[Footnote 1: Irving, iv, 378.]

[Footnote 2: Irving, iv, 383.]

With little delay Washington went back to the North with his army, expecting to see the first fruits of the capitulation. There were nearly seventeen thousand Allied troops at Yorktown of whom three thousand were militia of Virginia. The British force under Cornwallis numbered less than eight thousand men.

Months were required before the truce between the two belligerents resulted in peace. But the people of America hailed the news of Yorktown as the end of the war. They had hardly admitted to themselves the gravity of the task while the war lasted, and being now relieved of immediate danger, they gave themselves up to surprising insouciance. A few among them who thought deeply, Washington above all, feared that the British might indulge in some surprise which they would find it hard to repel.

But the American Revolution was indeed ended, and the American Colonies of 1775 were indeed independent and free. Even in the brief outline of the course of events which I have given, it must appear that the American Revolution was almost the most hare-brained enterprise in history. After the first days of Lexington and Concord, when the farmers and country-folk rushed to the centres to check the British invaders, the British had almost continuously a large advantage in position and in number of troops. And in those early days the Colonists fought, not for Independence, but for the traditional rights which the British Crown threatened to take from them. Now they had their freedom, but what a freedom! There were thirteen unrelated political communities bound together now only by the fact of having been united in their common struggle against England. Each had adopted a separate constitution, and the constitutions were not uniform nor was there any central unifying power to which they all looked up and obeyed. The vicissitudes of the war, which had been fought over the region of twelve hundred miles of coast, had proved the repellent differences of the various districts. The slave-breeder and the slave-owner of Virginia and the States of the South had little in common with the gnarled descendants of the later Puritans in New England. What principle could be found to knit them together? The war had at least the advantage of bringing home to all of them the evils of war which they all instinctively desired to escape. The numbers of the disaffected, particularly of the Loyalists who openly sided with the King and with the British Government, were much larger than we generally suppose, and they not only gave much direct help and comfort to the enemy, but also much indirect and insidious aid. In the great cities like New York and Philadelphia they numbered perhaps two fifths of the total population, and, as they were usually the rich and influential people, they counted for more than their showing in the census. How could they ever be unified in the American Republic? How many of them, like the traitorous General Charles Lee, would confess that, although they were willing to pass by George III as King, they still felt devotion and loyalty to the Prince of Wales?

Some of those who had leaned toward Loyalism, to be on what they supposed would prove the winning side, quickly forgot their lapse and were very enthusiastic in acclaiming the Patriotic victory. Those Irreconcilables who had not already fled did so at once, leaving their property behind them to be confiscated by the Government. On only one point did there seem to be unanimity and accord. That was that the dogged prosecution of the war and the ultimate victory must be credited to George Washington. Others had fought valiantly and endured hardships and fatigues and gnawing suspense, but without him, who never wavered, they could not have gone on. He had among them some able lieutenants, but not one who, had he himself fallen out of the command by wound or sickness for a month, could have taken his place. The people knew this and they now paid him in honor and gratitude for what he had done for them. If there were any members of the old cabal, any envious rivals, they either held their peace or spoke in whispers. The masses were not yet weary of hearing Aristides called the Just.



CHAPTER VII

WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE

Nearly two years elapsed before the real settlement of the war. The English held New York City, Charleston, and Savannah, the strong garrisons. It seemed likely that they would have been glad to arrange the terms of peace sooner, but there was much inner turmoil at home. The men who, through thick and thin, had abetted the King in one plan after another to fight to the last ditch had nothing more to propose. Lord North, when he heard of the surrender of Yorktown, almost shrieked, "My God! It is all over; it is all over!" and was plunged in gloom. A new ministry had to be formed. Lord North had been succeeded by Rockingham, who died in July, 1782, and was followed by Shelburne, supposed to be rather liberal, but to share King George's desire to keep down the Whigs. Negotiations over the terms of peace were carried on with varying fortune for more than a year. John Adams, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin were the American Peace Commissioners. The preliminaries between Great Britain and America were signed on December 30, 1782, and with France and Spain nearly two months later. The Dutch held out still longer into 1783. Washington, at his Headquarters in Newburgh, New York, had been awaiting the news of peace, not lazily, but planning for a new campaign and meditating upon the various projects which might be undertaken. To him the news of the actual signing of the treaty came at the end of March. He replied at once to Theodorick Bland; a letter which gave his general views in regard to the needs and rights of the army before it should be disbanded:

It is now the bounden duty of every one to make the blessings thereof as diffusive as possible. Nothing would so effectually bring this to pass as the removal of those local prejudices which intrude upon and embarrass that great line of policy which alone can make us a free, happy and powerful People. Unless our Union can be fixed upon such a basis as to accomplish these, certain I am we have toiled, bled and spent our treasure to very little purpose.

We have now a National character to establish, and it is of the utmost importance to stamp favorable impressions upon it; let justice be then one of its characteristics, and gratitude another. Public creditors of every denomination will be comprehended in the first; the Army in a particular manner will have a claim to the latter; to say that no distinction can be made between the claims of public creditors is to declare that there is no difference in circumstances; or that the services of all men are equally alike. This Army is of near eight years' standing, six of which they have spent in the Field without any other shelter from the inclemency of the seasons than Tents, or such Houses as they could build for themselves without expense to the public. They have encountered hunger, cold and nakedness. They have fought many Battles and bled freely. They have lived without pay and in consequence of it, officers as well as men have subsisted upon their Rations.

They have often, very often, been reduced to the necessity of eating Salt Porke, or Beef not for a day, or a week only but months together without Vegetables or money to buy them; or a cloth to wipe on.

Many of them do better, and to dress as Officers have contracted heavy debts or spent their patrimonies. The first see the Doors of gaols open to receive them, whilst those of the latter are shut against them. Is there no discrimination then—no extra exertion to be made in favor of men in these peculiar circumstances, in the event of their military dissolution? Or, if no worse cometh of it, are they to be turned adrift soured and discontented, complaining of the ingratitude of their Country, and under the influence of these passions to become fit subjects for unfavorable impressions, and unhappy dissentions? For permit me to add, tho every man in the Army feels his distress—it is not every one that will reason to the cause of it.

I would not from the observations here made, be understood to mean that Congress should (because I know they cannot, nor does the army expect it) pay the full arrearages due to them till Continental or State funds are established for the purpose. They would, from what I can learn, go home contented—nay—thankful to receive what I have mentioned in a more public letter of this date, and in the manner there expressed. And surely this may be effected with proper exertions. Or what possibility was there of keeping the army together, if the war had continued, when the victualls, clothing, and other expenses of it were to have been added? Another thing, Sir, (as I mean to be frank and free in my communications on this subject,) I will not conceal from you—it is the dissimilarity in the payments to men in Civil and Military life. The first receive everything—the others get nothing but bare subsistence—they ask what this is owing to? and reasons have been assigned, which, say they, amount to this—that men in Civil life have stronger passions and better pretensions to indulge them, or less virtue and regard for their Country than us,—otherwise, as we are all contending for the same prize and equally interested in the attainment of it, why do we not bear the burthen equally?[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, X, 203.]

The army was indeed the incubus of the Americans. They could not fight the war without it, but they had never succeeded in mastering the difficulties of maintaining and strengthening it. The system of a standing army was of course not to be thought of, and the uncertain recruits who took its place were mostly undisciplined and unreliable. When the exigencies became pressing, a new method was resorted to, and then the usual erosion of life in the field, the losses by casualties and sickness, caused the numbers to dwindle. Long ago the paymaster had ceased to pretend to pay off the men regularly so that there was now a large amount of back pay due them. Largely through Washington's patriotic exhortations had they kept fighting to the end; and, with peace upon them, they did not dare to disband because they feared that, if they left before they were paid, they would never be paid. Washington felt that, if thousands of discontented and even angry soldiers were allowed to go back to their homes without the means of taking up any work or business, great harm would be done. The love of country, which he believed to be most important to inculcate, would not only be checked but perverted. They already had too many reasons to feel aggrieved. Why should they, the men who risked their lives in battle and actually had starved or frozen in winter quarters, go unpaid, whereas every civilian who had a post under the Government lived at least safely and healthily and was paid with fair promptitude? They felt now that their best hope for justice lay in General Washington's interest in their behalf; and that interest of his seems now one of the noblest and wisest and most patriotic of his expressions.

Washington had need to be prepared for any emergency. Thus a body of officers deliberated not only a mutiny of the army, but a coup d'etat, in which they planned to overthrow the flimsy Federation of the thirteen States and to set up a monarchy. They wrote to Washington announcing their intention and their belief that he would make an ideal monarch. He was amazed and chagrined. He replied in part as follows, to the Colonel who had written him:

I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address, which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs, that can befall my country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. I must add, that no man possesses a more sincere wish to see ample justice done to the army than I do; and, as far as my powers and influence, in a constitutional way, extend, they shall be employed to the extent of my abilities to effect it, should there be any occasion. Let me conjure you, then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind and never communicate, as from yourself to any one else, a sentiment of the like nature.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sparks, 355.]

