65. In Massachusetts, electors ran in the congressional districts, which left out two of the state’s electors. Those two added electors were chosen directly by the state legislature. In New Hampshire, every voter had only one vote. Since the state had five electors, any candidate that received at least 10 percent of the vote was elected. In the event that fewer than five candidates received 10 percent of the vote, the legislature would chose the other electors from among the candidates receiving the most popular voters.
66. E.g., the Speaker of the Connecticut House explained in a letter to Washington that the federalist-dominated legislature retained the power to appoint electors because its members thought that this power would “more likely to be exercised with Judgment & discretion by the legislature, than it would probably be, was [it] to be entrusted to the people at large.” Jonathan Trumbull Jr. to George Washington, Oct. 28, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 345.
67. E.g., Washington to Hamilton, Oct. 3, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 79.
68. For contemporaneous public discussion of this issue, see, e.g., “Federal Hints,” Federal Gazette, Jan. 3, 1789 (“Should different federalists be put in nomination for vice-president, the federal interest will be divided and Clinton of New-York may creep in. If the federalists act with unanimity, Clinton’s chance of being appointed vice-president, will be as bad as Paddy Henry’s prospect of being chosen president”).
69. For Madison’s assessment of Clinton’s prospects, see James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Dec. 8, 1788, PJM, 11: 382 (“The enemies to the Government, at the head & the most inveterate, of whom, is Mr. Henry, are laying a train for the election of Governor Clinton, but it cannot succeed unless the federal votes are more dispersed than can well happen”).
70. Edward Carrington to James Madison, Nov. 9, 1788, PJM, 11: 337 (“Mr. H. is putting in agitation the name of Clinton for vice Presidt. Which takes well with the Anti’s—indeed it is more than probable he will receive a Majority among the Electors to be chosen”).
71. Alexander Hamilton to James Madison, Nov. 23, 1788, PAH, 5: 235.
72. In its response to the governor’s formal address to the legislature, the federalist-controlled Senate criticized Clinton for not calling the legislature into session soon enough to hold elections for the state’s electors. “We should on our part, have referred it to the suffrages of the People at large, with the utmost satisfaction,” the Senate response declared. “Assembly and Senate Proceedings, Wednesday, A.M.,” Dec. 24, 1788, DHFFE, 3: 245.
73. Hamilton to Madison, Nov. 23, 1788, PAH, 5: 235.
74. Alexander Hamilton to Theodore Sedgwick, Jan. 29, 1789, PAH, 5: 251.
75. Among the first federalist newspapers to report this threat, the Pennsylvania Gazette noted on December 31, 1788, “Nothing but a union in the choice of Mr. Adams can exclude Governor Clinton from the Vice-President’s chair.” Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), December 31,1788, DHFFE, 4: 122.
76. E.g., Crito, “Mr. Russell,” Massachusetts Centinel, Nov. 29, 1788, p. 3 (“WASHINGTON’s services in the field, have been only equaled by ADAM’s [sic] exertions in the cabinet and the council”).
77. E.g., Theodore Sedgwick to Alexander Hamilton, Nov. 2, 1788, PAH, 5: 228 (“Mr. Hancock has been very explicit in patronizing the doctrine of amendment”); Madison to Washington, Nov. 5, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 96 (Hancock “it is said rejects the idea of any secondary station”).
78. For two representative letters from Madison discussing the four candidates and settling on Adams, see James Madison to George Washington, Nov. 5, 1788, PJM, 11: 335 (characterizing the vice presidency as “an unprofitable dignity”); James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Oct. 8, 1788, PJM, 11: 276 (“For the vice Presidency, are talked of principally Mr. Hancock & Mr. Adams. Mr. Jay or Genl. Knox would I believe be preferred to either, but both of them will probably chuse to remain where they are”). For two representative letters by federalist leaders expressing a preference for Adams over Hancock, see Theodore Sedgwick to Alexander Hamilton, Oct. 9, 1788, PAH, 5: 225; Samuel A. Otis to Theodore Sedgwick, Oct. 13, 1788, DHFFE, 4: 77.
79. E.g., Theodore Sedgwick to Alexander Hamilton, Oct. 16, 1788, PAH, 5: 226 (noting as a positive development to Hamilton that “Mr. Adams was formerly infinitely more democratical than at present”).
80. Madison raised these objections in a letter to Jefferson, concluding with the observation that Adams “would not be a very cordial second to the general.” James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Oct. 17, 1788, PJM, 11: 296.
