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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XII (1790-1794) [1891]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. XII (1790-1794).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE.

Richmond, 13 April, 1791.

Dear Sir,

Your letter of the 2d came to my hand at this place. Part of it did, as you supposed, and might well suppose, astonish me exceedingly. I think it not only right, that Mr. Carmichael should be furnished with a copy of the genuine letter to Mr. Morris, but that Mr. Morris should know the result of his conferences with the Count Florida Blanca1 at the court of Madrid.2 The contents of my public letters to him, you are acquainted with. My private ones were few, and there was nothing in any of them respecting England or Spain. How it comes to pass, therefore, that such interpretations, as the extracts recite, should be given, he best can account for.

Being hurried, I shall only add, that I shall proceed on my journey to-morrow, and, from good information, have a dreary one before me in parts of it. * * *

[1 ]The manuscript reads Duke of Leeds, a manifest error.

[2 ]Mr. Carmichael, the chargé d’affaires from the United States to the court of Spain, had informed the Secretary of State that he had seen in Madrid extracts from the President’s letter to Gouverneur Morris (dated October 13th, 1789), authorizing him to enter into a private negotiation for certain objects with the British Cabinet. He supposed these extracts to have been sent secretly by the British Minister to the representative from that court in Spain, to have an influence on a discussion then pending between England and Spain. Mr. Carmichael supposed the extracts were mutilated or forged. Mr. Jefferson recommended that a genuine copy of the letter should be sent to him, with permission to use it as he should think proper. The history and particulars of this negotiation may be seen in Ford, The United States and Spain in 1791.

During the absence of the President on his tour through the southern States, Mr. Jefferson wrote to him on May 8, 1791, as follows, respecting his agency in the republication of the first part of Paine’s Rights of Man:

“Philadelphia, May 8th.—The last week does not furnish one single public event worthy communicating to you; so that I have only to say, ‘All is well.’ Paine’s answer to Burke’s pamphlet begins to produce some squibs in our public papers. In Fenno’s paper they are Burkites, in the others they are Painites. One of Fenno’s was evidently from the author of the Discourses on Davila. I am afraid the indiscretion of a printer has committed me with my friend, Mr. Adams, for whom, as one of the most honest and disinterested men alive, I have a cordial esteem, increased by long habits of concurrence in opinion in the days of his republicanism, and even since his apostasy to hereditary monarchy and nobility, though we differ, we differ as friends should do. Beckley had the only copy of Paine’s pamphlet and lent it to me, desiring, when I should have read it, that I should send it to a Mr. J. B. Smith, who had asked it for his brother to reprint it. Being an utter stranger to J. B. Smith, both by sight and character, I wrote a note to explain to him why I (a stranger to him) sent him a pamphlet, namely, that Mr. Beckley had desired it; and, to take off a little of the dryness of the note, I added, that I was glad to find, that it was to be reprinted, that something would at length be publicly said against the political heresies, which had lately sprung up among us, and that I did not doubt our citizens would rally again around the standard of Common Sense.

“That I had in my view the Discourses on Davila, which had filled Fenno’s papers for a twelvemonth without contradiction, is certain; but nothing was ever further from my thoughts, than to become myself the contradictor before the public. To my great astonishment, however, when the pamphlet came out, the printer had prefixed my note to it, without having given me the most distant hint of it. Mr. Adams will unquestionably take to himself the charge of political heresy, as conscious of his own views of drawing the present government to the form of the English constitution, and I fear will consider me as meaning to injure him in the public eye. I learn that some Anglomen have censured it in another point of view, as a sanction of Paine’s principles tends to give offence to the British government. Their real fear however, is, that this popular and republican pamphlet, taking wonderfully, is likely at a single stroke to wipe out all the unconstitutional doctrines, which their bell-wether Davila has been preaching for a twelvemonth.

“I certainly never made a secret of my being anti-monarchical, and antiaristocratical; but I am sincerely mortified to be thus brought forward on the public stage, where to remain, to advance, or to retire, will be equally against my love of silence and quiet, and my abhorrence of dispute.”

See also Jefferson to John Adams, 17 July, 1791, in Life and Works of John Adams, viii., 504. The essays mentioned as having appeared in Fenno’s paper were written by John Quincy Adams.

A further account of this matter is contained in a letter from Mr. Lear to the President, dated May 8th. He says, that a few evenings before, at Mrs. Washington’s drawing-room, he had held a conversation with Major Beckwith, in which the latter expressed his surprise, that Paine’s pamphlet should be dedicated to the President of the United States, and published in Philadelphia, especially as it contained many remarks that could not but be offensive to the British government. Mr. Lear replied that the pamphlet was written and first published in England, and that the President had neither seen it, nor knew what it contained, and of course could not in any sense be considered as approving its sentiments, or as being responsible for them. What follows is expressed in Mr. Lear’s own words: “Beckwith.—

True; but I observe in the American edition, that the Secretary of State has given a most unequivocal sanction to the book, as Secretary of State; it is not said as Mr. Jefferson.

“Lear.—

I have not seen the American, nor any other edition of this pamphlet, but I will venture to say, that the Secretary of State has not done a thing, which he would not justify.

“Beckwith.—

On this subject you will consider, that I have only spoken as an individual, and as a private person.

“Lear.—

I do not know you, Sir, in any other character.

“Beckwith.—

I was apprehensive, that you might conceive, that, on this occasion, I meant to enter the lists in more than a private character.

“At this moment the gentlemen of the Cincinnati, who are here at the general meeting, entered the room in form, to pay their respects to Mrs. Washington. This broke off the conversation; and, as Major Beckwith did not afterwards seek an occasion to renew it, nothing more passed on the subject. Yesterday the attorney-general and Mrs. Randolph dined, in a family way, with Mrs. Washington, and after dinner, the subject of Mr. Paine’s pamphlet coming on the carpet, I related to the attorney-general the substance of my conversation with Major Beckwith.

“Soon after I had finished my relation to the attorney-general, a person called for him at the door, with whom he went out upon business. In the evening I saw him again, when he informed me, that, upon being called upon after dinner, he went to Mrs. House’s with the person who called him. While he was there, Major Beckwith came in, and in the course of conversation the subject of Mr. Paine’s pamphlet was introduced, when Major Beckwith made the same observations, which I had before related. Upon leaving Mrs. House’s, the attorney-general said, he went to Mr. Jefferson’s, to know from him if he had authorized the publication of the extract from his note, which appeared prefixed to the American edition of Mr. Paine’s pamphlet. Mr. Jefferson said, that, so far from having authorized it, he was exceedingly sorry to see it there; not from a disavowal of the approbation, which it gave the work, but because it had been sent to the printer, with the pamphlet for republication, without the most distant idea that he would think of publishing any part of it. And Mr. Jefferson further added, that he wished it might be understood, that he did not authorize the publication of any part of his note.

“This publication of Mr. Jefferson’s sentiments respecting Mr. Paine’s pamphlet will set him in direct opposition to Mr. Adams’s political tenets; for Mr. Adams has, in the most pointed manner, expressed his detestation of the book and its tendency. I had myself an opportunity of hearing Mr. Adams’s sentiments on it one day soon after the first copies of it arrived in this place. I was at the Vice-President’s house, and while there Dr. and Mrs. Rush came in. The conversation turned upon this book, and Dr. Rush asked the Vice-President what he thought of it. After a little hesitation, he laid his hand upon his breast, and said in a very solemn manner. ‘I detest that book and its tendency, from the bottom of my heart.’ ”—Philadelphia, May 8th.