The General did not have to wait for Humphreys’ answer. Other correspondents sent him information. Some of these reports discounted the seriousness of the outbreak, but the prevalent tone was one of alarm. The situation was going from bad to worse. There was talk of “the abolition of debts, the division of property, and reunion with Great Britain.” Affairs might become so critical, Harry Lee intimated, that Congress might call on Washington to go to the eastern States, because it was taken for granted that the disorders then would subside. Other Delegates were asking whether it was not the duty of Congress to raise troops with which to support the government of Massachusetts if the authorities of that State could not put down the followers of Daniel Shays, a former Captain in the Continental Army who had emerged as the leader of the trouble-makers. “I am mortified beyond expression,” Washington wrote Lee, “when I view the clouds that have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned upon any country.” As for remedy, “you talk,” he continued, “. . . of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found and, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for our disorders.” Then he wrote solemnly: “Influence is no government.” If the insurgents had grievances, correct them or acknowledge them and say that cure had to wait for better days; but if the uprising represented no real complaint, “employ the force of government against [it] at once.” He insisted: “Precedents are dangerous things; let the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the constitution be reprehended: if defective let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampled upon whilst it has an existence.”
Thus was Shays’s Rebellion linked in Washington’s reasoning with the appeal for a stronger Federal government. From Henry Knox, Secretary of War, who had gone to Massachusetts to see the situation for himself, Washington received a long, careful letter on the uprising. The creed of the insurgents, said Knox, “is that the property of the United States has been protected from confiscation of Britain by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be the common property of all. And he that attempts opposition to this creed is an enemy to equity and justice and ought to be swept from off the face of the earth.” The insurrectionists reckoned twelve or fifteen thousand “desperate and unprincipled men,” chiefly of “the young and active part of the community.”
Manifestly, the political machinery was too frail for the duty it was called upon to perform. It must be repaired or replaced. Virginia must begin that labor. Washington had observed with admiration the diligence, patriotism and high intelligence of Madison, former representative in Congress and now member of the House of Delegates. Madison was the man to take the lead. On November 5 Washington wrote Madison. With applause for the refusal of the House to approve the emission of paper money, he joined the hope that “the great and most important of all objects, the federal government” would be considered calmly and deliberately “at this critical moment.” Fervently he pleaded: “Let prejudices, unreasonable jealousies and local interest yield to reason and liberality. Let us look to our national character, and to things beyond the present period. . . . Wisdom and good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending storm.”
The echo of Washington’s words rolled back quickly from Richmond. Dark as was the outlook described by Knox, said Madison, he himself was “leaning to the side of hope.” The Assembly had voted unanimously to comply with the recommendation of the Annapolis Convention in favor of a “general revision of the federal system.” A good bill was pending and soon would be passed—a bill that gave the proposal a “very solemn dress and all the weight that could be derived from a single State.” Next came the return challenge of leadership: Washington’s name had been placed at the head of the list of Delegates to the Convention. “How far this liberty may correspond,” said Madison, “with the ideas by which you ought to be governed will be best decided when it must ultimately be decided.”
That was not pleasant reading for a man whose love of retired detachment from controversies was second only to his love of country. Madison’s respectful call to renewed public service was followed soon by plainspoken, New England words from Humphreys: “The troubles in Massachusetts still continue. Government is prostrated in the dust. . . . Congress, I am told, are seriously alarmed and hardly know which way to turn, or what to expect. Indeed, my dear General, nothing but a good Providence can extricate us from our present difficulties and prevent some terrible convulsion.” The personal application followed: “In case of civil discord, I have already told you it was seriously my opinion that you could not remain neuter, and that you would be obliged, in self-defence to take part on one side or the other, or withdraw from the continent. Your friends are of the same opinion. . . .”
Washington had to admit the justice of at least part of this: In such a crisis he undeniably had his share of the duty he was invoking others to discharge; but he had an embarrassment of a sort on which his mind laid particular emphasis. As President of the Society of the Cincinnati, he had notified the State Societies that private affairs, the presidency of the Potomac Company, and rheumatism made it impossible for him to attend the triennial meeting of the General Society. This meeting was to be held in Philadelphia during May 1787—the town and month set for the convention Virginia was calling. “Under these circumstances,” he told Madison, “it will readily be perceived that I could not appear at the same time and place on any other occasion, without giving offence.”
Soon after the beginning of December a long period of freezing covered roads and river with ice and cut Mount Vernon off completely. When the post again was operating, Washington learned that the Virginia General Assembly had passed the bill for calling a Convention of the States; that he had been elected unanimously to head a distinguished delegation of seven, and that both Madison and Gov. Edmund Randolph were urging him not to refuse, because he could not be spared from attendance.
The General read and pondered and could not bring himself to say “Yes” or to decline with a “No” so positive that someone else would of necessity be chosen in his stead. In writing Randolph, he did not quite reach the finality of refusal: Because of circumstances from which there was little prospect of disengaging himself, he said, “it would be disingenuous not to express a wish that some other character, on whom greater reliance can be had, may be substituted in my place, the probability of my non-attendance being too great to continue my appointment.”
