First Founding Father

by Harlow Giles Unger

  Decision, dispatch, and much wisdom are indispensably necessary, or… we shall soon be lost.… The enemy… are now in the center of Virginia with an army of regular infantry greater than that… commanded by the Marquis [de Lafayette].… This country is in its greatest danger, without government, abandoned to the arts and arms of the enemy. Congress alone can furnish the preventative: Let General Washington be sent to Virginia… possessed of dictatorial powers.… The time is short, the danger presses, and commensurate remedies are indispensable.8

  Richard Henry told Congress that he had used all his oratorical powers to rally Virginians, “but the people of this country are dispersed over a great extent of land” and the British had destroyed the last remaining newspaper press in Charlottesville, where Jefferson and the remnants of the state Assembly had taken refuge.

  Lee did not write to Congress without notifying Washington, of course, saying, “I verily believe there is not a good citizen or friend to the liberty of America… who does not wish that this plan be immediately adopted.

  It would be a thing for angels to weep over if the goodly fabric of human freedom which you have so well labored to rear should in one unlucky moment be levelled with the dust. There is nothing more certain than that your personal call would bring into immediate exertion the force and resource of this state and its neighboring ones.9

  As it turned out, the sudden arrival of General “Mad” Anthony Wayne and 1,300 Pennsylvanians in Fredericksburg halted the British advance through Virginia. After Wayne replenished, reclothed, and rearmed Lafayette’s little army, their combined force crossed the Rappahannock to attack. Cornwallis had no choice but pull back. Far from his sources of supplies, his men exhausted by the searing Virginia heat and choking humidity, he ordered a measured retreat to Chesapeake Bay and the safety of his ships.

  As Cornwallis retreated, Lee wrote to Washington to learn his plan of action. Well aware of the ongoing Virginia campaign, Washington nonetheless seemed unsure of how to proceed. “The designs of the enemy” he wrote to Lee, “are mysterious, indeed totally incomprehensible. That they are preparing for some grand manoeuver does not admit of a doubt.… I believe they are waiting for orders.” While the British awaited orders, Washington strengthened his posts in the Hudson River Highlands and prepared his army to “move on in different columns by different routes… to the eastward.”10

  Thomas Jefferson, meanwhile, realized he was out of his depth in dealing with military matters and had turned his office over “to abler hands.” He told Washington he believed that “a military chief” would bring “more energy, promptitude and effect for the defense of the state.”11 By June 22 Cornwallis’s retreat toward the sea left Richmond back in American hands, and Virginia’s Assembly elected General Thomas Nelson, the owner of a large Tidewater plantation, to replace Jefferson, satisfying Richard Henry Lee’s demands for the restoration of state government.

  Patrick Henry was as unhappy as Richard Henry Lee with Jefferson’s conduct in office and, with Lee’s support, moved that the Assembly open “an inquiry… into the conduct of the executive of this state for the last twelve months.” Henry accused Jefferson of failing to make “some exertions which he might have made for the defense of the county”—in effect, treason.12 Outraged by the proposed inquiry, Jefferson would never forgive Patrick Henry or Richard Henry Lee.

  With Cornwallis retreating toward his supply ships in Chesapeake Bay, Lafayette’s force followed hard on the English rear guard, sniping first at one flank, then the other, and pouncing on foraging parties. At Richmond 1,600 militiamen had joined his force, and as volunteers from plantations pillaged by Tarleton’s dragoons swarmed into camp, Lafayette’s army swelled to more than 5,000 men, gradually forcing the English onto the cape between the York and James Rivers. With sharpshooters guarding the opposite banks of the rivers on either side of the cape, Lafayette’s vanguard gradually pushed Cornwallis to Yorktown at the end of the cape overlooking Chesapeake Bay.

  In the north, meanwhile, an army of nearly 7,000 French troops had joined Washington’s 8,000-man Continental Army near New York and were on the march southward. On August 30 a French fleet of warships entered Chesapeake Bay and surrounded the cape at Yorktown to prevent any British escape by water. Two weeks later the combined allied force marched into Williamsburg, and four weeks later the American Continental Army charged through enemy redoubts at Yorktown. As shell bursts reduced British fortifications to rubble, Redcoats made a valiant but vain counterattack. On October 17 Cornwallis sent a message to Washington proposing “a cessation of hostilities.” Two days later a Cornwallis aide signed the articles of capitulation with Washington and French general Rochambeau.*

  27. The surrender at Yorktown. A British officer surrenders on behalf of commanding general Lord Cornwallis and the British army at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 19, 1781. He is portrayed here preparing to hand his sword to French commanding general Comte de Rochambeau, as General George Washington looks on, with the French Marquis de Lafayette standing just behind.

  In the euphoria that followed, the Virginia Assembly not only laid aside its Jefferson inquiry, it passed a resolution of “sincere thanks… to our former Governor… for his impartial, upright and attentive administration whilst in office… and mean, by thus publicly avowing their opinion, to obviate and remove all unmerited censure.”13

  Formal peace talks between the British and Americans got under way in the spring of 1782, concluding in November of that year and setting January 20, 1783, as the effective date of the Articles of Peace, which Congress ratified on April 15. By then all the states had passed confiscation acts, seizing the properties and possessions of Tory Loyalists, and on April 26 7,000 Loyalists sailed from New York bound for either Halifax, Canada, or Britain—the last of 100,000 Tories who had refused to repudiate their ties and loyalty to George III and Britain.

