15. To Lafayette, 10 May 1786, GWP.
16. DHRC 1:181–85. As early as 1780, before the Articles took effect, Hamilton described them as creating too few powers in the national government, an opinion he repeated thereafter. Hamilton to James Duane, 3 September 1780, PAH; Hamilton to Robert Morris, 30 April 1781, PAH. In 1782, the New York Assembly called for a national convention to amend the Articles. “Resolution of the New York Legislature Calling for a Convention of the States to Revise and Amend the Articles of Confederation,” 20 July 1782, PAH. Many others considered the idea. E.g., Richard Henry Lee to Madison, 26 November 1784, PJM; John Francis Mercer to Madison, 26 November 1784, PJM.
17. From John Jay, 16 March 1786, GWP; to John Jay, 18 May 1786, GWP; to Henry Lee Jr., 5 April 1786, GWP.
18. David Szatmary, Shays’ Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press (1980), 124–26; from David Humphreys, 24 September 1786, GWP; Michael J. Klarman, The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution, New York: Oxford University Press (2016), 88–90; Roger Brown, Redeeming the Republic, 166–67; Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, New York: Hill and Wang (2008), 145–46.
19. From Henry Lee Jr., 1 October 1786, GWP; from Henry Lee Jr., 17 October 1786, GWP (relaying report from Knox).
20. To David Humphreys, 22 October 1786, GWP; from Knox, 23 October 1786, GWP.
21. From Henry Lee Jr., 17 October 1786, GWP; to Henry Lee, Jr., 31 October 1786, GWP.
22. Szatmary, Shays’ Rebellion; Leonard L. Richards, Shays’s Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final Battle, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press (2002), 9–42; from Knox, 21, 25, 29, 30, and 31 January, and 8, 12 February 1786, GWP. A full report came from the commander of the Massachusetts forces, Benjamin Lincoln, 4 December 1786–4 March 1787, GWP.
23. To Madison, 16 December 1786, GWP.
24. From Madison, 8 November 1786, GWP.
25. To Madison, 18 November 1786, GWP; to David Stuart, 19 November 1786, GWP; to Knox, 3 February 1786, GWP.
26. From Edmund Randolph, 6 December 1786, GWP; from Madison, 7 December 1786, GWP; to Madison, 16 December 1786, GWP; to Randolph, 21 December 1786, GWP; from Madison, 24 December 1786, GWP; from Randolph, 4 January 1787, GWP.
27. From John Jay, 7 January 1787, GWP; from Henry Knox, 14 January 1787, GWP; from Madison, 21 February 1787, GWP; to David Humphreys, 8 March 1787, GWP; to Knox, 8 March 1787, GWP.
28. Diary, 10 January 1787, GWP; to Bushrod Washington, 10 January 1787, GWP. Washington mourned Greene’s death in letters to Henry Lee and Jefferson. To Henry Lee Jr., 26 July 1786, GWP; to Jefferson, 1 August 1786, GWP; Pennsylvania Packet, July 11, 1786. A much-needed biography of Bushrod Washington is forthcoming in 2021: Gerard N. Magliocca, Washington’s Heir: The Life of Justice Bushrod Washington.
29. To Knox, 27 April 1787, GWP.
30. To Jay, 10 March 1787, GWP; to Edmund Randolph, 28 March and 2 April 1787, GWP. More letters pressing Washington to attend came from Randolph and Knox. From Edmund Randolph, 11 March 1787, GWP; from Knox, 19 March 1787, GWP.
31. Diary, 13 May, 15 October 1785, GWP; to Burwell Bassett, 23 May 1785, GWP; to Lund Washington, 20 December 1785; from George Augustine Washington, 3 February 1786, GWP; Ed. Note to “Farm Reports, 26 November 1786–15 April 1787,” GWP.
32. Diary, 22 and 26 December 1786, and 9 February 1787, GWP.
33. “Notes on the Sentiments on the Government of John Jay, Henry Knox, and James Madison,” April 1787, GWP.
