Washington believed in a strong Executive, but he did not relish constitutional analysis, and even if he had been adept in this, he would have been put temporarily out of the debate by developments of mid-June. These occurrences had a happy prelude. After much careful preparation, Martha left home during the afternoon of May 16. She rode in the family carriage with her two grandchildren and had the General’s nephew, Robert Lewis of Fredericksburg, as mounted escort and majordomo. Her ride was a triumph, but not for a moment did this turn her head. She remained simple, appreciative, human and—grandmotherly. At Elizabeth Town Point Washington, Robert Morris and Humphreys had the President’s new barge in waiting on May 27, and soon they conveyed the ladies and the Custis children to Peck’s Slip on Manhatten Island. A salute of thirteen guns was given the First Lady as she passed the Battery; Governor Clinton stood at the dock to meet her: Martha drove at once to the President’s House, which she found “a very good one and . . . handsomely furnished all new for the General.” In spite of help from an excellent staff, she perceived quickly that she had heavy duties as mistress of a busy mansion and hostess at diversified affairs.
Besides her grandchildren’s study, appearance and regard for the amenities of a conspicuous social position, Martha had to give her own dress and social obligations flawless and ceaseless attention. Her hair was set and dressed every day; scores of visits had to be acknowledged and were most satisfactorily disposed of, she soon found, if they were returned on the third day, without fail. It was a life far removed from the routine of Mount Vernon, where the greatest excitement of the day usually was the clatter of a strange horse’s hoofs on the driveway. Martha quickly made scores of friends in her new position. “I took the earliest opportunity . . . ,” wrote Abigail Adams, “to go and pay my respects to Mrs. Washington.” The wife of the Vice President warmed her page as she went on: “She received me with great ease and politeness. She is plain in her dress, but that plainness is the best of every article. She is in mourning. Her hair is white, her teeth beautiful, her person rather short than otherwise. . . . Her manners are modest and unassuming, dignified and feminine, not the tincture of hauteur about her.” In her next letter, Abigail confirmed her judgment: “Mrs. Washington is one of those unassuming characters which create love and esteem. A most becoming pleasantness sits upon her countenance and an unaffected deportment which renders her the object of veneration and respect. With all these feelings and sensations I found myself much more deeply impressed than I ever did before their Majesties of Britain.”
Washington seldom had found himself more fortunate in her coming. He did not realize it, perhaps, but she humanized him in the eyes of his guests. What was more, she was at hand when, with little warning, he suddenly needed her in a particular manner. About the middle of June, the President developed a fever that did not yield to normal treatment. Soon there was a tenderness over the protuberance of his thigh on the left side. Medical aid was summoned by the seventeenth; Dr. Samuel Bard, a leading practitioner, and his consultants were unable to make a diagnosis. Concern was general; rumor spread that the President had a malignant tumor or else was a victim of anthrax, “wool sorters’ disease.” The tumor grew fast and took on a fiery hue; soreness spread to such an extent that he could not sit down except in acute pain. About the twentieth the fever disappeared and the tumor showed itself as an abscess. Dr. Bard opened it but had to make a large incision, which would heal slowly and, meanwhile, would keep the General uncomfortable, night and day. The General’s steady response to this treatment has led historians of medicine to conclude that he did not have anthrax but a large carbuncle.
His progress was slow. By July 3 he could write a letter, or at least revise a draft on official business of importance; and, of course, he bestirred himself to extra effort for the observance of the Fourth of July. The New York militia were to be reviewed; the Cincinnati planned a meeting and an address to him. The day had historic beginning. To Washington’s House was brought the text of “a bill for laying a duty on goods, wares and merchandizes imported into the United States”—the “impost bill.” Washington signed it—without a word to indicate that he reflected on the interesting connection between political independence declared on the Fourth of July, 1776, and the fiscal independence assured by the simple bill made law thirteen years thereafter.
Washington’s recovery continued but, as he was beginning to find in matters less sensitively personal, progress was slow. Had convalescence been more rapid, he could not have completed quickly the organization of the Executive, because Congress persisted in long debates on nearly all subjects. The establishment of the Departments of Foreign Affairs, War and Treasury was by separate bills, not by a single measure. All three became the object of vigorous contention, because they gave the President the power to remove the heads of Departments. The bill to set up “judical courts for the United States” passed the Senate July 17, after debate that forecast long contention in the House.
Delay in enactment of fundamental laws was embarrassing to Washington. Many men had come to New York in the hope of procuring public employment; much more numerous were the conspicuous men who sought more offices than would be available. Some of these grew impatient as weeks passed with no distribution of shining offices and exalted titles. Washington filled promptly the positions established or continued under the temporary acts for levying and collecting imposts and tonnage taxes. Beyond this, he reminded applicants, Congress had not yet gone into the creation of offices. He let it be known that subordinate posts would not be assigned in any of the Departments till the chiefs had been appointed. In passing on official requirements and on men about whom he knew nothing, the President usually consulted the Senators from the applicant’s State, though he made no pledge to do this. Applications proved a worse ordeal, if possible, than Washington had expected them to be, but towards them he displayed the caution of a man long disciplined to respect both public trust and personal reputation.
