Washington rose early on Tuesday to prepare for the momentous occasion ahead of him. He wrote to his friend von Steuben, “[This is] the last Letter I shall ever write while I continue in the service of my Country; the hour of my resignation is fixed at twelve this day; after which I shall become a private Citizen on the Banks of the Potomack.”88
Shortly before noon Mifflin called the Congress to order. The chamber was filled, including the gallery. First to rise was Hugh Williamson of North Carolina. Looking about the chamber and seeing, yet again, no quorum, he moved, and Jefferson seconded, “that letters be immediately dispatched to the executives of New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina and Georgia, informing them, that the safety, honor and good faith of the United States require the immediate attendance of their delegates in Congress.” After quickly approving Williamson’s motion, Congress, “according to order,” turned to the main business of the day.
Protocol was followed to the letter. At noon the doors to the Senate chamber opened, and a messenger announced the arrival of “His Excellency.” Washington, dressed in the blue buff uniform of the Continental army, entered followed by Humphreys and Walker. The general was entering a chamber where a bare quorum (eighteen members, seven states) had assembled, presided over by Mifflin.89 Members remained “seated and covered.” Washington took a seat at the front of the chamber, to the side of the president, Walker and Humphreys stood near him. “The ladies occupied the gallery,” while a “throng of men” mingled on the floor and “filled all the avenues.”90 Secretary Thomson called for silence. In the hushed room Mifflin turned to the General and announced, “Congress sir are prepared to receive your Communications.”91
The commander in chief ’s friend, and Maryland delegate, James McHenry described the scene to his fiancée, Margaret Caldwell: Washington “rose [and] bowed to congress, who uncovered but did not bow.” As usual in these public occasions, the general was succinct.92 “Happy in the confirmation of our Independence and Sovereignty,” Washington offered his resignation from a post which he admitted he had accepted eight years earlier “with diffidence.” He asked the members to recognize those officers who had served with him “as worthy of favorable notice and patronage of Congress.” As he spoke his hands “shook” and his “voice faultered [sic] and sunk.” Emotion swept the audience. According to McHenry, “All wept, and there was hardly a member of Congress who did not drop tears.”93
Washington concluded his brief remarks with a dramatic gesture worthy of the man who had led the Revolution. Turning toward Mifflin, he thrust his hand into his coat and announced, “I here offer my Commission.” He “drew out from his bosom his commission and delivered it up to the president of Congress.”94 It was a “spectacle inexpressibly solemn and affecting.”95 President Mifflin took the document, paused, and then read “the reply that had been prepared … without any shew of feeling tho’ with much dignity.”96
When Mifflin finished, Washington “bowed again to Congress, they uncovered and the general retired.” As soon as the former commander in chief left the chamber, Congress adjourned and invited Washington to return. He went about the room and “bid every member farewell.”97 The good-byes were brief. Washington was anxious to take advantage of what daylight was left to begin his journey home. Maryland’s governor, William Paca, escorted Washington and his companions—Humphreys, Walker, and his slave Billy Lee—a few miles out of town to the South River Ferry. Once across, the group rode directly to Mount Vernon.98
It was winter, and darkness came early. Mount Vernon was too far to reach in one day. On Christmas Eve Washington finally arrived home. One can only imagine the scene of welcome as he rode by the fields, meadows, and orchards he loved so well, and through the wooden gates leading up to the mansion. Despite the chill, everyone must have been out to see him. Martha was there, as well as their youngest grandchildren, Nellie and Wash.99
If the breeze was right, he probably caught the holiday scent of baking pies and gingerbread. Martha greeted him believing in her heart “that from this moment [they] would grow old together, in solitude and tranquility.”100
Although Christmas was always special at Mount Vernon, 1783 was especially poignant and joyful. As was the custom in plantation society, the holiday spanned several days during which the entire Mount Vernon community, including two hundred slaves and servants, laid their tools aside and joined in eating, drinking, game playing, and endless socializing. Washington was so pleased that he wrote Secretary Thomson that not even the “Snow and Ice” which had “fast locked” them in could dim the festivities.101 In the main house the Washingtons enjoyed the holidays in the company of friends and relatives.
