In December, 1796, the fourth Congress returned for its final session. As President Washington had made a tradition, he marked the opening of Congress by delivering his annual address to the Congress on the State of the Union. This would be Washington’s final annual address. It was just before the announcement that John Adams would become president when Washington’s term ended in March. This was three months after Washington had published his farewell address.
Final Annual Address
Over the course of his presidency, Washington had various people help him to write his addresses. James Madison largely wrote his first and second annual address. Madison, along with Thomas Jefferson, wrote much of the third address with some input from Alexander Hamilton.
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| George Washington, 1797 |
The speech itself focused on many positive accomplishments. It began by noting the continuing peace among the Indians in Ohio and the purchases of lands in western Georgia from the Creek nation. The president also confirmed that the US army had taken possession of Fort Detroit and other British outposts that had remained on US territory since the Revolutionary War. The government also continued to work with Britain on other border disputes with British Canada and other matters related to the Jay Treaty. It also continued efforts to define the southern border with Spain in accordance with the Treaty of San Lorenzo.
He also mentioned the continuing progress with Algiers regarding a treaty and the liberation of American sailors who had been held there. Washington also noted that the US needed to continue building a Navy in order to secure respect for American shipping around the world.
His address praised efforts to encourage more domestic manufactures. Washington saw this as a national security issue. The country needed to be able to produce items necessary for preparing for war. It also needed to reduce dependency on foreign suppliers for necessities. Agriculture was also important, and the government should actively support expanding agriculture to feed the growing nation.
The president called on Congress to establish both a national university for the collection and diffusion of information, as well as a military academy. Both institutions would bring young men from all parts of the country to learn together, in a way that would help retain the bonds of union. A military academy would assure military leaders would be ready to handle future conflicts, so that officers would not be learning on the job like they did during the Revolutionary War.
Washington also called on Congress to increase the pay for federal officers. As things currently stood, only men of wealth could afford to fill the ranks of federal offices. This greatly diminished the pool of qualified officers. As he put it “it should be repugnant to the vital principles of our Government virtually to exclude from public trusts talents and virtue unless accompanied by wealth.”
Washington also warned of looming dangers. French ships were attacking American commercial shipping in the West Indies. While he noted his desire “to maintain a cordial harmony” with the French Republic, he would also act to maintain the “rights and honor of our country.”
The president submitted his estimated budget to the House of Representatives, reporting that revenues continued to grow, allowing continued repayment of the war debt.
Washington concluded his address, saying
The situation in which I now stand for the last time, in the midst of the representatives of the people of the United States, naturally recalls the period when the administration of the present form of government commenced, and I can not omit the occasion to congratulate you and my country on the success of the experiment, nor to repeat my fervent supplications to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Sovereign Arbiter of Nations that His providential care may still be extended to the United States, that the virtue and happiness of the people may be preserved, and that the Government which they have instituted for the protection of their liberties may be perpetual.
As had become tradition Congress responded by thanking the president for his address. But this year was different. For the first time in eight years, James Madison did not chair the committee to write the House’s response. Madison and Washington had famously broken earlier in the year and were not speaking to each other. While the response did prairie the “wise, firm, and patriotic” conduct of Washington’s administration and expressed “gratitude and admiration” for his years of service, there was opposition to this language from several Democratic Republicans who thought the president did not deserve the praise.
Executive Privilege
Washington’s last year in office had been his most divisive. A big part of that division was the result of the Jay Treaty. When we discussed the Jay treaty a few episodes back, I mentioned that, even after passage, Congress still tried to kill it. The Constitution says that the President makes treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate. The House of Representatives plays no role in the process.
But given that the public, as well as the majority of Representatives in the House saw the treaty as a sellout to Britain, they continued to fight over it, even after it was signed and ratified. The Treaty required changes in law, including giving Britain most favored nation status for tariffs. It also called for setting up commissions that Congress had to fund. As a result, the House of Representatives continued to argue over the treaty, and implementing features required under the treaty, well into 1796.
House committees demanded that President Washington turn over all internal documents related to the Jay Treaty negotiations. Washington refused to comply. He argued that turning over internal discussions would prevent members of the executive branch from having frank and private discussions in the future. If they knew their thoughts and actions would be subject to Congressional scrutiny later, they would be much more guarded in their communications. As a result, Washington claimed a privilege not to turn over these communications. Nothing in the Constitution explicitly gave him this privilege, but he regarded it as a necessity toward maintaining an effective executive branch. This has since become known as executive privilege.
