No president of the United States ever desired a prosperous and peaceful administration more than John Adams, and none ever fell further short of his wishes. Franklin said of him that he was always honest, often great, and sometimes mad. He himself, with that rare candor which ever characterized an Adams, described his own personality better than another could do it.
"I have never," he said, "sacrificed my judgment to kings, ministers, nor people, and I never will. When either shall see as I do, I shall rejoice in their protection, aid, and honor: but I see no prospect that either will ever think as I do, and therefore I shall never be a favorite with either." He was tactless, immovable, honest, patriotic, and fearless. He was not a party leader and knew not how to arouse the enthusiasm of his supporters. He probably saved the country from war, which the Pickering Federalists would have precipitated. He did not wreck his party, but he contributed towards its destruction. His part in that operation was a passive one. Had he been another kind of a man, he might have guided the forces which destroyed him; but it was other hands than his which set the wedge that rent Federalism.
Adams's inaugural address produced a good effect. From the impression long ago made on the public that he was a monarchist, people waited with interest to see what his ideas would now be. He disappointed those who thought most unfavorably of him and went out of the way to laud the Constitution. "From an habitual attention to it," he said, "satisfaction in its administration, and delight in its effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and happiness of the nation, I have acquired an habitual attachment to it and veneration for it." Dwelling on the majesty of a people governing themselves, he exclaimed, "Can anything essential, anything more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds?" and this was meant to meet the charge that he believed in ceremony.
The Republicans received such sentiments as these with satisfaction. Papers like the Aurora openly commended them. The Hamiltonian Federalists, on the contrary, were alarmed. Their opposition to Adams in the preceding election had proceeded from the fact that he was not a good party man: they never knew what he was going to do. Could it be that now, at the beginning of his presidency, he was charmed by Jefferson's siren voice?
Jefferson had indeed made attempts in that direction. Knowing Hamilton's opposition to Adams, he hoped to draw the president nearer to the Republicans. On December 28, 1796, he wrote Adams a letter and sent it to Madison. He expressed cordial friendship for Adams and made some pointed references to "your arch friend of New York." In a letter to Madison, he held out the idea with apparent honesty that the Republicans could be brought to support Adams's re-election in order to defeat Hamilton. Madison exercised a discretion which was given him and did not present Jefferson's letter to Adams, but the substance of it reached him, and between the two men there sprang up in the weeks preceding the inauguration a good personal understanding. The public observed this development, and some of the Republicans boasted that the lion and the lamb were about to lie down together.
But the Federalist politicians were not willing to return to Washington's non-partisan policy, and soon found means of checking Adams's enthusiasm in that direction. He came into office with a scheme of sending Jefferson or Madison to France as minister, in case Pinckney, who was already there, should not be successful. Both of these men expressed themselves as opposed to the appointment. Jefferson's excuse was his office of vice-president, and it was a good one; Madison's is not so clear. He and his party really were unwilling that he should leave at this time, when he would be much needed in the political conflict which was impending. Adams might have taken some other Republican but for the opposition of his own cabinet. When he mentioned his idea to Wolcott a few days after the inauguration, the latter expressed deep concern and threatened to resign office. Then the president realized how deeply his supporters were committed to a party administration, and he dropped the matter. Soon afterwards, the question of French relations became decisive, party lines were sharply drawn, and all hope of cooperation disappeared.
Adams retained Washington's cabinet in office, as was natural, inasmuch as they really represented the party better than he. They had been selected under the influence of Hamilton, and by inclination they were his supporters; indeed, Pickering and Wolcott maintained a frequent correspondence with him. It is singular how often ideas were communicated by Hamilton to one of these men, then discussed in a cabinet meeting, and with slight modification included in some forthcoming message to Congress as Adams's policy. John Adams, as the event showed, was not the man to act a nullity; but it took some time for him to realize how deeply he was betrayed in his own house, and when the explosion finally came, it was too late to save Federalism from faction. Had Adams felt the inclination and been strong enough to take a new cabinet in the beginning, he would at least have had peace during his administration.
The presidency of Adams marks an increase in the virulence of party antagonism; for Washington was regarded with such popular veneration that the few vehement attacks upon him were deeply resented, and it was considered outrageous for the overcandid Bache to rejoice at his departure from office. For Adams, however, nobody felt reverence, and party abuse had full sway. The whole Republican pack, as soon as it was evident that he would stand by the Federalists, were in full cry after him. Jefferson did not restrain them: he has even been charged with secretly aiding them, but the allegation has not been proved to be true. He has also been criticised for not restraining them, but he was not the party dictator. He merely rode at the front of the host, with an eye ever open to see the direction in which they wanted to go. Yet it will always be thought unseemly that the vice-president at this time gave his confidence and apparent approval to men who poured out the fiercest calumnies on the official who sat next above him.
