January the 19th. W. C. Nicholas tells me, that in a conversation with Dexter three or four days ago, he asked Dexter whether it would not be practicable for the States to agree on some uniform mode of choosing electors of President. Dexter said, ‘I suppose you would prefer an election by districts.’ ‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, ‘I think it would be best; but would nevertheless agree to any other consistent with the constitution.’ Dexter said he did not know what might be the opinion of his State, but his own was, that no mode of election would answer any good purpose; that he should prefer one for life. ‘On that reasoning,’ said Nicholas, ‘you should prefer an hereditary one.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘we are not ripe for that yet. I suppose,’ added he, ‘this doctrine is not very popular with you.’ ‘No,’ said Nicholas, ‘it would effectually damn any man in my State.’ ‘So it would in mine,’ said Dexter; ‘but I am under no inducement to belie my sentiment; I have nothing to ask from any body; I had rather be at home than here, therefore I speak my sentiments freely.’ Mr. Nicholas, a little before or after this, made the same proposition of a uniform election to Rossr who replied that he saw no good in any kind of election. ‘Perhaps,’ said he, ‘the present one may last a while.’ On the whole, Mr. Nicholas thinks he perceives, in that party, a willingness and a wish to let every thing go from bad to worse, to amend nothing, in hopes it may bring on confusion, and open a door to the kind of government they wish. In a conversation with Gunn, who goes with them, but thinks in some degree with us, Gunn told him that the very game which the minority of Pennsylvania is now playing with McKean (see substitute of minority in lower House, and address of Senate in upper), was meditated by the same party in the federal government, in case of the election of a republican President; and that the eastern States would in that case throw things into confusion, and break the Union. That they have in a great degree got rid of their paper, so as no longer to be creditors, and the moment they cease to enjoy the plunder of the immense appropriations now exclusively theirs, they would aim at some other order of things.
January the 24th. Mr. Smith, a merchant of Hamburg, gives me the following information. The St. Andrew’s Club, of New York, (all of Scotch tories,) gave a public dinner lately. Among other guests Alexander Hamilton was one. After dinner, the first toast was ‘The President of the United States.’ It was drunk without any particular approbation. The next was, ‘George the Third.’ Hamilton started up on his feet, and insisted on a bumper and three cheers. The whole company accordingly rose and gave the cheers. One of them, though a federalist, was so disgusted at the partiality shown by Hamilton to a foreign sovereign over his own President, that he mentioned it to a Mr. Schwart-house, an American merchant of New York, who mentioned it to Smith.
Mr. Smith also tells me, that calling one evening on Mr. Evans, then Speaker of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, and asking the news, Evans said, Harper had just been there, and speaking of the President’s setting out to Braintree, said, ‘he prayed to God that his horses might run away with him, or some other accident happen to break his neck before he reached Braintree.’ This was in indignation at his having named Murray, &c. to negotiate with France. Evans approved of the wish.
February the 1st. Doctor Rush tells me that he had it from Asa Green, that when the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation, that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address, as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes, he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers, except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the States when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of ‘the benign influence of the Christian religion.’
I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.
March, 1800. Heretical doctrines maintained in Senate, on the motion against the Aurora. That there is in every legal body of men a right of self-preservation, authorizing them to do whatever is necessary for that purpose: by Tracy, Read, and Lawrence. That the common law authorizes the proceeding proposed against the Aurora, and is in force here: by Read. That the privileges of Congress are and ought to be indefinite: by Read.
Tracy says, he would not say exactly that the common law of England in all its extent is in force here; but common sense reason, and morality, which are the foundations of the common law, are in force here, and establish a common law. He held himself so nearly half way between the common law of England and what every body else has called natural law, and not common law, that he could hold to either the one or the other, as he should find expedient.
Dexter maintained that the common law, as to crimes, is in force in the United States.
Chipman says, that the principles of common right are common law.
March the 11th. Conversing with Mrs. Adams on the subject of the writers in the newspapers, I took occasion to mention that I never in my life had, directly or indirectly, written one sentence for a newspaper; which is an absolute truth. She said that Mr. Adams, she believed, had pretty well ceased to meddle in the newspapers, since he closed the pieces on Davila. This is the first direct avowal of that work to be his, though long and universally understood to be so.