Life and Times of Washington Part 46

Learning from the porter that the President was at dinner, he said he was on public business and had dispatches for the President. A servant was sent into the dining-room to give the information to Mr. Lear, who left the table and went into the hall, where the officer repeated what he had said. Mr. Lear replied that, as the President's secretary, he would take charge of the dispatches and deliver them at the proper time.

The officer made answer that he had just arrived from the western army, and his orders were to deliver them with all prompt.i.tude, and to the President in person, but that he would wait his directions. Mr. Lear returned and in a whisper imparted to the President what had pa.s.sed.

General Was.h.i.+ngton rose from the table and went to the officer. He was back in a short time, made a word of apology for his absence, but no allusion to the cause of it. He had company that day. Everything went on as usual. Dinner over, the gentlemen pa.s.sed to the drawing-room of Mrs.

Was.h.i.+ngton, which was open in the evening. The general spoke courteously to every lady in the room, as was his custom. His hours were early, and by 10 o'clock all the company had gone. Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton and Mr. Lear remained. Soon Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton left the room.

"The general now walked backward and forward slowly for some minutes without speaking. Then he sat down on a sofa by the fire, telling Mr.

Lear to sit down. To this moment there had been no change in his manner since his interruption at table. Mr. Lear now perceived emotion. This rising in him, he broke out suddenly: 'It's all over! St. Clair's defeated--routed--the officers nearly all killed--the men by wholesale--the rout complete--too shocking to think of--and a surprise into the bargain!'

"He uttered all this with great vehemence. Then he paused, got up from the sofa, and walked about the room several times, agitated but saying nothing. Near the door he stopped short and stood still a few seconds, when his wrath became terrible.

"'Yes,' he burst forth, 'here on this very spot I took leave of him; I wished him success and honor. You have your instructions, I said, from the Secretary of War; I had a strict eye to them, and will add but one word--beware of a surprise! I repeat it--beware of a surprise! You know how the Indians fight us. He went off with that as my last solemn warning thrown into his ears. And yet! to suffer that army to be cut to pieces--hacked, butchered, tomahawked--by a surprise--the very thing I guarded him against! O G.o.d, O G.o.d, he's worse than a murderer! How can he answer it to his country! The blood of the slain is upon him--the curse of widows and orphans--the curse of Heaven!'

"This torrent came out in tones appalling. His very frame shook. It was awful said Mr. Lear. More than once he threw his hands up as he hurled imprecations upon St. Clair. Mr. Lear remained speechless--awed into breathless silence.

"The roused chief sat down on the sofa once more. He seemed conscious of his pa.s.sion and uncomfortable. He was silent. His warmth beginning to subside, he at length said in an altered voice: 'This must not go beyond this room.' Another pause followed--a longer one--when he said in a tone quite low: 'General St. Clair shall have justice. I looked hastily through the dispatches, saw the whole disaster, but not all the particulars. I will receive him without displeasure; I will hear him without prejudice. He shall have full justice.'

"He was now, said Mr. Lear, perfectly calm. Half an hour had gone by.

The storm was over, and no sign of it was afterward seen in his conduct or heard in his conversation. The result is known. The whole case was investigated by Congress. St. Clair was exculpated and regained the confidence Was.h.i.+ngton had in him when appointing him to that command.

He had put himself into the thickest of the fight, and escaped unhurt, though so ill as to be carried on a litter, and unable to mount his horse without help."

This anecdote might, at first, seem discreditable to Was.h.i.+ngton, as exhibiting the mighty strength of his pa.s.sions when aroused. But upon mature consideration it does him great honor, affording equal evidence of his power of self-control, his public spirit, his disinterestedness, and his candor.

The Indian war now a.s.sumed a still more serious aspect. There was reason to fear that the hostile tribes would derive a great accession of strength from the impression which their success would make upon their neighbors; and the reputation of the government was deeply concerned in retrieving the fortune of its arms, and affording protection to its citizens. The President, therefore, lost no time in causing the estimates for a competent force to be prepared and laid before Congress.

