Washington and his colleagues; a chronicle of the rise and fall of federalism

by Henry Jones Ford

Colonel Willett was altogether successful, though the inducements he offered were probably aided by McGillivray's desire to visit New York and meet General Washington. Other chiefs accompanied him, and on their way they received many official attentions. An incident which occurred at Guilford Court House, North Carolina, displays McGillivray's character in a kindly light. A woman whose husband had been killed by Creek Indians and who with her children had been made captive, visited McGillivray to thank him for effecting their release, and it was disclosed that he had since that time been contributing to the support of the family. At New York, the recently organized Tammany Society turned out in costumes supposed to represent Indian attire and escorted the visiting chiefs to Federal Hall. Eventually Washington himself went to Federal Hall in his coach of state and in all the trappings of official dignity, to sign the treaty concluded with the Indians. The treaty, which laid down the pattern subsequently followed by the government in its dealings with the Indians, recognized the claims of the Creek nation to part of the territory it claimed, and gave compensation for the part it relinquished by an annuity of fifteen hundred dollars for the tribe, and an annuity of one hundred dollars for each of the principal chiefs.

For his part in the transaction McGillivray was commissioned an agent of the United States with the rank of brigadier-general, a position which he sustained with dignity. He was six feet tall, spare in frame, erect in carriage. His eyes were large, dark, and piercing; his forehead, wider at the top than just above the eyes, was so high and broad as to be almost bulging. When he was a British colonel, he wore the uniform of that rank; when in the Spanish service, he wore the military dress of that country; and after Washington appointed him a brigadier-general he sometimes wore the uniform of the American army, but never in the presence of Spaniards. In different parts of his dominions he had good houses where he practised generous hospitality. His influence was shaken by his various political alliances, and before he died in 1793 he had lost much of his authority.

In the course of these negotiations Washington had an experience with the Senate which thereafter affected his official behavior. The debates of the constitutional convention indicated an expectation that the Senate would act as a privy council to the President; and Washington—intent above all things on doing his duty—tried to treat it as such. In company with General Knox he went to the Senate chamber, prepared to explain his negotiations with the Indian chiefs, but he forthwith experienced the truth of the proverb that although you may lead a horse to water you cannot make him drink. In his diary for August 22, 1789, Maclay gave a characteristic account of the scene. Washington presided, taking the Vice-President's chair. "He rose and told us bluntly that he had called on us for our advice and consent to some propositions respecting the treaty to be held with the Southern Indians. Said he had brought General Knox with him who was well acquainted with the business." A statement was read giving a schedule of the propositions on which the advice of the Senate was asked. Maclay relates that he called for the reading of the treaties and other documents referred to in the statement. "I cast an eye at the President of the United States. I saw he wore an aspect of stern displeasure." There was a manifest reluctance of the Senate to proceed with the matter in the President's presence, and finally a motion was made to refer the business to a committee of five. A sharp debate followed in which "the President of the United States started up in a violent fret. 'This defeats every purpose of my coming here' were the first words that he said. He then went on to say that he had brought his Secretary of War with him to give any necessary information; that the Secretary knew all about the business, and yet he was delayed and could not go on with the matter." The situation evidently became strained. Maclay relates: "A pause for some time ensued. We waited for him to withdraw. He did so with a discontented air."

The privy council function of the Senate was thus in effect abolished by its own action. Thereafter the President had practically no choice save to conclude matters subject to subsequent ratification by the Senate. It soon became the practice of the Senate to restrict the President's power of appointment by conditioning it upon the approval of the Senators from the State in which an appointment was made. The clause providing for the advice and consent of the Senate was among the changes made in the original draft to conciliate the small States, but it was not supposed that the practical effect would be to allow Senators to dictate appointments. It was observed in the Federalist that "there will be no exertion of choice on the part of Senators." Nevertheless there was some uneasiness on the point. In a letter of May 31, 1789, Ames remarked that "the meddling of the Senate in appointments is one of the least defensible parts of the Constitution," and with prophetic insight he foretold that "the number of the Senators, the secrecy of their doings, would shelter them, and a corrupt connection between those who appoint to office and the officers themselves would be created."

