Washington: A Life

Against this backdrop Washington convened a tense cabinet session on July 23 to discuss whether there was a way to demand Genet’s recall without insulting France. Refusing to be swayed by the Frenchman’s blackmail, he thought Genet’s intemperate letters should be shown to the French. Hamilton seized on the occasion to float his theory that a “faction” wished to “overthrow” the government and that, to stop people from joining these “incendiaries,” the administration should disclose the whole story of Genet’s insolent conduct.58 Of course, Hamilton knew that the chief instigator of that faction sat right there in the room: Thomas Jefferson. At this point even Jefferson concluded that Genet was “absolutely incorrigible” and was harming the Republican cause.59 After repeated brushes with Genet, Jefferson described him in these caustic terms: “Hot-headed, all imagination, no judgment, passionate, disrespectful and even indecent toward the president.”60

By this point the vicious cabinet infighting was tearing Washington apart. No sooner had he agreed to serve a second term than he regretted it. He was staggered by the rabid abuse spewed out by the Republican press. During his presidency, many newspapers had gone from being staid and neutral to being organs of party politics and propaganda. In May he asked Jefferson to dismiss Freneau from his State Department job after the editor made the nonsensical statement that Washington had issued the neutrality statement only after “Anglomen” had threatened to chop off his head. Jefferson resisted the presidential request. Then at a memorable cabinet meeting on August 2, Henry Knox brought a copy of a Freneau squib entitled “The Funeral Dirge of George Washington and James Wilson, King and Judges.” Knox showed the president a savage satirical cartoon in which his head was being inserted in a guillotine, as if he were Louis XVI. It triggered a volcanic display of Washington’s temper. The graphic scene was recorded by Jefferson:

The President was much inflamed; got into one of those passions when he ca

So concerned was Henry Knox about Washington’s nervous strain that he sat down three days later to compose a letter on the need for the president to pull himself together and project an aura of calm fortitude: “The prudent and sober part of the community regard, as in the case of a storm, the mind and countenance of the chief pilot. While he remains confident and composed, happiness is diffused around, but, when he doubts, then anxiety and fear have their full effect.”62 It was a measure of the trust between the two men that Knox could write such an unvarnished message to Washington.

For all the bitter strife in his cabinet, Washington valued the superior talents of Hamilton and Jefferson and was dismayed at the thought of losing them. On July 31 Jefferson submitted a letter a

Meanwhile Citizen Genet was not about to depart quietly. In mid-August, when John Jay and Rufus King revealed in a New York newspaper that Genet had threatened to make a direct appeal to the American people over the president’s head, the country reacted with righteous indignation. Genet’s intemperance ultimately proved a bonanza for the Federalists. In late August the cabinet agreed unanimously to demand his recall and give the French a full accounting of his behavior. As it happened, the Jacobins had already dispatched his successor, Jean-Antoine Fauchet, who had orders to send Genet home to stand trial for “crimes” against the revolution. Whatever his misgivings about Genet, Washington did not care to send him to his death and granted him asylum in the United States. The Frenchman married the daughter of Governor George Clinton and passed the remainder of his days in upstate New York.

The saga of Citizen Genet had an ongoing afterlife, since his visit spawned a new form of political club—the so-called Democratic-Republican Societies. Their organizers intended them to evoke the Sons of Liberty chapters, while apprehensive Federalists found them eerily reminiscent of the French Jacobin clubs. The first one was established in April 1793 in Philadelphia; ten more were formed before year’s end, and at least two dozen more the next year. Washington always distinguished between legitimate criticism of government and an illegitimate, “diabolical” sort that sought to destroy confidence in public servants. Early on, he concluded that the new societies were of the illegitimate variety, spouting popular rhetoric while tearing down the fabric of government, “even at the expense of plunging this country in the horrors of a disastrous war.”66 He regarded them as tools of a French plot to destroy American neutrality and drag the country into war. While he acknowledged their right to protest, he was persuaded that the new societies constituted a menace because their permanence showed a settled hostility to the government.

Washington’s views on dissent were colored by his political philosophy. Along with other Federalists, he thought that officials, once elected, should apply their superior judgment and experience to make decisions on behalf of the populace. As he enunciated this position: “My political creed therefore is, to be wise in the choice of delegates—support them like gentlemen, while they are our representatives—give them competent powers for all federal purposes—support them in the due exercise thereof—and, lastly, to compel them to close attendance in Congress during their delegation.”67 As an extension of this view, Washington believed that voters, having once elected representatives, should lend them support. He found it difficult to execute the philosophical leap that voters reserved the right to a continuing critique of their elected officials. The Republicans, by contrast, wanted representatives to be continually responsive to voters and receptive to political criticism.