After Washington put the full weight of his authority in favor of the treaty, the House narrowly passed the authorizing funds. Following that vote in April 1796, Congress generally gave up on any further efforts to interfere with the treaty. The fight, however, hopelessly divided the two parties. Washington’s reputation took a powerful hit in terms of the support he once had across the political spectrum. It was his final break with Madison. From that point on, Washington pretty firmly sided with the Federalists.
French Relations
One of the bigger issues that Washington only touched on briefly in his final address was the US relations with France. The French Republic saw the Jay Treaty with Britain as a realignment of the US to be aligned with Britain. As such, France began attacking US shipping in the West Indies. As I noted in earlier episodes, France also played an active role in the 1796 elections. French Minister Pierre Adet had actively and openly campaigned for Thomas Jefferson for President and had implied war with France if John Adams won.
In the meantime, James Monroe, who had begun serving as the US Minister to France in 1794, had given an enthusiastic speech to the French National Convention pledging the affections of the American people to the French Republic. President Washington saw this speech as implying that the US would not maintain its neutrality, as Washington wanted.
After Washington signed the Jay Treaty with Britain, he expected Monroe to make efforts to ally French anger over the treaty and to make clear that the US would not violate the Treaty of Amity and Commerce that the US and France had signed back in 1778. Instead, Monroe seemed to side with the French radicals. He gave the appearance of encouraging French grievances and validated their condemnations of the Jay Treaty.
Things grew worse when the president learned that Monroe was leaking confidential information to Republican leaders in America to be published in opposition newspapers like Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Aurora, which Washington despised.
Monroe simply was not representing the administration. Rather, he was representing the Republican opposition in America. Monroe even told French officials that they should just tolerate the “wrongs” of President Washington’s administration and simply wait for the election of 1796 when the Republicans would win office and have a government much more favorable toward France. This only encouraged French officials to get involved more in the US elections.
This led Washington to recall Monroe as Ambassador in July, replacing him with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the brother of British Ambassador Thomas Pinckney. Officials, however, delayed the announcement so that Monroe would not have time to return to America and participate in the 1796 elections.
When Pinckney showed up in Paris in November, French officials refused to accept his credentials. This would lead to a larger dispute the following year under the Adams Administration, but we’ll get into that in a future episode.
About the same time his brother arrived in Paris, Thomas Pinckney was on his way home to America. He knew he was in the running to become Vice President and wanted to be home before the results of the election were announced. Washington appointed Senator Rufus King to replace him at the Court of St. James.
King had been a good Federalist Senator in New York. Washington had offered to make him Secretary of State when Edmund Randolph resigned in 1795. King had been a vocal advocate for the Jay Treaty, but declined appointment to State. In 1796 though, he accepted the ambassadorship to Britain, which he held until several years into the Jefferson Administration.
Treaty with Tripoli
The last foreign treaty negotiated under the Washington Administration was a treaty with Tripoli in North Africa. Its formal name was the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary.
As I mentioned in an earlier episode, US merchant ships were easy prey for the Barbary Pirates along the coast of North Africa. Because the US had no navy at all, there was no incentive for the raids to stop. In 1795, the US negotiated a treaty with the Dey of Algiers, where they essentially paid him off with cash and gifts, including building a 32 gun frigate, the Crescent, for Algiers. This treaty quieted the largest threat in North Africa, but not the only threat.
The ships operating out of Tripoli were separate from Algiers and continued to threaten US shipping. In August, 1796, when Tripoli's ships captured two American ships and condemned them as prizes. American Agent Joel Barlow worked with his contacts in Algiers to reach an agreement with the Dey of Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli
The treaty was a relatively simple one. The US would make a one time payment of just over $56,000 in return for Tripoli ships leaving US shipping alone and the return of US sailors held as slaves in Tripoli.
The price of $56,000 was very low when compared to the roughly $1 million given to Algiers a year earlier. The Tripoli Treaty also agreed that Algiers would have some responsibility for enforcing the treaty. This was a nod to the fact that Algiers was the regional power, and Americans were effectively trying to get Algiers to police Tripoli actions against US shipping.
The treaty also made very clear that this was a one-time payment and that no further payments would be made. This seems almost doomed to fail since a one-time payment would not assure good behavior into the indefinite future. But it was enough to keep things in check for the moment.
One interesting clause in the treaty sought to assure Tripoli that the United States was not a Christian nation and had no beef with Muslim nations. Article 11 of the treaty read:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religious or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
The treaty would not be ratified in the Senate until after John Adams assumed the presidency. But the agreement was in place before Washington left office. The Senate had little debate and easily ratified the treaty.
Final Attacks
Despite a few accomplishments in his final year, Washington’s last year as president was very frustrating. I’ve discussed many of these things over the last few episodes, but it is important to remember that Washington was experiencing all of them within a few months of each other.
By 1796, Washington was turning 64 years old. His health continued to decline. His back pain grew more intense. He suffered from facial neuralgia, hearing loss, and rheumatism. On top of all that, he had to have the last tooth in his mouth pulled in 1796. The increasing physical ailments paled in comparison to his increasing political isolation and attacks on his character.
The last original member of his cabinet, Edmund Randolph, resigned under scandal in early 1796. Politics had become so polarized that no Democratic Republican leaders would join his administration. His cabinet consisted of Federalists, but men with whom he did not have long histories. The split over the Jay Treaty debates had severed his relationships with other leaders like Jefferson and Madison.
President Washington had struggled to remain above partisan politics and to be a consensus leader who all Americans supported. That also seemed to be falling apart. The opposition press, particularly Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Aurora, grew increasingly vitriolic against the President.
Most of the attacks followed lines of either Washington had become a senile old fool who was being controlled by wicked men, or he was a tyrannical monster or closet monarchist who had hidden his true colors for many years but was finally revealing himself. Many press attacks just ventured into bizarre unsubstantiated attacks, including charges that Washington was a, a womanizer, a miser, and a blasphemer. Some of the stories dredged up accusations that he had committed battlefield atrocities during the French and Indian War. One article even asserted that Washington had been a paid British agent during the war taking bribes from the British during the Revolution. While this charge was based on forged documents, Washington had to quietly seethe, believing it unseemly to respond to them.
In July of 1796, Thomas Paine wrote an open letter to Washington. The main source of Paine’s venom came from the fact that the administration had allowed him to languish in a French prison during the reign of terror. His long and rambling letter attacked Washington’s support of the Jay Treaty, but went well beyond that even attacking Washington’s performance as General during the Revolutionary War. A major thrust of the letter attacked Washington for abandoning France as an ally and seemingly putting America under the thumb of Great Britain once again, thus betraying everything for which their generation had fought. Paine ended his letter with the following:
If there is sense enough left in the heart to call a blush into the cheek, the Washington administration must be ashamed to appear.———And as to you, sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide, whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any?
Members of the political opposition even called for Washington’s impeachment. An anonymous article by the House clerk, John Beckley charged that Washington had stolen public funds by overdrawing his presidential salary. The charges referred to the president as a “common swindler” who deserved impeachment. Washington received a very generous $25,000 annual salary. But that amount was meant to run his household and his administration, paying his staff and running the executive office. It’s possible that there were some cost overruns, but the notion that the President was deliberately stealing funds through fraud was particularly galling to Washington’s sense of honor. In fact, he was still nearly broke. He was forced to sell some of his land to pay for his return to Mount Vernon
Washington was especially sensitive to attacks on his character. Also in July, well before Paine’s letter, Washington wrote his last letter of any significance to Thomas Jefferson. He bemoaned the attacks on him and his administration.
until within the last year or two, I had no conception that Parties Would, or even could go, the length I have been Witness to; nor did I believe until lately, that it was within the bounds of probability—hardly within that of possibility, that while I was using my utmost exertions to establish a national character of our own, independent, as far as our obligations, and justice would permit, of every nation of the earth; and wished, by steering a steady course, to preserve this Country from the horrors of a desolating war, that I should be accused of being the enemy of one Nation, and subject to the influence of another;3 and to prove it, that every act of my Administration would be tortured, and the grossest, & most insiduous mis-representations of them be made (by giving one side only of a subject, and that too in such exagerated, & indecent term[s] as could scarcely be applied to a Nero; a notorious defaulter; or even to a common pickpocket).
I’ve only focused on the attacks on Washington. Of course he had his many supporters. The majority of the country still strongly supported him. But Washington could not help but focus on the criticism. His dream of being universally esteemed could not survive in a country that was becoming increasingly divided, and that a portion of Americans saw Washington on one side of that divide. President Washington had had enough, and could not wait to end his presidency and go home.
Next week: Washington ends his presidency and goes home, following the inauguration of President John Adams.
