Part 14 (1/2)
WAs.h.i.+NGTON JOURNEYS TO MOUNT VERNON--HIS TOUR THROUGH THE SOUTHERN STATES--VISITS THE MORAVIANS AT SALEM--RESULTS OF HIS OBSERVATIONS--CONDITION AND RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY--THE FEDERAL CITY--OPENING OF THE SECOND CONGRESS--LAFAYETTE AND HIS PERPLEXITIES--THE JACOBIN CLUB--FLIGHT AND ARREST OF THE KING--THE CONSt.i.tUTION ACCEPTED BY HIM--GRAND FETE ON THE OCCASION--PARTY LINES DRAWN IN THE UNITED STATES--VIEWS OF HAMILTON AND JEFFERSON--ADAMS'S _DISCOURSES ON DAVILA_--PAINE'S _RIGHTS OF MAN_--JEFFERSON'S ENDORs.e.m.e.nT OF THE LATTER--HIS UNGENEROUS CHARGES AGAINST ADAMS AND HAMILTON--WAs.h.i.+NGTON DISTURBED BY PARTY FEUDS.
Was.h.i.+ngton left Philadelphia for home on Monday, the twenty-first of March, prepared for a tour through the southern states. He was accompanied as far as Chester by Mr. Jefferson, the secretary of state, and General Knox, the secretary of war--the only heads of departments then remaining in Philadelphia. He travelled by Chestertown, in Maryland, to Rock Hall, on the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Chesapeake, where he and his suite, with horses, carriage, et cetera, embarked for Annapolis.
They arrived at that city on the morning of the twenty-fifth, after a night of peril on the bay in the midst of a storm of wind, rain, and lightning. The president was cordially received by the governor and other dignitaries. On the twenty-eighth he reached Georgetown, and partook of a public dinner given by the mayor and corporation. There he met the commissioners appointed under the residence law, and examined the surveys of the federal city made by Andrew Ellicott, and plans of public buildings by Major L'Enfant.
It was left to the discretion of the president, it will be remembered, to choose a place on the Potomac, between the East branch and Conococheague, for the federal city. He chose the land between the villages of Georgetown and Carrollsburg; and on his arrival he found disputes running very high between the inhabitants of the two places respecting the location of the public buildings, the landholders in each desiring their village to be the favored one. Was.h.i.+ngton requested the contestants to meet him the next day. He then frankly told them that the dispute in which they were engaged did not comport with either their own interest or that of the public; that while each party was aiming to obtain the public buildings, they might, by placing the matter on a contracted scale, defeat the measure altogether, not only by procrastination, but for want of means to carry on the work; that neither the offer of land from Georgetown or Carrollsburg for the public buildings, separately, was adequate to the end of insuring the object; that both together did not comprehend more ground, nor would afford greater means, than was required for the federal city; and that, instead of contending which of the two should have it, they had better, by combining more offers, make a common cause of it, and thereby secure it to the district. The parties saw the wisdom of the president's suggestion, that while they were contesting for the shadow they might lose the substance, and they mutually agreed, in writing, to surrender for public purposes one half of the land they severally possessed. This business being finished, Was.h.i.+ngton rode on to Mount Vernon, where he arrived on the evening of the thirtieth of March.
On the seventh of April the president resumed his tour southward. ”I was accompanied,” he says in his diary, ”by Major Jackson. My equipage and attendants consisted of a chariot and four horses drove in hand, a light baggage-wagon and two horses, four saddle-horses, besides a led one for myself; and five, to wit, my valet-de-chambre, two footmen, coachman, and postillion.”
