[Previous page]... to have lost all familiarity with the subject, and as
yet unaware of it's object, I took no concern in it. The great and
trying question however was lost in the H. of Representatives. So
high were the feuds excited by this subject, that on it's rejection,
business was suspended. Congress met and adjourned from day to day
without doing any thing, the parties being too much out of temper to
do business together. The Eastern members particularly, who, with
Smith from South Carolina, were the principal gamblers in these
scenes, threatened a secession and dissolution. Hamilton was in
despair. As I was going to the President's one day, I met him in the
street. He walked me backwards & forwards before the President's
door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which
the legislature had been wrought, the disgust of those who were
called the Creditor states, the danger of the secession of their
members, and the separation of the states. He observed that the
members of the administration ought to act in concert, that tho' this
question was not of my department, yet a common duty should make it a
common concern; that the President was the center on which all
administrative questions ultimately rested, and that all of us should
rally around him, and support with joint efforts measures approved by
him; and that the question having been lost by a small majority only,
it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion
of some of my friends might effect a change in the vote, and the
machine of government, now suspended, might be again set into motion.
I told him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject; not
having yet informed myself of the system of finances adopted, I knew
not how far this was a necessary sequence; that undoubtedly if it's
rejection endangered a dissolution of our union at this incipient
stage, I should deem that the most unfortunate of all consequences,
to avert which all partial and temporary evils should be yielded. I
proposed to him however to dine with me the next day, and I would
invite another friend or two, bring them into conference together,
and I thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together
coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a
compromise which was to save the union. The discussion took place.
I could take no part in it, but an exhortatory one, because I was a
stranger to the circumstances which should govern it. But it was
finally agreed that, whatever importance had been attached to the
rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the union, & and
of concord among the states was more important, and that therefore it
would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded, to
effect which some members should change their votes. But it was
observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern
States, and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to
sweeten it a little to them. There had before been propositions to
fix the seat of government either at Philadelphia, or at Georgetown
on the Potomac; and it was thought that by giving it to Philadelphia
for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterwards, this might,
as an anodyne, calm in some degree the ferment which might be excited
by the other measure alone. So two of the Potomac members (White &
Lee, but White with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive) agreed
to change their votes, & Hamilton undertook to carry the other point.
In doing this the influence he had established over the Eastern
members, with the agency of Robert Morris with those of the middle
states, effected his side of the engagement, and so the assumption
was passed, and 20. millions of stock divided among favored states,
and thrown in as pabulum to the stock-jobbing herd. This added to
the number of votaries to the treasury and made its Chief the master
of every vote in the legislature which might give to the government
the direction suited to his political views. I know well, and so
must be understood, that nothing like a majority in Congress had
yielded to this corruption. Far from it. But a division, not very
unequal, had already taken place in the honest part of that body,
between the parties styled republican and federal. The latter being
monarchists in principle, adhered to Hamilton of course, as their
leader in that principle, and this mercenary phalanx added to them
ensured him always a majority in both houses: so that the whole
action of the legislature was now under the direction of the
treasury. Still the machine was not compleat.The effect of the
funding system, & of the assumption, would be temporary. It would be
lost with the loss of the individual members whom it had enriched,
and some engine of influence more permanent must be contrived, while
these myrmidons were yet in place to carry it thro' all opposition.
This engine was the Bank of the U.S. All that history is known; so I
shall say nothing about it. While the government remained at
Philadelphia, a selection of members of both houses were constantly
kept as Directors, who, on every question interesting to that
institution, or to the views of the federal head, voted at the will
of that head; and, together with the stockholding members, could
always make the federal vote that of the majority. By this
combination, legislative expositions were given to the constitution,
and all the administrative laws were shaped on the model of England,
& so passed. And from this influence we were not relieved until the
removal from the precincts of the bank, to Washington. Here then was
the real ground of the opposition which was made to the course of
administration. It's object was to preserve the legislature pure and
independant of the Executive, to restrain the administration to
republican forms and principles, and not permit the constitution to
be construed into a monarchy, and to be warped in practice into all
the principles and pollutions of their favorite English model. Nor
was this an opposition to Genl. Washington. He was true to the
republican charge confided to him; & has solemnly and repeatedly
protested to me, in our private conversations, that he would lose the
last drop of his blood in support of it, and he did this the oftener,
and with the more earnestness, because he knew my suspicions of
Hamilton's designs against it; & wished to quiet them. For he was
not aware of the drift, or of the effect of Hamilton's schemes.
