Nor was the public life of the country at that time more creditable. In the course of the war, persons of small claims to notice or regard obtained seats in Congress. By force of party disruptions, as was bitterly remarked by one of the leaders, men were brought into the management of affairs "who might have lived till the millennium in silent obscurity had they depended upon their mental qualifications." Gouverneur Morris was, no doubt, one of the shrewdest observers of current events in his day, and the purity of the patriotism of John Jay entitled him to stand by the side of Washington. One day, in a conversation, thirty years after the second Continental Congress had passed away, Morris exclaimed: "Jay, what a set of damned scoundrels we had in that second Congress!" And Jay, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe, replied: "Yes, we had."
Near the close of 1779, Congress, trying to dispel the fear that the continental currency would not be redeemed, passed a resolution declaring: "A bankrupt, faithless republic would be a novelty in the political world. The pride of America revolts at the idea. Her citizens know for what purpose these emissions were made, and have repeatedly pledged their faith for the redemption of them." The rest of the resolution is too coarse for quotation, even for the sake of emphasis. In a little more than three months from the passage of that resolution a bill was passed to refund the continental currency by issuing one dollar of new paper money for forty of the old, and the new issue soon became as worthless as the former emission. Indeed, the patriots repudiated obligations to the amount of two hundred million dollars, and did it so effectually that we still use the expression, "not worth a continental" as a synonym for worthlessness.
It is a common belief that scurrilous and indecent attacks upon public men by American journalists is an evil of modern growth; but this is an error. A century ago such attacks exceeded in virulence anything that would be possible today. Among the vilest of the lampooners of that age were a quartette of literary hacks who for some years were engaged in denouncing the federalist party and government. Philip Freneau owned "The National Gazette," a journal that Hamilton declared disclosed "a serious design to subvert the government." He was among the most virulent assailants of Washington's administration, denouncing not only the members of the cabinet, except Jefferson, but the chief himself. Among other charges brought against him, Washington was accused of "debauching the country" and "seeking a crown," "and all the while passing himself off as an honest man." Benjamin F. Bache was a grandson of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. He inherited all his ancestor's duplicity, love of intrigue, and vindictiveness, but none of his suavity and tact. Sullen and malevolent of disposition, scarcely could he keep in accord with men of his own party. He owned and edited "The Aurora," a paper which in depth of malice and meanness exceeded the journal of Freneau. He also made vicious attacks upon Washington, both in the "Aurora" and other publications. Washington's "fame" he declared to be "spurious"; he was "inefficient," "mischievous," "treacherous," and "ungrateful." His "mazes of passion" and the "loathings of his sick mind" were held up to the contempt of the people. "His sword," it was declared, "would have been drawn against his country" had the British government given him promotion in the army. He had, it was asserted, "cankered the principles of republicanism" "and carried his designs against the public liberty so far as to put in jeopardy its very existence."
William Duane, a man of Irish parentage, assisted Bache in the conduct of the "Aurora," and upon his death, in 1798, assumed full control of it. He was responsible for some of the most virulent attacks upon Washington, published in that paper. Bache and Duane both received severe castigations, administered in retaliation for abusive articles.
James Thompson Callender, who disgraced Scotland by his birth, was a shameless and double-faced rascal. A professional lampooner, his pen was at the service of any one willing to pay the price. He, too, had a fling at the President, declaring that "Mr. Washington had been twice a traitor," and deprecating "the vileness of the adulation" paid him.
