Shortly after, Hamilton, who had not yet attacked Jefferson personally, led an offensive against Freneau who was accused by the Gazette of the United States of using his salary for publications, "the design of which is to villify those to whom the voice of the people has committed the administration of our public affairs." But Freneau, in Hamilton's opinion, was only the puppet whose strings were pulled by an arch plotter, and soon the Gazette started direct attacks against Jefferson, asserting that while a member of the Cabinet he had undertaken to undermine the government. Freneau, in an affidavit, denied that Jefferson had any connection with his paper or had dictated or written a single line in it, and at the same time hinted that, on the contrary, the authorship of many articles published in Fenno's Gazette could clearly be attributed to Hamilton. This denial had precisely the value of any such statement issued during political campaigns. It was literally true that Jefferson had never written a line in Freneau's paper, but he had an opportunity to see Freneau every day, since "clerk for foreign languages" had to report to him. He was requesting all his friends to subscribe to Freneau's papers, he was following anxiously the progress of the Gazette in all parts of the Union, and one word from him would have stopped all attacks against Hamilton. In fact, Freneau's paper was just as much Jefferson's paper as if the Secretary of State had written all the articles in it and had owned all the stock.
Hamilton's attacks, however, had a very important and unexpected result. Whether Jefferson had serious political ambitions or not, he was not the man to come out in the open and proclaim himself the leader of a new party. Of a retiring disposition, fearful of public criticism although thirsty for public praise, he was not ready at that time to assume the part and the duties of a political chief. But the savage attacks of the Federalists attracted public attention to him, he was represented so often by them as the champion of republicanism, that discontented republicans began to rally round him and Jefferson was thus invested with the leadership of the new party as much by his enemies as by his friends.
During the summer of 1792, when he was at Monticello, he received from Washington a letter in which the President expressed his distress at the dissensions that had taken place within the government, and once more attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the two secretaries (August 23). Jefferson answered in a long letter. This time his temper had been thoroughly aroused. He had seen articles signed "An American" in Fenno's Gazette, accusing him on three counts: "with having written letters to his friends in Europe to oppose the present constitution; with a desire of repudiating the public debt; with setting up a paper to decry and slander the government." Jefferson had no difficulty in proving the first two accusations absolutely untrue. On the third charge he admitted and even boasted of having given a poet a miserable appointment at a salary of $250 a year, while Hamilton had filled the administration with his creatures. He protested in the name of Heaven that "I never did, by myself, or any other, directly or indirectly, write, dictate, or procure any one sentence of sentiment to be inserted in his, or any other gazette, to which my name was not affixed or that of my office." He confessed, however, that he had always taken it for granted, from his knowledge of Freneau's character, "that he would give free place to pieces written against the aristocratical and monarchical principles these papers had inculcated." He again protested against Hamilton's insinuation that Freneau had received his salary before removing to Philadelphia, and on this point he is supported by the evidence published above. In a very dignified way he assured Washington that he would refrain from engaging in any controversy while in office and that he wished to concentrate all his efforts on the last of his official tasks. He added, however, that he reserved the right to answer later, for, he said: "I will not suffer my retirement to be clouded by the slanders of a man whose history, from the moment at which history can stoop to notice him, is a tissue of machinations against the liberty of the country which has not only received and given him bread, but heaped honors on his head."
