History

The Ratification campaign

Originally the convention was to have proposed revisions of the existing Articles of Confederation. But everybody knew that if the new Constitution were adopted, the former colonies would be embarking on uncharted waters. For that to happen, nine states – two-thirds of the 13 – would have to call conventions that voted to ratify. To put it another way, any five states could kill it by declining to ratify.

A prime weakness of the Confederation government was the need for unanimity. In practice, that meant that nothing that any one State objected to could be done. And that, in turn, meant that the Confederation lived on borrowed time. Nobody knew it better than the members of that Congress, so they decided – unanimously, by some miracle – to leave the decision to the states.

Then followed the process of ratification, State by State, in convention, and it didn’t come easy. Historians have guessed that the public was divided pretty evenly when the debates started.

Everybody knew that if any two of four states — Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia — rejected the proposed Constitution, it would probably come to nothing, regardless if the other states approved. And some heavy hitters were opposed. Thomas Paine, for one. In Massachusetts, Samuel Adams. In New York, Governor George Clinton and the whole state machinery. In Virginia, Patrick Henry. But the Federalists were not exactly helpless. In Massachusetts, John Adams. In New York, Hamilton. In Pennsylvania, Franklin, and in Virginia, Madison.

And towering over them all, the man who had presided at the convention, George Washington.

The Federalists argued that ratification was necessary to fix the obvious inadequacies of the Confederation government. To continue under a government that couldn’t make decisions except unanimously, and couldn’t even prevent the various states from each issuing its own currency would be to drift to disaster and dissolution, followed by – what? No one cared to guess.

The Anti-federalists viewed the strong central government outlined in the Constitution as a threat to liberty and a betrayal of the Revolution. They worried what would happen to the powers of the states, and argued cogently that the Constitution lacked a bill of rights.

The struggle over ratification was intense and bitter, but in every state, the Federalists were more united, and more used to working with politicians on a national level.

The turning point of the campaign probably came in Massachusetts, when Hancock and Samuel Adams negotiated a compromise: The convention would ratify, and delegates would recommend amendments to be considered by the new Congress. The Massachusetts compromise determined the fate of the Constitution, as it permitted delegates with doubts to vote for it in the hope that it would be amended. All subsequent state conventions but Maryland’s recommended amendments as part of their decisions to ratify.

And so it was done. One interesting and under-reported fact, if indeed it is fact, and not merely appearance: The smaller states, which one might have expected to be the most fearful of incorporation into a stronger central government, by and large were among the first signers, while Virginia and New York, which one might have thought would expect to extend their influence in a larger union, were far more hesitant. Nonetheless, the die was cast.

The ratifications, in the order in which they took place:

1787

Delaware (Dec. 7), Pennsylvania (Dec. 12), New Jersey (Dec. 18)

1788

Georgia (Jan. 2) Connecticut (Jan. 9)

Massachusetts (Feb. 6)

Maryland (April 28)

South Carolina (May 23)

New Hampshire, the crucial ninth state needed (June 21), Virginia (June 25)

New York (July 26)

Voting ratification after the new government was already functioning:

North Carolina (November 21, 1789)

Rhode Island (May 29, 1790)

It had been a long and hard-fought struggle, which in itself, perhaps, had encouraged people to look beyond the limits of their state, and come a step closer toward thinking of themselves not as New Yorkers or Virginians but as Americans. Shared experiences will do that.

 

How the Constitutional convention even came to be convened is a story unlikely enough in itself, as we shall see. That a convention that was a collision of irreconcilables nonetheless produced a workable result is even less likely. Nonetheless, it happened, and the more closely you look at the process, the more clearly you see the hand of destiny, or what a more religious age would have called divine providence. Never in history was one nation blessed with the coordinated efforts of so many brilliant men – many of whom rarely agreed upon any other public issue in their whole lives. Take, for instance, the story of The Federalist.