In conformity with a report made by the Secretary of War, a bill was brought into the House of Representatives, directing three additional regiments of infantry and a squadron of cavalry to be raised, to serve for three years, if not sooner discharged. The whole military establishment, if completed, would amount to about 5,000 men. The additional regiments, however, were to be disbanded as soon as peace should be concluded with the Indians; and the President was authorized to discharge, or to forbear to raise any part of them, "in case events should, in his judgment, render his so doing consistent with the public safety."

This bill met with great opposition. A motion was made to strike out the section which authorized an augmentation of force. This led to a very animated debate, in which the opposition exhibited a determination to embarra.s.s the administration by defeating even the most necessary and useful measures it might propose. The public spirit and good sense of the majority, however, prevailed. The motion for striking out the section was lost, and the bill was carried for the augmentation of force required by the executive.

The treasury was not in a condition to meet the demands upon it, which the increased expenses of the war would unavoidably occasion, and sources of additional revenue were to be explored. A select committee, to whom this subject was referred, brought in a resolution directing Mr.

Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, to report his opinion to the House, on the best mode of raising those additional supplies which the public service might require for the current year.

This proposition gave rise to a very animated debate.

It will be recollected that when the act for establis.h.i.+ng the Treasury Department was under consideration, the clause which rendered it the duty of the secretary to digest and report plans for the improvement and management of the revenue, and for the support of public credit, was earnestly opposed. A large majority, however, was in favor of the principle, and, after being so modified as only to admit a report if required by the House, it was retained in the bill.

In complying with the various resolutions of Congress, calling for reports on subjects connected with his department, Hamilton had submitted plans which, having been profoundly considered, were well digested, and accompanied by arguments, the force of which it was difficult to resist. His measures were generally supported by a majority of Congress; and, while the high credit of the United States was believed to attest their wisdom, the masterly manner in which his reports were drawn, contributed to raise still higher that reputation for great talents which he had long possessed. To the further admission of these reports, it was determined, on this occasion, to make a vigorous resistance.

But the opposition was not successful. On taking the question the resolution was carried, thirty-one members voting in its favor, and twenty-seven against it.

The report made by Hamilton, in pursuance of this resolution, recommended certain augmentations of the duties on imports, and was immediately referred to the consideration of a committee of the whole House. Resolutions were then pa.s.sed which were to form the basis of a bill; and which adopted, not only the principles, but, with the exception of a few unimportant alterations, the minute details of the report.

Before the question was taken on the bill a motion was made to limit its duration, the vote upon which marked the progress of opinion in the House respecting those systems of finance which were believed to have established the credit of the United States.

Hamilton had deemed it indispensable to the creation of public credit that the appropriations of funds for the payment of the interest, and the gradual redemption of the princ.i.p.al of the national debt, should be not only sufficient, but permanent also. A party was found in the first Congress who opposed this principle, and were in favor of retaining a full power over the subject in each branch of the Legislature, by making annual appropriations. The arguments which had failed in Congress appear to have been more successfully employed with the people. Among the multiplied vices which were ascribed to the funding system, it was charged with introducing a permanent and extensive mortgage of funds, which was alleged to strengthen unduly the hands of the executive magistrate, and to be one of the many evidences which existed of monarchical propensities in those who administered the government.

The report lately made by Hamilton, and the bill founded on that report, contemplated a permanent increase of the duties on certain specified articles, and a permanent appropriation of the revenue arising from them to the purposes of the national debt. Thirty-one members were in favor of the motion for limiting the duration of the bill, and only thirty against it. By the rules of the House, the speaker has a right first to vote as a member, and, if the numbers should then be equally divided, to decide as speaker. Being opposed to the limitation, the motion was lost by his voice, and Hamilton's measure was carried through in its original form.

