Thomas Jefferson and the Giles Resolutions

E ARLY in 1793 the dispute between Federalists and Republicans over the Hamiltonian financial system reached a dramatic climax when Republicans in the House of Representatives tried unsuccessfully to drive Alexander Hamilton from office by censuring his management of public finances. Historians have long known that Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson took part in the final phase of this attack by secretly drafting censure resolutions that Representative William Branch Giles of Virginia presented in modified form to the House at the end of February I793. But they have not satisfactorily explained the circumstances that led Jefferson to take this unusual step nor have they appreciated the full extent of his involvement in the action against Hamilton. Indeed, the doyen ofJefferson biographers, Dumas Malone, went to great lengths to minimize his participation in this affair. In reality, the available evidence indicates that Jefferson played a key role almost from the start and that this activity marked the beginning of a significant change in his role as a Republican party leader.' Though during the debates on the Giles resolutions House Republicans repeatedly praised the disinterested political independence of their putative congressional author, Federalists quickly perceived in them Jefferson's fine hand. In a reference to the dilettantish Jefferson of Federalist legend, the father of Comptroller of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott confided to his son shortly after the defeat of the resolutions that the pedagogue who is at the head of one of the departments was deeply involved in the

American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Political Theory and Influence

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