Jefferson and Hamilton

by Claude G. Bowers

The visitor on public business bent found all the governmental centers close together. If interested in the debates at Congress Hall, erected for the purpose at Sixth and Chestnut Streets next to the State House, the smallest child could direct him. If a person of no special importance, he could find his way into the commodious gallery of the House, and, looking down upon the chamber, a hundred by sixty feet, with its three semi-circular rows of seats facing the Speaker’s rostrum—‘a kind of pulpit near the center’[468]—could find Ames busy at his circular writing-desk, Madison on his feet or Sedgwick in conference with a lobbyist. If fortunate he might be admitted to the space on the floor beneath the gallery. But it was not so easy to penetrate to the more sacred precincts of the Senate on the floor above where the self-constituted guardians of the covenant and the rights of property held themselves aloof from the gaze of the vulgar. Perhaps, if he really prized the privilege, he might look down from some point of vantage on the State House Garden where the statesmen were wont to take the air and compose their thoughts.

Did he have business with Jefferson? It was only a little way to the three-story brick residence at High and Eighth Streets which had been taken over for the purposes of the State Department. With Hamilton? It was but a few steps to the old Pemberton mansion near Chestnut and Third, with its well-cultivated garden in the rear where the indefatigable human dynamo worked far into the night.[469] With the President? It was but a short distance from Jefferson’s office to the Morris house.

At the time Washington moved in, the Morris house was one of the most distinguished in the city, a dignified and impressive brick mansion, with two large lamps in front, and with ample gardens to proclaim it the abode of a personage of consequence. It was under its roof that Washington had lived as the guest of Morris while presiding over the Constitutional Convention. It was not without difficulties and annoyances that the house was taken over. The banker was lustily praised by his friends for his sacrifice in abandoning his home, but it appears to have been a sacrifice similar to that of managing the finances of the Revolution. One writer questioned whether ‘giving up a house of moderate dimensions for 700 pounds a year can be deemed a great sacrifice ... when ... the President was accommodated in this city [New York] with a much more elegant house at 400 pounds per annum.’[470] Even Washington, who was Morris’s intimate friend, was distressed at the difficulty in persuading him to fix the rental, and wrote Lear that he could not understand the Senator. He would be willing to pay as much as he paid in New York, and even more if there was not clear extortion. The owner finally fixed the rental at three thousand dollars a year.[471] Thus Washington moved in, and there the Presidents lived until the capital was moved to Washington.

There, if properly presented, the visitor might call to receive the rather cold, stately bow of Washington or even drink a cup of tea with Mrs. Washington. In the case of a levee, he was sure to be welcome. But if his social status did not suffice to justify the crossing of the threshold, he might, if he were patient, see the great man as he drove forth in his ornately decorated coach; or, better still, see him emerge on foot with his secretaries, Lear and Jackson, one on either side, with cocked hats on their heads, the aides a little in the rear. If he had the temerity to follow at a respectable distance, he would have been surprised, perhaps, to find that the President did not converse with his secretaries while on his walks.[472]

II

It was not joy unconfined to be interned in any of the hotels or taverns of Philadelphia at any time while it was the capital. In the journals of tourists who sojourned there we encounter no enthusiastic encomiums, even for O’Eller’s, which owes something of its glamour in perspective to the fact that the Assembly dances were held in its ballroom. It was infinitely better, at any rate, than the Sign of the Sorrel Horse on Second Street, which comes down to us as a ‘bad one.’[473] The City Tavern, scene of numerous political demonstrations, concededly one of the best, would have been better rid of vermin that infested the beds.[474] The London Tavern, which had its days as the ‘principal hotel,’ was ‘deficient in comfort’ even at its best,[475] and the Indian Queen distinguished itself as the scene of a doleful robbery when some of Ames’s colleagues lost their linen, and thirty thousand dollars in securities, and he escaped only because his name on his trunk assured the ‘partial rogues’ that ‘nothing was to be got by taking it away.’[476] In 1794, the Golden Lion or the Yellow Cat at Eighth and Filbert Streets was a favorite because of its well-drawn beer and porter; and the visitor, pushing through the smoke-laden air to drink malt liquor from a pewter mug, would, likely as not, find Governor Mifflin or General Knox of the Cabinet enjoying their mugs along with the mechanics and clerks.[477] But it was not necessary to sleep in the beds of the Yellow Cat to quaff its liquors, and after a brief experience with the taverns the tourist would be likely to follow the example of Thomas Twining and seek more comfortable and sanitary quarters in some of the numerous rooming-houses that catered particularly to members of Congress. The choicest of these resented the idea that they were other than the private houses of gentlemen accommodating political personages—this particularly true in the case of Francis, the Frenchman, at whose house on Fourth Street, Vice-President Adams had a room.[478] In these private rooming and boarding-houses, in which the majority of the celebrities lived, an abundant table, clean agreeable rooms, and the congenial companionship of colleagues made an appeal. At Francis’s the head of the table was reserved for Adams, and all the ceremonial forms were scrupulously observed, although he frequently had his meals served in his rooms. It was not until he had escaped from the Indian Queen and found lodgings ‘at the house of Mrs. Sage’ that Ames began ‘to feel settled and at home.’[479] This hiving had its comedies, sometimes its scandals, and occasionally its romances, as on the day Senator Aaron Burr took James Madison to call upon the winsome daughter of his landlady, and history was made in the candlelit parlor of the boarding-house.

