Washington [526]
Washington worked up the energy for one final address to Congress. Donning his black velvet suit and strapping his dress sword to his hip, he strode into the House on December 7, 1796, and discovered the gallery packed “with the largest assemblage of citizens, ladies, and gentlemen ever collected on a similar occasion.”1 In his thirty-minute address, he crowed about Britain’s evacuation of the northwestern forts and the liberation of American prisoners in Algiers. He also expounded on the need for a military academy, a vision later fulfilled at West Point, and issued a stirring plea for a national university in the new capital. Only in the final paragraph did Washington strike a private note, saying the present occasion aroused memories of “the period when the administration of the present form of government commenced.”2
For the most part, the speech was well received, although the lone congress-man from the new state of Tennessee, Andrew Jackson, who was enraged by the Jay Treaty, refused to salute the departing chief or join in the congressional response applauding him. The Aurora enjoyed bidding good riddance to Washington. “If ever a nation has suffered from the improper influence of a man,” it intoned, “the American nation has suffered from the influence of Washington.”3 Nor did many Republicans any longer feel the need to cloak their disenchantment with Washington. “The retirement of General Washington was a cause of sincere, open, and indecent rejoicing among the French party in the United States,” one Federalist reported. “The real friends of this country . . . considered the loss of Washington’s personal influence a public calamity.”4 A small anecdote speaks volumes about the lethal political atmosphere. After Washington published the farewell address, Federalists in the Virginia House of Delegates introduced a motion hailing “the virtue, patriotism, and wisdom of the President of the United States.” In a deliberate snub, the Republicans lobbied to delete the word wisdom from the resolution, prompting John Marshall to lead the battle to retain the disputed noun. “Will it be believed that the word was retained by a very small majority?” he later said. “A very small majority in the legislature of Virginia acknowledged the wisdom of General Washington.”5
As soon as the farewell address was published, the presidential campaign got under way in earnest. In many respects, Washington had made it difficult for the Federalists to emerge as a genuine national party. With his exalted stature, he never wanted to dirty his fingers with lowly organizational matters or countenance that detestable thing called a party; he wanted merely an association of like-minded gentlemen. His unassailable popularity also made it unnecessary for the Federalists to develop the broad-based popular leadership that Republicans had developed under the tutelage of Jefferson and Madison. The opposition had attained a powerful cohesion simply by sustained resistance to administration policies.
The 1796 election was the first contested presidential campaign in American history. With 71 electoral votes, Adams became the president, narrowly edging out Jefferson, with 68 votes. Since Jefferson nosed out Adams’s “running mate,” Thomas Pinckney, with 59 votes, he became vice president under rules governing the Electoral College at the time. At a presidential reception that December, Martha Washington, privy to rumors of Adams’s victory, pressed his hand in congratulation and said how pleased Washington was. As a glowing Adams reported to Abigail, “John Adams never felt more serene in his life.”6 At first, the mixed ticket seemed to promise a less