The Great Divide

by Thomas Fleming

  As Washington and the main body of his army approached the British camp near Monmouth Court House, the general was stunned to see Lee’s soldiers reeling toward him, panic on their faces. Convinced that Americans could not stand and fight the British in a face-to-face confrontation, Lee had ordered a retreat the moment the enemy attacked. The pursuing redcoats were only fifteen minutes away.

  Washington roared curses at Lee and took charge of the situation. In ten frantic minutes, his troops were manning nearby hills and hasty barricades. They fought the King’s soldiers to a bloody draw, which Washington called a victory. Soon afterward, he court-martialed Lee, implicitly daring Congress to override him. They glumly confirmed the guilty verdict.8

  A year later, a French expeditionary force was scheduled to land at Newport, Rhode Island, to bolster the American army. Washington’s spies discovered that the British planned a massive assault on the French soldiers as they came ashore, weary from their long Atlantic voyage. The day before the British fleet and army were to depart from New York, a purported American loyalist handed the British commander a packet of letters that an American messenger had apparently dropped on the road. It contained plans for a major assault on New York. The panicked British cancelled their Newport attack and manned fortifications around the city, until it dawned on them that they had been hoodwinked.

  After two more years of seesaw warfare, a French fleet helped Washington trap the main British field army at Yorktown, and the fighting war began to dwindle. A weary British parliament pressed King George III into initiating peace talks, which ended in a preliminary treaty negotiated by Ambassador Benjamin Franklin and his fellow diplomats in Europe.

  This dawn of peace was suddenly darkened by a threat of a counterrevolution, organized by restless officers in the American army’s winter camp at New Windsor, on the Hudson River above New York. Incendiary broadsides urged the army to march on Congress and demand at gunpoint the years of back pay they were owed—and a confirmation of the promised pension for the officers. Behind the conspirators was Washington’s old enemy, General Horatio Gates, who was always eager to listen to the voices of the people, especially when they were criticizing Washington.

  Without consulting their commander in chief, the conspirators called a meeting to vote on whether to begin their march. Washington coolly asserted his authority by banning the meeting as “disorderly.” He summoned another conclave four days later. When the officers convened, Washington strode onto the stage of the large building called “The Temple” and asked the startled chairman, none other than General Gates, if he could say a few words.

  With an emotional intensity that few had seen before, Washington asked the officers “in the name of our common country” and “your own sacred honor” to join him in expressing their “detestation” of any man who wanted to “overturn the liberties of our country” and “open the floodgates of civil discord.” Instead, he asked them to remain loyal to their dignity and honor as officers and Americans. Someday people would praise their “glorious example.” This later generation would say: “Had this day been wanting, the world would never have seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.”

  Washington took from his pocket a message from Virginia congressman Joseph Jones, a close friend. It declared that Congress was still trying to find a way to raise the money it owed the army. After reading a few lines, Washington paused and drew a pair of glasses from an inner pocket of his coat. “Gentleman,” he said. “You will permit me to put on my spectacles—I have not only grown grey but almost blind in the service of this country.”

  A rush of emotion swept through the room. Not a few officers wept openly. Washington finished the letter and strode from the stage. Instantly, his most loyal general, artillery commander Henry Knox, took charge. By the time the meeting ended, the officers had voted their complete approval of Washington’s words and condemned the incendiary broadsides. The most perilous moment in the brief history of the United States of America ended peacefully, thanks to one extraordinary man.9

  Finally came the day in 1783 when the British army rowed the last of its regiments from New York’s docks to waiting transports in the harbor. General Washington and his army, reduced to a mere seven hundred men, took possession of the city. Soon Washington rode south to Annapolis, where the Continental Congress was meeting. Although the legislators had failed to heed his plea to pay the officers and men their back pay or their promised pensions, he put aside his personal embitterment and treated Congress with the same respect he had displayed for its dubious authority throughout the war.

  Solemnly, earnestly, he congratulated the delegates for their victory in the long struggle, and resigned his commission as lieutenant general and commander in chief. In Europe, amazement was virtually universal. Everyone—especially George III—had expected Washington to take power as a dictator, like Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, the victor in England’s civil war in the previous century.

  By 1785, the defects of the Articles of Confederation had became glaringly apparent. The president of Congress—theoretically, the president of the nation—was a powerless figurehead who could not even answer a letter addressed to him without the legislators’ permission. Congress had no authority to raise money beyond pleading with the states for “requisitions,” which they largely ignored. Each state had one vote, and it required nine votes to make a decision. To pass a money bill required unanimous approval. In 1783, twelve states backed James Madison’s proposal to levy a 5 percent duty on imports. Tiny Rhode Island voted no, leaving Congress mired in bankruptcy.

