George Washington / Thomas Jefferson

George Washington

On a rare occasion President Washington met privately with Thomas Jefferson to speak on a variety of subjects. The year was 1798. Washington saw in Jefferson a younger man in a hurry to lead the nation which would come to pass despite the desires of John Adams. Being of different political parties and having divergent philosophies, Washington and Jefferson had little affection for each other.

Jefferson: Mr. President, after all these years, do you have any regrets about the way you conducted yourself with public policy?

Washington: Oh Dear. I thought our little chat today would be about patting each other on the back for the years of our mutual excellence in leadership. Oh well. Regrets there have been many. The first was perhaps not remaining on our farm overlooking the Rappahannock River—my happiest years were during the first decade of my life. And, please don’t call me “Mr. President.” I’m only eleven years older than you, and besides you will be president one day and I’m not going to call you anything but “Thomas.”

Jefferson: Well then, George, I thought I read that you were born on a farm called "Wakefield."

Washington: Indeed I was but it burned down.  We then lived in a home, later called Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County. I never regretted my father passing that marvelous estate on to me.

Jefferson: Both the Federalists and the Republicans fully agree that you were born to lead armies. Just where did that impetus come from?

Washington:  I was never a man of letters like you, Thomas. My schooling had been rather basic. I.  
was drawn to the stories my big brother Lawrence would tell me. While I was still a lad, Lawrence went away to the wars, serving under Admiral Vernon in the West Indies. His letters filled me with admiration and I at once became commander-in-chief of all the boys at school; we had parades and battles in imitation of those Lawrence wrote about.

Jefferson: Was it your father who instilled you with the fiber of boldness and calm under fire?

Washington: My father died when I was twelve years old, but, fortunately, I had a wise and fastidious mother. From her I learned respect and obedience to authority; I learned to be fair and polite to others; loyalty to God and to this country. 

Jefferson: General Green mentioned your short temper with the vagaries of battle which I’m sure you had to learn to control. 

Washington: A few times only in my life, when greatly provoked, did my anger get beyond bounds. I loved and honored my mother deeply and never forgot her teachings. But you, Sir, have enjoyed a childhood of ease. We are both from Virginia and have enjoyed the gentle climate and the richness of her soil. We both go north to Philadelphia as a penance for our misdeeds. How do you account for the differences in our political views?

Jefferson: With all due respect to your career as a military leader and our first President, I had hoped the War of Independence would have meant true independence from Britain. You seem fearful of offending Mother England and your policies reflect that concern.

 Washington: It has been said that you had much in common with Paine. One federalist whose name will remain anonymous remarked: "Jefferson is Paine with clean hands and expensive apparel."  Both you and he were free and liberal thinkers. Both you and he would lean towards France rather than England. In Paine's mind, you never took that step between principle and practice. Paine blamed us both for keeping slaves. Forgive me for saying so but the brashness in your tone betrays your early affiliation with that rabble-rouser. Are you aware what he said about me in the Aurora? Let me remind you:

"Washington is a creature of grossest adulation a man incapable of friendship, a hypocrite in public life, apostate and impostor.''

The man is a walking viper. He might be the first to admit that he was rootless—a kinder way of saying he was a drifter. He wanted to change the system of social status but never dreamed of changing that dusty cloak of his.

Jefferson: For their part, the Federalists were hardly less abusive. I was loudly decried as a Jacobin,
an atheist, and charged with cowardice for having fled Monticello from the British cavalry in 1781. And your Vice-President wrote: "Poor Jefferson is tortured as much as I, your better acquaintance." Unlike you or I, Paine draws attention to his cause by striking out at his adversaries. 

He was perhaps a drifter but one with firm convictions and lots of new ideas. Paine was angry about the passage in both houses of the Jay Treaty. And he still was angry that you did not do more to secure his release from prison in France. That the terms of Jay's treaty would ignite a storm of protest was plain at once. Keeping it secret only aggravated the matter. Jay had given up virtually every point to the British, in return for very little.  

Washington: But Jay had gained peace with Britain! It was impossible to do more.

Jefferson: So you’ve said on many occasions. After your Farewell Speech, Paine took pleasure, as you know, at your departure from the government. He predicted the “world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor, whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you ever had any.” That is what he had printed in the Aurora  on October 17th of 1776.

In furious response to Edmund Burke's book Reflections on the Revolution in France, Thomas Paine, who was then in England, had produced a pamphlet, The Rights of Man, that attacked Burke and set forth an impassioned defense of human rights, liberties, and equality. Upon receiving an early copy, I promptly passed it on to a Philadelphia printer with a note warmly endorsing it as the answer to the political heresies that have sprung up among us. When the printer published a first American edition, my own endorsement appeared prominently on the title page and was attributed to me. 

The endorsement caused a sensation. I wrote to you, Sir, and claimed to be astonished but privately confirmed that by "political heresies" I did mean the writings of John Adams. I told you at the time that I was mortified, not at what had been said but to be "thus brought forward on the public stage ... against my love of silence and quiet, and my abhorrence of dispute." I greatly regretted that "the indiscretion of a printer" had doubtless offended my old "friend Mr. Adams, for whom, as one of the most honest and disinterested men alive, I have cordial esteem," despite "his apostasy to hereditary monarchy." But Adams said nothing to me. Weeks passed, during which Adams, deeply offended, kept silent, then returned to Braintree. 

