The establishment of the government and the treasury measures had very quickly rallied a strong party, which kept the name that it had adopted while fighting the battles of the Constitution. They were known in their own day, and have been known ever since to history, as the Federalists. The opposition, composed chiefly of those who had resisted the adoption of the Constitution, were discredited at the very start by the success of the union and the new government. When Jefferson took hold of them they were disorganized and even nameless, having no better appellation than that of "Anti-Federalists." In the process of time their great chief gave them a name, a set of principles, a war-cry, an organization, and at last an overwhelming victory. They began to take on something like form and coherence in resisting Hamilton's financial measures; but the success of his policy was so dazzling that they were rather cowed by it, and were left by their defeat little better off in the way of discipline than before. The French Revolution and its consequences, including a war with England, gave them a much better opportunity. It is melancholy to think that American parties should have entered upon their first struggle purely on questions of foreign politics. The only explanation is to repeat that we were still colonists in all but name and allegiance, and it was Washington's task not only to establish a dignified and independent policy of his own abroad, but to beat down colonial politics at home.
In the first burst of rejoicing over the uprising of the French people, no divisions were apparent; but the arrival of Genet was the signal for their beginning. The extraordinary spectacle was then presented of an American party arrayed against the administration under the lead of the French minister, and with the strong, although covert sympathy of the Secretary of State. The popular feeling in fact was so strongly with France that the new party seemed on the surface to have almost universal support. The firm attitude of the administration and Washington's unyielding adherence to his policy of neutrality gave them their first serious check, but also embittered their attacks. In the first three years of the government almost every one refrained from attacking Washington personally. The unlimited love and respect in which he was held were the principal causes of this moderation, but even those opponents who were not influenced by feelings of respect were restrained by a wholesome prudence from bringing upon themselves the odium of being enemies of the President.
The fiction that the king could do no wrong was carried to the last extreme by the Long Parliament when they made war on Charles in order to remove him from evil counselors. It was, no doubt, the exercise of a wise conservatism in that instance; but in the United States, and in the ordinary condition of politics, such a position was of course untenable. The President was responsible for his cabinet and for the measures of his administration, and it was impossible to separate them long, even when the chief magistrate was so great and so well-beloved as Washington. Freneau, editing his newspaper from the office of the Secretary of State, seems to have been the first to break the line. He passed speedily from attacks on measures to attacks on men, and among the latter he soon included the President. Washington had had too much experience of slander and abuse during the revolutionary war to be worried by them. But Freneau took pains to send him copies of his newspapers, a piece of impertinence which apparently led to a little vigorous denunciation, the account of which seems probable, although our only authority is in Jefferson's "Ana." As the attacks went on and were extended, and when Bache joined in with the "Aurora," Washington was not long in coming to the unpleasant conclusion that all this opposition proceeded from a well-formed plan, and was the work of a party which designed to break down his measures and ruin his administration. All statesmen intrusted in a representative system with the work of government are naturally prone to think that their opponents are also the enemies of the public welfare, and Washington was no exception to the rule. Such an opinion is indeed unavoidable, for a public man must have faith that his own measures are the best for the country, and if he did not, he would be but a faint-hearted representative, unfit to govern and unable to lead. History has agreed with Washington in his view of the work of his administration, and has set it down as essential to the right and successful foundation of the government. It is not to be wondered at that at the moment Washington should regard a party swayed by the French minister and seeking to involve us in war as unpatriotic and dangerous. He even thought that one probable solution of Genet's conduct was that he was the tool and not the leader of the party which sustained him. In fact, his general view of the opposition was marked by that perfect clearness which was characteristic of all his opinions when he had fully formed them. In July, 1793, he wrote to Henry Lee:—
"That there are in this as well as in all other countries, discontented characters, I well know; as also that these characters are actuated by very different views: some good, from an opinion that the general measures of the government are impure; some bad, and, if I might be allowed to use so harsh an expression, diabolical, inasmuch as they are not only meant to impede the measures of that government generally, but more especially, as a great means toward the accomplishment of it, to destroy the confidence which it is necessary for the people to place, until they have unequivocal proof of demerit, in their public servants. In this light I consider myself whilst I am an occupant of office; and if they were to go further and call me their slave during this period, I would not dispute the point.
