Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (37 page)

Despite all this collaboration, the final document very much represented the president’s ideas about what his administration had experienced; it also expressed his deep anxiety about the future of the new nation. After some more editing by Washington, his Farewell Address was
given to the press and published on September 19, 1796. The president never delivered it orally.

This document became one of the great state papers of American history, often read in classrooms and elsewhere well into the twentieth century. Indeed, speakers and writers at the time, both Federalists and Republicans, urged that the Farewell Address be read by all Americans. It seemed that significant to the future of the nation.

Washington’s major theme was the importance of the Union, which alone made Americans “one people.” The national Union, he told his fellow countrymen, was what insured “your real independence.” The national government was the main “support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty which you value so highly.” He appealed to his fellow citizens to forget what divided them and to concentrate on the “sacred ties” that bound them together—their similarity of religion, manners, and political principles and, above all, their common participation in the Revolutionary cause. Although the different sections had different interests, they blended together into “an indissoluble community of Interest as
one Nation
.” It was true, he said, that theorists had doubted whether a republican government could embrace a large territory. But let us try the experiment, he urged.

Most dangerous to this experiment in an extended republic, he declared, was the spirit of party and faction that had recently arisen to unsettle American politics. Parties were the tools that “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men” used “to subvert the Power of the People and to usurp for themselves the reins of Government.” The spirit of party agitated the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; it turned one part of the society against another; it even fomented riots and insurrections; and it offered the opportunity for foreigners to influence and corrupt the government itself. In all of these warnings Washington was, of course, thinking of the recent events of his administration. He conceded a possible role for this spirit of party in monarchies, but popularly elective republics had to be constantly vigilant against its rise.

Probably nothing in Washington’s Address reveals the traditional nature of his thinking about politics more than this lengthy heartfelt condemnation of parties. Of course, he was striking out against the Republican party without conceding that the Federalists, of whom he was the leader, were in any way a party. This was not confused hypocrisy on Washington’s part, but simply an example of how much conventional thinking continued to abhor partisan division in the state. Washington always sincerely saw himself as acting above partisan passions and, of course, could scarcely have imagined the nineteenth-century development of political parties normally contesting with one another.

After stressing the importance of religion, morality, a general diffusion of knowledge, and public credit, Washington concluded his valedictory with a long discussion of foreign policy. Here again he had recent experience, especially the behavior of the Republican party, very much in mind. He urged that the United States avoid all “permanent, inveterate antipathies” and all “passionate attachments” to particular nations. He was especially concerned that relatively small and weak nations, like the United States, not become satellites of great and powerful nations. Like many other Americans, including many Republicans, he advocated the extending of commercial relations to foreign nations and having “as little
political
connection as possible.” America was in a fortunate situation, separated by an ocean from the vicissitudes of European politics to which it had very little, if any relation. Although “temporary alliances” with foreign nations might be necessary in “extraordinary emergencies,” it was America’s “true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” It was “folly in one Nation to look for disinterested favors from another.”
⁸²

Beneath Washington’s idealistic picture of America as a uniquely situated experiment in republicanism lay a strong base of realism. All these principles, he said, were what had guided the policies of his own administration, in particular the Proclamation of Neutrality of 1793. All he ever wanted for America, he declared, was time for its institutions to settle and mature, time for it to progress in strength and become master of its own fortunes.

He ended by looking forward to the sweet enjoyment of retirement under the benign influence of the free government that he had done so much to bring about. And he surely yearned for an end to the partisan fighting that marred the last years of his presidency. As anxious as he was about the future, he scarcely foresaw how unsettled and disturbing, and how partisan, the remaining years of the 1790s and of his life would be.

6
John Adams and the Few and the Many

Except for the era of the Civil War, the last several years of the eighteenth century were the most politically contentious in United States history. With no George Washington in office to calm the emotions and reconcile the clashing interests, sectional antagonisms became more and more bitter. Some leaders began predicting a French invasion of the United States and envisioned once again a breakup of the Union. As the Federalist and the Republican parties furiously attacked each other as enemies of the Constitution, party loyalties became more intense and began to override personal ties, as every aspect of American life became politicized. People who had known one another their whole lives now crossed streets to avoid confrontations. Personal differences easily spilled into violence, and fighting erupted in the state legislatures and even in the federal Congress. By 1798 public passions and partisanship and indeed public hysteria had increased to the point where armed conflict among the states and the American people seemed likely. By the end of the decade, in the opinion of the British foreign secretary, the “whole system of American Government” seemed to be “tottering to its foundations.”
¹

D
URING THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF
1796 few Americans foresaw how bad things would become. With Washington retired, for the first time political leaders were confronted with the prospect of actually choosing someone to be president, and no one was sure how this should be done. According to the Constitution, presidents were elected by the Electoral College, in which each state had the same number of electors as it had congressmen and senators. The Electoral College had been the product of long agonizing debate in the Constitutional Convention. Some delegates, including James Wilson, had proposed direct election by the people. But others wondered, once Washington had served, how the
people would know whom to vote for outside of the notables in their own state. The delegates, of course, did not anticipate political parties that would propose tickets or mass media that would create national celebrities. Other delegates suggested that Congress, which would know who was qualified nationally, should elect the president. But when it was pointed out that this would make the president dependent on the Congress, others suggested that the president be elected for a single term of seven years and not be eligible for reelection: by not having to seek re-election, the president would not have to kowtow to the Congress. Others, however, feared that seven years was too long a term. And so the debate went, until someone suggested creating an alternative Congress of independent electors that would have the sole and exclusive responsibility for electing the president every four years. Thus the Electoral College was born.

