Authors: Joseph J. Ellis
25.
Writings,
516–517.
26.
Ibid., 517.
27.
Isaiah Berlin,
The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History
(London, 1954).
28.
Washington to Humphreys, 3 March 1794, Fitzpatrick, vol. 32, 398–399.
29.
Writings,
840; Washington to Charles Carroll, 1 May 1796, Fitzpatrick, vol. 37, 29–31.
30.
Lawrence Kaplan,
Entangling Alliances with None: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Jefferson
(Kent, Ohio, 1987), emphasizes the consensus that existed among American political leaders; Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism,
375–450, take the party divisions as more serious expressions of deep division. I tend to think they are closer to the truth.
31.
Three scholarly accounts are seminal here: Samuel Flagg Bemis,
Jay’s Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy
(New Haven, 1962); Jerald A. Combs,
The Jay Treaty: Political Background of the Founding Fathers
(Berkeley, 1970); Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism,
375–450.
32.
Smith, vol. 2, 882–883; Adams to William Cunningham, 15 October 1808,
Correspondence Between the Honorable John Adams
…
and William Cunningham, Esq.
(Boston, 1823), 34; Washington to Edmund Randolph, 31 July 1795, Fitzpatrick, vol. 34, 266.
33.
Madison to Jefferson, 4 April 1796, Smith, vol. 2, 929–930; Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 30 November 1795, Ford, vol. 7, 39–40.
34.
Smith, vol. 2, 887–888; Jefferson to Monroe, 21 March 1796, Ford, vol. 7, 67–68.
35.
Jefferson to Madison, 27 March 1796; Madison to Jefferson, 9 May 1796, Smith, vol. 2, 928, 937; Jefferson to Monroe, 12 June 1796, Ford, vol. 7, 80. Jefferson’s political assessment of the reasons for passage of Jay’s Treaty were shrewd, but Washington’s influence, while crucial, was aided immeasurably by a shift among voters primarily concerned with access to lands in the West. The English promise to withdraw from forts, in effect to implement commitments made in the Treaty of Paris (1783), was itself important in producing the shift. But equally important was the news of Pinckney’s Treaty, in which Spain granted access to the Mississippi River and thereby enhanced the prospects for settlements and commerce in the vast American interior.
36.
For a fuller version of this side of Jefferson’s mentality, see Ellis,
American Sphinx,
especially 151–152.
37.
This is the conspiratorial perspective Jefferson embraced in his “Anas,” the collection of anecdotes and gossip he gathered for eventual publication during his retirement years. For the anecdotes themselves, see Ford, vol. 1, 168–178. The best analysis of the “Anas” is Joanne Freeman, “Slander, Poison, Whispers and Fame: Jefferson ‘Anas’ and Political Gossip in the Early Republic,”
JER
15 (1995): 25–58. The most revealing statement by Jefferson, which includes the “They all live in cities” remark, was “Notes on Professor Ebeling’s Letter of July 30, 1785,” Ford, vol. 7, 44–49.
38.
On the Whiskey Rebellion, see Thomas P. Slaughter,
The Whiskey Rebellion
(New York, 1986). On Washington’s response to the insurrection, see Richard H. Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,”
JAH
59 (1972): 567–574.
39.
Jefferson to Mann Page, 30 August 1795, Ford, vol. 7, 24–25. See also Jefferson to Monroe, 26 May 1795, Ford, vol. 7, 16–17; Jefferson to Madison, 30 October 1794, Smith, vol. 2, 858. The standard assessment of Jefferson’s conspiratorial perspective is Lance Banning,
The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1978).
40.
Jefferson to Phillip Mazzei, 24 April 1796, Ford, vol. 7, 72–78. The letter was eventually published in a New York newspaper,
The Minerva,
on March 14, 1797. After its publication, all correspondence between Mount Vernon and Monticello ceased.
41.
The quotation is from Jefferson to Tench Coxe, 1 June 1795, Ford, vol. 7, 22.
42.
Jefferson to Coxe, 1 May 1794; Jefferson to William Short, 3 January 1793, Ford, vol. 6, 507–508, 153–156.
43.
Jefferson to Monroe, 16 July 1796, Ford, vol. 7, 89.
44.
Washington to Jefferson, 6 July 1794,
Writings,
951–954. For the pro-Jefferson version of this episode, see Dumas Malone,
Jefferson and His Times,
6 vols. (Boston, 1948–1981), vol. 3, 307–311.
