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Washington read his third annual address to the assembled Congress on the twenty-fifth of October. Before him were most of the members of the previous Congress. Nearly all of the retiring senators had been re-elected. Among the new ones was Roger Sherman of Connecticut, George Cabot of Massachusetts, and Aaron Burr of New York. The latter was elected as the successor to General Schuyler, and now, for the first time, appeared prominent among statesmen. He had been appointed attorney-general of New York by Governor Clinton, and, in respect to talent and influence, was a rising man. Artful and fascinating, he had secured the votes of a sufficient number of federalists in the state legislature to gain his election, and he went into Congress a decided opponent of the administration; not on principle, for that never influenced him, but on account of personal hostility to the president, whom he hated because of his virtues.

In the house there were several new members, and the number of those opposed to the policy of the administration had been considerably increased, the elections in several of the states having been warmly contested. Jonathan Trumbull, son of the patriotic governor of Connecticut, was chosen speaker.

In his address, the president congratulated Congress on the general prosperity of the country, the success of its financial measures, and the disposition generally manifested to submit to the excise law. He dwelt at considerable length upon Indian affairs, recommending a just, impartial, and humane policy toward the savages, as the best means of securing peace on the frontier. He announced that the site of the federal capital had been selected and the city laid out on the bank of the Potomac. He again called their attention to the subject of a reorganization of the post-office department, the establishment of a mint, the adoption of a plan for producing uniformity in weights and measures, and making provision for the sale of the public lands of the United States.

The expedition against the Indians in the northwest had, meanwhile, been in progress, with varying fortunes, sometimes successful and sometimes not. At length painful rumors, and finally positive statements, came that a terrible calamity had overtaken St. Clair and his command. These troops had assembled in the vicinity of Fort Washington (now Cincinnati) early in September, and consisted nominally of two thousand regulars and one thousand militia, including a corps of artillery and several squadrons of horse. They were compelled to cut a road through the wilderness, and erect forts to keep up communication between the Ohio and the Wabash, the base of their operations. Desertions were numerous, and the refuse of western population often filled the places of these delinquents. Insubordination prevailed; and, to increase St. Clair's difficulties, he was so afflicted with the gout that he could not walk, and had to be lifted on and off his horse.

At length the little army, reduced to fourteen hundred effective men, rank and file, by desertion and the absence of a corps sent to apprehend deserters, had penetrated to a tributary of the Wabash fifteen miles south of the Miami villages, and almost a hundred from Fort Washington. There, before sunrise on the fourth of November, while the main body were encamped in two lines on rising ground, and the militia upon a high flat on the other side of the stream a quarter of a mile in advance, they were surprised and fiercely attacked by a large number of Indians, who fell first upon the militia, and then with deadly power upon the regulars. Great carnage ensued. The enemy, concealed in the woods, poured a destructive fire upon the troops from almost every point. St. Clair, unable to mount his horse, was carried about in a litter, and gave his orders with discretion and the most perfect coolness. Nearly all the officers and half the army were killed. For two hours and a half the desperate contest raged. Finally St. Clair ordered a retreat. It at once became a disorderly flight. The artillery, baggage, and many of the wounded, were left behind. Many of the troops threw away their arms, ammunition, and accoutrements. Some of the officers divested themselves of their fusees, that their flight might not be impeded. The general was mounted upon a lazy pack-horse, who could not be spurred into a gallop; but, as the enemy did not pursue more than a mile or two, St. Clair and the survivors of the battle escaped to Fort Jefferson, a distance of twenty-five miles. The retreat was continued the next day toward Fort Washington, where the shattered army arrived on the eighth. The entire loss was estimated at six hundred and seventy-seven killed, including thirty women, and two hundred and seventy-one wounded.

The late Richard Rush, of Philadelphia, has left on record the following graphic account of the effect which the intelligence of St. Clair's defeat had upon Washington. It was from an eye-witness:—

“An anecdote I derived from Colonel Lear,” says Mr. Rush, “shortly before his death in 1816, may here be related, showing the height to which Washington's passion would rise, yet be controlled. It belongs to his domestic life, with which I am dealing, having occurred under his own roof, while it marks public feeling the most intense, and points to the moral of his life. I give it in Colonel Lear's words, as near as I can, having made a note of them at the time.