34. To Madison, 31 March 1787, GWP.
35. To Knox, 27 April 1787, GWP; Diary, 27 April 1787, GWP; to Mary Washington, 15 February 1785, GWP.
40. AMERICA’S REBIRTH
1. Pennsylvania Packet, May 14, 1787; Pennsylvania Evening Herald, May 16, 1787; Connecticut Courant, May 21, 1787.
2. William Grayson to James Monroe, 29 May 1787, Farrand 3:30; Madison to Jefferson, 6 June 1787, Farrand 3:35–36; Edward Carrington to Jefferson, 9 June 1787, Farrand 3:38; William Samuel Johnson to his son, 27 June 1787, Farrand 3:49.
3. Pennsylvania Packet, April 4, 1787; Larson, The Return of George Washington, 108; Franklin to Thomas Jordan, 18 May 1787, PBF; Stewart, The Summer of 1787, 29–30; to George Augustine Washington, 17 May 1787, GWP. Thomas Mifflin made another of his recurring appearances in Washington’s life, serving as one of the Pennsylvania delegates.
4. Diary, 16 May 1787, GWP; George Mason to George Mason, Jr., 20 May 1787, Farrand 3:23.
5. Farrand 1:20–22.
6. Washington was too engaged in the convention preparations to attend any session of the Society of the Cincinnati, but dined with some of its members on May 15. Diary, 15 May 1787, GWP.
7. Farrand 1:2, 3–4; Independent Gazetteer, May 26, 1787; Pennsylvania Mercury, June 1, 1787.
8. William Steele to Jonathan D. Steele, September 1825, Farrand 3:467. Another incident of Washingtonian severity, repeated endlessly through the years, places the general at a social event with Gouverneur Morris and Hamilton. To win a wager with Hamilton, Morris supposedly delivered a matey slap to Washington’s shoulder and greeted him casually. Washington’s wordless, icy disapproval sent Morris scurrying back to the party and he later pledged never to attempt such familiarity again. Anecdote, Farrand 3:85.
9. William Pierce, “Anecdote,” Farrand 3:86–87.
10. Farrand 1:69.
11. Farrand 1:510, 3:172, 3:188 (statement of Luther Martin of Maryland, printed in the Maryland Gazette and Baltimore Advertiser, December 28, 1787–February 8, 1788).
12. Farrand 1:16.
13. Farrand 2:16. Some histories of the convention suggest that Washington exercised power as presiding officer to summon a committee, pointing to a committee that was established on July 9 to allocate congressional representatives among the states. Larson, The Return of George Washington, 158; Beeman, Plain Honest Men, 207. The cited evidence does not support that assertion. The committee created on July 9 was established pursuant to a motion made by Roger Sherman of Connecticut. Neither Madison’s notes nor the official convention journal suggests that Washington appointed the committee on his own authority. Farrand 1:558, 560, 562. Indeed, the convention’s rules gave him no power to do so, stating that committees would be established by “ballot” and specifying how to count those ballots; the rule on establishing committees never even mentions the presiding officer. Farrand 1:9; David O. Stewart, “Who Picked the Committees at the Constitutional Convention?,” in Journal of the American Revolution, Annual (2019), 353–61.
14. Washington to Hamilton, 10 July 1787, GWP.
15. Farrand 1:97, 2:121, 2:280, 2:363. Questions surround the vote on a motion by Dr. James McClurg of Virginia to define the presidential term as “good behavior,” which would be a lifelong term, as it has been for federal judges who serve during good behavior. Farrand 2:33–36 (17 July 1787). Madison dropped two separate footnotes to his notes to explain why the Virginia delegation—which included him and Washington—voted in favor of this protomonarchist proposal. Madison attempted to pass that vote off as a tactical ploy intended to alarm delegates who wished to have Congress choose the president. Madison’s explanation, though unpersuasive at first blush, is consistent with his remarks during the debate on McClurg’s motion; in that statement, Madison largely discussed the importance of not giving Congress the power to appoint the president.
