Washington [469]
As Washington wrestled with the problem of whether to remain as president, he was preoccupied by the fading health of his nephew George Augustine, who had grown so weak that summer that he was spitting up blood and could scarcely walk. By early August he was confined to his room at Mount Vernon, and Washington did not expect him to survive much longer. If he recovered his strength, he would probably require a quiet interlude in some milder climate. His illness returned Washington’s thoughts to the management of Mount Vernon and made him eager to reassert control of his neglected business affairs.
On October 1, 1792, Washington, still at Mount Vernon, met with Jefferson before breakfast in yet another attempt to thrash out their differences. Still wavering about a second term, Washington cited his dislike of “the ceremonies of his office” and said his nephew’s plight made his presence at Mount Vernon desirable.67 For the first time Washington seemed to lean toward a second term, however, remarking that “if his aid was thought necessary to save the cause to which he had devoted his life principally, he would make the sacrifice of a longer continuance.”68 Jefferson stated that only Washington could rise above partisan wrangling and fortify the government. Washington confessed that, while he had been aware of political differences between Jefferson and Hamilton, “he had never suspected it had gone so far in producing a personal difference and he wished he could be the mediator to put an end to it.”69 In spite of everything, Washington wanted to retain Jefferson in the cabinet and maintain an ideological balance.
Until this point the discussion had been cordial. But now an exasperated Washington, fed up with conspiracy theories, squarely told Jefferson that “as to the idea of transforming this government into a monarchy, he did not believe there were ten men in the U.S. whose opinions were worth attention who entertained such a thought,”70 as Jefferson noted his words. This was tough language, tantamount to branding Jefferson a crackpot, and unlike anything Washington ever said to Hamilton. The secretary of state replied with stiff dignity: “I told him there were many more than he imagined . . . I told him that tho[ugh] the people were sound, there was a numerous sect who had monarchy in contemplation, that the Sec[retar]y of the Treasury was one of these.”71 Here the two men encountered a fundamental difference that could not be bridged. When Jefferson again talked about Hamilton corrupting the legislature, with many in Congress owning government paper, Washington described the problem as unavoidable “unless we were to exclude particular descriptions of men, such as the holders of the funds, from all office.”72 The president saw the real test of the funding system as its effectiveness and “that for himself, he had seen our affairs desperate and our credit lost and that this was in a sudden and extraordinary degree raised to the highest pitch.”73
At this point Jefferson must have realized that he had irrevocably lost the battle for George Washington’s soul to Alexander Hamilton. In his memo on the talk, he simply wrote in defeat at this point, “I avoided going further into the subject.