To George Washington from “Valerius,” 22 August 1795
From “Valerius”
22 Aug. 1795. He understands that GW has signed the Jay Treaty with Great Britain. In doing so, GW pledges the United States “to the performance of stipulations, the inevitable operation of which the benevolence of the good man laments, and the spirit of the proud man abhors.” The writer asks: “Shall Freemen despair? … No … citizens of an enlightened and gallant Republic” must “view themselves as the arbiters of their own fate. Let them consider that the President and the Senate are their servants; and that though for the present they exercise certain delegated powers, yet these powers may be reclaimed by the people.”
The nation faces a crisis. The government “has carried the nation from the calm retreats of peace and happiness, into the midst of war and desolation.” But such an act “is not deemed irrevocable.” The political evils Americans seek to avert are caused by “the errors or the depravity of the administrators of our government … or … from that unforseen and unavoidable state of things which … form a new æra in the annals of nations.”
The author intends to consider GW’s “public character,” his administration, his motives in the discharge of his duties, and the character of his cabinet members as an “impartial” analysis “of a President of the United States, whose austere inflexibility of character has given” a controversial treaty “the force of irrevocable law, in defiance of the loud thunders of popular indignation.”
Aurora General Advertiser (Philadelphia), 22 Aug. 1795.
“Valerius” continued his series of essays in the Aurora with numbers 2 through 7, all addressed to GW and published respectively on 1, 9, 17, and 25 Sept.; and 8 and 21 October. Essay No. 8, published on 29 Oct., asked the members of the House of Representatives to oppose the Jay Treaty. Essays 9–11, published respectively on 11 and 19 Nov. and 1 Dec., again were addressed to GW.
In his second, third, and fourth letters, Valerius suggested that American virtues and British deficiencies undermine the notion that another war with Great Britain would ruin the United States. In letter five, the author initiated a discussion about the tyrannical nature of power and the duties of a republican leader—themes on which he followed up in letters six and seven. In letter six he claimed that GW’s conduct as president had ignored his responsibilities as a citizen by violating the principle of equality, while in letter seven he suggested that GW’s lack of intellectual ability and his mediocre character made him a tool of those “alive to the high prerogatives of unlimited authority.” Letters nine through eleven discussed the anti-republican tendencies revealed in GW’s appointments, his embrace of the Society of the Cincinnati, his attitude toward France, and various domestic policies.