Unversed in financial projects & calculations, & budgets, his
approbation of them was bottomed on his confidence in the man. But
Hamilton was not only a monarchist, but for a monarchy bottomed on
corruption. In proof of this I will relate an anecdote, for the
truth of which I attest the God who made me. Before the President
set out on his Southern tour in April 1791. he addressed a letter of
the 4th. of that month, from Mt. Vernon to the Secretaries of State,
Treasury & War, desiring that, if any serious and important cases
should arise during his absence, they would consult & act on them,
and he requested that the Vice-president should also be consulted.
This was the only occasion on which that officer was ever requested
to take part in a Cabinet question. Some occasion for consultation
arising, I invited those gentlemen (and the Attorney genl. as well as
I remember) to dine with me in order to confer on the subject. After
the cloth was removed, and our question agreed & dismissed,
conversation began on other matters and, by some circumstance, was
led to the British constitution, on which Mr. Adams observed "purge
that constitution of it's corruption, and give to it's popular branch
equality of representation, and it would be the most perfect
constitution ever devised by the wit of man." Hamilton paused and
said, "purge it of it's corruption, and give to it's popular branch
equality of representation, & it would become an
impracticable
government: as it stands at present, with all it's supposed defects,
it is the most perfect government which ever existed." And this was
assuredly the exact line which separated the political creeds of
these two gentlemen. The one was for two hereditary branches and an
honest elective one: the other for a hereditary king with a house of
lords & commons, corrupted to his will, and standing between him and
the people. Hamilton was indeed a singular character. Of acute
understanding, disinterested, honest, and honorable in all private
transactions, amiable in society, and duly valuing virtue in private
life, yet so bewitched & perverted by the British example, as to be
under thoro' conviction that corruption was essential to the
government of a nation. Mr. Adams had originally been a republican.
The glare of royalty and nobility, during his mission to England, had
made him believe their fascination a necessary ingredient in
government, and Shay's rebellion, not sufficiently understood where
he then was, seemed to prove that the absence of want and oppression
was not a sufficient guarantee of order. His book on the American
constitutions having made known his political bias, he was taken up
by the monarchical federalists, in his absence, and on his return to
the U.S. he was by them made to believe that the general disposition
of our citizens was favorable to monarchy. He here wrote his Davila,
as a supplement to the former work, and his election to the
Presidency confirmed his errors. Innumerable addresses too, artfully
and industriously poured in upon him, deceived him into a confidence
that he was on the pinnacle of popularity, when the gulph was yawning
at his feet which was to swallow up him and his deceivers. For, when
Genl. Washington was withdrawn, these energumeni of royalism, kept in
check hitherto by the dread of his honesty, his firmness, his
patriotism, and the authority of his name now, mounted on the Car of
State & free from controul, like Phaeton on that of the sun, drove
headlong & wild, looking neither to right nor left, nor regarding
anything but the objects they were driving at; until, displaying
these fully, the eyes of the nation were opened, and a general
disbandment of them from the public councils took place. Mr. Adams,
I am sure, has been long since convinced of the treacheries with
which he was surrounded during his administration. He has since
thoroughly seen that his constituents were devoted to republican
government, and whether his judgment is re-settled on it's ancient
basis, or not, he is conformed as a good citizen to the will of the
majority, and would now, I am persuaded, maintain it's republican
structure with the zeal and fidelity belonging to his character. For
even an enemy has said "he is always an honest man, & often a great
one." But in the fervor of the fury and follies of those who made him
their stalking horse, no man who did not witness it, can form an idea
of their unbridled madness, and the terrorism with which they
surrounded themselves. The horrors of the French revolution, then
raging, aided them mainly, and using that as a raw head and bloody
bones they were enabled by their stratagems of X. Y. Z. in which this
historian was a leading mountebank, their tales of tub-plots, Ocean
massacres, bloody buoys, and pulpit lyings, and slanderings, and
maniacal ravings of their Gardiners, their Osgoods and Parishes, to
spread alarm into all but the firmest breasts. Their Attorney
General had the impudence to say to a republican member that
deportation must be resorted to, of which, said he, "you republicans
have set the example," thus daring to identify us with the murderous
Jacobins of France. These transactions, now recollected but as
dreams of the night, were then sad realities; and nothing rescued us
from their liberticide effect but the unyielding opposition of those
firm spirits who sternly maintained their post, in defiance of
terror, until their fellow citizens could be aroused to their own
dan...
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