The turmoil of the army continued throughout the year and into the next. The so-called "Newburgh Address" set forth the quarrel of the soldiers and Washington's discreet reply. On April 19, 1783, the eighth anniversary of the first fighting at Concord, a proclamation was issued to the American army announcing the official end of all hostilities. In June Washington issued a circular letter to the Governors of the States, bidding them farewell and urging them to guard their precious country. Many of the American troops were allowed to go home on furlough. In company with Governor Clinton he went up the Hudson to Ticonderoga and then westward to Fort Schuyler. Being invited by Congress, which was then sitting at Annapolis, he journeyed thither. Before he left New York City arrangements were made for a formal farewell to his comrades in arms. I quote the description of it from Chief Justice Marshall's "Life of Washington":

This affecting interview took place on the 4th of December. At noon, the principal officers of the army assembled at Frances' tavern; soon after which, their beloved commander entered the room. His emotions were too strong to be concealed. Filling a glass, he turned to them and said, "with a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you; I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy, as your former ones have been glorious and honorable." Having drunk, he added, "I cannot come to each of you to take my leave, but shall be obliged to you, if each of you will come and take me by the hand." General Knox, being nearest, turned to him. Incapable of utterance, Washington grasped his hand, and embraced him. In the same affectionate manner, he took leave of each succeeding officer. In every eye was the tear of dignified sensibility; and not a word was articulated to interrupt the majestic silence and the tenderness of the scene. Leaving the room, he passed through the corps of light infantry, and walked to White hall, where a barge waited to convey him to Powles' hook (Paulus Hook). The whole company followed in mute and solemn procession, with dejected countenances, testifying feelings of delicious melancholy, which no language can describe. Having entered the barge, he turned to the company; and waving his hat, bade them a silent adieu. They paid him the same affectionate compliment, and after the barge had left them, returned in the same solemn manner to the place where they had assembled.[1]

[Footnote 1: Marshall, IV, 561.]

Marshall's description, simple but not commonplace, reminds one of Ville-Hardouin's pictures, so terse, so rich in color, of the Barons of France in the Fifth Crusade. The account once read, you can never forget that majestic, silent figure of Washington being rowed across to Paulus Hook with no sound but the dignified rhythm of the oars. Not a cheer, not a word!

His reception by Congress took place on Tuesday, the twenty-third of December, at twelve o'clock. Again I borrow from Chief Justice Marshall's account:

When the hour arrived for performing a ceremony so well calculated to recall to the mind the various interesting scenes which had passed since the commission now to be returned was granted, the gallery was crowded with spectators, and many respectable persons, among whom were the legislative and executive characters of the state, several general officers, and the consul general of France, were admitted on the floor of Congress.

The representatives of the sovereignty of the union remained seated and covered. The spectators were standing and uncovered. The General was introduced by the secretary and conducted to a chair. After a decent interval, silence was commanded, and a short pause ensued. The President (General Mifflin) then informed him that "the United States in Congress assembled were prepared to receive his communications." With a native dignity improved by the solemnity of the occasion, the General rose and delivered the following address:

"Mr. President:

"The great events on which my resignation depended, having at length taken place, I have now the honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress, and on presenting myself before them, to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country.

"Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States, of becoming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfaction the appointment I accepted with diffidence; a diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which, however, was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme power of the union, and the patronage of heaven.

"The successful termination of the war has verified the most sanguine expectations; and my gratitude for the interposition of Providence, and the assistance I have received from my countrymen, increases with every review of the momentous contest.

"While I repeat my obligations to the army in general, I should do injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge in this place, the peculiar services and distinguished merits of the gentlemen who have been attached to my person during the war. It was impossible the choice of confidential officers to compose my family should have been more fortunate. Permit me, sir, to recommend in particular, those who have continued in the service to the present moment, as worthy of the favorable notice and patronage of Congress.

"I consider it as an indispensable duty to close this last act of my official life, by commending the interests of our dearest country, to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them to his holy keeping.

"Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action, and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life."

After advancing to the chair, and delivering his commission to the President, he returned to his place, and received standing, the answer of Congress which was delivered by the President. In the course of his remarks, General Mifflin said:

"Having defended the standard of liberty in this new world: having taught a new lesson useful to those who inflict, and to those who feel oppression, you retire from the great theatre of action, with the blessings of your fellow citizens; but the glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command: it will continue to animate remotest ages."[1]

[Footnote 1: Marshall, IV, 563.]

The meeting then broke up, and Washington departed. He went that same afternoon to Virginia and reached Mount Vernon in the evening. We can imagine with what satisfaction and gratitude he, to whom home was the dearest place in the world, returned to the home he had seen only once by chance since the beginning of the Revolution, eight years before. Probably few of those who had risen to the highest station in their country said, and felt more honestly, that they were grateful at being allowed by Fate to retire from office, than did Washington. To be relieved of responsibility, free from the hourly spur, day and night, of planning and carrying out, of trying to find food for starving soldiers, of leading forlorn hopes against the truculent enemy, must have seemed to the weary and war-worn General like a call from the Hesperides. Men of his iron nature, and of his capacity for work and joy in it, do not, of course, really delight in idleness. They may think that they crave idleness, but in reality they crave the power of going on.

It took comparatively little effort for Washington to fall into his old way of life at Mount Vernon, although there, too, much was changed. Old buildings had fallen out of repair. There were new experiments to be tried, and the general purpose to be carried out of making Mount Vernon a model place in that part of the country. Whether he would or not, he was sought for almost daily by persons who came from all parts of the United States, and from overseas. Hospitality being not merely a duty, but a passion with him, he gladly received the strangers and learned much from them. From their accounts of their interviews we see that, although he was really the most natural of men, some of them treated him as if he were some strange creature—a holy white elephant of Siam, or the Grand Lama of Tibet. Age had brought its own deductions and reservations. It does not appear that parties rode to hounds after the fox any more at Mount Vernon. And then there were the irreparable gaps that could not be filled. At Belvoir, where his neighbors the Fairfaxes, friends of a lifetime, used to live, they lived no more. One of them, more than ninety years old, had turned his face to the wall on hearing of the surrender at Yorktown. Another had gone back to England to live out his life there, true to his Tory convictions.

Washington had sincerely believed, no doubt, that he was to spend the rest of his life in dignified leisure, and especially that he would mix no more in political or public worries; but he soon found that he had deceived himself. The army, until it officially disbanded at the end of 1783, caused him constant anxiety interspersed with fits of indignation over the indifference and inertia of the Congress, which showed no intention of being just to the soldiers. The reason for its attitude seems hard to state positively. May it be that the Congress, jealous since the war began of being ruled by the man on horseback, feared at its close to grant Washington's demands for it lest they should bring about the very thing they had feared and avoided—the creation of a military dictatorship under Washington? When Vergennes proposed to entrust to Washington a new subsidy from France, the Congress had taken umbrage and regarded such a proposal as an insult to the American Government. Should they admit that the Government itself was not sufficiently sound and trustworthy, and that, therefore, a private individual, even though he had been a leader of the Revolution, must be called into service?

From among persons pestered by this obsession, it was not surprising that the idea should spring up that Washington was at heart a believer in monarchy and that he might, when the opportunity favored, allow himself to be proclaimed king. Several years later he wrote to his trusted friend, John Jay:

I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds speaking; thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable and tremendous! What a triumph for our enemies to verify their predictions! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find, that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious! Would to God, that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend.[1]

[Footnote 1: Hapgood, 285.]

In the renewal of his life at Mount Vernon, Washington gave almost as much attention to the cultivation of friendship as to that of his estate. He pursued with great zest the career of planter-farmer. "I think," he wrote a friend, "with you, that the life of a husbandman of all others is the most delectable. It is honorable, it is amusing, and, with judicious management, it is profitable. To see plants rise from the earth and flourish by the superior skill and bounty of the laborer fills a contemplative mind with ideas which are more easy to be conceived than expressed."[1]

[Footnote 1: Hapgood, 288.]

The cultivation of his friendships he carried on by letters and by entertaining his friends as often as he could at Mount Vernon. To Benjamin Harrison he wrote: "My friendship is not in the least lessened by the difference, which has taken place in our political sentiments, nor is my regard for you diminished by the part you have acted."[1]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., 289.]

