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

MESSAGE TO BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS, 20 JANUARY 1794. - 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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MESSAGE TO BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS, 20 JANUARY 1794.

Having already laid before you a letter of the 16th of August, 1793, from the Secretary of State to our Minister at Paris, stating the conduct, and urging the recall of the Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of France, I now communicate to you, that his conduct has been unequivocally disapproved, and that the strongest assurances have been given that his recall should be expedited without delay.1

[1 ]The newspapers of the day printed in February, 1794, an extract from a report of Robespierre to the National Convention on the political situation of France, in which he said of Genet’s mission:—

“By a very singular fatality, the Representatives of the Republic in America are the agents of the traitors, whom she has punished. The brother-in-law of Brissot is consul general with the United States from France; another man of the name of Genet, sent by Le Brun and Brissot, with the charge of Plenipotentiary Agent, resides at Philadelphia, and has faithfully fulfilled their designs and instructions. He has made use of the most unaccountable means to irritate the American government against us; he affected to speak without any pretence, in a menacing tone; and to make proposals to that government equally contrary to the interests of both nations; he endeavored to render our principles suspected or formidable, by exceeding them by the most ridiculous applications. By a very remarkable contrast, while those who had sent him to America, persecuted at Paris, the popular societies, denounced as Anarchists, the Jacobins courageously struggling against tyranny, Genet at Philadelphia made himself chief of a club, and never ceased to make and excite motions equally injurious and perplexing to the government. Thus the same faction which wanted to subject the people in France to the aristocracy of the rich, endeavored in a moment to set free and arm all the negroes to destroy our colonies.”

The severest critic of Genet was his successor Fauchet, who had come from France in association with three other “commissaires” to disentangle the meshes of Genet’s policy. He was armed with power to arrest Genet and the French consuls in American ports, but on consulting with Randolph, he was told that the United States only demanded the recall of Genet and did not seek his punishment; that the President could not acquiesce in such a measure. The commissioners reported to the Executive Council their views on Genet’s operations. “It appeared that he had vigorously pronounced for a party in opposition to the government of the United States; that he has also exasperated this party. That he has ruffled without example all the chiefs of executive power. We have been led to note in many of those whom he saw or with whom he was in correspondence, more personal hatred of Washington than love for France. In others we have seen a true enthusiasm for the cause of liberty. . . . What produced his exaggeration and that of his agents? Some dissensions that later might become fatal to America and to France, the desertion of all moderate people who up to that time had been the friends of France, and who have again rallied to our cause since our arrival. Our brave men, our soldiers, our officers, our sailors, or free and loyal republicans, hearing the French officials pronounce that the American government was aristocratic, that it was sold to the English, &c., went everywhere exaggerating the proposal of the minister and the consuls. . . . To justify his conduct, Genet had the impudence to publish a part of his instructions. This publication would have done us much harm, if he had not had the vanity to declare that he had accomplished them himself, and if this conduct had not drawn upon him the contempt of honest souls, who should think that a man ought to allow himself to be calumniated rather than bring his government into ridicule or disfavor, and if it was not generally believed that he had made an oath of allegiance to the United States.”