George Cabot
George Cabot was an American merchant, seaman, and politician from Massachusetts. He represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate and was the presiding officer of the infamous Hartford Convention.
During and after his term in the Senate, Cabot was a major figure in the Hamiltonian faction of the Federalist Party and was a vocal supporter of war with Revolutionary France.
Early life
Cabot was born in Salem, Massachusetts. His father was Joseph Cabot, a ship merchant. His mother was Elizabeth Higginson. George was the seventh of ten siblings, including John Cabot, Joseph Cabot Jr., and Samuel Cabot. The Cabot family is originally from Jersey and Norman-French.In 1766, Cabot enrolled at Harvard College. After two years there, his father died. George inherited 600 pounds and rather than become a charge on his father's estate, dropped out to go to sea, where he became a cabin boy on the ship of his brother-in-law Joseph Lee. By the age of 21, he was captain of his own ship. While traveling, he became fluent in French and Spanish.
Business career
In 1775, Cabot and Lee formed a partnership in Beverly, Massachusetts, as merchants, trading the same goods they had transported as sailors.American Revolution
During the American Revolution, the Cabot family were ardent patriots. Cabot ships served as privateer vessels, raiding British merchants to support the revolutionary cause and turning a profit in the process. Some of their ships were captained by the famous privateer Hugh Hill.Some time after the Revolution, Cabot's business took him to New York City, where he was acquainted with Alexander Hamilton, who became a lifelong friend and political ally. The visit strengthened Cabot's preference for a strong federal government and led to his founding membership in the Federalist Party.
His business interests were suspended in 1794, during his service as Senator.
Early political career
Cabot's political career began in 1775, when he became a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. In 1777, Cabot was elected as Beverly town fire-ward and director and president of the Bridge Company, tasked with constructing the Essex Bridge, which first connected Beverly with Salem across the Danvers River.In 1777, the town of Beverly voted to reject the proposed Massachusetts Constitution, and Cabot was a member of a committee selected to draft objections. He opposed the proposed system of weighted representation and price controls, but was unsuccessful. That constitution was ultimately rejected by voters.
In August 1780, he was elected to the convention for a new Massachusetts Constitution. Populist Governor John Hancock, who supported the failed 1778 Constitution, accused his conservative opponents of being controlled by an "Essex Junto," including Cabot, which soon became a popular invective metonym.
In 1788, Cabot was a delegate to the Massachusetts convention to ratify the new United States Constitution, which he strongly supported. Along with Rufus King, Theophilus Parsons, and Fisher Ames, he successfully engineered Massachusetts ratification by persuading Hancock and Samuel Adams to support ratification.
In 1789, President George Washington breakfasted with Cabot at the latter's Beverly home when he was in town inspecting the country's first cotton mill and the new Essex Bridge.
U.S. Senate
2nd United States Congress (1791–1793)
In 1791, midway through the first presidential term of George Washington, Cabot was elected to the U.S. Senate. During his time in the Senate, he was principally concerned with finance and commerce, and was a supporter of his friend Alexander Hamilton's policies as Secretary of the Treasury.During his first Congress, Cabot was a member of the Committee on Appropriations and chair of the Committee on Fisheries. He became a founding member of the new Federalist Party, led by Hamilton and Vice President John Adams. Hamilton frequently consulted with Cabot on matters of revenue, commerce, and manufacturing. Cabot's bill to subsidize fishermen became a major feature of Hamilton's economic program.
Throughout the Congress, tensions with the Jeffersonian faction intensified both in the capital of Philadelphia and in the newspapers. Party differences were deepened by the ongoing French Revolution, which drew Jeffersonian support and Federalist revulsion. Cabot himself stood out as an ardent Francophobe, and by extension, an Anglophile. After the Genêt affair, Cabot called for the French ambassador's dismissal and personally persuaded Vice President Adams to urge Washington to remove Genêt.