Previous to leaving Mount Vernon, he wrote to the secretaries of state, treasury, and war, giving them information concerning the time when he expected to be at certain places on his route, and desiring them, in case of important occurrences, to communicate with him, that he might, if necessary, return to the seat of government. So judicious were his arrangements, and so fortunate was the journey, that Was.h.i.+ngton reached the several places designated at the time contemplated.[32]
Honors awaited the president at every step. Receptions, escorts, artillery salutes, and public dinners, everywhere testified the respect of the people, and many invitations to private entertainments were given him: he declined all. Among others was one from his kinsman, William Was.h.i.+ngton (a hero of the southern campaign), to make his house in Charleston his home while there. The president's reply in this case exhibits the spirit of the whole: ”I can not comply with your invitation without involving myself in inconsistency,” he said; ”as I have determined to pursue the same plan in my southern as I did in my eastern visit, which was, not to incommode any private family by taking up my quarters with them during my journey. It leaves me unenc.u.mbered by engagements, and, by a uniform adherence to it, I shall avoid giving umbrage to any, by declining all such invitations.”
At Richmond, Was.h.i.+ngton inspected the works in progress of the James River Navigation company, of which he was president, and received from Colonel Carrington, the marshall of that judicial district, the pleasing a.s.surance that the people generally were favorable to the federal government. To ascertain the temper of the people, become personally acquainted with the leading citizens, and to observe the resources of the country, were the grand objects of the president's tour, and he was rejoiced to find evidences that his own state was gradually perceiving the value and blessings of the Union. At Richmond he was entertained at a public dinner, and escorted far on toward Petersburg by a cavalcade of gentlemen. Having been much incommoded by dust, and finding an escort of horse was preparing to accompany him from Petersburg, Was.h.i.+ngton caused inquiries as to the time he would leave the town to be answered, that he should endeavor to do it before eight o'clock in the morning. He managed to get off at five, by which means he avoided the inconvenience above-mentioned.
At Wilmington, in North Carolina, he was received by a military and civic escort, entertained at a public dinner, and attended a ball given in his honor in the evening. At Newbern he received like homage, where the dinner and the ball were given at the palace built by Governor Tryon about twenty-five years before. On the morning of the second of May he breakfasted at the country-seat of Governor Pinckney, a few miles from Charleston; and when he arrived at Haddrell's point, across the mouth of the Cooper river, he was met by General Pinckney, Edward Rutledge, and the recorder of the city, in a twelve-oared barge, rowed by twelve captains of American vessels, elegantly dressed. This was accompanied by a great number of other boats with gentlemen and ladies in them; and the gay scene, as the flotilla proceeded toward the city, was enlivened by vocal and instrumental music. At the wharf he was met by the governor and other civil officers, amid the thunder of artillery; and by the Cincinnati and a civic and military escort he was conducted to his lodgings.
Was.h.i.+ngton remained in Charleston a week, and then departed for Savannah. There he was greeted by General Wayne, General M'Intosh, and other companions-in-arms, and remained several days. He left for Augusta on the fifteenth, dined at Mulberry grove (the seat of Mrs. General Greene) that day, and reached Augusta on the eighteenth. There Governor Telfair, Judge Walton, and others, led in offering ceremonial honors to the ill.u.s.trious guest.
On the twenty-first the president turned his face homeward, travelling by way of Columbia and Camden in South Carolina, Charlotte, Salisbury, Salem, Guilford and Hillsborough in North Carolina, and Harrisburg, Williamsburg, and Frederickburg, to Mount Vernon. At Salem, a Moravian settlement, he halted for the purpose of seeing Governor Martin, who, he was informed, was on his way to meet the president. He spent a day there, visiting the social and industrial establishments of the community, and attended their religious services in the evening. A committee in behalf of the community presented an address to him, to which he made a brief reply.[33] He reached home on the twelfth of June, having made a most satisfactory journey of more than seventeen hundred miles, after starting from Mount Vernon, in sixty-six days, with the same team of horses. ”My return to this place is sooner than I expected,” he wrote to Hamilton, ”owing to the uninterruptedness of my journey by sickness, from bad weather, or accidents of any kind whatsoever,” for which he had made an allowance of eight days.