Quiet and home-like, at least, these boarding-houses of our early statesmen, and if they had no bars, they were in close proximity to many that were of good repute. The members of the Legislature sometimes were known to discuss important measures at Geisse’s Tavern over the mugs,[480] were wont, on adjournment, to linger at Mr. O’Eller’s for his incomparable punch,[481] and to celebrate the ending of a session with an evening of conviviality at ‘Mr. Burns tavern on Tenth Street.’[482] Gentlemen riding along the banks of the Schuylkill could seldom resist the impulse to dismount at the tavern of Metz—for these drinking-houses were kindly placed among a people intolerant of puritanism.[483]

Going forth into the streets to mingle with the common people was a revelation to the polished tourist from the old lands. Here they found nothing of the humility of the lowly to which they were accustomed. The mechanics and common laborers took the theory of equality seriously. One traveler found ‘the lower sort of people’ lacking in good manners[484] and observed that a well-dressed stranger, asking a polite question, was almost certain of an impudent answer.[485] These were the men who were to man the societies fashioned after those of the Parisian radicals, to rally passionately to the support of the French Revolution, and to supply Jefferson with his shock troops—and sometimes shocking troops—in his fight for the democratization of the Republic.

These, too, in their desperate striving for equality were moved to imitations of the spendthrift practices of the rich. Even the servants and the negroes gave elaborate balls which Liancourt found ‘destitute of the charming simplicity of the fêtes of our peasants.’[486] The women appeared in dresses beyond their means; the laborer and his lady rode in coaches to the dance, where an elaborate supper was served, with liquid refreshments. Sundays found the public-houses of the environs packed with the men of the factories and shop, borne thither, with their families, in chairs. There was much drinking and spending with gambling on the fights arranged for their delectation.[487] At Harrowgate Gardens, two miles out on the New York road, and Gray’s Gardens on the Schuylkill, they flocked to drink tea or liquor, to dance, promenade, or flirt, and on summer nights the young men of all stations were lured to them by the promise of romance. Even the grave and reverend statesmen could not, in all cases, resist the call. Gay and wicked some must have thought the scene—with the painted women of the town a bit brazen in their fishing for men. ‘We have Eves in plenty, of all nations, tongues and colors,’ wrote Oliver Wolcott to his wife from Gray’s Gardens where he had taken refuge from the yellow fever, ‘but do not be jealous—I have not seen one yet whom I have thought pretty’—leaving her to imagine the possibilities should one such appear.[488] And yet, pleasure-loving as the population was, the nights were reasonably quiet. About the time the city assumed the dignity of a capital, there was little to disturb the tranquillity of the night after ten o’clock beyond the voice of the watchman, or the footsteps of some night-hawk wending his way by the light of the street-lamps ‘placed like those in London.’[489] But five years later, a visitor who recalled that in 1794 it was unusual to meet any one at night, or to hear any noises after eleven o’clock, found that the nocturnal annoyances continued far later into the night.[490]

It was by day, however, that the city made its best impression. The luxury-loving people, the wealth and extravagance of the social leaders insisting upon London and Parisian styles, the commercial traditions of the community gave to its shopping district an elegance found nowhere else in America. The houses of the importers and wholesalers, some maintaining their own ships, were found, for the most part, on Front and Water Streets. When in the spring and autumn the ships came in, and the great boxes of English dry-goods were stretched along the pavement of Front between Arch and Walnut Streets to be opened, it was a thrilling event to the Philadelphians. Fluttering about them were the retail merchants—for most of these in the days of the city’s political preëminence were women—exclaiming ecstatically over the contents. Soon the goods were transferred to the shops, which even a Frenchman found ‘remarkable for their neatness’[491]—due, no doubt, to the sex of the proprietors. What more fascinating than to stand before the great show windows—something new—at Mrs. Whiteside’s fancy dress-goods shop, with exquisite cloths and dresses hung full length and festooned to best advantage after the manner of Bond Street, London. Did it add anything to the appeal to know that the proprietress had come from London? Alas, no doubt. Thither the ladies from the mansions drove in their carriages to make their purchases, and thence, perhaps, for something more, to the South Second Street store of the smiling Mrs. Holland, and then on, perchance, to Mrs. Jane Taylor’s at the Sign of the Golden Lamb.[492] And then, having ministered to the materialistic yearnings of vanity, as like as not milady directs the coachman to stop at Bell’s British Book Shop on Third Street, near Pearl, lest the lord and master, in placing his order with his London agent, overlooked something she would not miss.