example, from eight
to nine or ten o'clock, lest the whole morning be taken up. The
President might invite what official character, members of Congress,
strangers, or citizens of distinction he pleased, in small parties
without exciting clamors; but this should always be done without
formality. His private life should be at his own discretion, as to
giving or receiving informal visits among friends and acquaintances;
but in his official character, he should have no intercourse with
society but upon public business, or at his levees.

Hamilton, in his reply, while he considered it a primary object for
the public good that the dignity of the presidential office should be
supported, advised that care should be taken to avoid so high a tone
in the demeanor of the occupant, as to shock the prevalent notions of
equality. The President, he thought, should hold a levee at a fixed
time once a week, remain half an hour, converse cursorily on
indifferent subjects with such persons as invited his attention, and
then retire. He should accept no invitations, give formal
entertainments twice, or at most, four times in the year; on levee
days to give informal invitations to family dinners; not more than six
or eight to be asked at a time, and the civility to be confined
essentially to members of the legislature, and other official
characters--the President never to remain long at table. The heads of
departments should, of course, have access to the President on
business. Foreign ministers of some descriptions should also be
entitled to it. Members of the Senate should also have a right of
_individual_ access on matters relative to the _public
administration_. The reason alleged by Hamilton for giving the Senate
this privilege, and not the Representatives, was, that in the
constitution "the Senate are coupled with the President in certain
executive functions, treaties, and appointments. This makes them in a
degree his constitutional counsellors, and give them a peculiar claim
to the right of access."

These are the only written replies that we have before us of
Washington's advisers on this subject. Colonel Humphreys, formerly one
of Washington's aides-de-camp, and recently secretary of Jefferson's
legation at Paris, was at present an inmate in the presidential
mansion. General Knox was frequently there; to these Jefferson assures
us, on Washington's authority, was assigned the task of considering
and prescribing the minor forms and