74. George Mason and Alexander Henderson to Speaker of the House of Delegates, March 28, 1785, PGM, 2: 815.
75. Achenbach, The Grand Idea, 152.
76. George Washington to James Madison, Nov. 30, 1785, PGW, CS 3: 420.
77. Annapolis Convention, “Address of the Annapolis Convention,” Sept. 14, 1786, PAH, 3: 687.
78. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Aug. 12, 1786, PTJ, 10: 233.
79. Alexander Hamilton to James Duane, Sept. 3, 1780, PAH, 2: 401–6.
80. “Address,” PAH, 3: 689.
Chapter 3: To Go or Not to Go
1. Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, June 27, 1813, in Thomas Jefferson Randolph, ed., Memoir of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville: Carr, 1829), 4: 209.
2. John Jay to Thomas Jefferson, Oct. 27, 1786, PTJ, 10: 489.
3. John Jay to George Washington, March 16, 1786, PGW, CS 3: 601–2.
4. See George Washington to Lafayette, Nov. 8, 1785, PGW, CS 3: 345; George Washington to Rochambeau, Dec. 1, 1785, PGW, CS 3: 428.
5. George Washington to John Jay, May 18, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 55–56.
6. John Jay to George Washington, June 27, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 131.
7. Ibid.
8. George Washington to John Jay, Aug. 15, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 213.
9. Ray Raphael, Constitutional Myths: What We Get Wrong and How to Get It Right (New York: New Press, 2013), 21.
10. For an analysis of the value of Continentals, see E. James Ferguson, The Power of the Purse (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 51–52.
11. Benjamin Franklin to M. Le Roy, Nov. 13, 1789, WBF, 10: 410.
12. Jay to Washington, June 27, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 131–32.
13. Washington to Jay, Aug. 15, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 213.
14. George Washington to George William Fairfax, June 30, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 137.
15. James Madison, “Notes for Speech Opposing Paper Money,” Nov. 1, 1786, PJM, 9: 159.
16. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Aug. 12, 1786, PJM, 9: 94–95.
17. Ibid., 95.
18. George Washington to Theodorick Bland, Aug. 15, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 211.
19. Washington to Jay, Aug. 15, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 213.
20. James Madison to James Monroe, April 9, 1786, PJM, 9: 25.
21. Washington to Jay, Aug. 15, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 212–13.
22. “America,” Pennsylvania Packet, Sept. 23, 1786, p. 2.
23. Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (New York: Hill & Wang, 2007), 145–46.
24. George Washington to David Humphreys, Oct. 22, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 297.
25. James Madison to James Monroe, May 29, 1785, PJM, 8: 285.
26. Henry Lee Jr. to George Washington, Oct. 17, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 295.
27. George Washington to Henry Lee Jr., Oct. 31, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 319.
28. Henry Knox to George Washington, Oct. 23, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 300–301.
29. Henry Knox to George Washington, Dec. 17, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 460.
30. George Washington to Henry Knox, Dec. 26, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 481–82.
31. Washington to Lee, Oct. 31, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 318–19.
32. George Washington to David Humphreys, Dec. 26, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 478.
33. Washington to Knox, Dec. 26, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 481.
34. George Washington to James Madison, Nov. 5, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 331.
35. George Washington to Lafayette, March 25, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 106.
36. “Bill Providing for Delegates to the Convention of 1787,” Nov. 6, 1786, PJM, 9: 163.
37. James Madison to George Washington, Nov. 8, 1786, PJM, 9: 166.
38. George Washington to James Madison, Nov. 18, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 382–83.
39. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, Dec. 6, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 445.
40. James Madison to George Washington, Dec. 7, 1786, PJM, 9: 199.
41. George Washington to Edmund Randolph, Dec. 21, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 471–72.
42. George Washington to James Madison, Dec. 16, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 458.
43. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, Jan. 4, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 501.
44. James Madison to George Washington, Dec. 24, 1786, PJM, 9: 224.
45. “Philadelphia, December 27,” Connecticut Courant, Jan. 8, 1787, p. 3 (reprint from Dec. 27, 1786, Philadelphia Herald).
46. John Jay to George Washington, Jan. 7, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 503–4.
47. Resolution, Feb. 21, 1787, JCC, 32: 74.
48. David Humphreys to George Washington, Jan. 20, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 528–29; Henry Knox to George Washington, Jan. 14, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 520; Jay to Washington, Jan. 7, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 503.