45.
The best analysis of Monroe’s behavior as minister to France is Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism,
497–504. The correspondence in which Washington tried to fathom Monroe’s statements includes: Washington to Hamilton, 26 June 1796, Syrett, vol. 20, 239; Washington to Secretary of State, 25 July and 27 July, 1796; Washington to Monroe, 26 August 1796, Fitzpatrick, vol. 35, 155, 157, 187–190. See also the note on Monroe’s support for French seizures of American shipping in Fitzpatrick, vol. 35, 155, 157, 187–190. See also the note on Monroe’s support for French seizures of American shipping in Syrett, vol. 20, 227.
46.
The most succinct summary of Randolph’s fiasco in the modern scholarly literature is Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism,
424–431. See also two old but helpful accounts: W. C. Ford, “Edmund Randolph on the British Treaty, 1795,”
AHR
12 (1907): 587–599; Moncure D. Conway,
Omitted Chapters in the History Disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph
(New York, 1988).
47.
The correspondence on the episode includes: Randolph to Washington, 20, 29, 31 July 1795; Washington to Randolph, 22 July, 3 August 1795, Fitzpatrick, vol. 34, 244–255; see also Washington to Hamilton, 29 July 1795, Syrett, vol. 18, 525. Randolph’s reputation is defended in a somewhat excessive fashion in Irving Brant, “Edmund Randolph. Not Guilty!”
WMQ
7 (1950): 179–198.
48.
For a convenient summary of the debate over the authorship question, see Spalding and Garrity,
A Sacred Union,
55–58.
49.
Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address,
160–163, 212–217, 227.
50.
Ibid., 14–15, 241–243. The story is nicely summarized in Spalding and Garrity,
A Sacred Union,
46–49.
51.
Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address,
242.
52.
Ibid., 246–247; the “first draft” Washington sent to Hamilton is reproduced in ibid., 164–173.
53.
Ibid., 249–250.
54.
Ibid., 250–253, 257. See also Syrett, vol. 20, 265–268, 292–293.
55.
Washington to Hamilton, 25 August 1796, Syrett, vol. 20, 307–309. The “incorporating draft” that Washington did not like as well is reproduced in ibid., 294–303. On the editorial process and the changes Washington made, see Spalding and Garrity,
A Sacred Union,
53–54.
56.
Writings,
968.
57.
Ibid., 974–975.
58.
Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address,
260.
59.
Ibid., 172.
60.
Ibid., 252–253.
61.
Ibid., 258–259.
62.
Ibid., 245–257;
Writings,
972.
63.
For Washington’s Eighth Annual Address, see
Writings,
978–985. The Hamilton draft is in Syrett, vol. 20, 382–388.
64.
Flexner,
George Washington,
324–327, and Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism,
495–496, call attention to the strongly nationalistic message Washington delivered. While some historians dismiss the message as Hamilton’s handiwork, and therefore as evidence that Washington capitulated to the Hamiltonian wing of the Federalist party in his last executive statement, it seems to me this interpretation misses the larger point, which is that Washington required no instruction from Hamilton on these issues, and retained his own reasons for regarding the enhanced powers of the federal government as indispensable instruments, the chief reason being that his own departure created a vacuum that would need to be filled by federal institutions. Even Jefferson, who ascended to the presidency in 1801 fully intending to dismantle rather than buttress those institutions and policies, discovered in his first term that Washington’s projection, though the great man was now in the grave, still haunted the political landscape. Even with the Jefferson triumph in the early years of the nineteenth century and the parallel defeat of the Federalist party as a national force, the core of Washington’s vision remained alive, because without it the American nation itself would have ceased to exist. A reincarnated Washington, I am suggesting, would have gone with Lincoln and the Union in 1861.
65.
Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address,
252–253.
66.
Though inadequate, the only book-length treatment of the subject is Fritz Hirschfeld,
George Washington and Slavery: A Documentary Portrayal
(St. Louis, 1997). Still valuable for its discussion of Washington’s posture as a slave owner is Flexner,
George Washington,
432–448. The most thorough assessment in the recent works is Robert E. Dalzell, Jr., and Lee Baldwin Dalzell,
George Washington’s Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America
(New York, 1998), 112, 211–219.
67.
Writings,
956–957.
68.
Ibid., 957–960.
69.
Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address,
261–262; William Duane,
A Letter to George Washington … Containing Strictures of His Address
(Philadelphia, 1786), 11–12;
Aurora,
17 October 1796; Washington to Benjamin Walker, 12 January 1797, Fitzpatrick, vol. 35, 363–365.
70.
Washington to Citizens of Alexandria, 23 March 1797, Fitzpatrick, vol. 35, 423.
71.
Washington’s opinion concerning the state of Virginia’s politics is best expressed in Washington to Patrick Henry, 9 October 1795, ibid., 335. His views of the Republican party in the state after his retirement are illustrated in Washington to Henry Knox, 2 March 1797,
Writings,
986–987, and Washington to Lafayette, 25 December 1798, Fitzpatrick, vol. 37, 66. Jefferson’s immediate opinion of Washington was equally critical: “The President is fortunate to get off just as the bubble is bursting, leaving others to hold the bag.… He will have his usual good fortune of reaping credit from the good arts of others, and leaving to them that of his errors.” See Jefferson to Madison, 8 January 1797, Smith, vol. 2, 955, and Malone,
Jefferson and His Times,
vol. 3, 307–311, who tries to paper over the rift. For Washington’s role in the construction of the nation’s capital, and his dedication to national rather than Virginia priorities, see C. M. Harris, “Washington’s Gamble, L’Enfant’s Dream: Politics, Design, and the Founding of the National Capital,”
WMQ
56 (July 1999): 527–564.
72.
Flexner,
George Washington,
456–462.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE COLLABORATORS
1.
Merrill Peterson,
Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary Dialogue
(Oxford, 1978), views the collaboration from Jefferson’s perspective. I have offered two accounts of the Adams-Jefferson partnership:
Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams
(New York, 1993), 113–142; and
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1997), 235–251.
2.
Abigail Adams to Jefferson, 6 June 1785, Cappon, vol. 1, 28.
3.
This sketch of Adams’s career draws on the standard biographies: Gilbert Chinard,
Honest John Adams
(Boston, 1933); Page Smith,
John Adams,
2 vols. (New York, 1962); Peter Shaw,
The Character of John Adams
(Chapel Hill, 1976). The most satisfying one-volume life, covering his entire public career with respect for the history in which it was imbedded, is John Ferling,
John Adams: A Life
(Knoxville, Tenn., 1992). Two succinct and shrewd appraisals of the Adams temperament are Bernard Bailyn,
Faces of Revolution: Personalities and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence
(New York, 1990), 3–21; and Edmund S. Morgan, “John Adams and the Puritan Tradition,”
NEQ
34 (1961): 518–529. The freshest and fullest study of Adams as a political thinker is C. Bradley Thompson,
John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty
(Lawrence, Kans., 1998).
4.
Adams to Abigail Adams, 19 December 1793, Charles Francis Adams, ed.,
Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife,
2 vols. (Boston, 1841), vol. 2, 133. There is no satisfactory book on the Adams vice presidency. Ferling,
John Adams,
185–217, offers the fullest coverage among the biographies. See also Linda Dudek Guerrero,
John Adams’s Vice-Presidency
1789
–
97
: The Neglected Man in the Forgotten Office
(New York, 1982).
5.
Adams to Abigail Adams, 19 December 1793, 12 March 1794,
Adams,
reel 377; Adams to Thomas Brand-Hollis, 19 February 1792,
Adams,
reel 375.
6.
See the exchanges between Adams and Abigail, most especially during the period from 1794 to 1796,
Adams,
reels 378–381. Adams to Benjamin Rush, 4 April 1790, Alexander Biddle, ed.,
Old Family Letters
(Philadelphia, 1892), 168–170.
7.
Adams to Ebenezer Stokes, 20 March 1790,
Adams,
reel 115.
8.
James H. Hutson, “John Adams’s Title Campaign,”
NEQ
41 (1968): 30–39; Jefferson to Madison, 29 July 1789, Boyd, vol. 15, 315–316.
9.
Adams to William Tudor, 28 June 1789; Adams to Rush, 5 July 1789,
Adams,
reel 115.
10.
For an analysis of Adams’s political thought as reflected in
Discourses on Davila,
see Ellis,
Passionate Sage,
143–173, and Thompson,
John Adams,
149–173. For a convenient synthesis of the press coverage of Adams as a closet monarchist, see Dumas Malone,
Jefferson and His Times,
6 vols. (Boston, 1948–1981), vol. 3, 283–285.