You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

by Alexis Coe

Washington would hold eight more meetings of the cabinet—a term coined by Madison—in 1791.19 “[I]n these discussions, Hamilton & myself were daily pitted in the cabinet like two cocks,” Jefferson later wrote.20 His description turns meetings into a blood sport, with Washington as the referee and Jefferson and Hamilton the razor-beaked competitors. By 1792, their fights spilled out of the cockpit. Jefferson and Madison, who were ideological allies, quietly funded Philip Freneau’s National Gazette, which criticized all of Washington’s policies and attacked Federalist supporters; he was, at least in the first term, far too popular with the people to assault directly. Just as they had blamed Parliament for misleading the king, they now blamed Washington’s seemingly favorite adviser, Hamilton, for misleading the president. Hamilton was already promoting—and perhaps backing—John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States, a pro-administration paper; he sometimes wrote for it under the name “An American.”21 Neither publication bothered with the pretense of objectivity or balance. Most articles were written anonymously or pseudonymously, as was commonplace in early America; none were fact-checked, and everything, including personal lives, was fair game. Washington, who wished nothing more than to be a symbol of unity, was horrified. But the public couldn’t get enough of the infighting. Similar newspapers launched all over the country, inflaming partisanship in even the most remote regions.