[Previous page]...ger, and rally, and rescue the standard of the constitution. This
has been happily done. Federalism & monarchism have languished from
that moment, until their treasonable combinations with the enemies of
their country during the late war, their plots of dismembering the
Union & their Hartford convention, has consigned them to the tomb of
the dead: and I fondly hope we may now truly say "we are all
republicans, all federalists," and that the motto of the standard to
which our country will forever rally, will be "federal union, and
republican government;" and sure I am we may say that we are
indebted, for the preservation of this point of ralliance, to that
opposition of which so injurious an idea is so artfully insinuated &
excited in this history.
Much of this relation is notorious to the world, & many
intimate proofs of it will be found in these notes. From the moment,
where they end, of my retiring from the administration, the
federalists got unchecked hold of Genl. Washington. His memory was
already sensibly impaired by age, the firm tone of mind for which he
had been remarkable, was beginning to relax, it's energy was abated;
a listlessness of labor, a desire for tranquillity had crept on him,
and a willingness to let others act and even think for him. Like the
rest of mankind, he was disgusted with atrocities of the French
revolution, and was not sufficiently aware of the difference between
the rabble who were used as instruments of their perpetration, and
the steady & rational character of the American people, in which he
had not sufficient confidence. The opposition too of the republicans
to the British treaty, and zealous support of the federalists in that
unpopular, but favorite measure of theirs, had made him all their
own. Understanding moreover that I disapproved of that treaty, &
copiously nourished with falsehoods by a malignant neighbor of mine,
who ambitioned to be his correspondent, he had become alienated from
myself personally, as from the republican body generally of his
fellow citizens; & he wrote the letters to Mr. Adams, and Mr.
Carroll, over which, in devotion to his imperishable fame, we must
forever weep as monuments of mortal decay.
Conversations with the President
1792. Feb. 28. I was to have been with him long enough before
3. o clock (which was the hour & day he received visits) to have
opened to him a proposition for doubling the velocity of the post
riders, who now travel about 50. miles a day, & might without
difficulty go 100. and for taking measures (by way-bills) to know
where the delay is, when there is any. I was delayed by business, so
as to have scarcely time to give him the outlines. I ran over them
rapidly, & observed afterwards that I had hitherto never spoke to him
on the subject of the post office, not knowing whether it was
considered as a revenue law, or a law for the general accommodation
of the citizens; that the law just passed seemed to have removed the
doubt, by declaring that the whole profits of the office should be
applied to extending the posts & that even the past profits should be
refunded by the treasury for the same purpose: that I therefore
conceived it was now in the department of the Secretary of State:
that I thought it would be advantageous so to declare it for another
reason, to wit, that the department of treasury possessed already
such an influence as to swallow up the whole Executive powers, and
that even the future Presidents (not supported by the weight of
character which himself possessed) would not be able to make head
against this department. That in urging this measure I had certainly
no personal interest, since, if I was supposed to have any appetite
for power, yet as my career would certainly be exactly as short as
his own, the intervening time was too short to be an object. My real
wish was to avail the public of every occasion during the residue of
the President's period, to place things on a safe footing. -- He was
now called on to attend his company, & he desired me to come and
breakfast with him the next morning.