The most extreme of the Republican pamphleteers was Thomas Callender, a Scotchman who had fled from England to escape punishment for political writings. In Philadelphia, he was first a reporter of the proceedings of Congress for the Philadelphia Gazette. Losing this position, in 1796, he became a teacher. In the same year, he undertook, under the protection of Dallas and other Republicans, to publish the American Annual Register, an extravagant partisan history of events in that year. It was totally unreliable, so far as facts are concerned; and even Jefferson, who contributed money to the enterprise, was disappointed. In 1799, he went to Richmond, probably through the suggestion of Jefferson, to become a writer for the Examiner. Here he wrote his most scurrilous volume. The Prospect before Us. After Jefferson became president, Callender applied for, and was refused, the postmastership at Richmond. He then turned against the Republican president and published as fierce attacks on him as he had ever launched against Hamilton.
An abler man than Callender, and a more moderate one, was William Duane, who became editor of the Aurora after the death of Bache in the autumn of 1798. He was an active writer, an earnest believer in Republican theories, and long one of the most important factors in supporting the cause which he proclaimed.
It was while the party feeling was at its highest that the notable Mazzei letter was brought to light. In 1796, Jefferson wrote to Mazzei, an Italian friend, a free and personal account of what the writer thought was the true state of politics in America. It described the growth of aristocracy in the United States and said that Washington and other leaders were throwing themselves into the arms of England. It was translated into Italian and published, then into French and published in Paris, and thence came to New York, where it was turned back into English and published, in order to show that Jefferson was criticising Washington. In its various translations, it had lost something of its original meaning, but Jefferson would not give out a correct copy because he saw that Washington would take offence at certain allusions to the forms of government and because, in order to justify his position, he would have to reveal state secrets. Much denunciation of his conduct appeared in the papers. It led to a permanent breach with Washington, but Jefferson did not lose his usual self-possession; he felt rightly that the storm would soon blow over. After all, the charges in the Mazzei letter were no worse than those daily uttered by most Republicans.
Another matter which added flame to political excitement in the summer of 1797 was the recall of Monroe from Paris. Our representation in Paris had not been very fortunate under the federal government. Gouverneur Morris, who was appointed in 1792, was a man of marked ability, but he was so much out of sympathy with the republic that he had not the confidence of the government to which he was accredited. He could give no tone to the French ideas in regard to America; hence, the ministry was thrown entirely into the hands of its own envoys in Philadelphia, and these took their notions from the Republicans. Finally, the ministry asked that Morris be recalled, desiring it as an offset to the recall of Genet. He had served through the period of the Terror and presented his successor a few weeks after the fall of Robespierre.
Monroe, who succeeded him, lacked diplomatic skill. He was a heedless Republican, and he was as little calculated to keep American interests on a neutral tack as the aristocratic Morris. He arrived in Paris in August 1794, when Jay had just fairly begun his negotiations in London. Desiring to give the republic evidence of American goodwill, he hit upon a singular mode of procedure. The Convention then ruled France, and the executive functions were entrusted to a committee of safety, one member of which was commissary for foreign affairs. To him, Monroe was introduced, but the American was told that no form for receiving a minister had been prepared and that some time must elapse before he could be regularly presented. After some days, Monroe decided to address the Convention itself. In a note to the president of the Convention, he asked that body to designate how he should be received. In reply, they declared that they would receive him themselves. On the following day, August 14, he was introduced to them, received from the president the fraternal embrace on behalf of his nation, and made a most cordial speech in praise of French republicanism. This exhibition of fervor caused some dissatisfaction in England, and the American cabinet disapproved of it in strong terms. At their direction, Randolph wrote a reproof to Monroe, the point of which he neutralized by a private communication written three days later; but the minister changed not his course. If, he said, the American government expected him to reserve his assurances of friendship for private communication to the French executive, they were mistaken in their man, and this shows how little of a diplomat he was.