The Philadelphia Convention sent its proposed Constitution to the Confederation Congress, which, in September, 1787, submitted it to the states for ratification. New York had an active anti-federalist movement led by Governor George Clinton, and articles critical of the proposed new government soon began appearing in New York newspapers. Alexander Hamilton, although dissatisfied with the proposed Constitution, regarded it as vastly better than the Confederation government. He decided it was time for counter-measures. He knew both James Madison and John Jay as ardent and articulate proponents of reform. An experienced and often brilliant journalistic duelist, he enlisted them to join him in writing articles defending the proposed Constitution.

(If you are wondering where Jefferson was in this effort, he was in Paris, representing the Confederation government. But even if he had been in America, he might not have advocated ratification. He had his serious doubts about the proposed document.)

Jay had succinctly described the existing situation: “The Congress under the Articles of Confederation may make war, but are not empowered to raise men or money to carry it on—they may make peace, but without power to see the terms of it observed—they may form alliances, but without ability to comply with the stipulations on their part—they may enter into treaties of commerce, but without power to enforce them at home or abroad.”

So – to the attack! The articles were written over the pseudonym “Publius.” (Publius Valerius, also known as Publicola – “friend of the people” – was one of the founders of the Roman republic, as the educated of the day would know.) Hamilton’s first essay (known as Federalist No. 1) promised that subsequent articles would cover six topics:

1. “The utility of the UNION to your political prosperity.”
2. “The insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve that Union.”
3. “The necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed to the attainment of this object.”
4. “The conformity of the proposed constitution to the true principles of republican government.”
5. “Its analogy to your own state constitution.”
6. “The additional security which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of government, to liberty and to prosperity.”

A few of the most-cited papers:

No. 14 returns to the question of the size of the republic, which to some men born and raised to think of their State as “my country” seemed unmanageably huge.

No. 10 argues for a strong, extensive republic as a better guard against the dangers of faction than a smaller one.

The authors were vigorous and prolific. Between October, 1787, and August, 1788, Hamilton wrote and published 51 articles, Madison 26, and Jay (who wrote four and then fell ill), five. Sometimes three or four new essays by Publius would appear in print in the same week.

No. 39 discusses the nature of a true republic, which Publius argues had not yet been seen anywhere. (He sets out three necessary principles for a true republic: the consent of the people, government by elected representatives, and limitations on their terms of service.)

No. 51 describes the idea behind the separation of powers: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

No. 78 discusses the federal judiciary, and judicial review, as a protection against Congressional abuse of power.

Late in 1788, a two-volume book simply titled The Federalist was published in New York, compiling all 85 articles and essays.

The Federalist was written specifically to build popular support for ratification by the State of New York. But – did it? New York’s vote to ratify came after Virginia’s ratification, which was the tenth. And that was just as well, since New York had elected 46 Anti-Federalists delegates to its ratification convention, and only 19 Federalists. But with the Union assured, was New York going to allow itself to be on the outside looking in? And Virginia’s vote for ratification almost certainly owed more to George Washington’s endorsement, and the advocacy of Madison and Governor Edmund Randolph at the convention, than to anything that appeared in print.

So maybe those brilliant essays didn’t really affect the ratification fight. Who knows? Who cares? What they did accomplish was impressive enough. The essays are considered to be the major contemporary interpretation of the Constitution, persuasive enough to have affected the views of generations of students, authoritative enough to have been cited in countless judicial decisions. Yet, at the same time, they rise to the level of literature in a way that precious few such documents ever do.

Washington launches a government

The new federal government was to be government of the people, and government for the people, but not yet government by the people, not in the sense we understand it. Post-colonial America did not suddenly shrug off its British heritage and forget about class distinctions. In 1789, even the most avidly democratic among the founders were accustomed to rule by the financial and social elite.

The idea of the common people participating in government seemed self-evidently impractical, undesirable, and dangerous. They weren’t educated to it, and would never be able to comprehend the issues involved. They would be sheep, easily led by a few wolves.