Feb. 29. I did so, & after breakfast we retired to his room, &
I unfolded my plan for the post-office, and after such an approbation
of it as he usually permitted himself on the first presentment of any
idea, and desiring me to commit it to writing, he, during that pause
of conversation which follows a business closed, said in an
affectionate tone, that he had felt much concern at an expression
which dropt from me yesterday, & which marked my intention of
retiring when he should. That as to himself, many motives obliged
him to it. He had through the whole course of the war, and most
particularly at the close of it uniformly declared his resolution to
retire from public affairs, & never to act in any public office; that
he had retired under that firm resolution, that the government
however which had been formed being found evidently too
inefficacious, and it being supposed that his aid was of some
consequence towards bringing the people to consent to one of
sufficient efficacy for their own good, he consented to come into the
convention, & on the same motive, after much pressing, to take a part
in the new government and get it under way. That were he to continue
longer, it might give room to say, that having tasted the sweets of
office he could not do without them: that he really felt himself
growing old, his bodily health less firm, his memory, always bad,
becoming worse, and perhaps the other faculties of his mind showing a
decay to others of which he was insensible himself, that this
apprehension particularly oppressed him, that he found morever his
activity lessened, business therefore more irksome, and tranquility &
retirement become an irresistible passion. That however he felt
himself obliged for these reasons to retire from the government, yet
he should consider it as unfortunate if that should bring on the
retirement of the great officers of the government, and that this
might produce a shock on the public mind of dangerous consequence. I
told him that no man had ever had less desire of entering into public
offices than myself; that the circumstance of a perilous war, which
brought every thing into danger, & called for all the services which
every citizen could render, had induced me to undertake the
administration of the government of Virginia, that I had both before
& after refused repeated appointments of Congress to go abroad in
that sort of office, which if I had consulted my own gratification,
would always have been the most agreeable to me, that at the end of
two years, I resigned the government of Virginia, & retired with a
firm resolution never more to appear in public life, that a domestic
loss however happened, and made me fancy that absence, & a change of
scene for a time might be expedient for me, that I therefore accepted
a foreign appointment limited to two years, that at the close of
that, Dr. Franklin having left France, I was appointed to supply his
place, which I had accepted, & tho' I continued in it three or four
years, it was under the constant idea of remaining only a year or two
longer; that the revolution in France coming on, I had so interested
myself in the event of that, that when obliged to bring my family
home, I had still an idea of returning & awaiting the close of that,
to fix the aera of my final retirement; that on my arrival here I
found he had appointed me to my present office, that he knew I had
not come into it without some reluctance, that it was on my part a
sacrifice of inclination to the opinion that I might be more
serviceable here than in France, & with a firm resolution in my mind
to indulge my constant wish for retirement at no very distant day:
that when therefore I received his letter written from Mount Vernon,
on his way to Carolina & Georgia, (Apr. 1. 1791) and discovered from
an expression in that that he meant to retire from the government ere
long, & as to the precise epoch there could be no doubt, my mind was
immediately made up to make that the epoch of my own retirement from
those labors, of which I was heartily tired. That however I did not
believe there was any idea in either of my brethren in the
administration of retiring, that on the contrary I had perceived at a
late meeting of the trustees of the sinking fund that the Secretary
of the Treasury had developed the plan he intended to pursue, & that
it embraced years in it's view. -- He said that he considered the
Treasury department as a much more limited one going only to the
single object of revenue, while that of the Secretary of State
embracing nearly all the objects of administration, was much more
important, & the retirement of the officer therefore would be more
noticed: that tho' the government had set out with a pretty general
good will of the public, yet that symptoms of dissatisfaction had
lately shewn themselves far beyond what he could have expected, and
to what height these might arise in case of too great a change in the
administration, could not be foreseen.
I told him that in my opinion there was only a single source of
these discontents. Tho' they had indeed appeared to spread
themselves over the war department also, yet I considered that as an
overflowing only from their real channel which would never have taken
place if they had not first been generated in another department, to
wit that of the treasury. That a system had there been contrived,
for deluging the states with paper money instead of gold & silver,
for withdrawing our citizens from the pursuits of commerce,
manufactures, buildings, & other branches of useful industry, to
occupy themselves & their capitals in a species of gambling,
destructive of morality, & which had introduced it's poison into the
government itself. That it was a fact, as certainly known as that he
& I were then conversing, that particular members of the legislature,
while those laws were on the carpet, had feathered their nests with
paper, had then voted for the laws, and constantly since lent all the
energy of their talents, & instrumentality of their offices to the
establishment & enlargement of this system: that they had chained it
about our necks for a great length of time, & in order to keep the
game in their hands had from time to time aided in making such
legislative constructions of the constitution as made it a very
different thing from what the people thought they had submitted to;
that they had now brought forward a proposition, far beyond every one
ever yet advanced, & to which the eyes of many were turned as the
decision which was to let us know whether we live under a limited or
an unlimited government. -- He asked me to what proposition I
alluded? I answered to that in the Report on manufactures which,
under colour of giving
bounties for the encouragement of particular
manufactures, meant to establish the doctrine that the power given by
the Constitution to collect taxes to provide for the
general
welfare of the U.S., permitted Congress to take everything under
their management which
they should deem for the
public welfare, &
which is susceptible of the application of money: consequently that
the subsequent enumeration of their powers was not the description to
which resort must be had, & did not at all constitute the limits of
their authority: that this was a very different question from that of
the bank, which was thought an incident to an enumerated power: that
therefore this decision was expected with great anxiety: that indeed
I hoped the proposition would be rejected, believing there was a
majority in both houses against it, and that if it should be, it
would be considered as a proof that things were returning into their
true channel; & that at any rate I looked forward to the broad
representation which would shortly take place for keeping the general
constitution on it's true ground, & that this would remove a great...
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