"I know nothing of his domestic matters. There were malicious persons who started many reports of discord between Washington and his lady. These I believe were all false. Mrs. Washington was a high-bred woman, a lady in everything; and so far as my observation or acquaintance extended, was devoted and dutiful. Of one thing I am very sure: she was a proud woman, and was proud of her husband. She certainly had not the dignity of her husband; no one, male or female, ever had. She was less reserved, more accessible, and not indifferent to the attentions and flatteries of her husband's friends. In fine, she was a woman. Washington's deportment toward his wife was kind and respectful, but always dignified and courteous. Toward his servants he was uniformly kind.
"He was an enemy to slavery, and never hesitated to avow his sentiments. His black servants were very much attached to him. The peculiar nature of Washington forbade those heart-friendships demanded by a narrower and more impulsive nature. He kept all the world too far from him ever to win that tenderness of affection which sweetens social life in the blending of hearts and sympathy of souls. But he commanded that esteem which results from respect and appreciation of the great and commanding attributes of his nature, which elevated him so far above the men of his age. He wanted the softness and yielding of the heart that so wins upon the affections of associates and those who are in close and constant intercommunication. Are not these incompatible with the stern and towering traits essential to such a character as was Washington's? Like a shaft of polished granite towering amid shrubs and flowers, cold and hard, but grand and beautiful, he stood among the men and the women who surrounded him when President.
"General Washington was cautious and reserved in his expressions about men. He rarely praised or censured. At the time I was in the Cabinet, he had abundant cause for dislike to Mr. Jefferson, who, in his Mazéi letter, had represented him as laboring to break up the Government, that upon its ruins a monarchy might arise for his own benefit. He spoke of this letter more severely than I had ever heard him speak of anything, and said no man better knew the charge false, than Mr. Jefferson. Some correspondence, I believe, took place between them on the subject. I believe they never met after this. Upon one occasion I heard him say that it was unfortunate that Jefferson had been sent to France at the time that he was, when morals and government alike were little less than chaos, for he had been tainted in his ideas of both."
"You knew Mr. Jefferson?" I asked.
"Come into the house, and I will show you something," said the venerable man, then tottering to the grave. I went, and he showed me some letters addressed to him by persons in Virginia, presenting, in no very enviable light, the character of Jefferson. When I had read them, he remarked: "You must not suppose I am anxious to prejudice your youthful mind against the great favorite of your people. It is not so. You seem solicitous to learn something of the men who have had so much agency in the establishment of the Government and the formation of the opinions of the people, that I am willing you should see upon what my opinions have, in a great degree, been formed. Mr. Jefferson is still living, and still writing. His pen seems to have lost none of its vigor, nor his heart any of its venom. You will hear him greatly praised, and greatly abused. I knew him at one time, but never intimately, and may be said only to know him as a public man; what of his private character I know, comes from the statements of others, and general report. You have just seen some of these statements. I knew the writers of these letters well, and know their statements to be entitled to credit, and I believe them. They assure me that Mr. Jefferson is without moral principle. His public conduct must convince every one of his want of political principle. His whole life has been a bundle of contradictions. He has had neither chart nor compass by which to regulate his course, but has universally adopted the expedient.
"That he has a great and most vigorous intellect is beyond all question; but most of its emanations have been the ad captandum to seize the current, and sail with it. He saw the democratic proclivity of the people, he concentrated it by the use of his pen, and he has aided its expansion, until it threatens ruin to the Government. He knows it, and he still perseveres. Under the plea of inviting population, he advocated the extension of the franchise to aliens, and was really the parent from whose brain was born the naturalization laws, making citizens of every nationality, and giving them all the powers of the Government, extending suffrage to every pauper in the land, increasing to the utmost the material for the demagogue, and thus depriving the intelligence of the country of the power to control it. The specious argument that if a man is compelled to serve in the militia and defend the country, he should be entitled to vote, was his. Its sophistry is as palpable to Jefferson as to every thinking mind. Government is the most abstruse of the sciences, and should, for the security of all, be controlled by the intelligence of the country. During the world's existence, all the intelligence it has ever afforded, has not been competent to the formation of a government approximating perfection.