How constantly the flock of guests frequented Mount Vernon we can infer from this entry in his diary for June 30, 1785: "Dined with only Mrs. Washington which, I believe, is the first instance of it since my retirement from public life." To his young friend Lafayette he wrote without reserve in a vein of deep affection:

At length, my dear Marquis, I am become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac; and under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig-tree, free from the bustle of a camp, and the busy scenes of public life, I am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments, of which the soldier, who is ever in pursuit of fame, the statesman, whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own, perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if this globe was insufficient for us all, and the courtier, who is always watching the countenance of his prince, in hopes of catching a gracious smile, can have very little conception. I have not only retired from all public employments, but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary walk, and tread the paths of private life, with heartful satisfaction. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with all; and this, my dear friend, being the order of my march, I will move gently down the stream of life, until I sleep with my fathers.[1]

[Footnote 1: Hapgood, 287.]

In September, 1784, he made a journey on horseback, with a pack-train to carry his tents and food, into the Northwestern country, which had especially interested him since the early days when Fort Duquesne was the goal of his wandering. He observed very closely and his mind was filled with large imaginings of what the future would see in the development of the Northwest. Since his youth he had never lost the conviction that an empire would spring up there; only make the waterways easy and safe and he felt sure that a very large commerce would result and with it the extension of civilization. In a memorial to the legislature he urged that Virginia was the best placed geographically of all the States to undertake the work of establishing connection with the States of the Northwest, and he suggested various details which, when acted upon later, proved to be, as Sparks remarked, "the first suggestion of the great system of internal improvements which has since been pursued in the United States."

On returning to Mount Vernon, he entertained Lafayette for the last time before he sailed for France. After he had gone, Washington wrote him this letter in which appears the affection of a friend and the reverie of an old man looking somewhat wistfully towards sunset, "and after that the dark":

In the moment of our separation, upon the road as I travelled, and every hour since, I have felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you, with which length of years, close connection, and your merits have inspired me. I often asked myself as our carriages separated, whether that was the last sight I ever should have of you? And, though I wished to say No, my fears answered Yes. I called to mind the days of my youth, and found they had long since fled to return no more; that I was now descending the hill I had been fifty-two years climbing, and that, though I was blest with a good constitution, I was of a short-lived family and might soon expect to be entombed in the mansion of my fathers. These thoughts darkened the shades, and gave a gloom to the picture, and consequently to my prospect of seeing you again.

We should not overlook the fact that Washington declined all gifts, including a donation from Virginia, for his services as General during the war. He had refused to take any pay, merely keeping a strict account of what he spent for the Government from 1775 to 1782. This amounted to over L15,000 and covered only sums actually disbursed by him for the army. Unlike Marlborough, Nelson, and Wellington, and other foreign chieftains on whom grateful countrymen conferred fortunes and high titles, Washington remains as the one great state-founder who literally gave his services to his country.

Sparks gives the following interesting account of the way in which Washington spent his days after his return to Mount Vernon:

His habits were uniform, and nearly the same as they had been previous to the war. He rose before the sun and employed himself in his study, writing letters or reading, till the hour of breakfast. When breakfast was over, his horse was ready at the door, and he rode to his farms and gave directions for the day to the managers and laborers. Horses were likewise prepared for his guests, whenever they chose to accompany him, or to amuse themselves by excursions into the country. Returning from his fields, and despatching such business as happened to be on hand, he went again to his study, and continued there till three o'clock, when he was summoned to dinner. The remainder of the day and the evening were devoted to company, or to recreation in the family circle. At ten he retired to rest. From these habits he seldom deviated, unless compelled to do so by particular circumstances.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sparks, 389, 390.]

This list does not include the item which Washington soon found the greatest of his burdens—letter-writing. His correspondence increased rapidly and to an enormous extent.

Many mistakenly think [he writes to Richard Henry Lee] that I am retired to ease, and to that kind of tranquility which would grow tiresome for want of employment; but at no period of my life, not in the eight years I served the public, have I been obliged to write so much myself, as I have done since my retirement.... It is not the letters from my friends which give me trouble, or add aught to my perplexity. It is references to old matters, with which I have nothing to do; applications which often cannot be complied with; inquiries which would require the pen of a historian to satisfy; letters of compliment as unmeaning perhaps as they are troublesome, but which must be attended to; and the commonplace business which employs my pen and my time often disagreeably. These, with company, deprive me of exercise, and unless I can obtain relief, must be productive of disagreeable consequences.[1]

[Footnote 1: Irving, IV, 466.]

When we remember that Washington used to write most of his letters himself, and that from boyhood his handwriting was beautifully neat, almost like copper-plate, in its precision and elegance, we shall understand what a task it must have been for him to keep up his correspondence. A little later he employed a young New Hampshire graduate of Harvard, Tobias Lear, who graduated in 1783, who served him as secretary until his death, and undoubtedly lightened the epistolary cares of the General. But Washington continued to carry on much of the letter-writing, especially the intimate, himself; and, like the Adamses and other statesmen of that period, he kept letter-books which contained the first drafts or copies of the letters sent.

Another source of annoyance, to which, however, he resigned himself as contentedly as he could, was the work of the artists who came to him to beg him to sit for his picture or statue. Of the painters the most eminent were Charles Peale and his son Rembrandt. Of the sculptors Houdon undoubtedly made the best life-sized statue—that which still adorns the Capitol at Richmond, Virginia—and from the time it was first exhibited has been regarded as the best, most lifelike. Another, sitting statue, was made for the State of North Carolina by the Italian, Canova, the most celebrated of the sculptors of that day. The artist shows a Roman costume, a favorite of his, unless, as in the case of Napoleon, he preferred complete nudity. This statue was much injured in a fire which nearly consumed the Capitol at Raleigh. The English sculptor, Chantrey, executed a third statue in which Washington was represented in military dress. This work used to be shown at the State House in Boston.

Of the many painted portraits of Washington, those by Gilbert Stuart have come to be accepted as authentic; especially the head in the painting which hung in the Boston Athenaeum as a pendant to that of Martha Washington, and is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. But as I remarked earlier, the fact that none of the painters indicate the very strong marks of smallpox (which he took on his trip to Barbados) on Washington's face creates a natural suspicion as to accuracy in detail of any of the portraits. Perhaps the divergence among them is not greater than that among those of Mary, Queen of Scots, and indicates only the marked incapacity of some of the painters who did them. We are certainly justified in saying that Washington's features varied considerably from his early prime to the days when he was President. We have come to talk about him as an old man because from the time when he was sixty years old he frequently used that expression himself; although, as he died at sixty-seven, he was never really "an old man." One wonders whether those who lived among pioneer conditions said and honestly believed that they were old at the time when, as we think, middle age would hardly have begun. Thus Abraham Lincoln writes of himself as a patriarch, and no doubt sincerely thought that he was, at a time when he had just reached forty. The two features in Washington's face about which the portraitists differ most are his nose and his mouth. In the early portrait by Charles Peale, his nose is slightly aquiline, but not at all so massive and conspicuous as in some of the later works. His mouth, and with it the expression of the lower part of his face, changed after he began to wear false teeth. Is it not fair to suppose that the effigies of Washington, made in later years and usually giving him a somewhat stiff and expansive grin, originated in the fact that his false set of teeth lacked perfect adjustment?

Thus Washington dropped into the ways of peace; working each day what would have been a long stint for a strong young man, and thinking, besides, more than most men thought of the needs and future of the country to which he had given liberty and independence. His chief anxiety henceforth was that the United States of America should not miss the great destiny for which he believed the Lord had prepared it.



CHAPTER VIII

WELDING THE NATION

The doubt, the drifting, the incongruities and inconsistencies, the mistakes and follies which marked the five years after 1783 form what has been well called "The Critical Period of American History." They proved that the conquests of peace may not only be more difficult than the conquests of war, but that they may outlast those of war. Who should be the builders of the Ship of State? Those who had courage and clear vision, who loved justice, who were patient and humble and unflagging, and who believed with an ineluctable conviction that righteousness exalteth a nation; they were the simple fishermen who in the little church at Torcello predicted the splendor and power of Venice; they were the stern pioneers of Plymouth and Boston who laid the foundations of an empire greater than that of Rome.

It happened that during the American Revolution and immediately afterward, a larger number of such men existed in what had been the American Colonies than anywhere else at any other time in history. At the beginning of the Revolution, within a few weeks of the Declaration of Independence, some of these men, impelled by a common instinct, adopted Articles of Confederation which should hold the former Colonies together and enable them to maintain a common front against the enemy during the war. The Congress controlled military and civic affairs, but the framers of the Articles were wary and too timid to grant the Congress sufficient powers, with the result that Washington, who embodied the dynamic control of the war, was always most inadequately supported; and as he fared, so fared his subordinates.

