I therefore require that you will
give the subject mature consideration, that such measures as shall be
deemed most likely to effect this desirable purpose may be adopted
without delay." These instructions were written on April 12, and on
the 18th Washington was in Philadelphia, and had sent out a series
of questions to be considered by his cabinet and answered on the
following day. After much discussion, it was unanimously agreed
to issue a proclamation of neutrality, to receive the new French
minister, and not to convene Congress in extra session. The remaining
questions were put over for further consideration.
Hamilton framed the questions, say the historians; Randolph drafted
the proclamation, says his biographer, in a very instructive and fresh
discussion of the relations between the Secretary of State and the
Attorney-General. It is interesting to know what share the President's
advisers took when he consulted them on this momentous question, but
the leading idea was his own. When the moment came, the policy long
meditated and matured was put in force. The world was told that a new
power had come into being, which meant to hold aloof from Europe,
and which took no interest in the balance of power or the fate of
dynasties, but looked only to the welfare of its own people and to the
conquest and mastery of a continent as its allotted tasks. The policy
declared by the proclamation was purely American in its conception,
and severed the colonial tradition at a stroke.
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