"But in what will this abuse terminate? For the result, as it respects myself, I care not; for I have a consolation within that no earthly efforts can deprive me of, and that is, that neither ambition nor interested motives have influenced my conduct. The arrows of malevolence, therefore, however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me; though, whilst I am up as a mark, they will be continually aimed. The publications in Freneau's and Bache's papers are outrages on common decency, and they progress in that style in proportion as their pieces are treated with contempt, and are passed by in silence by those at whom they are aimed. The tendency of them, however, is too obvious to be mistaken by men of cool and dispassionate minds, and, in my opinion, ought to alarm them, because it is difficult to prescribe bounds to the effect."
He was not much given, however, to talking about his assailants. If he said anything, it was usually only in the way of contemptuous sarcasm, as when he wrote to Morris: "The affairs of this country cannot go amiss. There are so many watchful guardians of them, and such infallible guides, that one is at no loss for a director at every turn. But of these matters I shall say little." If these attacks had any effect on him, it was only to make him more determined in carrying out his purposes. In the first skirmish, which ended in the recall of Genet, he not only prevailed, but the French minister's audacity especially in venturing to appeal to the people against their President, demoralized the opposition and brought public opinion round to the side of the administration with an overwhelming force.
Genet's mischief, however, did not end with him. He had sown the seeds of many troubles, and among others the idea of societies on the model of the famous Jacobin Club of Paris. That American citizens should have so little self-respect as to borrow the political jargon and ape the political manners of Paris was sad enough. To put on red caps, drink confusion to tyrants, sing Ça ira, and call each other "citizen," was foolish to the verge of idiocy, but it was at least harmless. When, however, they began to form "democratic societies" on the model of the Jacobins, for the defense of liberty against a government which the people themselves had made, they ceased to be fatuous and became mischievous. These societies, senseless imitations of French examples, and having no real cause to defend liberty, became simply party organizations, with a strong tendency to foster license and disorder. Washington regarded them with unmixed disgust, for he attributed to them the agitation and discontent of the settlers beyond the mountains, which threatened to embroil us with Spain, and he believed also that the much more serious matter of the whiskey rebellion was their doing. After having exhausted every reasonable means of concession and compromise, and having concentrated the best public opinion of the country behind him, he resolved to put down this "rebellion" with a strong hand, and he wrote to Henry Lee, just as he was preparing to take the last step: "It is with equal pride and satisfaction I add that, as far as my information extends, this insurrection is viewed with universal indignation and abhorrence, except by those who have never missed an opportunity, by side-blows or otherwise, to attack the general government; and even among these there is not a spirit hardy enough yet openly to justify the daring infractions of law and order; but by palliatives they are attempting to suspend all proceedings against the insurgents, until Congress shall have decided on the case, thereby intending to gain time, and, if possible, to make the evil more extensive, more formidable, and, of course, more difficult to counteract and subdue.
"I consider this insurrection as the first formidable fruit of the democratic societies, brought forth, I believe, too prematurely for their own views, which may contribute to the annihilation of them."
The insurrection vanished on the advance of the forces of the United States. It had been formidable enough to alarm all conservative people, and its inglorious end left the opposition, which had given it a certain encouragement, much discredited. This matter being settled, Washington determined to strike next at what he considered the chief sources of the evil, the clubs, which, to use his own words, "were instituted for the express purpose of poisoning the minds of the people of this country, and making them discontented with the government." Accordingly, in his speech to the next Congress he denounced the democratic societies. After tracing the course of the whiskey rebellion, he said:—
"And when in the calm moments of reflection they [the citizens of the United States] shall have traced the origin and progress of the insurrection, let them determine whether it has not been fomented by combinations of men, who, careless of consequences, and disregarding the unerring truth, that those who rouse cannot always appease a civil convulsion, have disseminated, from an ignorance or perversion of facts, suspicions, jealousies, and accusations of the whole government."
