"Further concessions," wrote Jay to his friends in America, "on the part of Great Britain cannot, in my opinion, be attained. If this treaty fails, I despair of another. I knew and know that no attainable settlement or treaty would give universal satisfaction. Men are more apt to think of what they wish to have than of what is in their power to obtain."
Hamilton, who had followed Jefferson's example and retired from Washington's Cabinet, yet virtually remained at the head of the party, advised the acceptance of the Jay treaty. "It closes," said he, "and upon the whole as reasonably as could have been expected, the controverted points between the two countries. The terms are in no way inconsistent with national honor."
Jefferson, Madison, and their followers believed, on the contrary, that the adoption of the treaty would violate all national honour in practically dissolving the French alliance of 1778 and would bind the United States to monarchical England warring on republican France. The proclamation of neutrality from Washington had not been so hard to bear, since it took sides with neither belligerent; but the Jay treaty, it was said, would array America against the cause of liberty. The French and British factions were resolved to put the matter to the test in the Senate. From this time may be dated the beginning of political parties in the United States. Feeling ran high. Jay was burned in effigy in many cities and the treaty ridiculed and villified in the Republican prints. Hamilton was mobbed in New York, and Vice-President John Adams armed himself against personal violence.
The ratification of the Jay treaty by exactly the required two-thirds vote in the Senate showed the relative strength of the two parties at the time, although the Senate changes more slowly than the House. The success of the treaty advocates allowed Washington to close his eight years in peace with England. Pinckney, whom he had sent to Madrid at the same time he sent Jay to London, succeeded in securing a treaty with Spain. Nearly twenty years had been spent in gaining this first acknowledgment from the Castilian. It provided for establishing a permanent boundary-line between the United States and the Spanish Floridas, arranged a control over the troublesome Indians living near the line, and assured to American traders the privilege of using the port of New Orleans as a place of trans-shipment for their produce. If the port of New Orleans should be closed, another port was to be opened to them. The Americans seemed to have succeeded, after more than ten years' effort, in getting the privilege of using the lower Mississippi.
This Treaty of 1795 with Spain, although overshadowed by the contemporaneous Jay Treaty, was extremely important in American diplomatic history. Not only did it quiet the discontent of the Western people and terminate foreign intrigue in that quarter, but it affected, strangely enough, the future history of the lower Mississippi. From the time of the Pinckney Treaty, France was unceasing in her efforts to persuade Spain to give over to her care the Louisiana province, which embraced New Orleans, insisting that she was the only power strong enough to check the advance of the United States and save the rest of the Spanish possessions in America. Three years later these arguments prevailed. Louisiana was transferred to France, and very soon fell into the hands of the Americans.
Washington had closed some of the most troublesome foreign questions which he had inherited from Confederation days. The new republic was beginning to make a place for itself among the nations. Treaties of amity and commerce had been made with all the maritime nations. American ministers were to be seen at the principal European Courts. Britain, France, Spain, and Holland had honoured the new power by sending representatives to Philadelphia. The entire diplomatic horizon was clear except in the French portion, where the Jay Treaty was bound to give offence. Under its tacit permission, as the French sympathisers claimed, more than three hundred American vessels were captured within the next twelvemonth, and over one thousand American seamen impressed by Britain. During the same period only three vessels and a few sailors were taken by France.
In its domestic relations, also, the United States, as the time of Washington's second term drew to a close, was exceedingly prosperous. The new Government was in full operation. No one longer questioned its success or its fitness for the task before it. Fears for individual rights had been quieted by the adoption of ten amendments to the Constitution, guaranteeing the continuance of such birthrights as freedom of conscience, trial by jury, free possession of property, and habeas corpus. The Union had come off victorious in its first case of discipline. It had made practical demonstration that its laws would be enforced and that it could use State militia regardless of State lines in enforcing them. Its system of judges and marshals extended over the entire domain. Its Supreme Court had sustained the claim of a citizen of South Carolina against the State of Georgia. State sovereignty had received a blow and national supremacy an impulse. The Superior Court had also declared that a treaty of the United States predominated over a State law, and that no State could confiscate a debt owed to a British subject. According to another decision, the United States District Courts were sustained in their admiralty jurisdiction over the State courts. The validity and authority of a presidential proclamation was established by the prosecution in the circuit court at Richmond of an offender against Washington's neutrality proclamation. But the decision during Washington's administration which especially made for the Union was in the case of Penhallow v. Doane's executors, which sustained all the actions of the old Congress both during the Revolutionary period and under the Articles, and made its decisions final in cases of appeal from State tribunals. Thus was the national sovereignty, by a single decision, extended backward over local government to the very beginnings of independency and, at the same time, established for the future so long as the National Government should exist.
Not only in the intangible shape of Supreme Court decisions, but in a thousand practical particulars, the central agency was making itself manifest to the people and gaining friends among them. The general condition of the country was prosperous. Over ten million dollars had been paid on the national debt. A dependable revenue was being collected in scores of United States custom-houses scattered through the different States. During Washington's last year in office, their receipts had amounted to twelve and a half million dollars. The National Government was expending a part of this money in rendering commerce safe. It was purchasing lighthouses from the maritime States and erecting new ones. Sites for these buildings were being ceded by the various States along the sea-coast. Beacons, buoys, and public piers were being established by the revenue service. Sixteen harbours within the several States were being fortified at national expense. Plans for the improvement of certain rivers were being considered. The Congress under the Confederation had declared navigable waterways in the Northwest Territory leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence to be free highways, and the new Congress extended this inestimable guarantee to all waters of the public domain. Its extension to the States would come later from a Supreme Court decision. The improvement of these rivers at national expense would result in time from the westward expansion of the people.
The domain under the complete control of the Federal Government had been increased by a cession from South Carolina. The States of Kentucky and Tennessee had been carved out of the "territory south of the Ohio," and, with the State of Vermont, had been admitted to equal membership in the Union by the sole action of the Federal Government. The national post-routes had been extended in eight years from three thousand to sixteen thousand miles, and the number of post-offices had been increased to seven hundred. By severe penalties, the Government had taught the people to respect as well as to be grateful for this branch of its activities. It had also regulated trade with Indians not residing within the jurisdiction of a State, and, by scattering its troops along the border, was attempting to protect the savage from the encroachments and debauchment of the white man, as well as to shield the white man from the barbarity of the savage.
The presidential election machinery had been tried a third time and had worked smoothly. Electors had been chosen in each State without the predicted revolution and bloodshed. They had cast seventy-one votes for John Adams and sixty-eight for Thomas Jefferson. The former, having received the highest number of votes, was declared President and the latter Vice-President. Perhaps some of those who had voted for Adams may have thought the Vice-Presidency a place of training for the higher office, and its incumbent in the line of promotion. But on examining the geographical distribution of the vote, one sees that sectionalism influenced the result of this third presidential election, as it did a majority of later ones. The vote for Adams came almost entirely from the Northern States; that for Jefferson from the Southern. Adams stood for Federalism, for centralisation, for a continuation of the policy of the present Administration. He and Hamilton were close friends. They broke only when Hamilton found that he could not influence President Adams as he had President Washington. Electors who voted for Jefferson thought he stood for principles exactly opposite to those of Adams. His antipathy to Hamilton was the best guarantee against centralisation being continued under his management.