By 1796, with the admission to statehood of Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee, the electors totaled 138. The states could select their electors in any way they chose, and the electors were free to vote for any two people they wished, as long as one of them was from outside the state. The man who received the highest majority of votes was president; the second highest, vice-president. If no one received a majority of electoral votes, then the House of Representatives voting by state congressional delegations with each delegation having but a single vote was to select the president from those candidates with the five highest numbers of electoral votes.

After Washington, this elaborate two-stage procedure was probably how most Framers expected the electoral process would normally work. Because they assumed that worthy presidential candidates might not be known outside of their state or region, they thought that the Electoral College, which favored the large states, would act as a nominating body. The electoral votes would be scattered, and no one, it was assumed, would receive a majority of them; thus from the five men with the highest number of electoral votes, the House would make the final selection of the president. The unanticipated development of parties undermined these expectations.

But not at once. Parties in 1796 were still distasteful, and most people were reluctant to put party loyalties ahead of regional, state, or personal loyalties. Hence the leading contenders for the presidency—John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—had to appear as if they were indifferent to the office. In 1796 they did not openly campaign but instead remained secluded on their farms, making no statements and offering no hints of their intentions. Although Adams saw himself as the “heir apparent” and believed his “succession” was likely, he knew as well as Jefferson that the ideal character for the presidency had to be called to the office.
²

It was thus left to friends and allies to promote a man’s candidacy. Most Federalists thought that Adams deserved the presidency, but, of course, they wanted a Federalist sympathizer for vice-president as well. Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina, the negotiator of the treaty with Spain, was most talked about, but not everyone knew who he was. Pinckney himself was in the middle of the Atlantic on his way home from Europe and knew nothing of the promotion of his candidacy for high office. Hamilton actually thought that Pinckney was more suitable for the presidency than Adams (he had “a temper far more discreet and conciliatory”). But whether Adams or Pinckney, Hamilton was at least clear about one thing: “all personal and partial considerations must be discarded, and every thing must give way to the great object of excluding Jefferson.”
³

Other Federalists were equally appalled at the prospect of Jefferson’s becoming president or even vice-president. Jefferson as president, said Oliver Wolcott Jr., the Connecticut Federalist who had replaced Hamilton as secretary of the treasury in 1795, would “innovate upon and fritter away the Constitution.” But, continued Wolcott, Jefferson as vice-president might even be worse than if he were president: “he would become the rallying point of faction and French influence” and “without any responsibility, he would . . . divide, and undermine, and finally subvert the rival administration.”
⁴
Better to support Pinckney as president, some Federalists declared, than to see Jefferson in any office, even if it cost Adams the presidency.

Adams picked up some of this Federalist gossip and was furious. The idea of Pinckney’s becoming president ahead of him violated the natural hierarchy of society and the very meaning of the Revolution. “To see such . . . an unknown being as Pinckney, brought over my head, and trampling on the bellies of hundreds of other men infinitely his superiors in talents, services, and reputation, filled me with apprehensions for the safety of us all.”
⁵

For the Republicans, Jefferson was the most obvious person to be president. But they were even more confused and divided than the Federalists over the choice of vice-president. Some wanted Pierce Butler of South Carolina. Others mentioned John Langdon of New Hampshire. And still
others suggested Robert R. Livingston or Aaron Burr of New York. Burr, who was especially charming and well connected, actually had his eyes on the presidency and was willing to cultivate Federalist votes to get it. Burr’s personal maneuvering made many believe that he was “unsettled in his politics” and thus likely to “go over to the other side.”
⁶

In the end personal ambitions, local interests, sectional ties, and personal friendships tended to override national party loyalties, making the final election a confused and chaotic affair. Thus the rudimentary efforts of party caucuses to designate a suitable pair of candidates had less effect than many wanted. With the electors in each state chosen in a variety of ways and free to vote for whomever they wished, the electoral system inhibited the capacity of the parties to organize presidential and vice-presidential tickets.

The Constitution provided for the electors to select any two candidates that suited them, even if they were from opposing parties. So in Pennsylvania one elector voted for both Jefferson and Pinckney. In Maryland an elector voted for Adams and Jefferson. And all the electors of South Carolina voted for both Jefferson and Pinckney. Despite these examples of crossing party lines, however, eight of sixteen states did vote a straight Adams-Pinckney or Jefferson-Burr ticket. Yet, as the vote of the South Carolina electors suggests, the election in fact reflected more of a sectional than a party split.

In the end Adams received seventy-one electoral votes, mostly from New England and New York and New Jersey. Jefferson was next with sixty-eight, all from Pennsylvania and the states in the South. Pinckney received fifty-nine votes and Burr thirty. The remaining forty-eight votes were scattered among nine men, including Samuel Adams, who received fifteen electoral votes from Virginia as an expression of that state’s mistrust of Burr—something Burr never forgave.