49. Jay to Washington, Jan. 7, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 502; Knox to Washington, Jan. 14, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 520; Humphreys to Washington, Jan. 20, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 527.
50. Jay to Washington, Jan. 7, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 503; Knox to Washington, Jan. 14, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 522; Humphreys to Washington, Jan. 20, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 527.
51. Humphreys to Washington, Jan. 20, 1787, PGW, CS 4: 527.
52. George Washington to Henry Knox, Feb. 3, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 8 (emphasis added); George Washington to John Jay, March 10, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 80; George Washington to David Humphreys, March 8, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 72–73.
53. Washington to Jay, March 10, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 79–80; Washington to Knox, Feb. 3, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 9.
54. Henry Knox to George Washington, April 19, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 96.
55. George Washington to Edmund Randolph, March 28, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 113.
56. George Washington to Henry Knox, Jan. 5, 1785, PGW, CS 2: 253. Speaking generally about the subject, near the end of his life and perhaps reflecting on a lifetime of ailments, Washington observed that good health was “among (if not the most) precious gift of Heaven,” and added that without it “we are but little capable of business.” George Washington to James Anderson, Sept. 16, 1799, PGW, RS 4: 305.
57. See GWD, Dec. 22, 1786, 3: 149; GWD, Dec. 26, 1786, 3: 150; GWD, Feb. 9, 1787, 3: 166. For further discussion of Washington’s use of transplanted teeth, see Mary V. Thompson, “They Work Only from Sun to Sun: Slavery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon,” publication pending; Henry Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003), 112–13.
58. George Washington to Henry Knox, April 2, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 119.
59. By this point, Washington’s concerns about the meeting of the Society of the Cincinnati had abated. In his letter to Knox, who was a founder and leader of the organization, Washington added that he would even try to meet with some of his friends among the Cincinnati while in Philadelphia and promote the cause of a new national government. Ibid.
60. George Washington to James Madison, March 31, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 115–16.
61. George Washington, “Notes on the Sentiments on the Government of John Jay, Henry Knox, and James Madison,” April 1787, PGW, CS 5: 163–66.
62. James Madison to George Washington, April 16, 1787, PJM, 9: 383.
63. Ibid., 383–84.
64. James Madison, “Vices of the Political Systems of the United States,” April 1787, PJM, 9: 355–57.
65. Madison to Washington, April 16, 1787, PJM, 9: 384.
66. George Washington to Edmund Randolph, April 9, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 137.
67. Benjamin Franklin to George Washington, April 3, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 122.
68. Henry Knox to George Washington, April 9, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 134.
69. George Washington to Mary Ball Washington, Feb. 15, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 36.
70. George Washington to Robert Morris, May 5, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 171.
Chapter 4: The Center Holds
1. George Washington to Robert Morris, May 5, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 171.
2. George Washington to Lund Washington, Aug. 15, 1778, WGW, 12: 327.
3. Ibid.
4. E.g., George Washington to Henry Knox, April 2, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 119; George Washington to James Madison,
March 31, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 116.
5. “Richmond, April 11,” Connecticut Journal, May 2, 1787, p. 3.
6. “On the Coming of the American Fabius to the Federal Convention,” Providence Gazette, May 5, 1787, p. 3.
7. “Portsmouth, May 19,” New Hampshire Gazette, May 19, 1897, p. 3.
8. “Philadelphia, May 11,” Maryland Chronicle, May 30, 1787, p. 2.
9. Z, “For the Freeman’s Journal,” Freeman’s Journal, May 16, 1787, p. 3.
10. E.g., Rustick, “Mr. Oswald,” Independent Gazetteer, May 31, 1787, p. 3. This essay also urged “that the Congress, as the supreme head, be empowered to nominate and appoint the governor in each respective state, which governors being subject to the control of Congress, no law can be enacted in any state but by the governor’s approbation and signature, and if any law should be proposed by any state contrary to the general interest of the union, the governor of course will put his negative upon it.”
11. Harrington, “For the Independent Gazetteer,” Independent Gazetteer, May 30, 1787, p. 2.
12. Patrick Henry, in Hugh Blair Grigsby, History of the Virginia Federal Convention of 1788 (Richmond: Virginia Historical Society, 1890), 1: 32 n. 36. This is the earliest documented source for this widely quoted but possibly apocryphal comment.
13. “A View of the Federal Government,” American Museum 1 (1787): 295, 299.
