Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO EDMUND RANDOLPH. 1 - The Writings of George Washington, vol. XIII (1794-1798)

Return to Title Page for The Writings of George Washington, vol. XIII (1794-1798)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

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

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH. 1 - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XIII (1794-1798) [1892]

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. XIII (1794-1798).

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

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.1

Philadelphia, 25 October, 1795.

Sir,

Your letter of the 24th has been received. It is full of innuendoes. I shall, therefore, once more, and for the last time, repeat, in the most unequivocal terms, that you are at full liberty to publish any thing that ever passed between us, written or oral, that you think will subserve your purposes. A conscious rectitude, and an invariable endeavor to promote the honor, welfare, and happiness of this country, by every means in the power of the executive, and within the compass of my abilities, leaves no apprehension on my mind from any disclosure whatsoever.

To whom, or for what purpose, you mean to apply the following words of your letter, “I have been the meditated victim of party spirit,” will be found, I presume, in your defence; without which I shall never understand them. I cannot conceive they are aimed at me; because an hundred and an hundred times you have heard me lament, from the bottom of my soul, that difference of sentiments should have occasioned those heats, which are disquieting a country, otherwise the happiest in the world; and you have heard me express the most ardent wish, that some expedient could be devised to heal them. The disclosure to me, by an officer of government, of M. Fauchet’s intercepted letter, after the contents were communicated to him, was an act of such evident propriety, that no man of candor, entertaining a proper sense of duty, can possibly condemn. I do not see, then, how this will apply to the case, more than the first.

You have, Sir, entirely mistaken the principle, upon which (in contravention of the opinion of the gentleman, who is discharging the duties of Secretary of State,) I gave you the inspection of what you declared to be the only paper you were in want of, to complete your defence. My sole motive in furnishing it was, that it might not be imputed that any thing, which you conceived necessary to your vindication, was withheld; for, however differently the matter may appear in the sequel, I am free to declare, that I cannot, at this moment, see what relation there is between the treaty with Great Britain and the details and suggestions, which are contained in the intercepted letter of M. Fauchet. I am still more at a loss to understand the meaning of these other words in your letter: “But I shall disclose even what I am compelled to disclose, under the operation of the necessity, which you yourself have created.” Can these expressions allude to my having put M. Fauchet’s letter into your hands, in presence of the heads of departments, for explanation of the passages which related to your conversations with him? Or to the acceptance of your resignation, voluntarily and unexpectedly offered? Or to the assurance, given in my letter of the [20th] of August in answer to yours of the [19th] (and most religiously observed on my part), not to mention any thing of the matter, until you had had an opportunity of clearing it up; whilst you, on the other hand, were making free communications thereof in all quarters, and intimating to your friends, that, in the course of your vindication, you should bring things to view, which would affect me more than any thing, which had yet appeared? If neither of these, nor an expectation that I should have passed the matter over unnoticed, or in a private explanation only between ourselves, I know nothing to which the sentiment can have the least reference. But I do not write from a desire to obtain explanations; for it is not my meaning, nor shall I proceed any farther in discussions of this sort, unless necessity should call for a simple and candid statement of the business, to be laid before the public. I am, &c.

[1 ]Memorandum attached to this letter, as recorded in the letter-book. “The following is the rough draft of a letter to Edmund Randolph, but, upon reconsideration, it was not sent.”