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He has an amiable wife... two lovely children. I hope my letters will in time have their effect. I have discharged my duty I hope faithfully, but my dying bed was embittered... with distress for the only child whose conduct ever gave me pain.
Abigail was bedridden at Quincy altogether for eleven weeks. It was early November before she was well enough to come downstairs, and it was early November before Philadelphia was declared once more free of yellow fever.
On November 12, leaving Abigail behind, Adams headed off in the presidential coach behind two spirited horses and accompanied by his young nephew William Shaw—Billy Shaw, as he was known—a recent graduate of Harvard who had been lame since birth and had lately become the President's secretary.
“I strive to divert the melancholy thoughts of our separation, and pray you do the same,” Adams wrote to Abigail at the end of his first day on the road.
Chapter Ten
Statesman
Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
—John Adams
ADAMS WAS ON THE MOVE AGAIN, gobbling up the miles. The weather was clear and cool, the road dry. “Our horses go like birds,” he wrote. Some days they made thirty miles. “We glided along unforeseen, unexpected, and have avoided all noise, show, pomp, and parade,” he reported to Abigail from Connecticut.
He wrote nearly a letter a day. His teeth and gums ached; one side of his face was badly swollen. Yet, he assured her, he was neither “fretful nor peevish.” Indeed, the speed at which he moved, his joy in horses that could fly like birds, suggest he was heading for the capital knowing there was a way out of the impasse he had faced since taking office—that out of the gloomiest of times at home had come a first real sense that he might succeed after all in his main objective.
A recurring rumor did much for his spirits. It was said a British fleet under Admiral Horatio Nelson had overwhelmed the French off the coast of Egypt. “Nelson's victory is mightily believed along the road,” Adams wrote. If true, the chance of a French invasion of America had all but vanished.
There was snow in New York and the horses required a day's rest. Adams stopped to see his son Charles, but of this he wrote nothing.
Crossing New Jersey, the horses flying again, they made forty-five miles in a day, to arrive on November 24 in Philadelphia, where it was known for certain that Nelson had destroyed the French fleet at the battle of the Nile, four months earlier on August 1.
The city was in a bustle. Throngs of people were returning to resume daily life, opening boarded-up shops, airing out houses, scrubbing everything with a will, now that the epidemic had passed. The weather was brisk. Congress was back, and to the delight of the city, George Washington had returned and could be seen coming and going from temporary headquarters at a boarding house on Eighth Street.
The general had entered Philadelphia on November 10 with full military flare, on horseback and in uniform, and accompanied by cavalry. “Almost the whole of the military corps were drawn up on the commons to receive him,” reported the Aurora, which had suspended publication following the death of Benjamin Bache, but was back in business under Bache's wife, Margaret. “This morning arrived in town the Chief who unites all hearts,” exclaimed another paper, the American Daily Advertiser.
While the war fever of summer had by no means vanished like the yellow fever, the spirit of opinion heard in the shops and taverns, and within the councils of government, was noticeably more moderate, and in large part because of the British victory at the Nile. Albert Gallatin wrote to his wife that he felt an honorable accommodation with France was now within the power of the administration, perhaps even “certain.”
Soon after his arrival, Adams met with a Philadelphia physician named George Logan, who had recently returned from France. As a Quaker and ardent Republican, Logan was not the sort of man Adams was known to favor. To Federalist war hawks he was contemptible, since he had presumed to conduct his own peace mission to France. Roundly castigated as a dangerous, possibly disloyal meddler, Logan found it impossible to get a fair hearing within the administration. When he called on the Secretary of State, to say he had been told by high officials in the French government that France was ready to make peace, Pickering gave him short shrift and showed him to the door. To see George Washington, Logan had accompanied a Philadelphia clergyman when he called at the house on Eighth Street. But Washington had refused to speak to Logan, directing what few comments he had to the clergyman only.
