Jefferson and Hamilton

by Claude G. Bowers

VI

While most of them hurried home, three members of the House, including two of the vanquished, with Thomas Pinckney as spokesman, made their way with many jests, we may be sure, up the slushy Avenue, between the frog ponds, to the President’s house to notify John Adams that his successor had been chosen. No record of their reception remains, but the imagination can supply the want. Nor is there any record that Adams sent a note of congratulation to the victor. Those were the days when ‘The Duke of Braintree’s’ morbid vanity was suffering keenly the flings of outrageous fortune.

Two days later, the same committee formally notified Jefferson of his election and was asked to convey a gracious response to the House.[1932] Meanwhile, unflurried and unhurried, he went his way, appearing in the Senate, as usual to preside, and continuing to occupy the foot of the table at Conrad’s boarding-house. He had long since determined upon Madison for the head of the Cabinet and Gallatin for the Treasury, gigantic figures compared with those who had occupied these posts after Jefferson and Hamilton had left them in the days of Washington. The other positions were filled during the two weeks intervening between the election and the inauguration.

On Saturday before his inauguration on Wednesday, Jefferson appeared for the last time in the Senate to withdraw from his post there in a farewell address. There before him sat men who hated him venomously, but the suave, serene victor took leave as though departing with sorrow from a cherished circle of congenial souls. Mistakes he had probably made, but he had sought to ‘observe impartial justice,’ and his measurable success had been due to the generosity and uniform courtesy of the members. Could he but carry to his new station such support as he had received from the Senate, he would ‘consider it as commencing under the happiest auspices.’ In tendering his ‘cordial and respectful adieux,’ he wished for all both health and happiness. With a courtly bow he descended from the rostrum, and passed out of the chamber.

On Monday, Gouverneur Morris, chairman of the committee named to make response, reported an answer matching the courtliness of Jefferson’s farewell. It lamented ‘the loss of that intelligence, attention, and impartiality’ with which Jefferson had presided, and expressed appreciation of the kindly expressions on the Senate. Then, as Morris proceeded, there was a savage wagging of heads among the die-hards, as he read: ‘In the confidence that your official conduct will be directed to those great objects [the honor and interests of the country]—a confidence derived from past events, we repeat to you, sir, the assurance of our Constitutional support in your future administration.’ Instantly an irreconcilable was on his feet with a motion to strike out the words, ‘derived from past events.’ The roll was called. The motion was lost by a vote of 9 to 19. The intolerant Tracy and Ross voted with the nine, but Morris carried some of his party with him.[1933] The next day Morris reported Jefferson’s reply—a gesture of appreciation.

As the day of the inauguration approached, great crowds began to pour into the drab little capital from the surrounding country. In the President’s house and in the Senate there was feverish activity. Early in the session, the Federalists, realizing that their power was over in the executive and legislative branches, sought to maintain themselves and provide for their favorites through the creation of many Federal judgeships. The purpose was transparent. The Democrats had fought the measure without avail. All that now remained was for Adams to pack the courts with partisans as narrow and intolerant as those who had for ten years been delivering common party harangues from the Bench. With the joyous visitors wading the muddy streets in holiday mood, with Jefferson closeted with his friends at Conrad’s, the Senate was busy confirming these partisan Judges, and in the Executive Department they were busy signing the commissions. Night came—and John Marshall remained in his office making them out.

To this drama of hate, Adams gave a touch of irony in selecting the beneficiaries of his generosity. Wolcott had left him but a little while before. Through four years he had played the game of Adams’s enemies, presenting all the while a smiling countenance to his chief. We have seen him lingering on in the citadel after Pickering and McHenry had been thrown from the battlements, to wig-wag secret messages to the enemy in New York. But Adams had suspected nothing. Moved by an impulse of gratitude, he offered Wolcott a life position on the Bench, and that consummate actor, smiling still, sent the assurance that ‘gratitude to benefactors is among the most amiable ... of social obligations,’[1934] and accepted. There is something of pathos to the Adams of the sunset. Something of pathos and inspiration, too—for, to the disgust of the inner circle of his party, he made John Marshall Chief Justice of the United States, and thus, unwittingly, saved the better part of Federalism from the wreckage of the temple, to fight on through many years to come.

VII

The morning of inauguration day found the entire nation marching in the streets, exultant Democrats following the fife and drum, singing and shouting hosannas. Merchants locked their doors, mechanics left their work-benches, clerks laid down their pens, farmers deserted their homes for the towns, and from Boston to Savannah men and women celebrated with an enthusiasm not approached since the celebration of the peace in 1783.

In Washington, the thunder of artillery ushered in the day. As it shook the heavens, an embittered old man with a sour countenance sat far back in his coach as it bumped and splashed its way through the mire and over the stumps of the Baltimore road, for at four o’clock in the morning John Adams had slipped out of the house of the Presidents and hurried away, rather than remain to extend the ordinary courtesies to his successor. ‘You have no idea,’ wrote Gallatin to his wife, ‘of the meanness, indecency, almost insanity of his conduct, especially of late. But he is fallen and not dangerous. Let him be forgotten.’[1935] Somewhere in hiding, or in flight, was Theodore Sedgwick, Speaker of the House, who could not bear to witness the triumph of a foe.