The opposition both in Congress and in the newspapers shrieked loudly over this plain speaking; but when Washington struck a blow, it was usually well timed, and the present instance was no exception. Coming immediately after the failure of the insurrection, and the triumph of the government, this strong expression of the President's disapproval had a fatal effect upon the democratic societies. They withered away with the rapidity of weeds when their roots have been skillfully cut.
After this, even if Washington still refused to consider himself the head of a party, the opposition no longer had any doubts on that point. They not only regarded him as the chief of the Federalists, but also, and with perfect justice, as their own most dangerous enemy, and the man who had dealt them and their cause the most deadly blows. Whatever restraint they may have hitherto placed upon themselves in dealing with him personally, they now abandoned, and the opportunity for open war soon came to them in the vexed question of the British treaty, where they occupied much better ground than in the Genet affair, and commanded much more popular sympathy. Their orators did not hesitate to say that the conduct of the President in this affair had been improper and monarchical, and that he ought to be impeached. After the treaty was signed, the "Aurora" declared that the President had violated the Constitution, and made a treaty with a nation abhorred by our people; that he answered the respectful remonstrances of Boston and New York as if he were the omnipotent director of a seraglio, and had thundered contempt upon the people with as much confidence as if he sat upon the throne of "Industan."
All these remarks and many more of like tenor have been gathered together and very picturesquely arranged by Mr. McMaster, in whose volumes they may be studied with advantage by any one who has doubts as to Washington's political position. It is not probable that the writer of the brilliant diatribe just quoted had any very distinct idea about either seraglios or "Industan," but he, and others of like mind, probably took pleasure in the words, as did the old woman who always loved to hear Mesopotamia mentioned. Other persons, however, were more definite in their statements. John Beckley, who had once been clerk of the House, writing under the very opposite signature of "A Calm Observer," declared that Washington had been overdrawing his salary in defiance of law, and had actually stolen in this way $4,750. Such being the case, the "Calm Observer" very naturally inquired: "What will posterity say of the man who has done this thing? Will it not say that the mask of political hypocrisy has been worn by Caesar, by Cromwell, and by Washington?" Another patriot, also of the Democratic party, declared that the President had been false to a republican government. He said that Washington maintained the seclusion of a monk and the supercilious distance of a tyrant; and that the concealing carriage drawn by supernumerary horses expressed the will of the President, and defined the loyal duty of the people.
The support of Genet, the democratic societies, and now this concerted and bitter opposition to the Jay treaty, convinced Washington, if conviction were needed, that he could carry on his administration only by the help of those who were thoroughly in sympathy with his policy and purposes. When Jefferson left the State Department, the President promoted Randolph, and put Bradford, a Federalist, in the place of Attorney-General. When Hamilton left the Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Hamilton's right-hand man, and the staunchest of party men, was given the position thus left vacant. If Randolph had remained in the cabinet, he would have become a Federalist. Like all men disposed to turn, when he was compelled to jump he sprang far, as was shown by his signing the treaty and memorial, both of which he strongly disapproved. He was quite ready to fall in with the rest of the cabinet, but on account of the Fauchet dispatch he resigned. Then Washington, after offering the portfolio to several persons known to be in hearty sympathy with him, took the risk of giving it to Timothy Pickering, who was by no means a safe leader, rather than take any chance of getting another adviser who was not entirely of his own way of thinking. At the same time he gave the secretaryship of war to James McHenry, a most devoted personal friend and follower. He still held back from calling himself a party chief, but he had discovered, as William of Orange discovered, that he could not, even with his iron will and lofty intent, overcome the impossible, alter human nature, or carry on a successful government under a representative system, without the assistance of a party. He stated his conclusion with his wonted plainness in a letter to Pickering written in September, 1795, in the midst of the struggle over the treaty. "I shall not," he said, "whilst I have the honor to administer the government, bring a man into any office of consequence knowingly, whose political tenets are adverse to the measures which the general government are pursuing; for this, in my opinion, would be a sort of political suicide. That it would embarrass its movements is most certain." A terser statement of the doctrine of party government it would be difficult to find, and in the conduct of Monroe and the course of the opposition journals Washington had ample proofs of the soundness of his theory.
