The Return of George Washington

by Edward Larson

  Though far away, Washington might as well have been in the assembly room at Richmond. “The truth was that not only at the Virginia convention but at all the state gatherings Washington was always present, a force more powerful for being insubstantial,” biographer James Thomas Flexner observed.86 Washington’s role in drafting the Constitution and the prospect of him becoming the President made all the difference. Alluding to Washington near the end of Virginia’s convention, for example, Grayson complained, “Were it not for one great character in America, so many men would not be for this Government. . . . We do not fear while he lives: But we can only expect his fame to be immortal. We wish to know, who besides him, can concentrate the confidence and affections of all America?”87 And railing against the electoral system for selecting presidents, Mason charged that “so many persons would be voted for, that there seldom or never could be a majority in favor of one, except one great name.”88 When Henry had the gall to assert that Jefferson opposed ratification, Madison countered that Washington supported it: check and checkmate.89 In making these arguments at the convention, Grayson, Mason, and Henry must have felt that they were shadowboxing with Washington, whose assumed role as President made what they saw as a fatally flawed system appear attractive to others.

  ON JUNE 27, the evening stagecoach brought the news to Alexandria that Virginia had ratified the Constitution two days earlier. It had passed by a ten-vote margin out of 168 votes cast. The promise of recommendatory amendments won over more members than expected, including four from Kentucky.

  With cannons booming in celebration, townspeople descended on Mount Vernon to invite Washington to local festivities scheduled for the next day. Before dawn, an express rider arrived with word that New Hampshire had ratified on the twenty-first by an eleven-vote margin, making it, not Virginia, the critical ninth state to approve the Constitution. “Thus the Citizens of Alexandria, when convened, constituted the first public company in America, which had the pleasure of pouring libation to the prosperity of the ten States that had actually adopted the general government,” Washington wrote on June 28.90 “This flood of good news, almost at the same moment, gave, as you can readily conceive, abundant cause for rejoicing in a place, the Inhabitants of which are all federal,” he added a day later.91

  Washington stood at the center of Alexandria’s revelries. A mounted party met him near Mount Vernon and escorted him to town with light infantry saluting him along the way and a discharge of ten cannons marking his arrival at Wise’s Tavern, Alexandria’s finest public house. “As magnificent a dinner as Mr. Wise could provide,” Washington wrote, “was displayed before the principal Male Inhabitants of the Town, whose Ears were saluted at every quaff with the melody of federal Guns.”92 Fiddling and dancing followed “for the amusement, & benefit of the Ladies,” he added. Similar celebrations took place in countless cities and towns across the country as word spread that ten states had approved the new union.93 Victors and vanquished alike recognized it as being as much a triumph for Washington as for the Constitution.

  “Be assured,” Monroe said of Washington shortly after Virginia’s convention ended, “his influence carried this government.”94

  WITH VIRGINIA’S VOTE, Washington finally felt confident the Constitution would take effect, but he knew New York must also join for any federal government to operate successfully. That state—which was then the site of America’s largest city, busiest port, and seat of government—was holding its convention when New Hampshire and Virginia ratified. It was, however, the only state other than renegade Rhode Island whose delegates had not endorsed the Constitution in Philadelphia. Prospects for ratification in New York never looked good.

  “The determination of New York seems most problematical,” Washington had written five months earlier, “and yet, I can hardly entertain an idea that She will be disposed to stand alone, or with one or two others.”95 That had become the federalists’ best hope. New York was content with the current confederation, they knew, and would not budge so long as it lasted, but might choose the Constitution over disunion. “The decision of ten States cannot be without its operation,” Washington wrote in June.96

  As Washington knew from personal experience, in New York, partisan politics had split along national and state-minded lines for longer than in any other place. The divide stemmed from the early days of the Revolutionary War, when one part of New York’s landed elite remained loyal to the king while another part supported independence as a means to protect its rights. The resulting upheaval allowed George Clinton, a middle-class lawyer-legislator who had distinguished himself as a military leader at the outbreak of war, to become the state’s first elected governor in 1777.

  A gifted politician with broad executive power, Clinton kept his state not only functioning but actively in the fight during the long, dark years that British troops occupied New York City. For this, he earned Washington’s lasting respect. Clinton had supported strengthening the union during the war but afterward found that, by taxing goods passing through its booming harbor and issuing paper money that held its value, New York could flourish in a loose confederation even as other states floundered. New York’s large landowners and merchant princes, however, foresaw still greater prosperity under a consolidated government that could expand interstate commerce and limit foreign competition through protective tariffs. Led by two of Washington’s most trusted advisors, Hamilton and Jay, this faction embraced nationalism.

