To Mr. Jefferson I have felt insuperable objections. The morals of the author of the letter to Mazzei cannot be pure. (Marshall.)
You have given an opinion in exact conformity with the wishes of your party. Come forward and defend it. (George Hay to Marshall.)
"The P. requests Mr. McHenry's company for one minute," wrote President Adams to his Secretary of War on the morning of May 5, 1800.[1093] The unsuspicious McHenry at once responded. The President mentioned an unimportant departmental matter; and then, suddenly flying into a rage, abused his astounded Cabinet adviser in "outrageous"[1094] fashion and finally demanded his resignation.[1095] The meek McHenry resigned. To the place thus made vacant, the harried President, without even consulting him, immediately appointed Marshall, who "as immediately declined."[1096] Then Adams tendered the office to Dexter, who accepted.
And resign, too, demanded Adams of his Secretary of State.[1097] The doughty Pickering refused[1098]—"I did not incline to accept this insidious favor,"[1099] he reported to Hamilton. Adams dismissed him.[1100] Again the President turned to Marshall, who, deeply troubled, considered the offer. The Federalist Cabinet was broken to pieces, and a presidential election was at hand which would settle the fate of the first great political party in American history.
The campaign had already started. The political outlook was dark enough before the President's outburst; this shattering of his Cabinet was a wicked tongue of lightning from the threatening clouds which, after the flash, made them blacker still.[1101]
Few Presidents have ever faced a more difficult party condition than did John Adams when, by a humiliating majority of only three votes, he was elected in 1796. He succeeded Washington; the ruling Federalist politicians looked to Hamilton as their party chieftain; even Adams's Cabinet, inherited from Washington, was personally unfriendly to the President and considered the imperious New York statesman as their supreme and real commander. "I had all the officers and half the crew always ready to throw me overboard," accurately declared Adams some years later.[1102]
Adams's temperament was the opposite of Washington's, to which the Federalist leaders had so long been accustomed that the change exasperated them.[1103] From the very beginning they bound his hands. The new President had cherished the purpose of calling to his aid the ablest of the Republicans, but found himself helpless. "When I first took the Chair," bitterly records Adams, "I was extremely desirous of availing myself of Mr. Madison's abilities, ... and experience. But the violent Party Spirit of Hamilton's Friends, jealous of every man who possessed qualifications to eclipse him, prevented it. I could not do it without quarreling outright with my Ministers whom Washington's appointment had made my Masters."[1104]
On the other hand, the high Federalist politicians, most of whom were Hamilton's adherents, felt that Adams entertained for their leader exactly the same sentiments which the President ascribed to them. "The jealousy which the P.[resident] has felt of H.[amilton] he now indulges toward P.[inckney], W.[olcott] & to'd very many of their friends who are suspected of having too much influence in the Community, & of not knowing how to appreciate his [Adams's] merits.... The Consequence is that his ears are shut to his best real friends & open to Flatterers, to Time servers & even to some Jacobins."[1105]
Adams, the scholar and statesman, but never the politician, was the last man to harmonize these differences. And Hamilton proved to be as inept as Adams.
After the President had dispatched the second mission to France, Hamilton's followers, including Adams's Cabinet, began intriguing in a furtive and vicious fashion to replace him with some other Federalist at the ensuing election. While, therefore, the President, as a personal matter, was more than justified in dismissing McHenry and Pickering (and Wolcott also[1106]), he chose a fatal moment for the blow; as a matter of political strategy he should have struck sooner or not at all.