George Washington

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Foreign Relations

The French Revolution, which had begun in 1789, soon brought on the general European conflict known as the French Revolutionary Wars. American sentiments were deeply divided. The Hamiltonians generally supported Britain while the Jeffersonians sided with America’s ally, France. In North America not only were the British constantly at work stirring up trouble and distributing arms to Native Americans on the northwestern frontier, but their allies, the Spanish governors at New Orleans, kept close contact with the southwestern Native American peoples and intrigued with various American adventurers who dreamed of wilderness empires.

Washington realized that the United States was still too weak to risk war if it could honorably be avoided. “The public welfare and safety,” he declared, “enjoin a conduct of circumspection, moderation and forebearance.” Most Americans resented British hostility. Washington hoped for eventual conciliation with Spain, expansion of trade with the Spanish West Indies, and free navigation of the Mississippi River.

France was a special case. By the wartime treaty of 1778, France and the United States were allies. But France was now in the throes of revolution, and its future was uncertain. Moreover, by 1792, the excesses of the revolutionary party in France seemed likely to result in war between France and Britain. For Washington this situation was complicated by strong partisan enthusiasm among many Americans for the cause of the French Revolution.

L

Growth of Faction

On Washington’s 60th birthday, which was marked by nationwide celebrations, he seems to have hoped that he was about to enter on his last year in public office. He sought to persuade himself that the deepening differences between his two principal advisers, Jefferson and Hamilton, did not imply personal animosity, though he had to admit that these differences were fundamental, representing basically differing philosophies of government. This realization troubled Washington all the more because in his own concept of federal government public servants should work in amity for the public good, whether in the executive branch or in Congress. He regarded partisan contests, which he called faction, with horror. However, during 1792, Washington became convinced that faction was becoming an established element of American political life and that his two chief advisers had to be regarded as rival leaders whose political differences could not be reconciled. The Hamiltonians evolved into the Federalist Party, and the Jeffersonians organized what was to become the Democratic-Republican Party.

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M

Reelection

As the 1792 election drew near, the President’s advisers were unanimous in their opinion that the times were too perilous for the nation to risk a transfer of the executive power to a new president. Washington must be president for a second term. About this time an event occurred that caused him to agree. He vetoed a plan to reapportion seats in the House of Representatives because, he believed, it was unconstitutional. It favored the Northern states over the Southern and, although Washington carefully avoided any mention of this in listing his objections, a congressional uproar resulted that was divided along sectional lines. Washington told Jefferson that he was anxious over this growing tendency of the North and South to part ways on political matters. He expressed fear that this might eventually bring about the dissolution of the Union. Jefferson’s answer was firm: “North and South will hang together if they have you to hang on.” Washington saw himself as an impartial administrator whose enormous personal popularity could be used to channel sectional feeling into a trust in the federal government. Therefore he could not allow himself to do what he most wanted to do: publish a farewell address and retire from public life. Instead he said nothing on the subject, with the inevitable result that he was again the unanimous choice of the electors in the 1792 presidential election. Adams was again elected vice president.

VII

Second Term as President

A

French Revolutionary Wars

On March 4, 1793, in a brief ceremony, Washington was inaugurated for his second term of office. Just two weeks after the inauguration, news reached Philadelphia of the execution in France of King Louis XVI. Two weeks later came the word that Washington had feared: Revolutionary France had declared war on Britain, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Already the president had indicated the course he desired to take by asking both Jefferson and Hamilton for suggestions on how to maintain a strict neutrality and to prevent “the citizens from embroiling us with either France or England.” He propounded specific questions: Should he issue a proclamation of neutrality? Should the treaties of 1778, concluded with Louis XVI, be renounced or suspended? Should he receive Citizen Genêt, the newly appointed diplomat from the French republic? See Genêt, Edmond Charles Édouard.

As Washington must have foreseen, his advisers did not agree. The result was uneasy compromise. American neutrality was proclaimed in a document that did not actually use the word. The new diplomat would be received. The treaties stood, but they should be cautiously interpreted. A storm of criticism beset these decisions from every quarter.

A

1

Citizen Genêt

Genêt did not add to Washington’s peace of mind. After landing at Charleston, South Carolina, he commissioned some privateers and set up a French court of admiralty to dispose of British prizes. These proceedings enraged Washington and brought furious protests from the British diplomatic representative. Genêt arrived in Philadelphia as a celebrity. He was soon busy organizing groups called democratic societies, which he cheerfully described as a means of appealing to the people of the United States against the “unfriendly” attitude of their president.

Probably nothing in his public life aroused Washington’s opposition more than these societies, the aim of which, he said flatly, was “nothing less than subversion of the Government of these States.”He treated Genêt with icy courtesy during three months of Genêt’s mounting insolence and effrontery. When Genêt, against specific prohibition, sent an armed French privateer to sea from the port of Philadelphia, Washington demanded that the French government recall the diplomat to France. This was done; but Washington, fearing that Genêt would be executed by his own government on returning home, let him stay in the United States as a private citizen.

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