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[[File:Edmond-Charles_Genêt.jpg|thumbnail|left|250px|Edmond Charles Genêt, 1793]]__NOTOC__
Edmond Charles Genêt served as French minister to the United States from 1793 to 1794. His activities in that capacity embroiled the United States and France in a diplomatic crisis, as the United States Government attempted to remain neutral in the conflict between Great Britain and Revolutionary France. Genêt’s recall ultimately resolved the controversy from his position. As a result of the Citizen Genêt affair, the United States established a set of procedures governing neutrality.
When Genêt arrived in the U.S. capital of Philadelphia in May to present his credentials, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson informed him that the United States Cabinet considered the outfitting of French privateers in American ports to be a violation of the U.S. policy of neutrality. Genêt’s mission ran into further difficulties when the U.S. Government expressed no interest in a new commercial treaty, as it already enjoyed favorable trading privileges in French ports. The U.S. Cabinet also refused to make advance payments on U.S. debts to the French government.
====Washington's Administration demands Genêt be recalled's recall====[[File:Edmund_Randolph,_head-and-shoulders_portrait.jpg|thumbnail|left|250px|Attorney General Edmund Randolph]]
Genêt ignored American warnings and allowed the outfitting of another French privateer, the Little Democrat. Defying numerous warnings from U.S. officials to detain the ship in port, Genêt continued to ready the ship to sail. Genêt also threatened to take his case to the American people, bypassing official government opposition. Genêt failed to realize that Washington and his neutrality policy were politically popular, and that his pro-British enemies would depict such an attempt as foreign meddling in American domestic affairs.
Washington’s Cabinet met to consider a response to Genêt’s defiant actions. All members agreed to request Genêt’s recall but were divided as to how to go about doing so. Before the Cabinet reached a decision, Genêt allowed the Little Democrat to sail and begin attacking British shipping. This direct violation of neutrality forced the U.S. Government to take more prompt action and request that the French government recalls Genêt. However, Secretary of State Jefferson stopped short of expelling Genet from the United States, as Hamilton had wished.
By the time Jefferson’s request for recall reached France, power had shifted from the more moderate Girondins, who had originally sent Genêt on his mission, to the radical Jacobins. French policy began to emphasize friendlier relations with neutral countries who could provide crucially needed food supplies. French officials were already dissatisfied with Genêt’s failure to fulfill his diplomatic mission, and the Jacobins suspected him of continued loyalty to the Girondins.
====Conclusion====
* Article: [https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/citizen-genet| The Citizen Genêt Affair, 1793–1794]
[[Category:US State Department]] [[Category:Wikis]][[Category:United States History]] [[Category:Colonial American Historyof the Early Republic]] [[Category:18th Century History]] [[Category:Political History]] [[Category:French History]][[Category:Diplomatic History]]