81. Page Smith, John Adams (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), 2: 739.
82. Alexander Hamilton to Theodore Sedgwick, Oct. 9, 1788, PAH, 5: 225. In this letter, Hamilton also expressed concern that Adams “is unfriendly in his sentiments to General Washington.” Ibid.
83. Sedgwick explained to Hamilton that Adams formerly questioned authority more than at present and noted “that any suggestion that he is unfriendly to general Washington is entirely unfounded.” Sedgwick to Hamilton, Oct. 16, 1788, PAH, 5: 226; Theodore Sedgwick to Alexander Hamilton, Nov. 2, 1788, PAH, 5: 228 (quote). Madison soon wrote to Jefferson that Adams had pledged to support Washington. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Dec. 8, 1788, PJM, 11: 381.
84. Alexander Hamilton to James Madison, Nov. 23, 1788, PAH, 5: 236. See also Alexander Hamilton to Theodore Sedgwick, Nov. 9, 1789, PAH, 5: 231 (“I have upon the whole concluded that [Adams] ought to be supported”).
85. John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, July 16, 1788, DHFFE, 4: 43; John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (Newtown, CT: American Political Biography Press, 1992), 298.
86. Benjamin Lincoln to George Washington, Sept. 24, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 6.
87. George Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, Oct. 26, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 72.
88. George Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, Jan. 31, 1789, PGW, PS 1: 267.
89. Alexander Hamilton to James Madison, Nov. 23, 1788, PAH, 5: 236.
90. E.g., Alexander Hamilton to James Wilson, Jan. 25, 1788, PAH, 5: 249.
91. Adams soon wrote to his close friend Benjamin Rush about the matter, “Nothing but the apprehension of great Mischief, and the final failure of the Government by my Refusal and assigning my reasons for it, prevented me from Spurning” the vice presidency. John Adams to Benjamin Rush, May 17, 1789, AFP, reel 115.
92. E.g., writing to his Virginia state legislator, Washington asked, “We are anxious to know who are to be our Senators—How the districts are formed—and whether the electors of the representative Branch of the Assembly are to vote for the whole number (ten) which are allowed them—or for one only, in the district where they reside?” George Washington to David Stuart, Nov. 10, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 102.
93. George Washington to Benjamin Fishbourn, Dec. 23, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 199. Washington expressed similar sentiments to Madison in September by urging “all the advocates of the Constitution” to combine their efforts to send their best candidates to Congress. Washington to Madison, Sept. 23, 1788, PGW, CS 6: 534.
94. Washington to Lincoln, Oct. 26, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 70. This letter goes on to discuss and urge the election of federalists.
95. Tench Coxe to James Madison, Oct. 12, 1788, PJM, 11: 312–13. If Maclay was a federalist when elected, he did not remain one for long.
96. Washington to Lincoln, Oct. 26, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 70.
97. George Washington to Jonathan Trumbull Jr., Dec. 4, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 158–59.
98. Henry reportedly declared that Madison’s “election would terminate in producing rivulets of blood throughout the land.” Henry Lee to James Madison, Nov. 19, 1788, PJM, 11: 356.
99. Edmund Randolph to James Madison, Nov. 10, 1788, PJM, 11: 339.
100. George Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, Nov. 14, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 108. Since this partisan “gerrymandering” occurred long before Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry orchestrated similar districting, perhaps we should call the activity “Henrymandering.”
101. See George Washington to James Madison, Dec. 1, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 144 (alluding to advic
e in a lost letter); James Madison to George Washington, Dec. 2, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 146–47 (discussing his return to campaign).
102. Prior to the vote for Senate in Virginia, federalist Edward Carrington passed along Washington’s advice to Madison, “Your services in the Senate will be of more importance than in the other House, as there will be much depending on that branch unconnected with the other.” Edward Carrington to James Madison, Oct. 11, 1788, PJM, 11: 306.
103. E.g., A Marylander, “To the Inhabitants of Baltimore-Town,” Maryland Gazette, Sept. 12, 1788, in DHFFE, 2: 145.
104. James Madison to George Washington, Nov. 5, 1788, PJM, 11: 335.
105. Joshua Atherton to John Lamb, Feb. 23, 1789, DHFFE, 1: 839.
106. Henry Knox to George Washington, Dec. 21, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 195 (Knox’s comments refer to Connecticut as well as New Hampshire and his home state of Massachusetts). Writing to Washington about the election in Massachusetts, Lincoln boasted, “Our Senators are federal indeed.” Benjamin Lincoln to George Washington, Dec. 20, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 194.
