Life and Times of Washington, Volume 2 / Revised, Enlarged, and Enriched

by John Frederick Schroeder; Benson John Lossing

The unanimity which prevailed in the committee did not extend to the House.

After amplifying and strengthening the expressions of the report, which stated regret that any interruption should have taken place in the harmony which had subsisted between the United States and France, and modifying those which declared their hope for the restoration of that harmony, so as to avoid any implication that its rupture was exclusively ascribable to France, a motion was made by Mr. Giles to expunge all those paragraphs which expressed attachment to the person and character of the President, approbation of his administration, or regret at his retiring from office.

After a very animated debate the motion to strike out was lost and the answer was carried by a great majority.

Early in the session Washington communicated to Congress the copy of a letter addressed by the Secretary of State to General Pinckney, containing a minute and comprehensive detail of all the points of controversy which had arisen between the United States and France, and defending the measures which had been adopted by America with a clearness and a strength of argument believed to be irresistible. The letter was intended to enable General Pinckney to remove from the government of France all impressions unfavorable to the fairness of intention which had influenced the conduct of the United States, and to efface from the bosoms of the great body of the American people all those unjust and injurious suspicions which had been entertained against their own administration. Should its immediate operation on the executive of France disappoint his hopes, Washington persuaded himself that he could not mistake its influence in America; and he felt the most entire conviction that the accusations made by the French Directory against the United States would cease, with the evidence that these accusations were supported by a great portion of the American people.

The letter and its accompanying documents were communicated to the public, but, unfortunately, their effect at home was not such as had been expected, and they were, consequently, inoperative abroad.

The measures recommended by Washington, in his speech at the opening of the session, were not adopted, and neither the debates in Congress nor the party publications with which the nation continued to be agitated, furnished reasonable ground for hope that the political intemperance which had prevailed from the establishment of the republican form of government in France, was about to be succeeded by a more conciliatory spirit. It was impossible for Washington to be absolutely insensible to the bitter invectives and malignant calumnies of which he had long been the object. Yet in one instance only did he depart from the rule he had prescribed for his conduct regarding them. Apprehending permanent injury from the republication of certain spurious letters, which have been already noticed, he, on the day which terminated his official character, addressed a letter to the Secretary of State, declaring them to be forgeries and stating the circumstances under which they were published.

On the 8th of February (1797) the votes for the President and Vice-President were opened and counted in the presence of both Houses, and John Adams announced the fact from the chair of the Vice-President that he himself had received 71 votes, Thomas Jefferson 68, Thomas Pinckney 59, Aaron Burr 30, and that the balance of the votes were given in varying small numbers to Samuel Adams, Oliver Ellsworth, John Jay, etc. The total number of electors was 138. Thus John Adams became the second President of the United States, and by some mismanagement on the part of the Federalists Pinckney missed the Vice-Presidency, and the man of all others most dreaded by the Federal party was placed in the very front rank of the Republicans, and with the clear presage of success in the future.

Washington's feelings on the immediate prospect of retirement from office are expressed in the following extract from a letter to General Knox, dated March 2, 1797: "To the wearied traveler who sees a resting-place and is bending his body to lean thereon, I now compare myself, but to be suffered to do this in peace is too much to be endured by some. To misrepresent my motives, to reprobate my politics, and to weaken the confidence which has been reposed in my administration are objects which cannot be relinquished by those who will be satisfied with nothing short of a change in our political system. The consolation, however, which results from conscious rectitude and the approving voice of my country, unequivocally expressed by its representatives, deprive their sting of its poison and place in the same point of view both the weakness and malignity of their efforts.

"Although the prospect of retirement is most grateful to my soul, and I have not a wish to mix again in the great world or to partake in its politics, yet I am not without my regrets at parting with (perhaps never more to meet) the few intimates whom I love. Among these, be assured, you are one."

Bishop White has given the following anecdote, illustrating the strong feelings of regret awakened among Washington's friends by his approaching retirement from public life: