erected by those citizens and their ancestors; when I perceive passion, tumult, and violence usurping those seats, where reason and cool deliberation ought to preside, I acknowledge that I am glad to believe there is no real resemblance between what was the cause of America and what is the cause of France; that the difference is no less great than that between liberty and licentiousness.  I regret whatever has a tendency to confound them, and I feel anxious, as an American, that the ebullitions of inconsiderate men among us may not tend to involve our reputation in the issue.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Hamilton’s Works, 566.]

Citizen Genet continued his campaign unabashed.  He attempted to force the United States to give arms and munitions to the French.  Receiving cool answers to his demands, he lost patience, and intended to appeal to the American People, over the head of the Government.  He sent his communication for the two Houses of Congress, in care of the Secretary of State, to be delivered.  But Washington, whose patience had seemed inexhaustible, believed that the time had come to act boldly.  By his instruction Jefferson returned the communication to Genet with a note in which he curtly reminded the obstreperous Frenchman of a diplomat’s proper behavior.  As the American Government had already requested the French to recall Genet, his amazing inflation collapsed like a pricked bladder.  He was too wary, however, to return to France which he had served so devotedly.  He preferred to remain in this country, to become an American citizen, and to marry the daughter of Governor Clinton of New York.  Perhaps he had time for leisure, during the anticlimax of his career, to recognize that President Washington, whom he had looked down upon as a novice in diplomacy, knew how to accomplish his purpose, very quietly, but effectually.  A century and a quarter later, another foreigner, the German Ambassador, Count Bernstorff, was allowed by the American Government to weave an even more menacing plot, but the sound sense of the country awoke in time to sweep him and his truculence and his conspiracies beyond the Atlantic.

The intrigues of Genet emphasized the fact that a party had arisen and was not afraid to speak openly against President Washington.  He held in theory a position above that of parties, but the theory did not go closely with fact, for he made no concealment of his fundamental Federalism, and every one saw that, in spite of his formal neutrality, in great matters he almost always sided with Hamilton instead of with Jefferson.  When he himself recognized that the rift was spreading between his two chief Cabinet officers, he warned them both to avoid exaggerating their differences and pursuing any policy which must be harmful to the country.  Patriotism was the chief aim of every one, and patriotism meant sinking one’s private desires in order to achieve liberty through unity.  Washington himself was a man of such strict virtue