Washington had to submit to senatorial dictation almost at the outset of his administration, the Senate refusing to confirm his nomination of Benjamin Fishbourn for the place of naval officer at Savannah. The only details to be had about this affair are those given in a special message of August 6, 1789, from which it appears that Washington was not notified of the grounds of the Senate's objection. He defended his selection on the ground that Fishbourn had a meritorious record as an army officer, had held distinguished positions in the state government of Georgia which testified public confidence, and moreover was actually holding, by virtue of state appointment, an office similar to that to which Washington desired to appoint him. The appointment was, in fact, no more than the transfer to the federal service of an official of approved administrative experience, and was of such manifest propriety that it seems most likely that the rejection was due to local political intrigue using the Georgia Senators as its tool. The office went to Lachlan McIntosh, who was a prominent Georgia politician. Over ten years before he had killed in a duel Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Gwinnett was the challenger and McIntosh was badly wounded in the duel, but the affair caused a feud that long disturbed Georgia politics, and through the agency of the Senate it was able to reach and annoy the President of the United States.

At the time when Washington was inaugurated both North Carolina and Rhode Island were outside the Union. The national government was a new and doubtful enterprise, remote from and unfamiliar to the mass of the people. To turn their thoughts toward the new Administration it seemed to be good policy for Washington to make tours. The notes made by Washington in his diary indicate that the project was his own notion, but both Hamilton and Knox cordially approved it and Madison "saw no impropriety" in it. Therefore, shortly after the recess of the first session of Congress, Washington started on a trip through the Northern States, pointedly avoiding Rhode Island, then a foreign country. It was during this tour that a question of etiquette occurred about which there was a great stir at the time. John Hancock, then Governor of Massachusetts, did not call upon Washington but wrote inviting Washington to stay at his house, and when this invitation was declined, he wrote again inviting the President to dinner en famille. Washington again declined, and this time the failure of the Governor to pay his respects to the President of the United States was the talk of the town. Some of Hancock's aides now called with excuses on the score of his illness. Washington noted in his diary, "I informed them in explicit terms that I should not see the Governor unless it was at my own lodgings." This incident occurred on Saturday evening, and the effect was such that Governor Hancock called in person on Sunday. The affair was the subject of much comment not to Governor Hancock's advantage. Washington's church-going habits on this trip afford no small evidence of the patient consideration which he paid to every point of duty. In New York, he attended Episcopal church service regularly once every Sunday. On his northern tour he went to the Episcopal church in the morning, and then showed his respect for the dominant religious system of New England by attending the Congregational church in the afternoon. His northern tour lasted from October 15 to November 13, 1789, and was attended by popular manifestations that must have promoted the spread of national sentiment. On November 21, 1789, North Carolina came into the Union, and Rhode Island followed on May 29, 1790. Washington started on a tour of the Southern States on March 21,1791, in which he covered more than seventeen hundred miles in sixty-six days, and was received with grand demonstrations at all the towns he visited.

While he was making these tours, which in the days before the railroad and the telegraph were practically the only efficacious means of establishing the new government in the thoughts and feelings of the people, he was much concerned about frontier troubles, and with good reason, as he well knew the deficiency of the means that Congress had allowed. The tiny army of the United States was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Josiah Harmar, with the brevet rank of general. In October, 1790, Harmar led his troops, nearly four-fifths of which were new levies of militia, against the Indians who had been disturbing the western frontier. The expedition was a succession of blunders and failures which were due more to the rude and undisciplined character of the material that Harmar had to work with than to his personal incapacity. Harmar did succeed in destroying five Indian villages with their stores of corn, but their inhabitants had warning enough to escape and were able to take prompt vengeance. A detachment of troops was ambushed and badly cut up. The design had been to push on to the upper course of the Wabash, but so many horses had been stolen by the Indians that the expedition was crippled. As a result, Harmar marched his troops back again, professing to believe that punishment had been inflicted upon the Indians that would be a severe lesson to them. What really happened was that the Indians were encouraged to think that they were more than a match for any army which the settlers could send against them, and before long news came of the destruction of settlements and the massacre of their inhabitants. "Unless," wrote Rufus Putnam to Washington, "Government speedily sends a body of troops for our protection, we are a ruined people."

