His Excellency_George Washington

by Joseph J. Ellis

  59. Washington to Alexander Hamilton, 10 July 1787, ibid., 257.

  60. Washington to Henry Knox, 19 August 1787, ibid., 297; Washington to Lafayette, 18 September 1787, ibid., 334.

  61. On the Constitution as a purposely and necessarily ambiguous document, see John Murrin, “A Roof without Walls: The Dilemma of American National Identity,” Beeman, Botein, and Carter, eds., Beyond Confederation, 334–38. My own effort to make the same argument is in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York, 2001), 13–17, 91–96.

  62. On the incident at Head of Elk, see Robert Morris to Washington, 25 October 1787, PWCF 5:370–71; on the purchase of Don Quixote, see the editorial note, ibid., 419; Alexander Hamilton to Washington, 13 August 1788, PWCF 6:444.

  63. Washington to Alexander Hamilton, 28 August 1788, ibid., 480–81.

  64. Washington to William Gordon, 1 January 1788, ibid., 1; Washington to Thomas Jefferson, 1 January 1788, ibid., 2–4; Washington to Edmund Randolph, 8 January 1788, ibid., 17–18; Washington to Lafayette, 18 June 1788, ibid., 337; Washington to Bushrod Washington, 9 November 1787, PWCF 5:422.

  65. Washington to Charles Petit, 16 August 1788, PWCF 6:447–48; Washington to Lafayette, 7 February 1788, ibid., 95–97; Washington to Nathaniel Gorman, 21 July 1788, ibid., 373; Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, 26 October 1788, PWP 1:72; Washington to Henry Lee Jr., 22 September 1788, PWCF 6:531; Washington to Alexander Hamilton, 3 October 1788, PWP 1:31–33; Washington to Henry Knox, 1 April 1789, PWP 2:2.

  66. Washington to William Pierce, 1 January 1789, PWP 1:227–28; Washington to Lafayette, 29 January 1789, ibid., 262–64; for consultations with Humphreys about the draft of his inaugural address, see the editorial note, PWP 2:152–57.

  67. Address to Charles Thomson, 14 April 1789, ibid., 56–57.

  68. James McHenry to Washington, 29 March 1789, PWP 1:461.

  69. Gouverneur Morris to Washington, 23 February 1789, ibid., 339; editorial note on the draft inaugural address, PWP 2:162; Washington to Henry Knox, 29 January 1789, PWP 1:260–61.

  70. For the trip from Mount Vernon to New York, see PWP 2:60–158. An excellent scholarly account of the procession, containing the various toasts, odes, poems, and tributes at each location, is in Kenneth Silverman, A Cultural History of the American Revolution (New York, 1976), 604–7. Apparently there was at least one sour note during the procession, an article critical of Washington’s royal entourage, as well as his status as a slave owner, which depicted him mounted on his beloved jackass in the arms of Billy Lee. See the editorial note in PWP 2:115.

  71. Editorial note, 30 April 1789, ibid., 155–57.

  72. Washington to Lafayette, 18 June 1788, PWCF 6:338. The inaugural address emphasized Washington’s sense of inadequacy for the task and contained one memorable phrase, the desire to preserve “the sacred fire of liberty.” As with his acceptance of the position as commander in chief, Washington offered to decline any salary and receive only compensation for expenses. See PWP 2:173–77.

  CHAPTER SIX

  1. PWP 8:493. See David C. Hendrickson, Peace Pact: The Lost World of the American Founding (Lawrence, 2003), for the fullest and most recent assessment of the absence of national unity after the Revolution.

  2. James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn graciously allowed me to read their unpublished manuscript on the Washington presidency, George Washington, which is excellent at placing it in the context of “presidential history.” The standard single-volume account is Forrest McDonald, The Presidency of George Washington (Lawrence, 1974), which I found eccentric. More readable and reliable as a narrative is Richard Norton Smith, Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation (Boston, 1993). For its combination of analysis and intellectual sweep, the relevant chapters in Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic (New York, 1993), set the standard.

  3. David Stuart to Washington, 14 July 1789, PWP 3:198–204, which discusses Henry’s hostility to the power of the executive under the Constitution and cites the famous remark about monarchy.

  4. See the correspondence and editorial notes in PWP 3:76–77, 536–37; PWP 4:1–2; PWO 5:393–400, 515; PWP 10:5–10.

  5. Editorial note, PWP 2:205–6, for Martha’s comment.

  6. The letters home to Mount Vernon are too copious to cite in their entirety. For illustrative examples, see PWP 3:472–76; PWP 11:273–78, 330–34; WW 32:297–308, 463–68.