A long generation later, Andrew Jackson’s election would bring the common people to power, as a result of an expanded franchise, and frontier equality, and the rise of political associations (parties), which did for the ordinary citizen what birth into the aristocracy had done for Washington’s generation. But in 1789, America was ruled by the same relatively restricted group of men who had brought the colonies into common cause, and had held them together until victory, and had met in Philadelphia to hammer out a new Constitution. In the South, these were planters and their lawyers. In the middle colonies and New England, the men of prominence. The republic did not begin as a democracy, and no one expected it to.

Congress was supposed to meet in New York City in early March, but it took an extra couple of weeks to assemble a quorum of the representatives of the eleven states that had ratified the Constitution. George Washington’s inauguration in Federal Hall didn’t take place until April 30.

To us, accustomed as we are to the presidency towering over the other two branches of government, it comes as a shock to realize that initially the focus of government was on the legislature, not the executive. Yes, the executive was Washington; that provided the dignity and stability the new government desperately needed. But Congress, not the President, was the primary mover and shaker.

When Washington assumed office, the government of the United States was mostly in utero. Only the constitutionally established offices had been created, and no courts had been established. Washington’s first acts were to establish the judiciary. Pursuant to the Judiciary Act of 1789, he named a six-member Supreme Court, with original jurisdiction over civil actions between a state and the United States, or between states, or cases involving diplomatic personnel. The Court was given appellate jurisdiction over decisions of the federal circuit courts, and decisions by state courts involving conflicts between state and federal laws.

Beneath the Supreme Court were thirteen judicial districts, each containing district courts and circuit courts. The single-judge district courts had jurisdiction over admiralty cases, petty crimes, and lawsuits involving small amounts. Circuit courts, which were grouped geographically, were, as the name implies, composed of two Supreme Court justices “riding circuit” as well as a district judge. (The circuit riding feature was later changed, as too onerous for the Supreme Court judges). Their jurisdiction covered more serious crimes and civil cases, and had appellate jurisdiction over the district courts. The act also created U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Marshals.

Then it came time to establish the executive branch. Washington, an excellent judge of talent and character, surrounded himself with extraordinarily able and loyal assistants. In September, 1789, he named what became his Cabinet. As fast as Congress created executive departments, he found the proper man for the office.

To head the State department, Thomas Jefferson; Treasury, Alexander Hamilton; War, Henry Knox. At the time of the appointments, Jefferson was in France concluding his five-year representation of the Confederation government, Hamilton, who had been highly influential in getting the new Constitution approved, was practicing law, and Knox was already serving as Continental War Secretary under the Confederation.

To be Attorney General, an office created by the Judiciary Act, Washington named his former aide Edmund Randolph. (In those days – in fact, until 1870 – the Attorney General did not head an executive department, but served as the president’s chief legal advisor.) His final cabinet post, that of Postmaster General, went to Samuel Osgood, though the U.S. Post Office Department was not created until February, 1792.

Finally there was the question of the presidential salary. Washington, a wealthy man with high ideals of public service, offered to serve for no salary but repayment of expenses. When Congress voted an annual presidential salary of $25,000, Washington declined. But he accepted after it was pointed out that Congress did not want the presidency to become, or be seen as, a post limited to the independently wealthy. (That didn’t happen until our own era of “representation” by a Congress of millionaires.)

So, there was the structure, and there was the team. During Washington’s two terms of office, five states would join the Union: North Carolina and Rhode Island (restoring the original 13), Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee. Major treaties would be signed, precedents established, crises faced and overcome. But it may well be that Washington’s greatest service, which in the circumstances no one else could have accomplished as well, was using the weight of his massive prestige, his solid careful judgments, and the judgment and services of his excellent assistants, to balance the ship of state, to set the new government on an even keel as it began its long journey.

The Northwest Indians

George Washington, 1792: “In vain may we expect peace with the Indians on our frontiers, so long as a lawless set of unprincipled wretches can violate the rights of hospitality, or infringe the most solemn treaties, without receiving the punishment they so justly merit.”