16. Farrand 1:65 (1 June 1787), 3:302 (Pierce Butler to Weedon Butler, 5 May 1788), 1:103 (4 June 1787). On at least two occasions, delegates specifically praised Washington for declining to accept a salary during the Revolution. Farrand 1:84–85, 2:122.
17. David W. Maxey, A Portrait of Elizabeth Willing Powel, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society (2006), 23–24. When Washington arranged for his nephew Bushrod (Jack’s son) to read law with James Wilson of Philadelphia, Bushrod bec
ame Mrs. Powel’s protégé. Maxey, Elizabeth Willing Powel, 29.
18. Providence Gazette, October 6, 1787; to Annis Boudinot Stockton, 30 June 1787, GWP.
19. Diary, 30 and 31 July, 3, 4, and 5 August 1787, GWP. On a third occasion, Washington rode alone to another Continental Army encampment site, at Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania. Diary, 19 August 1787, GWP.
20. Stewart, The Summer of 1787, 191–206.
21. To Henry Knox, 19 August 1787, GWP.
22. Farrand 2:183; 2:587.
23. Farrand 2:471–72; 2:482.
24. Farrand 2:553–54; 2:643–44.
25. Diary, 17 September 1787, GWP. The New York legislature had specified that two delegates had to be present in order to cast the state’s vote on convention proceedings. Consequently, New York was not officially present at the convention after the first six weeks, because two of its three delegates, John Lansing and Robert Yates, left in dismay over the convention’s willingness to take power from the states. The most powerful appeal for unity came from Franklin, whose remarks made their way into the press in a demonstration of the elderly Pennsylvanian’s media savvy. Farrand, 2:641–43 and 641 note 1. Snippets of accounts of the convention’s proceedings trickled into the public sphere until 1821, when Yates’ notes of the first six weeks of deliberations were published. Madison’s notes were published in 1840.
26. Farrand 2:648; Diary, 17 September 1787, GWP; from William Jackson, 17 September 1787, GWP; to Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham, 16 November 1787, GWP.
27. Edward J. Larson, Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership, New York: William Morrow (2020), 219; to Lafayette, 18 September 1787, GWP; to Jefferson, 18 September 1787, GWP.
28. To George Augustine Washington, 27 May; 3 and 10 June; 1, 8, 24, and 29 July; 12 and 26 August; and 9 September 1787, GWP.
29. Diary, 19 September 1787, GWP; Pennsylvania Gazette, October 10, 1787. Other newspapers also featured the tale of Washington’s narrow escape on the bridge. Delaware Gazette, September 26, 1787; Independent Journal, October 6, 1787.
41. A WORKING POLITICIAN
1. To Benjamin Harrison, 24 September 1787, and note 1, GWP.
2. “A Freeholder,” Virginia Independent Chronicle, April 9, 1788; Cyrus Griffin to Madison, 24 March 1788, PJM.
3. Diary, 26, 27, and 28 September 1787, GWP; Hamilton, “Conjectures on the Constitution,” in DHRC 13:277; “To the Freemen of Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Gazette, October 10 and 17, 1787; Independent Gazetteer, October 5 and 15, 1787, November 17, 1787; from David Humphreys, 28 September 1787, GWP; “The Confederationist,” Pennsylvania Evening Herald, October 27, 1787; The American Museum 2:375 (October 1787); Massachusetts Centinel, November 10, 17, and 19, 1787; from Gouverneur Morris, 30 October 1787, GWP.
4. Alexander Donald to Jefferson, 12 November 1787, PTJ; Edward J. Larson, George Washington, Nationalist, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press (2016), 74–75; to Charles Carter, 14 December 1787 and 12 January 1788, GWP; Klarman, The Founders’ Coup, 480; Pennsylvania Gazette, September 26, 1787; Maryland Journal, October 2, 1787; from Lafayette, 2 January 1788, GWP.
