Jefferson and Hamilton

by Claude G. Bowers

On August 18th, Hamilton appeared again to sneer at Freneau’s announcement that he would pay no attention to the charges until the author came forward to make them in the open. ‘It was easily anticipated that he might have good reasons for not discovering himself, at least at the call of Mr. Freneau, and it was necessary for him to find shelter.’

Freneau’s affidavit! scoffed a writer in Hamilton’s organ. He had no faith in it. The editor had certainly not sworn upon the Bible. Had he taken the oath on Jefferson’s ‘Notes on Virginia’?[631]

But Hamilton was already discovered. No one there was in public life from Washington down who did not know the author. The amazing spectacle was the talk of the taverns and the dinner tables, and was beginning to assume the proportions of a scandal. Washington was shocked and aggrieved. He would stop it.

VI

On August 26th he tried his art of conciliation, appealing to both Hamilton and Jefferson, albeit, as he knew, the latter had not written a line. Both replied in September, Hamilton admitting the authorship of the articles, and declared his inability ‘to recede now.’ He had been forced to write. He had been ‘the object of uniform opposition from Mr. Jefferson’; ‘the object of unkind whispers and insinuations from the same quarter’; and he had evidence that the ‘National Gazette’ had been instituted by Jefferson ‘to render me and all the objects connected with my administration odious.’ He had been most patient. In truth, he had ‘prevented a very severe and systematic attack upon Mr. Jefferson by an association of two or three individuals, in consequence of the persecution he brought upon the Vice-President by his indiscreet and light letter to the printer, transmitting Paine’s pamphlet.’[632]

Jefferson replied that in private conversation he had ‘utterly disapproved’ of Hamilton’s system, which ‘flowed from principles adverse to liberty and calculated to undermine and demolish the Republic by creating an influence of his department over members of the legislature.’ He had seen this influence ‘actually produced’ by ‘the establishment of the great outlines of his project by the votes of the very persons who, having swallowed his bait, were laying themselves out to profit by his plans.’ Then, too, Hamilton had constantly interfered with his department, particularly in relation to England and France.[633] As to Freneau, he hoped he ‘would give free place to pieces written against the aristocratic and monarchical principles.’ He and Fenno, he said, ‘are rivals for the public favor. The one courts them by flattery, the other by censure, and I believe it will be admitted that the one has been as servile as the other has been severe.’ Then, turning again to Hamilton: ‘But is not the dignity and even decency of government committed when one of its principal Ministers enlists himself as an anonymous writer or paragraphist for either the one or the other of them?’ As for criticism of governmental measures, ‘no government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will. If virtuous, it need not fear the free operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth, either in religion, law, or politics. I think it is as honorable to government neither to know nor notice its sycophants, as it would be undignified and criminal to pamper the former and persecute the latter.’[634]

Thus ended Washington’s attempt to intervene. Hamilton had refused to discontinue his attacks, and, within two days after replying to Washington’s appeal, he was again appearing in the ‘Gazette of the United States.’

VII

Even while Hamilton and Jefferson were writing their letters, the fight was proceeding merrily, if bloodlessly, in the papers. ‘Aristides,’ none other than Madison, had gone to the defense of his leader in an article in Fenno’s paper on Jefferson’s attitude toward the Constitution. No one was so well qualified to know, unless it was Washington himself. He had sat in the Convention, a leading figure, and listened to Hamilton’s speeches and proposals, and had been in correspondence with Jefferson. It was not this defense that made Fenno restive. It was a pointed attack. ‘It is said, Mr. Fenno, that a certain head of a department is the real author or instigator of these unprovoked and unmanly attacks on Mr. Jefferson—and that the time of that gentleman’s departure from the city on a visit to his home was considered as best suited to answer the design it was intended to effect.’ ‘Unmanly attack’ and an insinuation of cowardice! Fenno took the precaution to add a note warning that no further letters would be printed containing ‘personal strictures’ unless the name of the author was furnished ‘in case of emergency.’ Coffee and pistols—was it coming to that?[635] Freneau had no such concern, for on the same day a writer in his paper referred to the ‘base passions that torment’ Hamilton, and called upon the author of the anonymous articles to ‘explain the public character who on an occasion well known to him, could so far divest himself of gratitude and revolt from the spirit of his station as to erect his little crest against the magnanimous chief who is at the head of our civic establishment, and has on many free occasions since spoken with levity and depreciation of some of the greatest qualities of that renowned character; and now gives himself out as if he were his most cordial friend and admirer, and most worthy of public confidence on that account.’[636]

Two days after refusing Washington’s request for a cessation, Hamilton returned to the attack in answer to the charge of the ‘National Gazette’ that he had not liked the Constitution, and had pronounced the British monarchy the most perfect government. All this he stoutly denied. The records and debates of the Constitutional Convention were then under secrecy, and members who had heard his speeches were under the ban of silence. He felt safe. This is the most amazing letter of the series.