On the 8th of May (1792), after an active and interesting session, Congress adjourned to the first Monday in November.

Among the bills pa.s.sed at this session of Congress the most important were that for the apportionment of the representatives, and that for the augmentation of the military force, inasmuch as the discussion of these measures served to develop the political parties which had begun to divide Congress and the people. In apportioning the representatives many members of Congress endeavored to obtain the largest possible number, in order to preserve the rights of the States and check the power of the executive. On the same principles the army bill was opposed, as having a tendency to increase executive power and patronage, and thus endanger the liberties of the country.

Throughout the United States the party opposed to the const.i.tution had charged its supporters with a desire to establish a monarchy on the ruins of Republican government; and the const.i.tution itself was alleged to contain principles which would prove the truth of this charge. The leaders of that party had, therefore, been ready, from the instant the government came into operation, to discover, in all its measures, those monarchical tendencies which they had perceived in the instrument they opposed.

The salaries allowed to public officers, though so low as not to afford a decent maintenance to those who resided at the seat of government, were declared to be so enormously high, as clearly to manifest a total disregard of that simplicity and economy which were the characteristics of republics. [6]

The levees of the President, and the evening parties of Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton, were said to be imitations of regal inst.i.tutions, designed to accustom the American people to the pomp and manners of European courts. The Vice-President, too, was said to keep up the state and dignity of a monarch, and to ill.u.s.trate, by his conduct, the principles which were inculcated in his political works.

The Indian war, they alleged, was misconducted, and unnecessarily prolonged, for the purposes of expending the public money, and of affording a pretext for augmenting the military establishment, and increasing the revenue.

All this prodigal waste of the money of the people was designed to keep up the national debt, and the influence it gave the government; which, united with standing armies and immense revenues, would enable their rulers to rivet the chains which they were secretly forging. Every prediction which had been uttered respecting the anti-Republican principles of the government, was said to be rapidly verifying, and that which was disbelieved as prophecy, was daily becoming history. If a remedy for these ills was not found in the increased representation of the people which would take place at the ensuing elections, they would become too monstrous to be borne; and when it was recollected that the division of opinion was marked by a geographical line, there was reason to fear that the Union would be broken into one or more confederacies.

These irritable symptoms had a.s.sumed appearances of increased malignity during the session of Congress which had just terminated; and, to Was.h.i.+ngton, who firmly believed that the Union and the liberty of the States depended on the preservation of the government, they were the more unpleasant and the more alarming because they were displayed in full force in his cabinet.

The feud between Jefferson and Hamilton, to which we have already referred, still continued in full force, and they were regarded, as in fact they were, respectively, the heads of the two parties. They disagreed not only on the internal affairs but on the foreign policy of the government: Jefferson having a leaning towards the Revolutionists of France, and Hamilton favoring a conciliatory policy toward Great Britain.

In all popular governments the press is the most ready channel by which the opinions and the pa.s.sions of the few are communicated to the many; and of the press, the two great parties forming in the United States sought to avail themselves. The "Gazette of the United States" supported the systems of Hamilton, while other papers enlisted themselves under the banners of the opposition. Conspicuous among these was the "National Gazette," a paper edited by Philip Freneau, the poet, a clerk in the Department of State. The avowed purpose for which Jefferson patronized this paper was to present to the eye of the American people European intelligence derived from the "Leyden Gazette," instead of English papers; but it soon became the vehicle of calumny against the funding and banking systems; against the duty on home-made spirits, which was denominated an excuse, and against the men who had proposed and supported those measures. With, perhaps, equal asperity, the papers attached to the party which had defended these systems, a.s.sailed the motives of the leaders of the opposition.