5. To Madison, 10 October 1787, GWP; from Madison, 28 October 1787, GWP.
6. To David Humphreys, 10 October 1787, GWP; to David Stuart, 17 October 1787, GWP; from Madison, 18 November 1787, GWP; to David Stuart, 30 November 1787, GWP; to Madison, 7 December 1787, GWP; to Madison, 5 February 1787, GWP; Jacob E. Cooke, ed., The Federalist Papers, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press (1983); Michael Meyerson, Liberty’s Blueprint: How Madison and Hamilton Wrote the Federalist Papers, Defined the Constitution, and Made Democracy Safe for the World, New York: Basic Books (2008), 91–99. Some historians have concluded that writings pithier than The Federalist had greater impact on public attitudes toward the Constitution. Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788, New York: Simon & Schuster (2010), 336–38 (praising John Jay’s An Address to the People of New York on the Subject of the Constitution, which appeared in April 1788).
7. From David Humphreys, 28 September 1787, GWP; from John Rutledge, 1 October 1787, GWP; from Knox, 3 October 1787, GWP; from Samuel Powel, 12 December 1787, GWP; from Madison, 26 December 1787, GWP; from Jonathan Trumbull Jr., 9 January 1788, GWP; from John Jay, 3 February 1788, GWP; from Madison, 8 February 1788, GWP.
8. From David Stuart, 4 December 1787, GWP; to Jefferson, 1 January 1787, GWP; from Knox, 3 October 1787, GWP; from Benjamin Harrison, 4 October 1787, GWP; from Hamilton, 11 October 1787, GWP; from George Mason, 7 October 1787, GWP; to Madison, 10 October 1787, GWP; from Richard Henry Lee, 11 October 1787, GWP; from Patrick Henry, 19 October 1787, GWP; to Edmund Randolph, 8 January 1788, GWP.
9. To Knox, 15 October 1787, GWP.
10. From Benjamin Lincoln, 13 January and 6 February 1788, GWP; from Knox, 14 and 25 January, and 1 February 1788, GWP; to Lincoln, 31 January 1788, GWP; Massachusetts Gazette, January 25, 1788 and October 19, 1787; Larson, George Washington, Nationalist, 76–77; from Rufus King, 6 February 1788, GWP; Maier, Ratification, 196–207.
11. Tobias Lear to William Prescott Jr., 4 March 1788, in DHRC 8:456.
12. From Caleb Gibbs, 24 February 1788, GWP; from Benjamin Lincoln, 24 February 1788, GWP; from John Langdon, 28 February 1788, GWP; from Madison, 3 March 1788, GWP; to Knox, 30 March 1788, GWP. New Hampshire’s convention adjourned for the ostensible reason of persuading several local town meetings to reconsider their instructions that their delegates oppose ratification, but the final vote for ratification may have turned upon several Anti-Federalists who failed to attend the reconvened session and some new delegates who arrived from towns that had sent no representatives to the first session. Klarman, The Founders’ Coup, 452–53.
13. To Thomas Johnson, 20 April 1788, GWP; to James McHenry, 27 April 1788, GWP; from Thomas Johnson, 10 October 1788, GWP; to Madison, 2 May 1788, GWP; from Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 24 May 1788, GWP.
14. From Knox, 25 May 1788, GWP; from Jay, 29 May 1788, GWP; from Richard Dobbs Spaight, 25 May 1788, GWP; to Lafayette, 28 May 1788, GWP.
15. From Madison, 4, 7, 13, and 18 June 1788, GWP; Diary, 10 June 1788, GWP; to Knox, 17 June 1788, GWP.
16. To Madison, 23 June 1788, GWP; from Madison, 23 June 1788, GWP; to David Stuart, 23 June 1788, GWP.
17. From John Langdon, 21 June 1788, GWP; from Tobias Lear, 22 June 1788, GWP; from Madison, 25 June 1788, GWP.
18. To Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 28 June 1788, GWP; to Tobias Lear, 29 June 1788; Pennsylvania Packet, July 11, 1788.
