Washington: A Life (146 page)

When it came down to a vote on April 30, 1796, the Federalists got the House to approve money for the Jay Treaty by a wafer-thin margin of 51 to 48. Madison, shocked by the outcome, thought of retiring to his plantation. The crisis that was supposed to strengthen the Republican cause had instead “left it in a very crippled condition,” he informed Jefferson.
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Washington, who believed that Madison and his followers had “brought the Constitution to the brink of a precipice,” felt immense relief, intermingled with thinly veiled anger.
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After this wounding debate, an indignant Washington cut off further contact with Madison and never again invited him to Mount Vernon. Many Federalists predicted, prematurely as it happened, that James Madison had ruined his career. William Cobbett, a Federalist gadfly, was among those who wrote an early obituary for him. “As a politician, he is no more. He is absolutely deceased, cold, stiff, and buried in oblivion for ever and ever.”
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Jefferson’s relationship with Washington also suffered from the momentous events of that spring. Where Jefferson had wanted Washington to stay on as president for a second term, he now dismissed him as the unwitting tool by which corrupt, elitist Federalists duped the common people. As he told Monroe, the Federalists “see nothing can support them but the colossus of the president’s merits with the people, and the moment he retires, … his successor, if a monocrat, will be overborne by the republican sense of his constituents.”
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As far as Jefferson was concerned, Washington stood forth as an unmovable obstacle to reform. He preached patience to his followers: “Republicanism must lie on its oars, resign the vessel to its pilot,” and wait for Washington to exit the scene.
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Since Jefferson’s political philosophy was based on faith in the common people, Washington’s persisting popularity thrust him into the uncomfortable position of being at odds with the people’s apparent choice.

Now convinced that the two-faced Jefferson had plotted against him in the shadows, Washington no longer labored under any illusions about him. His ire surfaced that summer when Jefferson wrote to deny being the source of confidential information published in the
Aurora
. He also disclaimed making malicious remarks about Washington, as reported by an unnamed person—apparently Henry Lee. In responding on July 6, 1796, Washington dispensed with the fine points of diplomacy. As the dam burst, his stifled bitterness poured forth, and he confronted Jefferson more openly than ever before. Stating that he had previously had “no conception that parties” could go to such lengths, he claimed he had been vilified in “indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pick-pocket.”
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Even though he had done his utmost “to preserve this country from the horrors of a desolating war,” he was still charged with “being the enemy of one nation [France] and subject to the influence of another [Great Britain].”
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He noted that he had long defended Jefferson against charges of duplicity, invariably replying that he had “never discovered anything in the conduct of Mr. Jefferson to raise suspicions in my mind of his insincerity.”
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Now, he said starkly, “it would not be frank, candid, or friendly to conceal that your conduct has been represented as derogatory from that opinion
I
had conceived you entertained of me. That to your particular friends and connections you have described … me as a person under a dangerous influence; and that if I would listen
more
to some
other
opinions, all would be well.”
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Washington seldom resorted to such frankness or so pointedly dressed down an ex-colleague, confirming that their relationship now lay beyond redemption. He ended by saying that he had “already gone farther in the expression of my feelings than I intended” and changed the subject to more gentlemanly topics, such as clover, wheat, and peas.
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In the aftermath of the Jay Treaty, the diatribes against Washington reached a new pitch of savagery as his foes were emboldened to disparage his presidency and blacken his wartime reputation. In the
Aurora,
Benjamin Franklin Bache dredged up moldy British forgeries from the war, purporting to show that Washington had pocketed bribes from the enemy and was a double agent for the Crown. Washington was not the only family member crestfallen over these vicious attacks. The British minister’s wife noted that Abigail Adams “has spirit enough to laugh at [Bache’s] abuse of her husband, which poor Mrs. Washington could not.”
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Such was the bitter discord that many Republicans stopped drinking toasts to the president’s health after dinner.