At the end of the war the Americans found that they had won, not only freedom, but also Independence, the desire for which was not among their original motives. Each of the thirteen States was independent; they all felt the need of a union which would enable them to protect themselves; of a common coinage and postage; of certain common laws for criminal and similar cases; of a common government to direct their affairs with other nations. But by habit and by training each was local rather than National in its outlook. The Georgian had nothing in common with the men of Massachusetts Bay whose livelihood depended upon fisheries, or with the Virginian of the Western border, to whom his relations with the Indians were his paramount concern. The Rhode Islander, busy with his manufactures, knew and cared nothing for the South Carolinian with his rice plantations. How to find a common denominator for all these? That was the business of them all.

The one thing which Washington regarded as likely and against which he wished to have every precaution taken, was a possible attempt of the English to pick a quarrel over some small matter and bring on a renewal of the war. Fortunately for the Americans, this did not happen. Washington knew our weakness so well that he could see how easy it would be for a bold and determined enemy to do us great if not fatal harm. But he did not know that the English themselves were in an almost desperate plight. By Rodney's decisive victory at sea they began to recover their ascendancy against the Coalition, but it was then too late to disavow the treaty. In Parliament George III had been defeated; the defeat meaning a very serious check to the policy which he had pursued for more than twenty years to fix royal tyranny on the British people. King George's system of personal government, himself being the person, had broken down and he could not revive it. Nearly seventy years were to elapse before Queen Victoria, who was as putty in the hands of her German husband, Prince Albert, rejoiced that she had restored the personal power of the British sovereign to a pitch it had not known since her grandfather George III.

The American Revolution had illustrated the fatal weakness of the Congress as an organ of government, and the Articles merely embodied the vagueness of the American people in regard to any real regime. The Congress has been much derided for its shortcomings and its blunders, although in truth not so much the Congress, as those who made it, was to blame. They had refused, in their timidity, to give it power to exercise control. It might not compel or enforce obedience. It did require General Washington during the war to furnish a regular report of his military actions and it put his suggestions on file where many of them grew yellow and dusty; but he might not strike, do that decisive act by which history is born. Their timidity made them see what he had accomplished not nearly so plainly as the dictator on horseback whom their fears conjured up.

During the war the sense of a common danger had lent the Congress a not easily defined but quite real coherence, which vanished when peace came, and the local ideals of the States took precedence. Take taxation. Congress could compute the quota of taxes which each State ought to pay, but it had no way of collecting or of enforcing payment. It took eighteen months to collect five per cent of the taxes laid in 1783. Of course a nation could not go on with such methods. No law binding all the States could be adopted unless every one of the thirteen States assented. Unanimity was almost unattainable; as when Governor Clinton of New York withheld his approval of a measure to improve a system of taxation to which the other twelve States had assented; so Rhode Island, the smallest of all, blocked another reform which twelve States had approved. Our foreign relations must be described as ignominious. Jefferson had taken Franklin's place as Minister to France, but we had no credit and he could not secure the loan he was seeking. John Adams in London, and John Jay in Madrid, were likewise balked. Jay had to submit to the closing of the lower Mississippi to American shipping. He did this in the hope of thereby conciliating Spain to make a commercial treaty which he thought was far more important than shipping. Our people in the Southwest, however, regarded the closing of the river as portending their ruin, and they threatened to secede if it were persisted in. Pennsylvania and New Jersey threw their weight with the Southerners and Congress voted against the Jay treaty. That was the time when the corsairs of the Barbary States preyed upon American shipping in the Mediterranean and seized crews of our vessels and sold them into slavery in Northern Africa. That there was not in the thirteen States sufficient feeling of dignity to resent and punish these outrages marks both their dispersed power and lack of regard for National honor.

After 1783 the States, virtually bankrupt at home, discordant, fickle, and aimless, and without credit or prestige abroad, were filled with many citizens who recognized that the system was bad and must be amended. The wise among them wrote treatises on the remedies they proposed. The wisest went to school of experience and sought in history how confederations and other political unions had fared. Washington wrote for his own use an account of the classical constitutions of Greece and Rome and of the more modern states; of the Amphictyonic Council among the ancient, and the Helvetic, Belgic, and Germanic among the more recent. John Adams devoted two massive volumes to an account of the medieval Italian republics. James Madison studied the Achaian League and other ancient combinations. There were many other men less eminent than these—there was a Peletiah Webster, for instance.

Washington viewed the situation as a pessimist. Was it because the high hopes that he had held during the war, that America should be the noblest among the nations, had been disappointed, or was it because he saw farther into the future than his colleagues saw? On May 18, 1786, he writes intimately to John Jay:

... We are certainly in a delicate situation; but my fear is that the people are not yet sufficiently misled to retract from error. To be plainer, I think there is more wickedness than ignorance mixed in our councils. Under this impression I scarcely know what opinion to entertain of a general convention. That it is necessary to revise and amend the Articles of Confederation, I entertain no doubt; but what may be the consequences of such an attempt is doubtful. Yet something must be done, or the fabric must fall, for it certainly is tottering.

Ignorance and design are difficult to combat. Out of these proceed illiberal sentiments, improper jealousies, and a train of evils which oftentimes in republican governments must be sorely felt before they can be removed. The former, that is ignorance, being a fit soil for the latter to work in, tools are employed by them which a generous mind would disdain to use; and which nothing but time, and their own puerile or wicked productions, can show the inefficacy and dangerous tendency of. I think often of our situation, and view it with concern. From the high ground we stood upon, from the plain path which invited our footsteps, to be so fallen! so lost! it is really mortifying.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, xi, 31.]

One of the chief causes of the discontents which troubled the public was the increasing number of persons who had been made debtors after the war by the more and more pressing demands of their creditors. These debtors knew nothing about economics; they only knew that they were being crushed by persons more lucky than themselves. In Massachusetts they broke out in actual rebellion named after the man who led it, Daniel Shays. They were put down by the more or less doubtful appeal to veterans of the National Army, but their ebullition was not forgotten as a symptom of a very dangerous condition. In 1786 representatives from five States met in a convention at Annapolis to consider the hard times and the troubles in trade. Washington, Hamilton, and Madison were thought to be behind the convention, which accomplished little, but made it clear that a large general convention ought to meet and to discuss the way of securing a strong central government. This convention was discussed during that summer and autumn, and a call was issued for a meeting in the following spring at Philadelphia. Virginia turned first to Washington to be one of its delegates, but he had sincere scruples against entering public life again. He wrote to James Madison on November 18th:

Although I had bid adieu to the public walks of life in a public manner, and had resolved never more to tread upon public ground, yet if, upon an occasion so interesting to the well-being of the confederacy, it should have appeared to have been the wish of the Assembly to have employed me with other associates in the business of revising the federal system, I should, from a sense of obligation I am under for repeated proof of confidence in me, more than from any opinion I should have entertained of my usefulness, have obeyed its call; but it is now out of my power to do so with any degree of consistency.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XI, 87.]

Washington's disinclination to abandon the quiet of Mount Vernon and the congenial work he found there, and to be plunged again into political labors, was perhaps his strongest reason for making this decision. But a temporary aggravation ruled him. The Society of the Cincinnati, of which he was president, had aroused much odium in the country among those who were jealous or envious that such a special privileged class should exist, and among those who really believed that it had the secret design of establishing an aristocracy if not actually a monarchy. Washington held that its original avowed purpose, to keep the officers who had served in the Revolution together, would perpetuate the patriotic spirit which enabled them to win, and might be a source of strength in case of further ordeals. But when he found that public sentiment ran so strongly against the Cincinnati, he withdrew as its president and he told Madison that he would vote to have the Society disbanded if it were not that it counted a minority of foreign members. Stronger than a desire for a private life and for the ease of Mount Vernon was his sense of duty as a patriot; so that when this was strongly urged upon him he gave way and consented.

Spring came, the snows melted in the Northern States, and through the month of April the delegates to this Convention started from their homes in the North and in the South for Philadelphia. The first regular session was held on May 25th, although some of the delegates did not arrive until several weeks later. They sat in Independence Hall in the same room where, eleven years before, the Declaration of Independence had been adopted and signed. Of the members in the new Convention, George Washington was easily the first. His commanding figure, tall and straight and in no wise impaired by eight years' campaigns and hardships, was almost the first to attract the attention of any one who looked upon that assembly. He was fifty-five years old. Next in reputation was the patriarch, Benjamin Franklin, twenty-seven years his senior, shrewd, wise, poised, tart, good-natured; whose prestige was thought to be sufficient to make him a worthy presiding officer when Washington was not present. James Madison of Virginia was among the young men of the Convention, being only thirty-six years old, and yet almost at the top of them all in constitutional learning. More precocious still was Alexander Hamilton of New York, who was only thirty, one of the most remarkable examples of a statesman who developed very early and whom Death cut off before he showed any signs of a decline. One figure we miss—that of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, tall and wiry and red-curled, who was absent in Paris as Minister to France.

