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The disposition which the Creeks had shown not to execute the treaty, was attributed with good cause to the intrigues of Spanish agents, who insisted that the treaty made by the Indians with the United States was inconsistent with the previous treaties of the Indians with Spain.

As General Washington's first term would close early in the ensuing year, and a new election must ensue during the current year, some explanations which took place in reference to that subject must be here noticed. The President was strongly inclined to give up the power and patronage attached to the office, for the sake of being rid of its cares; and retiring to Mount Vernon, there follow the more grateful pursuits of agriculture, and enjoy domestic ease. It is probable, too, that the want of harmony between the two leading members of his Cabinet, contributed not a little to make his continuance in office irksome. But this controversy cannot be understood without a review of the progress of political parties iu the United States, and of their actual condition at that time.

Experience tells us that, in civilized countries having even a moderate portion of freedom, the mass of the community will divide itself into two political parties; for they result from the universal principles of man's moral

nature.

Next to our more imperious physical wants, one of our strongest, if not the very strongest, of our desires is the love of power, love of freedom, and impatience of restraint; for these are but different names for the same natural emotion, which at one time shows itself in the edicts of a tyrant, and at another, in the excesses of a popular insurrection. Now this love of power, or freedom of action, in each individual, naturally clashes with the same feeling in others; and every one judges of the force

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[CHAP. VI.

of this instinct in others by the consciousness of its strength in himself. But while all are thus satisfied of the existence of this feeling, and of its probable conflicts with the same feeling in himself or others, it is viewed very differently by different minds and tempers. Some are disposed to regard it with dread, and some to brave it and resist it. Some think it most mischievous or dangerous when exerted by a single individual or a few; and others, when it is exercised by a multitude.

In both these cases of abuse the proper check is found in the same emotion. Thus the self-will of a monarch or an aristocracy is encountered by the love of freedom in the people; and the excesses or injustice of a majority or a mob are restrained by the authority of the magistrate.

In these principles of our common nature, we see the foundation of the two great parties spoken of. One man thinks the injustice and violence of great numbers the more probable and more formidable social evil, and ,therefore he inclines to strengthen the power of the civil magistrate, and to restrict popular freedom. Another, on the contrary, thinks that the evil of abuse of power is most probable from those who exercise the authority of the laws, and he is therefore more jealous of the government, and disposed to circumscribe its power whenever

he can.

These conflicting parties not only severally desire or refuse to give power to the magistrate; they also severally favor or oppose whatever is likely to increase his influence -even to mere ceremonials and the outward forms of respect. It was, therefore, that one party in the United States favored and the other opposed giving a title of honor to the President-putting his effigy on the coin -his name in the precepts issued from the law courts-in

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making discriminations between the two Houses of Congress to indicate the higher dignity of the Senate-in the President's levees, his opening speeches, and other imitations of monarchical forms.

There was another source of division growing out of that complex system of polity by which the attributes of sovereignty are here divided between the General government and the individual States. That class which was more jealous of the power of government than of the people, inclined to the States rather than to the authority of the Union on all questions of their relative powers; while those who had less confidence in the people, inclined to strengthen the General government.

Already, too, the French Revolution was viewed with different eyes by the two parties -one, enthusiastic in its favor, were the ready apologists for its errors and its excesses, while the other, looking chiefly to its violence and its crimes, viewed it with unmitigated horror and distrust. On the other hand, while the unfriendly sentiments excited in the minds of Americans towards England by the War of the Revolution, were habitually aggravated by the popular party, they were studiously mitigated on the part of the Federalists, until, by the natural progress of the passions, this party became its open friends and advocates.

Alexander Hamilton belonged to the last class, and Thomas Jefferson to the first; and personal rivalship, in all probability, lent its force to their mutual hostility. The two parties soon had, as is usual, their respective supporters in the periodical press. Fenno's Gazette was the organ of the Federalists, or Hamilton's party; and Freneau's of the Republican party, as they now styled themselves, of which Jefferson was regarded as the leader. Hamilton himself, as well as his friends, did not disdain to use the columns of Fenno's paper for assailing his

488

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[CHAP. VI. adversary, as well as in his own defence. Jefferson's friends, on the other hand, attacked Hamilton and his measures in the rival Gazette.

The charges brought by these polemics against Jefferson were, that he was not only hostile to Hamilton, whom he habitually calumniated and disparaged with the public, but was also unfriendly to the administration of which he was a member, and even to General Washington himself: that he encouraged and prompted the opposition party in Congress, and patronized Freneau, now openly assailing the measures of the administration, by giving him an appointment in the State department: that, finding two men in the way of his own advancement Messrs. Adams and Hamilton-he, by open attacks through the press, and yet more by secret slanders, systematically aimed to bring them into discredit; and for the sake of ruining these rivals with the public, he would not hesitate to destroy the wisest and most conservative institutions of the country.

:

The charges against Hamilton were, that he systematically sought to assimilate the Federal government of the United States to that of Great Britain, for which he did not conceal his theoretic preference and cordial admiration that his plan of funding the public debt, of assuming the State debts, of making portions of those debts irredeemable, of establishing a bank, and laying an excise were all parts of his settled scheme of augmenting the power and patronage of the Federal government, of making the wealthy classes obsequious to his wishes, and of lessening the weight of the States.

This discord between the two members of his Cabinet on whose counsels he most relied, gave General Washington much anxiety. He had a high opinion of the merits of both Jefferson and Hamilton, and probably was

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not blind to the faults of either. He exerted himself to bring about a reconciliation between them, and having communicated to them his wishes, he received letters from them both, in which each aimed at his own vindication.

In a letter from Washington to Jefferson, in August, 1792, after adverting to the dissensions in his Cabinet, he says, 66 My earnest wish, and my fondest hope, therefore, is, that instead of wounding suspicions and irritating charges, there may be liberal allowances, mutual forbearances, and temporizing yielding on all sides." In a subsequent letter he says, "I regret, deeply regret the difference of opinion which has arisen, and divided you and another principal officer of the government; and wish devoutly there could be an accommodation of them by mutual yieldings." He then adds: "I will frankly and solemnly declare that I believe the views of both to be pure and well-meant; and that experience only will decide with respect to the salubrity of the measures which are the subject of this dispute."1

The President having indicated his purpose of retiring at the end of his first term, it accorded with the views both of Hamilton and Jefferson to urge him to serve four years longer, each of them believing that his party would gain strength by Washington serving a second term. Jefferson, in a long letter, dated in May, 1792, insists on the President's continuance in office, as necessary to defeat the anti-republican tendencies of the government, which he openly, and in unmeasured terms, exposes.

In answer to these charges, General Washington, in a subsequent conversation, remarked "that he would conquer his desire for retirement, if he believed the apprehensions of danger were well founded; but that he IV. Marshall, page 355.