Washington [510]
When it came down to a vote on April 30, 1796, the Federalists got the House to approve money for the Jay Treaty by a wafer-thin margin of 51 to 48. Madison, shocked by the outcome, thought of retiring to his plantation. The crisis that was supposed to strengthen the Republican cause had instead “left it in a very crippled condition,” he informed Jefferson.10 Washington, who believed that Madison and his followers had “brought the Constitution to the brink of a precipice,” felt immense relief, intermingled with thinly veiled anger.11 After this wounding debate, an indignant Washington cut off further contact with Madison and never again invited him to Mount Vernon. Many Federalists predicted, prematurely as it happened, that James Madison had ruined his career. William Cobbett, a Federalist gadfly, was among those who wrote an early obituary for him. “As a politician, he is no more. He is absolutely deceased, cold, stiff, and buried in oblivion for ever and ever.”12
Jefferson’s relationship with Washington also suffered from the momentous events of that spring. Where Jefferson had wanted Washington to stay on as president for a second term, he now dismissed him as the unwitting tool by which corrupt, elitist Federalists duped the common people. As he told Monroe, the Federalists “see nothing can support them but the colossus of the president’s merits with the people, and the moment he retires, . . . his successor, if a monocrat, will be overborne by the republican sense of his constituents.”13 As far as Jefferson was concerned, Washington stood forth as an unmovable obstacle to reform. He preached patience to his followers: “Republicanism must lie on its oars, resign the vessel to its pilot,” and wait for Washington to exit the scene.14 Since Jefferson’s political philosophy was based on faith in the common people, Washington’s persisting popularity thrust him into the uncomfortable position of being at odds with the people’s apparent choice.
Now convinced that the two-faced Jefferson had plotted against him in the shadows, Washington no longer labored under any illusions about him. His ire surfaced that summer when Jefferson wrote to deny being the source of confidential information published in the Aurora. He also disclaimed making malicious remarks about Washington, as reported by an unnamed person—apparently Henry Lee. In responding on July 6, 1796, Washington dispensed with the fine points of diplomacy. As the dam burst, his stifled bitterness poured forth, and he confronted Jefferson more openly than ever before. Stating that he had previously had “no conception that parties” could go to such lengths, he claimed he had been vilified in “indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pick-pocket.”15 Even though he had done his utmost “to preserve this country from the horrors of a desolating war,” he was still charged with “being the enemy of one nation [France] and subject to the influence of another [Great Britain].”16 He noted that he had long defended Jefferson against charges of duplicity, invariably replying that he had “never discovered anything in the conduct of Mr. Jefferson to raise suspicions in my mind of his insincerity.”17 Now, he said starkly, “it would not be frank, candid, or friendly to conceal that your conduct has been represented as derogatory from that opinion I had conceived you entertained of me. That to your particular friends and connections you have described . . . me as a person under a dangerous influence; and that if I would listen more to some other opinions, all would be well.”18 Washington seldom resorted to such frankness or so pointedly dressed down an ex-colleague, confirming that their relationship now lay beyond redemption. He ended by saying that he had “already gone farther in the expression of my feelings than I intended