Undoubtedly, Martha brought out all the china, silver, and linens she had acquired from New York and Philadelphia, while her husband refilled glasses with fine wine. The table in the new room on the north side groaned with offerings from the kitchen. Certain to be presented was Christmas pie. Encased in a “good standing crust,” this mountainous pie was stuffed with boned “turkey, a goose, a fowl, a partridge, and a pigeon.” After being seasoned with mace, nutmegs, cloves, black pepper, and salt, and four pounds of butter, it was baked “in a very hot oven … at least four hours.”102
Christian tradition extends the feast of the Nativity to the Epiphany, January 6, when the Magi arrived bearing gifts for the Christ child. The Washingtons had a very special reason to celebrate this Epiphany, January 6, 1784, for it was their twenty-fourth wedding anniversary. Food was again central to the festivities. For Twelfth Night it was a special “great cake,” which included more than three dozen eggs, four pounds of butter, cream, four pounds of sugar, along with five pounds of flower and fruit. Two hours to bake and doused with “half a pint of wine [and] some frensh [sic] brandy,” the concoction was ready to eat.103 This was hardly the fare of the officers’ mess upon which he had subsisted for so many years.
Epilogue
While citizen washington enjoyed the fruits of retirement, Congress, having lost its quorum after his departure, remained paralyzed in Annapolis. Thaxter had delivered the final treaty, but without a quorum (nine states) it sat on the secretary’s desk. The body had dodged the issue of a quorum when it accepted Washington’s resignation, but ratification could not be dealt with so easily.1 It took more than a month, but finally on January 14 delegates from New Jersey and Connecticut arrived. Nine states, a bare quorum, were now present. Lest someone leave, die, or fall ill, no time was to be lost. The vote was taken quickly, and ratification was unanimous.2 Fortunately, the members voted on the fourteenth, for three days later they lost their quorum.3
Washington took little notice of the news from Annapolis. It was anticlimactic. Despite the soothing metaphors by which he proclaimed his retirement from public life—sitting in “the shadow of this Vine and Fig tree”—he was agitated and deeply concerned about the future of the nation. The republic for which he, more than anyone else in America, had risked his life, fortune, and sacred honor to establish was now, he complained to his fellow Virginian Benjamin Harrison, in the hands of “a half-starved, limping Government, that appears to be always moving upon crutches, and tottering at every step.”4
While Congress was “tottering” in Annapolis, Washington was confronting problems at Mount Vernon. His eight-year absence had taken a heavy toll. Rents had gone uncollected, what debts he could collect were being paid in nearly worthless paper currency, and cousin Lund’s erratic bookkeeping made sorting through accounts a difficult task. Washington could, however, take some consolation from the fact that aside from the escape of eighteen slaves, his property, for the most part, had escaped the physical ravages of war.
Washington wasted no time in embracing the social life of a Virginia planter and attending to the improvement of his mansion. The “new room,” he wrote his English friend Samuel Vaughan, was nearly completed. “The Doors, Windows and floors being done,” he decided to finish the space in “stucco which is the present t
aste in England.”5 The grounds too captured his attention. He made plans to build a greenhouse and to pave his piazza with “stone, or some other kind of Floor, which will stand the weather.”6
As workmen bustled about the grounds, Washington’s immediate household was growing. He and Martha continued to care for their grandchildren Nelly and Wash. Lund, despite having disappointed his cousin, lived at Mount Vernon as well, and within a few months George’s younger brother John Augustine and his wife, Nancy, moved in. Seven at dinner was the minimum at table, but the number was often greater. The plantation tradition of hospitality and genteel behavior demanded that Washington welcome all who came to his door, causing him to complain that his home had become “a well resorted tavern, as scarcely any strangers who are going from north to south, or from south to north, do not spend a day or two at it.”7 Among those who arrived and stayed the longest was the Reverend William Gordon.
