George Washington: Proclamation of Neutrality

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

As commander in chief of the Continental army during the Revolutionary War, George Washington grasped the necessity and utility of establishing a Franco-American alliance. In 1778 France and the United States signed two accords, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance. This U.S.-French military alliance proved instrumental to American victories during the war, and following a nearly monthlong siege in 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia, the British under General Cornwallis surrendered to a combined American and French army. It was the strength of the newly arrived French fleet that ultimately forced Cornwallis's hand. Two years later, the Treaty of Paris officially ended the war.

Whether the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a French Republic in 1792 ended American treaty obligations to France soon became a subject for debate in the United States. Meanwhile, Washington was reelected president in November 1792. When revolutionaries executed King Louis XVI on January 21, 1793, and soon after declared war on Great Britain and much of continental Europe, the administration's interpretation of U.S. treaty obligations to France became critical. The administration's response to these events in Europe—a response that helped split the president's cabinet and create the new nation's first political parties—successfully kept the United States out of a widening European war and sustained the still-fragile Union. Also, in the long term, the manner in which Washington asserted his presidential authority established the lasting precedent of executive dominance in the formulation and discharge of foreign policy.

At the time that the Proclamation of Neutrality was issued, Washington's cabinet retained its original members: Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state, Edmund Randolph as attorney general, Alexander Hamilton as secretary of treasury, and Henry Knox as secretary of war. Using these men as a council of advisers rather than simply as executors of the president's policies or as independent European-style ministers proved to be one of the most enduring precedents established by Washington. On occasion, the president even took a majority vote, counting his own among the five cast; most of the time, however, he sought advice to guide his decision making. This was the case with the cabinet meetings leading up to his neutrality proclamation.

In February 1793 Washington and his cabinet began to discuss several matters relating to revolutionary France, such as the extant debt to France, whether to extend a loan to its new government, and whether to receive Edmond Genet, the minister to the United States newly appointed by France. On April 1, Jefferson received news that revolutionary France had declared war against several countries, including Great Britain. Within days some Americans, particularly in South Carolina, were seeking to outfit privateers to prey on British shipping, action that Washington immediately opposed and which, if left unchecked, promised to drag the United States into the European conflict. To address with finality the many loose ends of American policy toward France that had become even more entangled owing to pro-French public opinion, Washington sent each cabinet member thirteen questions dealing with Franco-American relations. First on the list was this: “Shall a proclamation issue for the purpose of preventing interferences of the Citizens of the United States in the War between France & Great Britain &ca? Shall it contain a declaration of Neutrality or not? What shall it contain?”

The next day Washington called a meeting with his cabinet to explore these questions. Disagreement ensued, largely with the two northerners, Knox and Hamilton, opposing the two Virginians, Jefferson and Randolph. Hamilton was pro-British in sentiment, not least because his whole vision of a commercial, centralized United States hinged on a close relationship with Great Britain and stability in Europe. Jefferson had been in favor of the French Revolution from the beginning and was intensely anti-British, seeing Hamilton's commercialism as deadly to his own desire for a decentralized, agrarian republic. Randolph typically sided with Jefferson but often proved to be the voice of compromise on critical issues. Washington, as usual, was to mediate between these competing views, based not only on contrasting principles but also on each man's personal experience and on sectionalism.

The cabinet did agree that “a Proclamation shall issue forbidding our Citizens to take part in any hostilities on the seas with or against any of the belligerent Powers … and enjoining them from all acts & proceedings inconsistent with the duties of a friendly nation towards those at War.” Randolph would write the document, and president and cabinet would meet again on April 22 to approve a final draft and to address Washington's eleven remaining questions. In the end, the cabinet meeting of April 22 produced no answers to any of the president's other questions, so intense was the disagreement among the men; each secretary sent Washington written answers. The meeting did, however, produce the now-famous Proclamation of Neutrality. Prudently, Washington conducted these deliberations while Congress was in recess so as to avoid any prolongation of the issue.

The most telling fact about the proclamation is that it does not contain the word neutrality. Rather, the short document declares it the “duty and interest” of all Americans to “pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent Powers.” Washington, as president, is declaring that this is now the official policy of the United States. He wanted as much to inform Europe of U.S. intentions as he did to restrain and head off pro-French militarism among Americans. Indeed, the bulk of the proclamation is spent explicitly warning Americans that if they are caught “committing, aiding, or abetting hostilities against any of the said Powers” or smuggling “contraband,” the United States will not defend them or secure their release from foreign nations. In fact, perpetrators were to be punished under U.S. law if caught within the United States.

In various ways the proclamation effectively dealt with the immediate concerns about privateers, Genet, and trade with Europe. Jefferson criticized the American neutrality as effectively pro-British, since the larger English navy could easily blockade France, stopping trade between it and the United States; Hamilton recognized this fact, and happily so. Ultimately, however, Washington's neutrality policy gave a major boost to the American economy in the 1790s by substantially increasing the amount of American goods carried on American ships. These immediate benefits contributed to this proclamation's being one of the key policy statements issued by Washington.

The carefully formulated and shrewdly promulgated Proclamation of Neutrality put into action Washington's primary goal as the nation's first president: to preserve the new, still-tenuous Union while creating conditions in which it could flourish. The proclamation also revealed Washington's remarkable ability to exert power in the arena of foreign affairs at a time when the relationship between the executive and legislative branches was still under debate. The president realized that tying the United States permanently either to France or to Great Britain would be a grave mistake, in the short run and in the long run. European wars come and go, Washington knew, and it would be prudent to stay out of them. Three years later, in his Farewell Address, Washington reiterated and expanded upon the principles on which the Proclamation of Neutrality was based.