V. to refute the charge that the war had been unnecessarily CHAPTER protracted. In the importance of its acts the second Congress can 1793. not be compared to the first. It completed, however, that general system of administration which gave to the new federal government its practical character, and which has continued substantially unaltered from that time to this. Lasting monuments of these labors remain in the federal judiciary, the executive departments, the revenue system, including the regulation of ships and commerce and the protection of domestic manufactures, the army, the post-office, and the general system of Indian policy. The forms proper to be observed at Washington's entrance upon his second term of office became a subject of consideration in the cabinet. Jefferson was for the greatest possible simplicity. He proposed that the president should take the oath of office privately at his own house; a certificate of it to be deposited in the Department of State. By no means willing that Jefferson should purchase at this very cheap rate the reputation of being the only Republican in the cabinet, Hamilton readily fell in with the same idea. Knox and Randolph dissented; and, in conformity with their opinion, Washington took the oath of office publicly in the Senate Chamber, in March 4. presence of the heads of departments, the foreign ministers, and other public functionaries, prefacing the ceremony by a short speech. Convinced of the folly of giving occasion to his enemies by a sumptuous style of living--especially as he had to do it at his own expense-Adams had given up his house at Philadelphia and gone into lodgings, leaving Mrs. Adams at home to manage the farm. "My style of living," he wrote to his wife, "is quite popular. I am so well satisfied with my present simplicity that I CHAPTER am determined never to depart from it again so far as I V. have done. My expenses for the future shall, at all 1793. events, be within my income, nay, within my salary. I will no longer be the miserable dupe of vanity. I will never travel but by stage, nor live at the seat of government but in lodgings, while they give me so despicable an allowance." But, while one topic of political declamation was thus lost, another was found. The celebration of Washington's birth-day by visits of congratulation, and by balls, parties, and other festivities, not in Philadelphia only, but in many other principal cities and towns, appeared to the Republicans an alarming step toward monarchy, and became the subject of bitter complaints in Freneau's paper and others of the same leaning. Clark, of New Jersey, a zealous member of the new Republican party, carried his political puritanism so far as to move in the House that the mace, being "an unmeaning symbol, unworthy the dignity of a republican government," be sent to the mint, broken up, and the silver coined and placed in the treasury-a motion for which more than half the opposition voted. These things may seem to be trifles, but are not without importance as going to show the jealous and irritable state of the public mind. CHAPTER VI. RELATIONS WITH FRANCE. GENET. JEFFERSON RETIRES VI. HITHERTO, since the conclusion of the Revolution- CHAPTER ary war, the development of American politics had gone on almost wholly from within. But an important change 1793. was now to take place, carrying back the country for many years to a sort of semi-colonial dependence on Europe. The progress of the French Revolution, from its first decisive start by the meeting of the States-General almost cotemporaneously with the organization of the new federal government, had been watched in America with the greatest interest. The general enthusiasm which had welcomed the supposed advent of French liberty had indeed encountered, almost from the beginning, some sturdy doubters; and with the progress of the revolution their numbers had gradually increased, especially after the flight of Lafayette. Still the proclamation of the French republic, notwithstanding its bloody preface of Danton's September massacre, had aroused in America a great burst of popular feeling, of which a striking specimen had been displayed in a celebration got up at Boston in Jan. 24. honor of the repulse of the Duke of Brunswick and of Dumourier's temporary conquest of the Austrian Netherlands. An ox roasted whole, covered with decorations, and elevated on a car drawn by sixteen horses, the flags of France and the United States displayed from the horns, CHAPTER had been paraded through the streets, followed by four VL carts drawn by twenty-four horses, and containing six1793. teen hundred loaves of bread and two hogsheads of punch. While these viands were distributed among an immense crowd collected in State Street (formerly King Street), a select party of three hundred persons sat down in Faneuil Hall to a civic feast, over which presided the venerable Samuel Adams, then lieutenant governor of the state, assisted by the French consul. The children from all the schools, marshalled in State Street, were each presented with a cake stamped with the words "Liberty and Equality." A subscription was raised, and the prisoners confined in jail for debt were liberated. Two balloons, then a new invention, were let off, and in the evening bonfires were kindled, and the State House and other buildings were splendidly illuminated. Similar celebra Feb. 6. tions took place in several other places. In Philadelphia, the anniversary of the French alliance was commemorated by a public dinner, at which Governor Mifflin presided. At the head of the table a pike was fixed, bearing the cap of Liberty, with the French and American flags intertwined, the whole surmounted by a dove and olive branch. The execution of the unfortunate Louis excited a degree of sympathy on behalf of that amiable sovereign; but neither that nor any other of the violences of the Convention served hardly to check the glow of enthusiastic zeal for the French republic-a sentiment soon kindled April 9. into new fervor by the arrival at Charleston of Citizen Genet, appointed to supersede Ternant as embassador from France. News of the French declaration of war against England, which Genet brought with him to Charleston, had reached New York five days earlier by the British packet. It could not but excite the deep VI. est anxiety in the minds of Washington and his cabinet. CHAPTER By the treaty of commerce, French privateers and prizes were entitled to shelter in the American ports-a shelter 1793. not to be extended to the enemies of France. By the treaty of alliance, the United States were bound, in express terms, to guarantee the French possessions in America. As soon as the news reached Washington, then at Mount Vernon, he hastened to Philadelphia, and, imme- April 18. diately after his arrival, sent to the cabinet officers a series of questions, suggested, probably, by Hamilton, on which their opinions were to be given at a council the next day. Should a proclamation issue to prevent interferences, by citizens of the United States, in the war? Should it contain a declaration of neutrality, or what? Should a minister from the French republic be received? If so, should the reception be absolute or qualified? Were the United States bound to consider the treaties with France as applying to the present state of the parties; or might they be renounced or suspended? Suppose the treaties binding, what was the effect of the guarantee? Did it apply in case of an offensive war? Was the present war offensive or defensive on the part of France? Did the treaty with France require the exclusion of English ships of war, other than privateers, from the ports of the United States? Was it advisable. to call an extra session of Congress? Upon an elaborate discussion of these questions, it was unanimously agreed that a proclamation of neutrality should issue; that the new French minister should be received; and that a special session of Congress was not expedient. Upon other points there were differences of opinion. Hamilton, with whom Knox concurred, thought that the reception of Genet should be with an express reserve of the question as to the binding force of |