To George Washington from “Valerius,” 1 December 1795
From “Valerius”
1 Dec. 1795. In the eleventh and last of his series of letters critical of GW, Valerius aims at “conciseness” as he brings ten additional charges that fall under the heading of “domestic transactions.”
First, most of those appointed to office do not “possess the confidence of people.”
Second, preference in appointments “has been given … to tories and officers of the late army,” the former rewarding traitors and the latter ensuring that officeholders will be “tractable instruments” for GW.
Third, GW has accepted “the Aristocratic honours of the Cincinnati,” a “suspicious order.”
Fourth, the “imperial grandeur” of the city of Washington exemplifies the waste of money raised by taxation.
Fifth, GW has hidden from the people his sentiments about the French Revolution, but, sixth, he is “intimate with French Aristocrats, and cold and distant to French Democrats.”
Seventh, GW has maliciously denounced “popular societies.”1
Eighth, contrary to the Constitution, GW is guilty of “systematic withholding of important information from the Legislature, and more especially from the House of Representatives.”2
Ninth, GW has sanctioned the “illegal conduct of the late secretary of the treasury, in drawing into the country, loans, made for the payment of the French debt, without the knowledge of Congress.”3
Tenth, GW has exceeded his Constitutional powers by respiting the sentences of criminals. Unlike the pardon power, which the president does have, respiting keeps the prisoner in suspense and thus is “a power of inflicting the most barbarous torture,” which “may convert punishment into a political instrument of party purpose.”4
Moreover, unlike tyrants of the past, GW has failed to encourage learning and support the arts, as “that salary, which was made large that the President might encourage literary merit, is unequal, we are told, to a household establishment!”
Aurora General Advertiser (Philadelphia), 1 December. For a summary of the earlier Valerius essays (of 22 Aug., 1, 9, 17, and 25 Sept., 8, 21, and 29 Oct., and 11 and 19 Nov.), see Valerius to GW, 22 Aug., and source note.
1. Valerius is referring to the comments about “certain self-created societies” in GW’s annual address to Congress of 19 Nov. 1794.
2. In addition to the complaints about Alexander Hamilton’s relations with Congress discussed in n.3 below, Valerius probably is complaining about “excessive secrecy” surrounding the negotiation of the Jay Treaty. See, for example, Letters of Franklin, on the Conduct of the Executive, and the Treaty Negociated by the Chief Justice of the United States with the Court of Great Britain (Philadelphia, 1795), 13.
3. Valerius evidently is referring to the criticisms made in Congress in January and February 1793 about Hamilton’s administration of the foreign loans, most pointedly in the resolutions introduced into the House by William Branch Giles on 27 Feb., but not passed. The fifth of those resolutions accused Hamilton of failing “an essential duty of his office, in failing to give Congress official information in due time, of the moneys drawn by him from Europe into the United States; which drawing commenced December, 1790, and continued till January, 1793” ( 2d Cong. 2d sess., 900; see also 13:532–41).
4. Valerius evidently is referring to the stays of execution that GW issued on 16 and 17 June in the cases of Philip Vigol and John Mitchell, convicted of participation in the Whiskey Insurrection.