And so the dismal affair dragged on. Another letter appeared reiterating a connection between Jefferson and Freneau; another charging that Jefferson was opposed to the Constitution and against paying the public debt; still another complaining of Jefferson’s interference with the Treasury Department. Then another on Jefferson and the Constitution, and finally, two months after Washington’s appeal, demanding that Jefferson, who remained in the Cabinet on the earnest solicitation of Washington, withdraw. ‘Let him not cling to the honor or emolument of an office, whichever it may be that attracts him, and content himself with defending the injured rights of the people by obscure or indirect means.’
Meanwhile, Jefferson had refused to be drawn into the controversy personally. The situation had become painful—the Philadelphia drawing-rooms lifting their brows at him. His official associations were unpleasant, but he never touched pen to a paper intended for publication. Only in his personal letters did he pour forth his bitterness against his colleague. ‘The indecency of newspaper squabbling between two public Ministers,’ he wrote Edmund Randolph, ‘has drawn something like an injunction from another quarter. Every fact alleged ... as to myself is false.... But for the present lying and scribbling must be free to those who are mean enough to deal in them and in the dark.’[637] He had hoped for an early retirement, and the attacks had indefinitely postponed the realization of his desire. ‘These representations have for some weeks past shaken a determination which I had thought the whole world could not have shaken,’ he wrote Martha.[638] Meanwhile, the small-fry partisans were busy in all the papers. The effect, on the whole, had been favorable to Jefferson, making him the idol of the democrats everywhere. ‘It gives us great pleasure,’ said a Boston paper, ‘to find that the patriotic Jefferson has become the object of censure, as it will have a happy tendency to open the eyes of the people to the strides of certain men who are willing to turn every staunch Republican out of office who has discerning to ken the arbitrary measures, and is honestly sufficient to reveal them.’[639] To the ‘Independent Chronicle’ the ‘slander and detraction’ of men like Jefferson seemed ‘a convincing proof of the badness of the cause behind it.’[640] The onslaught had in no wise weakened Jefferson’s faith in the effectiveness of the ‘National Gazette.’ The smoke had not lifted from the field when he was rejoicing because it was ‘getting into Massachusetts under the patronage of Hancock and Sam Adams.’[641] Even Freneau found the democrats rallying around him.
It is a Fact [wrote a correspondent] that immense wealth has been accumulated into a few hands, and that public measures have favored that accumulation.
It is a Fact that money appropriated to the sinking of the debt has been laid out, not so as most to sink the debt, but so as to succor gamblers in the funds.
It is a Fact that a Bank law has given a bounty of from four to five million dollars to men in great part of the same description.
It is a Fact that a share of this bounty went immediately into the pockets of the very men most active and forward in granting it.
These, Mr. Freneau, are facts—...severe, stubborn, notorious facts.[642]
VIII
Thus Hamilton’s remarkable attack had only whetted the appetite of the Jeffersonians for battle—and a national campaign was in progress. The unanimous reëlection of Washington was universally demanded, but why should the ‘aristocratic’ and ‘monarchical’ author of ‘The Discourses of Davilla’ be chosen again? At any rate, efforts could be made to change the political complexion of Congress.
There were mistakes, blunders, tragedies, that could be used to affect public opinion. What more shocking than the humiliating collapse of the General St. Clair expedition against the Indians in the western country? Gayly enough had the unfortunate commander set forth with twenty-three hundred regular troops and a host of militiamen. There had been a scarcity of provisions and inadequate preparations. Hundreds of soldiers, consumed with fever, shaken with chills, had vainly called for medicine. Many died, hundreds deserted in disgust, and finally but fourteen hundred worn and weary, sick and hungry men remained to face the enemy. It was easy enough to blame St. Clair, and, as he passed through the villages en route to the capital, the people flocked about to hiss and jeer.