Massachusetts sent four representatives, important but not preeminent—Elbridge Gerry, Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King, and Caleb Strong. New York had only two besides Hamilton; Robert Yates and John Lansing. Pennsylvania trusted most to Benjamin Franklin, but she sent the financier of the Revolution, Robert Morris, and Gouverneur Morris; and with them went Thomas Mifflin, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson—all conspicuous public men at the time, although their fame is bedraggled or quite faded now. Wilson ranked as the first lawyer of the group. Of the five from little Delaware sturdy John Dickinson, a man who thought, was no negligible quantity.

Connecticut also had as spokesmen two strong individualities—Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth. Maryland spoke through James McHenry and Daniel Carroll and three others of greater obscurity. Virginia had George Washington, President of the Convention, and James Madison, active, resourceful, and really accomplishing; and in addition to these two: Edmund Randolph, the Governor; George Mason, Washington's hard-headed and discreet lawyer friend; John Blair, George Wythe, and James McClurg. From South Carolina went three unusual orators, John Rutledge, C.C. Pinckney and Charles Pinckney, and Pierce Butler. Georgia named four mediocre but useful men.

In this gathering of fifty-five persons, the proportion between those who were preeminent for common sense and those who were remarkable for special knowledge and talents was very fairly kept. Most of them had had experience in dealing with men either in local government offices or in the army. Socially, they came almost without exception from respectable if not aristocratic families. Of the fifty-five, twenty-nine were university or college bred, their universities comprising Oxford, Glasgow, and Edinburgh besides the American Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. The two foremost members, Washington and Franklin, were not college bred. Among the fifty-five we do not find John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who, as I have said, were in Europe on official business. John Jay also was lacking, because, as it appears, the Anti-Federalists did not wish him to represent them in the Convention; but his influence permeated it and the wider public, who later read his unsigned articles in "The Federalist." Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee stayed at home. General Nathanael Greene, the favorite son of Rhode Island, would have been at the Convention but for his untimely death a few weeks before the preceding Christmas.

Owing to delays the active business of the Convention halted, although for at least a fortnight the members who had come promptly carried on unofficial discussions. Washington, being chosen President without a competitor, presided, with perhaps more than his habitual gravity and punctilio. The members took their work very seriously. The debates lasted five or six hours a day, and, as they were continued consecutively until the autumn, there was ample time to discuss many subjects. The Convention adopted strict secrecy as its rule, so that its proceedings were not known by the public nor was any satisfactory report of them kept and published. At the time there was objection to this provision, and now, after more than a century and a third, we must regret that we can never know many points in regard to the actual give and take of discussion in this the most fateful of all assemblies. But from Madison's memoranda and reminiscences we can infer a good deal as to what went on.

The wisdom of keeping the proceedings secret was fully justified. The framers of the Constitution knew that it was to a large degree a new experiment, that it would be subjected to all kinds of criticism, but that it must be judged by its entirety and not by its parts; and that therefore it must be presented entire. At the outset some of the members, foreseeing opposition, were for suggesting palliatives and for sugar-coating. Some of the measures they feared might excite hostility. To these suggestions Washington made a brief but very noble remonstrance which seemed deeply to impress his hearers. And no one could question that it gave the keynote on which he hoped to maintain the business of the Convention. "It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted," Washington said very gravely. "Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God."[1] Among the obstacles which seemed very serious—and many believed they would wreck the Convention—was the question of slavery. By this time all the northern part of the country favored its abolition. Even Virginia was on that side. For practical planters like George Washington knew that it was the most costly and least productive form of labor. They opposed it on economic rather than moral grounds. Farther South, however, especially in South Carolina where the negroes seemed to be the only kind of laborers for the rice-fields, and in those regions where they harvested the cotton, the whites insisted that slavery should be maintained. The contest seemed likely to be very fierce between the disputants, and then, with true Anglo-Saxon instinct, they sought for a compromise. The South had regarded slaves as chattels. The compromise brought forward by Madison consisted in agreeing that five slaves should count in population as three. By this curious device a negro was equivalent to three fifths of a white man. Such a compromise was, of course, illogical, leaving the question whether negroes were chattels or human beings with even a theoretical civil character undecided. But many of the members, who saw the illogic quite plainly, voted for it, being dazzled if not seduced by the thought that it was a compromise which would stave off an irreconcilable conflict at least for the present; so Washington, who wished the abolition of slavery, voted for the compromise along with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the South Carolinian who regarded slavery as higher than any of the Ten Commandments.

[Footnote 1: Fiske, Critical Period, 250.]

The second compromise referred to the slave trade, which was particularly defended by South Carolina and Georgia. The raising of rice and indigo in those States caused an increasing death-rate among the slaves. The slave trade, which brought many kidnapped slaves from Africa to those States was needed to replenish the number of slaves who died. Virginia had not yet become an important breeding-place of slaves who were sold to planters farther south. The members of the Convention who wished to put an end to this hideous traffic proposed that it should be prohibited, and that the enforcement of the prohibition should be assigned to the General Government. Pinckney, however, keen to defend his privileged institution and the special interests of his State, bluntly informed the Convention that if they voted to abolish the slave trade, South Carolina would regard it as a polite way of telling her that she was not wanted in the new Union. To think of attempting to form a Union without South Carolina amazed them all and made them pliable. Although there was considerable opposition to giving the General Government control over shipping, this provision was passed. The Northerners saw in it the germs of a tariff act which would benefit their manufacturers, and they agreed that the slave trade should not be interfered with before 1808 and that no export tax should be authorized.

The third compromise affected representation. The Convention had already voted that the Congress should consist of two parts, a Senate and a House of Representatives. By a really clever device each State sent two members to the Senate, thus equalizing the small and large States in that branch of the Government. The House, on the other hand, represented the People, and the number of members elected from each State corresponded, therefore, to the population.

As I do not attempt to make even a summary of the details of the Convention, I should pass over many of the other topics which it considered, often with very heated discussion. The fundamental problem was how to preserve the rights of the States and at the same time give the Central Government sufficient power. By devices which actually worked, and for many years continued to work, this conflict was smoothed over, although sixty years later the question of State rights, intertwined with that of slavery, nearly split the Nation in the War of Secession. There was much question as to the term for which the President should be elected and whether by the People or by Congress. Some were for one, two, three, four, ten, and even fifteen years. Rufus King, grown sarcastic, said: "Better call it twenty—it's the average reign of princes." Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris stood for a life service with provision for the President's removal in case of malfeasance. These gentlemen, in spite of their influence in the Convention, stirred up a deep-seated enmity to their plan. Few instincts were more general than that which drew back from any arrangement which might embolden the monarchists to make a man President for a ten or fifteen years' term or for life. This could not fail to encourage those who wished for the equivalent of an hereditary prince. The Convention soon made it evident that they would have none but a short term, and they chose, finally, four years. There was a debate over the question of his election; should he be chosen directly by the legislature, or by electors? The strong men—Mason, Rutledge, Roger Sherman, and Strong—favored the former; stronger men—Washington, Madison, Gerry, and Gouverneur Morris—favored the latter, and it prevailed. Nevertheless, the Electoral College thus created soon became, and has remained, as useless as a vermiform appendix.

Towards the end of the summer the Convention had completed its first draft of the Constitution; then they handed their work over to a Committee for Style and Arrangement, composed of W.S. Johnson of North Carolina, Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, Madison, and King. Then, on September 17th, the Constitution of the United States was formally published. This document, done "by the Unanimous Consent of the States present," was sent to the Governor or Legislature of each State with the understanding that its ratification by nine States would be required before it was proclaimed the law of the land.

In his diary for Monday, the seventeenth of September, 1787, Washington makes this entry:

Met in Convention, when the Constitution received the unanimous consent of 11 States and Colo. Hamilton's from New York [the only delegate from thence in Convention], and was subscribed to by every member present, except Governor Randolph and Colo. Mason from Virginia, & Mr. Gerry from Massachusetts.

The business being thus closed, the members adjourned to the City Tavern, dined together, and took a cordial leave of each other. After which I returned to my lodgings, did some business with, and received the papers from the Secretary of the Convention, and retired to meditate on the momentous wk. which had been executed, after not less than five, for a large part of the time six and sometimes 7 hours sitting every day, [except] Sundays & the ten days adjournment to give a Comee. [Committee] opportunity & time to arrange the business for more than four months.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XI, 155.]

One likes to think of Washington presiding over that Convention for more than four months, seeing one suggestion after another brought forward and debated until finally disposed of, he saying little except to enforce the rules of parliamentary debate. No doubt his asides (and part of his conversation) frankly gave his opinion as to each measure, because he never disguised his thoughts and he seems to have voted when the ballots were taken—a practice unusual to modern presiding officers except in case of a tie. His summing-up of the Constitution, which he wrote on the day after the adjournment in a hurried letter to Lafayette, is given briefly in these lines:

It is the result of four months' deliberation. It is now a child of fortune, to be fostered by some and buffeted by others. What will be the general opinion, or the reception of it, is not for me to decide; nor shall I say anything for or against it. If it be good, I suppose it will work its way; if bad, it will recoil on the framers.

