the national convention relative to neutral commerce.

{1793}

The term for which the President and Vice President had been elected
being about to expire on the third of March, the attention of the
public had been directed to the choice of persons who should fill
those high offices for the ensuing four years. Respecting the
President, but one opinion prevailed. From various motives, all
parties concurred in desiring that the present chief magistrate should
continue to afford his services to his country. Yielding to the weight
of the representations made to him from various quarters, General
Washington had been prevailed upon to withhold a declaration, he had
at one time purposed to make, of his determination to retire from
political life.

Respecting the person who should fill the office of Vice President,
the public was divided. The profound statesman who had been called to
the duties of that station, had drawn upon himself a great degree of
obloquy, by some political tracts, in which he had laboured to
maintain the proposition that a balance in government was essential to
the preservation of liberty. In these disquisitions, he was supposed
by his opponents to have discovered sentiments in favour of distinct
orders in society; and, although he had spoken highly of the
constitution of the United States, it was imagined that his balance
could be maintained only by hereditary classes. He was also understood
to be friendly to the system of finance which had been adopted; and
was believed to be among the few who questioned the durability of the
French republic. His great services, and acknowledged virtues, were
therefore disregarded; and a competitor was sought for among those who
had distinguished themselves in the opposition. The choice was
directed from Mr. Jefferson by a constitutional restriction on the
power of the electors, which would necessarily deprive him of the vote
to be given by Virginia. It being necessary to designate some other
opponent to Mr. Adams, George Clinton, the governor of New York, was
selected for this purpose.

Throughout the war of the revolution, this gentleman had filled the
office of chief magistrate of his native state; and, under
circumstances of real difficulty, had discharged its duties with a
courage, and an energy, which secured the esteem of the
Commander-in-chief, and gave him a fair claim to the favour of his
country. Embracing afterwards with ardour the system of state
su