  7. The biographer referred to here is Marcus Cunliffe, whose George Washington: Man and Monument (Boston, 1958) makes the case in its title as well as its text that Washington’s private personality was overwhelmed by his public role.

  8. PWP 10:535–37, for Jefferson’s conversation with Washington in which retirement after two years is suggested.

  9. PWP 2:192–95, 211–14, 245–50; PWP 3:321–27, 391.

  10. PWP 5:70–72, 110, 131, 388.

  11. PWP 3:521–27, where an extensive editorial note synthesizes the several firsthand reports on the Senate imbroglio.

  12. PWP 4:163, for editorial notes on the tour. See also ibid., 200–1, for a map of the tour; PWP 6:284–86, for the address to the Hebrew congregation in Newport.

  13. PWP 7:472–85, for the itinerary of the southern tour; for Prescott and Cornwallis, see PWP 8:23, 201, 260.

  14. Ibid., 73–74.

  15. On Madison’s major role during the early months of Washington’s presidency, see PWP 2:214–16, 419; PWP 3:387; PWP 4:3–5, 67–68, 125–27, 307–12. More generally, see Stuart Leibeger, Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic (Charlottesville, 1999).

  16. Thomas Jefferson to Washington, 15 December 1789, PWP 4:412–13.

  17. Washington to Lafayette, 3 June 1790, PWP 5:468.

  18. Washington to John Jay, 5 October 1789, PWP 4:137.

  19. Ibid., 76–80, for the editors’ synthesis of the scholarship on the Judiciary Act. See also Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 62–63.

  20. I have written about this episode more fully in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York, 2000), 81–119.

  21. Warner Mifflin to Washington, 12 March 1790, PWP 5:222–24.

  22. Washington to David Stuart, 15 June 1790, ibid., 525.

  23. Washington to Tobias Lear, 12 April 1791, PWP 8:84–86; Tobias Lear to Washington, 24 April 1791, ibid., 132.

  24. PWP 3:1–31; 265–89.

  25. Hamilton 6:51–168, which includes a helpful editorial note on the economic technicalities of the Report.

  26. Beverley Randolph to Washington, 4 January 1791, PWP 7:178.

  27. On the routine character of business between Hamilton and Washington, see PWP 4:520–26; PWP 6:413–15, 477–80. On Washington’s view of the Virginia campaign against Hamilton’s program, see PWP 5:286–88, 523–28.

  28. PWP 7:331–37, 348–58, 395–97, 422–52.

  29. Kenneth R. Bowling, The Creation of Washington, D.C.: The Idea and Location of the American Capital (Fairfax, 1991), x–xi, 148, 196. See my assessment in Founding Brothers, 69–80.

  30. PWP 6:71–73, 368–70, 370–72, 434–37, 463–65.

  31. PWP 7:161–68, 258–59, 547–50, 585–86, 589–90; PWP 8:27–38, 506–8; PWO 9:209–13, 452–68, 603–4; PWP 10:62–67. See the excellent article by C. M. Harris, “Washington’s Gamble, L’Enfant’s Dream: Politics, Design, and the Founding of the National Capital,” WMQ 56 (July 1999), 527–64.

  32. Rochambeau to Washington, 11 April 1790, PWP 5:326; Washington to Rochambeau, 10 August 1790, PWP 6:231–32.

  33. The highlights of Morris’s extensive correspondence with Washington are in PWP 5:48–58; PWP 7:4–7; PWP 9:515–17; PWP 10:223–25. On the Franco-American issues Morris described, see Susan Dunn, Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light (New York, 1999).

  34. PWP 6:58–61, 343–45, 356–58, 359–61, 439–60. The best survey of the affair is Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 212–23.
/>   35. PWP 2:196–200, 370–74, 325–26, 490–95. Good background accounts include: Reginald Horseman, Expansion and Indian Policy, 1783–1812 (East Lansing, 1967); Eric Hinderaker, Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley (Cambridge, 1997); and for the Native American perception of the engulfment, Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, 2001).

  36. Knox to Washington, 6 July 1789, PWP 3:123–29; Knox to Washington, 17 July 1789, ibid., 134–41; Knox to Washington, 4 January 1790, PWP 4:529–36.

  37. PWP 3:337–38, 551–64; PWP 4:468–94; PWP 5:140–57; PWP 6:102–4, 186–96, 213–14, 237–39.

  38. PWP 7:145–50, 262–71; PWP 9:68–70.

  39. PWP 4:140–44, 331–32; PWP 5:11–15, 76–81; PWP 6:362–65, 668–70; PWP 8:200–25; PWP 9:37–41, 158–68. The Washington quotation is from Washington to Edmund Pendleton, 22 January 1792, WW 34:98–101.

