says:

In writing to Colonel Alexander Hamilton, on the same subject, he

"In making a survey of the subject, in whatever point of light I have been able to place it, I have always felt a kind of gloom upon my mind, as often as I have been taught to expect I might, and perhaps must, ere long, be called upon to make a decision. You will, I am sure, believe the assertion, though I have little expectation it would gain credit from those who are less acquainted with me, that, if I should receive the appointment, and if I should be prevailed upon to accept it, the acceptance would be attended with more diffidence and reluctance than I ever experienced before in my life. It would be, however, with a fixed and sole determination of lending whatever assistance might be in my power, to promote the public weal, in hopes that, at a convenient and early period, my services might be dispensed with, and that I might be permitted once more to retire, to pass an unclouded evening, after the stormy day of life, in the bosom of domestic tranquility."

After the ratification of the constitution, Congress appointed the first Wednesday of January, 1789, as a day for holding an election, and the first Wednesday of February following, for the meeting of the electoral college.

On the latter day, Washington was duly elected President for the four years following March 4, 1789. This vote was, by reason of a delay in obtaining a quorum of Congress, uncounted until early in April, and, on the 14th of the same month, Washington received notice that he was unani.mously chosen by the college. Ere this, the arguments of his friends, and his own careful consideration, had combined to convince him that it was his duty to accept the trust, and, on the 16th, he set out for New York to take the oath of office. His journey was a triumph; his reception at New York an ovation. As he crossed the bay from Elizabethtown point, every vessel in the harbor saluted him, and a gay procession of decked and garlanded barges followed. Arrived in the city, he expressed a wish to walk to his lodgings, and, on the way, was compelled again and again to pause and uncover before the enthusiastic people, bowing his acknowledgments to the ladies who showered flowers upon him from the upper windows. On the 30th day of April, at noon, the city soldiery formed before his house, and escorted him to the hall of Congress, where, upon the open balcony, before the Senate chamber, the oath of office was administered by the chancellor of the state of New York. Then cannon roared, flags waved, and the voices of thousands united in acclaims to the first President of the United States. Entering the Senate chamber, he delivered his inaugural address, and thence, on foot, proceeded, solemnly and reverently to St. Paul's church, where prayers were raised for blessings upon the work of the day.

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CHAPTER XXIX.

THE FIRST PRESIDENCY.

ATURALLY, the first, while it was the least important, question, which met Washington at the outset of his Presidential career, was that of the etiquette of his office. There were no social canons to be applied to the matter. The office was a new one, and without parallel in the history of nations, and he was menaced, on the one hand, by the danger of offending the people by too much pomp and display, and, on the other, of sacrificing its dignity by making too small account of the usages of the world. In this dilemma he appealed to those about him who, in his view, were best fitted to advise in so delicate a matter. The first of these. was John Adams, who had been for several years the holder of various commissions to "the politest court in Europe." The second was Hamilton; the others, Jay and Madison. But two of the written reports, made in deference to this request, survive; the first is that of John Adams, the second. that of Hamilton. These two do not agree in all points, nor do they, according to modern ideas, disagree in any essential particular. They simply vary as to the number of receptions to be given weekly, and the number of hours to be daily devoted by the President to miscellaneous business interviews. Washington finally determined for himself, that he would give one reception a week; two or four state dinners a year, and informal dinners upon each reception day. That he would go abroad among his personal friends, but never as President; that his hours for general business reception should be from 8 until 10 o'clock in the morning, and that he should only be constantly accessible to members of his cabinet and to foreign ministers. The more minute regulation of etiquette was committed to Colonel Humphrey, and was, in some respects, modified by the President, as he conceived that Humphrey's life at the court of France, where he had been secretary of Jefferson, had, in a measure, turned his head. Thus much is said. to show how little Washington did, concerning this important matter, with

out the advice of those about him. While conscious of the necessity of maintaining the dignity of his position, he was equally solicitous of avoiding idle and childish parade, and the appearance of having been carried away with his advancement to the Presidency. How important were these precautions, thrown about the comparatively trivial matter of etiquette, is clearly shown by the unsparing criticisms afterward made by certain ultra democratic republicans, upon the simple and decent state maintained by the President of the United States and his lady. Some accused the latter of holding "queenly drawing rooms," and "regal assemblies;" others said there was greater ceremony at New York than at the court of St. James, and especially among the sympathizers with the French revolution there were many who took every occasion to sneer at the conduct of the household. These latter had the confidence and sympathy of no less a man than Thomas Jefferson, who, though scrupulously respectful to the name and person of the President, could not resist criticising the methods of his household, its ceremonies and restrictions. Jefferson warmly sympathized with those who directed the revolution of '93, and, great as he was, could hardly distinguish between form and substance; could scarcely recognize how a laced doublet might clothe a reformer, and a black coat an usurper.

Mrs. Washington came from Mount Vernon and assumed her place at the head of the Nation's household; this she maintained to the end with that dignity, apart from pretension, and that courtesy, quite unlike familiarity, which combined so wonderfully in her, and marked her as the foremost hostess in America. From the hour of her coming, the weekly levees were crowded, and the informal dinner parties, given upon reception nights, were the delight of the fortunate guests.