About the history of America and the Indians, two contradictory myths contend. One myth says the Indians were murderous savages who constituted an obstacle in the path of civilization. The other myth says tribal Native Americans lived in peaceful harmony with nature until they were massacred and their lands were stolen.

Is it still necessary to add that historical truth is more complicated than myth?

George Washington’s first foreign-policy challenge was not with the British, the French, or the Spanish, but with the Indian tribes of the Northwest Territory. By the late 1780s, the Western Lakes Confederacy, in raiding on both sides of the Ohio River, had inflicted more than 1,500 casualties. Clearly this had to be halted. But how?

It is easy, and meaningless, to say that Washington’s government should have conceded the West to the Indians. That was not going to happen. By the white man’s standards, that land was being wasted. Lush, fertile Kentucky, for instance, was entirely unoccupied. No Indians lived in what the Indians called “the dark and bloody ground.” They used it only for hunting. When Daniel Boone and other pioneers returned to their native North Carolina to report what they had found, people uprooted themselves and their families, and relocated west of the mountains. (Thus, by 1792 Kentucky was populous enough to become the first trans-mountain state to be admitted to the Union.)

Even if the fledgling nation had decided to leave half its territory in the hands of the Indians, the people would have decided differently, as they had thirty years before when the British had attempted the same policy. The result might have been two countries, one on either side of the mountains, but it would not have been white men on one side, Indians on the other. As long as the white man had the technological edge provided by gunpowder and numbers, it was not going to end any other way.

But Washington hoped for what we in our day might call peaceful coexistence. Seeing the Indian tribes as the problem in foreign relations that they were, he attempted to deal with them in the same way he would deal with any foreign power – by treaty if possible, and warfare otherwise. And, as with European powers, no peace could be obtained in the absence of effective military force.

It took three tries.

In 1790, Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox sent General Josiah Harmar and a force of nearly 1,500 men deep into Indian territory, near what is now Fort Wayne, Indiana. Harmar sent a detachment of 400 men led by Colonel John Hardin to attack more than 1,000 Indians. Hardin was defeated, and at least 129 of his men were killed.

The following year, Major General Arthur St. Clair met disaster near what is now Fort Recovery, Ohio. St. Clair’s 900 men (and 200 camp followers) were surprised and overwhelmed by 2,000 Indian warriors led by Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, and Tecumseh. Of 920 American officers and soldiers, 632 were killed and 264 were wounded. The camp followers who were slaughtered brought the death toll to 832, a horrifying total for the 1790s, and, in fact, a higher figure than was suffered in any of the following century’s Indian wars.

The troops Harmar and St. Clair commanded had been mostly militia. Their defeats convinced Secretary of War Knox that the country needed a professional army. Congress accepted his proposal, and created a small standing army until “the United States shall be at peace with the Indian tribes.” This army, titled The Legion of the United States, consisted of four sub-legions, self-contained units of infantry and artillery, each sub-legion commanded by a brigadier general.

It was recruited and raised in Pittsburgh, and then, in late 1793, Anthony Wayne, one of Knox’s officers in the Revolutionary War, was ordered to lead a new expedition against the Indians. An energetic, intelligent commander (the Indians called him “the chief who never sleeps”), he spent months training his troops, teaching them to fight Indian-style. As they moved West, he established and garrisoned forts along his line of march to ensure adequate re-supply.

Just as well that he did. On June 30, 1793, just outside the gates of Fort Recovery – built on St. Clair’s battlefield – a pack-horse train led by Major William Friend McMahon was attacked by 2,000 Indians led by Little Turtle. McMahon was killed, but the survivors fled into the fort. A two-day battle ensued, but Fort Recovery held, thus preventing a third disaster.

The following year, in August, 1794, the Legion of the United States decisively defeated Blue Jacket’s forces in the Battle of Fallen Timbers (near what is now Toledo). The Indians fled to British-held Fort Miami, hoping and presumably assuming that their erstwhile allies would shelter them. When the British refused to open the fort to them, the Indians were defenseless, and soon surrendered.. (This one incident, by itself, demonstrates the truth of the long-held American conviction that the British had been encouraging the Indian attacks.)

