Borrow we must for such an CHAPTER

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to discharge the debt. object, since the sum which we are free to wipe off, according to our stipulation, is equal to our present abil- 1792. ity. And is this chance of advantage a sufficient temptation on which to hazard our half-fledged reputation? What should you say, sir, if for this purpose a land tax should be laid by Congress which shall not take effect unless the states should neglect to raise the money by their own laws? I think it would soon be discovered that such a measure would insensibly restore requisitions. These evils are also within the scope of your control.

"The fuel which has been already gathered for combustion wants no addition. But how awfully might it be increased, were the violence which is now suspended by a universal submission to your pretensions let loose by your resignation. Those Federalists"-Randolph must here be supposed to mean those persons calling themselves friends of the Federal Constitution" who can espouse Mr. Clinton against Mr. Adams as vicepresident, will not hesitate at a more formidable game. The Constitution would not have been adopted but from a knowledge that you had once sanctioned it, and an expectation that you would execute it. It is in a state of probation. The most inauspicious struggles are past; but the public deliberations need stability. You alone can give them stability. Should a civil war arise, you can not stay at home.. And how much easier will it be to disperse the factions which are rushing to this catastrophe, than to subdue them after they shall appear in

arms!"

While this correspondence was still going on between Washington and his secretaries, the feelings of hostility between Hamilton and Jefferson reached a new pitch of

CHAPTER aggravation. The attacks upon the financial policy of V. the government, kept up with untiring pertinacity in 1792. Freneau's Gazette, provoked Hamilton at last to pubAug. 4. lish a newspaper article, under the signature of "an

American," in which attention was called to Freneau's paper as the organ of the Secretary of State, specially set up by him for that purpose, and edited by a clerk in his office, a connection represented by "an American" as indelicate, unfit, and inconsistent with those pretensions to extraordinary republican purity of which so suspicious a parade was exhibited upon every occasion. If Mr. Jefferson disapproved of the government itself, how could he reconcile it to his own personal dignity and the principles of probity to hold office under it, and to employ the means of official influence in opposition? If he disapproved of the leading measures of the administration, how could he reconcile it with the principles of delicacy and propriety to hold a place in that administration, and at the same time to be instrumental in vilifying measures which had been adopted by both branches of the Legislature, and sanctioned by the chief magistrate of the Union? As a key to his conduct in this matter, the additional statements were made that Jefferson, at first, was opposed to the Constitution and against its adoption; and further, that he was the declared opponent of almost all the important measures of the government, especially those relating to the finances and the public debt. The article concluded with an eloquent contrast, as to the effect upon the public welfare, between the policy adopted by the government and that advocated by the party of which Jefferson seemed to aspire to be the leader.

Just before this attack upon him appeared, Jefferson had left Philadelphia on a visit to Monticello. Freneau

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came out with an affidavit denying that he had ever had CHAPTER any negotiations with Jefferson as to the establishment

of his paper, or was ever controlled or influenced by him 1792. in its management, or that he ever wrote or dictated a line for it. But to this "an American" replied, that facts spoke louder than words, and, under certain circumstances, louder than oaths, and it was still insisted that Freneau's paper was Jefferson's organ. It was not at Freneau, but at Jefferson, so this second article stated, that these strictures had been aimed, their object being to expose a public officer who had not scrupled to embarrass and disparage the government of which he was a member; the prompter, open or secret, of unwarrant-able aspersions on men who, so long as actions, not merely professions, should be taken as the true test of patriotism and integrity, need never decline a comparison with him as to their titles to public esteem.

These articles, at once ascribed to Hamilton, produced a great excitement among Jefferson's friends, and drew out several answers, to which Hamilton in due time replied. As soon as Washington, then at Mount Vernon, became aware of the breaking out of this newspaper war, he made an effort to bring about a truce between his rival and angry secretaries. In a letter to Jefferson, after Aug. 23. detailing some information just received from the frontiers tending to show British and Spanish intrigues with the Indians, he added, "How unfortunate and how much to be regretted it is that, while we are encompassed on all sides with avowed enemies and insidious friends, internal dissensions should be harrowing and tearing out our vitals? The latter, to me, is the most serious, the most alarming, the most afflicting of the two; and without more charity for the opinions and acts of others in governmental matters, or some more infallible criterion

CHAPTER than has yet fallen to the lot of humanity, by which the V. truth of speculative opinions, before they have undergone 1792. the test of experience, is to be forejudged, I believe it will be difficult, if not impracticable, to manage the reins of government, or to keep the parts of it together; for if,' instead of laying our shoulder to the machine after measures are decided on, one pulls this way and another that, before the utility of the thing is fairly tried, it must inevitably be torn asunder; and, in my opinion, the fairest prospect of happiness and prosperity that ever was presented to man will be lost perhaps forever.

"My earnest wish and my fondest hope therefore is, that instead of wounding suspicions and irritating charges, there may be liberal allowances, mutual forbearances, and temporizing yieldings on all sides. Under the exercise of these, matters will go on smoothly, and, if possible, more prosperously. Without them, every thing must rub; the wheels of government will clog; our enemies will triumph, and by throwing their weight into the disaffected scale, may accomplish the ruin of the goodly fabric we have been erecting.

"I do not mean to apply this advice or these observations to any particular person or character. I have given them in the same general terms to other officers of the government, because the disagreements which have arisen from difference of opinions, and the attacks which have been made upon almost all the measures of government, and most of its executive officers, have for a long time past filled me with painful sensations, and can not fail, I think, of producing unhappy consequences at home and abroad."

Two or three days after he wrote to Hamilton to the same effect, but perhaps a little more pointedly. The answers returned were sufficiently characteristic of the

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writers. "It is my most anxious wish," wrote Hamil- CHAPTER ton, "as far as may depend upon me, to smooth the path of your administration, and to render it prosperous and 1792. happy. And if any prospect shall open of healing or Sept. 9. terminating the differences which exist, I shall most cheerfully embrace it, though I consider myself as the deeply injured party. The recommendation of such a spirit is worthy of the moderation and wisdom which dictated it; and if your endeavors should prove unsuccessful, I do not hesitate to say that, in my opinion, the period is not remote when the public good will require substitutes for the differing members of your administration. The continuance of a division there must destroy the energy of government, which will be little enough with the strictest union. On my part there will be a most cheerful acquiescence in such a result.

“I trust, sir, that the greatest frankness has always marked, and will always mark, every step of my conduct toward you. In this disposition I can not conceal from you that I have had some instrumentality of late in the retaliations which have fallen upon certain public characters, and that I find myself placed in a situation not to be able to recede for the present.

"I considered myself compelled to this conduct by reasons public as well as personal, of the most cogent nature. I know that I have been an object of uniform opposition from Mr. Jefferson from the moment of his coming to the city of New York to enter on his present office. I know, from the most authentic sources, that I have been the frequent subject of the most unkind whispers and insinuations from the same quarter. I have long seen a formed party in the Legislature under his auspices bent upon my subversion. I can not doubt, from the evidence I possess, that the National Gazette