If he had needed to be strengthened in his determination, his opponents furnished the requisite aid. In February, 1796, the House refused to adjourn on his birthday for half an hour, in order to go and pay him their respects, as had been the pleasant custom up to that time. The Democrats of that day were in no confusion of mind as to the party to which Washington belonged, and they did not hesitate to put this deliberate slight upon him in order to mark their dislike. This was not the utterance of a newspaper editor, but the well-considered act of the representatives of a party in Congress. Party feeling, indeed, could hardly have gone further; and this single incident is sufficient to dispel the pleasing delusion that party strife and bitterness are the product of modern days, and of more advanced forms of political organization.
Yet despite all these attacks there can be no doubt that Washington's hold upon the masses of the people was substantially unshaken. They would have gladly seen him assume the presidency for the third time, and if the test had been made, thousands of men who gave their votes to the opposition would have still supported him for the greatest office in their gift. But this time Washington would not yield to the wishes of his friends or of the country. He felt that he had done his work and earned the rest and the privacy for which he longed above all earthly things. In September, 1796, he published his farewell address, and no man ever left a nobler political testament. Through much tribulation he had done his great part in establishing the government of the Union, which might easily have come to naught without his commanding influence. He had imparted to it the dignity of his own great character. He had sustained the splendid financial policy of Hamilton. He had struck a fatal blow at the colonial spirit in our politics, and had lifted up our foreign policy to a plane worthy of an independent nation. He had stricken off the fetters which impeded the march of western settlement, and without loss of honor had gained time to enable our institutions to harden and become strong. He had made peace with our most dangerous enemies, and, except in the case of France, where there were perilous complications to be solved by his successor, he left the United States in far better and more honorable relations with the rest of the world than even the most sanguine would have dared to hope when the Constitution was formed. Now from the heights of great achievement he turned to say farewell to the people whom he so much loved, and whom he had so greatly served. Every word was instinct with the purest and wisest patriotism. "Be united," he said; "be Americans. The name which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. Let there be no sectionalism, no North, South, East or West; you are all dependent one on another, and should be one in union. Beware of attacks, open or covert, upon the Constitution. Beware of the baneful effects of party spirit and of the ruin to which its extremes must lead. Do not encourage party spirit, but use every effort to mitigate and assuage it. Keep the departments of government separate, promote education, cherish the public credit, avoid debt. Observe justice and good faith toward all nations; have neither passionate hatreds nor passionate attachments to any; and be independent politically of all. In one word, be a nation, be Americans, and be true to yourselves."
His admonitions were received by the people at large with profound respect, and sank deep into the public mind. As the generations have come and gone, the farewell address has grown dearer to the hearts of the people, and the children and the children's children of those to whom it was addressed have turned to it in all times and known that there was no room for error in following its counsel.
Yet at the moment, notwithstanding the general sadness at Washington's retirement and the deep regard for his last words of advice, the opposition was so thoroughly hostile that they seized on the address itself as a theme for renewed attack upon its author. "His character," said one Democrat, "can only be respectable while it is not known; he is arbitrary, avaricious, ostentatious; without skill as a soldier, he has crept into fame by the places he has held. His financial measures burdened the many to enrich the few. History will tear the pages devoted to his praise. France and his country gave him fame, and they will take that fame away." "His glory has dissolved in mist," said another writer, "and he has sunk from the high level of Solon or Lycurgus to the mean rank of a Dutch Stadtholder or a Venetian Doge. Posterity will look in vain for any marks of wisdom in his administration."
