CHAP. II.]

JEFFERSON'S REPLY.

$1

late sufficiently in the other States. He even tried, at my request, the plan of a weekly paper of recapitulation from his daily paper, in hopes that that might go into the other States, but in this too we failed. Freneau, as translating clerk, and the printer of a periodical paper likely to circulate through the States (uniting in one person the parts of Pintard and Fenno), revived my hopes that the thing could at length be effected. On the establishment of his paper, therefore, I furnished him with the Leyden Gazettes, with an expression of my wish that he could always translate and publish the material intelligence they contained, and have continued to furnish them from time to time, as regularly as I received them. But as to any other direction or indication of my wish how his press should be conducted, what sort of intelligence he should give, what essays encourage, I can protest, in the presence of Heaven, that I never did by myself, or any other, or indirectly, say a syllable, nor attempt any kind of influence. I can further protest, in the same awful presence, that I never did, by myself, or any other, directly or indirectly, write, dictate or procure any one sentence or sentiment to be inserted in his, or any other gazette, to which my name was not affixed, or that of my office. I surely need not except here a thing so foreign to the present subject as a little paragraph about our Algerine captives, which I put once into Fenno's paper. Freneau's proposition to publish a paper, having been about the time that the writings of Publicola, and the discourses on Davila, had a good deal excited the public attention, I took for granted from Freneau's character, which had been marked as that of a good Whig, that he would give free place to pieces written against the aristocratical and monarchical principles these papers had inculcated. This having been in my mind, it is likely enough I may have expressed it in conversation with others, though I do not recollect that I did. To Freneau I think I could not, because I had still seen him but once, and that was at a public table, at breakfast, at Mrs. Elsworth's, as I passed through New York the last year. And I can safely declare that my expectations looked only to the chastisement of the aristocratical and monarchical writers, and not to any criticisms on the proceedings of Government. Colonel Hamilton can see no motive for any appointment, but that of making a convenient partisan. But you, sir, who have received from me recommendations of a Rittenhouse, Barlow, Paine, will believe that talents and science are sufficient motives with me in appointments to which they are fitted; and that Freneau, as a man of genius, might find a preference in my eye to be a translating clerk, and make good title to the little aids I could give him as the editor of a gazette, by procuring subscriptions to his paper, as I did some before it appeared,' and as I have with pleasure done for the labors of other men of genius. I hold it to be one of the distinguishing excellences of elective over hereditary successions, that the talents which nature has provided in sufficient proportion, should be selected by the society for the government of their affairs, rather than that this should be transmitted through the loins of knaves and fools, passing from the debauches of the table to those of the bed. Colonel Hamilton, alias Plain Facts,' says, that Freneau's salary began before he resided in Philadelphia. I do not know what quibble he may have in reserve on the word 'residence.' He may mean to include under that idea the removal of his family; for I believe he removed himself before his family did, to Philadelphia. But no act of mine gave commencement to his salary before he so far took up his abode in Philadelphia, as to be sufficiently in readiness for the duties of the office.

1 The pocket account-book shows the names of a few and probably all of the subscribers thus obtained. They were Mr. Jefferson's neighbors in Albemarle county, Virginia. The number extends, perhaps, to a dozen or two.

VOL. II.-6

As to the merits or demerits of his paper, they certainly concern me not. He and Fenno are rivals for the public favor. The one courts them by flattery, the other by censure, and I believe it will be admitted that the one has been as servile, as the other severe. But is not the dignity, and even decency of Government committed, when one of its principal ministers enlists himself as an anonymous writer or paragraphist for either the one or the other of them? No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will. If virtuous, it need not fear the fair operation of attack and defence. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth, either in religion, law, or politics. I think it as honorable to the Government neither to know, nor notice, its sycophants or censors, as it would be undignified and criminal to pamper the former and persecute the latter. So much for the past, a word now of the future.