  40. Washington to Secretary of State, 1 July 1796, WW 35:112. See also PWP 8:49, 57–58, where Washington reiterates his conviction that culpability for most of the frontier violence rests with the whites.

  41. PWP 10:349–55, 399–403, 478–84.

  42. PWP 10:69–73, 588–92, 594–96; PWP 11:28–32, 38–40, 91–94, 182–85. See also, Hamilton 12:229–58 and Jefferson 20:718–53, for editorial notes on the political division from each respective side. The Jefferson quotation is from Thomas Jefferson to Washington, 9 September 1792, PWP 11:104.

  43. Three accounts of the emergence of political parties inform my interpretation here: Joseph Charles, The Origins of the American Party System (Williamsburg, 1950); Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of the Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley, 1969); Richard Buel, Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, 1789–1815 (Ithaca, 1972). The Jefferson quotation is in Thomas Jefferson to Frances Hopkinson, 15 March 1789, Jefferson 14:650.

  44. See Jefferson 17:205–7, for Jefferson’s postmortem on the “dinner bargain” as a disaster for Virginia’s interests. For a report on the converging sentiment against Hamilton’s program in Virginia, see David Stuart to Washington, 2 June 1790, PWP 5:458–64.

  45. For Madison’s dramatic shift, see his correspondence in Madison 13:87–91, 142, 147–48, 151, 184–85, 187. The best secondary account is Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 133–62.

  46. PWP 11:182–85, 234–39.

  47. Anonymous to Washington, 3 January 1792, PWP 9:369–70. See also PWP 10:174–75.

  48. PWP 10:5–10.

  49. Thomas Jefferson to Washington, 23 May 1792, PWP 10:408–14; Tobias Lear to Washington, 21 July 1792, ibid., 556–59.

  50. Elizabeth Willing Powel to Washington, 17 November 1792, PWP 11:395–98.

  51. Second Inaugural Address, 4 March 1793, WW 32:374–75.

  52. This is my overly concise synthesis of the situation at the start of Washington’s second term based on PWP 10 and PWP 11. The quotation is from Red Jacket in a speech on 31 March 1792, PWP 10:194.

  53. Washington to Henry Lee, 21 July 1793, WW 33:23–24.

  54. WW 32:419–20, 430–31, 398–400, 415–16.

  55. The best secondary account of Genet’s mission is Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 330–73. See also the editorial note in WW 33:114.

  56. Washington to Richard Henry Lee, 24 October 1793, WW 33:137–38; on the Germantown move, ibid., 107–9, 112–13, 116–18.

  57. PWP 11:59–62, 75–77, 122–24; WW 33:457–61. The most recent scholarly monograph is Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York, 1986). My own interpretation tends to concur with Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 451–88.

  58. Washington to Henry Lee, 26 August 1794, WW 33:477; see also ibid., 507–9, 523–24; WW 34:3–6.

  59. WW 34:28–37; Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 28 December 1794, Jefferson-Madison 2:866–68.

  60. The two standard accounts are: Samuel Flagg Bemis, Jay’s Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy (New Haven, 1962); Jerald Combs, The Jay Treaty: Political Background of the Founding Fathers (Berkeley, 1970).

  61. WW 33:329, 355, 485; WW 34:226–28, 237–40.

  62. An elegant summary is available in Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 406–26.

  63. WW 34:243–46, 251–56. The Washington quotation is in Washington to Alexander Hamilton, 29 July 1795, ibid., 262–64.

  64. Ibid., 244–85, for correspondence on the Randolph affair. Randolph is defended from some of the charges in Irving Brant, “Edmund Randolph. Not Guilty!” WMQ 7 (1950): 179–98. Again Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 424–31, provides the most acute analysis.

  65. WW 34:295–97, 397, 477, 505; WW 35:2–5, 13, 36–37.

  66. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 27 March 1796, Jefferson-Madison 2:928. For a fuller account of Jefferson’s reaction, see Ellis, American Sphinx, 191–94.

  67. WW 35:91–92, 101–4, 142–43, 363–65, 421. The Washington quotation is in the last citation.

  68. Washington to Thomas Jefferson, 6 July 1796, ibid., 118–22.

  69. Washington to Alexander Hamilton, 15 May 1796, ibid., 48–61. My earlier and fuller version of the Farewell Address, its drafting and multiple meanings, is in Founding Brothers, 120–61. See also Burton I. Kaufman, Washington’s Farewell Address: The View from the Twentieth Century (Chicago, 1969), and Matthew Spaulding and Patrick J. Garrity, A Sacred Union of Citizens: George Washington’s Farewell Address and the National Character (Lantham, MD, 1996).