Fallen Timbers ended Indian resistance in the Northwest Territory. The 1795 Treaty of Greenville required the seven tribes involved – Shawnee, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, Iroquois, Sauk, and Fox – to cede most of Ohio and part of Indiana, and recognize the United States rather than Great Britain as the ruler of the territory. They did, and mostly moved west. General Anthony Wayne died in 1796, but in defeating the Western Confederacy, he had done for the northwest territory what Andrew Jackson would do for the southwest territory 20 years later.

We’ll never know if Washington’s policy might have resulted in peaceful coexistence of Indians and whites: The Indian’s Western Confederacy, the raids, the resulting military campaigns, and the final defeat at Fallen Timbers set both races on a different path.

A bill of rights

We all shelter under them, or at any rate, still did by the end of the twentieth century. But how many of us could name them, or tell their significance, or say how they got there, and why?

The “why” is simple enough. Adopting the Constitution meant adding a new layer to the government, something unknown. This new “federal” government may have struck the people of the States the same way the specter of the United Nations governing America haunts some people today, except, this was really going to happen. Somehow, before it was too late, the people would have to insert some safeguards, however fragile.

This fear was not confined to a few nuts on the fringe. In three states, ratification was obtained only on the promise that a bill of rights would be attached. The fear of federal encroachment was shared, ultimately, even by James Madison, the new constitution’s primary architect. So he proposed a set of clarifying amendments, an even dozen of which were approved by Congress and ten of which were ratified by the requisite three-fourths of the states.

The thing to remember is that this is a list of limitations. Whereas the body of the Constitution spelled out how the new government’s powers were to be divided, the Bill of Rights specified boundaries to those powers. Notice, the amendments provided protection from this new layer of government, but did not apply to States vis-à-vis their own citizens. (Madison’s proposal to apply parts of the Bill of Rights to the states was rejected by the Senate. Only after the Civil War were these protections held to apply to actions of State governments as well.)

The Bill of Rights, by enumerating federal limitations, thereby enumerates individual freedoms. It limits the federal government to the powers enumerated, and reserves for the people or the States all rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.

It was a nice set of protections, while it was followed. But although documents and traditions can serve to buttress freedom, in the absence of pugnacious and effective resistance to encroachment, they will become only empty fortresses, mocking us by reminding us of what was sought and lost.

Our lost protections:

1. “ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
2. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” (The connection here between the militia and arms seems to imply that this amendment was meant to prohibit the federal government from disarming the State governments.)
3. “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”
4. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
5. “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” (The fifth amendment lost some public support in the 1950s, when the public saw how accused mobsters used it to shield themselves and their activities, but in retrospect the value of these protections should be obvious.)
6. “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.” (Happy the nation without lawyers, but when you need one, you really need one. The alternative is “justice” behind closed doors.)
7. “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”
8. “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” (Another amendment that lost some public support, particularly in that it was used to abolish the federal death penalty. Again, the value of the amendment should be apparent in hindsight.)
9. “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

10. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (This amendment was the logical corollary to the division of powers within the federal government. This one tried to set limits between the new government and the States.)

It was a splendid set of protections.

Jefferson as Secretary of State

By the time he left Washington’s Cabinet, Jefferson was a partisan, working with Madison and others to organize opponents of Hamilton’s policies. But he didn’t enter into his office in that way. He entered, at Washington’s request, as a patriot working with other patriots to construct a new government, and for the first two years, his relations with Hamilton were civil, and even reasonably cordial. This, even after Jefferson started to become alarmed at the implications of Hamilton’s economic program It was only after England entered into the war against France that Hamilton decided that Jefferson was a threat to the republic, and in attacking him, made him into the recognized leader of the opposition.

We have seen how that happened. Let us look at the earlier phase of Jefferson’s tenure.

He arrived in Virginia from France in late 1789 on what he thought was a leave of absence from his post in Paris. Instead, he found waiting for him a request from President Washington that he accept appointment as the first Secretary of State under the new Constitution. Despite having reservations about the job, Jefferson didn’t feel that he could say no to the president’s request. (This was a common response among these men when Washington asked for their service!)

