They were in the habit of
comparing French principles to a pestilence, and the French republic
to a raging tiger. Even Hamilton was so moved as to believe that the
United States were on the verge of anarchy, and he laid down his life
at last in a senseless duel because he thought that his refusal to
fight would disable him for leading the forces of order when the final
crash came.
Washington, with his strong, calm judgment and his penetrating vision,
was less affected than any of those who had followed and sustained
him; but he was by no means untouched, and if we try to put ourselves
in his place, his views seem far from unreasonable. He had at the
outset wished well to the great movement in France, although even then
he doubted its final success. Very soon, however, doubts changed
to suspicions, and suspicions to conviction. As he saw the French
revolution move on in its inevitable path, he came to hate and dread
its deeds, its policies, and its doctrines. To a man of his temper it
could not have been otherwise, for license and disorder were above all
things detestable to him. They were the immediate fruits of the French
revolution, and when he saw a party devoted to France preaching the
same ideas in the United States, he could not but feel that there was
a real and practical danger confronting the country. This was why he
felt that we needed an energetic policy, and it was on this account
that he distrusted the President's renewed effort for peace.
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