“Toward the close of a winter's day in 1791, an officer in uniform was seen to dismount in front of the president's house, in Philadelphia, and giving the bridle to his servant, knocked at the door of the mansion. Learning from the porter that the president was at dinner, he said he was on public business and had despatches for the president. A servant was sent into the dining-room to give the information to Mr. Lear, who left the table and went into the hall, where the officer repeated what he had said. Mr. Lear replied that, as the president's secretary, he would take charge of the despatches and deliver them at the proper time. The officer made answer that he had just arrived from the western army, and his orders were to deliver them with all promptitude, and to the president in person; but that he would wait his directions. Mr. Lear returned, and in a whisper imparted to the president what had passed. General Washington rose from the table and went to the officer. He was back in a short time, made a word of apology for his absence, but no allusion to the cause of it. He had company that day. Everything went on as usual. Dinner over, the gentlemen passed to the drawing-room of Mrs. Washington, which was open in the evening. The general spoke courteously to every lady in the room, as was his custom. His hours were early, and by ten o'clock all the company had gone. Mrs. Washington and Mr. Lear remained. Soon Mrs. Washington left the room.

“The general now walked backward and forward for some minutes without speaking. Then he sat down on a sofa by the fire, telling Mr. Lear to sit down. To this moment there had been no change in his manner since his interruption at the table. Mr. Lear now perceived emotion. This rising in him, he broke out suddenly: 'It's all over! St. Clair's defeated—routed; the officers nearly all killed—the men by wholesale—the rout complete! too shocking to think of!—and a surprise in the bargain!'

“He uttered all this with great vehemence. Then he paused, got up from the sofa, and walked about the room several times, agitated, but saying nothing. Near the door he stopped short and stood still a few seconds, when his wrath became terrible.

“'Yes!' he burst forth, 'HERE, on this very spot, I took leave of him: I wished him success and honor. “You have your instructions,” I said, “from the secretary of war: I had a strict eye to them, and will add but one word—beware of a surprise! I repeat it—beware of a surprise! You know how the Indians fight us.” He went off with that as my last solemn warning thrown into his ears. And yet, to suffer that army to be cut to pieces, hacked by a surprise—the very thing I guarded him against! O God! O God! he's worse than a murderer! How can he answer it to his country? The blood of the slain is upon him—the curse of widows and orphans—the curse of Heaven!'

“This torrent came out in tone appalling. His very frame shook. 'It was awful!' said Mr. Lear. More than once he threw his hands up as he hurled imprecations upon St. Clair. Mr. Lear remained speechless—awed into breathless silence.

“The roused chief sat down on the sofa once more. He seemed conscious of his passion, and uncomfortable. He was silent; his wrath began to subside. He at length said, in an altered voice, 'This must not go beyond this room.' Another pause followed—a longer one—when he said, in a tone quite low: 'General St. Clair shall have justice. I looked hastily through the despatches—saw the whole disaster, but not all the particulars. I will hear him without prejudice: he shall have full justice.'

“'He was now,' said Mr. Lear, 'perfectly calm. Half an hour had gone by; the storm was over, and no sign of it was afterward seen in his conduct or heard in his conversation.'”[34]

“The first interview of the president with St Clair after the fatal fourth of November,” says the late Mr. Custis[35] (who was present), “was nobly impressive. The unfortunate general, worn down by age, disease, and the hardships of a frontier campaign, assailed by the press, and with the current of popular opinion setting hard against him, repaired to his chief, as to a shelter from the fury of so many elements. Washington extended his hand to one who appeared in no new character; for, during the whole of a long life, misfortune seemed 'to have marked him for her own.' Poor old St. Clair hobbled up to his chief, seized the offered hand in both of his, and gave vent to his feelings in an audible manner.”St. Clair's case was investigated by a committee of the house of representatives, and he was honorably acquitted. But public sentiment was against him, and he resigned his commission.

The alarm on the frontier, caused by St. Clair's defeat, produced prompt and appropriate action in Congress, and an army of five thousand men for frontier service was authorized. The impetuous General Wayne (of whom Washington said, at this time, “He has many good points as an officer, and it is to be hoped that time, reflection, good advice, and above all a due sense of the importance of the trust committed to him, will correct his faults, or cast a shade over them”) was appointed commander-in-chief, and Colonel Otho H. Williams, of Maryland, and Colonel Rufus Putnam, then in the Ohio country, brigadiers under him. Wayne was then in the prime of life, being forty-seven years of age; and Washington, believing that an energetic campaign would retrieve the losses of St. Clair and produce a decisive and salutary effect upon the Indians, counted much upon the prowess and executive force of that officer. Nor was he disappointed.

Additional revenue was required to support the increased army; and upon a motion being made in Congress to call upon the secretary of the treasury to report the ways and means of raising it, the first decided opposition to that officer and the measures of the administration, in complicity with Jefferson's personal dislike of Hamilton, appeared in the national legislature. Such report was called for, however; and the discussions that ensued upon this and other topics were sometimes very acrimonious, and caused Washington much painful apprehension. The press, at the same time, was fostering party spirit with the most pernicious aliment. In the previous autumn, a paper in the interest of the republican party and in opposition to Fenno's United States Gazette, called the National Gazette, was established. Philip Freneau, a warm whig of the Revolution and a poet of considerable local eminence, who had been editor of a New York paper, and who was called to Philadelphia at that time by Mr. Jefferson to fill the post of translating clerk in the state department, was installed as editor of the new opposition paper. Jefferson patronized it for the avowed purpose of presenting to the president and the American people correct European intelligence, derived from the Leyden Gazette instead of through the alleged polluted channel of English newspapers. But it soon became the vehicle of bitter attacks upon all measures of the administration which did not originate with, or were approved by, Mr. Jefferson; and the character of the secretary became thereby seriously compromised before the American people. He was charged, with great plausibility, with being the author of many anonymous political articles in Freneau's paper; but he solemnly declared the accusation to be untrue.