This same caution marked Washington’s steps in exploring his relations with Congress. He regarded the executive branch as a “department” distinct from the Federal Legislature, but on parity with it and bound by oath and the letter of the Constitution to show proper deference towards it. If he made any suggestion for action by Congress the occasion had to be one of importance. The initiative, choice, form, scope and prompt enactment or deliberate postponement of legislation were for the determination of Congress, unhindered by the Executive. The President’s power over lawmaking, as he saw it, was confined to his veto.
Washington did not understand, at the outset, exactly how he should proceed with respect to subjects that called for joint action by the President and the Senate. Would it not be well, when doubts arose, for the Senate to communicate with the President and give him opportunity of explaining why he made a nomination? Before this communication reached the Senate, a committee of that body informed him of their appointment to “confer with him on the mode of communication proper to be pursued between him and the Senate in the formation of treaties and making appointments to office.” He had been considering the procedure to be followed with respect to treaties, because he planned, if Congress approved, to undertake a settlement with the southern Indians. A message on the subject was sent both Houses the day after the Senate committee was named.
Further study clarified some of his conclusions on methods of dealing with the upper house; but his survey soon involved questions of ceremonial, on which he was beginning to put undue emphasis. Two conferences with the Senate committee convinced Washington that inflexible procedure was not wise, nor was it so much a concern to the committee as was the substitution of voice votes for secret ballot in passing on nominees. Washington favored direct, open voting and said so. As between written messages and personal appearance before the Senate, he told Madison he would advocate the one that would seem “most conducive to the public good.” His preference was for the black and white of a permanent record on nominations; his judgmen
t dictated personal appearance occasionally in order to explain the provisions of treaties and ask directly for “advice and consent.” In the end, he proposed that “the Senate should accommodate their rules to the uncertainty of the particular mode and place that may be preferred, providing for the reception of either oral [or] written propositions, and for giving their consent and advice in either the presence or absence of the President, leaving him free to use the mode and place that may be found eligible and accordant with other business which may be before him at the time.”
The Senate acquiesced in most of this with the proviso that all questions be put by the Vice President and that Senators “signify their assent or dissent by answering, viva voce, aye or no.” No sooner was this procedure tested than it was found in part unworkable. On August 7, Washington suggested that Congress approve an effort to reach an accord with the Creek Indians through “a temporary commission . . . to consist of three persons, whose authority should expire with the occasion.” The two Houses agreed and appropriated $20,000 for the negotiations, whereupon Washington called on Lincoln to head the commissioners, and, with Knox as active penman, prepared to draft instructions. On the scope of these, Washington thought he should have the “advice and consent” of the Senate and, by prearrangement, he went to the Chamber on August 22, attended by Knox, and presented his questions in a paper which he passed to the Vice President. In the midst of noise from the street and confusion on the floor, Adams read this document and another that Washington had prepared, and then, after a re-reading, put the question on giving consent to the first of seven propositions submitted in the President’s summary. As the subject was a complicated one, it should have been manifest that approval would be perfunctory, but William Maclay protested against immediate action and sought to have the questions sent to committee or to have action deferred. Washington disapproved. “This,” he said, “defeats every purpose of my coming here,” but he consented to have the whole subject deferred until the twenty-fourth. That day he received the Senate’s approval of all he asked, though the debate was laboriously dull.
Washington ended the incident far less disposed than he had been to consult in person with the Senate on diplomatic affairs. Written communications would be easier and less subject to misunderstanding. If one result of the experiment with the presentation of the Indian negotiations was to establish viva voce action by the Senate, that was a desirable gain, but it concerned Congress and not the Executive. Between the two, Washington drew a clear line. Said he: “. . . as the Constitution of the United States, and the laws made under it, must mark the line of my official conduct, I could not justify my taking a single step in any matter, which appeared to me to require their agency, without its being first obtained. . . .”
Adherence to that rule was one of several factors that simplified Washington’s labors. Congress gradually became more familiar with the larger issues under consideration, though it still indulged too generously its loquacious and contentious members. Washington signed on July 27 the bill for the establishment of a Department of Foreign Affairs and on August 7 a similar measure for a Department of War. Debate over the Treasury Department delayed final action until August 28; agreement on the salaries of the President and Vice President was in prospect. The bill for the compensation of the two senior executive officers fixed Washington’s allotment at $25,000 and that of the Vice President at $5000. Washington continued to act on the principle that he was receiving his expenses only, hut he let these mount almost precisely to the figure set by Congress as his salary. Vigorous argument over proposed constitutional amendments was under way, with Federalists determined to approve no change in the basic structure.