Washington did what he could. He sent to Congress Putnam's letter and other frontier communications, but Congress, which was stubbornly opposed to creating a national army, replied, when the need was demonstrated, that the militia of the several States were available. The Government was without means of protecting the Indians against abuse and injustice or of protecting the settlers against the savage retaliations that naturally followed. The dilemma was stated with sharp distinctness in correspondence which passed between Washington and Hamilton in April, 1791. Washington wrote that it was a hopeless undertaking to keep peace on the frontier "whilst land-jobbing and the disorderly conduct of our borderers are suffered with impunity; and while the States individually are omitting no occasion to intermeddle in matters which belong to the general Government." Hamilton in reply went to the root of the matter. "Our system is such as still to leave the public peace of the Union at the mercy of each state government." He proceeded to give a concrete instance: "For example, a party comes from a county of Virginia into Pennsylvania, and wantonly murders some friendly Indians. The national Government, instead of having power to apprehend the murderers and bring them to justice, is obliged to make a representation to that of Pennsylvania; that of Pennsylvania, again, is to make a requisition of that of Virginia. And whether the murderers shall be brought to justice at all must depend upon the particular policy, and energy, and good disposition of two state governments, and the efficacy of the provisions of their respective laws. And security of other States and the money of all are at the discretion of one. These things require a remedy; but when that will come, God knows."

Toward the close of its last session, the First Congress was induced to pass an act "for raising and adding another regiment to the military establishment of the United States and for making further provision for the protection of the frontiers." The further provision authorized the President to employ "troops enlisted under the denomination of levies" for a term not exceeding six months and in number not exceeding two thousand. The law thus made it compulsory that the troops should move while still raw and untrained. Congress had fixed the pay of the privates at three dollars a month, from which ninety cents were deducted, and it had been necessary to scrape the streets and even the prisons of the seaboard cities for men willing to enlist upon such terms. Washington gave the command to General Arthur St. Clair, whose military experience should have made him a capable commander, but he was then in bad health and unable to handle the situation under the conditions imposed upon him. General Harmar, enlightened by his own experience, predicted that such an army would certainly be defeated.

The campaign was intended as an expedition to chastise the Indians so that they would be deterred from molesting the settlers, but it resulted in a disaster that greatly encouraged Indian depredations. As the army approached the Indian towns, a body of the militia deserted, and it was reported to St. Clair that they intended to plunder the supplies. He sent one of his regular regiments after them, thus reducing his available force to about fourteen hundred men. On November 3, 1791, this force camped on the eastern fork of Wabash. Before daybreak the next morning the Indians made a sudden attack, taking the troops by surprise and throwing them into disorder. It was the story of Braddock's defeat over again. The troops were surrounded by foes that they could not see and could not reach. Indian marksmen picked off the gunners until the artillery was silenced; then the Indians rushed in and seized the guns. In the combat there were both conspicuous exploits of valor and disgraceful scenes of cowardice. In that dark hour St. Clair showed undaunted courage. He was in the front of the fight, and several times he headed charges. He seemed to have a charmed life, for although eight bullets pierced his clothes, one cutting away a lock of the thick gray hair that flowed from under his three-cornered hat, he escaped without a wound. Finally defeat became a rout which St. Clair was powerless to check. Pushed aside in the rush of fugitives, he was left in a position of great peril. If the Indian pursuit had been persistent, few might have escaped, but the Indians stopped to plunder the camp. Nevertheless six hundred and thirty men were killed and over two hundred and eighty wounded, with small loss to the Indians.