1792

Congress adjourned on the eighth of May. During the session, Washington had for the first time exercised the veto power intrusted to the president by the constitution. The occasion was the passage of an apportionment bill based upon the census of the population of the United States, lately taken, which in its provisions appeared to conflict with the constitution. That instrument provided that the representatives should not exceed one for every thirty thousand persons. This ratio would leave a fraction in each state (in some more, in some less) unrepresented. To obviate this difficulty, the senate originated a bill which exhibited a new principle of apportionment. It assumed as a basis the total population of the United States, and not the population of separate states, as that upon which the whole number of representatives should be determined. This aggregate was divided by thirty thousand. The quotient giving one hundred and twenty as the number of representatives, that number was apportioned upon the several states according to their population, allotting to each one member for every thirty thousand, and distributing the remaining members, to make up the one hundred and twenty, among the states having the largest fractions. After much debate, the house concurred in the senate's bill, and it was submitted to the president for his signature. The only question that arose was as to its constitutionality. The president consulted his cabinet. Jefferson and Randolph decided that it was unconstitutional; Knox could not express a definite opinion; and Hamilton rather favored the bill. After due deliberation Washington returned it with his objections. “A few of the hottest friends of the bill,” says Jefferson in his Anas, “expressed passion, but the majority were satisfied; and both in and out of doors,” he rather ill-naturedly added, “it gave pleasure to have at length an instance of the negative being exercised.”

The distractions in his cabinet, the increasing virulence of party spirit continually manifested in Congress, and the cares of government, began to make Washington thoroughly weary of public life, and early in 1792 he resolved to retire from it at the end of the term for which he had been elected to the presidency. He had more than a year to serve; but he determined to let his resolution be made known to the public at an early day. He first announced it to his nearest friends and associates. Among these were Jefferson and Madison, the latter a representative from Virginia, and then taking the position of a republican leader in the house. To Jefferson, Washington had opened his mind on the subject as early as the close of February, at the same time saying that he should consider it unfortunate if his retirement should cause that of other great officers of the government. At that time, the president was becoming painfully aware that the differences in his cabinet were systematic, instead of incidental as at first.

With Madison, Washington held frequent conversations upon the subject of his retirement, but nothing definite was determined when they left Philadelphia at the close of the session. The president went so far, however, as to ask Madison to revolve this subject in his mind, and advise him as to the proper time and the best mode of announcing his intention to the people. But Madison always urged him to relinquish the idea for the public good, and Jefferson desired him to remain in office for the same reason.

Congress having adjourned on Tuesday, the eighth of May, on the tenth Washington set out alone for Mount Vernon, leaving his family in Philadelphia. He carried with him several copies of Paine's Rights of Man, already alluded to, fifty of which he received from the author a day or two before he left Philadelphia.[36] With peculiar delight he sat down amid the cool shadows and quiet retreats of his loved home on the Potomac, at the season of flowers; and the desire to leave the turmoils of public life appears to have taken hold of him with a strength which he had never felt before. He resolved to be governed by his inclinations; and on the twentieth he wrote to Madison, announcing his intention in unequivocal terms, and repeating the request for advice which he had made before leaving Philadelphia.

“I have not been unmindful,” he said, “of the sentiments expressed by you in the conversations just alluded to. On the contrary, I have again and again revolved them with thoughtful anxiety, but without being able to dispose my mind to a longer continuation in the office I have now the honor to hold.... Nothing but a conviction that my declining the chair of government, if it should be the desire of the people to continue me in it, would involve the country in serious disputes respecting the chief magistrate, and the disagreeable consequences which might result therefrom in the floating and divided opinions which seem to prevail at present, could in any wise induce me to relinquish the determination I have formed.... Under these impressions, then, permit me to reiterate the request I made to you at our last meeting, namely, to think of the proper time and the best mode of announcing the intention, and that you would prepare the latter. In revolving this subject myself, my judgment has always been embarrassed.... I would fain carry my request to you further than is asked above, although I am sensible it would add to your trouble. But as the recess may afford you leisure, and as I flatter myself you have dispositions to oblige me, I will without apology desire, if the measure in itself should strike you as proper, or likely to produce public good or private honor, that you would turn your thoughts to a Valedictory Address from me to the public.”He desired Madison to express, “in plain and modest terms,” his feelings: That having endeavored to do his duty in the office he held, and age coming on apace, he desired to retire to private life, believing that rotation in the elective offices might be more congenial with the ideas of the people, of liberty and safety—that with such views, he took leave of them as a public man, and invoked the continuance of every blessing of Providence upon his country, “and upon all those who are the supporters of its interests, and the promoters of harmony, order, and good government.”