Minister at the Third Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and “astute in recognizing the significance of his times,” Gordon was writing a history of the American Revolution.8 Washington of course was the central character in his story. In October 1782 Gordon wrote to Washington asking permission to examine his papers. Although Washington agreed that it was “impracticable for the best Historiographer living, to write a full and correct history of the present Revolution, who has not free access to the Archives of Congress, those of Individual States, the papers of the Commander in Chief, and Commanding officers of separate departments,” he could not, he explained, “while the war continues,” give over to Gordon materials “sacred in [his] hands.”9
Undeterred, Gordon persisted in his efforts and continued to press Washington.10 In May 1784 he received an encouraging answer from Washington. Replying to Gordon’s most recent request to examine his papers, Washington told him a visit to Mount Vernon could be arranged, but only on the condition that Congress must first open its archives to him. “I have always thought that it would be respectful to the Sovereign power of these United States (i.e. Congress) to follow, rather than to take the lead of them in disclosures of this kind.” Under that condition, Washington told Gordon, “[I will] lay before you with cheerfulness, my public papers for your information.”11
Armed with Washington’s letter, Gordon, the diligent scholar, petitioned Congress for “access to the documents and records in the archives of Congress.” With little discussion the members ordered the secretary “to lay before Dr. Gordon, any papers or files which he may be desired,” except diplomatic correspondence and “any acts or records which hitherto have been considered as confidential or secret.” As for Washington’s papers, “having the fullest confidence in the prudence of the late Commander in Chief,” Congress had no objection “to his laying before Dr. Gordon, any of his papers which he shall think, at this period, may be submitted to the eye of the public.”12 With the resolution in hand Gordon arrived at Mount Vernon on June 2. Indefatigable, for more than two weeks Gordon, “rising at daylight and continuing far into the evening,” poured through more than thirty volumes of letters and documents.13
While Gordon sought to capture the history of the Revolution through the experience of Washington, other visitors came to immortalize him in portrait and sculpture. In April 1785 Robert Edge Pine, an English portraitist, arrived carrying letters of introduction, including one from Robert Morris who described him as “an Historical and portrait painter of some eminence. He is drawing some interesting parts of our History and your Portrait is indispensably necessary to his Werks.”14 Although painted several times before, Washington seemingly never tired of posing for an artist. “No dray moves more readily to the Thrill, than I do to the Painters Chair.”15 Pine stayed long enough to paint not only Washington but his wife as well, along with Frances Bassett Washington (George Augustine’s wife) and the four Custis grandchildren, Martha, Eleanor, Elizabeth, and George.16
Barely two weeks after Pine left to return to Annapolis, the Washingtons welcomed the internationally renowned Catherine Macaulay Graham. One of the most prolific woman writers of the eighteenth century and an ardent Whig who had spoken for the American cause, she had arrived in America to tour the eastern states and had decided to make a special trip to Virginia to meet Washington.17 He admired her as well, particularly her eight-volume History of England from the Accession of James I to That of the Brunswick Line.18 Recounting her ten-day stay at Mount Vernon, Washington told Knox, “A visit from a Lady so celebrated in the Literary world could not but be very flattering to me.”19
Washington’s international reputation drew another famous visitor in the summer of 1785: Jean-Antoine Houdon. Houdon carried letters of introduction from Lafayette, Jefferson, and Washington’s former aide David Humphreys; the latter describing him “as one of the ablest statuaries in Europe.” Houdon and his entourage, including three assistants and an interpreter, arrived by boat from Alexandria near midnight on October 2, awakening the household and causing a stir. As usual in Washington’s “well resorted tavern,” nearly every room was taken, and so it took a while for the servants to prepare accommodations. For two weeks Houdon and his assistants took careful measurements of their subject and prepared plaster models. In his letter introducing Houdon, Jefferson had cautioned that while the sculptor’s work at Mount Vernon might not occupy more than two weeks, the final execution was likely to take years. He was right. Houdon left Mount Vernon on October 17. The completed life-size marble statue was not unveiled in Richmond until 1796.
