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begged to be allowed to stay. Yet another revolutionary mob had assumed power in France, and Genet himself was now in danger of the guillotine. He sought, and was given, the first political asylum in the United States.
    Washington wrote: “I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced that we act for ourselves, and not for others.” He adopted a policy of strict neutrality in regard to the new French wars, alienating Jefferson in the process. Jefferson resigned at the end of 1793 and formed the Democratic-Republican Party.
    The first invasion and war with Native American nations also began in Washington’s second presidency. The 1785 and 1786 treaties forced on the northwest Native Americans by the federation of states had caused huge resentment; three thousand people died in the subsequent fighting. After a major U.S. defeat in present-day Ohio, the decisive 1794 battle at Fallen Timbers (near Toledo) imposed temporary peace along the border.
    In order to promote trade, finalize borders, and conclude various outstanding matters, the president sent Chief Justice John Jay to Britain to negotiate a treaty of commerce. It was the first major U.S. international trade negotiation. The Jay Treaty was signed in 1794 but provoked bitter criticism from pro-French congressmen. Washington was accused of negotiating an abject surrender, and Congress demanded the details. In fact, the treaty was a major success.
    Through the Jay Treaty, Britain withdrew its trading posts from the Ohio country, the U.S.-British northern borders were confirmed mostly in U.S. favor, prewar debts were written off, trade was established between the United States and British West Indian colonies, the United States was given a “most favored nation” status in British trade, and the exports of both countries increased. What Britain would not agree to was a demand for compensation for freeing the slaves of its former colonies, withdrawing the right to impose a military trade embargo against its enemies (at that time France, in two later world wars Germany), and stopping impressment of seamen into the Royal Navy.
    Britain was leading a twenty-two-year world war against militarist France and refused to have its hands tied in such a way. By 1796, it was the French who harassed U.S. ships and threatened sanctions. Eventually gunfire was exchanged, and in 1798 there was almost war. As a result, Washington realized that the United States needed her own warships and commissioned the first. One of them, USS Constitution, was built from captured British frigate plans.
    Following the success of the Jay Treaty, Washington sent his ambassadors to Spain to negotiate another treaty. The Treaty of San Lorenzo gained U.S. access to Spanish Mississippi and to the Spanish port of New Orleans. Yet the political maneuverings of Congress, the virulent attacks by Jefferson’s supporters, and the public criticism of the excise tax had exhausted Washington. His sight and hearing had deteriorated further, and he refused to run for a third presidential term.
    The farewell address he gave on September 19, 1796, is reread every year in the Senate. In three specifics Washington spoke against “the baneful effects of the Spirit of [political] Party,” endorsed a foreign policy of independence but not isolation, and proposed that “the very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government pre-supposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.”
    Once more, George Washington returned to Mount Vernon andfarming. Apart from a brief period in 1798, when he was commissioned commander in chief of a new army raised to resist the potential French invasion, he remained at home until his death.

    Copyright © 2009 by Matt Haley
    In the winter of 1799, he came down with a fever and throat infection after riding. He died on the evening of December 14, in some pain. He said, “I die hard but