Washington then suggested four topics to be remarked upon, as follows: First, That we are all children of the same country, great and rich, and capable of being as prosperous and happy as any which the annals of history exhibit; and that the people have all an equal interest in the great concerns of the nation. Second, That the extent of our country, the diversity of our climate and soil, and the various productions of the states, are such as to make one part not only convenient, but indispensable to other parts, and may render the whole one of the most independent nations in the world. Third, That the government, being the work of the people, and having the mode and power of amendment engrafted upon the constitution, may, by the exercise of forbearance, wisdom, good will, and experience, be brought as near perfection as any human institution has ever been; and therefore, that the only strife should be, who should be foremost in facilitating and finally accomplishing such great and desirable objects, by giving every possible support and cement to the Union. Fourth, “That, however necessary it may be to keep a watchful eye over public servants and public measures, yet there ought to be limits to it; for suspicions unfounded and jealousies too lively are irritating to honest feelings, and oftentimes are productive of more evil than good.”

With these general hints, Washington left the matter in Madison's hands. At the same time, he asked that friend to give him hints also as to “fit subjects for communication” in his next annual message to Congress. In all this we see the acts of an eminently wise man, intent solely upon the public good, seeking aid in his arduous labors from those in whom he had confidence.

A month later, Madison replied to the president's letter, giving his opinion, that if he was determined to retire, it would be expedient and highly proper for him to put forth a valedictory address through the public prints; at the same time he expressed a hope that Washington would “reconsider the measure in all its circumstances and consequences,” and that he would acquiesce in one more sacrifice, severe as it might be, to the desires and interests of his country. With the letter Madison sent a draft of an address, and in reference to it remarked: “You will readily observe that, in executing it, I have aimed at that plainness and modesty of language which you had in view, and which indeed are so peculiarly becoming the character and the occasion; and that I had little more to do, as to the matter, than to follow the just and comprehensive outline which you had sketched. I flatter myself, however, that in everything which has depended on me, much improvement will be made before so interesting a paper shall have taken its last form.”

In a letter to the president, written on the twenty-third of May, Jefferson expressed his concern at the determination of the president. “When you first mentioned to me your purpose of retiring from the government,” he said, “though I felt all the magnitude of the event, I was in a considerable degree silent. I knew that to such a mind as yours persuasion was idle and impertinent; that, before forming your decision, you had weighed all the reasons for and against the measure, had made up your mind in full view of them, and that there could be little hope of changing the result. Pursuing my reflections, too, I knew we were some day to try to walk alone, and, if the essay should be made while you should be alive and looking on, we should derive confidence from that circumstance and resource if it failed. The public mind, too, was then calm and confident, and therefore in a favorable state for making an experiment. But the public mind is no longer so confident and serene, and that for causes in which you are no way personally mixed.” He then went on at great length in denunciation of the funding system, as one calculated and even intended to “corrupt the legislature,” and as the chief instrument in efforts to establish a monarchical and aristocratical government upon the ruins of the confederation—of preparing the way “for a change from the present republican form of government to that of a monarchy, of which the English constitution is to be the model.” He then said:—

“The confidence of the whole Union is centred in you. Your being at the helm will be more than an answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead the people in any quarter into violence and secession. North and South will hang together if they have you to hang on; and if the first corrective of a numerous representation should fail in its effects, your presence will give time for trying others, not inconsistent with the union and peace of the states.

“I am perfectly aware of the oppression under which your present office lays your mind, and with the ardor with which you pant for domestic life. But there is sometimes an eminence of character on which society have such peculiar claims as to control the predilections of the individual for a particular walk of happiness, and restrain him to that alone arising from the present and future benedictions of mankind. This seems to be your condition, and the law imposed on you by Providence in forming your character, and fashioning the events on which it was to operate; and it is to motives like these, and not to personal anxieties of mine or others who have no right to call on you for sacrifices, that I appeal, and urge a revisal of it, on the ground of change in the aspect of things. Should an honest majority result from a new and enlarged representation; should those acquiesce whose principles or interests they may control, your wishes for retirement would be gratified with less danger, as soon as that shall be manifest, without awaiting the completion of the second term of four years. One or two sessions will determine the crisis; and I can not but hope that you can resolve to add more to the many years you have already sacrificed to the good of mankind.”[37]