In this quartette of scoundrels may be added the notorious Thomas Paine, who, after exalting Washington to the seventh heaven of excellence, upon being refused by him an office that to confer upon him would have disgraced the nation, showered upon him the vilest denunciation. "As for you, sir," he wrote, addressing him, "treacherous in private friendship, and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any." That these attacks upon members of the government were the direct results of the teachings of Jefferson there is no room for doubt. That he encouraged and supported their authors has been proved beyond a doubt. He was one of the worst detractors of Great Britain. For fifty years he employed his pen in reviling the mother country. Then occurred one of the most remarkable instances of political death-bed repentance that the annals of statecraft have to show. He who had so often asserted that Great Britain was a nation powerless, decrepit, lost to corruption, eternally hostile to liberty, totally destitute of morality and good faith, and warned his countrymen to avoid intercourse with her lest they become contaminated by the touch; he who had yearned for her conquest by a military despot, and proposed to burn the habitations of her citizens, like the nests of noxious vermin, is suddenly found proclaiming "her mighty weight," lauding her as the protector of free government, and exhorting his fellow citizens to "sedulously cherish a cordial friendship with her." This change of heart was brought about by the announcement by Great Britain of the so-called "Monroe Doctrine." In Jefferson's letter to Monroe of October 24, 1823, he said: "The question presented by the letters you have sent me (the letters of Mr. Rush, reciting Mr. Canning's offer of British support against the attempt of the "Holy Alliance" to forcibly restore the revolted Spanish-American colonies to Spain), is the most momentous that has ever been offered to my contemplation since that of Independence. And never could we embark under circumstances more auspicious. By acceding to Great Britain's proposition we detach her from the bonds, bring her mighty weight into the scale of free government, and emancipate a continent at one stroke. With her on our side we need not fear the whole world. With her then we should most sedulously cherish a cordial friendship."
Alexander Hamilton was a soldier of fortune of the highest type. He was born on the island of Nevis, in the West Indies. He was of illegitimate birth; his father was Scotch and his mother French. Endowed with a high order of intellect, possessed of indomitable energy and passionate ambition, he went forth into the world determined to win both.[69] Chance threw him into the colonies at a time when the agitation for independence was at its height. He landed at Boston in October, 1772; thence he went to New York, where in his sixteenth year he entered King's (now Columbia) College. At first he affiliated with the Loyalists, but soon deserted to the Disunionists, which gave him greater opportunities of realizing his ambitious dream. As a Loyalist the world would never have heard of him, but as John Marshall informs us, he ranks next to Washington as having rendered more conspicuous service to the United States than any other man in the Revolution. A great orator, a talented lawyer, a good soldier, master of every field he entered, punctilious and haughty of temperament, he scorned to bend even to the proud spirit of Washington. His position on Washington's staff was literally a secretaryship more civil than military. It was "the grovelling condition of a clerk," which his youthful genius revolted at. This caused him to resign his staff appointment. Alexander Hamilton was the deviser and establisher of the government of the United States. He it was that framed the Constitution, who urged and secured its adoption by the original thirteen states at a time when but a rope of sand bound them together. To Hamilton, more than any other man, is due the fact that the United States today form a nation. He lived long enough to see the nation to which he gave political stability submitting itself in entire respect and confidence to the declaration contained in the most remarkable document ever written.
Like many of his contemporaries he was an intrigaunt, injuring his health and impairing the sanctity of his home, and was destined to meet his death at the hands of a man more dissolute than himself, and destitute of his honorable traits of character.
Professor Sumner says: "It is astonishing how far writers kept from the facts and evidence. This is so much the case that it is often impossible to learn what was really the matter. The colonists first objected to internal taxes, but consented to import duties. Then they distinguished between import duties to regulate commerce, and import duties for revenue. They seem to have changed their position and to be consistent in one thing only, to pay no taxes and to rebel." After patiently examining their pamphlets and discussions, Sumner concludes: "The incidents of the trouble offer occasion at every step for reserve in approving the proceedings of the colonists. We therefore come to the conclusion that the Revolutionary leader made a dispute about the method of raising a small amount of revenue a pretext for rending an empire which, if united, might civilize and wisely govern the fairest portion of the globe."
The foregoing statements are more than corroborated by a letter written to Washington by Rev. Jacob Duche, a former rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, a man of great learning, eloquence, and piety, who was appointed chaplain to the first Congress. His prayer at the opening of the session was pronounced not only eloquent, but patriotic in the extreme. While it was being uttered there was but one man in that whole assembly who knelt, and that man was George Washington. When Washington received the letter he immediately transmitted it to Congress. The letter was in part as follows:—