CHAPTER He also announced that the Directory, as a further expression of their dissatisfaction at what they consider1796, ed equivalent to a treaty of alliance between the United States and England, had sent orders to him to suspend forthwith his ministerial functions, and to return home. But the name of America, notwithstanding the wrongs of its government, still excited "sweet emotions" in the French heart, and this suspension of diplomatic relations was not to be considered as a rupture, but only as "a mark of just discontent," "to last until the government of the United States should return to sentiments and measures more conformable to the interests of the alliance and the sworn friendship between the two nations." After these preliminaries, Adet wound up with a rhetorical appeal to anti-British feelings, in which the government, as distinguished from the people, was pointedly held responsible for the present state of affairs as between France and America. "Alas! time has not yet demolished the fortifications with which the English roughened this country, nor those the Americans raised for their defense; their half-rounded summits still appear in every quarter, amid plains, on the tops of mountains. The traveler need not search for the ditch which served to encompass them; it is still open under his feet. Scattered ruins of houses laid waste, which the fire had partly respected, in order to leave monuments of British fury, are still to be found. Men still exist who can say, 'Here a ferocious Englishman slaughtered my mother; there my wife tore her bleeding daughter from the hands of an unbridled Englishman! Alas! the soldiers who fell under the sword of the Britons are not yet reduced to dust: the laborer, in turning up his fields, still draws from the bosom of the earth their whitened IX. bones, while the plowman, with tears of tenderness and CHAPTER gratitude, still recollects that his fields, now covered with rich harvests, have been moistened with French blood; 1796. while every thing around the inhabitants of this country animates them to speak of the tyranny of Great Britain, and of the generosity of Frenchmen; when England had declared a war of death to revenge herself on France for having cemented with her blood the independence of the United States; at such a moment their government makes a treaty of amity with their ancient tyrant, the implacable enemy of their ancient ally! O Americans! covered with noble scars! O! you who have so often flown to death and to victory with French soldiers! you who know those generous sentiments which distinguish the true warrior; whose hearts have always vibrated with those of your companions in arms! consult them to-day to know what they experience. Recollect also that magnanimous souls, if they resent an affront with liveliness, know also how to forget one. Let your government return to itself, and you will still find in Frenchmen faithful friends and generous allies!" This extraordinary diplomatic appeal to the people was no doubt intended to have an effect on the votes of the presidential electors soon to be given, and the result of which was generally regarded as extremely dubious. Washington's fixed determination to retire from office at the close of his present term, known since the beginning of the year to those in his intimacy, had only become public quite recently by the issues of his famous Sept. 19. Farewell Address. That address embodied in its introduction three or four sentences of a draft which Madison had formerly furnished, at Washington's request, just before the close of his first term. The main body of it seems to have been prepared with the aid of a draft re IX. CHAPTER cently furnished by Hamilton, and which had also been subjected to Jay's inspection. Though it contains much 1796. advice of general application, almost every line of it may be traced to particular incidents which had occurred during Washington's administration. The maintenance of the Union as "the palladium of political prosperity and safety;" of the Federal Constitution; and of the public credit; were emphatically urged, with solemn admonitions against sectional jealousies and heart-burnings; against combinations and associations to obstruct the laws; and against the baleful effects of party spirit, and of permanent inveterate antipathies against particular nations, or passionate attachments for others. The policy of an impartial neutrality and of a disconnection from the nations of Europe, so far as existing treaties would permit, together with the dangers of foreign influence, were handled at length. For one nation to look to another for disinterested favors was treated as a folly, "an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard." Whatever might be accepted under that character, the nation must pay for by a portion of its independence, at the same time placing itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. A great part of the address had, indeed, so direct a bearing on the present position of the United States with respect to France, that we ought, perhaps, to consider Adet's manifesto, quoted above, so closely following upon it, and given to the public, like the address, through the medium of the newspapers, as intended, in part, to counteract its effect. The late period at which Washington's intention to retire was announced left but a short time for electioneer IX. ing; but the two parties, in anticipation of this event, were CHAPTER already prepared with their candidates. The nominations, indeed, were neither formally made nor officially 1796. announced. As yet the letter of the Constitution was regarded, which left the actual selection of persons to be voted for to the judgment of the presidential electors. Yet the members of Congress seem already to have assumed the office, afterward exercised in a more open and formal manner, and maintained for the next quarter of a century, of designating the candidates of their respective parties-a designation to which those chosen as electors very generally conformed. The real leader of the Federal party was Hamilton; but the greater age and longer public services of Jay and of John Adams placed them more prominently before the public as candidates for the presidency. On comparison of the personal characteristics of the two men, Hamilton would have much preferred Jay; but the position of Adams was such as to give him a decided advantage. His Revolutionary services were of the first order; his reputation for talents and integrity was of the highest; by his office of vice-president he stood in the line of promotion; and, what was of still greater weight, he was the choice, and, as it were, the representative of New England, which had furnished all along so steady and so principal a support to the federal government. If one of the two candidates to be voted for was taken from the North, policy required to take the other from the South. Of the limited number of Southern statesmen who had supported federal measures, none stood at this moment more conspicuously before the public than Thomas Pinckney. His success in the Spanish negotiation had gained him credit with the public at large, while he was specially recommended to the esteem and CHAPTER gratitude of the Federalists by the frank support which IX. he had given to Jay's negotiation. Indeed, there were 1796. some, and Hamilton was among the number, who secret ly wished that Pinckney might receive the larger vote, and so be chosen president over Adams's head-a result, from the likelihood of Pinckney's receiving more votes at the South, by no means improbable, could the Northern Federal electors be persuaded to vote equally for both candidates. On the side of the opposition, there was nobody to compete with Jefferson for the post of first candidate. While stimulating Madison to political efforts, Jefferson had suggested that he (Madison) ought to be the candidate of the party; and when Madison returned the com1795. pliment, he had written back in the tone of an old man April 27. in whom ambition was extinct, and who had withdrawn from the world with a fixed and unalterable determination to have nothing more to do with office. Yet, before the election came on, it was very generally understood that if Jefferson were chosen he would not decline to serve. This, however, if we can trust the letter to Madison, was only through fear that, if he withdrew his name, the Republican party might fall into unfortunate divisions. It was urged in a Richmond newspaper that Virginia, by reason of her superior extent, wealth, and population, and her known republicanism, had a right to furnish a president, and that Jefferson was entitled to the station. as a philosopher, a Republican, a friend of civil and religious liberty; attached to the Federal Constitution, but favorable to amendments of it; an enthusiastic admirer of the French Revolution, but without surrendering the independence and self-government of the United States; with a proper sense of the perfidious conduct of Great |