Adams, however, received Logan courteously, and tea was served. He had conversed directly with Talleyrand and a principal member of the Directory, Logan said, and they had expressed the wish to settle all disputes with America.
Adams showed displeasure only once, when Logan insisted that the Directory was ready to receive a new American minister. According to Logan, Adams leaped from his chair, saying that only if a Republican were sent would the French receive him. “But I'll do no such thing,” Adams said. “I'll send whom I please.”
“And whomever you do please to send will be received,” Logan assured him.
Whether he knew it at the time, Logan had made a strong impression. “I had no reason to believe him a corrupt character, or deficient in memory or veracity,” Adams later wrote.
Secretaries Pickering and McHenry remained certain that war was inevitable. Nonetheless, they joined the consensus among the President's advisers that, given the mood of the country and the Congress, a declaration of war at this point would be “inexpedient.” But it was also the unanimous conclusion of the cabinet that another mission to France would be an act of humiliation and was therefore unacceptable. If there were to be peace overtures, they must come from France. Let a French mission cross the ocean this time.
On December 7, 1798, Adams walked to Congress Hall, and in the presence of Generals Washington and Hamilton, Secretary of State Pickering, and both houses of Congress, he affirmed again America's need for defensive strength and America's desire for peace. The speech had been written by Pickering and Wolcott, and except for the addition of one phrase, Adams had made few changes. It must, he said, be “left with France ... to take the requisite step” of assuring that any American mission sent to Paris would be properly received. So while preparation for war would continue, Adams had signaled that the door to peace remained ajar. It was only a question of French intent and sincerity.
The speech infuriated the Republicans and the Vice President, and no less was the anger of the High Federalists in Congress, who had expected a declaration of war. If Adams lacked the fortitude to take the step, then Congress would, they declared. But their efforts failed. Congress was not inclined to declare war.
The martial ambitions of the inspector general were undampened, however. With his new command, Hamilton dreamed now of grand conquest with himself riding at the head of a new American army.
The idea was to “liberate” Spanish Florida and Louisiana, possibly all of Spanish America, in a bold campaign combining a British fleet and American troops. First proposed by an impassioned apostle of Spanish-American freedom, Francesco de Miranda of Venezuela, the scheme had been around for years. Adams had learned of it and dismissed it out of hand. “We are friends with Spain,” he had told Pickering. But the British had shown interest, and in secret Hamilton had lately become involved, seeing possibilities for national empire and personal glory beyond the vision of lesser men. In a letter to one of his generals in Georgia, Hamilton stressed the need for a buildup of military supplies. “This you perceive, looks to offensive operations,” he wrote. “If we are to engage in war, our game will be to attack where we can. France is not to be considered as separate from her ally [Spain]. Tempting objects will be within our grasp.”
Adams knew in general, if not in detail, what Hamilton, Pickering, and others were up to and would later speak of it as a colossal absurdity. “The man is stark mad or I am,” he would remember thinking of Hamilton. But at the time, he kept his own counsel, waiting to make his move. He wanted all
“to be still and calm,” and told his department heads no more than they needed to know. For he understood now that their first loyalty was not to him.
For someone supposedly suspicious by nature, Adams had been inordinately slow to suspect the worst of his closest advisers, and to face the obvious truth that keeping Washington's cabinet had been a mistake. Still, somehow, he must avoid a war and keep Hamilton from gaining the upper hand with his “mad” schemes. As Abigail had warned the summer before, “That man would... become a second Bonaparte.”
• • •
AT THE NAVY DEPARTMENT and the President's House that December, with a foot of snow in the streets outside and sleigh bells sounding, Adams, Gerry, McHenry, Secretary of the Navy Stoddert, and others gathered about large maps of the West Indies. Four squadrons, twenty-one ships in total, virtually the whole of the American naval force, were now assigned to the Caribbean. The largest squadron, which included the heavy frigates United States and Constitution, was under Commodore John Barry, who was admonished in his orders that “a spirit of enterprise and adventure cannot be too much encouraged in the officers under your command.... We have nothing to dread but unactivity.”
