by Alexis Coe
General Washington cannot leave this place without expressing his acknowledgments, to the Matrons and Young Ladies who received him in so novel & grateful a manner at the Triumphal Arch in Trenton, for the exquisite sensation he experienced in that affecting moment. The astonishing contrast between his former and actual situation at the same spot—The elegant taste with which it was adorned for the present occasion—and the innocent appearance of the white-robed Choir who met him with the gratulatory song, have made such impressions on his remembrance, as, he assures them, will never be effaced.10
When Washington arrived in New York, he found it hadn’t changed much since he left in 1783. It was still more of a haphazard village than an orderly city, crowded with thirty thousand residents. At night, two thousand slaves emptied “night soil,” as waste disposal was called, onto the streets, some of which were paved, some of which were still dirt. There were patches of farmland all over the noisy, sometimes riotous city; you were as likely to find hogs in someone’s house as European royalty. It was all quite different from life in Virginia, where Washington obsessed over the perfectly manicured gardens and farms bordered by wilderness.
After dinner at the governor’s mansion and a fireworks display, Washington, surely exhausted, settled into his new home at 3 Cherry Street, hoping to take advantage of the days before the inauguration. He was immediately thwarted. Everyone in New York seemed to know where he lived, and many showed up unannounced, looking for favors. Washington doled them out carefully, especially when it came to family members; he could abide entry-level nepotism for his nephew Robert Lewis, but he declined to offer a legal job to another nephew, Bushrod, because his “standing at the bar would not justify my nomination,” and “the eyes of Argus are upon me, and no slip will pass unnoticed that can be improved into a supposed partiality for friends or relations.”11 During his first week, Washington was so overwhelmed by office-seekers that he could barely achieve his actual agenda, which was simply to pay respects to members of Congress. Long visits were out, but he did the best he could with almost comic brevity: Washington rode up to each house, quickly got off his horse, bowed, and got right back on to ride off to the next residence.
That wasn’t the only problem with 3 Cherry Street, which his secretary Tobias Lear had secured. It was supposed to function as his home and office, but it wasn’t even big enough to house his family and their slaves and servants. Samuel Fraunces, the former owner of Fraunces Tavern, where Washington had said farewell to his officers at the end of the war, was hired to help Martha run the president’s social life—which required an additional two dozen servants. She, too, was forced to play constant hostess. But unlike her husband, she found a friend in the Adams family; Abigail was a frequent visitor, and described Martha in the most glowing terms to her sister, Mary Smith Cranch.12
Mrs Washington is one of those unassuming Characters which Creat Love & Esteem, a most becomeing plasentness sits upon her countanance, & an unaffected deportment which renders her the object of veneration and Respect, with all these feelings and Sensations I found myself much more deeply impressd than I ever did before their Majesties of Britain.
The best thing about the house was that Congress paid the yearly rent of $845. Washington argued, as he had during the war, that he should cover his own living expenses, which was great for optics but terrible for his pocketbook. Fortunately for him, the Constitution required compensation and Congress allotted him a twenty-five-thousand-dollar annual salary plus the cost of living. But the new government didn’t pay in advance, and like most Virginians, Washington was land rich and cash poor. In order to make it to New York, he had to secure a loan from Alexandria merchant Richard Conway.13 Plenty of stately homes and gratis accommodations were available to him, had he wanted to be someone’s guest, but he was determined to pay his own way. Washington was defining the role of president as he occupied it, and from the very beginning, it seems, he was sure about one thing: He wasn’t going to owe anyone any favors.
* * *
Inauguration Day, April 30, couldn’t have come soon enough. Washington was growing impatient; it was time to put ceremony behind him and get to work.
He awoke to church bells and cannons on a day that promised to be both plain and extravagant, and he took care to match his outfit to the day. Washington’s tailored suit, made of brown Connecticut broadcloth he had special-ordered for the occasion, was embellished only with buttons bearing the American eagle; it was an aberration from his usual dress, which was usually made from the finest materials he could order from European vendors. He wore a dress sword at his waist, and from the knees down, he was all flash—white knee-high silk stockings, shoes adorned with a silver buckle and diamonds. His hair was powdered white and curled under his hat. For once, he was in civilian dress in a sea of soldiers. Five hundred of them accompanied him through the throngs of onlookers to Federal Hall, which held the House of Representatives on the ground floor and the Senate on the second floor.
After an awkward hour during which senators tried to figure out whether to sit or stand, Adams, who hesitated and balked inelegantly, finally escorted Washington out to the balcony, which was crammed with sixteen other men. He bowed to the thousands of people gathered below, a crowd-pleaser that was quickly becoming his signature move. Samuel Otis, secretary of the Senate, awkwardly balanced a Bible that had been, as an afterthought, borrowed from St. John’s Masonic Lodge, which teetered atop a red pillow. Washington, who had been a Mason since 1752, placed his hand on it and, at Chancellor of New York Robert R. Livingston’s prompting, recited the oath of office.14 When he finished, Otis lifted the pillow up to Washington, who had no idea what he meant by the gesture. After an uncomfortable moment, he motioned for Otis to lower it, and bent down to kiss it.