Was.h.i.+ngton returned to Philadelphia on the sixth of July. ”I am much pleased,” he wrote to Colonel Humphreys, then in Paris, on the twentieth, ”that I have undertaken the journey, as it has enabled me to see with my own eyes the situation of the country through which we travelled, and to learn more accurately the disposition of the people than I could from any information.” His observations filled his mind with joy in contemplating the future. ”The country appears,” he said, ”to be in a very improving state, and industry and frugality are becoming much more fas.h.i.+onable than they have hitherto been.
Tranquillity reigns among the people, with that disposition towards the general government which is likely to preserve it. They begin to feel the good effects of equal laws and equal protection. The farmer finds a ready market for his produce, and the merchant calculates with more certainty on his payments. Manufactures have as yet made but little progress in that part of the country, and it will probably be a long time before they are brought to that state to which they have already arrived in the middle and eastern parts of the Union. Each day's experience of the government of the United States seems to confirm its establishment, and to make it more popular. A ready acquiescence in the laws made under it shows in a strong light the confidence which the people have in their representatives, and in the upright views of those who administer the government.”
”Our public credit stands on that ground which, three years ago, it would have been a species of madness to have foretold. The astonis.h.i.+ng rapidity with which the newly-inst.i.tuted bank was filled gives an unexampled proof of the resources of our countrymen, and their confidence in public measures. On the first day of opening the subscription, the whole number of shares (twenty thousand) were taken up in one hour, and application made for upwards of four thousand shares more than were granted by the inst.i.tution, besides many others that were coming in from different quarters.”
In reference to the future seat of government the president said: ”I am now happy to add, that all matters between the proprietors of the soil and the public are settled to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, and that the business of laying out the city, the grounds for public buildings, walks, et cetera, is advancing under the inspection of Major L'Enfant with pleasing prospects.”
L'Enfant, who had served as an engineer in the continental army, and was employed to furnish a plan for, and make a survey of, the federal city, spent a week at Mount Vernon, immediately after Was.h.i.+ngton's return from his southern tour, in submitting his plans to the president, and in consulting with him about the future. These plans were approved by Was.h.i.+ngton, and met the approbation of Congress when laid before them at the next session. The city was laid out upon a plot containing eight square miles.
The first session of the second Congress commenced at Philadelphia on the twenty-fourth of October, in conformity to an act of the last session of the first Congress. Was.h.i.+ngton had spent a greater portion of the summer in the federal city, in close attention to public duties; but for six weeks previous to the a.s.sembling of the national legislature he remained in the seclusion of Mount Vernon. It was not for him a season of repose. Every mail brought him numerous letters, most of them on public business. Many of them gave him themes for deep and solemn meditation; for national affairs at home and abroad were a.s.suming forms and att.i.tudes that occasioned him much anxiety.
The French revolution, in which his friend Lafayette was engaged as a chief actor, was exhibiting a most alarming and disappointing aspect to the friends of genuine liberty; and the dreams of the marquis, that his country was speedily to be redeemed from disorder and corrupt rule, were disturbed by dismal visions of reality. ”Whatever expectations I had conceived of a speedy termination to our revolutionary troubles,” he wrote to Was.h.i.+ngton as early as the previous March, ”I still am tossed about in the ocean of factions and commotions of every kind; for it is my fate to be attacked on each side with equal animosity; on the one by the aristocratic, slavish, parliamentary, clerical--in a word, by all the enemies to my free and levelling doctrine--and on the other by the Orleans factions, anti-royal, licentious, and pillaging parties of every kind: so that my personal escape from amidst so many hostile bands is rather dubious, although our great and good revolution is, thank Heaven, not only insured in France, but on the point of visiting other parts of the world, provided the restoration of public order is soon obtained in this country, where the good people have been better taught how to overthrow despotism than they can understand how to submit to the laws.
To you, my dear general, the patriarch and generalissimo of universal liberty, I shall render exact accounts of the conduct of your deputy and aid in that great cause.”