Wisely, Randolph and the Council decided not to act on Washington’s declination—if declination it might be styled. Conditions might shift; another nomination could be made later, if necessary. “Perhaps, too,” said the Governor, “(and indeed I fear the event), every other consideration may seem of little weight, when compared with the crisis which may then hang over the United States.” With superlative tact Madison made the same appeal. Washington referred the whole correspondence to Humphreys with the query, “Should the matter be further pressed (which I hope it will not, as I have no inclination to go), what had I best do?”; but in the same letter he argued earnestly for precisely such a stronger Union as Madison and the others hoped to assure at the Convention to which they knew the presence of Washington would give prestige.
Washington had troubles enough in the early months of 1787 to have led a man of mind less resolute and ordered to put aside public affairs completely. John Augustine Washington died at the beginning of the year, a loss the General sustained with heavy heart, because Jack of all his brothers had been next only to Lawrence in his affection. Frances Bassett Washington had her first baby and lost it. These sorrows came when Washington still was suffering, sometimes acutely, from his “rheumatism” and, in a different sense, from financial “hard times.” His spirits certainly were not improved by a demand from his mother for fifteen guineas. He sent the coin in February with the unabashed statement that it was literally all he had in hand. Other demands were heavy. Curren
tly, Washington had pressing bills for more than £500. He found it exceedingly difficult to collect what was due him, even for flour, and from some of his tenants he could get nothing unless he took their horses. Lund Washington had special need of his past-due salary: the best the General could do was to tender him a bond he believed a borrower would pay on its maturity. “My estate for the last eleven years,” he confessed, “has not been able to make both ends meet.”
Every day public questions obtruded and overshadowed farm, family and all else. Continued alarm over the discontent and violence in Massachusetts was accompanied by a suggestion that it might be well for Washington to pay a “private visit” to that state, but in mid-February it was hoped that a vigorous march by Benjamin Lincoln on Petersham had broken the back of the rebellion. Washington breathed less anxiously and at the appropriate time urged leniency for the insurgents, though he shared Madison’s fear that discontent was spreading and the affairs of the nation approaching “some awful crisis.” The threat of another flood of paper money engulfing America was, in the opinion of Washington, almost as serious as that of mobs closing Massachusetts courts. He continued to assert that America was facing a final test as to whether she could survive “without the means of coercion in the sovereign”; but insofar as this might require his participation as a Delegate to the proposed Convention, he held to his argument for declining the appointment.
On February 21 Congress voted that it was “expedient” to hold a Convention of State Delegates in Philadelphia on the second Monday in May “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.” Washington still doubted whether the Convention would be well attended by men of ability and courage. On the other hand, he began to ask himself whether his refusal to participate might not be considered a lack of sympathy with republican ideals. As late as March 15 he wrote as if he would not attend, but by that date, several developments were taking form: Congress’ action in endorsing the Convention was approved widely; most of the political leaders were agreed that a crisis was imminent; impressive appointments to the Convention were being made unhesitatingly by several States.
Washington reconsidered. Although he could not yet persuade himself that the Convention would be attended fully by unfettered Delegates, he found a certain sense of shame making him more and more well disposed to the Convention. His own State was holding back. Patrick Henry and Thomas Nelson, Jr., declined membership. Randolph proposed Richard Henry Lee in Nelson’s place, but Lee pled ill health and said he did not think members of Congress should sit in the Convention. Was the State that initiated the gathering to have all of her best known elder sons, Washington included, absent from that body?
Pressure was becoming heavy. Anxiously and painfully Washington reviewed the arguments for and against attendance. There was danger, he felt, that his reputation might suffer if a feeble Convention ended with proposals that would not give the Union needed strength. A desperate crisis appeared to lie ahead. A supreme effort seemed necessary to prevent disintegration of the Federation into a congeries of rival States which might choke themselves with paper money. The Convention presented perhaps the only means of making this effort. If Washington did not share in it, he might be accused of lack of sympathy with it. Abstention might be greater disservice to the nation than his presence would be affront to the Cincinnati. The risk of odium from refusal might be greater than loss of popularity by taking sides in a dispute that might not, after all, be furious or defamatory.
At last, on March 28, he wrote Governor Randolph an equivocal, overcautious and self-regarding letter: If the Governor had named nobody in his place and was not considering anyone, he would undertake to go to Philadelphia, provided his health made this practicable. He took superlative pains not to commit himself beyond easy withdrawal, but in spite of ifs and provisos, the letter brought him close to a favorable decision. Randolph and Madison became so confident of Washington’s participation that they began to discuss whether he should be present at the opening of the Convention or should appear later.
