by Ray Raphael
Then Mason headed south to his home plantation, Gunston Hall, only five miles downstream from Mount Vernon on the right bank of the Potomac. Along the way, near Baltimore, his carriage tipped over, causing him much loss of blood and severe head and neck pains.3
George Washington, traveling separately from Mason, also suffered a mishap while heading back to the Potomac. On Wednesday, September 19, at the Head of Elk, he came across a creek swollen by rain. Unable to ford at the usual spot, he risked crossing on “an old, rotten & long disused bridge,” as he wrote in his journal. His lead horse fell fifteen feet into the river, almost dragging his baggage-laden carriage with it. While Mason’s injury attracted no attention, Washington’s near fall became the story of the hour. Two newspaper accounts of the incident were reprinted a total of seventy-one times over the next two months, in every state except North Carolina. According to the first, “His Excellency had alighted in order to walk over the bridge, which fortunate circumstance probably saved a life so dear to his country.” (The term “alighted” was misleading, perhaps deliberately so. Washington had been riding in his carriage, not upon the horse.) The second article celebrated the “providential preservation of the valuable life of this great and good man … for the great and important purpose of establishing, by his name and future influence, a government that will render safe and permanent the liberties of America.” This is what Mason and other opponents of the proposed Constitution were up against. They could not contest the office of a chief executive without seeming to oppose Washington himself, who more than likely would become the first president under the new plan.4
When Mason and Washington arrived home, they found their corn crops wanting. While in Philadelphia, they had been informed this might be so, but the shortage was even worse than they thought. Neighboring North Carolina, however, produced an abundant harvest that year, and Mason had made some contacts there through his fellow delegates. Washington knew this, and on October 7 he wrote to his neighbor: if Mason wanted to purchase North Carolina corn, “I would gladly join you.” Later that day, Mason responded: “If I can be of any service to you in making such a contract as you approve, it will give me a great deal of pleasure.” All very practical and cordial. This was life as usual for such close neighbors, and it continued despite their political differences.5
Washington was not shocked by Mason’s brash opposition to the proposed Constitution, but he was clearly upset. Mason had “rendered himself obnoxious in Philadelphia by the pains he took to disseminate his objections,” he wrote to Madison. (“Obnoxious,” in those days, connoted insistent or insufferable, not loathsome or repugnant.) “To alarm the people, seems to be the ground work of his plan.” Mason would have agreed with this last statement; his list of objections would eventually find its way into twenty-five different newspapers, from Maine to South Carolina.6
As Mason pushed resistance, Washington promoted adoption. He did not step aside and let others do the work of advocacy, as is often reported. He wrote to other supporters, he tried to convince fence-sitters, he strategized, he arranged for publication of pro-Constitution materials, and he exerted his personal influence. Immediately upon his return to Mount Vernon, he sent copies of the proposed Constitution to three former governors of Virginia, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Harrison, and Thomas Nelson. “I accompany it with no observations,” he wrote at the outset, and while it is true he made no reference to the specific contents of the plan, he did comment on its importance: “I wish the Constitution which is offered had been made more perfect, but I sincerely believe it is the best that could be obtained at this time; and, as a Constitutional door is opened for amendment hereafter, the adoption of it under the present circumstances of the Union is in my opinion desirable.” Had the convention failed to draft new rules, he closed, “anarchy would soon have ensued—the seeds being richly sown in every soil.”7
More letters followed. To Henry Knox, his former general whom Congress had appointed secretary of war, Washington touted the virtues of the Constitution while warning Knox to expect “our Govr [Edmund Randolph] & Colo. Mason” to do all in their power “to alarm the people.” To David Stuart, Mason’s fellow representative from Fairfax County in the House of Delegates, he passed along James Wilson’s detailed rebuttal of Mason’s objections. Perhaps Stuart could arrange for the “re-publication” of Wilson’s argument, he suggested—not that Mason really needed any rebutting, he noted, since “every mind must recoil” at his ideas.8
When Hamilton and Madison, separately, sent him the first “Publius” essays, later published as The Federalist, Washington forwarded them, at Madison’s request, to a contact in Richmond, the state capital, for republication there. “Altho’ I am acquainted with some of the writers who are concerned in this work,” Washington noted, “I am not at liberty to disclose their names, nor would I have it known that they are sent by me to you for promulgation.”9
While Washington’s political activism appeared to run counter to his public persona, his commitment to nationalism was hardly new. When he retired as commander in chief back in 1783, in a letter he termed his “legacy,” Washington had presented his own “system of policy,” a broad outline for a stronger central government. There should be “an indissoluble union of states under one federal head,” he had said. “There should be lodged somewhere a supreme power to regulate and govern the general concerns of the confederated republic, without which the union cannot long endure.” By “supreme power” he meant neither God nor an individual executive but a national government, a “supreme authority” over and above the separate states. Now his wish for a national government was almost fulfilled. Only one step remained: ratification of the convention’s proposed Constitution.10
