All this time, Iago-like letters were going forth from members of the Cabinet to Washington conveying the impression that Adams was contemptuously indifferent to the great man’s wishes. The effect was all that could have been desired. In a surprisingly offensive note, Washington wrote peremptorily to the President demanding to know ‘at once and precisely’ what was to be expected.[1600] Such a letter from a less popular idol would have elicited an answer sharp and decisive; but, taking discretion for the wiser course, Adams swallowed his pride and wrote a conciliatory note, not neglecting, however, to remind the man who had presided over the Constitutional Convention that under the Constitution the President, and no one else, ‘has the authority to determine the rank of the officers.’[1601] Thus the issue was closed, with Hamilton triumphant, but with Adams awaiting only an opportunity for revenge. The tiny cloud that had appeared in the beginning of the Administration was now dark and large and threatening.
II
Having won with Hamilton, the Federalist leaders now turned to another part of their programme—the rigid exclusion of Jeffersonians from commissions in the army. This was to be a Federalist war, nothing less. Even Washington, who had, by this time, become a partisan Federalist, was in sympathy with the view that the friends of Jefferson, Madison, Hancock, and Sam Adams should be proscribed. This appears in his consultations with John Marshall as to the personnel of the army,[1602] and in a letter to McHenry referring to the ‘erroneous political opinions’ of an applicant.[1603] This enlistment of Washington in the proscriptive policies of the Federalists is directly traceable to the Iagos who were writing him all the while. Hamilton was solemnly assuring him that the Democrats were ‘determined to go every length with France’ and to ‘form with her a perpetual offensive and defensive alliance and to give her a monopoly of our trade.’[1604]
Thus one day Adams sat in conference with Washington on the organization of the army. Knowing Aaron Burr as a brave and able officer anxious to fight, he wished to recognize the Democrats by giving him a commission. Washington, much under the influence of Hamilton, conceded Burr’s capacity, but opposed his appointment because he was a master of intrigue. Through the mind of Adams, hampered in his plans at every turn, flashed the vivid memory of how his predecessor had forced him to humiliate his own friends in the appointment of Hamilton—‘the most restless, impatient, artful, indefatigable, and unprincipled intriguer in the United States.’ But—as he afterward wrote—he was ‘not permitted to nominate Burr.’[1605] Here again the traitors in the Cabinet had played their part.[1606]
But the war was not to be national, but Federalist. ‘Every one of them [Democrats] ought to be rejected, and only men of fair property employed in the higher and more confidential grades,’ wrote a Federalist Representative to Wolcott.[1607] When Adams’s son-in-law applied for a commission his application was held until he sent a certificate that he had not interfered in a gubernatorial election in New York.[1608] So zealously did the minor politicians enter into this policy of proscription that some of the wiser leaders began to take alarm. Even a friend of McHenry at Baltimore was moved to protest. ‘They seemed to imagine that nothing was left to be done but to exterminate every one who had been on the Democratic side’ he complained.[1609] Even Hamilton finally thought fit to call for a moderation of the programme. ‘It does not seem advisable,’ he wrote McHenry, ‘to exclude all hope and to give to appointments too absolute a party feature.’[1610] But there was no relenting in party circles, and no one had done more to arouse this fanatical spirit than Hamilton himself.
The climax of stupidity was reached in the case of Frederick A. Muhlenberg, former Speaker of the House, a leader and oracle among the Germans of Pennsylvania, but no blind follower of Federalism. In a spirit of pure patriotism he had personally offered the service of his sword to Adams, whose wish to accept it was again thwarted by Washington, acting under the inspiration of the Federalist leaders. Whereupon Muhlenberg marched with the Germans as a body into the Jeffersonian camp and enlisted for another war.[1611]
Under this proscriptive program the Jeffersonians remained mute but for a few sarcastic comments in their press. ‘General Washington must have some very keen reflection,’ said the ‘Independent Chronicle,’ ‘in taking command of the army of the present day, in seeing so many new friends who were his old enemies during the Revolution.’[1612] When it was reported that Robert Goodhue Harper had been made Commissioner-General, it chortled, ‘What lawyer would not plead for such a fee?’[1613] And it had reflected on Adams’s ‘pretence’ for piety in connection with his appointment of Hamilton, ‘who published a book to prove that he was an adulterer.’[1614]
Bitter as were the reflections of Adams on reading such observations, it could have mattered little to Hamilton. Everything he had started out to get he got. He wanted a war with France—and got it. He wanted the command directly under Washington as he had wanted nothing else in his life—and got it, by striding to his sword over the humiliated pride of the President. He wanted an army of fifty thousand men, and, if he fell short in this, he nevertheless had an army. He was on the crest of the wave, the most powerful man in America, and he was happy.
III
Feeling that supreme fortune was within his grasp, Hamilton threw all his enthusiasm and vitality into the task of perfecting the army and organizing the Nation for war. ‘The law has abandoned him, or rather he has forsaken it,’ wrote a friend to King.[1615] Preparing the plan for the fortification of New York Harbor, he personally superintended its execution. He had worked out to the minutest detail the organization of the army and all he lacked was men and a declaration of war. But alas, he was confronted on every hand by disheartening difficulties. The recruiting fell pathetically short of anticipations, the War Department under the Secretary of his own choosing was pitifully inefficient, and, while the army was woefully below the provisions of Congress, even the fragment was not adequately clothed or provisioned, and there was a deficiency of tents. In a rage, Hamilton wrote angrily to McHenry: ‘Why, dear friend, why do you suffer the business of providing to go on as it does? Every moment proves the insufficiency of the existing plan and the necessity of auxiliaries. I have no doubt that at Baltimore, New York, Providence, and Boston additional supplies of clothing may promptly be procured and prepared by your agents, and it ought to be done, though it may enhance the expense. ‘Tis terrible ... that there should be wants everywhere. So of tents. Calls for them are repeated from Massachusetts where better and cheaper than anywhere else they can certainly be provided.’[1616]