ch difficulty in saying so. "It behooves
the government of this country," wrote Washington to Hamilton, "to use
every means in its power to prevent the citizens thereof from embroiling
us with either of those powers, by endeavoring to maintain a strict
neutrality." It is difficult to conceive of a man being sincerely
desirous of helping neither one side nor the other; of injuring neither
one side nor the other; of maintaining, so far as help or harm could go,
an attitude of absolute impartiality towards both,--it is difficult to
conceive of such a man quarreling with the word "neutrality" as applied
to his position. But Jefferson, nevertheless, quarreled with it; not
frankly and directly as a thing he did not want, but captiously and
hypercritically objecting to the word to cover his dislike to the thing
itself. "A declaration of neutrality," he said, "was a declaration that
there should be no war, to which the Executive was not competent."

It was true that the Executive was not competent to declare that there
should be no war; it was not true that the use of the word "neutrality"
could have any such application to the future as to prevent Congress,
when it should assemble, from declaring war should it see fit to do so.
But meanwhile, Congress not being in session, and no exigency having
arisen that made it desirable in the President's judgment to call an
extra session, he, with the assent of the cabinet,--for Jefferson did
not venture upon direct opposition,--issued a proclamation "to exhort
and warn the citizens of the United States carefully to avoid all acts
and proceedings whatsoever" that might interfere with "the duty and
interest of the United States" to "adopt and pursue a conduct friendly
and impartial towards the belligerent powers." The objectionable word
was left out in deference to Mr. Jefferson, who, really preferring that
there should be no proclamation at all, hoped to take the sting out of
it by the omission of a phrase. It was the thing said, not the way of
saying it, that the President insisted upon, as it was his duty to
preserve the peace till the legislature should declare for war, and his
inclination to preserve it altogether.

It can hardly be doubted that Jefferson and his friends saw as plainly
as the other party saw how perilous to the interests of the United
States a foreign war would probably be. But, while professing a desire
to avoid it, they were far more anxious, apparently, to give ai