Washington: Presently, when a series of spirited letters signed "Publicola" began appearing in Boston's Colombian Centinel, attacking The Rights of Man and its sponsor, You, like many readers, assumed "Publicola" was Adams. In fact, it was John Quincy, who, rising to the defense of his father, took you to task for claiming that a difference in political opinion might be declared "heresy," and those who differed in view from my Secretary of State were therefore heretics. 

Now, as for Paine’s stay in prison, neither you nor he knows what I did on his behalf as he languished there in France. When you become an American President yourself, you will know what little effect our requests have on foreign powers. As a troublemaker in England and here in America, it is not a stretch to believe how Paine must have angered the French with his writings on their Revolution. But, you Sir, I will not soon forget how you lauded his writings even as they criticized John Adams.

Jefferson: I'll thank you to remember it was Tom's Common Sense that galvanized our nation on the brink of war. After his release from prison, he stayed in France. Then he sailed back to America, at my invitation. In the same way that he had earlier turned on you, he then tried to embarrass me socially by playing the spoiled brat. He had changed significantly since I met him earlier when I was minister in Paris. 

Paine's return to America must have been quite a sobering experience for him. He learned that he was seen as a great infidel, or he was simply forgotten for what he had done for America. He continued his critical writings, for instance against the Federalists and on religious superstition. Yes, he had his faults—a little rough around the edges, and a bit too prone to speak his mind with the breath of brandy, but he had a brain that worked for the good of mankind day and night.

 

Washington: I suppose we have Franklin to thank for his coming to America. I’m surprised that a son of a Quaker could learn to be so rude. You know, Thomas, that he couldn’t hold a job in Norfolk. His father got him work as an excise officer, but was dismissed twice. Dear old Ben, always looking to be of assistance to the young, met Paine in London and gave him letters of recommendation to bring his bile to Philadelphia. In October, Thomas Paine emigrated from Great Britain to the American colonies, arriving in Philadelphia on November 30th of 1774. 

Jefferson: He barely survived the transatlantic voyage. The ship's water supplies were bad, and typhoid fever killed five passengers. On arriving at Philadelphia, he was too sick to debark. Benjamin Franklin's physician, there to welcome Paine to America, had him carried off ship; Paine took six weeks to recover his health. He became a citizen of Pennsylvania "by taking the oath of allegiance at a very early period.” In January of 1775, he became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, a position he conducted with considerable ability. Franklin described Thomas Paine as an “ingenious worthy young man.”  Were you close to Franklin in the early years of our project?

Washington: His first son, Frances, was born the same year as I; so, Franklin and I  were not exactly school fellows. His years at The Pennsylvania Gazette and the publication of Poor Richard’s Almanac were before my time. Thomas, Ben Franklin was a remarkable man in many ways. He was a practical genius. He would look around and see problems that needed solving before his contemporaries even knew a problem existed. Your interest, for example in music, was to play your violin and enjoy listening to musical concerts. Ben’s interest would be to study the mathematics of musical structure. When he developed trouble seeing near and far, he invented bifocals to remedy his failing sight.

Jefferson: When I first met Ben, he was already an established senior statesman. I knew him as a fun-loving bon vivant who enjoyed his fine foods and spirits and the company of adoring women and men. His mind, however, was as sharp as any thirty-year-old. His contributions to the Declaration of Independence and to the Constitution were truly invaluable. 

What I enjoyed most was his sense of humor which was unleashed when it was most needed—when the tension and acrimony was at its highest. And he liked Thomas Paine and so did I. I knew little of Paine before he landed at Philadelphia in November of 1774. He started his American career as a publicist, by publishing his African Slavery in America, in the spring of 1775, criticizing slavery in America as being unjust and inhumane.

Washington: Yes. Can you imagine the gall? Within a year, he was an expert on African slavery! Now you and I have owned slaves and have treated them well. It was our way of life. What did Paine know about keeping a large plantation? 

Jefferson:. I'm afraid, my friend, that you are missing the point.  Thomas Paine was not speaking of only slaves in America or abuse of the monarchs in France. “The cause of America and France are, in a great measure, the causes of all mankind.”

Washington: There were plenty of rebuttals calling Paine a “noted sot and infidel.” Paine’s already questionable reputation never recovered after attacking me. Taking on the retiring President of the United States was the fastest way to his oblivion. Did I ever mention to you Thomas that Paine wrote to me with his first copy of The Rights of Man?  He penned a dedication:

“George Washington President of the United States: I present you a small treatise in defense of those   principles of freedom which your exemplary virtue hath so eminently contributed to establish. That The Rights of Man may become as universal as your benevolence can wish, and that you may enjoy the happiness of seeing the New World regenerate the Old, is the prayer of SIR, Your much obliged, and Obedient humble Servant, THOMAS PAINE” 

"In time, Adams and Jefferson each would  denounce slavery. Jefferson was to write of the degrading effects of the institution on both slave and master. Adams would call slavery a 'foul contagion in the human character.' In years past, as an attorney, Adams had appeared in several slave cases for the owner, never the slave, but he had no use for slavery. He never owned a slave as a matter of principle, nor hired the slaves of others to work on his farm, as was sometimes done in New England. He was to declare unequivocally in later years that 'Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude,' and like Abigail, he felt this at the time."

Jefferson: Stephen Girard enjoyed a good laugh with friends remembering his first arrival in Philadelphia and his need to borrow five dollars for guidance into the busy port. Girard later learned that had he delayed an hour more, he would have been taken into custody of a British Man-of-War and would certainly have spent the duration of the war in irons. Similarly, Thomas Paine had only twenty minutes after leaving London by ship for France before an order reached the port from the British government for his immediate arrest.