“Long live George Washington, President of the United States!” Livingston shouted, prompting the crowds to erupt in cheers. A flag signaled an artillery salute, and Washington delivered his inaugural address. David Humphreys, a former aide-de-camp and an enthusiastic poet who inclined toward lengthy odes, had written a seventy-page draft back at Mount Vernon; Washington had opted to go with James Madison’s far shorter version, which clocked in at five hundred words. He spoke in general terms, promising to follow the Constitution and lead on behalf of the people.
No one thought Washington looked very happy to be there. He would have preferred the modest sort of celebration that greeted “Lady Washington” (the title “First Lady” had yet to be introduced) when she arrived weeks later, but instead, he got a daylong affair.
From Federal Hall, Washington went to St. Paul’s Chapel. He was private about his religious views; he often spoke of “Providence,” rarely “God” and “Jesus” or “Christ.” He was most likely a deist, which meant he believed that God was responsible for the creation of the world, but does not intervene in it. Above all, he firmly believed in religious freedom; during his presidency, he would write as much to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island.
The festivities finally came to a close that evening with a fireworks display. Eighteenth-century pyrotechnics were reportedly advanced enough to represent his face, along with images of America’s glorious beginnings, in the sky. With Washington leading them forward, the people expected nothing short of a spectacular show, with no end date to his term on paper or in sight.
* * *
As an adult, Washington had often proved to be a negligent son, and the busy spring and summer of 1789 were no exception. By the time Betty wrote to say that their mother wanted to know how he was doing, he had long reached New York. Mary could have read about it in the papers, but according to Betty, “she will not believe you are well until she has it from under your hand.”
Betty wasn’t just after a letter. “The doctors think if they could get some hemlock, it would be of service to her breast,” she explained.15 They hoped he could find some in New York, but Washington was too preoccupied with his own
illness for several weeks to pay attention to his mother’s.
“I Am not afraid to die, and therefore I can hear the worst,” Washington reportedly told his doctor, Samuel Bard, some seven weeks after his inauguration.16 According to Bard, he suffered from the cutaneous form of anthrax, which caused a carbuncle (an infection of the soft tissue) in his upper thigh. Washington did his best to avoid eighteenth-century medicine, which often left patients worse off than they began, but was in too much pain to object to Dr. Bard’s insistence: He must drain pus out of the infected tissue. Washington was bedridden for six weeks, during which time he wrote no letters and received few guests. A slow recovery followed, allowing him just an hour a day to ride with Martha in the carriage, after it had been modified to allow him to lie down.
He eventually recovered, only to be taken ill again and again during his presidency; there was a repeat abscess in his thigh, and later, his cheek; he experienced regular fevers, inflammation of the eye, and back strains; he fell off a horse and had to use a crutch to move around. In the spring of 1790, during a flu outbreak in New York, he became infected. Although he experienced a high fever, delirium, and bloody sputum, Martha wrote that he “seemed less concerned himself as to the event than perhaps almost any other person in the United States.”17
Washington was pragmatic through it all; he had already outlived most of the men in his family, and he’d lived some of those years hard, which apparently showed. “Time has made havoc upon his face,” observed Fisher Ames, a congressman from Massachusetts, during the inauguration.18 It may have been a pained reaction to all the attention, but such comments would only become more frequent—and be made about every president who followed.
Even if Washington had managed to procure hemlock for his mother when she first asked for it, it would have made no difference. Betty’s letter arrived in July, and by August 10, 1789, Mary had stopped speaking. She died fifteen days later. The town crier rang the bell at St. George’s Episcopal Church eighty-one times: twice because she was a woman, and seventy-nine for every year she lived. Washington, by then busy with the presidency, replied to Betty with a quick note of comfort and advice on estate proceedings; he did not share his feelings past remarking the obvious.
“Awful, and affecting as the death of a Parent is, there is consolation in knowing that Heaven has spared ours to an age, beyond which few attain, and favored her with the full enjoyment of her mental faculties, and as much bodily strength as usually falls to the lot of four score,” Washington wrote. “Under these considerations and a hope that she is translated to a happier place, it is the duty of her relatives to yield due submission to the decrees of the Creator—When I was last at Fredericksburg, I took a final leave of my Mother, never expecting to see her more.” True to form, he rarely spoke in Christian terms; there was no mention of judgment, redemption, and while he mentions heaven, he leaves out a key Christian idea: a future reunion there.
Mary spoke with ease when it came to her faith, but not her feelings; her will, however, showed whom she cared for most. Her eldest son received the best of everything: Mary gave Washington the property her father had left her, just as she’d given him her late husband’s surveyor tools. She also left him what appears to be her marriage bed, the very one she shared with his father, along with a quilt and other prized household goods.19 Her slaves received a most cruel goodbye, no doubt a reflection of their life with her: She separated families, sending couples and parents and children in different directions.