This schism in his cabinet was a subject of extreme mortification to Was.h.i.+ngton. Entertaining a high respect for the talents, and a real esteem for the characters of both gentlemen, he was unwilling to part with either, and exerted all the influence he possessed to effect a reconciliation between them. In a letter of the 23d of August (1792), addressed to Jefferson, after reviewing the critical situation of the United States with respect to its external relations, he thus expressed himself on this delicate subject: "How unfortunate, and how much is it to be regretted then, that while we are encompa.s.sed on all sides with avowed enemies and insidious friends, internal dissensions should be hara.s.sing and tearing our vitals. The last, to me, is the most serious, the most alarming, and the most afflicting of the two, and, without more charity for the opinions of one another in governmental matters, or some more infallible criterion by which the truth of speculative opinions, before they have undergone the test of experience, are to be forejudged, than has yet fallen to the lot of fallibility, I believe it will be difficult, if not impracticable, to manage the reins of government, or to keep the parts of it together; for if, instead of laying our shoulders to the machine, after measures are decided on, one pulls this way, and another that, before the utility of the thing is fairly tried, it must inevitably be torn asunder; and, in my opinion, the fairest prospect of happiness and prosperity that ever was presented to man will be lost, perhaps forever.

"My earnest wish and my fondest hope, therefore, is, that instead of wounding suspicions and irritating charges, there may be liberal allowances, mutual forbearances, and temporizing yielding on all sides.

Under the exercise of these, matters will go on smoothly; and, if possible, more prosperously. Without them everything must rub; the wheels of government will clog; our enemies will triumph, and, by throwing their weight into the disaffected scale, may accomplish the ruin of the goodly fabric we have been erecting.

"I do not mean to apply this advice, or these observations, to any particular person or character. I have given them in the same general terms to other officers of the government, because the disagreements which have arisen from difference of opinions and the attacks which have been made upon almost all the measures of government, and most of its executive officers, have for a long time past filled me with painful sensations, and cannot fail, I think, of producing unhappy consequences at home and abroad."

In a subsequent letter to Jefferson, in answer to one which enclosed some doc.u.ments designed to prove that, though desirous of amending the const.i.tution, he had favored its adoption, the President said: "I did not require the evidence of the extracts which you enclosed me, to convince me of your attachment to the const.i.tution of the United States, or of your disposition to promote the general welfare of this country, but I regret, deeply regret, the difference of opinion which has arisen and divided you and another princ.i.p.al officer of the government, and wish devoutly there could be an accommodation of them by mutual yieldings.

"A measure of this sort would produce harmony and consequent good in our public councils, and the contrary will inevitably produce confusion and serious mischiefs--and for what? because mankind cannot think alike, but would adopt different means to attain the same end. For I will frankly and solemnly declare that I believe the views of both to be pure and well meant, and that experience only will decide with respect to the salubrity of the measures which are the subjects of this dispute.

"Why, then, when some of the best citizens of the United States, men of discernment, uniform and tried patriots, who have no sinister views to promote, but are chaste in their ways of thinking and acting, are to be found, some on one side and some on the other, of the questions which have caused these agitations--why should either of you be so tenacious of your opinions as to make no allowance for those of the other?

"I could and, indeed, was about to add more on this interesting subject, but will forbear, at least for the present, after expressing a wish that the cup which has been presented to us may not be s.n.a.t.c.hed from our lips by a discordance of action, when I am persuaded there is no discordance in your views. I have a great, a sincere esteem and regard for you both, and ardently wish that some line could be marked out by which both of you could walk."

On the same subject Was.h.i.+ngton addressed a letter to Hamilton, from which the following is an extract:

"Differences in political opinions are as unavoidable as, to a certain point, they may be necessary; but it is exceedingly to be regretted that subjects cannot be discussed with temper, on the one hand, or decisions submitted to on the other, without improperly implicating the motives which led to them; and this regret borders on chagrin when we find that men of abilities, zealous patriots, having the same general objects in view, and the same upright intentions to prosecute them, will not exercise more charity in deciding on the opinions and actions of each other. When matters get to such lengths, the natural inference is that both sides have strained the cords beyond their bearing, that a middle course would be found the best, until experience shall have decided on the right way; or, which is not to be expected, because it is denied to mortals, until there shall be some infallible rule by which to forejudge events.

