w. Washington himself gave
it color, for he felt very rightly that he was the choice of the whole
people and not of a party. He wished to rise above party, and in fact
to have no party, but a devotion of all to the good of the country.
The time came when he sorrowed for and censured party bitterness and
party strife, but it is to be observed that the party feeling which he
most deplored was that which grew up against his own policies and his
own administration. The fact was that Washington, who rose above party
more than any other statesman in our history, was nevertheless, like
most men of strong will and robust mind, and like all great political
leaders, a party man, as we shall have occasion to see further on.
It is true that his cabinet contained the chiefs and founders of two
great schools of political thought, which have ever since divided
the country; but when these parties were once fairly developed, the
cabinet became a scene of conflict and went to pieces, only to be
reformed on party lines. When it was first made up, the two parties of
our subsequent history, with which we are familiar, did not exist, and
it was in the administration of Washington that they were developed.
Yet the cabinet of 1789 was, so far as there were parties, a partisan
body. The only political struggle that we had had was over the
adoption of the Constitution. The parties of the first Congress were
the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, the friends and the enemies
of the Constitution. Among those who opposed the Constitution were
many able and distinguished men, but Washington did not invite Sam
Adams, or George Mason, or Patrick Henry, or George Clinton to enter
his cabinet. On the contrary, he took only friends and supporters
of the Constitution. Hamilton was its most illustrious advocate.
Randolph, after some vacillation, had done very much to turn the
wavering scale in Virginia in its favor. Knox was its devoted friend;
and Jefferson, although he had carped at it and criticised it in
his letters, was not known to have done so, and was considered, and
rightly considered, to be friendly to the new system. In other words,
the cabinet was made up exclusively of the party of the Constitution,
which was the victorious party of the moment. This was of course
wholly right, and Washington was too great and wise a leader to have
done anything else. The cabinet was formed with regard to existing
divisions, and, when those divisions changed,