Passing, with this hint, to the 10th of September, 1789, the reader is brought to the time when Congress provided for the institution of the department of foreign affairs, -since known as the Department of State,and a Department of War. On the ensuing day, the President nominated. General Knox to be Secretary of War. Soon after, he paid the highest compliment ever given to youth in the United States, by naming Alexander Hamiton, Secretary of the Treasury. The financial condition of America was truly alarming. With all her splendid resources, her obligations for a few,—less than fifty,—paltry millions of dollars, were unpaid, uncollectable, and sold at a discount upon the market of the world. To the untrodden paths of the Nation's finance, the President appointed Hamilton, who, in common with the man who signed his commission, had a chaos to reduce, a system to create, a floating debt to fund, without any existing system of money-raising; and a National credit to drag from the slough of depreciation and repudiation in which it was bemired, and place upon a footing which should render the Government at once effective and respectable.

The Department of Justice was next organized, and its port-folio was

offered to, and accepted by, Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, who had refused to sign the constitution, because it provided for a single head, instead of the three associated executive officers, which he deemed more safe and fitting. He had afterward supported the constitution in the Virginia legislature and voted for its ratification. The Department of State remained. In casting about for some one who might well and wisely fill its requirements, Washington settled upon Thomas Jefferson. The latter was not yet returned from France, where he was serving as minister plenipotentiary, but was on his way to America, having received leave, for a time, to visit his home, for domestic reasons. Upon his return he accepted the office, and entered upon the discharge of its duties. Jefferson's reasons for acceptance; a minute account of his subsequent attitude; the history of his contest with Hamilton, and his leadership of the new Democratic party, are discussed in his biography, at a later page of this volume.

Already, at the very outset of the new experiment in government, there had come into being embryo parties, divided upon vital issues. The first were warm and confident friends of the constitution; the second distrusted it, deeming that it represented dangerous tendencies toward centralization, and the most earnest, and not the least honest of them, holding that its framers and advocates were monarchists at heart, and would, in time, add to the constitution the investment of a king. The first named was known as the Federalist party, and Alexander Hamilton was soon its recognized head. In opposition was the Democratic party, with states' rights, limitation of the power of the executive, and restriction of the functions of the general government strictly within the limits of necessity, as its principles. Jefferson led this party, and, upon any party test, Edmund Randolph voted with him. That Washington, who, while a friend of the constitution, was not a partisan, recognized this tendency to party crystalization, is unquestionable; that he formed his cabinet not for the purpose of securing so-called harmony, and invariable coincidence with his own views, but that he might have the opinions of the ablest men of either inclining, is equally certain. Then, too, he preferred that, should there be a contest, its leaders should settle it by discussion within the cabinet, rather than by agitation without. So much for the cabinet.

Washington's first term was one of organization, and a marvelously suc cessful one. Its salient features were the financial schemes of Hamilton. Beyond these there was little of interest, and even they cannot be discussed at length. Reducing them to episodes, they were: the funding of the public debt, involving the assumption of debts contracted by the various states, in the prosecution of the late war; the imposition of imposts and excise duties, to provide means for the payment of the principal and interest of national indebtedness; and the establishment of a national bank. These plans required much time for their execution, and were only carried into

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effect in the face of the bitterest opposition. The first named met with the decided disfavor of some scctions, especially of the South, it being openly asserted that the assumption of the state debts was but part of a plan advocated by the Northern and Eastern states, which were thus made large creditors of the government, and had determined to collect their debts. through the agency of their representatives in Congress. The measure was only passed by a vote of fourteen to twelve in the Senate, and the decisive voices came from Virginia, which was friendly to the administration at that time, by reason of the provision made that the capital should be temporarily -for ten years-located at Philadelphia, and, during that time, a site should be selected and buildings erected upon the Potomac river, for the permanent accommodation of the government. Thus was taken the first step toward the financial establishment of America.

The proposal for imposts and excise met with no less opposition. Affecting the importation and domestic manufacture of liquor, it was warmly contested in Congress, and when, having been adopted by a small majority, it was placed upon the statute books, there began that constant and determined evasion of its provisions which has never since ceased. Yet the funding of the debt and the collection of a revenue were thus provided for. For the securing of a stable currency and the relief of the immediate financial needs of the country, there was introduced, upon the reassembling of Congress at Philadelphia in 1790, a project for the organization of a national bank. These pages are not suited to the discussion of the economical question involved in the establishment of such a bank. Jefferson opposed the project with all his heart and soul. He held that paper currency, while it might be convenient, tended to encourage speculation, unsettle values, and to make the people a prey to speculators and financial tricksters. From these opinions he never receded, yet there was, at the time, a second and powerful reason for his opposition. He distrusted Hamilton's political principles, and he saw, in the banking scheme, a stupendous possibility of increasing the power and influence of the treasury, and making it the basis for the increase of the central power, to the possible overturning of the republic and the establishment of a monarchy. He did not doubt Washington, nor did he question the sincerity of Hamilton's convictions, but regarding the latter as the American incarnation of the monarchial principle, and fearing that the President's confidence in the man might blind him to political methods, the consequences of which he could not but regard as necessarily pernicious, Jefferson opposed Hamilton and his plans, day by day, with greater vigor. He himself says that they were daily pitted against each other, in cabinet meetings, like two cocks,-Jefferson supported by Randolph; Hamilton, by Knox. This state of affairs aroused grave anxiety in the mind of Washington. He kept an even course in the cabinet; used his influence to quiet the discords which distracted it; retained Jefferson as a