3rd United States Congress (1793–1795)
In his second Congress, Cabot opposed Secretary Jefferson's attempts at establishing favorable trade with France, blocking the election of Jeffersonian Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania to the Senate. He remained a leader in matters of commerce and finance and helped pass a bill laying the groundwork for a national Navy. In 1793, he was named a director of the First Bank of the United States.Amid rising United States tensions with Great Britain, Cabot joined Senators Rufus King, Oliver Ellsworth, and Caleb Strong in calling for the appointment of Hamilton as special minister to negotiate a treaty with Britain. However, the public clamor that would be aroused by Hamilton's appointment led Washington to appoint John Jay instead. Though he thought it less than ideal, Cabot was one of the most uncompromising defenders of the resulting Jay Treaty with Great Britain as the best possible compromise at a time when war would have destroyed the Union.
4th United States Congress (1795–1796)
During the debate over the Jay Treaty in his final Congress, Jefferson accused Cabot of supporting the dissolution of the Union, based on Cabot's belief that rejection of the treaty would lead to ruinous war. Jefferson also quoted Cabot as supporting a "President for life and an hereditary Senate."In May 1796, Cabot returned to Massachusetts and resigned from office, citing the growing bitterness and personal character of Philadelphia politics. He waited until his friend Benjamin Goodhue was elected as his successor, then promptly sent his resignation to the Massachusetts General Court. It became effective in June.
John Adams era (1797–1801)
Shortly after Cabot's resignation from the Senate, fellow Massachusetts Federalist John Adams was elected to the presidency. Though he did not actively participate in the campaign, Cabot supported Adams over Hamilton's preferred choice, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the current Minister to France.Quasi-War
As a private citizen, Cabot remained intensely interested in the progress of the French Revolution and intensely opposed to the Francophile policy of Thomas Jefferson, now serving as Vice President. He wrote that "the first and highest duty of the electors was to prevent the election of a French President." Hamilton and Fisher Ames each urged the appointment of Cabot as part of a three-man mission to France, but Washington and Adams each declined. Adams instead chose Elbridge Gerry, whose reputation in France, particularly with French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, was more positive.Cabot himself was opposed to the appointment of such a commission, believing that the time for negotiation with France had passed. After Pinckney's dismissal as Minister to France, Cabot called for war measures against France, including opposition to the establishment of any embassy whatsoever. He firmly believed that any continued diplomacy with France would only encourage Jacobinism in the United States.
In the winter of 1797–98, tensions with France escalated. Cabot, along with Pickering, Ames, Oliver Wolcott, and James McHenry, formed the faction of "war Federalists" led by Hamilton. They opposed the moderate Federalists and Jefferson's Republicans, who sought peace with France at any cost.
In March, President Adams declared to Congress that negotiations had failed and that the United States must arm for potential war. The revelation of the XYZ affair effectively silenced all opposition and enabled Federalists to pass legislation creating a separate Department of the Navy. Adams appointed Cabot as the first United States Secretary of the Navy, but Cabot refused the appointment. Benjamin Stoddert filled the position in his place.
Cabot became involved in the debate over the organization of a provisional army. Former President Washington suggested Hamilton, Pinckney, and former Secretary of War Henry Knox, in that order, serve as major generals. Despite this, Adams granted Knox the first rank. Cabot sided with Washington, Hamilton, and other leading Federalists in objecting to Knox's elevation; President Adams gave in, but the entire affair created divisions within the Federalists. Some Federalists suggested the Jeffersonian Elbridge Gerry, now returned from his mission to France, had undue influence over Adams's decision-making.
In 1799, Adams, without consulting his cabinet, appointed Minister to the Netherlands William Vans Murray to lead a commission to renew peace negotiations with France, disappointing the war Federalists. Cabot remained strictly opposed to any negotiation with France without first advances toward reconciliation by the French.
Despite his ardent opposition to Adams's policy toward France, Cabot sought to reconcile the factions within the Federalist Party, for fear of the party's destruction. Despite his efforts and frequent correspondence with leaders of both factions, the Federalist Party divided between the Adams and Pinckney-Hamilton campaigns through the remainder of 1799.