Throughout the following autumn and winter, French curiosity was deeply aroused at the nature of the Jay negotiations, and Monroe was urged by his government to keep the French anxiety quiet. He was disingenuously informed by Randolph that Jay was sent to negotiate about the execution of the treaty of 1783, and about indemnity for the seizures of American ships, and was instructed to do nothing "to weaken the engagements between this country and France." Monroe took this as ground for the opinion that Jay had no instructions to make a commercial treaty, and to all the remonstrances of France, he replied in the most confiding manner. When the treaty was revealed to France in the summer of 1795, Monroe was so dumfounded that he could only gasp. He did not try to set himself right and thought himself lucky that the ministry did not call upon him to explain his position. In the autumn, he received long instructions from Pickering, giving the grounds on which he ought to defend the treaty. So little had the republic attended to his predicament that he began to fancy that they had forgotten it; and averse to dwelling on his own humiliation, he left the explanations undelivered. The French government determined to act without him. In February 1796, he heard that they were about to send a special envoy to America to negotiate a new treaty, and he roused himself. By urging, he says, the consequences of a breach between the two nations, and by other arguments, he induced the minister to relinquish his purpose. What the other arguments were, he does not say; but it is very probable that they had relation to the political situation in America. He was in close correspondence with the Republicans at home, and he must have known that it had been agreed for some weeks that the treaty should be defeated in the House.
Monroe could not keep his political activity from reaching the ears of the Federalists. It became known that he was furnishing information to the Republican press in America. At the same time, France took an aggressive attitude towards our shipping. Hamilton and the cabinet brought to Washington's view the necessity of having a new minister in Paris, and in August 1796, Monroe was recalled. C. C. Pinckney was appointed in his place, and in December, he arrived in Paris.
Monroe welcomed his removal. He had felt for more than a year that Hamilton and the politicians behind the cabinet policies had used him as a pawn to keep France quiet while the Jay treaty was going through the formative processes. He declared that if he were recalled, he would publish his instructions and show the whole affair to the public. The Republicans approved of the project. They received him with feasts and justifications. During the summer, he busily worked out a statement which was duly submitted to the inspection of Jefferson. It was based on documents connected and explained by an abundance of casuistry for which the author was noted. It was not completed without bringing Adams into the controversy. In his recall, he had been told that it was because he had failed to obey Pickering's instructions in justifying the treaty and for concurrent reasons. On his return, he asked Adams what the latter grounds might be. In reply, he was told that, as they concerned an administration which had gone out of office, the president did not feel at liberty to reply. He would have been glad to have had an avowal from the highest source that his recall was partly due to political causes, for it would have placed the controversy clearly in the realm of politics. He adroitly used Adams's refusal to charge that he was removed for secret reasons. His "View," as he called his defence, makes no strong impression upon the historian, but it was well received by the Republican press. Monroe was pronounced a martyr for his creed, and in 1799, he was elected governor of Virginia, much to the gratification of Jefferson.
Soon after he arrived in America, Monroe gave a savage blow to Hamilton, probably in retaliation for the latter's influence on his recall. In 1792, one Reynolds had been suspected of fraud against the government, and the affair had taken such a turn as to suggest that Hamilton was compromised with him. The evidence was embraced in certain letters whose real import was far different from what appeared on the surface. The matter was referred to three members of Congress — Monroe, Venable, and Muhlenberg. To them, Hamilton owned in confidence that the letters were written in connection with an illicit relation with Mrs. Reynolds, which had been carried on with her husband's knowledge, and by reason of which Hamilton had paid Reynolds about twelve hundred dollars for blackmail. The three men were satisfied and assured the public that Hamilton was innocent. The papers were placed in Monroe's hands, all promising to keep them secret. To them, Monroe added a statement by Reynolds, which was not submitted to Hamilton, the purport of which was to confirm the original charge of complicity in fraud. It was a piece of bad dealing on Monroe's part, and came near involving the two men in a duel at a later date. When Monroe went to France, he left the papers in the hands of a friend in Virginia, whose name has never been revealed, but when Callender's Annual Register appeared in 1797, they were given to the public. Hamilton called on the three custodians for an explanation. Muhlenberg and Venable promptly and explicitly exonerated themselves, but Monroe halted and shifted his excuses in such a manner that it is evident that he was responsible for the revelation. It is assumed that he disclosed them in revenge for his own sufferings.
Hamilton now took the extraordinary step of publishing a full confession of the whole affair. He spared nothing, but laid bare the whole story of his adultery. Thus, he protected his reputation as a public servant at the expense of his reputation as a man. It was wrung out of him with many pangs of anguish, which his opponents observed with delight. They reprinted the confession as a campaign document, and it undoubtedly injured him at the time, although posterity has come to esteem properly the courage which was necessary to make the confession.
While the two parties were thus fencing, political sentiment turned in favor of the Federalists. The congressmen of the day were not chosen on severe party lines, as later, but of those elected in 1796, a majority were conservative men who could be relied on by the Federalists. They came into their seats in May 1797, being called by Adams in an extra session in order to meet a crisis in foreign relations. No Congress since the first had so much important business to transact as this one. A French war seemed imminent, and, in view of its difficulties, internal politics were cast aside by all but the more pronounced politicians on each side.