His was a natural, almost an inevitable, appointment. The only Americans with diplomatic experience comparable to Jefferson’s were John Jay, who would be named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Adams, who had already been elected Vice-President, and Benjamin Franklin, who at 84 was too old. (And in fact, Franklin would die in April, 1790, age 84, about a month after Jefferson’s cordial last conversation with him.)

In his five years as Minister to France, Jefferson had had a uniquely favorable position from which to watch the last days of the old regime and the beginning of the revolution. He was known to the movers and shakers and, like Franklin 10 years earlier, was known as a man of science and culture, not merely as a political representative. Besides, his warm admiration of French culture was well known, and his pointed criticisms of the French aristocracy and government had been kept tactfully quiet, as befitted both his diplomatic status and Jefferson’s natural reluctance to engage in controversy.

But the new Department of State that he joined, on March 22, 1790, was more than its predecessor in the Confederation government, the Department of Foreign Affairs. Congress had included in the new department many domestic duties that today would be included in other departments. As one example, State was entrusted with the care of state records.

On January 8, 1790, President Washington in his first annual message to Congress, called for “uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States,” and the House of Representatives requested Jefferson to draw up a plan for a uniform system of weights and measures. In July he submitted his “Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States,” which gave them two alternatives: one that merely refined and simplified their accustomed English measurement, and one that would be decimal, like the currency he had recommended. The scientific and mathematical basis of his proposed system was impressive, and as a scientifically based decimal system of weights and measures, his predated the metric system that would soon be devised and adopted in France.

We won’t go into it, because Jefferson’s proposal was not adopted, despite having the support of Washington, Hamilton, Madison and Monroe. The Senate dawdled in considering it, and a few years later, events overtook it, when Congress enacted the survey grid system for the Northwest Territory. It is merely a sample of the nature of the duties that came with the office in those days. Another example is that he was held responsible not only for registering patent applications, but for testing the new inventions and deciding whether they were practical! The responsibility to make judgments that he recognized himself as incompetent to make drove him crazy. (And, a bit later, though too late to help Jefferson, Congress flip-flopped on the issue and decreed that patents would be accepted without examination. It was only several decades later that the present system was adopted.)

But, these duties aside, the Secretary’s main function was, of course, to serve as principal adviser to the President on foreign policy. His routine duties were not onerous. When he took office, the entire department consisted of four clerks (officers charged with correspondence, including but not limited to messages to overseas posts) and a messenger. Overseas, the United States maintained two diplomatic and ten consular posts. (The diplomatic service centers on politics; the consular service centers on commerce.) Jefferson initiated the practice of requiring American diplomats and consuls to file periodic reports.

In discussions with the first British Minister to the United States, he sought to get the British to admit that they were violating the Treaty of Paris, and to cease doing so by vacating the posts they were manning in the Northwest Territory, and indemnifying the United States for slaves taken by British troops during the war. He got nowhere. He also attempted – equally without success – to force treaties of commerce with Spain and England, but mostly his time and attention went to keeping the United States neutral in the war between England and France.

Hamilton and Jefferson both agreed with Washington’s policy of neutrality. The issues between them were not matters of patriotism or loyalty, but of judgment. In what did neutrality consist? And how was it to be achieved? Those issues remained very much unsettled when Jefferson resigned his office and returned to Monticello, thinking his public life over.

Jefferson vs. Hamilton

When I looked into Jefferson’s three-year tenure as Secretary of State, I expected to find accounts of how he organized and systematized the department, and how he dealt with various foreign controversies and difficulties. Instead, I found that accounts centered on his escalating political struggle with Hamilton. So, as we are working our way backward, let us look first at that long bitter contention, and consider Jefferson’s official tenure in the following section.

