Under these impressions he asks
for your candid and undisguised opinion."
Only the replies of Hamilton and Adams have been preserved. Hamilton
advised Washington that while "the dignity of the office should be
supported ... care will be necessary to avoid extensive disgust or
discontent.... The notions of equality are yet, in my opinion, too general
and strong to admit of such a distance being placed between the President
and other branches of the Government as might even be consistent with a
due proportion." Hamilton then sketched a plan for a weekly levee: "The
President to accept no invitations, and to give formal entertainments only
twice or four times a year, the anniversaries of important events of the
Revolution." In addition, "the President on levee days, either by himself
or some gentleman of his household, to give informal invitations to family
dinners ... not more than six or eight to be invited at a time, and the
matter to be confined essentially to members of the legislature and other
official characters. The President never to remain long at table."
Hamilton observed that his views did not correspond with those of other
advisers, but he urged the necessity of behaving so as "to remove the idea
of too immense inequality, which I fear would excite dissatisfaction and
cabal.
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