for the sympathetic feeling you express for his situation. Poor fellow! neither, I believe, will be of any avail. Present appearances indicate a speedy dissolution. He has not been able to leave his bed, except for a few moments to sit in an arm-chair, since the fourteenth or fifteenth of last month.

The paroxysm of the disorder seems to be upon him, and death, or a favorable turn to it, must speedily follow."

The sufferer was then residing upon a small estate in Hanover. He lingered for several weeks, and then expired; and on the twenty-fourth of February Washington wrote to his widow:--

"MY DEAR f.a.n.n.y: To you, who so well knew the affectionate regard I had for our departed friend, it is unnecessary to describe the sorrow with which I was afflicted at the news of his death, although it was an event I had expected many weeks before it happened. To express this sorrow with the force I feel it, would answer no other purpose than to revive in your breast that poignancy of anguish, which by this time I hope is abated. The object of this letter is to convey to your mind the warmest a.s.surance of my love, friendship, and disposition to serve you.

These I also profess to bear in an eminent degree for your children."

He then invites her to make Mount Vernon the home of herself and children. "You can go to no place," he said, "where you will be more welcome, nor to any where you can live at less expense or trouble."

The young widow appears to have declined the offer of a home at Mount Vernon, preferring to keep house in Alexandria, but offering to resign the charge of her eldest son, Fayette, into Washington's keeping. In March the president wrote to her, saying:--

"The carriage which I sent to Mount Vernon for your use I never intended to reclaim; and now, making you a formal present of it, it may be sent for whenever it suits your convenience and be considered as your own. I shall, when I see you, request that Fayette may be given up to me, either at that time or as soon after as he is old enough to go to school. This will relieve you of that portion of attention which his education would otherwise call for."--_Mount Vernon and its a.s.sociations_, pages 264, 265.