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THE ELECTIONS OF 1788

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was Federalist, while the more numerous and more representative lower House was Antifederalist. The Senate insisted upon a concurrent vote-as ordinary bills are passed-so that it might have a veto on the other House. The wrangle lasted for weeks. At the last moment, the larger House surrendered, and chose electors acceptable to the smaller one. In New York the situation was similar; but there the Antifederalist House refused to yield its right, and that State lost its vote altogether.

There had been no formal nominations. Washington received the 69 votes cast for President. For Vice President there was no such agreement. Some of the Antifederalists hoped to elect George Clinton of New York, Hamilton's chief adversary there; but the plan fell to pieces when New York failed to take part in the election. Eleven names were voted for by the 69 electors. John Adams was elected, but by only 34 votes, one less than half, but enough before the Twelfth amendment.

Congress

The Continental Congress had named the first Wednesday in March for the inauguration of the new government at New York City. On that day, however, only 8 Dilatory Senators, out of 22, and 13 Representatives, out methods of of 59, had arrived, and the electoral votes could not be counted. The two Houses met from day to day, for roll call, and sent occasional urgent entreaties to dilatory members in neighboring States; but not till almost five weeks later (April 6) was the necessary quorum secured. On April 30, Washington was inaugurated with great state and solemnity. It is easier to understand these delays when we remember that Washington, now nearly sixty years old, had to make the twelve-day journey from Mount Vernon to New York on horseback.

The ques

For nearly three weeks, Congress wrangled over matters of ceremony. After solemn deliberation, the Senate recommended that Washington be styled tion of titles "His Highness, President of the United States of and royal America and the Protector of the Liberties of the Same." (John Adams would have preferred "His Majesty

forms

the President.") The more democratic Representatives insisted on giving only the title used in the Constitution"President of the United States." Finally this House sent

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an address to Washington by this title; and the Senate had to lay aside its tinsel.

During the debate, one particularly quaint episode occurred. The minutes of the Senate referred to the speech with which Washington had "opened" Congress as "His most gracious speech." This was the form always used in the English parliament regarding the speech from the Throne. Senator Maclay objected to the phrase, and finally it was struck from the record. Vice President Adams, however, defended it hotly, declaring (accord

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ing to Maclay) that if he could have foreseen such agitation, he "would never have drawn his sword" against England in the Revolution. Maclay tells us, too, that Adams (presid

1

1 William Maclay, from western Pennsylvania, was one of the few democratic Senators. During his term of office he kept a diary, quite in the Pepys style, with exceedingly intimate entries (as to weekly or more occasional baths, for instance) but also with much exceedingly valuable matter. This Journal should be accessible to every student of this period. Maclay was an honest, well-meaning, rather suspicious man, without breadth of view, or social graces, but with an ardent belief in popular government. He was no hero worshiper. John Adams (his pet aversion) is credited with "a very silly kind of laugh. . . the most unmeaning simper that ever dimpled the face of folly." Madison is styled "His Littleness." Hamilton appears with " a very boyish giddy manner." And even Jefferson wears "a rambling, vacant look."

OLD WORLD TRAPPINGS LAID ASIDE

303 ing in the Senate) spoke forty minutes from the chair in opposition to the simple form of title for the President. "What," he exclaimed, "will the common people of other countries, what will the sailors and soldiers, say of 'George Washington, President of the United States'? They will despise him to all eternity!" On the other hand, Senator Grayson of Virginia wrote indignantly, in a letter to Patrick Henry, "Is it not strange that John Adams, son of a tinker and creature of the people, should be for titles, dignities, and preheminences!" And Jefferson, in Paris, exulted at the defeat of the proposed title: "I hope that the titles of Excellency, Honor, Worship, Esquire, forever disappear from among us from that moment. I wish that of Mr. ["Master,"still connoting social rank] would follow them."

Soon after, the struggle was renewed on the bill to establish the mint. It was proposed that each coin should bear the image of the President during whose administration it was coined after the fashion of all royal coinage. A few radicals attacked this "disposition to ape monarchic practice," and the proposal was dropped, in favor of the use of an emblematic and none too artistic "Goddess of Liberty."

