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Washington's task not only to establish a dignified and independent policy of his own abroad, but to beat down colonial politics at home.

In the first burst of rejoicing over the uprising of the French people, no divisions were apparent; but the arrival of Genet was the signal for their beginning. The extraordinary spectacle was then presented of an American party arrayed against the administration under the lead of the French minister, and with the strong, although covert sympathy of the Secretary of State. The popular feeling in fact was so strongly with France that the new party seemed on the surface to have almost universal support. The firm attitude of the administration and Washington's unyielding adherence to his policy of neutrality gave them their first serious check, but also embittered their attacks. In the first three years of the government almost every one refrained from attacking Washington personally. The unlimited love and respect in which he was held were the principal causes of this moderation, but even those opponents who were not influenced by feelings of respect were restrained by a wholesome prudence from bringing upon themselves the odium of being enemies of the President.

The fiction that the king could do no wrong was carried to the last extreme by the Long Parliament when they made war on Charles in order to remove him from evil counsellors. It was, no doubt, the exercise of a wise conservatism in that

instance; but in the United States, and in the ordinary condition of politics, such a position was of course untenable. The President was responsible for his cabinet and for the measures of his administration, and it was impossible to separate them long, even when the chief magistrate was so great and so well-beloved as Washington. Freneau, editing his newspaper from the office of the Secretary of State, seems to have been the first to break the line. He passed speedily from attacks on measures to attacks on men, and among the latter he soon included the President. Washington had had too much experience of slander and abuse during the revolutionary war to be worried by them. But Freneau took pains to send him copies of his newspapers, a piece of impertinence which apparently led to a little vigorous denunciation, the account of which seems probable, although our only authority is in Jefferson's "Ana." As the attacks went on and were extended, and when Bache joined in with the "Aurora," Washington was not long in coming to the unpleasant conclusion that all this opposition proceeded from a well-formed plan, and was the work of a party which designed to break down his measures and ruin his administration. All statesmen entrusted in a representative system with the work of government are naturally prone to think that their opponents are also the enemies of the public welfare, and Washington was no exception to the rule. Such an opinion is indeed unavoidable, for a public man

must have faith that his own measures are the best for the country, and if he did not, he would be but a faint-hearted representative, unfit to govern and unable to lead. History has agreed with Washington in his view of the work of his administration, and has set it down as essential to the right and successful foundation of the government. It is not to be wondered at that at the moment Washington should regard a party swayed by the French minister and seeking to involve us in war as unpatriotic and dangerous. He even thought that one probable solution of Genet's conduct was that he was the tool and not the leader of the party which sustained him. In fact, his general view of the opposition was marked by that perfect clearness which was characteristic of all his opinions when he had fully formed them. In July, 1793, he wrote to Henry Lee:

"That there are in this as well as in all other countries, discontented characters, I well know; as also that these characters are actuated by very different views some good, from an opinion that the general measures of the government are impure; some bad, and, if I might be allowed to use so harsh an expression, diabolical, inasmuch as they are not only meant to impede the measures of that government generally, but more especially, as a great means toward the accomplishment of it, to destroy the confidence which it is necessary for the people to place, until they have unequivocal proof of demerit, in their public servants. In this light

I consider myself whilst I am an occupant of office; and if they were to go further and call me their slave during this period, I would not dispute the point.

"But in what will this abuse terminate? For the result, as it respects myself, I care not; for I have a consolation within that no earthly efforts can deprive me of, and that is, that neither ambition nor interested motives have influenced my conduct. The arrows of malevolence, therefore, however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me; though, whilst I am up as a mark, they will be continually aimed. The publications in Freneau's and Bache's papers are outrages on common decency, and they progress in that style in proportion as their pieces are treated with contempt and are passed by in silence by those at whom they are aimed. The tendency of them, however, is too obvious to be mistaken by men of cool and dispassionate minds, and, in my opinion, ought to alarm them, because it is difficult to prescribe bounds to the effect."

He was not much given, however, to talking about his assailants. If he said anything, it was usually only in the way of contemptuous sarcasm, as when he wrote to Morris: "The affairs of this country cannot go amiss. There are so many watchful guardians of them, and such infallible guides, that one is at no loss for a director at ever turn. But of these matters I shall say little." If these attacks had any effect on him, it was only to

make him more determined in carrying out his purposes. In the first skirmish, which ended in the recall of Genet, he not only prevailed, but the French minister's audacity, especially in venturing to appeal to the people against thei: President, demoralized the opposition and brought publio opinion round to the side of the administration with an overwhelming force.

Genet's mischief, however, did not end with him. He had sown the seeds of many troubles, and among others the idea of societies on the model of the famous Jacobin Club of Paris That American citizens should have so little self-respect as to borrow the political jargon and ape the political manners of Paris was sad enough. To put on red caps, drink confusion to tyrants, sing Ça ira, and call each other "citizen," was foolish to the verge of idiocy, but it was at least harmless. When, however, they began to form "democratic societies" on the model of the Jacobins, for the defence of liberty against a government which the people themselves had made, they ceased to be fatuous and became mischievous. These societies, senseless imitations of French examples, and having no real cause to defend liberty, became simply party organizations, with a strong tendency to foster license and disorder. Washington regarded them with unmixed disgust, for he attributed to them the agitation and discontent of the settlers beyond the mountains, which threatened to embroil us with Spain, and he believed also that the much

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