Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States

by Martin Van Buren

It has always been believed that if Washington had inclined a favorable ear to the suggestions of the Newburgh letters, and in due season had given his name and influence to the counter-revolution they were intended to promote, it might have been made successful, and the system which the Revolution had overthrown might have been in some modified form restored. The disparity between the means which were at his disposal when propositions looking to such a result were thrown before the army at Newburgh and those within his reach when the declarations to Mr. Jefferson were made was not as great as might be supposed. At the former period it is true that the army of the Revolution was yet in the field, mortified, irritated, and indeed highly inflamed by the assumed injustice and ingratitude of their country, and in all probability prepared to follow his lead in furtherance of any views he might disclose which did not exceed the proposed limits; and the government to be overthrown was feeble, distracted, destitute of the sinews of war, and with but a slight hold upon the confidence and affections of the people. But it must also be remembered that the fervor and spirit of the Revolution—that intense hatred of royalty and monarchical institutions in any shape—which had roused the country to the contest, had as yet in no sensible degree abated amongst the masses, neither had they surrendered those sanguine anticipations of the blessings and advantages of republican government by which their hearts had been fortified and their arms strengthened for the struggle. That any attempt to bring about a counter-revolution under such circumstances, however popular the name and character of him by whom it was sanctioned, or however imposing the means by which it was sustained, would meet with a formidable opposition from the great body of the people was certain; and it was not easy to estimate the nature and extent of the resistance that might spring from the sources to which I have referred to confront an army which had so lately been the object of their unalloyed admiration and affection.

In the lapse of time between that period and the one at which Mr. Jefferson received the assurances he describes great changes had taken place in respect to all these matters, but, as I have said, not so adverse as might on first impression be supposed to the practicability of an attempt such as Washington referred to. The army of the Revolution had indeed been dissolved, and, in regard to the elements of which it was principally composed, beyond recall; but its officers, who, next to Washington, were capable of giving a tone and direction to the spirit of the troops, were alive, several of them again under his command, not a few about his person, and all filled with unabated admiration and affection for their idolized chief. If the account given us by Mr. Jefferson of the feelings he found most prevalent in our principal cities and at the seat of government on his return from France and in his progress to Philadelphia, to take upon himself the office of Secretary of State, is to be relied upon,—and many important contemporaneous occurrences corroborate his statement,—sad changes had taken place in the public opinion and feeling, of absorbing interest in this connection. "The President," he says, "received me cordially, and my colleagues and the circle of principal citizens apparently with welcome. The courtesies of dinner-parties given me, as a stranger newly arrived among them, placed me at once in familiar society. But I cannot describe the wonder and mortification with which the table conversations filled me. Politics were the chief topic, and a preference of kingly over republican governments was evidently the favorite sentiment." In his description of what he heard and saw there can be no mistake; but it is more than probable that changes among the people at large, upon the point spoken of, had not occurred to any thing like the same extent as among those portions of society to which he more particularly refers. Still it is undeniably true that from the influence of examples set by men in high places, from the difficulties under which the late government had labored, and from other causes, there had been at that moment a falling off from the true faith respecting governments and the administration of them which could now be scarcely credited. Add to these favoring circumstances the fact that the man, without whose countenance or coöperation no reactionary attempt would have been thought of even by the rankest advocate for monarchical institutions, was at the head of the Government to be overthrown, and the unquestioned object of the national confidence and affection, and the scheme, with his coöperation, was not likely to be then regarded as so impracticable as it would now certainly be considered. If such a work were at this day thought of by any man or men, however elevated in position or loved by the people, they could reap no other harvest than contempt and derision; but the single fact that Washington, who always handled serious matters seriously, and who was not liable to be alarmed by "false fires," treated the subject as he did, is sufficient to mark the difference between the condition of the country and of the public mind then and now.

But happily for us he was the same man in 1793 that he was in 1783. The principle upon which he acted upon both occasions was maintained through life without spot or blemish. The world believed, and for the best reasons, that he had refused to become the master of a people, whose liberties he had, through the favor of God and the fortitude and bravery of his countrymen, been made instrumental to establish, because he deemed it a higher honor to be their servant. It compared his acts with those of the Cæsars, of Cromwell, and of Napoleon, and glorified his name above that of any other mortal man. Such has been his reward for his faithfulness to the most sacred of human trusts—a reward and a fidelity unparalleled! Services have been rendered in every age which entitled the actors in them to the gratitude of their country, and to the thanks of mankind, but lacking the distinguishing feature of Washington's, their traces have become fainter with the lapse of time, whilst the remembrance of his unequaled merits grows more distinct and strong with each revolving year.

That he committed grave errors in giving his sanction, probably with considerable reluctance, to some of the measures of his administration, is certain. I say this not merely on the strength of my own poor opinion, but because such is the unreserved and irreversible judgment of the country, to which, under a republican government, the acts of all public men are subjected. But the assent which he gave to these measures was never, even by those most opposed to them, attributed to him as a fault, but was regarded only as an honest error of opinion; and hence the extraordinary political phenomenon of a party having its origin in the adoption by him of those measures expelling from power his immediate successor, who claimed to act upon his principles, placing those principles by protracted and diligent efforts under the ban of public opinion, and keeping them and their supporters there, in the main, for more than half a century—and yet being not a whit behind those who approved them in its respect for his name and character, because its members, in the eloquent language of Mr. Jefferson, "would not suffer the temporary aberration to weigh against the immeasurable merits of his life; and although they tumbled his seducers from their places, they preserved his memory embalmed in their hearts with undiminished love and devotion, and there it forever will remain embalmed in entire oblivion of every temporary thing which might cloud the glories of his splendid life."

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Mr. Van Buren, in making the above quotation from the Jubilee Address, doubtless relied upon his memory. "Both spurred to the rowels by rival and antagonist ambition," are the words used by Mr. Adams; but they, in fact, refer distinctly to Jefferson and Hamilton, though Mr. Madison's name is incidentally coupled with that of the latter in the same sentence. Eds.

[10] Sparks's Life of Gouverneur Morris, Vol. III. p. 260.

[11] The italics are mine.

[12] See [Appendix].

[13] See [Appendix].