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Next Episode 398 John Adams Inauguration (coming soon)
Previous Episode 396 Election of 1796
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Further Reading
Websites
Eighth Annual Address to Congress https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/eighth-annual-address-congress
Minister Monroe: Navigating Complicated French-American Relations in the Late 18th Century https://jamesmonroemuseum.umw.edu/2025/11/10/minister-monroe-navigating-complicated-french-american-relations-in-the-late-18th-century
James Monroe, Minister to France: https://www.sparknotes.com/biography/monroe/section5
1797 Treaty of Tripoli https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/1797-treaty-of-tripoli
Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796 [treaty text]: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1796t.asp
Joel Barlow And The Treaty With Tripoli https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/joel-barlow-and-the-treaty.pdf
Cantor, Milton. “Joel Barlow’s Mission to Algiers.” The Historian, vol. 25, no. 2, 1963, pp. 172–94. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24442368
Crane, Jacob. “Reading American Secularism in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli.” American Quarterly, vol. 72, no. 2, 2020, pp. 403–22. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27066935
POSTON, BROOK. “‘Bolder Attitude’: James Monroe, the French Revolution, and the Making of the Monroe Doctrine.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 124, no. 4, 2016, pp. 282–315. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26322616
“George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, 6 July 1796,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-20-02-0255
“Thomas Paine to George Washington, 30 July 1796,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-20-02-0329
Tagg, James D. “Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Attack on George Washington.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 100, no. 2, 1976, pp. 191–230. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20091053
Edmund S. Berkeley, and Dorothy S. Berkeley. “‘The Ablest Clerk in the U. S.’ John James Beckley.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 70, no. 4, 1962, pp. 434–46. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4246892
DeConde, Alexander. “Washington’s Farewell, the French Alliance, and the Election of 1796.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 43, no. 4, 1957, pp. 641–58. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1902277
Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)
Blyth, Stephen C. History of the War Between the United States and Tripoli, and Other Barbary Powers, Salem Gazette, 1806 [Google Books]:
Bond, Beverley, W. The Monroe Mission to France, 1794-1796, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1907.
Jahoda, Gloria “John Beckley; Jefferson’s Campaign Manager” Bulletin of the Public Library, Vol. 64, No 5, May 1960, pp. 247-260.
Monroe, James A View of the Conduct of the Executive, in the Foreign Affairs of the United States, Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin Bache, 1797.
Smith, William L. The Pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency Examined; and the Charges against John Adams Refuted, Philadelphia: [no publisher listed] 1796.
Vivian, Herbert Tunisia and the Modern Barbary Pirates, New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1899.
Wood, John The History of the Administration of John Adams, Esq., Late President of the United States, New York: Barlas and Ward, 1802.
Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*
Amon, Harry, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity, Univ Press of Va. 1990.
Brown, Ralph A. The Presidency of John Adams, Univ. of Kansas Press, 1975.
Chernow, Ron Alexander Hamilton, Penguin Press, 2004.
Chernow, Ron Washington, A Life, Penguin Press, 2010.
Chervinsky, Lindsay M. Making the Presidency John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic, Oxford Univ. Press, 2024.
Chervinsky, Lindsay M. The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, Belknap Press, 2020.Cunningham, Noble E. The Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Organization, 1789-1801, Univ. of NC Press, 1957 (borrow on archive.org).
Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800, Oxford Univ. Press, 1993 (borrow on archive.org).
Kelly, Robert E. Neck and Neck to the White House: The Closest Presidential Elections, 1796-2000, McFarland, 2011 (borrow on archive.org).
Kurtz, Stephen G. The Presidency of John Adams: The Collapse of Federalism, 1795-1800, Literary Licensing, LLC, 2011.
Malone, Dumas Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, Little Brown & Co. 1962 (borrow on archive.org).
McCullough, David John Adams, Simon & Schuster, 2001.
McGrath, Tim James Monroe: A Life, Dutton, 2020.
Meacham, Jon Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Random House, 2012
Miller, John C. Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation (or Portrait in Paradox), Harper & Brothers, 1959 (borrow on archive.org)
Nester, William The Hamiltonian Vision, 1789-1800, Potomac Books, 2012.
Pasley, Jeffrey L. The First Presidential Contest: 1796 and the Founding of American Democracy, University Press of Kansas, 2016.
Randall, Willard Sterne Thomas Jefferson: A Life, Henry Holt and Co. 1993.
Sears, Louis M. George Washington and the French Revolution, Wayne State Univ. Press, 1960.
Sharp, James R. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis, Yale Univ. Press, 1993 (relevant chapter on JSTOR).
Spalding, Matthew and Patrick Garrity A Sacred Union of Citizens, Roman & Littlefield, 1996 (borrow on archive.org).
Staloff, Darren Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding, Hill and Wang, 2005.
Tagg, James Benjamin Franklin Bache and the Philadelphia Aurora, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1991 - Chapter 10: “Partisan Rage: The Assault on Washington and the Election of 1796.” Benjamin Franklin Bache and the Philadelphia “Aurora,” (available on JSTOR).
Unger, Harlow G. "Mr. President": George Washington and the Making of the Nation's Highest Office, Da Capo Press, 2013.
Wood, Gordon S. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, Oxford Univ. Press, 2009.
* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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