14. Jackson had written Washington earlier about the post. William Jackson to George Washington, April 20, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 150–51.
15. “Philadelphia, May 16,” Philadelphia Herald, May 16, 1787, p. 3.
16. “Philadelphia, May 12,” Philadelphia Herald, May 12, 1787, p. 3.
17. “On the Meeting of the Grand Convention,” Independent Gazette, May 19, 1787, p. 3.
18. Richard Beeman, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the Constitution (New York: Random House, 2009), 35–36.
19. Although this story has been widely told for nearly two centuries, Morris’s best biographer, James J. Kirschke, argues that it is apocryphal. James J. Kirschke, Gouverneur Morris: Author, Statesman, and Man of the World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 185–86.
20. L. H. Butterfield et al., eds., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, vol. 4 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1961), 81 (April 29, 1778).
21. “Rules and Regulations of the Society for Political Enquiries,” Pennsylvania Packet, April 4, 1787, pp. 2–3.
22. GWD, May 14, 1787, 3: 216.
23. George Washington to George Augustine Washington, May 17, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 189.
24. Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Jordan, May 18, 1787, WBF, 10: 304.
25. George Washington, “Notes on the Sentiments on the Government of John Jay, Henry Knox, and James Madison,” April 1787, PGW, CS 5: 163–66.
26. George Mason to George Mason Jr., May 20, 1787, PGM, 3: 880. At one point in this letter when discussing a different matter, Mason noted when Washington did not participate with the other Virginia delegates. Ibid., 881.
27. Beeman, Plain, Honest Men, 54.
28. Mason to Mason, PGM, 3: 880.
29. Ibid., 880–81; George Mason to Richard Henry Lee, May 15, 1787, PGM, 3: 878–79.
30. Virginia Plan, paragraph 5, Farrand, May 29, 1787, 1: 20.
31. George Mason to Arthur Lee, May 21, 1787, PGM, 3: 882.
32. George Washington to Arthur Lee, May 20, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 191.
33. George Washington to George Augustine Washington, May 17, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 189.
34. Mason to Mason, PGM, 3: 881.
35. “Philadelphia, May 30,” Pennsylvania Herald, May 31, 1787, p. 3.
36. GWD, May 27, 1787, 3: 219. Washington regularly attended William White’s church in Philadelphia during both his service in the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1775 and as President after the seat of government moved to Philadelphia. Of these periods, White wrote, “General Washington never received the communion, in the churches at which I am parochial minister. Mrs. Washington was a habitual communicant.” William White to Bird Wilson, Aug. 15, 1835, in Wilson, Memoir of Wright, 197.
37. George Washington to Lafayette, Aug. 15, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 295.
38. Farrand, May 25, 1787, 1: 3–6.
39. See Farrand, May 25, 1787, 1: 4 (Madison’s Notes), 6 (Yates’s Notes), and 3: 173 (Luther Martin’s “Genuine Information”).
40. George Mason to George Mason Jr., May 27, 1787, PGM, 3: 884.
41. William Pierce, “Character Sketches of Delegates to the Federal Convention,” Farrand, 3: 91.
42. Franklin to Jordan, May 18, 1787, WBF, 10: 304.
43. Farrand, May 28, 1787, 1: 9.
44. Ibid., 15.
45. Jared Sparks, Journal, April 19, 1830, Farrand, 3: 479 (Sparks’s notes on visit to 46 Madison).
46. GWD, May 28, 1787, 3: 220.
47. William Pierce, “Anecdote,” in Farrand, 3: 86–87.
48. Among the other delegates taking notes, Robert Yates kept the most detailed ones. Luther Martin also compiled his own account of key events. Some of these notes and accounts, most notably those by Yates and Martin, became public after the Convention ended.
49. John Adams to James Warren, July 15, 1776, Warren-Adams Letters (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1917), 1: 260.
50. Farrand, May 29, 1787, 1: 18.
51. Ibid., 18–27 (notes of Madison, Yates, and Paterson).
52. Ibid., 23.
53. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, May 30, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 208.
54. Christopher Collier, Roger Sherman’s Connecticut: Yankee Politics and the American Revolution (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1971), 129 (first Adams quote); John Adams to Abigail Adams, March 16, 1777, in Charles Francis Adams, ed., Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution (Boston: Riverside Press, 1876), 251; Pierce, “Character Sketches,” Farrand, 3: 89.