To thoughtful persons these observations are not without a curious interest, as showing that even the wisest of men may be in error. The distinguished Democrat who uttered these remarks has been forgotten, and the page of history on which Washington's name was inscribed is still untorn. The passage of the address, however, which gave the most offense, as Mr. McMaster points out, was, as might have been expected from the colonial condition of our politics, that which declared it to be our true policy "to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." This, it was held, simply meant that, having made a treaty with England, we were to be stopped from making one with France. Another distinguished editor declared that the farewell address came from the meanest of motives; that the President knew he could not be reelected because the Republicans would have united to supersede him with Adams, who had the simplicity of a Republican, while Washington had the ostentation of an Eastern Pasha, and it was in order to save himself from this humiliation that he had cunningly resigned.
When Washington met his last Congress, William Giles of Virginia took the opportunity afforded by the usual answer to the President's speech to assail him personally. It would be of course a gross injustice to suppose that a coarse political ruffian like Giles really represented the Democratic party. But he represented the extreme wing, and after he had declared in his place that Washington was neither wise nor patriotic, and that his retirement was anything but a calamity, he got twelve of his party friends to sustain his sentiments by voting with him. The press was even more unbridled, and it was said in the "Aurora" at this time that Washington had debauched and deceived the nation, and that his administration had shown that the mask of patriotism may be worn to conceal the foulest dangers to the liberties of the people. Over and over again it was said by these writers that he had betrayed France and was the slave of England.
This charge of being a British sympathizer was the only one of all the abuse heaped upon him by the opposition that Washington seems really to have resented. In August, 1794, when this slander first started from the prolific source of all attacks against the government, he wrote to Henry Lee: "With respect to the words said to have been uttered by Mr. Jefferson, they would be enigmatical to those who are acquainted with the characters about me, unless supposed to be spoken ironically; and in that case they are too injurious to me, and have too little foundation in truth, to be ascribed to him. There could not be the trace of doubt in his mind of predilection in mine toward Great Britain or her politics, unless, which I do not believe, he has set me down as one of the most deceitful and uncandid men living; because, not only in private conversations between ourselves on this subject, but in my meetings with the confidential servants of the public, he has heard me often, when occasions presented themselves, express very different sentiments, with an energy that could not be mistaken by any one present.
"Having determined, as far as lay within the power of the executive, to keep this country in a state of neutrality, I have made my public conduct accord with the system; and whilst so acting as a public character, consistency and propriety as a private man forbid those intemperate expressions in favor of one nation, or to the prejudice of another, which may have wedged themselves in, and, I will venture to add, to the embarrassment of government, without producing any good to the country."
He had shown by his acts as well as by his words his real friendship for France, such as a proper sense of gratitude required. As has been already pointed out, rather than run the risk of seeming to reflect in the slightest degree upon the government of the French republic, he had refused even to receive distinguished émigrés like Noailles, Liancourt, and Talleyrand.9 He was so scrupulous in this respect that he actually did violence to his own strong desires in not taking into his house at once the son of Lafayette; and when it became necessary to choose a successor to Morris, his anxiety was so great to select some one agreeable to France that he took such an avowed opponent of his administration as Monroe.
