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76

VANDERLYN AND JARVIS.

Renaissance. With regard to Allston it was more or less a passing phase, but with Vanderlyn the spell of Raphael, Titian, and Correggio colored the whole of his art. His greatest painting, the "Ariadne of Naxos," though strongly reminiscent of Titian's sleeping Venuses, nevertheless remains one of the most exquisite examples of the nude painted by an American artist.

Of this group Jarvis conformed more nearly perhaps to the popular conception of the artist for he was essentially a Bohemian, with a life marked by the vicissitudes and vagaries generally experienced by people of that temperament. He was the nephew and namesake of the founder of Methodism, but had little in common with his distinguished relative, save a vigorous mind and a magnetic personality. He was brought from England by his father at the age of five, and though English-born never came under the influence of the English painters of his time. He was self-taught, and in the

beginning beginning painted many hopeless daubs, but his enthusiasm in due time conquered his difficulties, and he became, if not a great painter, at least a skilful and popular one. He made more money than any artist of the day, but he spent it lavishly, and died in Boston at the age of fifty-four, wrecked both physcially and financially by his improvident mode of life.

It is thus evident that the early period of American art did not lack striking figures, a few of whom were men of real genius. In view of the isolation and the lack of appreciation that the painter had to contend with, the marvel is that anything at all worthy was produced. The necessity for making a livelihood forced the majority of them to become portrait painters, but what has proved, perhaps, a loss to art has been a gain to history, for on their canvases the men who molded our nation out of a disorganized group of petty sovereignties, stand faithfully before us, possessed of such immortal existence as art can give.

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THE UNITED STATES

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CHAPTER I.

1789.

ORGANIZATION OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

Washington the country's choice for President - His reluctance to accept the office - Election of members to Congress The electoral vote - Washington's unanimous election - The election of Adams to the VicePresidency - Washington's journey to New York - His inauguration Congress organized for business — Dispute as to Washington's title - The inaugural address - Governmental departments organized - Salaries of the officials - Debate on acts establishing departments - Hamilton's remarks in The Federalist - Judiciary appointments - Amendments to the Constitution The problems confronting Washington.

T

HE great experiment was at last on trial. After long and earnest discussion, as we have seen, the Constitution had been adopted, though its adoption was received with great doubt and apprehension in various parts of the country. Many thought that its ultimate sucess was extremely problematical, while others disliked its aim and provisions, and had determined to oppose it in every way possible. But, as eleven of the States had adopted it, a trial of its merits or demerits was to be made, notwithstanding the misgivings and even the ill-wishes of its opponents. What little remained of the old Congress, passed out of existence quietly. After the passage of the Ordinance of 1787, it had slowly sunk into supineness, feeling, no doubt, that nothing of importance could be done by it

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until the outcome of the Constitutional Convention was definitely known. In 1788, when the adoption of the Constitution became certain, the members of the old Congress betook themselves to their homes, there to assist in the organization of the new government.* On July 2, 1788, however, before the members departed, the President of Congress rose in his seat, and, after announcing that nine States had ratified the Constitution, said that Congress should take the steps necessary to put the new government into operation. On Septem

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WASHINGTON'S RELUCTANCE TO REËNTER PUBLIC LIFE.

ber 13, 1788, Congress passed a resolution that on the first Wednesday in January, 1789, Presidential electors be chosen in the various States, that on the first Wednesday in February these electors should vote for President and Vice-President, and that on the first Wednesday in March the new Congress should assemble at New York.*

While there had been some doubt as to the successful operation of the new government, none existed as to the man who should be placed at its head and under whom the great experiment should be tested.† That man was George Washington. He had often expressed his pleasure at being able to rest from his arduous labors during the war, and thought that some one else should be called upon to shoulder the burdens of the Presidency; but in this present crisis it was thought that his services were imperatively necessary to insure the success of the new Constitution. In many ways Washington had been informed of this public sentiment, having received numerous letters from friends, correspondents, and public men all over the country, all urgently entreating him to accept the position, should the electors choose him to fill

*Edward Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, p. 8; McMaster, With the Fathers, pp. 150-152.

Curtis, Constitutional History, vol. ii., p. 95. Curtis reviews the necessity of organic laws to supply the machinery of the new government, the mode of choosing the President, his functions, and the effect of the nominating convention on the electoral system (chap. iii.).

it.* But he was reluctant to enter again upon public life. In a letter to Hamilton, he says:

"If I am not grossly deceived in myself, I should unfeignedly rejoice, in case the electors, by giving their votes to some other person, would save me from the dreadful dilemma of being forced to accept or refuse. If that may not be, I am in the next place, earnestly desirous of searching out the truth, and of knowing whether there does not exist a probability that the government would just as happily and effectually be carried into execution, without my aid, as with it. I am truly solicitous to obtain all the previous information which the circumstances will afford, and to determine, (when the determination can no longer be postponed,) according to the principles of right reason, and the dictates of a clear

conscience, without too great a reference to the unforeseen consequences which may affect my person or reputation. Until that period, I may fairly hold myself open to conviction, though I allow your sentiments to have weight in them; and I shall not pass by your arguments, without giving them as dispassionate a consideration as I can possibly bestow upon them.

"In taking a survey of the subject, in whatever point of light I have been able to place it, I will not suppress the acknowledgment, my dear sir, that I have always felt a kind of gloom upon my mind, as often as I have been taught to expect I might, and, perhaps, must be called upon ere long to make the decision. You will, I am well assured, believe the assertion, though I have little expectation it would gain credit from those who are less acquainted with me, that if I should receive the appointment, and should be prevailed upon to accept, the acceptance would be attended with more difficulty and reluctance, than I ever experienced before. It would be, however, with a fixed and sole determination of lending whatever assistance might be in my power to promote the public weal, in hopes that at a convenient and early period, my services might be dispensed with; and that I might be permitted once more to retire, to pass an unclouded evening, after the stormy day of life, in the bosom of domestic tranquillity."

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