Victory for

mocracy

It has been too much the custom to ridicule the objectors to these "harmless" forms and titles in this critical struggle for simplicity. The titles were "harmless"; but the spirit in which they were de- simplicity manded was not. That spirit was quite as vio- and delent and ridiculous as was the democratic opposition to it. The aristocrats believed that government ought to be hedged about with ceremonial to secure due reverence from its "subjects." It is easy to find matter for laughter in some acts of the democratic opposition; but at least let us acknowledge gratefully our debt to it for turning the current of American practice away from Old World trappings of childish or slavish ceremonial toward manly simplicity. and democratic common sense.

Other questions had to do not merely with ceremony, but with power. The Constitution requires the consent of the Senate to Presidential appointments and to treaties,

Evolution

of Constitutional practice: President

but does not say how that consent shall be given. Washington and his Cabinet were at first inclined to treat the Senate as an English monarch treated his Privy Council. When the first nomination for a foreign minister came up (June 17), Vice President Adams attempted to take the "advice and consent" of the Senators one by one, viva voce. This attack upon the independence of the Senate was foiled by Maclay, who insisted upon vote by ballot.

and Senate

A still more important incident concerned a treaty with certain Indian tribes. Instead of sending the printed document to the Senate for consideration (as is done now), Washington came in person (August 22), took the Vice President's presiding chair, asked Secretary Knox to read the treaty aloud (which was done hurriedly and indistinctly), and then called at once for "advice and consent,” to be given in his presence. As Maclay properly observes, there was "no chance for a fair investigation while the President of the United States sat there with his Secretary of War to support his opinions and overawe the timid and neutral." The question was being put, when Maclay's sturdy republicanism once more intervened. He called for certain other papers bearing on the subject, and this resulted in postponement. Maclay asserts that Washington received the first interruption with "an aspect of stern displeasure,' and that at the close he "started up in a violent fret,” exclaiming, "This defeats every purpose of my coming here." The whole incident should give some comfort to those Americans who grieve at recent dissensions between President and Senate over treaties of mightier import.

Evolution of the

The Constitution, by its language, suggests single heads for executive departments (rather than the committees customary under the old Confederation). Congress at once established the departments of State, TreasCabinet ury, and War, together with an Attorney-Generalship. Washington appointed as the three "Secretaries, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Henry Knox, and made Edmund

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THE JUDICIARY OF 1789

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Randolph the Attorney-General. These officials were designed, separately, to advise and assist the President; but neither the Act of Congress nor the Constitution made any reference to them as a collective body,—that is, as a “Cabinet.” Indeed, several proposals for such an advisory council had been voted down in the Federal Convention. Only by custom has the Cabinet become an important part of our government. The Constitution provides merely that the President "may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices." This gives no warrant for asking advice, for instance, from the Secretary of War upon a matter of finance; but almost at once Washington began to treat the group as one official family. When he was troubled as to the constitutionality of the Bank Bill (page 312), he asked both Hamilton and Jefferson for written opinions; and, in 1793, when the war between England and France raised serious questions as to the proper policy for America (page 321), he called the three Secretaries and Randolph into personal counsel in a body. This was the first "Cabinet meeting." " 1

The Constitution made it the duty of Congress to provide a Supreme Court. The "original jurisdiction" of that Court was stated in the Constitution; but Congress The was left at liberty to regulate the appellate jurisdic- Judiciary tion, and to provide inferior courts, or not, at its dis- Act of 1789 cretion. A Judiciary Act of 1789 established a system of which the main features still remain. (1) A Supreme Court (a Chief Justice and five Associate Justices) was created, to sit at the Capital; (2) thirteen District Courts, each with a resident

1 From time to time Congress has decreed new departments. In 1798 a Secretary of the Navy was given part of the duties of the old Department of War. The Post Office was established in 1790 as a part of the Treasury Department, but in 1829 the Postmaster General became the equal of the other heads of departments. In 1849 there was added a Department of the Interior; and out of this were carved the Department of Agriculture, in 1889, and the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903. The last was again divided in 1913 into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor. The Attorney General became the head of a Department of Justice in 1870.

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