  General Washington admitted his growing distress about the future of the nation to several of his many correspondents. As the popularity and power of Congress sank to zero-minus, various states became alarmingly autonomous. New York taxed every farmer’s rowboat that crossed the Hudson River from New Jersey with produce to sell. Massachusetts was playing a similar game with Connecticut and New Hampshire. Virginia grew truculent when Pennsylvania attempted these extortions. Other states, notably Rhode Island, began printing their own money in reckless amounts, enabling their businessmen to pay debts in depreciated currency. “I see one head turning into thirteen,” Washington warned.10

  Washington’s ex-aide, Colonel Alexander Hamilton, quit Congress in disgust, and advised the governor of New York to give land to discharged Continental soldiers. They would be useful if a civil war erupted. He was not alone in seeing bloody internal strife as the next chapter in the American story.

  On August 31, 1786, a disgruntled former Continental Army captain named Daniel Shays launched a revolution in western Massachusetts to protest the state government’s seizure of farms and houses for failure to pay taxes. Armed Shaysites closed courthouses and sent judges fleeing for their lives. Similar revolts shut down courts in the western counties of nearby states. Former General Henry Knox told Washington the rebels could raise between twelve thousand and fifteen thousand “desperate and unprincipled men.”11

  Massachusetts asked Congress for assistance. The nation’s legislators voted to raise $530,000 for an army of forty-four hundred men, and appealed to the supposedly united states to send them the money. Twelve of the thirteen semi-independent legislatures ignored the request. Total disaster was averted when wealthy men in Massachusetts raised enough cash to hire a local army. Led by another former Continental Army general, Benjamin Lincoln, this force routed the Shaysites. But bands of discontented men continued a guerilla war until February 1787, kidnapping merchants and judges, looting and burning stores.

  When a worried Virginian asked Washington to go to Massachusetts and lend his “influence” to calm the upheaval, he angrily replied: “Influence is no government!” He saw anarchy in the careening Shaysites—along with the ruin of the central reality that Americans had to preserve if they hoped to escape Europe’s history of destructive wars—their national union.12

  “There are combustibles in every state,” Washington w
rote to Madison. “Let us look to our national character and to things beyond the present moment.”13

  After Madison began visiting Mount Vernon in 1785, he advanced steadily in Washington’s estimation. The general soon began his letters to the young congressman with “My Dear Sir,” an expression he reserved for close friends. (Others received a standard “Dear Sir.”) Just as frequently, Washington closed his letters with “Affectionately.” It took Madison another year to begin adding that word to his own closing lines, perhaps evidence that Washington’s fame—or his age—inhibited easy familiarity.14

  By this time, the two men realized they were in almost complete agreement on the need for a drastic reform of the federal government. Washington warmly endorsed Madison’s call for a conference to be held at Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss the situation. Madison shrewdly described the meeting’s purpose as an attempt to find ways to remove barriers that limited trade and commerce between the states.

  Complicating the situation was a growing distrust between North and South. Shays’ Rebellion was not a factor in this malaise. When the delegates met at Annapolis on September 11, 1786, the size and seriousness of Shays’ upheaval was not yet apparent. More divisive was a move by John Jay, the Foreign Secretary of Congress, to negotiate a deal with Madrid, surrendering the right of the United States to use the Mississippi River in return for the lifting of trade restrictions preventing American commerce with Spain and her colonies in the West Indies and South America. Virginia and other southern states with western counties were infuriated when seven northern states, led by Massachusetts, voted in favor of Jay’s proposal.15

  This sectional antagonism discouraged attendance at Annapolis. Only twelve delegates representing five states (New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) showed up. Madison found an ally in New Yorker Alexander Hamilton, with whom he had served in Congress in the closing months of the war. Hamilton heartily backed Madison’s suggestion that the Annapolis meeting adjourn and issue a call for a truly national convention. Hamilton drafted this exhortation and portrayed the situation as so alarming, Madison had to persuade him to tone it down. In private talks, the two men found they were in almost complete agreement on the need for a drastic overhaul of the federal government.

  Back in Richmond, Madison had no trouble persuading the Virginia legislature to send delegates to a convention the following year in Philadelphia. As inhabitants of the nation’s largest state, Virginians thought of themselves as America’s natural leaders. Madison now went to work behind the scenes to persuade a reluctant ex-General Washington to preside at the convention. Many people have attributed Washington’s hesitation to a fear of risking the fame he had achieved in the armed struggle with Britain. This writer is more inclined to see it as another episode in the career of a man who had lived dangerously for a long time.

  Washington’s well-honed political judgment had convinced him that he would have only one chance to use his reputation to reform the federal government. In every state there were vocal politicians and businessmen who were profiting from the weaknesses of the current government and were ready to defend the status quo with the same savagery that his enemies had displayed at Valley Forge. What Washington needed and wanted to see was evidence that thoughtful men were ready to join him in Philadelphia.

  Madison understood this estimate of their situation and soon found an answer to it. He assured numerous Virginians that General Washington planned to attend the convention. This news inspired leaders such as Governor Edmund Randolph and George Mason (author of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights) to volunteer to serve as delegates. When Washington learned that the state’s delegation would have so many “respectable” names, he became much more inclined to join them.