19. To Benjamin Lincoln, 29 June 1788, GWP.
20. DHRC 10:1223 (12 June 1788, Henry and Madison); DHRC 10:1498 (24 June 1788, William Grayson); James Monroe to Jefferson, 12 July 1788, PTJ.
21. To Jefferson, 31 August 1788, GWP. In late October, Patrick Henry declared to the Virginia Assembly that he would oppose all measures relating to the new national government unless they also included a call for a second convention. From Charles Lee, 19 October 1788, GWP.
22. To John Lathrop, 22 June 1788, GWP; to Edward Newenham, 29 August 1788, GWP.
23. To George Mason and David Stuart, 4 November 1787, GWP; Report of the Potowmack Company Directors, 8 November 1787, GWP; to Thomas Johnson and Thomas Sim Lee, 9 December 1787, GWP; Diary, 1, 2, and 3 June 1788, GWP; to George Gilpin and John Fitzgerald, 2 August 1788, GWP; Diary, 4 August 1788, GWP; to Thomas Lewis, 25 December 1787, GWP; to David Stuart, 15 January and 23 June 1788, GWP; Diary, 5 January and 24 July 1788, GWP; Philadelphia Independent Gazette, August 8, 1788, GWP; Maryland Journal, August 5, 1788.
24. Diary, 13 November 1788, GWP; to James Bloxham, 1 January 1789, GWP; to John Fairfax, 1 January 1789, GWP; to John Beale Bordley, 17 August 1788, GWP.
25. To Charles Lee, 4 April 1788, GWP; to Dr. James Craik, 4 August 1788, GWP: to David Stuart, 2 December 1788, GWP. Washington’s patience frayed when dealing with chronic misconduct by
two nephews, whose education he oversaw on behalf of his late brother Samuel. To Samuel Hanson, 6 August 1788, GWP; to George Steptoe Washington, 6 August 1788, GWP; from Samuel Hanson, 7 August 1788, GWP.
26. New York ratified in July 1788, North Carolina in late 1789, and Rhode Island six months later. Diary, 5 July 1788, GWP; from Madison, 11 and 24 August 1788, GWP; to Madison, 28 August 1788, GWP; to Samuel Powel, 15 September 1788, GWP; to Benjamin Lincoln, 28 August 1788, GWP. Washington and Madison also were collaborating to draw the seat of the national government away from New York or Philadelphia to the banks of the Potomac. That effort would succeed three years later. From Madison, 11 August and 21 October 1788, GWP; to Madison, 3 and 18 August 1788, GWP; from Knox, 28 July 1788, GWP; JCC 1:50–52 and note 2 (28 July 1788); Merrill Jensen and Robert A. Becker, eds., The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788–1790, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press (1976), 1:50–52 and note 2 (from Journals of Congress, 28 July 1788); from Thomas Johnson, 11 December 1787, GWP; JCC 34:522–23 (13 September 1788); from Henry Lee Jr., 13 September 1788, GWP.
27. From Henry Lee Jr., 13 September 1788, GWP; from Benjamin Lincoln, 24 September 1788, GWP; from Hamilton, 13 August 1788, GWP; from Samuel Vaughan, 4 November 1788, GWP; from Robert R. Livingston, 21 October, GWP; from Gouverneur Morris, 6 December 1788, GWP; to Hamilton, 3 October 1788; to Lincoln, 26 October 1788, GWP; to Charles Pettit, 16 August 1788, GWP; to Jonathan Trumbull Jr., 4 December 1788, GWP; to Benjamin Fishbourn, 23 December 1788, GWP; to Harry Lee, 22 September 1788, GWP; to G. Morris, 28 November 1788, GWP. Even less welcome than the demands that Washington serve as president were the requests for employment in the new government. Washington usually assured supplicants that since he did not expect to be president, he could not assist them. From William Pierce, 1 November 1788, GWP; from Philemon Downes, 3 November 1788, GWP; from Stephen Sayre, 3 January 1789, GWP; from Lachlan McIntosh, 13 February 1789, GWP; from Benjamin Harrison, 26 February 1789, GWP.
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