CHAPTER on the governor of that state the title of "Honorable." I. The President of the United States, it was argued, ought 1789. to have some more distinguishing title. Before this re

port came up for consideration, the committee by whom it had been made was authorized to confer on the subject with any such committee as the House might appoint. This invitation for a new joint committee excited quite a warm debate in the House. The matter, it was said, had been once already decided, and it was moved on that ground not to concur in the proposed new committee. While advocating this motion, Page thought, however, that they ought to begin with themselves. "He felt a good deal hurt that gentlemen on the floor, after having refused permission to the clerk to enter any thing more than their plain names on the journal, should be standing up and addressing each other by the title of the 'honorable gentleman.' He wished the practice could be got over, because it added neither to the honor nor to the dignity of the House." Tucker of South Carolina, who had opposed the appointment of the first committee, argued warmly against a new one. "What, sir, is the intention of this business? Will it not alarm our fellow-citizens? Will it not give them just cause of alarm? Will they not say that they have been deceived by the Convention that framed the Constitution, and that it has been contrived with a view to lead them on by degrees to that kind of government which they have thrown off with abhorrence? Shall we not justify the fears of those who were opposed to the Constitution, because they considered it as insidious and hostile to the liberties of the people? Does the dignity of a nation consist in the distance between the first magistrate and the citizens; in the exaltation of one man and the humiliation of the rest? If so, the most despotic government

is the most dignified; and, to make our dignity com- CHAPTER plete, we must give a high title, an embroidered robe, a princely equipage, and, finally, a crown and hereditary 1789. succession! Let us establish tranquillity and good order at home, and wealth, strength, and national dignity will be the infallible result. The aggregate of dignity will be the same, whether divided among all or centered in one. And whom, sir, do we expect to gratify? Is it the man now president? He has a real dignity of character, and is above such little vanities. If not for his gratification, for whose, then, are we to do this? Where is the man among us who has the presumption and vanity to expect it? Who is it that shall say, 'For my aggrandizement three millions of people entered into a calamitous war, they persevered in it for eight long years, they sacrificed their property, they spilled their blood, they rendered thousands of families wretched by the loss of their only protectors and means of support?' This spirit of imitation, this spirit of apishness, will be the ruin of our country; and, instead of giving us dignity in the eyes of foreigners, will only expose us to be laughed at." The person at whom Tucker aimed, in the closing part of his remarks, was no doubt the vice-president, who was understood to be decidedly in favor of titles, and who had adopted in his equipage and manner of living a style of distinction at which many, especially of the Southern members, took marked offense.

Though opposed to titles, Madison did not think them so full of danger as some gentlemen feared. Titles did not confer power, and he did not conceive that all the titles in Europe or Asia could make the office of president dangerous to the liberties of America. He objected to them simply because they were not reconcilable with the nature of our government or the genius of the peo

CHAPTER ple, and, even if proper in themselves, were not expedient 1. at the present time. But, though opposed to the object 1789. in view, he still thought that proper respect and attention to the Senate required the House to join in the new committee proposed.

Clymer "thought there was little occasion to give any title either to the president or vice-president; but he could not agree with those who spoke of titles as unpopular. He was led to think otherwise, from the vast number of honorables' we have in America. As soon as a man is selected for the public service, his fellowcitizens, with a liberal hand, shower down titles upon him. He believed there were more honorable esquires' in the United States than in all the world besides. He hoped the example of the House might extinguish this predilection in favor of titles." There were, however, plain distinctions, which Clymer omitted to note, between titles spontaneously conferred by a man's political friends and those the right to which might be established by law; also between titles so commonly given as to be within every body's reach, and titles limited to one or a few. As a mere spontaneous compliment, which every man might expect in his turn, titles excited little jealousy, however they might conflict with the ultra-Republican theory. But the case seemed to be different when it was proposed to give them a legal or semi-legal character.

After some further discussion, the House appointed a committee of conference, to which step the Senate responded; but no report was ever made. The House, in fact, had already carried their views into practice by addressing Washington in reply to his speech simply as "President of the United States ;" an example which the Senate, though not without some reluctance and a sort of protest, saw fit to follow. The answer of the

I.

House was delivered to Washington in a lobby or audi- CHAPTER ence chamber adjoining the Representatives' Hall by the band of the speaker, attended by the members. The 1789 Senate, for the purpose of delivering their answer, waited upon the president at his own house-a custom afterward adopted by the representatives, who, for the first twelve years of the Federal Government, were accustomed to go in procession for that purpose, with the sergeantat-arms at their head, bearing the mace.

As the Senate was to act in certain cases as the president's executive council, it became necessary to fix the forms and methods of communication. In the discussion of treaties and other matters relating to external relations, the course first agreed to was, that the president should be present in person; but, on trial, this method was found to be attended with various embarrassments, and was speedily abandoned. Somewhat against the inclination of the Senate, Washington at once adopted the practice of making all nominations to office by written message; after its adoption in the case of treaties also, this became the only official medium of communication between the executive and the Senate.

In regulating his intercourse with the public at large, Washington was anxious to adopt such a system as, without overstepping the limits of republican simplicity, might best maintain the dignity of the office, and secure to the president that command of his time essential to the proper discharge of his duties. Though very much criticised at the moment, the customs which he introduced have ever since regulated the etiquette of the presi dent's household. He laid it down as a rule to return no visits. To secure himself from being overrun by miscellaneous callers, certain fixed days were appointed for presidential levees; and, to avoid the embarrassments to

CHAPTER which the presidents of Congress had subjected them-
1. selves by keeping a sort of open table-so that every
1789. caller at last began to consider himself entitled to be in-
vited-no dinner invitations were given except to official
characters and strangers of distinction.
The arrange-

ment of the ceremonial connected with the president, at
the levees and elsewhere, appears to have been left to
Humphreys of Connecticut, who had been formerly an
aid-de-camp to Washington, and, more recently, secre-
tary of legation at Paris, whence he had returned with
a good many foreign airs and notions.
Some seemingly
very trifling matters, such as placing Washington and
his wife on an elevated seat at a public ball, which the
dancers, before commencing, approached with a low obei-
sance, became, in the party struggles of after years,
things of no little importance, being confidently relied
upon as palpable and convincing proofs of the monarchical
tendencies of the Federal party.

At an early day, the senators, in conformity to a provision in the Constitution to that effect, divided themselves into three classes, to terminate their service in two, four, and six years respectively. This matter was settled by lot, and the absent senators, as they arrived, were arranged in the same way, in one or another of the three classes. The first act presented to the president for his signature was one to regulate the administration of the oaths imposed by the Constitution. The oath of the members of the House had, however, been previously fixed by resolution, and administered by the Chief Justice of the State of New York. The first more important business which engrossed the attention of Congress was, in the Senate, the framing of a Judiciary Act, and in the House, the provision of a revenue by imposing duties on imports.