"Having premised these things, I would fain hope that liberal allowances will be made for the political opinions of each other, and instead of those wounding suspicions and irritating charges, with which some of our gazettes are so strongly impregnated, and which cannot fail, if persevered in, of pus.h.i.+ng matters to extremity, and thereby tearing the machine asunder, that there might be mutual forbearance and temporizing yieldings on all sides. Without these, I do not see how the reins of government are to be managed or how the union of the States can be much longer preserved.

"How unfortunate would it be if a fabric so goodly, erected under so many providential circ.u.mstances, after acquiring in its first stages so much respectability, should, from diversity of sentiment, or internal obstructions to some of the acts of government (for I cannot prevail on myself to believe that these measures are as yet the acts of a determined party), be brought to the verge of dissolution! Melancholy thought! But while it shows the consequences of diversified opinions, where pushed with too much tenacity, it exhibits evidence also of the necessity of accommodation, and of the propriety of adopting such healing measures as may restore harmony to the discordant members of the Union, and the governing powers of it.

"I do not mean to apply this advice to any measures which are pa.s.sed or to any particular character. I have given it, in the same general terms, to other officers of the government. My earnest wish is that balm may be poured into all the wounds which have been given, to prevent them from gangrening, and to avoid those fatal consequences which the community may sustain if it is withheld. The friends of the Union must wish this; those who are not, but who wish to see it rended, will be disappointed; and all things, I hope, will go well."

These earnest endeavors to soothe the angry pa.s.sions and to conciliate the jarring discords of the cabinet were unsuccessful. The hostility which was so much and so sincerely lamented sustained no diminution, and its consequences became every day more diffusive.

Among the immediate effects of these internal dissensions was the encouragement they afforded to a daring and criminal resistance which was made to the execution of the laws imposing a duty on spirits distilled within the United States.

To the inhabitants of that part of Pennsylvania which lies west of the Alleghany mountains this duty was, from local considerations, peculiarly odious; nor was their hostility to the measure diminished by any affection for the source in which it originated. The const.i.tution itself had encountered the most decided opposition from that part of the State, and that early enmity to the government, which exerted every faculty to prevent its adoption, had sustained no abatement. Its measures generally, and the whole system of finance particularly, had been reprobated with peculiar bitterness by many of the most popular men of that district. With these dispositions a tax law, the operation of which was extended to them, could not be favorably received, however generally it might be supported in other parts of the Union. But when, to this pre-existing temper, were superadded the motives which arose from perceiving that the measure was censured on the floor of Congress as unnecessary and tyrannical; that resistance to its execution was treated as probable; that a powerful and active party, pervading the Union, arraigned with extreme acrimony the whole system of finance as being antagonistic to liberty, and, with all the pa.s.sionate vehemence of conviction, charged its advocates with designing to subvert the republican inst.i.tutions of America, we ought not to be surprised that the awful impressions, which usually restrain combinations to resist the laws, were lessened, and that the malcontents were emboldened to hope that those combinations might be successful.

The opposition to the duty on distilled spirits had been carried so far, and so daring had become the resistance to the law, as to require a proclamation from the President, warning all persons against unlawful combinations and proceedings tending to obstruct the operations of the laws. But such was the state of feeling that the proclamation produced no salutary effect.

Anxious to avoid extremities, the government resolved upon another course. Prosecutions were inst.i.tuted against delinquents. The spirits distilled in the noncomplying counties were intercepted in their way to market and seized by the officers of the revenue, and the agents for the army were directed to purchase only those spirits on which the duty had been paid. Could the distillers have obeyed their wishes, these measures would have produced the desired effect. But, impelled by a furious mult.i.tude, they found it much more dangerous to obey the laws than to resist them.