He regarded the attempt of the
House of Representatives to demand the papers as a matter of right
as an encroachment on the rights of the Executive Department, and he
therefore resisted it at once, and after his usual fashion left no one
in any doubt as to his views. So far as the President was concerned,
the struggle ended here; but it was continued for some time longer in
the House, where the debate went on for a fortnight, with the hostile
majority surely and steadily declining. The current out-doors ran more
and more strongly every day in favor of the administration, until
at last the contest ended with Ames's great speech, and then the
resolution to carry out the treaty prevailed. Washington's policy had
triumphed, and was accepted by the country.
The Jay treaty and its ratification had, however, other results
than mere domestic conflicts. Spain, acting under French influence,
threatened to rescind the Pinckney treaty which had just been made
so advantageously to the United States; but, like most Spanish
performances at that time, these threats evaporated in words, and the
Mississippi remained open. With France, however, the case was very
different. Our demand for the recall of Genet had been met by a
counter-demand for the recall of Morris, to which, of course, we were
obliged to accede, and the question as to the latter's successor was
a difficult and important one. Washington himself had been perfectly
satisfied with the conduct of Morris, but he was also aware that the
known dislike of that brilliant diplomatist to the revolutionary
methods then dominant in Paris had seriously complicated our relations
with France.
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