X
It was clear quite early that the Jeffersonians would not permit Adams’s reëlection to go unchallenged. The press had teemed with controversial articles on his books for more than a year. As early as March his friends took up the cudgels in his defense. ‘Homo’ in the Boston ‘Centinel’ warned that ‘a detestable cordon of desperadoes’ were trying to destroy public confidence in Adams by vilification.[675] Within three months, Hamilton convinced himself that the opposition, in dead earnest, had concentrated on Clinton, and hastened to warn Adams, who was enjoying the placidity of his farm at Quincy.[676] It is interesting to observe that this plan to displace Adams was interpreted by Hamilton as ‘a serious design to subvert the government.’ If the candidacy of Clinton was annoying to Hamilton, the warning he received in September of the possible candidacy of Aaron Burr was maddening, and he fell feverishly to the task of denouncing the ambitions of this ‘embryo Cæsar’ in letters to his friends.[677] Clinton ‘has been invariably the enemy of national principles,’ he wrote General C. C. Pinckney in ordering a mobilization for defense in South Carolina, and as for Burr, he was a man of ‘no principles other than to mount, at all events, to the full honors of the state, and to as much more as circumstances will permit.’ Was Jefferson behind the conspiracy against Adams—Jefferson, that man of ‘sublimated and paradoxical imagination, entertaining and propagating opinions inconsistent with dignified and orderly government?’[678] To John Steele in North Carolina he wrote in the manner of a commander, to inform him ‘that Mr. Adams is the man who will be supported by the Northern and Middle States.’ Of course, he had ‘his faults and foibles,’ and some of his opinions were quite wrong, but he was honest, and loved order and stable government.[679] Meanwhile, painful complications were threatened in Maryland where a number of notables[680] joined in a public letter rallying Marylanders to the support of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.[681] This gave James McHenry, an idolater of Hamilton, and still tortured by a persistent, and, as yet, ungratified itch for office, his opportunity. He assumed the responsibility for whipping the rebels back into line. These signers of the Carroll letter had been imposed upon. The fight against Adams was a fight against the Constitution—in keeping with the plan of the enemies of government to drive able men from office. Had not Hamilton ‘whose attachment to the Constitution is unquestionable’ been assailed with virulence? Yes, from ‘the master workman in his craft down to the meanest of his laborers,’ all were engaged in the dirty work. Thus the submission of Carroll’s claims at so late an hour wore ‘a very doubtful and invidious aspect.’ Was it done ‘to get ten votes against Adams or to promote Carroll’s election?’ Was any one so foolish as to think that the Democrats in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia would desert Clinton?[682] This letter, signed by ‘A Consistent Federalist,’ was copied by all the Federalist papers of the country.
Meanwhile, Adams, lingering lovingly on his home acres, showed no inclination to return to Philadelphia, and it was reported that he might not appear to preside over the Senate until late in the session. This was an appalling lack of tact. Hamilton, assuming the rights of the leader, did not hesitate. ‘I learn with pain that you may not be here until late in the session,’ he wrote the loiterer behind the firing lines. ‘I fear this will give some handle to your enemies to misrepresent.... Permit me then to say it best suits the firmness and elevation of your character to meet all events, whether auspicious or otherwise, on the ground where station and duty call you.’[683]
By November the press was hotly engaged in the controversy, but poor Fenno was to have trouble with his correspondents who were to convert his dignified journal into a cock-pit. Adams was both pelted and salved on the same page. His writings proved him a monarchist at heart, wrote ‘Mutius.’[684] His writings would be appreciated more a century hence, said a defender in the same issue. Had he not already been vindicated on one point in the appearance of the ‘gorgon head of party’? Freneau cleverly replied by quoting a laudatory article from an English paper paying tribute to the governmental notions of ‘the learned Mr. Adams.’[685] Yes, wrote ‘Cornucopia’ in the ‘Maryland Journal,’ ‘it will require the whole strength of the federalists to keep poor John Adams from being thrust out of the fold.’[686]
And ‘poor John Adams’ was not entirely happy in his defenders. Why not reëlect him, demanded ‘Philanthropos’ in a glowing tribute, for was he not ‘a man of innocent manners and excellent moral character?’[687] ‘Why not?’ echoed a scribe in Albany. He was ‘a reputed aristocrat, at the same time an honest man, the noblest work of God.’[688] From ‘Otsego’ came a more robust blow at Adams’s enemies as ‘the jacktails of mobocracy’ seeking the defeat of ‘the virtuous Adams’ because he was against ‘anarchy and disorder.’[689] Wrong, wrote ‘Portius’ the next day, advocating Clinton. ‘Untinctured by aristocracy, and a firm republican, the patriots of America look to him.’[690] ‘Titles, titles,’ sneered ‘Condorcet.’ ‘This rattle which so peculiarly delights certain characters.... He never appears but in the full blaze of office, as if every place he went was a Senate, and every circle which he invited needed a Vice President.’[691] Thus, throughout the fall and early winter the lashing and slashing went on, but when the time came Adams was reëlected, albeit the result was a bitter humiliation to the proud, sensitive spirit of the victor. Where Washington had been unanimously reëlected, Adams had a margin of but twenty-seven votes. New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia had moved en masse into the Clinton camp, and Kentucky had cast her vote for Jefferson. Five States had gone over to the Jeffersonians, and the Federalists had been unable to get a unanimous vote in Pennsylvania. But if Adams was hurt, Hamilton could bear his pains, for the brilliant, dashing chief of the party preferred that the uncongenial man from Braintree should not become too perky.
Thus ended the first year of actual party struggle—Hamilton a bit soiled by his descent to anonymous letter-writing, Jefferson greatly strengthened by his silence under assault; the Hamiltonians triumphant, but not exultant over the reëlection of Adams, the Jeffersonians, having tasted blood, and tested their weapons, more than ever eager for combat and rejoicing in their congressional gains.
Hamilton had tried to drive Jefferson from the Cabinet, and failed. It was now the latter’s turn.
CHAPTER IX
HAMILTON’S BLACK WINTER
I
THE winter of 1792-93 was notable in many ways. Not within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of Philadelphia had one so mild been known. As late as February there had been no interruption in the navigation of the Delaware, and the papers, making much of the catching of shad, were predicting that ‘a considerable school may soon be expected.’ In this, however, the sons of Ike Walton were to be disappointed, for a snowstorm and a northwester soon put an end to fishing.[692] Even so, the weather continued, for the most part, mild beyond the usual. Never had society adorned itself with more frills and furbelows, danced more feverishly, or pursued its pleasures with greater zest. The elegant new Chestnut Street Theater threw open its doors for the entertainment the mimic world can give, and the aristocracy, along with the plebeians, flocked to the play, despite the pouting of the uppish Mrs. Bingham who had been refused a box on her own terms. Even the venomous bitterness of the politicians failed to dim the lights of the great houses, albeit the followers of Jefferson were more and more given to understand that they were not wanted among the elect. The events, moving rapidly in France, were making a distinct cleavage here among the aristocrats and democrats. The members of the old French nobility, who had left their country for their country’s good, were giving the tone to the most fashionable dinner tables. Out in the streets the ‘people of no particular importance’ were vulgarly vociferous over the trials and tribulations of the King and Burke’s beautiful Queen—and the Jeffersonians were taking their tone from the howlings of this ‘mob.’