However, in considering their differences, it is important to remember what they had in common. Both men were patriots, idealists who put in long unglamorous hours in the service of their country. Each one represented a section of society and each one contributed to the welfare of the whole. If each one underrated the other’s contribution, and questioned the other’s integrity, well, that’s life. They were pursued by the fear of what would happen if the other one prevailed, and people motivated by fear are not at their best. We at this distance should be able to do each man more justice than they did each other.

Jefferson and Hamilton clashed on nearly everything, because they had very different values. The key to their personalities and their politics is this. Hamilton valued order and feared social chaos; Jefferson valued individual freedom and feared tyranny. However, bear in mind, these were only relative emphases. Neither extreme is, or could be, absolutely right or absolutely wrong. (Ask Jefferson about his fear of servile rebellion. Ask Hamilton about his fear of economic or social insignificance.)

Hamilton understood economics far better than Jefferson or Washington ever did. As a boy, he spent several years working in a commercial establishment in the West Indies, which, while it must have seemed dreary and pointless to the boy at the time, proved invaluable to the man he became. He understood the relationship between banks and credit and business and trade and prosperity. He recognized that the new Union needed a dependable source of income, and saw that duties on imports was a relatively painless way to provide it. At the same time, he could see that a nation dependent upon other nations for its necessities could never be as strong as one that provided some if not all of its own manufactures.

Hamilton’s experience with the army during the long discouraging years of the revolutionary war indelibly impressed upon him the need for a strong central government capable of meeting its needs by taxation (rather than by begging the states for contributions). From this experience, and perhaps from his own innate predispositions, he proceeded to a theory of the need for a state to be governed by the few rather than by the many. While thoroughly in favor of independence from England, he was set against the social revolution that accompanied it and seemed to be continuing and strengthening. For Hamilton, it was a strong Union or a chaos of competing states; it was rule by the financially and socially established, or dissolution into mob rule.

Jefferson’s experience as two-term wartime governor of Virginia had shown him, as well, the evils of too weak a government. But his five years in Europe closely observing the manners and morals and tyranny of the French royal court had reinforced his convictions that social equality was preferable to hierarchy; that the small farmer was a firmer basis for society than the courtier or city-dweller; that it was in America’s best interest to become as little like Europe as possible.

(Interestingly Hamilton started from nothing. He was a bastard son, born in the West Indies, orphaned at an early age, with only his brilliance and ambition to spur him on. Jefferson, on the other hand, like Washington, was born into an accepted position in society. Yet Hamilton was the sincere advocate of social hierarchy; Jefferson the sincere advocate of democracy.)

Hamilton’s financial system was designed to put the country on its feet, and it did that. But it was also designed to favor the mercantile and manufacturing interests over those of the farmers and planters, and it did that, too. Having the federal government assume state and federal debt, and then funding it, did stabilize the new nation’s finances, but it threatened to fasten commercial interests upon the necks of everyone else, and to some degree it quickly did that.

But although Hamilton and Jefferson were at odds over the proper size and scope of the new federal government, this was not what brought them to sword’s point. That happened when, in 1793, Britain joined the war against France.

Even before the two countries went to war, Hamilton and Jefferson were at odds over what our commercial policy should be. Jefferson (and others) noted with irritation and anger that England blocked most American exports and closed off most of our traditional trade with the Caribbean islands. He wanted to institute a policy of economic reciprocity: Whatever another country did to us, or for us, we would do to, or for, it. This, he hoped, would bring England around. But Hamilton’s financial system was pegged to the tax on imports, and most of those came from England. He wondered, what if England, in response to American demands for reciprocity, drastically reduced its exports to the United States? What would the federal government do for revenue?

The European war brought matters to fever pitch. Hamilton was pro-British and anti-French; Jefferson was the converse. Each thought the other’s proposed path was dangerous to the country. Even today, nobody can prove that one course would have been better than another; how can you weigh the consequences of the path not taken? But they were both patriots, and they both wanted what they thought was best for the country. And here again, as so often, we see how fear magnifies suspicion, reduces understanding, and renders potentially productive cooperation impossible. It must have tested even Washington’s legendary patience.