Jefferson has sometimes been reproached for having attacked in the "Anas" a dead enemy, but this was no posthumous attack. In one sentence he had expressed not only condemnation of Hamilton's policies but all the scorn of a Virginian, of the old stock, for the immigrant of doubtful birth, who was almost an alien. He knew full well the weight that such a consideration might have on the mind of Washington; it was a subtle but potent appeal to the solidarity of the old Americans against the newcomer. Truly, Jefferson was no mean adversary, and the rapier may be more deadly than the battle-ax. Having thus parried and thrust, he expressed the pious wish that the coming elections would probably vindicate his point of view and that it would not be necessary to make a further appeal to public opinion. He was tired and wished to retire from office at the earliest opportunity, and certainly no clique would receive any support from him during the short space he had to remain in Philadelphia. Monticello was calling him and his most earnest hope was that he would be permitted to forget all political strife in a bucolic retirement.[261]
On his way back to Philadelphia he stopped at Mount Vernon (October 1, 1792) and found Washington still undecided whether he would be a candidate for a second term. The General was not certain that the emergency was such that he must sacrifice his personal preferences. He had consulted Lear about opinion in the North; Jefferson could tell him something about the South. When he was assured that he alone could save the Republic, it was his turn to argue that Jefferson ought to remain in office as long as he himself would be President. Washington said that until very recently he had been unaware that such personal differences existed between the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury. The old General gently reminded Jefferson that the best way to counteract the action of Hamilton was to remain in office, in order "to keep things in their proper channel, and prevent them from going too far." Finally the President refused to accept wholly the pessimistic forecasts of Jefferson and declared: "That as to the idea of transforming this Government into a monarchy, he did not believe there were ten men in the United States whose opinions were worth attention, who entertained such a thought." He refused to take seriously Jefferson's accusation that Hamilton would have said that "this Constitution was a shilly-shally thing, of mere milk and water, which could not last, and was only good as a step to something better." That as far as corruption in the legislature was concerned, the term was probably too severe; it was simply a manifestation of "interested spirit"; it was what could not be avoided in any government, unless we were to exclude from all office particular descriptions of men, such as the holders of the funds. "For the rest he only knew that before the funding operations he had seen our affairs desperate and our credit lost, and that this was in a sudden and extraordinary degree raised to the highest pitch." With the common sense and poise that were his outstanding qualities, Washington refused to inquire into the ultimate motives of Hamilton. The Secretary of the Treasury had rescued the finances of the country from bankruptcy; he was a good, efficient, and personally honest administrator, and it was Washington's hope that he would be able to keep with him two useful collaborators whom he could not easily replace.
Shall I confess that, in my humble opinion, and in spite of the contrary judgment of several American historians, Washington was probably right. The quarrel between Hamilton and Jefferson is undoubtedly of considerable importance in the history of political parties in the United States. I am not so certain that it exerted so tremendous an influence on the destinies of the nation. Whatever may have been the ambitious schemes of Hamilton, the theoretical preferences of John Adams, it is difficult to see how any one could have succeeded at that time in establishing overnight an hereditary monarchy in the United States. Such a "coup d'état" is always a possibility in the old countries of Europe, all of them more or less centralized and controlled from a national capital; but in 1793 there was no national capital in America, loyalty to the Federal Government was scarcely nascent, citizens had not been accustomed to look to Congress for bounties, assistance, and subsidies. The vastness of the country would have offered insuperable obstacles, even to the genius of a Bonaparte. No real danger existed because, as Montesquieu would have said, a monarchy was not in the nature of things, and both Hamilton and Jefferson would have realized it, if they had not been caught in the maelstrom of political and personal passions.
When Jefferson left Mount Vernon, Washington was still undecided whether he would accept a second term, but Jefferson had determined that he would not stay in office any longer than he could help; and on November 8, he wrote to Humphreys to send all further communications not to him personally, but to the Secretary of State, by title and not by name. News of election was coming slowly, winter had already begun in the northern States. But the news that did arrive was reassuring and Jefferson was able to write on November 16, "the event has been generally in favor of republican, and against the aristocratical candidates." By the beginning of December, the reëlection of Washington being conceded, it appeared that the election of the Vice President "had been seized as a proper one for expressing the public sense on the doctrine of the monocrats." It was already apparent that Adams would be reëlected in spite of a strong vote against him, but Jefferson discounted the significance of the election and attributed it to "the strength of his personal worth and his services, rather than to the merits of his political creed."[262] It seemed that the anti-Federalists had gained control of the lower House and this was a most significant victory.
Then as more news of the election came, telling of the victory of the republicans or, as they were called by derision, the Jacobins, other news arrived from France. The army of the Duke of Brunswick had been forced to retreat and had failed in crushing the republican army of France. "This news," wrote Jefferson, "has given wry faces to our monocrats here, but sincere joy to the great body of the citizens. It arrived only in the afternoon of yesterday, and the bells were rung and some illuminations took place in the evening."[263] Four days later the conviction that a disaster had overcome Brunswick had made great progress, although no other news had been received, and Jefferson had anxiously awaited the arrival of ships from France. But the tide had turned and he wrote to Mercer: "The monocrats here still affect to disbelieve all this, while the republicans are rejoicing and taking to themselves the name of Jacobins which two months ago was fixed on them by way of stigma."[264] The first victory of the republicans coincided with the first victory of the Revolution against the coalition of kings. The French Revolution itself had become a domestic issue and was to inject more passion into the strife between the monocrats and the republicans.