  70. Victor H. Palitsis, ed., Washington’s Farewell Address (New York, 1935), 172.

  71. Alexander Hamilton to Washington, 30 July 1796, Palitsis, ed., Farewell Address, 249–50. For Washington’s meticulous role at the printer’s office, see 288–89.

  72. WW 35:234.

  73. Ibid., 235–36.

  74. Arthur A. Markowitz, “Washington’s Farewell Address and the Historians,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 94 (1970), 173–91.

  75. WW 35:224.

  76. Talk to the Cherokee Nation, 29 August 1796, ibid., 193–98.

  77. Ibid., 310–20.

  78. Ibid., 357–60, 370–71, 385–86, 388–91, 394. The last citation contains the quotation by John Quincy Adams.

  79. John Adams to Abigail Adams, 9 March 1797, quoted in Ellis, Founding Brothers, 184; Diaries 6:236.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  1. Washington to George Washington Parke Custis, 3 April 1797, Washington to James McHenry, 3 April 1797, PWRT 1:70–71.

  2. Washington to James McHenry, 22 May 1797, ibid., 159–60; Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Under Their Vine and Fig Tree: Travels Through America in 1797–99, trans. and ed. Metchie Budka (Elizabeth, NJ, 1965), 98–108. This is a telescoped account that draws on several different comments by visitors to re-create a typical day that is, in fact, based on multiple incidents over a much longer stretch of time. See WW 35:141–42; PWRT 1:281, 404–5; PWRT 4:19–20, 402.

  3. Washington to Landon Carter, 5 October 1798, PWRT 3:79; Washington to William Fitzhugh, 5 August 1798, PWRT 2:490.

  4. On the livestock at Mount Vernon, see the inventory done in April 1797, PWRT 2:102.

  5. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 8 January 1797, Jefferson-Madison, 2:955.

  6. Aurora, 6 March 1797; William Duane, A Letter to George Washington (Philadelphia, 1796), 13; Washington to Rufus King, 25 June 1797, PWRT 1:214–15.

  7. Niemcewicz, Under Their Vine and Fig Tree, 102; for the marginal comments on Monroe’s pamphlet, see PWRT 2:169–217; John Langhorne [Peter Carr] to Washington, 25 September 1797, PWRT 1:373–75, 475–77, for the intrigue by Jefferson’s nephew. See also, Washington to John Nicholas, 8 March 1798, PWRT 2:127–29.

  8. Washington to Lafayette, 25 December 1798, PWRT 3:281–83. See also the correspondence in PWRT 1:327–29, 499–502; PWRT 2:491, 565–66.

  9. Richard H. Kohn, Eagle and Sword: The Beginnings of the Military Establishment in
America (New York, 1975), 193–255; for the quotations from Abigail Adams on Jefferson, see Ellis, Founding Brothers, 189–90.

  10. For Washington’s support of the Alien and Sedition Acts, see the correspondence in PWRT 3:108–10, 216–17, 287. The standard work on the legislation is James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, 1956).

  11. Alexander Hamilton to Washington, 19 May 1789; Washington to Alexander Hamilton, 27 May 1798, PWRT 2:279–81, 297–300.

  12. Timothy Pickering to Washington, 6 July 1798, PWRT 2:386–87. See also 392–93, 397–400.

  13. Washington to John Adams, 13 July 1798, ibid., 402–04; editorial note on Knox’s warning of intrigue, ibid., 409–12; Henry Knox to Washington, 29 July 1798, ibid., 469–72; Henry Knox to Washington, 26 August 1798, ibid., 562–63; Washington to Henry Knox, 9 August 1798, ibid., 502–06.

  14. PWRT 2:279–81, 297–300, 386–87, 392–93, 397–400, for correspondence between members of Adams’s cabinet and Washington that should have alerted him to Hamilton’s scheme; see Hamilton 22:452–54, on Hamilton’s plans for using the Provisional army. The Hamilton quotation is in Hamilton 24:155. Two excellent secondary accounts are Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 239–55, and Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 714–16. My interpretation here is more critical of Hamilton than most scholarly accounts of this episode, because the evidence strikes me as conclusive that Hamilton regarded the New army as a weapon to wield against the Republicans. What he might actually have done if the New army materialized must remain an open question. The splendid new biography by Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 2004), 546–79, tells the story in gripping detail.

  15. Timothy Pickering to Washington, 13 September 1798, PWRT 2:608–10; see also ibid., 573–77, 589–90, PWRT 3:14–27, for the clash between Adams and his cabinet over the selection of Hamilton. Washington to John Adams, 25 September 1798, ibid., 42, for the insistence upon Hamilton, and John Adams to Washington, 9 October 1798, ibid., 87–88, for Adams’s eventual acquiescence.