Washington’s visitors brought news from all parts of the nation and abroad, and so too did the mails. Washington was in correspondence with a wide variety of people. Although much of his attention was focused on Mount Vernon and his other properties, increasingly the deteriorating political situation in America drew his notice. Through conversation with visitors and letters from dozens of politicians and former officers, Washington grew increasing pessimistic about the fate of the republic. In February 1785, he wrote Knox that he feared that England’s continuing unfriendly attitude will “give us a good deal of trouble”; “and yet, it does not appear to me, that we have wisdom, or national policy enough to avert the evils which are impending—How should we, when contracted ideas, local pursuits, and absurd jealously are continually leading us from those great and fundamental principles which are characteristic of wise and powerful Nations; and without which we are no more than a rope of Sand, and shall be easily broken.”20
Since Congress lacked authority to address the issues facing the confederation, some states decided to act on their own. Virginia and Maryland were in dispute over issues of navigation on Chesapeake Bay. To solve the issue, both states appointed commissioners to meet at Mount Vernon in March 1785. Washington hosted the gathering.21 The meeting went so well that the Virginia assembly sent out an invitation for all of the states to meet “to take into consideration the trade of the United States; to examine the relative situations and trade of the said States; to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to their common interest and their permanent harmony; and to report to the several States, such an act relative to this great object as, when unanimously ratified by them, will enable the United States in Congress effectually to provide for the same.”22 They set the time for September in Annapolis.23 Washington saw promise in the Annapolis meeting, telling Lafayette “much good is expected from this measure,” and although he did not attend he followed events carefully.24 Two days before the meeting convened, Washington wrote anxiously to his friend John Fitzgerald in Alexandria for news: “Have you heard from Annapolis since Monday? Have the Commercial Commissioners met? Have they proceeded to business? How long is it supposed their Session will last? And is it likely they will do anything effectual?”25
The “Session” lasted four days. Although several states had promised to send delegates, only New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia fulfilled their pledge. Nonetheless, the convention issued a report, signed by the
chairman, John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, calling for another meeting of all the states to be held in Philadelphia “to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union.”26 Dickinson returned to Philadelphia and on September 20 presented the report to Congress, where it sat for several days since the body was unable to summon a quorum. Further postponements and debates delayed action until February 21, when Congress resolved, “It is expedient that on the second Monday in May next a Convention of delegates who shall have been appointed by the several states be held at Philadelphia.”27
Washington approved heartily of the Philadelphia meeting, even though he decided not to attend. Attendance at a “public theater,” he wrote to Edmund Randolph, governor of Virginia, would “sweep me back into the tide of public affairs, when retirement and ease is so essentially necessary for, and is so much desired by me.”28 Resistance, however, was futile. Randolph, Madison, Knox, and a host of others urged him to lend his presence.29 Finally, he agreed.30
By May 25 seven states were present, enough to convene the convention. Among the first order of business was the election of a president. Benjamin Franklin, home after his long stint in Paris, planned to attend in order to nominate Washington to the post. Ill health kept him away, and so in his place Robert Morris rose and nominated him. John Rutledge of South Carolina seconded the nomination, “expressing his confidence that the choice would be unanimous, and observing that the presence of Genl Washington forbade any observations on the occasion which might otherwise be proper.”31 The vote was unanimous.
Escorted by Rutledge and Morris, Washington took the chair “from which in a very emphatic manner he thanked the Convention for the honor they had conferred on him, reminded them of the novelty of the scene of business in which he was to act, lamented his want of (better qualifications), and claimed the indulgence of the House towards the involuntary errors which his inexperience might occasion.”32 Those words were among the very few words spoken publicly by him during the entire convention. Despite his silence, however, there was no doubt where he stood. He had come to Philadelphia to help create a strong federal union. Indeed shortly after the convention finished its work Gouverneur Morris told him, “I am convinced that had you not attended the Convention, and the same paper handed out to the World, it would have met with a colder Reception, with fewer and weaker Advocates, and with more and more strenuous opponents.”33 But, Morris argued, Washington’s work was not done. The states still had to ratify, and the outcome was not certain. Washington must, pleaded Morris, “accept of the Presidency.” If he did not, “it would prove fatal” to the constitution. The “thirteen Horses now about to be coupled together” will only “listen to your Voice.”34 Pierce Butler, a South Carolina delegate to the Philadelphia convention, went so far as to claim that the extensive powers granted to the president in the new constitution would not “have been so great had not many of the members cast their eyes towards General Washington as President; and shaped their Ideas of the Powers to be given to a President, by their opinions of his virtues.”35 For the third time in a dozen years—1775, commander in chief; 1787, president of the convention—the nation looked to Washington for leadership. In accordance with article 2 of the new constitution, elections were held, electors chosen, and on April 6, 1789, the House and Senate met in joint session as John Langdon, president pro tem of the Senate, declared “that he, in their presence, had opened and counted the votes of the electors,” and “whereby it appears, that George Washington, Esq. was unanimously elected President.”36
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