A month later, in the seclusion of Mount Vernon, he spread the same news before his friend General Knox:

... The Constitution is now before the judgment-seat. It has, as was expected, its adversaries and supporters. Which will preponderate is yet to be decided. The former more than probably will be most active, as the major part of them will, it is to be feared, be governed by sinister and self-important motives, to which everything in their breasts must yield....

The other class, he said, would probably ask itself whether the Constitution now submitted was not better than the inadequate and precarious government under which they had been living. If there were defects, as doubtless there were, did it not provide means for amending them? Then he concludes with a gleam of optimism:

... Is it not likely that real defects will be as readily discovered after as before trial? and will not our successors be as ready to apply the remedy as ourselves, if occasion should require it? To think otherwise will, in my judgment, be ascribing more of the amor patriae, more wisdom and more virtue to ourselves, than I think we deserve.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XI, 173.]

Nearly five months later, February 7, 1788, he wrote Lafayette what we may consider a more deliberate opinion:

As to my sentiments with respect to the merits of the new constitution, I will disclose them without reserve, (although by passing through the post-office they should become known to all the world,) for in truth I have nothing to conceal on that subject. It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that the delegates from so many different States (which States you know are also different from each other), in their manners, circumstances, and prejudices, should unite in forming a system of national government, so little liable to well-founded objections. Nor am I yet such an enthusiastic, partial, or indiscriminating admirer of it, as not to perceive it is tinctured with some real (though not radical) defects. The limits of a letter would not suffer me to go fully into an examination of them; nor would the discussion be entertaining or profitable. I therefore forbear to touch upon it. With regard to the two great points (the pivots upon which the whole machine must move), my creed is simply,

1st. That the general government is not invested with more powers, than are indispensably necessary to perform the functions of a good government; and consequently, that no objection ought to be made against the quantity of power delegated to it.

2nd. That these powers (as the appointment of all rulers will for ever arise from, and at short, stated intervals recur to, the free suffrage of the people), are so distributed among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, into which the general government is arranged, that it can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any other despotic or oppressive form, so long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the people.

I would not be understood, my dear Marquis, to speak of consequences, which may be produced in the revolution of ages, by corruption of morals, profligacy of manners and listlessness for the preservation of the natural and unalienable rights of mankind, nor of the successful usurpations, that may be established at such an unpropitious juncture upon the ruins of liberty, however providently guarded and secured; as these are contingencies against which no human prudence can effectually provide. It will at least be a recommendation to the proposed constitution, that it is provided with more checks and barriers against the introduction of tyranny, and those of a nature less liable to be surmounted, than any government hitherto instituted among mortals hath possessed. We are not to expect perfection in this world; but mankind, in modern times, have apparently made some progress in the science of government. Should that which is now offered to the people of America, be found on experiment less perfect than it can be made, a constitutional door is left open for its amelioration.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XI, 218-21.]

Thus was accomplished the American Constitution. Gladstone has said of it in well-known words that, just "as the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from the womb and the long gestation of progressive history, so the American Constitution is so far as I can see the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."[1] Note that Gladstone does not name a single or an individual man, which would have been wholly untrue, for the American Constitution was struck off by the wisdom and foresight of fifty-five men collectively. There were among them two or three who might be called transcendent men. It gained its peculiar value from the fact that it represents the composite of many divergent opinions and different characters.

[Footnote 1: W.E. Gladstone, North American Review, September, 1878.]

Just before the members broke up at their final meeting in Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin amused them with a characteristic bit of raillery. On the back of the President's black chair, a half sun was carved and emblazoned. "During all these weeks," said Franklin, "I have often wondered whether that sun was rising or setting. I know now that it is a rising sun."

The first State to ratify the Constitution was Delaware, on December 6, 1787. Pennsylvania followed on December 12th, and New Jersey on December 18th. Ratifications continued without haste until New Hampshire, the ninth State, signed on June 21, 1788. Four days later, Virginia, a very important State, ratified. New York, which had been Anti-Federalist throughout, joined the majority on July 26th. North Carolina waited until November 21st, and little Rhode Island, the last State of all, did not come in until May 29, 1790. But, as the adherence of nine States sufficed, the affirmative action of New Hampshire on June 21, 1788, constituted the legal beginning of the United States of America.

No test could be more winnowing than that to which the Constitution was subjected during more than eighteen months before its adoption. In each State, in each section, its friends and enemies discussed it at meetings and in private gatherings. In New York, for instance, it was only the persistence of Alexander Hamilton and his unfailing oratory, unmatched until then in this country, that routed the Anti-Federalists at Poughkeepsie and caused the victory of the Federalists in the State. In Virginia, Patrick Henry, who had said on the eve of the Revolution, "I am not a Virginian, but an American," still held out. Nevertheless, the more the people of the country discussed the matter, the surer was their conviction that Washington was right when he intimated that they must prefer the new Constitution unless they could show reason for supposing that the anarchy towards which the old order was swiftly driving them was preferable.

During the autumn of 1788 peaceful electioneering went on throughout the country. Among the last acts of that thin wraith, the Continental Congress, was a decree that Presidential Electors should be chosen on the first Wednesday of January, 1789; that they should vote for President on the first Wednesday in February, and that the new Congress should meet on the first Wednesday in March. The State of New York, where Anti-Federalists swarmed, did not follow the decree—with the result that that State, which had been behindhand in signing the Declaration of Independence, failed through the intrigues of the Anti-Federalists to choose electors, and so had no part in the choice of Washington as President of the United States. The other ten States performed their duty on time. They elected Washington President by a unanimous vote of sixty-nine out of sixty-nine votes cast.

The Vice-Presidential contest was perplexing, there being many candidates who received only a few votes each. Many persons thought that it would be fitting that Samuel Adams, the father of the Revolution, should be chosen to serve with Washington, the father of his country; but too many remembered that he had been hostile to the Federalists until almost the end of the preliminary canvass and so they did not think that he ought to be chosen. The successful man was John Adams, who had been a robust Patriot from the beginning and had served honorably and devotedly in every position which he had held since 1775.

On April 14th Washington's election was notified to him, and on the 16th he bade farewell to Mount Vernon, where he had hoped to pass the rest of his days in peace and home duties and agriculture, and he rode in what proved to be a triumphal march to New York. That city was chosen the capital of the new Nation. Streams of enthusiastic and joyous citizens met and acclaimed him at every town through which he passed. At Trenton a party of thirteen young girls decked out in muslin and wreaths represented the thirteen States, and perhaps brought to his mind the contrast between that day and thirteen years before when he crossed the Delaware on boats amid floating cakes of ice and the pelting of sleet and rain. On April 23d he entered New York City. A week later at noon a military escort attended him from his lodging to Federal Hall at the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, where a vast crowd awaited him. Washington stood on a balcony. All could witness the ceremony. The Secretary of the Senate bore a Bible upon a velvet cushion, and Chancellor Livingston administered the oath of office. Washington's head was still bowed when Livingston shouted: "Long live George Washington, President of the United States!" The crowds took up the cheer, which spread to many parts of the city and was repeated in all parts of the United States.



CHAPTER IX

THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT

The inauguration of Washington on April 30, 1789, brought a new type of administration into the world. The democracy which it initiated was very different from that of antiquity, from the models of Greece and of Rome, and quite different from that of the Italian republics during the Middle Age. The head of the new State differed essentially from the monarchs across the sea. Although there were varieties of traditions and customs in what had been the Colonies, still their dominant characteristic was British. According to the social traditions of Virginia, George Washington was an aristocrat, but in contrast with the British, he was a democrat.

He believed, however, that the President must guard his office from the free-and-easy want of decorum which some of his countrymen regarded as the stamp of democracy. At his receptions he wore a black velvet suit with gold buckles at the knee and on his shoes, and yellow gloves, and profusely powdered hair carried in a silk bag behind. In one hand he held a cocked hat with an ostrich plume; on his left thigh he wore a sword in a white scabbard of polished leather. He shook hands with no one; but acknowledged the courtesy of his visitors by a very formal bow. When he drove, it was in a coach with four or six handsome horses and outriders and lackeys dressed in resplendent livery.

After his inauguration he spoke his address to the Congress, and several days later members of the House and of the Senate called on him at his residence and made formal replies to his Inaugural Address. After a few weeks, experience led him to modify somewhat his daily schedule. He found that unless it was checked, the insatiate public would consume all his time. Every Tuesday afternoon, between three and four o'clock, he had a public reception which any one might attend. Likewise, on Friday afternoons, Mrs. Washington had receptions of her own. The President accepted no invitations to dinner, but at his own table there was an unending succession of invited guests, except on Sunday, which he observed privately. Interviews with the President could be had at any time that suited his convenience. Thus did he arrange to transact his regular or his private business.