107. H. D. Gough et al., “Baltimore, December 29, 1788,” Maryland Journal, Dec. 30, 1788, DHFFE, 2: 169.
108. George Washington to Lafayette, Jan. 29, 1789, PGW, PS 1: 262.
109. Alexander Hamilton to Samuel Jones, Jan. 21, 1788, PAH, 5: 245.
110. In March, Jay wrote to Washington from New York, “It is still doubtful whether Senators will be appointed for this State.” John Jay to George Washington, March 1, 1789, PGW, PS 1: 349.
111. George Washington to Arthur Young, Dec. 4, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 161. Washington wrote about laying out the field at Mount Vernon’s Muddy Hole farm in his diary. GWD, Jan. 1, 1789, 4: 3.
112. Washington to Young, Dec. 4, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 162.
113. Madame de Bréhan and Moustier to Jefferson, Dec. 29, 1788, PTJ, 14: 399.
114. On the reaction to Comte de Moustier and de Bréhan, see James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Dec. 8, 1788, PJM, 11: 383.
115. Washington to Young, Dec. 4, 1788, PGW, PS 1: 162.
116. At the time, during private deliberations on the state election law, Henry was reported to have asked about Madison and the new congressional districts, “How shall we managed to lay them off so, as to keep him altogether out of congress?” A Marylander, “Mr. Hayes,” Maryland Gazette, Jan. 2, 1789, DHFFE, 2: 182.
117. James Madison to George Washington, Dec. 2, 1788, PJM, 11: 377.
118. No record exists of Madison’s conversations with Washington in December other than Washington’s diary entries suggesting that they spent considerable time together at Mount Vernon. In a mid-January letter to Washington, Madison freely discussed his efforts to convince voters that he supported amending the Constitution. James Madison to George Washington, Jan. 14, 1789, PJM, 11: 418.
119. At the Constitutional Convention, Virginia voted against Mason’s motion for adding a bill of rights. Since Randolph supported the motion, Madison, Washington, and Blair must have voted against it. Farrand, Sept. 12, 1787, 2: 588. Madison dismissed bills of rights as “parchment barriers” in Federalist No. 48. Publius, “The Federalist, No. 47,” New-York Packet, Feb. 1, 1788, p. 2 (later renumbered as 48).
120. See George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, Aug. 31, 1788, PGW, CS 6: 493 (“there are scarcely any of the amendments which have been suggested, to which I have much objection, except that which goes to the prevention of direct taxation”); Madison to Jefferson, Oct. 17, 1788, PJM, 11: 297 (“I have never thought the omission [of a bill of rights] a material defect, nor been anxious to supply it even by subsequent amendment, for any other reason than that it is anxiously desired by others”); James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Dec. 8, 1788, PJM, 11: 382 (“The friends of the Constitution, some from an approbation of particular amendments, others from a spirit of conciliation, are generally agreed that the System should be revised. But they wish the revisal to be carried no farther than to supply additional guards for liberty, without abridging the sum of power transferred from the states to the general government or altering previous to trial, the particular structure of the latter”). In his October letter to Jefferson, Madison observed that, even though parchment barriers, bills of rights may “acquire by degrees the character of fundamental maxims of free Governments, and as they become incorporated with the national sentiment, counteract the impulses of interest and passion.” Ibid: 298–99.
121. James Madison to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jan. 13, 1789, PJM, 11: 416. Various campaign letters from Madison, some published in local newspapers and all making the same argument, appear in DHFFE, 2: 330–41.
122. For Monroe’s position, see “An Appeal for the Election of James Monroe,” DHFFE, 2: 329–30.
123. Madison to Washington, Jan. 14, 1789, PJM, 11: 418.
124. “Observations by Mr. Madison,” in Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1871), 3: 255 n. 2.
125. James Madison to George Eve, Jan. 2, 1789, PJM, 11: 405. Eve was an Orange County Baptist minister.
126. See Benjamin Johnson to James Madison, Jan. 19, 1789, PJM, 11: 384 (discussing Eve’s public endorsement of Madison on these grounds); John Leland to James Madison, Feb. 15, 1789, PJM, 11: 442. A leading Virginia Baptist, Leland lived in Madison’s district.