contests

"When I came into this office, it was with a resolution to retire from it as soon as I could with decency. It pretty early appeared to me that the proper moment would be the first of those epochs at which the Constitution seems to have contemplated a periodical change or renewal of the public servants. In this I was confirmed by your resolution respecting the same period; from which, however, I am happy in hoping you have departed. I look to that period with the longing of a wave-worn mariner, who has at length the land in view, and shall count the days and hours which still lie between me and it. In the meanwhile, my main object will be to wind up the business of my office, avoiding as much as possible all new enterprise. With the affairs of the Legislature, as I never did intermeddle, so I certainly shall not now begin. I am more desirous to predispose everything for the repose to which I am withdrawing, than expose it to be disturbed by newspaper If these, however, cannot be avoided altogether, yet a regard for your quiet will be a sufficient motive for my deferring it till I become merely a private citizen, when the propriety or impropriety of what I may say or do, may fall on myself alone. I may then, too, avoid the charge of misapplying that time which now, belonging to those who employ me, should be wholly devoted to their service. If my own justification, or the interests of the republic, shall require it, I reserve to myself the right of then appealing to my country, subscribing my name to whatever I write, and using with freedom and truth the facts and names necessary to place the cause and its just form before that tribunal. To a thorough disregard of the honors and emoluments of office, I join as great a value for the esteem of my countrymen, and conscious of having merited it by an integrity which cannot be reproached, and by an enthusiastic devotion to their rights and liberty, I will not suffer my retirement to be clouded by the slanders of a man whose history, from the moment at which history can stoop to notice him, is a tissue of machinations against the liberty of the country which has not only received and given him bread, but heaped its honors on his head. Still, however, I repeat the hope that it will not be necessary to make such an appeal. Though little known to the people of America, I believe, that as far as I am known, it is not as an enemy to the republic, nor an intriguer against it, nor a waster of its revenue, nor prostitutor of it to the purposes of corruption, as the American' represents me; and I confide that yourself are satisfied that as to dissensions in the newspapers, not a syllable of them has ever proceeded from me, and that no cabals or intrigues of mine have produced those in the Legislature, and I hope I may promise both to you and myself, that noue will receive aliment from me during the short space I have to remain in office, which will find ample employment in closing the present business of the depart ment.'

CHAP. II.]

HAMILTON'S REPLY.

83

Hamilton's reply to General Washington's letter has often been compared with the preceding, and the more magnanimous spirit it has been supposed to evince, has been the theme of much panegyric. He professed great regret at the President's "uneasy sensations"-an "anxious wish to smooth the path of his administration "-his determination, "if any prospect should open of healing or terminating the differences which existed," to "most cheerfully embrace it, though he considered himself the deeply injured party." He applauded the President's endeavors to restore harmony to his Cabinet, and if they should prove unsuccessful, " did not hesitate to say, that in his opinion the period was not remote when the public good would require substitutes for the differing members of the administration." "On his part, there would be a most cheerful acquiescence in such a result." He proceeded:

"I trust, sir, that the greatest frankness has always marked, and will always mark, every step of my conduct towards you. In this disposition I cannot conceal from you that I have had some instrumentality of late in the retaliations which have fallen upon certain public characters, and that I find myself placed in a situation not to be able to recede for the present.” 1

He then states, that although Mr. Jefferson had made him. an object of "uniform opposition" since his first taking a seat in the Cabinet-that although he had made "unkind whispers and insinuations" against him-that although he could not doubt that he had established the National Gazette for political purposes, and to render him and the measures of his department "as odious as possible," he had, notwithstanding, never, except to confidential friends, made or countenanced any retaliations. until very recently. He had even prevented attacks from being made on Mr. Jefferson in consequence "of the persecution he brought on the Vice-President by his indiscreet and light letter" to J B. Smith. He had remained "a silent sufferer" as long as he saw "no danger to the Government from the machinations which were going on." But when he discovered "a formed party deliberately bent upon the subversion of the measures, which in its consequences would subvert the Government"—when he saw "the undoing of the funding system in particular” *** "was an avowed object of the party," etc.,

Italicized as in original.