Inevitably, some of the public objected to his rules and pretended to see very strong monarchical leanings in them. But the country took them as he intended, and there can be no doubt that it felt the benefit of his promoting the dignity of his office. Equally beneficial was his rule of not appointing to any office any man merely because he was the President's friend. Washington knew that such a consideration would give the candidate an unfair advantage. He knew further that office-holders who could screen themselves behind the plea that they were the President's friends might be very embarrassing to him. As office-seekers became, with the development of the Republic, among the most pernicious of its evils and of its infamies, we can but feel grateful that so far as in him lay Washington tried to keep them within bounds.

In all his official acts he took great pains not to force his personal wishes. He knew that both in prestige and popularity he held a place apart among his countrymen, and for this reason he did not wish to have measures passed simply because they were his. Accordingly, in the matter of receiving the public and in granting interviews and of ceremonials at the Presidential Residence, he asked the advice of John Adams, John Jay, Hamilton, and Jefferson, and he listened to many of their suggestions. Colonel Humphreys, who had been one of his aides-de-camp and was staying in the Presidential Residence, acted as Chamberlain at the first reception. Humphreys took an almost childish delight in gold braid and flummery. At a given moment the door of the large hall in which the concourse of guests was assembled was opened and he, advancing, shouted, with a loud voice: "The President of the United States!" Washington followed him and went through the paces prescribed by the Colonel with punctilious exactness, but with evident lack of relish. When the levee broke up and the party had gone, Washington said to Colonel Humphreys: "Well, you have taken me in once, but, by God, you shall never take me in a second time."[1] Irving, who borrows this story from Jefferson, warns us that perhaps Jefferson was not a credible witness.

[Footnote 1: Irving, V, 14.]

Congress transacted much important business at this first session. It determined that the President should have a Cabinet of men whose business it was to administer the chief departments and to advise the President. Next in importance were the financial measures proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury. Washington chose for his first Cabinet Ministers: Thomas Jefferson, who had not returned from Paris, as Secretary of State, or Foreign Minister as he was first called; Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; General Henry Knox, Secretary of War; and Edmund Randolph, Attorney-General. Of these, Hamilton had to face the most bitter opposition. Throughout the Revolution the former Colonies had never been able to collect enough money to pay the expense of the war and the other charges of the Confederation. The Confederation handed over a considerable debt to the new Government. Besides this many of the States had paid each its own cost of equipping and maintaining its contingent. Hamilton now proposed that the United States Government should assume these various State debts, which would aggregate $21,000,000 and bring the National debt to a total of $75,000,000. Hamilton's suggestion that the State debts be assumed caused a vehement outcry. Its opponents protested that no fair adjustment could be reached. The Assumptionists retorted that this would be the only fair settlement, but the Anti-Assumptionists voted them down by a majority of two. In other respects, Hamilton's financial measures prospered, and before many months he seized the opportunity of making a bargain by which the next Congress reversed its vote on Assumption. In less than a year the members of Congress and many of the public had reached the conclusion that New York City was not the best place to be the capital of the Nation. The men from the South argued that it put the South to a disadvantage, as its ease of access to New York, New Jersey, and the Eastern States gave that section of the country a too favorable situation. There was a strong party in favor of Philadelphia, but it was remembered that in the days of the Confederation a gang of turbulent soldiers had dashed down from Lancaster and put to flight the Convention sitting at Philadelphia. Nevertheless, Philadelphia was chosen temporarily, the ultimate choice of a situation being farther south on the Potomac.

Jefferson returned from France in the early winter. The discussion over Assumption was going on very virulently. It happened that one day Jefferson met Hamilton, and this is his account of what followed:

As I was going to the President's one day, I met him [Hamilton] in the street. He walked me backwards and forwards before the President's door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which the legislature had been wrought; the disgust of those who were called the creditor States; the danger of the secession of their members, and the separation of the States. He observed that the members of the administration ought to act in concert; that though this question was not of my department, yet a common duty should make it a common concern; that the President was the centre on which all administrative questions ultimately rested, and that all of us should rally around him and support, with joint efforts, measures approved by him; and that the question having been lost by a small majority only, it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of some of my friends, might effect a change in the vote, and the machine of government now suspended, might be again set into motion. I told him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject, that not having yet informed myself of the system of finance adopted, I knew not how far this was a necessary sequence; that undoubtedly, if its rejection endangered a dissolution of our Union at this incipient stage, I should deem it most unfortunate of all consequences to avert which all partial and temporary evils should be yielded, I proposed to him, however, to dine with me the next day, and I would invite another friend or two, bring them into conference together, and I thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise which was to save the Union. The discussion took place. I could take no part in it but an exhortatory one, because I was a stranger to the circumstances which should govern it. But it was finally agreed, that whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union and of concord among the States was more important, and that, therefore, it would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded, to effect which some members should change their votes. But it was observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern States, and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them. There had before been projects to fix the seat of government either at Philadelphia or at Georgetown on the Potomac; and it was thought that, by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterwards, this might, as an anodyne, solve in some degree the ferment which might be excited by the other measure alone. So two of the Potomac members (White and Lee, but White with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive) agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton undertook to carry the other point. In doing this, the influence he had established over the eastern members, with the agency of Robert Morris with those of the Middle States, effected his side of the engagement.[1]

[Footnote 1: Jefferson's Works, IX, 93.]

As a result of Hamilton's bargain, the bill for Assumption was passed, and it was agreed that Philadelphia should be the capital for ten years and that afterwards a new city should be built on the banks of the Potomac and made the capital permanently.

During the summer of 1789 Washington suffered the most serious sickness of his entire life. The cause was anthrax in his thigh, and at times it seemed that it would prove fatal. For many weeks he was forced to lie on one side, with frequent paroxysms of great pain. After a month and a half he began to mend, but very slowly, so that autumn came before he got up and could go about again. His medical adviser was Dr. Samuel Bard of New York, and Irving reports the following characteristic conversation between him and his patient: "Do not flatter me with vain hopes," said Washington, with placid firmness; "I am not afraid to die, and therefore can bear the worst." The doctor expressed hope, but owned that he had apprehensions. "Whether to-night or twenty hence, makes no difference," observed Washington. "I know that I am in the hands of a good Providence."[1] His friends thought that he never really recovered his old-time vigor. That autumn, as soon as Congress had adjourned, he took a journey through New England, going as far as Portsmouth and returning in time for the opening of the Second Congress.

[Footnote 1: Irving, V, 22.]

The Government was now settling down into what became its normal routine. The Cabinet was completed by the appointment of Jefferson as Secretary of State and Edmund Randolph as Attorney-General. Jefferson would have preferred to go back to France as American Minister, but in a fulsome letter he declared himself willing to accept any office which Washington wished him to fill. The Supreme Court was organized with John Jay as Chief Justice, and five Associate Justices. Washington could not fail to be aware that parties were beginning to shape themselves. At first the natural divisions consisted of the Federalists, who believed in adopting the Constitution, and those who did not. As soon as the thirteen States voted to accept the Constitution, the Anti-Federalists had no definite motive for existing. Their place was taken principally by the Republicans over against whom were the Democrats. A few years later these parties exchanged names. A fundamental difference in the ideas of the Americans sprang from their views in regard to National and State rights. Some of them regarded the State as the ultimate unit. Others insisted that the Nation was sovereign. These two conflicting views run through American history down to the Civil War, and even in Washington's time they existed in outline. Washington himself was a Federalist, believing that the Federation of the former Colonies should be made as compact and strongly knit as possible. He had had too much evidence during the Revolution of the weakness of uncentralized government, and yet his Virginia origin and training had planted in him a strong sympathy for State rights. In Washington's own Cabinet dwelt side by side the leaders of the two parties: Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, though born in Virginia of high aristocratic stock, was the most aggressive and infatuated of Democrats. Alexander Hamilton, born in the West Indies and owing nothing to family connections, was a natural aristocrat. He believed that the educated and competent few must inevitably govern the incompetent masses. His enemies suspected that he leaned strongly towards monarchy and would have been glad to see Washington crowned king.

