Personal Attacks

Washington’s and Jefferson’s political views were diverging through the time the US Constitution was being ratified Sept 1887 - June 1788, but after Jefferson accepted a position (Secretary of State) in the Washington Administration(March 22, 1790 – December 31, 1793) their discord would become personal, even to the point of being considered Treason (*).

(*)At the time neither Alexander Hamilton's Federalists nor Jefferson's Republican Democrats favored a loyal opposition two party system which we have today. Working inside of the government, to sabotage the government was widely seen by Federalists including George Washington as Treason, giving aid and comfort the nation's enemies.

• Initially installed as the First President George Washington was a very popular figure. Jefferson thus was reluctant to challenge him directly, and would first take aim at his ministers. As Thomas Jefferson wrote privately to James Madison, his close confidant, “the President, tho’ an honest man himself, may be circumvented by snares and artifices, and is in fact surrounded by men who wish to clothe the Executive in more than constitutional power.”

• In 1793 Britain and France were at war again. Washington influenced by Alexander Hamilton pursued ed a neutrality policy in this war which "infuriated Jefferson". Thomas Jefferson believed the US should honor it's commitments to France Monarchy, even though the Monarchy had been replaced now by the French Republic. Washington sent John Jay to Britain to negotiate America's neutrality resulting in the John Jay's Treaty.

• The popular press exploded from under fifty newspapers around 1776 to over 250 by 1800 Jefferson would both promote this growth and use these papers to attack and harass Washington, both during his administration and continuing through his retirement.

• By the end of 1792, there was a recognizable opposition party, centered around Thomas Jefferson; newspapers gave this party one of their strongest means of critiquing the Washington Administration. Although Jefferson denied it publicly at the time, Jefferson was a key figure behind the scenes in establishing the national opposition presses.

• In April 1796, Jefferson wrote to a friend in Italy, bemoaning the state of American politics. “In place of that noble love of liberty and republican government which carried us triumphantly thro’ the war,” Jefferson wrote, “an Anglican, monarchical and aristocratical party has sprung up,” hoping to impose on the U.S. a government more British than American. “It would give you a fever,” he went on, “were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who [were] Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England.” This letter became public and Washington and his supporters believed Jefferson was talking about Washington.

• Jefferson helped James Monroe research his View of the Conduct of the Executive in the Foreign Affairs of the United States, published in 1797. As Washington’s minister to France, Monroe had been recalled for insufficiently defending administration policy, and this book, defending his own conduct, was highly critical of Washington’s foreign policy. Monroe had been the ambassador to France during the negotiation and ratification of Jay's treaty, which they saw as a betrayal. Monroe had advised the French that if they didn't like Washington's treaty, they just had to wait until the election and he would be removed from authority. Oddly, Monroe the 5th president would become known for the Monroe Doctrine, a doctrine of isolation and independence from European powers.

Jefferson would use his government position inside the Washington cabinet, to create, organize, and fund opposition to Washington’s administration.

• Two years prior to Thomas Jefferson’s resignation from the Washington Administration, Jefferson put Philip Freneau on the State Department payroll as an interpreter. Freneau only spoke one foreign language, French, a language Jefferson was already fluent in. In parallel Jefferson installed Freneau as editor of the National Gazette, a national venue which Freneau would use, subsidized by State Dept money, to blast the Washington Administration. There Freneau campaigned against the administration Jefferson still served, which struck critics—Washington among them—as disloyal, and even treasonous. The Freneau/Jefferson, financial relationship becoming apparent to Washington, is sited as one of the reason’s for Jefferson’s resignation from the State Dept.

• In the years after George Washington had left the Presidency(1797), he had severed all ties with Thomas Jefferson .

• By the end of Washington’s life he had come to see Madison and Monroe as little more than pawns of Jefferson in a struggle over the country’s future and would become noticeable agitated at the mention of their names.

• Two years after George Washington's death in 1801, Jefferson would visit Mount Vernon(Washington's home) to pay his respects, Mrs. Washington would recall his appearance as “the most painful” occurrence of her life, “next to the loss of her husband.”

• just before her death in 1802, and three years after Washington's Death, Martha Washington called Jefferson “most detestable” and his election to the presidency two years earlier as “the greatest misfortune our country had ever experienced.”

*3: Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992), pp 105–06; Edmund Morgan, The Genius of George Washington (1980), pp 12–13; Sarah J. Purcell, Sealed With Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America (2002) p. 97; Don Higginbotham, George Washington (2004); Ellis, 2004 *4:”Washington's Farewell Address: A Foreign Policy of Independence", The American Historical Review 1934 Oxford University Press