CHAPTER XIII.
arrival of jefferson at the seat of government—his republicanism shocked—monarchical sentiments entertained by some—hamilton induces jefferson to support his financial measures—location of the seat of government agreed upon—jefferson's suspicions—his dislike of hamilton—washington unsuspicious of dissention in his cabinet—birth of the federal and republican parties—slavery and the slave-trade discussed—the result—difficulties with the indian tribes—negotiations and war—relations with great britain and spain—secret service—gouverneur morris and major beckwith.
After a tedious journey of a fortnight from Richmond, Mr. Jefferson arrived at the seat of government on the twenty-first of March, when the debate on the assumption of the state debts was at its bitterest point. He had returned to America after several years of diplomatic service in France, with a sincere desire to spend the remainder of his days in private life. But he was met at the house of his brother-in-law, on his way from Norfolk (where he landed) to his home at Monticello, by Washington's letter, already mentioned, inviting him to his cabinet as secretary of state. The diplomat was disappointed. He had seen, and in a degree had participated in, the opening act in the drama of the French revolution. He had, as we have observed, become deeply enamored of the leaders in the revolt, and the political sentiments they had proclaimed; and he preferred to remain in France, if he was to be continued in public employment. But the terms of Washington's invitation were such, that Jefferson's sense of duty and reverence for the president would not allow him to refuse, and after due deliberation he accepted the office.
On his arrival at New York, Jefferson found many things to surprise and startle him. A wonderful change had apparently taken place in political life during his residence in Europe; and being thoroughly imbued with republican principles and a deep-seated hatred of monarchy, his suspicions and jealousies were most painfully alive. He saw dangers to the state lurking in every recess where the full light of clear perceptions did not fall. “I found a state of things,” he wrote some years afterward, “which, of all I had contemplated, I least expected. I had left France in the first year of her revolution, in the fervor of natural rights and zeal for reformation. My conscientious devotion to these rights could not be heightened, but it had been aroused and excited by daily exercise. The president received me cordially, and my colleagues and circle of principal citizens apparently with welcome. The courtesies of dinner-parties given me, as a stranger newly arrived among them, placed me at once in their familiar society. But I can not describe the wonder and mortification with which the table conversations filled me. Politics were the chief topic, and a preference of kingly over republican government was evidently the favorite sentiment. An apostate I could not be, nor yet a hypocrite; and I found myself, for the most part, the only advocate on the republican side of the question, unless among the guests there chanced to be some member of that party from the legislative houses.”
That there were men of character in the United States at that time who desired a monarchical form of government, evidence is not wanting. Some of them had been loyalists during the war. Washington spoke of them in 1787, before the assembling of the convention that framed the federal constitution, as men who either had “not consulted the public mind,” or who lived “in a region more productive of monarchical ideas than was the case in the southern states.” But that any officer of the government, on Jefferson's arrival, had a desire for kingly rule, there is no positive evidence. The most earnest advocate for a strong, energetic, consolidated government, was Alexander Hamilton; yet he never expressed a desire for a monarchical government in America. In his speech in the constitutional convention on the eighteenth of June, 1787, he lauded the British constitution as the best ever devised by man, and said that he doubted whether anything short of a government like that of Great Britain (a constitutional monarchy) would do in America. These sentiments were uttered when everything like order appeared to be on the verge of destruction, and a strong arm, independent of the popular will, seemed necessary for the establishment of public strength and individual security. The crisis was passed, the federal constitution was formed, and Hamilton gave it his zealous support. Yet, to the close of his life, he considered the constitution too weak to perform the great duties assigned it.
Hamilton was always frank and unreserved in the expression of his political views; and immediately after Jefferson's arrival at the seat of government, the secretary of the treasury pressed upon his attention the importance of the assumption of the state debts—a measure which had been rejected. “He observed,” says Jefferson in his account of the matter, “that the members of the administration ought to act in concert; that though this question was not of my department, yet a common duty should make it a common concern; that the president was the centre on which all administrative questions ultimately rested; that, the question having been lost by a small majority only, it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of some of my friends might effect a change in the vote, and the machinery of government, now suspended, might be again set in motion.”
To this Jefferson replied that he was a stranger to the whole matter; that if the rejection of the proposition really, as Hamilton alleged, endangered the Union, it was important to reconsider it; and then proposed that the secretary of the treasury should meet two or three friends at table the next day to discuss the subject. The dinner and the discussion took place; and it was “finally agreed,” says Jefferson, “that whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union and of concord among the states was more important, and that therefore it would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded, to effect which, some members should change their votes.”