A veritable Vanity Fair, many clever, some brilliant, most skeptical of republics, idolatrous of money and distinctions, and few capable of discriminating between anarchy and democracy. Such was the social atmosphere of the capital when the fight to determine whether this should be a democratic or aristocratic republic was made.
VI
We have an English-drawn picture of an evening at the British Legation with many American guests gathered about the blazing fire. The Consul is ‘descanting on various subjects, public and private, as well as public and private characters, sometimes with unbecoming levity, sometimes with sarcasm even more unbecoming.’ An English guest was afraid that such talk ‘could hardly fail to be offensive to ... many of the guests and to the good taste of all.’ But could this English gentleman have listened in on the conversations at Mrs. Bingham’s, Mrs. Morris’s, or Mrs. Stewart’s, he might have concluded that these reflections on certain public characters were altogether pleasing to the principal figures in the society of the capital.[535] And could he have returned a little later to find society chuckling over the display in the windows of a newspaper office of the pictures of George III, Lord North, and General Howe, he might have decided that there was a pronouncedly pro-English party in America. Had he driven about the environs, among the hills, and along the banks of the rivers, he would have seen country houses of the aristocracy—Lansdowne, the seat of the Binghams; Bush Hill, where the Adamses lived at first; Woodford, and other country places to suggest similar seats in his own land. And had he been meandering in the neighborhood of Horsehead’s or Chew’s Landing, seven or nine miles out, he might have been startled at the familiar English picture of gentlemen in bright coats, the pack in full cry after the fox.[536] And having made these observations he could have found some extenuation in the conversation in the British Minister’s house.
The snobbery of class consciousness entered into even the Dancing Assembly which held forth at frequent intervals at O’Eller’s, in a ballroom sixty feet square, with a handsome music gallery at one end, and the walls papered after the French style.[537] The suppers at these dances were mostly liquid,[538] and, since it is on record that on hot summer days ladies and gentlemen could count on a cool iced punch with pineapple juice to heighten the color, it may be assumed that the Assembly suppers were a success.[539] The fact that the young ladies sometimes took two pair of slippers, lest they dance one out, hints of all-night revels.[540] And the expulsion from membership of a young woman who had dared marry a jeweler tells its own tale.[541] At the theater, which was usually crowded,[542] the aristocrats and democrats met without mingling, for the different prices put every one in his or her place, and if wine and porter were sold between acts to the people in the pit ‘precisely as if they were in a tavern,’[543] the aristocracy paid eight dollars for a box,[544] and an attaché, in full dress of black, hair powdered and adjusted in the formal fashion, and bearing silver candlesticks and wax candles, would meet Washington at the entrance and conduct him with much gravity to the presidential box, festooned with red drapery, and bearing the United States coat of arms.[545] ‘The managers have been very polite to me and my family,’ wrote Mrs. Adams. ‘The actors came and informed us that a box is prepared for us. The Vice-President thanked them for their civility, and told them he would attend whenever the President did.’[546] On these occasions, when the highest dignitaries of the State attended, a stranger, dropped from the clouds, would have scarcely thought himself in a republic. At the theater he would have found a military guard, with an armed soldier at each stage door, with four or five others in the gallery, and these assisted by the high constables of the city and police officers.[547] There was no danger threatening but the occasion offered the opportunity for pompous display so tempting to the society of the city.
At first the statesmen had to content themselves with the old Southwark Theater, which was dreary enough architecturally, lighted with oil lamps without glasses, and with frequent pillars obstructing the view.[548] But the best plays were presented, by good if not brilliant players, and the aristocracy flirted and frolicked indifferent to the resentful glances of the poorer classes in less favored seats. It reached the climax of its career just as the new theater was about to open with the then celebrated tragic actress, Mrs. Melmoth—and soon afterward, the new Chestnut Street Theater opened its doors and raised its curtain. The opening was an event—the public entranced. Two or three rows of boxes, a gallery with Corinthian columns highly gilded and with a crimson ribbon from capital to base. Above the boxes, crimson drapery—panels of rose color—seats for two thousand. ‘As large as Covent Garden,’ wrote Wansey, ‘and to judge by the dress and appearance of the company around me, and the actors and scenery, I should have thought I had still been in England.’[549] And such a company! There was Fennell, noted in Paris for his extravagance, socially ambitious, and handsome, too, with his six feet of stature, and ever-ready blush, about whom flocked the literary youth of the town. Ladies—the finest trembled to his howls of tragedy and simpered to his comedy. There, too, was Harwood, who had married the granddaughter of Ben Franklin—a perfect gentleman; and Mrs. Oldmixon, the spouse of Sir John, the ‘beau of Bath,’ who divided honors in his day with Nash and Brummel; and Mrs. Whitlock, whom her admirers insisted did not shine merely by the reflected glory of her sister, Mrs. Siddons.
Quite as appealing to both aristocrat and democrat was the Circus at Twelfth and Market Streets, established in 1792 by John Ricketts whose credentials to society were in his erstwhile connection with the Blackfriars Bridge Circus of London. Washington and Martha occasionally witnessed the performances, quite soberly we may be sure, and the ‘court party’ thus got its cue if any were needed. The proprietor riding two horses at full gallop, Signor Spinacuta dancing daringly on a tight rope, a clown tickling the risibilities of the crowd and mingling Mrs. Bingham’s laughter with that of Mrs. Jones, her washwoman, women on horseback doing stunts, and a trained horse that could leap over other horses without balking—such were the merry nights under the dripping candles.[550]
Then there was Bowen’s Wax Works and museum of curiosities and paintings and the museum of Mr. Peale—and under the same roof with the latter the reading-room of the Philosophical Society, where Jefferson was to find a sanctuary in the days when he was to be anathema in the fashionable drawing-rooms.
Frivolity, extravagance, exaggerated imitation of Old-World dissipations, could scarcely have been suited to Jefferson’s taste; but when he wished for society of another sort he could always run in on Rittenhouse to discuss science, or on Dr. Rush who mixed politics with powders, or, better still, he could drive out to ‘Stenton,’ the beautiful country house of Dr. James Logan and his cultured wife, approached by its glorious avenue of hemlocks. There he could sit under the trees on the lawn or walk in the old-fashioned gardens or browse in the fine library. There before the huge fireplace in the lofty wainscoted rooms he could sit with the Doctor and discuss the aristocratic tendencies of the times—and this he frequently did. Despite his democracy, Jefferson lived like an aristocrat. He had found a place in the country near the city where the house was ‘entirely embosomed in high plane trees with good grass below,’ and there, on warm summer days, he was wont to ‘breakfast, dine, write, read, and entertain company’ under the trees. Even in its luxury, his was the home of the philosopher. It was under these plane trees that he worked out much of the strategy of his political battles.[551] Such was the social background for the struggle of Hamilton and Jefferson—with little in it to strengthen or encourage the latter in his fight.