127. James Madison to Edmund Randolph, March 1, 1789, PJM, 11: 453.
128. George Washington to Samuel Powel, Feb. 5, 1789, PGW, PS 1: 281.
129. George Washington to Rochambeau, Jan. 29, 1789, PGW, PS 1: 266.
130. Maryland Journal, Jan. 13, 1789, DHFFE, 2: 199–200.
131. Washington to Lafayette, Jan. 29, 1789, PGW, PS 1: 262.
132. On Washington’s expressed dismay, see, e.g., George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, March 9, 1789, PGW, PS 1: 376 (“If it should be my inevitable fate to administer the government [for Heaven knows that no event can be less desired by me] . . .”). On Madison reviewing the inaugural address, see George Washington to James Madison, Feb. 16, 1789, PGW, PS 1: 316.
Chapter 9: The Inaugural Parade
1. The main house, or simply “Mount Vernon” or “Home House,” had six guest bedrooms on the second floor separated by a wall from the family suite, with each grouping having a separate staircase. The house also had two guest bedrooms on the first floor and two or three on the third floor.
2. The cookbook was the sixth edition of Hannah Glasse’s “First Catch Your Hare . . .”: The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple, originally published in 1763. According to financial records, Washington acquired the book in 1771.
3. George Washington to David Humphreys, Dec. 26, 1786, PGW, CS 4: 480.
4. See, e.g., John Fea, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2011), 171–90 (an extended analysis of Washington’s religious beliefs based on original sources by a leading evangelical Christian scholar); Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: Penguin, 2010), 130–35 (a prize-winning biography).
5. William White to Bird Wilson, Dec. 21, 1832, in Bird Wilson, Memoir of the Life of the Right Reverend William White, D.D.S. (Philadelphia: Kay & Brother, 1839), 193. The brother-in-law of Robert Morris, White served as chaplain to the Continental Congress and became one of the initial bishops of the American Episcopal Church. Washington attended his church both as a member of the Continental Congress and when serving as President in Philadelphia. White also noted, “General Washington never received the communion at churches of which I am parochial minister.” Ibid., 197 (White added, “Mrs Washington was a habitual communicant”).
6. “Agreement with Philip Bater,” April 23, 1787, WGW, 29: 207.
7. David Humphreys, “Mount-Vernon: An Ode,” in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys (New York: Swords, 1804), 224. The best-known members of the Hartford Wits were poet Joel Barlow, Yale president Timothy Dwight, and former Washington aide John Trumbull Jr., who served in Congress and as Connecticut’s governor.
8. See, e.g., Kenneth R. Bowling, “George Washington’s Vision f
or the United States,” in Peter Onuf and Robert McDonald, eds., The Vision of the Founders (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, forthcoming) (“it belongs with the 1783 Address to the States and the 1796 Farewell Address as the most extensive and detailed statements of Washington’s political views”); James Thomas Flexner, George Washington and the New Nation (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), 162–64 (“even in its mutilated form, the discarded inaugural is an extremely important document”).
9. “Fragments of a Draft of the First Inaugural Address,” January 1789, in John Rhodehamel, ed., George Washington: Writings (New York: Library of America, 1997), 706–9.
10. Ibid., 707–9, 712, 715–16.
11. George Washington to Lafayette, Jan. 29, 1789, PGW, PS 1: 263.
12. Abraham Baldwin to Joel Barlow, Jan. 10, 1789, DHFFE, 4: 135.
13. A Republican, “For the Boston Gazette,” Boston Gazette, Feb. 23, 1789, p. 2.
14. “Philadelphia, December 13,” Federal Gazette, Dec. 13, 1788, p. 3. This article was reprinted in at least three Maryland newspapers and two Virginia newspapers prior to the election, as well as in at least four newspapers in other states. Ten days later, the same newspaper warned, “The contest will be between the FIRST BENEFACTOR of the United States, and an ambitious demagogue in Virginia, who has placed himself at the head of the debtors and speculators of that state, and who sees that the establishment of the federal government must forever make him a contemptible state bawler.” “Philadelphia, December 20,” Federal Gazette, Dec. 20, 1788, p. 3. See also “Philadelphia, 26th January,” Federal Gazette, Dec. 26, 1788, p. 3 (“The Antifederalists are active, and it is said have formed a plan for bringing in Henry . . . instead of our beloved Washington”).
The Return of George Washington Page 38