The new plan would not be approved, though, unless Americans relinquished “their local prejudices and policies,” to use the words of his legacy letter. They needed “to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community.” Opponents of the plan were not doing that, Washington believed. Although Mason and others used high-toned arguments, they were motivated by local interests and jealousies. Mason’s more famous arguments demanded a Bill of Rights and an executive council, but Washington believed his true reason for opposing the Constitution was that it ran counter to Virginia’s interests. In his objections, Mason insisted that “commercial and navigation laws” should require a two-thirds vote so “the five Southern states, whose produce & circumstances are totally different from that of the eight Northern & Eastern states,” would not be “ruined.” This was the sort of language that absolutely infuriated George Washington. He too was a Virginian, but the “separate interests” of the states, even his own, needed to be reined in. “That there are some … who wish to see these states divided into several confederacies is pretty evident,” he wrote to David Stuart. “But as nothing in my conception is more to be depreciated than a disunion, or these separate confederacies, my voice, as far as it will extend, will be offered in favor of [union].”11
Washington had no good words to say about those “who are no friends to general government—perhaps I might go further, & add, who would have no great objection to the introduction of anarchy & confusion.” Such adversaries were “more active & violent” than were friends of the Constitution, and their appeals were “addressed to the passions of the people, and obviously calculated to rouse their fears.” Washington’s demonizing the opposition served a purpose. By viewing them as selfish and inherently disruptive, he skirted any real issues they might pose. The structure of the Constitution was not at issue, merely the fact of its existence. All substantive critiques—including serious questions about the powers, manner of selection, and term in office of the president—could therefore be ignored. If these presented problems, they could be fixed later.12
Washington’s commitment to a stronger union, combined with his dim view of the opposition, fueled
his own passions, and according to eyewitness reports his renewed sense of purpose was good for his health and spirit. “He is in perfect good health, & looks almost as well as he did twenty years ago. I never saw him so keen for any thing in my life, as he is for the adoption of the new form of government,” wrote Alexander Donald, who stayed for two days at Mount Vernon in October.13
At least initially, Washington did not wish to go public with his advocacy. His private secretary, Tobias Lear, knew this, so when Lear published a refutation of Mason’s objections in the Virginia Journal, he did so under the name of Brutus, and he made a point of not telling his employer what he was doing. On December 27, however, an excerpt from one of Washington’s many letters supporting the Constitution was published in The Virginia Herald. There was “no alternative” between the “adoption” of the Constitution and “anarchy,” he wrote, as he had written several other times in the previous three months, but this time his dire warning was read by the public. Over the next three months, forty-nine newspapers from Georgia to New Hampshire reprinted the former commander in chief’s passionate support of the new plan. Washington was a bit taken aback, but not dismayed. He complained to Charles Carter, the recipient of the letter that became public, but not so sternly as one might expect:
Altho’ I have no disinclination to the promulgation of my sentiments on the proposed Constitution (not having concealed them on any occasion), yet I must nevertheless confess, that it gives me pain to see the hasty and indigested production of a private letter handed to the public…. Could I have supposed that the contents of a private letter (marked with evident haste) would have composed a news paper paragraph, I certainly should have taken some pains to dress the sentiments … in less exceptionable language, and would have assigned some reasons in support of my opinion.14
“Reasons,” though, were not the issue. The newspapers reprinted the letter not because of the argument it made but because of who made the argument. Washington’s endorsement had a far greater impact than the most cogent of essays, and supporters of the Constitution exploited it brazenly. “Is it possible,” asked one writer in The Independent Gazetteer, “that the deliverer of our country would have recommended an unsafe form of government for that liberty, for which he had for eight long years contended with such unexampled firmness, consistency and magnanimity?” Another proponent suggested “that the Federalists should be distinguished hereafter by the name of Washingtonians, and the Anti-Federalists by the name of ‘Shayites.’ ”15
Claims of Washington’s importance in shaping the new government sometimes overshadowed the evidence. A writer in The Massachusetts Gazette reported with confidence a tale from the convention: Washington had held the floor “two hours at a time, in speaking upon some parts of the proposed system,” and “he advocated every part of the plan with all those rhetorical powers which he possesses in eminent degree.” According to Madison’s notes, Washington spoke substantively exactly once, and then but briefly on the final day of the convention.16
Washington’s impact was no secret. William Grayson, a Virginia Anti-Federalist, listed an impressive array of leading figures on his side that included not only Mason and Richard Henry Lee but also three former governors, “most of the judges of the General Court,” and several others. All of these, though, were offset by one key Federalist, General Washington, “who is a host within himself.” Washington’s support made the structural arguments of his opponents moot. When they issued dire warnings about power-hungry presidents taking advantage of the new system, Washington, a flesh-and-blood counterexample, made them look foolish. Nobody could imagine that George Washington, who had voluntarily relinquished his authority, would ever succumb to foreign intrigue or cling to power or team up with factions or lead an army against his own people. Richard Henry Lee tried to muster his own heroes—Moses and Montesquieu—to counter Washington, but this retort seemed a mark of desperation.17
At the Federal Convention, Washington had said little but exerted great influence merely by his presence; delegates might not have settled on a single executive so readily had they not looked to him as a model. Perhaps, too, they would not have ceded to Gouverneur Morris’s relentless push to free the office from congressional selection. Almost certainly, delegates would have been more reluctant to allow indefinite terms, opening the possibility of a president for life. That was pushing the limits of what people out of doors would accept, and without Washington delegates would probably have reined themselves in and not risked a backlash. Now that the debate had moved out of doors, Washington’s support was skewing the battle over ratification. There can be no doubt that the new office would have received closer public scrutiny had Americans not felt so comfortable with making the nation’s deliverer, General George Washington, its first occupant.