With the Jay Treaty, Washington had made good on his solemn oath to maintain peace and prosperity during his presidency. British evacuation of the northwestern posts triggered new settlements in the Ohio Country, including Cleveland, Day-ton, and Youngstown. The skies darkened considerably on the diplomatic front, however, as rumors filtered back to Washington that the French government, incensed over the treaty, contemplated sending a fleet to American waters to seize ships bound for Great Britain. In time France would make good on the threats, launching the Quasi-War against the United States during the presidency of John Adams. Washington would privately castigate Republicans for instigating France, which was “endeavoring with all her arts to lead” the United States into war on her side.
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To Hamilton, Washington issued a ringing manifesto of his foreign policy creed: “We will not be dictated to by the politics of any nation under heaven farther than treaties require of us … If we are to be told by a foreign power … what we
shall do,
and what we shall
not do,
we have independence yet to seek.”
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Another casualty of the treaty fracas was Washington’s relationship with James Monroe, who had fought with him at Trenton. “He has in every instance,” Washington then declared, “maintained the reputation of a brave, active, and sensible officer.”
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In appointing Monroe as minister to France in 1794, Washington aimed to reduce tensions between Federalists and Republicans. As a protégé of Jefferson and Madison, however, Monroe threw aside any pretense of neutrality, showed blatant favoritism toward the French, and allowed himself to be embraced by leading French politicians. According to Washington, Monroe had also tried to pry loose advance details of the Jay Treaty to give the French an unauthorized preview and, instead of allaying French anger over the treaty, actively incited it. When Monroe published in the
Aurora
an anonymous piece critical of Washington, entitled “From a Gentleman in Paris to His Friend in the City,” Washington quickly figured out its author. (Wolcott and Pickering had somehow obtained a copy of the original letter.) In July 1796 he recalled Monroe and replaced him with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, leaving Monroe mortified at such treatment .
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Back in Philadelphia, still seething over his recall, Monroe published a 473-page indictment of Washington’s handling of the incident called
A View of the Conduct of the Executive in the Foreign Affairs of the United States
. Jefferson, who coached Monroe on this diatribe, was delighted by the result. “Monroe’s book is considered masterly by all those who are not opposed in principle, and it is deemed unanswerable,” he informed Madison.
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When Washington pored over the book, he not only snorted with rage but scrawled in its margins sixty-six pages of sardonic comments. These dense notes afford a rare glimpse of Washington in the grip of uncensored anger. Responding to one comment by Monroe, he scoffed, “Self importance appears here.”
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In another aside, he wrote, “Insanity in the extreme!”
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Another time, he mocked Monroe’s statement as “curious and laughable.”
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The gist of many of Washington’s remarks was that French actions toward America had been motivated by self-interest, not ideological solidarity, and flouted American neutrality in seeking to enlist the United States in the war against England. The imbroglio with Monroe signaled the demise of yet another Washington friendship with a prominent Virginian, a list that now encompassed George Mason, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Edmund Randolph.