55. Jeremiah Wadsworth to Rufus King, June 3, 1787, Farrand, 3: 34.
56. Farrand, May 30, 1787, 1: 30–41 (extracted from journals or notes of Madison, Yates, and McHenry, with emphasis from Madison’s notes).
57. Farrand, May 30, 1787, 1: 33–34, 42–43 (notes of Madison and McHenry).
58. Ibid., 34, 43 (notes of Madison and McHenry).
59. George Washington to David Stuart, July 1, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 240. Stuart was the second husband of Washington’s stepson’s widow and a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
60. Farrand, May 30, 1787, 1: 34–35, 42–44 (notes of Madison and McHenry).
61. Ibid., 35.
62. Farrand, May 29, 1787, 1: 21 (Virginia Plan); Farrand, May 31, 1787, 1: 54 (Madison); Farrand, July 18, 1787, 2: 46 (Gorham).
63. Farrand, May 29, 1787, 1: 21 (Madison’s text of Virginia Plan).
64. Farrand, May 31, 1787, 1: 53.
65. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, July 10, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 257.
66. Farrand, June 18–19, 1787, 1: 287–88, 323.
67. Farrand, June 20, 1787, 1: 334.
68. Randolph’s original draft language and subsequent committee revisions as preserved among Wilson’s papers are reprinted in Farrand, 2: 129–75.
69. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Sept. 6, 1787, PJM, 10: 163–64 (writing about the Constitution generally).
70. James Madison, “Number 39,” in Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002), p. 197.
71. George Washington to Lafayette, Aug. 15, 1787, PGW, CS 5: 296.
Chapter 5: In His Image
1. E.g., Richard Beeman, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the Constitution (New York: Random House, 2009), 92. Beeman here commented, “As one of America’s most effective spokesmen for the continuing sovereignty of the states, Henry would have been James Madison’s worst nightmare.”
2. “Federal Convention,” Massachusetts Centinel, June 20, 1787, vol. 7, p. 107.
3. “Philadelphia, June 16,” Middlesex (Conn.) Gazette, June 25, 1787, p. 2.
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4. E.g., on Rhode Island, see “Philadelphia, June 9,” New Hampshire Gazette, June 23, 1787, p. 3; on George III’s son, see “From the Virginia Independent Chronicle,” Independent Gazette, Aug. 1, 1787, p. 3; and “Philadelphia, August 4,” Connecticut Journal, Aug. 29, 1787, p. 1.
5. “Philadelphia, June 2,” Philadelphia Evening Herald, June 2, 1787, p. 3.
6. Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, Aug. 30, 1787, PTJ, 12: 69.
7. Votes at the Convention were recorded by state rather than by delegate, so it is not usually possible to determine how or if individual delegates voted on various motions and resolutions. In his detailed analysis of Washington’s role at the Convention, political scientist Glenn A. Phelps concluded that Washington “very likely voted on every substantive issue before the convention.” Glenn A. Phelps, George Washington and American Constitutionalism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 102.
8. For example, beyond his public advocacy of it prior to the Convention, Washington’s support for giving broad taxing authority to the general government appeared in his vote at the Convention against a ban on taxing exports. Over the objections of Madison and other big-state nationalists, the ban passed with Virginia joining other export-rich planation states in supporting it. Within the five-member Virginia delegation, however, Washington joined Madison in voting against it. Farrand, Aug. 21, 1787, 2: 364.
9. For a discussion of these salons focused on the 1790s, see Susan Branson, These Fiery Frenchified Dames: Women and Political Culture in Early National Philadelphia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 125–42. About Elizabeth Powel, Anne Bingham, and Washington’s host Mary Morris during the Convention, Branson writes, “Morris, Powell, and Bingham had already established themselves as intimates of Washington and many prominent Federalists during the Convention in the summer of 1787” (p. 133).
10. E.g., GWD, June 28, 1787, 3: 225; GWD, Aug. 14, 1787, 3: 232.
11. GWD, May 23, 1787, 3: 218.
12. David W. Maxey, A Portrait of Elizabeth Willing Powel (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2006), 26–30 (including quoted material).
13. GWD, May 21, 1787, 3: 218.
14. See Beeman, Plain, Honest Men, xx.
15. Maxey, Portrait of Powel, 30 (Franklin quote to Powel). For Franklin’s preference for a less aristocratic senate (or no senate at all) and less monarchical president than many other delegates, see Edmund S. Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 310–12.
The Return of George Washington Page 33