President Washington, believing in Assumption, took satisfaction in Hamilton's bargain with Jefferson which made Assumption possible. For the President saw in the act a power making for union, and union was one of the chief objects of his concern. The foremost of Hamilton's measures, however, for good or for ill, was the protective tariff on foreign imports. Experience has shown that protection has been much more than a financial device. It has been deeply and inextricably moral. It has caused many American citizens to seek for tariff favors from the Government. Compared with later rates, those which Hamilton's tariff set were moderate indeed. The highest duties it exacted on foreign imports were fifteen per cent, while the average was only eight and a half per cent. And yet it had not been long in force when the Government was receiving $200,000 a month, which enabled it to defray all the necessary public charges. Hamilton, in the words of Daniel Webster, "smote the rock of National resources and copious streams of wealth poured forth. He touched the dead corpse of public credit and it stood forth erect with life." The United States of all modern countries have been the best fitted by their natural resources to do without artificial stimulation, in spite of which fact they still cling, after one hundred and thirty-five years, to the easy and plausible tariff makeshift. Washington himself believed that the tariff should so promote industries as to provide for whatever the country needed in time of war.

Two other financial measures are to be credited to Hamilton. The first was the excise, an internal revenue on distilled spirits. It met with opposition from the advocates of State rights, but was passed after heated debate. The last was the establishment of a United States Bank. All of Hamilton's measures tended directly to centralization, the object which he and Washington regarded as paramount.

In 1790 Washington made a second trip through the Eastern States, taking pains to visit Rhode Island, which was the last State to ratify the Constitution (May 29, 1790). These trips of his, for which the hostile might have found parallels in the royal progresses of the British sovereigns, really served a good purpose; for they enabled the people to see and hear their President; which had a good effect in a newly established nation. Washington lost no opportunity for teaching a moral. Thus, when he came to Boston, John Hancock, the Governor of Massachusetts, seemed to wish to indicate that the Governor was the highest personage in the State and not at all subservient even to the President of the United States. He wished to arrange it so that Washington should call on him first, but this Washington had no idea of doing. Hancock then wrote and apologized for not greeting the President owing to an unfortunate indisposition. Washington replied regretting the Governor's illness and announcing that the schedule on which he was travelling required him to quit Boston at a given time. Governor Hancock, whose spectacular signature had given him prominence everywhere, finding that he could not make the President budge, sent word that he was coming to pay his respects. Washington replied that he should be much pleased to welcome him, but expressed anxiety lest the Governor might increase his indisposition by coming out. This little comedy had a far-reaching effect. It settled the question as to whether the Governor of a State or the President of the United States should take precedence. From that day to this, no Governor, so far as I am aware, has set himself above the President in matters of ceremonial.

One of the earliest difficulties which Washington's administration had to overcome was the hostility of the Indians. Indian discontent and even lawlessness had been going on for years, with only a desultory and ineffectual show of vigor on the part of the whites. Washington, who detested whatever was ineffectual and lacking in purpose, determined to beat down the Indians into submission. He sent out a first army under General St. Clair, but it was taken in ambush by the Indians and nearly wiped out—a disaster which caused almost a panic throughout the Western country. Washington felt the losses deeply, but he had no intention of being beaten there. He organized a second army, gave it to General Wayne to command, who finally brought the Six Nations to terms. The Indians in the South still remained unpacified and lawless.

Washington made another prolonged trip, this time through the Southern States, which greatly improved his health and gave an opportunity of seeing many of the public men, and enabled the population to greet for the first time their President. Meanwhile the seeds of partisan feuds grew apace, as they could not fail to do where two of the ablest politicians ever known in the United States sat in the same Cabinet and pursued with unremitting energy ideas that were mutually uncompromising. Thomas Jefferson, although born of the old aristocratic stock of Virginia, had early announced himself a Democrat, and had led that faction throughout the Revolution. His facile and fiery mind gave to the Declaration of Independence an irresistible appeal, and it still remains after nearly one hundred and fifty years one of the most contagious documents ever drawn up. Going to France at the outbreak of the French Revolution, he found the French nation about to put into practice the principles on which he had long fed his imagination—principles which he accepted without qualification and without scruple. Returning to America after the organization of the Government, he accepted with evident reluctance the position of Secretary of State which Washington offered to him. In the Cabinet his chief adversary or competitor was Alexander Hamilton, his junior by fourteen years, a man equally versatile and equally facile—and still more enthralling as an orator. Hamilton harbored the anxiety that the United States under their new Constitution would be too loosely held together. He promoted, therefore, every measure that tended to strengthen the Central Government and to save it from dissolution either by the collapse of its unifying bonds or by anarchy. In the work of the first two years of Washington's administration, Hamilton was plainly victorious. The Tariff Law, the Excise, the National Bank, the National Funding Bill, all centralizing measures, were his. Washington approved them all, and we may believe that he talked them over with Hamilton and gave them his approval before they came under public discussion.

Thus, as Hamilton gained, Jefferson plainly lost. But Washington did not abandon his sound position as a neutral between the two. He requested Jefferson and Edmund Randolph to draw up objections to some of Hamilton's schemes, so that he had in writing the arguments of very strong opponents.

Meanwhile the French Revolution had broken all bounds, and Jefferson, as the sponsor of the French over here, was kept busy in explaining and defending the Gallic horrors. The Americans were in a large sense law-abiding, but in another sense they were lawless. Nevertheless, they heard with horror of the atrocities of the French Revolutionists—of the drownings, of the guillotining, of the imprisonment and execution of the King and Queen—and they had a healthy distrust of the Jacobin Party, which boasted that these things were natural accompaniments of Liberty with which they planned to conquer the world. Events in France inevitably drove that country into war with England. Washington and his chief advisers believed that the United States ought to remain neutral as between the two belligerents. But neutrality was difficult. In spite of their horror at the French Revolution, the memory of our debt to France during our own Revolution made a very strong bond of sympathy, whereas our long record of hostility to England during our Colony days, and since the Declaration of Independence, kept alive a traditional hatred for Great Britain. While it was easy, therefore, to preach neutrality, it was very difficult to enforce it. An occurrence which could not have been foreseen further added to the difficulty of neutrality.

In the spring of 1793 the French Republic appointed Edmond Charles Genet, familiarly called "Citizen Genet," Minister to the United States. He was a young man, not more than thirty, of very quick parts, who had been brought up in the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, had an exorbitant idea of his own importance, and might be described without malice as a master of effrontery. The ship which brought him to this country was driven by adverse winds to Charleston and landed him there on April 8th. He lost no time in fitting out a privateer against British mercantile vessels. The fact that by so doing he broke the American rule of neutrality did not seem to trouble him at all; on the contrary, he acted as if he were simply doing what the United States would do if they really did what they wished. As soon as he had made his arrangements, he proceeded by land up the coast to Philadelphia. Jefferson was exuberant, and he wrote in exultation to Madison on the fifth of May, concluding with the phrase, "I wish we may be able to repress the spirit of the people within the limits of a fair neutrality." If there be such things as crocodile tears, perhaps there may also be crocodile wishes, of which this would seem to be one. A friend of Hamilton's, writing about the same time, speaks in different terms, as follows:

He has a good person, a fine ruddy complexion, quite active, and seems always in a bustle, more like a busy man than a man of business. A Frenchman in his manners, he announces himself in all companies as the Minister of the Republic, etc., talks freely of his commission, and, like most Europeans, seems to have adopted mistaken notions of the penetration and knowledge of the people of the United States. His system, I think, is to laugh us into war if he can.[1]

[Footnote 1: Irving, V, 151.]

Citizen Genet did not allow his progress up the coast to be so rapid that he was deprived of any ovation. The banquets, luncheons, speech-makings, by which he was welcomed everywhere, had had no parallel in the country up to that time. They seemed to be too carefully prepared to be unpremeditated, and probably many of those who took part in them did not understand that they were cheering for a cause which they had never espoused. One wonders why he was allowed to carry on this personal campaign and to show rude unconcern for good manners, or indeed for any manners except those of a wayward and headstrong boy. It might be thought that the Secretary of State abetted him and in his infatuation for France did not check him; but, so far as I have discovered, no evidence exists that Jefferson was in collusion with the truculent and impertinent "Citizen." No doubt, however, the shrewd American politician took satisfaction in observing the extravagances of his fellow countrymen in paying tribute to the representative of France. At Philadelphia, for instance, the city which already was beginning to have a reputation for spinster propriety which became its boast in the next century, we hear that "... before Genet had presented his credentials and been acknowledged by the President, he was invited to a grand republican dinner, 'at which,' we are told, 'the company united in singing the Marseillaise Hymn. A deputation of French sailors presented themselves, and were received by the guests with the fraternal embrace.' The table was decorated with the 'tree of liberty,' and a red cap, called the cap of liberty, was placed on the head of the minister, and from his travelled in succession from head to head round the table."[1]

[Footnote 1: Jay's Life, I, 30.]

But not all the Americans were delirious enthusiasts. Hamilton kept his head amid the whirling words which, he said, might "do us much harm and could do France no good." In a letter, which deserves to be quoted in spite of its length, he states very clearly the opinions of one of the sanest of Americans. He writes to a friend: