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

TO THOMAS PINCKNEY. - 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.

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TO THOMAS PINCKNEY.

Mount Vernon, 28 May, 1797.

My Dear Sir,

* * * Let me congratulate you on your safe return to your native country and friends, after the important services you have rendered to the former, and thank you, as I most cordially do, for the favorable sentiments which you have been pleased to express for me, and of my public conduct. The approbation you have given of the latter, be assured, is highly pleasing to me. To receive testimonies of this kind from the good and virtuous, more especially from those who are competent to judge, and have had the means of judging from the best sources of information, stamps a value which renders them peculiarly grateful to one’s sensibility.

It remains to be seen whether our country will stand upon independent ground, or be directed in its political concerns by any other nation. A little time will show who are its true friends, or, what is synonymous, who are true Americans; those who are stimulating a foreign nation to unfriendly acts, repugnant to our rights and dignity, and advocating all its measures, or those whose only aim has been to maintain a strict neutrality, to keep the United States out of the vortex of European politics, and to preserve them in peace.

The President’s speech will, I conceive, draw forth mediately or immediately an expression of the public mind; and, as it is the right of the people, that this should be carried into effect, their sentiments ought to be unequivocally known, that the principles on which the government has acted, and which, from the President’s speech, are likely to be continued, may either be changed, or the opposition, that is endeavoring to embarrass every measure of the executive, may meet effectual discountenance. Things cannot, ought not to remain any longer in their present disagreeable state. Nor should the idea, that the government and the people have different views, be suffered any longer to prevail home or abroad; for it is not only injurious to us, but disgraceful also, that a government constituted as ours is should be administered contrary to their interest, if the fact be so.1

But, as I did not begin this letter with an intention of running into any political disquisition, I will stop where I am, and only add, that with sincere and affectionate regard I am, dear Sir, &c.

[1 ]President Adams had summoned a special meeting of Congress, chiefly on account of the state of affairs between the United States and France. On the 31st of May he nominated to the Senate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Francis Dana, and John Marshall, to be jointly and severally envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary to the French Republic. The object of the mission, as stated by the President, was, to “dissipate umbrages, remove prejudices, rectify errors, and adjust all differences, by a treaty between the two powers.” Mr. Dana declined the appointment, and Elbridge Gerry was appointed in his place.