Washington was coming more and more to love display and he had ambition to make the Presidency “respectable.” He thought it befitted the dignity of the office to drive with six cream-colored horses attached to his carriage, and apparently did not think he was making himself unduly conspicuous when he rode a white steed with leopard skin housing and saddle cloth that had a gold binding. Fourteen white servants and seven slaves were employed in his house; dinners were large, frequent and elaborate—the pomp of entry heightened by the presence of powdered lackeys; food was consumed in amazing quantities; orders for wine ran to twenty-six dozen claret and a like volume of champagne. Martha held levees Friday evening of each week, with varying attendance that her husband carefully set down in his diary. He usually came into the room to greet his wife’s guests and if he found some other lady sitting on the right of Martha, where he thought Mrs. Adams should be placed, tactfully led the misplaced guest to some other part of the room. It was natural after receiving this delicate attention that Abigail should consider Washington’s regard for ceremonial as proper, but she could not forget her upbringing in Massachusetts. Washington’s equipage with its large team, its four servants and two gentlemen outriders, was, said Abigail, “no more state than is perfectly consistent with his station, but then I do not love to see the newswriters fib so” in asserting “he is perfectly averse to all marks of distinction. . . .”
On September 1 Washington had a dinner at which Steuben was one of the guests. “The Baron” was in a cheerful and facetious mood and made everyone merry. About the time the laughter was at its highest, Washington received a letter that put an end to jest, to dinner and to all social activities of the next few days. Late in July the General’s sister, Betty Lewis, had written him that their mother’s physical condition was grave. After that, it was no surprise to hear that Mrs. Washington had become speechless about August 10, had lost consciousness on the twentieth, and had died on the twenty-fifth. Washington’s reflection was the natural one:
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 fourscore. 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.
He ordered black cockades, sword knots and arm-ribbons for the men of the household, but he did not “go into deep mourning.” The regular levees were suspended for a week, but after that, social life flowed on as before.
From her renowned son in his manhood Mary Ball Washington never elicited the warm love a man usually has for his mother. She seemed to him grasping, unreasonable in her demands and untidy in her person. Doubtless, too, he had been irked by her poor management and irritated by her ceaseless concern for him. She had unstinted care at the hands of her daughter, but if she was beloved in the community where she lived, no echo of affection for her survived. In old age she may have been unlovely and unlovable, yet, when she bore her son, she must have possessed qualities that reappeared in him, some softened, perhaps, and some of them disciplined. There is no reason for doubting tradition that she had fine physique and that she was a skillful horsewoman. At least a measure of her acquisitiveness was possessed by George, especially during his early manhood, and this similarity was perhaps the chief reason for misunderstanding between the two.
Her son needed in 1789 all the endurance in which he resembled her. The House of Representatives entered vehemently into a debate over the permanent seat of government which was proposed at one time or another for almost every town of any size between Trenton and Georgetown. Washington wished that the decision of Congress would be for a site on the stream that separated his own state from Maryland; but there was not a complaint from any quarter that he attempted to influence the action of the lawmakers, who, after much futile maneuver, deferred the issue to the next term. The constitutional amendments were adopted finally on September 28 in a form that met every strong demand for the guarantee of individual right and provided, in particular, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by t
he Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” No change in the division of specified powers or in the organization of the Federal government was submitted to the States. During the climactic period of this debate, the bill for the establishment of “judicial courts” was signed by Washington. The Secretary of the Treasury was directed to report to the next session of Congress a plan for the support of public credit. With these major enactments supplemented by numerous measures of less importance, Congress formally recessed September 29 to meet again on the first Monday in January 1790.
Washington regarded the session as a success. He wrote Gouverneur Morris: “. . . national government is organized, and, as far as my information goes, to the satisfaction of all parties . . . opposition to it is either no more, or hides its head.” Next, perhaps, to general acceptance of the new system, the most important achievement of the session was the creation of Federal Courts. In the executive branch of government the great gain had been the acquiescence of Congress in the doctrine that the President should have the power to name and, if necessary, remove the men who would be, so to say, his divisional commanders. The desired Departments of State, Treasury, and War had been established. Provision had been made, also, for an Attorney General and for the continuance of the Post Office. Subject to Senate confirmation, the President had, likewise, the responsibility of nominating the Justices of the Supreme Court and of the lower Federal tribunals.
Appointments consequently became the most pressing task Washington faced during the last days of the session and for some weeks after adjournment. The General waited until the bill for the establishment of the Treasury Department passed and then made his principal appointments. As Secretary of War he designated the faithful man who held the corresponding office under the “old” Congress, Henry Knox. The Secretaryship of the Treasury went to Alexander Hamilton. The next appointments were those of the Judges, District Attorneys and Marshals of the eleven District Courts. Here Washington had to select the best men he could find, at the same time that he made a geographical distribution and ran the risk of offending applicants he had to pass over. He compromised in the case of James Wilson by giving the Pennsylvanian one of the seats as Associate Justice instead of the post of Chief Justice for which Wilson had applied. The other places as Associate Justice went to John Rutledge of South Carolina, William Cushing of Massachusetts, John Blair of Virginia and Robert H. Harrison of Maryland. Choice of the Chief Justice was considered carefully. No hint was dropped in the President’s correspondence that he thought it desirable to shift John Jay from the office of Secretary of Foreign Affairs to the post of Chief Justice. If Washington felt that Jay’s policy with respect to the navigation of the Mississippi had created antagonisms, he said nothing about it, nor did he assign any other reason for making the shift; but he sent in Jay’s nomination as head of the Supreme Court September 24.
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