All eyes were on Richmond in June 1788. In the nine months since the Federal Convention had submitted its plan for public approval, eight states had ratified the Constitution, and if Virginia followed suit, the new rules would become the law of the land, and the four holdouts would most likely fall into line. On the other hand, if Virginia rejected the Constitution, neighboring North Carolina, where Anti-Federalist sentiments ran strong, would probably follow its lead. If those two states then formed their own confederacy, as some Anti-Federalists threatened and all Federalists feared, South Carolina, Georgia, and likely Maryland would find more in common with their slave-society compatriots than with the old United States and withdraw their prior votes for ratification, and the fast-growing territories west of the Appalachians, Kentucky and Tennessee, would undoubtedly side with the southern confederacy as well. One nation would become two. Further, once Virginia rejected the Constitution, its leading resident, George Washington, would become ineligible for the presidency of the United States.
Virginia’s epic battle over the Constitution took place in an unlikely venue. Back in October 1787, when the state legislature called for a ratification convention, people hoped it would meet in the brand-new state capitol, which Thomas Jefferson modeled after the ancient Roman temple Maison Carrée. That would have been a grand opening for the noble home of Virginia’s republican government, but come June, the building was still under construction, so the convention met instead in a large wooden structure known locally as Mr. Quesnay’s Academy. The French chevalier Quesnay de Beaurepaire, who wanted to establish a European-style cultural center in Virginia, intended the building to house theatrical productions, and here indeed was the best show in town. The actors, the greatest statesmen in Virginia and many would say in the nation, played both to each other and to members of the public who crowded into the balcony gallery.18
This venue suited the legendary Patrick Henry perfectly. Henry had been a major force in Virginia politics since bursting onto the stage during the Stamp Act resistance almost a quarter century earlier. He had drummed up support for the war, served two extended terms as governor, and excited audiences as no other revolutionary could. At a time when political oratory was treated as something of a sport, Henry was universally regarded as a superstar. Now, with thundering voice and dramatic gestures, the state’s most influential Anti-Federalist would make the most of his talents. In characteristic style, he would pose rhetorical question after rhetorical question, each one proving his point beyond all doubt. “Your passions are no longer your own when he addresses them,” said George Mason, his ally on this occasion.19
On June 5, the third day of debates, Patrick Henry took the floor early and held it until the meeting adjourned. Although the convention had agreed to address the proposed Constitution point by point and the topic on the table was the composition of the House of Representatives, Henry veered far from that subject. The Constitution “has an awful squinting,” he declared. “It squints towards monarchy. And does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American?” (This “squinting” image became a popular refrain among Anti-Federalist polemicists.) Henry continued:
Your president may easily be
come a King…. If your American chief be a man of ambition and abilities, how easy is it for him to render himself absolute! … If we make a King, we may prescribe the rules by which he shall rule his people, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from infringing them. But the President, in the field, at the head of his army, can prescribe the terms on which he shall reign master…. Can he not at the head of his army beat down every opposition? Away with your President, we shall have a King. The army will salute him Monarch; your militia will leave you and assist in making him King, and fight against you. And what have you to oppose this force? What will then become of you and your rights? Will not absolute despotism ensue?20
David Robertson, the Federalist-leaning lawyer who used shorthand to record the debates as he listened from the gallery, broke off at this point, unable to keep pace with Henry’s invective. “Here Mr. Henry strongly and pathetically expatiated on the probability of the President’s enslaving America, and the horrid consequences that must result,” he jotted down.21
Did Henry really believe his apocalyptic prophecy? Was he absolutely horrified by the executive office the framers of the Constitution tried to impose on the American people? His assault on the presidency needs to be placed in the context of his other tirades at Virginia’s ratifying convention. Almost as dangerous as the president were “two sets of tax-gatherers—the State and the Federal Sheriffs.” State tax collectors, “those unfeeling bloodsuckers,” had been bad enough, and federal collectors, more remote from the people, would of course be much worse:
