executive must follow the constitution in all things, and he expected Congress and people to do
likewise. It was in this respect, above all, that the first President led America to an auspicious
start.
When Washington retired there were still fundamental aspects of the constitution waiting to be
brought to life, in particular the role of the judiciary. That began under the second President,
John Adams. Cantankerous, unloved, and quarrelsome, Adams was not the best choice to
succeed the eirenic and universally respected general. But he was very senior. He had been
through it all. He had served as vice president. He was also from New England, awaiting its
turn.' In Philadelphia a kind of caucus of federalist politicians, mostly congressmen, decided it had to be Adams. They added Pinckney's brother to the slate, partly because he was from South Carolina, and therefore balanced the slate, partly because his treaty was popular. Hamilton, neither eligible nor willing to run himself, did not like Adams and believed he would be difficult to manage. He preferred Pinckney and engaged in a furtive plot to have Southern votes switched and get him in ahead of Adams. But it misfired, and as a result the New Englanders dropped Pinckney. Adams won, by seventy-one electoral votes; but Jefferson, whostood' for the
Republicans-he refused to allow the word ran' as undignified, preferring the English term-got almost as many, sixty-eight, and therefore became vice-president. Adams, quite liking Jefferson despite their differences, but not wishing to have him aboard, labeled Hamilton, whom he held responsible,a Creole bastard'-Adams' wife Abigail, more decorously, called him ‘Cassius-trying
to assassinate Caesar.' Adams, despite his low opinion of Old Muttonhead, tried hard to maintain
the continuity of his Government, keeping on Washington's old crony Timothy Pickering as
secretary of state (though eventually obliged to sack him) and promoting Hamilton's able deputy,
Oliver Wolcott, to the Treasury. Adams even went so far as to keep up Washingtonian pomp,
dressing for his inauguration in an absurd pearl-coloured suit adorned with a sword and a huge
hat with cockade. But he was a fat little man, who looked half Washington's height.' For the first but by no means the last time in presidential history, his best physical and social asset was his splendid spouse. Adams' presidency was dominated by one issue-peace or war? Could America stay out of the global conflict? On this point he was at one with Washington: at almost any cost, America should stay neutral. Adams underlined this section in the Farewell Address, and caused the whole to be read out every February in Congress, a tradition maintained until the mid-1970s when, in the sudden collapse of presidential authority after Watergate, it lapsed. It was Adams' great merit as president that he kept America out of the war, despite many difficulties and with (as he saw it) a disloyal Cabinet and vice-president. Jefferson worked hard to have the government come to the aid of France and republicanism. Hamilton, outside the government but with his creatures inside it, hoped to exploit the war by destroying what remained of the Spanish and French empires in North America. He called for an enormous standing army of 10,000 and got the aged Washington to lend a certain amount of support to the idea. Adams accused Hamilton of intriguing to be made head of it and proclaim a dictatorship of what he termeda
regal government.' This was exaggeration. But it was true that he had visions of personally
marching a large professional force through the Louisiana Territory and into Mexico, turning all
these 'liberated lands' over to American settlement. Adams thought this was all nonsense. He
believed that all North America would fall into the United States' hands, like ripe plums, in the
fullness of time, but it would be outrageous, and unrepublican, and anyway expensive, to
conquer the continent now. Like England, he believed in `wooden walls,' a strong navy (to