In May he wrote: ”I wish it were in my power to give you an a.s.surance that our troubles are at an end, and our const.i.tution totally established. But, although dark clouds are still before us, we have come so far as to foresee the moment when the legislative corps will succeed this convention; and, unless foreign powers interfere, I hope that within four months your friend will have resumed the life of a private and quiet citizen. The rage of parties, even among the patriots, is gone as far as it is possible, short of bloodshed; but, although hatreds are far from subsiding, matters do not appear so much disposed as they formerly were towards collision among the supporters of the popular cause. I myself am exposed to the envy and attacks of all parties--for this simple reason, that whoever acts or means wrong finds me an insuperable obstacle. And there appears a kind of phenomenon in my situation--all parties against me, and a national popularity, which, in spite of every effort, has remained unchanged.... Given up to all the madness of license, faction, and popular rage, I stood alone in defence of the law, and turned the tide into the const.i.tutional channel.”
A little later, Lafayette wrote: ”The refugees hovering about the frontiers; intrigues in most of the despotic and aristocratic cabinets; our regular army divided into tory officers and undisciplined soldiers; licentiousness among the people not easily repressed; the capital, that gives the tone to the empire, tossed about by anti-revolutionary or factious parties; the a.s.sembly fatigued by hard labor, and very unmanageable--cause me sometimes to be filled with alarm.”
These few sentences lift the curtain slightly from the terrible drama, then in cautious rehearsal, which was soon openly acted before the great audience of the nations. In place of const.i.tutional order, there was the anarchy of faction in the French capital and throughout the provinces.
The club of forty gentlemen and men of letters, who met in the hall of the Jacobin monks long before the states-general convened, had now grown up to a vast and popular a.s.sociation known as the Jacobin club. They were the avowed and determined adversaries of monarchy and all aristocratic t.i.tles and privileges, and contemners of Christianity; and they had started a journal for the dissemination of their ultra-democratic and irreligious doctrines, having for its watchwords--_Liberty and Equality_. It was puissant in spreading the spirit of revolt and disaffection to the king, and the greatest license began to prevail among the people. The king and his family were insulted in public. Lafayette, disgusted with the refractory spirit that began to prevail among the National Guards, resigned the command of them, but resumed it at the urgent solicitation of sixty battalions. The democratic spirit became more and more insolent, and at length the king and his family fled from Paris in disguise. Terror prevailed among all cla.s.ses. A crisis seemed impending. Political dissolution appeared at hand. But the monarch was arrested at Varennes and taken back to Paris under an escort of thirty thousand National Guards. The helpless king a.s.sured the a.s.sembly that he had no intention of leaving France, but wished to live quietly at a distance from the capital, until government should in a degree be restored and the const.i.tution settled. His justification was that he was subjected to too many insults in the capital, and that the personal safety of the queen was imperilled.
The populace were not satisfied. On the twentieth of July they met in the Elysian Fields, with Robespierre at their head, and pet.i.tioned for the dethronement of the king. Four thousand troops fired upon them and killed several hundred. Then and there, in the exasperation of the people and the appearance of Robespierre, the epoch of the Reign of Terror dawned. Yet Lafayette and his friends held the factions in check. The const.i.tution was completed early in September, and was accepted by the king, who solemnly swore that he would ”employ all the powers with which he was intrusted in maintaining the const.i.tution declared by the national a.s.sembly.”
Proclamation of this act was made throughout the kingdom, and a grand festival in commemoration of the event took place in the Elysian Fields.
One hundred thousand citizens danced on that occasion; festoons of many-colored lamps were suspended between the trees; every half hour, one hundred and thirty pieces of cannon thundered along the banks of the Seine; and on a tree planted upon the site of the Bastile was a placard inscribed--
”Here is the epoch of liberty; We dance on the ruins of despotism; The const.i.tution is finished-- Long live patriotism!”
On the thirtieth, the king made a speech to the a.s.sembly, when the president proclaimed: ”The const.i.tuent a.s.sembly declares their mission fulfilled and their sittings terminated.” Then opened a new act in the French revolution.