The French had already commenced depredations on the American commerce, and reprisals soon followed. In February, 1798, the French frigate L’Insurgent, of forty guns, which had captured the American schooner Retaliation and carried her into Guadaloupe, was compelled to strike her colours to the American frigate Constellation, after a close engagement of an hour and a half, her loss being much the greater. This victory on the side of the United States soon produced overtures from the Directory at Paris, on which Adams immediately appointed Oliver Ellsworth, chief-justice of the United States, Patrick Henry, late governor of Virginia, and William Van Murray, minister at the Hague, to conclude an honourable peace. On their arrival in Paris, they found the Directory overthrown, and Napoleon Bonaparte at the head of the government, with whom a treaty of peace was satisfactorily concluded on September the 30th, 1800; after which the provisional army was disbanded by order of Congress.
Washington, though he took the supreme command of the army, never believed that the French would actually invade the United States. He was not, however, permitted to witness the re-establishment of peace. On the 14th of December, 1799, he calmly and peacefully expired, after an illness of twenty-four hours, at Mount Vernon, his beloved residence, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. The whole nation mourned his loss.
Congress was in session at Philadelphia when the news of this melancholy event reached that city, and both houses immediately adjourned for the remainder of the day. On assembling the next morning, the House of Representatives resolved that the chair of the speaker should be shrouded in black; that the members should wear mourning during the remainder of the session; and that a committee of both houses should be appointed “to consider on the most suitable manner of paying honour to the memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens.”
The Senate testified their respect in a similar manner, and the joint committee of the two houses appointed—that a marble monument should be erected to commemorate the great events in the military and political life of Washington; that an oration suitable to the occasion should be pronounced in presence of both houses of congress; and that the people of the United States should wear crape on their left arms for thirty days.
“No formal act of the national legislature was, however, required,” says Jared Sparkes, “to stir up the hearts of the people or to remind them of the loss which they had sustained in the death of a man whom they had so long been accustomed to love and revere, and the remembrance of whose deeds and virtues was so closely connected with that of their former perils, and of the causes of their present prosperity and happiness. The mourning was universal. It was manifested by every token which could indicate the public sentiment and feeling. Orators, divines, journalists, and writers of every class, responded to the general voice in all parts of the country, and employed their talents to solemnise the event, and to honour the memory of him who, more than any other man, of ancient or modern renown, may claim to be called THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY.”
Both in France and England also was a tribute of respect paid to the memory of this truly great man. On the 9th of February, soon after the news of Washington’s death reached France, Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul, issued the following order of the day to his army: “Washington is dead! This great man fought against tyranny; he established the liberty of his country. His memory will always be dear to the French people, as it will be so to all freemen of the two worlds; and especially to French soldiers, who, like him and the American soldiers, have combated for liberty and equality.” It was likewise ordered that for ten days black crape should be suspended from all the flags and standards throughout the Republic. A funeral oration in honour of Washington was also pronounced in the Hôtel des Invalides, then called the temple of Mars, the first consul and all the civil and military authorities being present. The news of Washington’s death arrived in England at the time when the British fleet, which had chased the French fleet into the harbour of Brest, was lying at Torbay, and consisted of nearly sixty ships of the line. Lord Bridport, who had the command, on hearing the intelligence, ordered his flag half-mast high, which example was followed by the whole fleet.
During the summer of 1800 the seat of government was removed to the city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, of which we have already spoken. During the same year the territory between the western boundary of Georgia and the Mississippi river, and a portion of the north-west territory called Indiana, were erected into a distinct government, called the Mississippi Territory.
As the time approached for the election of a new president, the two parties made again the most strenuous efforts each to acquire the direction of government. Adams had been elected by the predominance of federal principles, but several things had occurred in his administration which had not only weakened his personal influence, but rendered the party to which he was attached unpopular with the majority. The acts by which the army and navy had been strengthened, and which had placed 80,000 militia at his command, were regarded by the democratic as indications of a wish to subvert the spirit of republican government; while the Alien and Sedition Laws, to which he had given his sanction, completed his unpopularity, and fomented party animosity to an extent which had never been equalled, and tended greatly to the overthrow of the federal party.
The federalists supported for the approaching election Adams and General Pinckney, the democratic party Thomas Jefferson and Colonel Aaron Burr. The two latter were found to have a small majority, the whole of the republican party having voted for them, with the intention of Jefferson being president and Burr vice-president. On counting the votes, however, it was discovered that both were equal; the selection, therefore, of the president devolved upon the house of representatives, who, voting by states, according to the constitution, should decide between the two. Again and again and yet again the balloting was repeated in the house, and the result always the same; nor was it until the thirty-sixth balloting that one altered vote turned the scale in Jefferson’s favour. He became president, and Aaron Burr vice-president. To guard against the recurrence of such a difficulty, Article XII. was added to the Constitution.
Tucker, in his life of Jefferson, thus describes the scene which the house of representatives presented on this extraordinary occasion: “The business of the house being confined to balloting, and the result always showing an adherence by every member to his first purpose, some of the members conducted themselves in one way and some in another, according to their various characters and tempers; a portion of the republican party, gloomy, suspicious, and resentful, auguring the worst consequences and preparing their minds for the most desperate results; others, more sanguine, looking forward to a happy termination of the conquest, which they laboured to bring about by the arts of blandishment and conciliation. A few, quietly and steadily doing their duty, determined neither to frustrate the wishes of the people, by changing their votes, nor to submit to any unconstitutional expedient which a majority of both houses might venture to resort to. The federal party, conscious of not having the approbation of the people, exhibited less variety of emotion; they justified themselves by the exercise of a constitutional right, and thought it prudent and decent to conceal their secret satisfaction of vexing and embarrassing their adversaries.”