Now that it was open season on Washington in the press, he took a pounding from yet another Revolutionary War hero. Thomas Paine believed that Washington had made no effort to free him after he was imprisoned in France as a British-born resident and a Girondin supporter who had opposed the execution of the king. Having advanced a dubious claim to American citizenship, he accused Washington of “
connivance
at my imprisonment.”
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He was finally released with help from Monroe, who then invited him to lodge in his residence. In October 1796 Paine published in the
Aurora
an open letter to Washington, accusing him of “a cold deliberate crime of the heart” in letting him rot in prison, and he also took dead aim at his command of the Continental Army.
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“You slept away your time in the field till the finances of the country were completely exhausted,” he fumed, “and you have but little share in the glory of the event.”
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Paine alleged that Horatio Gates and Nathanael Greene deserved true credit for the patriots’ victory, abetted by French assistance: “Had it not been for the aid received from France in men, money, and ships, your cold and unmilitary conduct … would in all probability have lost America.”
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Not content to denigrate Washington’s military performance, Paine defamed him as an unfeeling man, lonely and isolated, who ruthlessly crushed anyone who crossed him. Among his associates, Paine contended, it was known that Washington “has no friendships; that he is incapable of forming any; [that] he can serve or desert a man or a cause with constitutional indifference.”
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Paine ended with the most vicious swipe of all: “As to you, sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.”
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This intemperate outburst cast more doubt on Paine’s erratic judgment than on Washington’s performance. In writing to Abigail, John Adams gave this verdict on Paine’s letter: “He must have been insane to write so.”
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FOR A TIME DURING HIS PRESIDENCY, Washington had shunned the tedium of sitting for portraits, but with the end now in sight, he was amenable to pictures that might immortalize his waning days. Since the Revolutionary War, he had been fond of Charles Willson Peale, the multifaceted artist who had opened an eccentric museum in Philadelphia, a cabinet of curiosities crammed with exotic specimens of natural history, coupled with a portrait gallery of wartime heroes. In 1795 the artist’s son Rembrandt Peale, age seventeen, received a commission to paint the president. Doubtless rewarding a faithful ally by posing for his son, Washington agreed to three sessions with Rembrandt in Peale’s Museum, with each sitting lasting three hours. The president stipulated a seven A.M. starting time, and on the appointed day young Rembrandt rose at dawn, trembling with anxiety. So nervously did the young man prepare for the sitting that he could scarcely mix his colors and decided to proceed only if his father sketched a portrait beside him, ensuring “that the sitting would not be unprofitable by affording a double chance for a likeness. This had the effect to calm my nerves, and I enjoyed the rare advantage of studying the desired countenance whilst in familiar conversation with my father.”
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At the second session, a third family member, James Peale, Charles’s brother, daubed a miniature of Washington while two of Rembrandt’s brothers, Raphaelle and Titian, knocked off sketches as well. Never before had Washington allowed two, much less five, artists to record his image at the same time.

Gilbert Stuart, who was then painting his iconographic images of Washington, happened to stroll by as Washington sat in thrall to the busy swarm of painting Peales: “I looked in to see how the old gentleman was getting on with the picture, and, to my astonishment, I found the general surrounded by the whole family.” As Stuart walked away, he ran into Martha. “Madam,” said Stuart, “the general’s in a perilous situation.” “How sir?” “He is beset, madam—no less than five upon him at once; one aims at his eye—another at his nose—another is busy with his hair—the mouth is attacked by a fourth; and the fifth has him by the button. In short, madam, there are five painters at him, and you who know how much he has suffered when only attended by one, can judge of the horrors of his situation.”
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The two best-known portraits to emerge from these sessions tell a doleful tale of George Washington late in his second term. In the Charles Willson Peale version, a suddenly older Washington sits in a dark velvet coat, with an upturned collar and ruffled shirtfront. There is no sparkle in the immobile face, and his drooping eyelids make him appear sleepily inactive. A bag has formed under his left eye, which seems half shut, and the right eye does not open much wider. All in all the portrait depicts a weary, dispirited president, fatigued after long years in office and depleted by the battle royal over the Jay Treaty. The Rembrandt Peale portrait makes Washington seem a bit enfeebled and even more geriatric, his skin parched with age. As he stares worriedly ahead, the lips of his wrinkled mouth are tightly compressed with displeasure. Ironically, in his later years, Rembrandt Peale painted heroic portraits of Washington in his Continental Army uniform, nobly fired by youthful energy.

In many ways, it was unfortunate that Gilbert Stuart’s lasting images of Washington date from this period, when the swagger and panache of his early days had faded. Embittered by partisan feuding and feeling burdened by public life, Washington had made massive sacrifices to his country, and the luster had fled from his eye. Although Stuart captured the ineffable grandeur of the man, who sometimes seemed to float in a timeless realm, his images gave posterity a far more dour and haggard Washington than the charismatic general known to contemporaries from earlier times. Stuart was cognizant of the distortions that time had visited upon Washington. “When I painted him,” he said, “he had just had a set of false teeth inserted, which accounts for the constrained expression so noticeable about the mouth and lower part of the face.”
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To help rectify such distortions, he turned to Houdon’s bust and life mask, but Stuart’s portraits still reflect the physiognomy of the mid-1790s.