  The split became apparent to all in 1787, when New York tapped two Clintonian antifederalists to serve with Hamilton at the Constitutional Convention. The proviso that the delegation could only vote if at least two of its members agreed showed which faction held the upper hand. “It is somewhat singular that a State which used to be foremost in all federal measures, should now turn her face against them in almost every instance,” Washington wrote upon hearing about the arrangement, though he never criticized Clinton for it.97

  Even after New York’s two antifederalist delegates walked out of the Convention in July, leaving the state without a vote, Washington did not blame Clinton and reprimanded Hamilton for doing so. “It is with unfeigned concern that I perceive that a political dispute has arisen between Governor Clinton and yourself,” Washington wrote to Hamilton about the matter. “For both of you I have the highest esteem and regard. . . . When the situation of this Country calls loudly for unanimity & vigor, it is to be lamented that Gentlemen of talents and character should disagree in their sentiments for promoting the public weal, but unfortunately, this ever has been, and more than probable, ever will be the case.”98 Washington never offered such a defense for Mason, Henry, Lee, Gerry, or any other antifederalist.

  Elections to the state convention sharpened New York’s already bitter partisan divide.99 Through deft leadership and political patronage, Clinton had built a disciplined party that was based upstate and, in 1788, openly called itself antifederal. Under the federal banner, Clinton’s traditional opponents closed ranks with downstate artisans and tradesmen to support ratification. “More than any other state,” historian Pauline Maier noted, “the fight was between two organized parties.”100

  With friends on each side, Washington stayed out of this contest and, unlike his scathing private criticism of Mason and Henry, never questioned Clinton’s motives. Some federalist writers cited Washington’s support as one reason to ratify the Constitution,101 but most left that argument unstated and none of the eighty-three Federalist essays written by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay to rally New Yorkers for the cause mentioned Washington’s name. “This form of government is handed to you by the recommendations of a man who merits the confidence of the public,” one early antifederalist essay widely attributed to Clinton offered to counter federalist claims of Washington’s support, “but . . . every man ought to think for himself.”102 In these elections, however, most voters followed their party. Antifederalists won every race upstate and on Long Island while federalists swept New York City and its environ
s, giving Clinton’s party a formidable 46–19 seat margin at the ratifying convention.

  Perhaps because of its partisan nature, the debate in New York over the Constitution was particularly intense. Beyond the Federalist essays, which Washington instantly hailed as lasting contributions to the library of liberty and government,103 it generated a flood of articles and pamphlets on each side over a ten-month period. Antifederalists harped on the threat to liberty poised by a distant, central government without a bill of rights or a sufficiently representative Congress. Federalists at first defended the Constitution on its own terms but, as a rising number of other states voted to ratify, later stressed the consequences to New York and its commercial interests of being left out of the union. Reminding New Yorkers of these costs in a pamphlet printed shortly before the elections, Jay wrote, “Consider then, how weighty and how many considerations advise and persuade the People of America to remain in the safe and easy path of Union [and] to continue to move and act as they hitherto have done, as a Band of Brothers.”104 The “good sense” of this argument, Washington commented to Jay upon reading it, “cannot fail, I should think, of making a serious impression even upon the antifederal mind.”105

  Jay’s argument, however, only became irresistible after Virginia ratified the Constitution in late June. Until then, partisan antifederalists could hold out hope that the existing confederation might survive. From the time that it began in antifederalist-friendly Poughkeepsie on June 17, therefore, minority federalists sought to drag out the convention until word arrived from Richmond. They even arranged for express riders to rush the news from Virginia when it came. In the meantime, they talked and talked.

  Accounts differ over why antifederalists let the deliberations run on when they had the votes to end them. Perhaps they, too, wanted to see what Virginia did before proceeding. “Some are sanguine enough to believe the Necessity of the Case will induce them to adopt the new Constitution,” Postmaster General Ebenezer Hazard reported to Washington from New York one week after the convention began. “Much depends on the Conduct of Virginia, for whose Decision we wait with anxious Impatience.”106 No one doubted, though, that Clinton, as convention president and undisputed leader of his party, ultimately set the schedule. He must have wanted the proceedings to continue and later allowed them to conclude.107

  “THE POINT IN DEBATE HAS, at least, shifted its ground from policy to expediency,” Washington wrote about the New York convention as soon as he learned that Virginia and New Hampshire had ratified the Constitution.108 “It is hardly to be conceived that New York will reject it [now].”109 Perhaps thinking of Clinton, Washington soon added, “However great the opposition to it may be in that of New York, the leaders thereof will, I should conceive, consider the consequences of rejection well, before it is given.”110 He knew Clinton too well to believe that he would ever act contrary to his state’s interests.

  To ratchet up the pressure, Jay informed Washington, federalists spread the word that southern New York would secede from the north should the convention not ratify the Constitution.111 Jay also reported to Washington that divisions had appeared among antifederalists, with some demanding amendments before ratification and others content with amendments after ratification, so long as New York had the right to rescind should those amendments fail. Although Jay and Hamilton told the convention that Congress would not accept either option as a valid form of ratification, Jay privately wrote to Washington on July 8 that at least they “afford Room for Hope.” Importantly, he stressed, “The Ground of Rejection therefore seems to be entirely deserted.”112 The opposition now was seeking terms for conditional surrender.