The fleet was to cruise the Lesser Antilles, from St. Christopher (St. Kitts) to Tobago. San Domingo (Haiti) was to have increasing importance. Toussaint L'Ouverture, leader of the slave rebellion on San Domingo, had written to Adams to suggest they become allies. Desperate for food for his starving troops, Toussaint wanted the American embargo lifted from the former French colony. In effect, he wanted recognition of the black republic, and Adams was interested. Thus, in December, a representative from Toussaint, Joseph Bunel, dined with Adams, marking the first time a man of African descent was the dinner guest of an American President.
American ships would be welcome and protected in all San Domingo ports, Adams was told. John Quincy had earlier written his father to say he hoped something could be done for Toussaint, that he wished to see San Domingo “free and independent.” And with Secretary Pickering strongly of the same mind, Adams responded promptly. Commodore Barry was instructed to show himself “with the greatest part of the fleet at Cape Francois, to Genl. Toussaint, who has a great desire to see some ships of war belonging to America.” And the issue of de facto recognition, “Toussaint's clause,” would go before Congress.
General Washington was rarely seen. He was working seven days a week with Hamilton drawing up plans for the army, reviewing applications, and choosing qualified officers for twelve new regiments that were all still largely on paper. Satisfied with what had been accomplished, Washington departed the city for the last time on December 14.
• • •
MUCH HAD BEEN SAID of Washington's cheerful demeanor. Even the Aurora commented on his “good health and spirits,” while Adams, by contrast, looked drawn and weary and was seldom cheerful. The old streak of irritability, his single flaw, according to Abigail, had been made worse by the presidency, as he himself acknowledged. He was weary from work, “weary of conjectures,” as he said. “If you come on, you must expect to find me cross,” he had written to her in fair warning. It was not just that the work was unending, but that it was so tiresome. “A peck of troubles in a large bundle of papers often in a handwriting almost illegible comes every day... thousands of sea letters... commissions and patents to sign. No company. No society. Idle, unmeaning ceremony.”
Adams's earlier proposal of Colonel Smith for the general staff had been turned down by the Senate (as had his proposed commission for Aaron Burr). Smith was unacceptable, Adams was told, because he was a bankrupt. This Adams had not denied, but praised his son-in-law as a brave and able soldier who had more than proven himself in the Revolution. Against his better judgment, Adams agreed to try again, this time nominating Smith for a colonel's commission, which in spite of “warm opposition,” the Senate approved.
In a letter to Smith, telling him the news, Adams made clear what an embarrassment the whole business had been for him, and warned Smith bluntly that, if unchecked, his pride and extravagances would bring ruin.
His own children would be his undoing, Adams complained to Abigail. “My daughter and son [Charles] bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, if I don't arouse my philosophy. The daughter, too, without a fault. Unfortunate daughter! Unhappy child!”
Snow fell again for several days. Christmas morning dawned clear and bright, and Adams succeeded in rousing his philosophy to a considerable degree. There was no mistaking his age or the burdens of the presidency, he wrote to Abigail. “I am old, old, very old and never shall be very well—certainly while in this office, for the drudgery of it is too much for my years and strength.” But he took joy in the day. “It is Christmas and a fine day,” he wrote. He had a cold, but was over it now. “I sleep well, appetite is good, work hard, conscience is neat and easy. Content to live and willing to die.... Hoping to do a little good.”
• • •
THE VICE PRESIDENT, having departed Monticello on December 18 and traveled “dreadful” winter roads north by public coach, arrived at Philadelphia that same Christmas morning in time for breakfast at the Francis Hotel. Jefferson had been absent for six months, during which he had raised no voice as head of the Republican party, but had kept extremely busy, writing letters and secretly drafting a set of resolutions to be introduced in the legislature of Kentucky. Written in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson's Kentucky Resolutions declared that each state had a “natural right” to nullify federal actions it deemed unconstitutional. The states were thus to be the arbiters of federal authority. At the same time, James Madison undertook a version of his own resolutions for Virginia.