Washington ordered black cockades and ribbons for his household staff. Out of respect, women wore black ribbons and necklaces, and government officials wore black capes. New York City mourned for his loss, and formal functions were cancelled for three weeks. Washington wore black for months.
CHAPTER 16
Infant Nation
This defeats every purpose of my coming here!” Washington yelled “in a Violent fret,” according to Senator William Maclay of Pennsylvania.
On Saturday, August 22, 1789, Washington arrived at the Senate chambers in Federal Hall. Article II of the Constitution said that the president should make treaties “with the advice and consent of the Senate,” and that’s exactly what he was trying to do—consult with them ahead of upcoming negotiations with the Creeks, the Cherokees, and the Carolinas about ongoing violence between tribes and white settlers. The Continental Congress was wholly responsible for the conflict; it had effectively stolen large swaths of indigenous land, claiming that the Indians had forfeited their right to it by supporting the British during the Revolution. (In reality, only a handful of tribes had actually done so.)
Washington handed an address to Vice President John Adams, a summary of the treaties and current issues Washington had sent them ahead of the session. Adams, acting in his constitutional capacity as president of the Senate, tried to read it, but was completely drowned out. The windows were open, a relief on the hot summer day, but one that made it impossible to hear over the pounding of hooves and the creaking of carriages along Wall Street. The doorkeeper shut the windows, then Adams tried again.
[I]t would be highly embarrassing to Georgia to relinquish that part of the Lands, stated to have been ceded by the Creeks . . . its Citizens who settled and planted thereon untill dispossessed by the Indians.1
The Creeks, who had made significant land cessations in 1783, 1785, and 1786, were no longer honoring the treaties they’d signed. “It is however painful to consider that all the Indian tribes once existing in those States . . . have become extinct,” Henry Knox, secretary of war, had written to Washington. “In a short period the Idea of an Indian on this side the Mississippi will only be found in the page of the historian.” Washington sided with the settlers, of course, but believed the solution was to send missionaries to teach Indians, who believed in using land in ways that left little lasting impact, to farm and raise animals. “It has been conceived to be impracticable to civilize the Indians of North America,” Knox acknowledged. “This opinion is probably more convenient than Just.”2
When Adams finished, Washington turned expectantly to the senators. Nothing the vice president said should have been new to them. He’d expected to move on quickly to a variety of questions he had for them, and had brought Knox along to answer any they might have.
“There was a dead pause,” observed Maclay. The senators shifted awkwardly. They moved papers around and cleared their throats, but they asked no questions and answered none of Washington’s. Finally, Maclay spoke up and asked that all the items Washington had sent ahead be read aloud. He was trying to buy his colleagues time; Washington was a powerful presence, and Maclay worried that he would “over awe the timid and neutral part of the Senate,” leaving “no chance of a fair investigation of subjects.” His fear proved well founded: When Maclay “cast an Eye at the President of the United States, I saw he wore an aspect of Stern displeasure.”
Maclay eventually proposed that the Senate convene a special committee to discuss the issue at a later date. “We waited for him to withdraw, he did so with a discontented Air. Had it been any other, than the Man who I wish to regard as the first Character in the World, I would have said with sullen dignity,” Maclay generously concluded.3
On the way out, Washington supposedly vowed to never return—and he didn’t. But the summit was mere weeks away, and needed advice now. He wanted to represent everyone’s interests (all the land-owning white men, that is) and to govern by consensus (of the same land-owning white men). The Constitution offered two ways forward for the president. The first—seeking counsel from the Senate—clearly hadn’t worked.
Washington had better luck with the second: The president “may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices.” The framers were wary of formal councils that met in person; it sounded too close to the King’s ministers, whom they blamed for Parl
iament’s unfair policies. The paper trail would provide transparency if future developments required investigation. But so much of Washington’s presidency was trial and error, with twists and turns that nobody foresaw; theory rarely survives experience unscathed, and his practical needs would often alter or overcome abstract desires.
By the second year of his presidency, Washington had assembled an executive dream team with “Mr Jefferson at the Head of the Department of State, Mr Jay of the Judiciary, Hamilton of the Treasury and Knox of that of War, I feel myself supported by able Co-adjutors, who harmonise extremely well together,” Washington wrote to Marquis de Lafayette.4 But that wasn’t yet the case in 1789; going in to the negotiations, he had to rely solely on information from Knox, whose jurisdiction included Indian affairs. (The peace treaty eventually drawn up with the southern Indians marked the official beginning of the tortured—if not outright genocidal—relations between tribal nations and the federal government.)
After the first session of Congress ended, Washington marked up his personal copy of the Constitution, writing “President” next to the sections that applied to him. He was extremely careful to satisfy every requirement of the office; a false move might kill the infant nation in its crib.5 What’s more, his decisions would shape how future presidents wielded power; he was determined that “precedents may be fixed on true principles.”6 The Constitution had been written by men he knew well, and could now call on to consult with, but it was ultimately up to interpretation. The first year of government was like the fourth trimester of a pregnancy; Washington had carried the baby to term, but now he had to figure out how to keep it happy, healthy, and growing.