  While these wary adversaries negotiated in Poughkeepsie, federalists in New York City could not curb their enthusiasm for the proposed new federal union. Upon hearing in late June that nine states had ratified the Constitution, they organized a grand federal procession for Independence Day, but put it off in anticipation of a decision by New York. When that decision did not come, they held the procession on July 23. It was as much a celebration of Washington and Hamilton as of the Constitution. Five thousand federalists arrayed by trade or profession assembled in lower Manhattan and marched through the city to a temporary banqueting hall erected on the northern edge of town, where they raised a toast to Washington following a festive dinner with members of Congress and other dignitaries. At least nine of the trade groups carried banners or flags depicting Washington while printers, marching with a working press, handed out copies of odes hailing his “peerless worth” and crediting him with saving the country “again.”113 These federalists left no doubt about who they expected to become the first President.

  On the very day that federalists paraded in New York City, antifederalists threw in the towel in Poughkeepsie. “The Convention proceeded to Day in debating on the Plan of conditional amendments,” Jay wrote to Washington on July 23. “Some of the anti Party moved for striking out the words on Condition and substituting the words in full confidence—it was carried 31 to 29.” By the barest majority, Jay was telling Washington, enough antifederalist members had voted with the federalists to pass a motion paving the way for New York to ratify the Constitution “in confidence” that certain amendments would be considered by Congress or a second federal convention rather than “on condition” that they be accepted. “So,” Jay added, “if nothing new should occur this State will adopt unconditionally.”114 New York’s convention then proposed more than fifty recommendatory or explanatory amendments—more than any other state—including the toughest ones yet to limit the government’s taxing powers. “I can say,” Washington soon wrote to Jefferson, “there are scarcely any of the amendments which have been suggested, to which I have much objection, except that which goes to the prevention of direct taxation.”115

  On these terms, New York ratified the Constitution on July 26. Clinton still voted no, but he released his partisans to vote in accord with the interests of their constituents in light of the changed circumstances.116 Twelve antifederalists from Long Island and other parts of southern New York then voted for ratification.

  Those who followed the proceedings in New York recognized that, close as it was, Washington had carried the day. “It is with the most sincere satisfaction that I congratulate you on the unconditional adoption of the constitution by the Convention of this state,” Secretary of War Henry Knox wrote to Washington from New York.117 In its next issue, the Albany Journal featured a song that began:

  Behold Columbia’s empire rise,

  On freedom’s solid base to stand;

  Supported by propitious skies,

  And seal’d by her deliverer’s hand.118

  In case any reader missed its meaning, newspapers reprinting this song added a footnote stating that the last line referred to Washington’s signature on the Constitution.119 Robert R. Livingston, New York’s chancellor since 1777 and a federalist stalwart at the state convention, soon wrote Washington about the Constitution’s adoption, “Never I believe was such a revolution effected in so short a time and in so tranquil a manner,” he observed, “which I attribute (under heaven) not only to a sense of the imperfections of our old constitution, but to the general confidence which people of every rank reposed in the virtues & abilities of the man their common voice had designated to preside over the new one.”120 The people’s delegates had ratified Washington as much as they had ratified a constitution.

  TWO OF THE ORIGINAL thirteen states remained outside the new federal union. In March 1788, Rhode Island voters had rejected the Constitution in a referendum that was boycotted by federalists. The following August, North Carolina’s state convention adjourned without taking a vote on ratification. Due to their size or location, these states were not needed to implement the Constitution, however, and Washington remained confident that both would eventually ratify it.121 Once New York acted, the outgoing Congress began in earnest to arrange for the peaceful and orderly transfer of power to the new government.

 
This momentous event led Washington to reflect on all that Americans had achieved over the past year and a half. “We have the unequaled privilege of choosing our own political Institutions,” he wrote in August, “and of improving upon the experiences of mankind in the formation of a confederated government, where due energy will not be incompatible with the unalienable rights of freemen.” In a world hitherto ruled by hereditary monarchs, traditional dogmas, or military might, nothing like America’s republican experiment had ever occurred. “We exhibit at present the novel & astonishing Spectacle of a whole People deliberating calmly on what form of government will be most conductive to their happiness; and deciding with an unexpected degree of unanimity in favor of a system which they conceive calculated to answer the purpose.”122 Washington rightly called this “a new phenomenon in the political & moral world; and an astonishing victory gained by enlightened reason over brutal force.”123

  Providence, too, Washington believed, played a part, and assured a bright future for the United States. “Should every thing proceed with harmony and consent according to our actual wishes and expectations,” Washington wrote to Lafayette, “it will be so much beyond any thing we had a right to imagine or expect eighteen months ago, that it will demonstrate as visibly the finger of Providence, as any possible in the course of human affairs can ever designate it.”124

  Whereas at the beginning of 1787, Washington had despaired of the country’s survival as a free, unified republic, now he exuded confidence. America’s prospects appeared boundless, he believed, in part because of its new Constitution. “When the people shall find themselves secure under an energetic government,” Washington told Lafayette, “when foreign Nations shall be disposed to give us equal advantages in commerce from dread of retaliation, . . . and when every one (under his own vine and fig-tree) shall begin to taste the fruits of freedom—then all of these blessings (for all these blessings will come) will be referred to the fostering influence of the new government.”125 Washington could scarcely refuse to play his ordained role in that grand experiment in human freedom.