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

TO ALEXANDER HAMILTON, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. - 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 ALEXANDER HAMILTON, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY.

Philadelphia, 8 April, 1794.

Sir,

I cannot charge my memory with all the particulars which have passed between us relative to the disposition of the money borrowed. Your letters, however, and my answer, which you refer to in the foregoing statement, and have lately reminded me of, speak for themselves, and stand in need of no explanation.

As to verbal communications, I am satisfied that many were made by you to me on this subject; and, from my general recollection of the course of proceedings, I do not doubt, that it was substantially as you have stated it in the annexed paper, that I have approved of the measures, which you from time to time proposed to me for disposing of the loans, upon the condition that what was to be done by you should be agreeable to the laws. I am, &c.1

[1 ]Early in 1793 the charge was formally made on the floor of the house by Findley, that “the Secretary of the Treasury had acknowledged that he had not applied the money borrowed in Europe agreeably to the legal appropriations of the President. That he had acknowledged his having drawn to this country, and applied in Europe to uses for which other moneys were appropriated, three millions of dollars.” At the ensuing session of Congress Hamilton demanded an inquiry into his conduct, and these charges were among the matters to be investigated. The immediate act in question applied to the loans made in 1790-91, under authority of Congress, and the use of the money obtained from these loans was controlled by Hamilton acting under sanctions “for the most part verbal” of the President. Hamilton drew up a paper giving the “Principles and Course of Proceeding” with respect to this matter, but the Committee of Congress was not satisfied with it, and asked that it be submitted to the President, who added the “certificate” dated 8 April, 1794. In a dignified letter in reply, Hamilton directed Washington’s attention to the inadequacy of the certificate, as being better calculated to play into the hands of his enemies than to justify his official conduct. The letters that passed at the time on this subject were in brief:

“Finding on recurring to it, your instructions to me, competent to the disposition of the sum borrowed, I have directed Mr. Short to apply one million and a half of the loan, which was to commence in February, as a payment to France . . . I thought it advisable to dispose of a principal part of the loan to this object, not only from the general considerations which operate in the case, but from a desire to counteract the success of some negotiations with the French court for the purchase of the debt due from us, which are not for the interests of the United States.”—Hamilton to Washington, 14 April, 1791. Hamilton does not appear to have submitted this question of the application of the loan to the Vice-President and members of the cabinet, but only asked their opinion of the expediency of directing the opening of a second loan.—Jefferson to Washington, 17 April, 1791. Jefferson, however, knew of the negotiations on foot with France, and did not wish the debt to “pass into the hands of speculators, and be subjected ourselves to the chicaneries and vexations of private avarice,” and he would have the speculators informed “without reserve, that our government condemns their projects, and reserves to itself the right of paying nowhere but into the treasury of France, according to their contract.”—Jefferson to Short, 25 April, 1791. This occurred while Washington was on his southern tour, but he wrote in reply from Charleston to Hamilton, “concluding from Mr. Short’s statement of his negotiation in Amsterdam and from the opinions offered in your letter of the 11th, that the loan has been obtained on the best terms practicable, and that its application in the manner you propose will be the most advantageous to the United States, I do hereby signify my approbation of what has been already done, as communicated in your letters of the 11th and 14th of April. Assenting to the further progress of the loans, as recommended by you in these letters, I request that instructions may be given for completing them agreeably thereto.”—7 May, 1791. The defence of Hamilton is printed in his Works (Lodge), ii., 454-473. Randolph’s view is printed in Conway, Randolph, 216, 217.