Washington [544]
The Alien and Sedition Acts reflected a prevalent Federalist assumption, shared by Washington, that American “Jacobins” colluded with France in treasonous fashion. While these acts were enacted on Adams’s watch, Washington lent them his quiet sympathy. Writing to a relative, he at first declined to comment on them, then observed that resident aliens had entered the country “for the express purpose of poisoning the minds of our people,” thereby estranging “their affections from the government of their choice” and “endeavoring to dissolve the Union.”2 On another occasion, he endorsed a Sedition Act prosecution of William Duane of the Aurora, who had accused the Adams administration of being corrupted by the British government. Given the sheer number of lies that he thought were being peddled in the service of propaganda, Washington’s dismay was understandable. At the same time, his support for censorship is disappointing given his exemplary record as president in tolerating even irresponsible press tirades against his administration. Washington often seemed blind to the perils of the Alien and Sedition Acts, arguing that Republican criticism was just another partisan maneuver to discredit the government and “disturb the public mind with their unfounded and ill-favored forebodings.”3
Even as many Federalists hankered for war with France, President Adams, with typically feisty resolution, decided in early 1799 to essay diplomacy, sending William Vans Murray to negotiate peace with France and causing howls of outrage in his own party. Although Washington thought Talleyrand was merely toying with Adams, he sensed a political shift in the air. With his sound instincts, he suspected the Murray mission would undercut public support for military preparations, tempering his enthusiasm for the new army. With Hamilton hell-bent on raising that army, Washington told him what he didn’t want to hear: that the political moment for its creation had passed. Had it been mustered right after the XYZ uproar, he speculated, the timing would have been auspicious. But now “unless a material change takes place, our military theater affords but a gloomy prospect to those who are to perform the principal parts in the drama.”4 That spring, as Hamilton began recruiting for the new army in New England, he acknowledged to Washington that he had, at best, tepid support from President Adams. In the meantime he secretly meditated the use of the new army to suppress what he saw as traitorous Republican elements in the South. By May 1800 the new army would be disbanded, having long outlived its usefulness.
In his final year George Washington inhabited a world dramatically different from the more halcyon visions he had foreseen for the country. The storybook ending might call for an elderly Washington to bask in the serene glow of wisdom. Instead he took to the warpath against the Jeffersonians with a vengeance. The nonpartisan dream enunciated in the farewell address had expired as the last vestiges of political civility disappeared. With Washington now a rabid booster of Federalist candidates, he applauded the election to Congress that spring of Henry Lee and John Marshall. He had wanted his lean, pale nephew Bushrod to run for Congress, but instead Adams appointed him to the Supreme Court. Washington’s letters reverberated with partisan rhetoric as he admonished Bushrod against “any relaxation on the part of the Federalists. We are sure there will be none on that of the Republicans, as they have very erroneously called themselves.”5
One area where his foresight had been infallible