The Kentucky Resolutions, which had passed in November, were an open challenge to the authority of the central government and a measure both of Jefferson's revulsion over the Alien and Sedition Acts and the seriousness with which he regarded states' rights. Possibly he failed to see the dire threat to the union embodied in what he had written, but a letter he wrote to Madison strongly suggests otherwise. He was confident, Jefferson said, that the American people with their “good sense” would “rally with us round the true principles of the federal compact,” but, he wrote in chilling conclusion, he was “determined, were we to be disappointed in this, to sever ourselves from the union we so much value, rather than give up the rights of self-government.”
Tormented by the thought of his old enemy Hamilton riding high as inspector general and federal power in the grip of a “military enclave,” Jefferson saw the country on the verge of civil war. He feared a federal army under Hamilton might march on the South at any time. His advice to Madison and other close associates was to stay calm and quiet. “Firmness on our part, but passive firmness, is the true course,” Jefferson cautioned after returning to Philadelphia.
He was distressed also about the bill before Congress to lift the embargo on San Domingo and commence trade with the “rebellious Negroes under Toussaint.” When “Toussaint's clause” was passed, Jefferson noted bleakly, “We may expect therefore black crews and... missionaries” pouring “into the Southern states... If this combustion can be introduced among us under any veil whatever, we have to fear it.”
It had been more than a year since the President and Vice President had spoken to each other. Except for passing pleasantries at a few ceremonial occasions, conversation and correspondence between them had ceased. Had they been able to compare notes, they would have discovered how much more they shared in common than met the eye or than either had any idea.
Both complained privately of poor health. They were each extremely lonely and longed for home. Much of what Jefferson wrote to his daughters from Philadelphia in the opening weeks of the New Year, 1799, might have been taken from Adams's letters to Abigail. Jefferson battled a head cold and suffered from inflammation of the eyes. “The circle of our nearest connections is the only one in which a faithful and lasting affection can be found,” he wrote to Polly. And in a letter t
o Martha he could hardly have sounded more like Adams in his own days as Vice President: “Environed here in scenes of constant torment, malice, and obliquy, worn down in a station where no effort to render service can avail anything, I feel not that existence is a blessing, but when something recalls my mind to my family or farm.”
Had Jefferson known Adams's mind at this juncture, he would have been quite surprised. Most striking was their common dislike and fear of Hamilton. The worries Jefferson had about Hamilton's threat to the nation were more than matched by Adams's, as Adams revealed in private conversation with Elbridge Gerry at the President's House. “[Adams] thought Hamilton and a party were endeavoring to get an army on foot to give Hamilton the command of it, and thus to proclaim a regal government and place Hamilton as the head of it, and prepare the way for a province of Great Britain,” wrote Gerry. Plainly, Adams feared a military coup by the second “Bonaparte,” which goes far to explain what was soon to take place.
Closing his Christmas letter to Abigail, Adams said, “I write to you nothing about public affairs because it would be useless to copy the newspapers which you read. And I can say nothing more.”
How much was implied by this, she could only try to imagine.
Three weeks later, in mid-January, to Adams's utmost joy, his son Thomas, now twenty-seven, arrived in Philadelphia after four years abroad. “Thomas is my delight,” he wrote. It was also of no small consequence that Thomas carried word from John Quincy assuring his father that the French were ready to negotiate.
• • •
ON MONDAY, February 18, 1799, Adams made his move. Having consulted no one, and without advice from Abigail, he took the most decisive action of his presidency. Indeed, of all the brave acts of his career—his defense of the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trials, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, his crossing the Atlantic on the Boston in the winter of 1778, the high risks of his mission to Holland—one brief message sent to the United States Senate was perhaps the bravest.