"he considered it a duty to endeavor to resist the torrent, and, as an effectual means to this end, to draw aside the veil from the principal actors." "To this decided conviction he had

yielded" but he added:

"Nevertheless, I pledge my honor to you, sir, that if you shall hereafter form a plan to reunite the members of your administration upon some steady principle of cooperation, I will faithfully concur in executing it during my continuance in office. And I will not directly or indirectly say or do a thing that shall endanger a feud." 1

This letter would seem to imply a disposition to make great personal sacrifices to "smooth the path" of General Washington's administration-to embrace the first opportunity to heal and terminate differences. Except that it takes the freedom of proposing that both the differing parties should retire from the Cabinet, whereas Jefferson more modestly insisted merely on his own, without suggesting any conditions, or offering any advice, touching the retention of his opponent, Hamilton's letter has been perhaps justly regarded as exhibiting more liberality and less implacability of purpose than Jefferson's. He holds forth the idea that a "steady principle of coöperation" may be found to reunite the Cabinet; and that he would gladly concur in executing it-whereas Jefferson abates nothing of his former charges against Hamilton's political measures and objects, evidently looks for no change in them, opens no door to compromise, and reavows his settled and inflexible hostility to them.

So far as principle was concerned, perhaps the apparent difference in the yieldingness of the two men was real, and flowed from their systems. We should expect no personal departure from the cardinal tenets of his political faith by Hamilton, but his system was based on the idea that men are weak and corrupt, and must be controlled by force, or through means adapted to reach their motives. We cannot doubt that almost any concessions, or seeming concessions for the time, would have been made to secure Jefferson's adhesion to a few of the great leading and characterizing measures of the Federal policy. Jefferson, always a liberal compromiser to those of the same, or

See the letter entire in Sparks's Washington, vol. x., Appendix. p. 515; also in Hamilton's Works, vol. iv. p. 303.

CHAP. II.]

THE REPLIES COMPARED.

85

essentially affiliated, principles-an uncommonly liberal compromiser in mere practical details-had not, as we have again and again had occasion to remark, a particle of concession in his heart or in his practice, to what he regarded as radically false and dangerous systems. And recognizing the good as the dominant principle in the bosoms of men, he saw as little policy as propriety in appealing to, or tampering with, the bad, to secure that triumph of the right, which he considered as sure without any such appliance, provided an enlightened popular judgment was allowed to fairly decide. Willing to sustain the Chief Magistrate, though he thought he had officially approved of some objectionable measures, because he believed him a sincere friend of republican government, because he believed him pure, discreet, and aiming at impartiality, he could not carry complaisance so far as to give his private assent to schemes which his conscience condemned, proscribe others for not doing so, or enter into any unnatural coalitions with hostile creeds, or with men who, whatever may have been their personal disinterestedness, he believed made it a part of their system to appeal to the worst principles of human nature, to effect their objects.

Colonel Hamilton's letter has been thought also to show more deference than Jefferson's to the personal feelings of the President-more love and respect for him. Judged by professions, this is perhaps true. Judged by the entire purport and spirit of the two letters, we confess we draw an opposite inference. Judged by subsequent acts, a still more decisive test would seem to be furnished. Hamilton, with protestations on his lips of warm respect, and of his anxiety to gratify the President's wishes, and relieve him from "uneasy sensations "—with his pledge "of honor" that he will sacredly respect some cordon of amity hereafter to be formed-just six days after writing the President, published the first number of "Catullus," and continued this series of most vehement and virulent political and personal assaults on Jefferson for the four succeeding months, and throughout the entire year! If that reconciliation which the President so ardently desired, could have before been possible, these articles, of course, put it wholly out of the question! Jefferson, on the other hand, returned to his official duties to sub