  Madison combined this canny politicking with long hours spent absorbing dozens of books on government. He found numerous examples in history of weak confederations that were overthrown by a scheming strongman, often with the help of foreign allies. The specter of Britain seducing one of the disunited states was starkly probable in this historical light. Soon Madison was writing an essay, “Of Ancient and Modern Confederacies,” in which he noted how often unions of this type had collapsed because the central government was weak or nonexistent. The result of Madison’s research was a forty-one-page booklet, which George Washington liked so much, he copied it in his own handwriting. It would prove an invaluable resource for both men in the coming convention.

  Early in 1787, Madison undertook an even more important task. In atrocious winter weather, the man whom college friends had considered a chronic invalid rode from Virginia to New York City, where Congress was meeting. Rivers, Madison later told a friend, “were clogged with ice and a half congealed mixture of snow and water.” Next came a Northeast blizzard that made the road from Philadelphia to New York an ordeal.16

  The ex-invalid survived and was soon reporting to General Washington that Congress was financially and politically bankrupt. Few people wanted to waste time serving as delegates. At first, the few congressmen on hand resisted the idea of approving a constitutional convention. But Madison persuaded them to acquiesce in a tepid endorsement, specifying that the convention was “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.” Madison knew wary states would now be more inclined to send delegates to Philadelphia—and Washington would almost certainly join them.17

  Madison also spent not a few hours persuading congressmen from the seven northern states who had voted for John Jay’s proposed treaty on the Mississippi to abandon the measure. Although the proponents were two states short of the nine votes needed to pass a law or treaty, Madison wanted to eliminate the divisive issue from the agenda of the coming constitutional convention. As a weapon, he used a resolution from former army officers and others settled in what would soon become the state of Kentucky, deploring the idea.

  Next, Madison sought out the Spanish ambassador and discovered he and John Jay had abandoned any hope of passing the treaty. The Congressman was able to tell Washington and other influential Virginians the good news that “The Mississippi sleeps.” Thus, he removed the last obstacle to the state’s participation in the Philadelphia convention.

  During these fall and winter weeks, General Washington became more and more radical in his thinking about a new federal government. On March 31, 1787, he told Madison he would not be satisfied with a few amendments to the Articles of Confederation. He wanted “a thorough reform of the present system”—a new constitution.

  In letters to other correspondents, Washington spelled out some of the changes he had in mind. He wanted the federal government to repay the millions of dollars that America had borrowed from France and Holland to finance the War for Independence. Congress had defaulted on paying even the interest, ruining American credit around the world. Washington also wanted a government with the power to control the reckless policies of individual states. Above all, he wanted a government strong enough to suppress any further outbreaks of violence like Shays’ Rebellion.

  There was another more personal motive for Washington’s commitment—one he admitted only to a few close friends. The words are among the most revealing he ever wrote: “To see this country happy is so much the wish of my soul, nothing else can compare to it, this side of Elysium.”18

  Washington’s arrival in Philadelphia triggered an explosion of celebration and admiration. A troop of light horse and dozens of prominent men escorted him into the city while artillery thundered a salute and church bells chimed. Thousands of people cheered and waved from packed sidewalks. A local newspaper declared the excitement and ceremony was proof of “the joy of the people on the coming of this great and good man.” It was remarkable evidence of the popularity that Washington had won by relinquishing command of the Continental Army.

  After accepting an invitation to become the guest of his close friends, merchant Robert Morris and his wife, Mary, in their three-story brick house on High Street, Washington ended his f
irst day with a visit to Benjamin Franklin. Mutual admiration, expressed in many letters, guaranteed a friendly reception. It was also good politics. Franklin had recently been elected President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, in effect, the state’s governor. Washington was pleased to learn that the eighty-one-year-old sage was coming to the convention as a delegate. It was reassuring evidence that he too recognized the gathering’s importance.

  Franklin, in turn, recognized Washington’s central role in the creation of the new nation. During his years as America’s ambassador in France, he had kept a full length portrait of the general on the wall behind his desk. He had sent Washington warm letters, telling how the leading soldiers of Europe admired his generalship.

  Delegates to the convention trickled into Philadelphia at a pace that Washington found exasperating. But he tried to greet each one cordially and sample his ideas on what they should try to accomplish. He was encouraged by how many of the delegates agreed with his opinion that the federal government needed a major overhaul. It no doubt helped that a hefty percentage of these politicians were former Continental Army officers.

  Meanwhile, General Washington joined James Madison, Governor Edmund Randolph, and the other members of the Virginia delegation to discuss their plan of operation. After listening to Washington’s opinions, the Virginians agreed to call for the creation of an entirely new government, and to follow that revolutionary idea with a presentation of its structure, which Madison had sketched out in considerable detail. Their proposal became known as “The Virginia Plan.” Its most innovative feature was a president to serve as head of the new government, with powers coequal to Congress.