1271. CINCINNATI SOCIETY, Foundation.—
When the army was about to be disbanded,
and the officers to take final leave,
perhaps never again to meet, it was natural
for men who had accompanied each other
through so many scenes of hardship, of difficulty,
and danger, who, in a variety of instances,
must have been rendered mutually
dear by those aids and good offices to which
their situations had given occasion; it was
natural, I say, for these to seize with fondness
any proposition which promised to bring them
together again at certain and regular periods.
And this, I take for granted, was the origin
and object of this institution; and I have no
suspicion that they foresaw, much less in
tended, those mischiefs which exist perhaps
in the forebodings of politicians only. I doubt,
however, whether, in its execution, it would
be found to answer the wishes of those who
framed it, and to foster those friendships it
was intended to preserve. The members
would be brought together at their annual
assemblies, no longer to encounter a common
enemy, but to encounter one another in
debate and sentiment. For something, I suppose,
is to be done at these meetings, and,
however unimportant, it will suffice to produce
difference of opinion, contradiction and irritation.
The way to make friends quarrel is to
put them in disputation under the public eye.
An experience of near twenty years has taught
me that few friendships stand this test, and
that public assemblies, where every one is
free to act and speak, are the most powerful
looseners of the bands of private friendship.
I think, therefore, that this institution would
fail in its principal object, the perpetuation
of the personal friendships contracted through
the war. [78]
—
To General Washington. Washington ed. i, 333.
Ford ed., iii, 465.
(A.
April. 1784)
