Flight of the Eagle. Conrad Black
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increased tariff and excise revenue and strengthened the American central government and directly increased and spread American prosperity. The sources of revenue safeguarded by Jay’s Treaty, the tariffs, financed the military build-up that gave America the leverage to extract the revenue from its arrangements with Britain. The treaty, and Jefferson and Madison’s response to it, showed the superiority of the Washington, Hamilton, Jay, and later Adams policy, which had been pioneered by Franklin, of playing on the British vulnerability in Canada and manipulating Britain and France against each other. It was profoundly sensible strategic thinking, rigorously implemented by Washington, Hamilton, and Jay.
The Jefferson-Madison policy of a trade embargo would have severely enfeebled America without much harming the British. Hamilton led the fight for ratification, against Madison, and the treaty was voted through by the Senate, except for the West Indian trade provisions. Madison led a battle in the House to block appropriations for enforcement. The House asked Washington for the papers of the treaty negotiations. Washington refused, establishing an important precedent. In April 1796, in a stunning defeat for Madison, even the appropriations were passed, as sensible opinion warmed to the virtues of Jay’s Treaty, while the Reign of Terror unfolded in France in 1794 and during its seedy aftermath.
Randolph (again, Jefferson’s cousin), who had succeeded Jefferson in the State Department, was accused of conspiring with Fauchet, the French minister, to sandbag the treaty, on the basis of captured letters, and resigned, in order to avoid being fired by Washington, and was replaced by Timothy Pickering, in August 1795. Hamilton retired as secretary of the Treasury and was replaced by Oliver Wolcott. Pickering had replaced the rather plodding Knox at the War Department, and was succeeded by James McHenry, though Washington was his own secretary of war, as many future presidents would be their own secretaries of state. (McHenry was only Washington’s fourth choice for the War Department, and Pickering was his seventh choice for State—the atmosphere was becoming inflamed and many of the best-qualified people declined to enter public life.)9 Hamilton continued to be a strong influence and counselor to the president, and it was an entirely Federalist cabinet.
The British claims for pre-revolutionary debts were finally settled by mutual agreement in 1802 at $2.66 million. In October 1795, Thomas Pinckney, minister to Britain and special envoy to Spain, signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo with Spain, which conceded points Spain had sought to withhold from America when Jay had negotiated with the Spanish in 1786, especially the unfettered navigation of the Mississippi. In 1796, Washington and Pickering recalled James Monroe as minister to France, when it came to light that he had implied to the French that he could negotiate an American loan to France of $5 million, and showered his hosts with other obsequious deferences that completely exceeded his diplomatic remit.
Washington, Hamilton, and Jay’s sensible and profitable and honorable foreign policy, to navigate around a general European war, was a complement to their very successful financial and economic policies. Hamilton’s assumption of state debts had, as had been intended, led to a drastic reduction in state taxes and had encouraged a huge increase in American prosperity by all indices. American imports from Britain increased from $23.5 million in 1790 to $63 million in 1795, and American exports enjoyed a parallel increase in the same time. The European war and Jay’s suddenly popular treaty had raised the demand and price for all agricultural commodities. Thus began, with as great a success as it ever enjoyed in subsequent centuries, including under Ronald Reagan 190 years later (Chapter 16), the application of tax cuts and supply side economics to American spending, saving, investment, and job creation. Although the administration was decisively successful, Washington, ever mindful of his reputation and a tireless enemy of the spirit of party and faction, had found the partisan back-biting tiresome, and declined publicly and in good time to seek a third term as president.
This was another immense contribution to the stability of American politics and to the public’s trust in the presidency. It was notoriously clear that he could have retained his office as long as he wished, and his handing over of it, especially in the light of the blood-stained chaos and pelagic corruption in France, reflected great honor on him and on the young republic he had secured, had helped design, and had launched. His farewell address is generally considered another of the great state papers in the nation’s history. A first version was written four years earlier by Madison and, without being delivered, was heavily modified by Hamilton, and then substantially refined by Washington himself. The message was delivered by hand and never publicly read by the president. It extolled the virtues of religion, morality, knowledge, and financial soundness, and then dealt at length with foreign policy and warned against “permanent, inveterate antipathies” and “passionate attachments” to other countries. Washington called for commercial relations but “as little political connection as possible” to foreign countries. “Temporary alliances” might be appropriate in “extraordinary emergencies.” But the United States should “steer clear of permanent alliances,” as it was “folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another.”10
Washington and Franklin had been the principal American collaborators in the British removal of the French threat from America’s borders, the first strategic initiative of the Americans, even if in a very secondary role to the British. He and Franklin were the principal architects of the first and most important autonomous American strategic undertaking: the revision of and American emancipation from the British relationship. They would have accepted a less abrupt and complete version of this than actually occurred, but not one more ambiguous in terms of emergent American sovereignty. Jefferson was the principal expositor and propagandist of the Revolution, and Washington, Franklin, Madison, and Hamilton were, in different ways, the chief authors of America’s third move of strategic genius, the Constitution. Washington was the creator of the fourth great strategic achievement, a distinguished and respected presidency, and, importantly assisted by Hamilton, was the creator of an effective executive branch and, with Hamilton, of extremely imaginative and successful economic and foreign policies for the new nation. It had been a masterly progression.
George Washington had led the new nation successfully in war and in peace for a total of 23 years with no pay except out-of-pocket expenses, and had voluntarily surrendered his supreme offices when many wished him to continue in them. He would carry into retirement the profound admiration and gratitude of his countrymen and the well-earned esteem of the whole known world. The immense regard Americans had for him while he lived has withstood the closest historical analysis and has not wavered or declined in the more than two centuries since his death. He is universally recognized as having been a capable general, a fine statesman, an outstanding president, and one of history’s great men.
5. JOHN ADAMS AS PRESIDENT AND THE CRISIS WITH FRANCE
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were the two most prominent candidates to replace Washington, and General Thomas Pinckney ran to be Adams’s vice president, and Aaron Burr, without encouragement from Jefferson, sought the same office. Ballots were not separated; Electoral College members each wrote two different names on ballots, office unspecified. The person with the highest number of ballots became president, and the person in second place became vice president, provided there was a majority. Washington was concerned that, though Madison had done the dirty work, Jefferson had sponsored much criticism of him and that Jefferson’s victory would be interpreted as a rejection of the outgoing president. He was also concerned that Virginia not seem to be entitled to permanent occupancy of the presidency, so he publicly endorsed Adams, who was elected by 71 electoral votes to 68 for Jefferson, 59 for Pinckney, and 30 for Burr. Jefferson, as recipient of the second-largest vote total, would take office as vice president. Wolcott, Pickering, and McHenry retained the Treasury, State, and War departments, and Hamilton’s influence on them also continued. It had been a fine launch for the country, exalting the presidency, navigating the international currents, and building the foundations of prosperity and union. It was about to become more complicated, and more difficult, without Washington’s fine judgment and immense prestige.
Both Jefferson and Hamilton were sensitive to criticism and reckless in their conduct and correspondence. Jefferson sent a letter to an Italian friend, Philip Mazzei, in 1796, which was republished in the United States the following year. Jefferson had written that “An Anglican, monarchical