On the other hand, he had never lost the strong feeling of hostility toward England which he, above all men, had felt during the Revolution. The conduct of England, when he was seeking an honorable peace with her, tried his patience severely. He wrote to Morris in 1795: "I give you these details (and if you should again converse with Lord Grenville on the subject, you are at liberty, unofficially, to mention them, or any of them, according to circumstances), as evidences of the unpolitic conduct (for so it strikes me) of the British government towards these United States; that it may be seen how difficult it has been for the executive, under such an accumulation of irritating circumstances, to maintain the ground of neutrality which had been taken; and at a time when the remembrance of the aid we had received from France in the Revolution was fresh in every mind, and while the partisans of that country were continually contrasting the affections of that people with the unfriendly disposition of the British government. And that, too, as I have observed before, while their own sufferings during the war with the latter had not been forgotten." The one man in the country who above all others had the highest conception of American nationality, who was the first to seek to lift up our politics from the low level of colonialism, who was the author of the neutrality policy, had reason to resent the bitter irony of an attack which represented him as a British sympathizer. The truth is, that the only foreign party at that time was that which identified itself with France, and which was the party of Jefferson and the opposition. The Federalists and the administration under the lead of Washington and Hamilton were determined that the government should be American and not French, and this in the eyes of their opponents was equivalent to being in the control of England. In after years, when the Federalists fell from power and declined into the position of a factious minority, they became British sympathizers, and as thoroughly colonial in their politics as the party of Jefferson had been. If they had had the wisdom of their better days they would then have made themselves the champions of the American idea, and would have led the country in the determined effort to free itself once for all from colonial politics, even if they were obliged to fight somebody to accomplish it. They proved unequal to the task, and it fell to a younger generation led by Henry Clay and his contemporaries to sweep Federalist and Jeffersonian republican alike, with their French and British politics, out of existence. In so doing the younger generation did but complete the work of Washington, for he it was who first trod the path and marked the way for a true American policy in the midst of men who could not understand his purposes.
Bitter and violent as had been the attacks upon Washington while he held office, they were as nothing compared to the shout of fierce exultation which went up from the opposition journals when he finally retired from the presidency. One extract will serve as an example of the general tone of the opposition journals throughout the country. It is to be found in the "Aurora" of March 6, 1797:—
"'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,' was the pious ejaculation of a pious man who beheld a flood of happiness rushing in upon mankind. If ever there was a time that would license the reiteration of the ejaculation, that time has now arrived, for the man who is the source of all the misfortunes of our country is this day reduced to a level with his fellow-citizens, and is no longer possessed of power to multiply evils upon the United States. If ever there was a period for rejoicing, this is the moment. Every heart in unison with the freedom and happiness of the people ought to beat high with exultation that the name of Washington ceases from this day to give currency to political insults, and to legalize corruption. A new era is now opening upon us, an era which promises much to the people, for public measures must now stand upon their own merits, and nefarious projects can no longer be supported by a name. When a retrospect has been taken of the Washingtonian administration for eight years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment that a single individual should have cankered the principles of republicanism in an enlightened people just emerged from the gulf of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the public liberty so far as to have put in jeopardy its very existence. Such, however, are the facts, and with these staring us in the face, the day ought to be a JUBILEE in the United States."
This was not the outburst of a single malevolent spirit. The article was copied and imitated in New York and Boston, and wherever the party that called Jefferson leader had a representative among the newspapers. It is not probable that stuff of this sort gave Washington himself a moment's anxiety, for he knew too well what he had done, and he was too sure of his own hold upon the hearts of the people, to be in the least disturbed by the attacks of hostile editors. But the extracts are of interest as showing that the opposition party of that time, the party organized and led by Jefferson, regarded Washington as their worst enemy, and assailed him and slandered him to the utmost. They even went so far as to borrow materials from the enemies of the country with whom we had lately been at war, by publishing the forged letters attributed to Washington, and circulated by the British in 1777, in order to discredit the American general. One of Washington's last acts, on March 3, 1797, was to file in the State Department a solemn declaration that these letters, then republished by an American political party, were base forgeries, of English origin in a time of war. His own view of this performance is given in a letter to Benjamin Walker, in which he said: "Amongst other attempts, … spurious letters, known at the time of their first publication (I believe in the year 1777) to be forgeries, are (or extracts from them) brought forward with the highest emblazoning of which they are susceptible, with a view to attach principles to me which every action of my life has given the lie to. But that is no stumbling-block with the editors of these papers and their supporters."