Washington: A Life

by Ron Chernow

squarely told Jefferson that “as to the idea of transforming this government into a monarchy, he did not believe there were ten men in the U.S. whose opinions were worth attention who entertained such a thought,”70 as Jefferson noted his words. This was tough language, tantamount to branding Jefferson a crackpot, and unlike anything Washington ever said to Hamilton. The secretary of state replied with stiff dignity: “I told him there were many more than he imagined . . . I told him that tho[ugh] the people were sound, there was a numerous sect who had monarchy in contemplation, that the Sec[retar]y of the Treasury was one of these.”71 Here the two men encountered a fundamental difference that could not be bridged. When Jefferson again talked about Hamilton corrupting the legislature, with many in Congress owning government paper, Washington described the problem as unavoidable “unless we were to exclude particular descriptions of men, such as the holders of the funds, from all office.”72 The president saw the real test of the funding system as its effectiveness and “that for himself, he had seen our affairs desperate and our credit lost and that this was in a sudden and extraordinary degree raised to the highest pitch.”