He had to make up his mind; this must not be a political Fort Washington, when everything might be lost by hesitation. On April 9, most unwillingly and in an egocentric strain, he wrote Randolph that he was about to act contrary to his judgment. He apprehended, moreover, that his action would be regarded as inconsistent with his statement in December 1783 that he never intended thereafter to “intermeddle in public matters.” Once more he reviewed the involvement of the Society of the Cincinnati and then proceeded:
Add to these, I very much fear that all the States will not appear in Convention, and that some of them will come fettered so as to impede rather than accelerate the great object of their convening which, under the peculiar circumstances of my case, would place me in a more disagreeable situation than any other member would stand in. As I have yielded, however, to what appeared to be the earnest wishes of my friends, I will hope for the best. . . .
He scarcely could have stated it more ungraciously or with more patent regard for himself, but he said it and, after that, did not turn back.
A report of the extreme illness of his mother and of his sister sent him in great haste to Fredericksburg on April 27 and threatened to delay his departure north. Fortunately, when he reached Fredericksburg, he found Mrs. Washington better and his sister’s condition the result of strain from waiting on her mother. He returned home on the thirtieth. Washington carefully gave full verbal instructions to George Augustine, whom he intended to leave in charge of Mount Vernon. Then, he set out in his carriage early May 9.
In the preliminaries of what may be regarded as a last effort to save the collapsing Union, he had been too zealously attentive to his prestige, reputation and popularity—too much the self-conscious national hero and too little the daring patriot. He had held off when he thought the Convention would be thinly attended by Delegates not of the first distinction and had accepted only when satisfied that most of the States would be represented by able men not unduly hampered by instructions. He never could have won the war in the spirit he displayed in this effort to secure the peace. But, had all the disparaging circumstances of Washington’s hesitation been known, they probably would not have shaken his popularity. The people, as well as his friends, saw only that he had emerged from his cherished retirement to serve them in a time of difficulty and confusion. Knox wrote Lafayette:
General Washington’s attendance at the convention adds, in my opinion, new lustre to his character. Secure as he was in his fame, he has again committed it to the mercy of events. Nothing but the critical situation of his country would have induced him to so hazardous a conduct. But its happiness being in danger, he disregards all personal considerations.
He arrived on the thirteenth and was given a welcome that lacked nothing the affection of the people could bestow. Robert Morris and Mrs. Morris, whose invitation Washington had declined before he left Mount Vernon, now urged him so warmly to lodge with them that he accepted. Before he ended the day, Washington paid his first call—an official visit to Franklin, now President of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania, whom Washington had not seen since 1776. The meeting of course was cordial, because each respected and admired the other, and it held out the promise of close relations in the weeks ahead: Franklin had accepted appointment as one of Pennsylvania’s Delegates to the Convention and, feeble though he admitted himself to be, he intended to take his seat. With this visit to crown it, Washington’s first day in Philadelphia could not be described with a lesser adjective than triumphant. Philadelphia had not welcomed him more eagerly when he arrived from Yorktown. The cordiality of the reception was all the more impressive because, in a sense, it was national. Five conventions had brought to the town representatives from nearly all the States.
To the chagrin of the General, the most important of these conventions, the one to revise the Articles of Confederation, was the slowest in assembling. On the fourteenth, the date set for the opening, Pennsylvania and Vi
rginia alone were represented. The next day individual members from New Jersey, Delaware and North Carolina reported. While this was deplorable, James Madison cheerfully attributed members’ tardiness to a long spell of bad weather. Washington believed that sooner or later a sufficient number of representatives would arrive to organize the Convention. In this good hope he met daily with the other Virginians, who developed a “plan” of government, a paper based chiefly on proposals that Madison and Randolph had brought with them. Washington probably did not make any specific contribution to this plan, though his common sense and experience doubtless were employed in determining what was practicable. In addition Washington visited friends and changed his role of host for that of guest. His first dinner was en famille with the Morrises, his next was with the members of the Cincinnati, a thin platoon of not more than a score of former officers who understood readily why their President-General had come to Philadelphia when he had said he could not do so. They gave him their unhesitating vote of confidence by reelecting him their President, with the understanding that the duties of the office were to be discharged by the Vice President, Thomas Mifflin.
At last a qualified number of Delegates from seven States were counted on May 25, and as seven were a majority of the States, men who had been waiting almost two weeks proceeded to organize the Convention. Morris, a member from the hostess state, arose to perform a service Franklin would have discharged if he had not been detained at home that day by weakness and bad weather. The financier, on instructions from the Pennsylvania delegation and on its behalf, proposed Washington as President of the Convention. John Rutledge of South Carolina seconded and expressed the hope that the choice would be unanimous. It was. Morris and Rutledge conducted the General to the chair, from which he expressed his thanks for the honor done him and asked indulgence for the unintentional mistakes into which his ignorance of the requirements of the position might lead him. Details of organization were completed quickly, a committee on rules was named, adjournment was voted to Monday the twenty-eighth. Washington did not desire this new post; but designation as President of the Convention would take him off the floor for part of his time, away from the contention of rival advocates. He was committed to the work of the Convention by accepting membership in it; he was lifted above partisanship by the duty he had to discharge. At the same time, having no speeches to prepare or committee meetings to attend, he could lend both ears to all spokesmen and thereby learn much that he had not acquired previously in camp or on his plantation. Presidency of the Convention was education and preparation.
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