"The object of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property. The tenure of property is established and sustained by law; it is the basis of government; it is the support of government; in proportion to its extent and security, it is the strength and power of government, and those who possess it should have the control of government. In a republic, there can be no better standard of intelligence than the possession of property, and to give the greatest security to the government, none should, in a republic, be intrusted with the ballot, but the native, and the property-holder, or the native property-holder. The complications of our system are scarcely understood by our own people, and to suppose that ignorant men (for such constitute the bulk of our emigrant population) shall become so intimate with it, and so much attached to it, as to constitute them, in a few years, persons to be intrusted with its control, is supposing human intelligence to be of much higher grasp than I have ever found it. Most of these emigrants come here with preconceived prejudices toward the institutions of their native lands. This is natural. Most of them speak a foreign language. This has to be overcome, before they can even commence to learn the nature and operation of our system, which is so radically dissimilar to any and all others. These men, as the ignorant of our own people, naturally lean on some one who shall direct them, and they will blindly do his bidding. This is an invitation to the demagogue; these are his materials, and he will aggregate and control them. Such men are always poor, and envy makes them the enemies of the rich. This creates an antagonism, which we see existing in every country.
"The poor are dependent for employment upon the rich; the rich are dependent upon the poor for labor. This mutual dependence, it would be supposed, would tend to create mutual regard; but experience teaches the reverse. The poor have nothing to sell but their labor, and there are none to buy but the rich. Each, naturally, struggles to make the best bargain possible, and take advantage of every circumstance to effect this. Very few are satisfied with fair equivalents, and one or the other always feels aggrieved. Here is the difficulty. Well, endow the laborer with the ballot, and he usurps the government; for to vote is to govern. What is to be the consequence? We now have, with all the means of expansion and facilities a new country of boundless extent gives to the poor for finding and making homes, many more without property than with it. This disproportion will go on to increase until it assimilates to every old country, with a few rich and many poor. These many will control; they will send of their own men to legislate; they will favor their friends; they will levy the taxes, which the property-holders of the country must pay; they will make the laws appropriating these taxes; all will be for the benefit of their constituency, and the property, the government, and the people are all at their mercy. Jefferson sees this, and is taking advantage of it, and has indoctrinated the whole unthinking portion of our people with these destructive notions. It made him President. His example has proven contagious, and I see no end to its results short of the destruction of the Government, and that speedily. Mr. Jefferson's fame will be co-existent with the Government. When that shall perish, his great errors will be apparent. The impartial historian, inquiring into the cause of this destruction, with half an eye will see it, and then his true character will be sketched, and this great, unprincipled demagogue will go naked down to posterity. He has always been unprincipled, immoral, and dissolute. These, accompanying his great intellect, have made it a curse, rather than a blessing, to his kind.
"The world has produced few great statesmen—Washington and Hamilton were the only ones of any pretensions this country has produced. It was a great misfortune that Hamilton did not succeed Washington. Mr. Adams, now lingering to his end at Braintree, was a patriot, but greatly wanting in the attributes of greatness. He was suspicious, ill-tempered, and full of unmanly prejudices—was incapable of comprehending the great necessities of his country, as well as the means to direct and control these necessities. He had animosities to nurse, and enemies to punish—was more concerned about a proper respect for himself and the office he filled, than the interest and the destiny of his country. He quarrelled with Washington, was jealous of him, who never had a thought but for his country. Adams was all selfishness, little selfishness, and earned and got the contempt of the whole nation. Jefferson was turning all this to his own advantage; and the errors and follies of Adams were made the strength and wisdom of Jefferson. He had but one rival before the nation, Burr—he whom you saw yesterday, the crushed victim of the cunning and intrigue of his friend Jefferson.
"Washington had died—despondent of the future of his country. The prestige of his name and presence was gone. He had committed a great error in bringing Jefferson into his Cabinet and before the nation with his approbation. He knew every Cabinet secret, and took advantage of every one, and had placed himself prominently before the people, and with Burr was elected. The defect in the law as existing at the time, enabled Burr, when returned with an equal number of electoral votes, to contend with Jefferson for the Presidency. It was in the power of Hamilton, at this time, to elect. The States were divided, six for Burr, eight for Jefferson, and two divided. There was one State voting for Jefferson, which by the change of one vote would have been given to Burr: the divided States were under his control. He was, during the ballotings, sent for, with a view to the election of Burr; but he preferred Jefferson—thought him less dangerous than Burr, and procured his election. It was a terrible alternative, to have to choose between two such men. The consequences to Burr and the country have been terrible—the destruction of both.