  With little else to accomplish in Congress or the Virginia Assembly after Yorktown, Richard Henry Lee spent his time putting his own house in order and settling the affairs of still another sibling, his widowed sister Hannah. His wife, Anne, gave birth to their second son—his fourth—whom they named Francis.

  On June 13, 1783, Congress voted to disband the Continental Army, only to flee Philadelphia eleven days later when more than 200 mutinous soldiers stormed the State House demanding long-overdue back pay. Congress fled to Princeton, New Jersey, meeting there in tight quarters for a month before moving to the more spacious Maryland State House in Annapolis.

  On December 23, 1783, the new nation’s commander-in-chief, General George Washington, appeared before Congress to surrender his commission before a gallery packed with former officers, public servants, relatives, and friends.

  “Mr. President,” Washington declared, “I have now the honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress and of presenting myself before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country.” As he recalled the “services and distinguished merits” of his officers and “the Gentlemen who have been attached to my person during the War…”—he choked with emotion and paused. Spectators held back their tears.

  Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theater of action; and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all employments of public life.14

  It was a startling scene, a drama not seen or imagined in the Western world in more than 1,200 years. In 458 BC the Romans had given the consul Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus dictatorial powers, which he relinquished, as Washington would now do. With the defeat of their enemies, both men returned to lives as simple farmers.

  Richard Henry Lee did not rejoin Congress until 1784, when it moved to a temporary capital in Trenton, New Jersey. By then his brother Arthur had also won a seat, allowing the two brothers to serve in Congress together for the first time. Two weeks elaps
ed before enough delegates arrived to form a quorum, however, allowing northern cronies of Robert Morris to dominate and vote to move the federal capital to New York City. The new location would force southerners to travel such long distances that many would stay home or arrive too late to prevent Morris and the northerners from taking control of Congress and emasculating Richard Henry Lee and the Virginians politically.

  Lee had one major defense against Morris, however: the three-year limitation on service in Congress established by the Articles of Confederation, and when Morris left, a new majority elected Richard Henry Lee “President of the United States in Congress assembled.” Richard Henry Lee was now the nation’s chief executive in name, if not authority. Indeed, the “president” did nothing but “preside” over the Congress—like the chair at any meeting—but with no authority. He could and did perform ceremonial duties as the representative of Congress and occasionally signed measures on behalf of Congress, but it was, in the end, an honorific passed from one state leader to the next.

  Lee was the sixth such Confederation President, following Samuel Huntington of Connecticut, Thomas McKean of Delaware, John Hanson of Maryland, Elias Boudinot of New Jersey, and Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania.* More than any of his predecessors, Richard Henry reveled in the role, wearing the finest clothes and ordering the finest foods and wines for his presidential table. With Congress paying his residential expenses, he moved into a stunning mansion on New York’s most elegant street. Uniformed guards stood at attention at the door, while servants darted about the interior with silver trays and such in their hands, carrying messages, cups of tea, and other miscellany.

  He entertained like a sultan, twenty to twenty-five guests at a time, as often as three times a week, according to his nephew Thomas Shippen, Alice’s son from Philadelphia. They dined on “black fish, sheep’s head and sea bass,” accompanied by “champagne, claret, madeira, and muscat.” Chamber music groups entertained during and after dinner. Shippen called his uncle’s presidential home “a palace” and said Richard Henry “does the honors of it… as if he had been crowned with a royal diadem.”15

  Richard Henry did not, however, wear his figurative “diadem” to satisfy his own epicurean whims. In fact, his primary purpose was to impress European emissaries with the status of the United States of America as equal to Old World nations in pomp, grandeur, and power—both economic and military. In effect, his stately surroundings and personal appearance were simply diplomatic restatements of Virginia’s Revolutionary War slogan, warning other nations, “Don’t tread on me.” A secondary purpose was to display to members of Congress and the rest of the American political world the conduct the world would expect of the nation’s future leaders.

  Although his foreign visitors could not discern it from his luxurious living quarters, Richard Henry Lee had assumed the nation’s “presidency” at a particularly difficult time. The nation was on the verge of bankruptcy and desperately needed funds—not only in the form of loans from European nations but also in expanded foreign trade for the growing number of farms west of the Appalachians.

  “The Court of Spain has appointed Mr. Gardoqui their chargé d’affairs to the United States,” President Lee wrote to George Washington, who remained America’s behind-the-scenes “commander in chief,” if not on center stage in Congress. “Time and wise negotiation… I hope may secure to the U.S.… the great advantages… from a free navigation of that [Mississippi] river.”16

  Also of vital importance to the “President” at the time was his close political ally, three-time governor Patrick Henry, who had won reelection to Virginia’s governorship after waiting the constitutionally prescribed four years out of office. Lee hoped that by involving Henry in national affairs, Virginia would provide the central government with needed funds.

  “The courts with which we are most immediately concerned are Spain, England, France and Holland,” Lee wrote to Henry. The nation owed millions to France and Holland for loans during the Revolutionary War, while Spain controlled navigation rights to the Mississippi River but was “extremely jealous of our approximation to her South American territory… and fearing our… ascendency upon that territory.”17

  With Lee and Washington still holding title to tens of thousands of acres in Ohio and Henry the owner of farmlands in western Virginia, all three hoped negotiations with Spain would open the Mississippi River to western farmers and transform the nation into a rich provider of agricultural and natural resources to the world.

  The nation also faced problems with Britain—problems greater even than those with Spain. “She remains sullen after defeat and seeming to wish for just provocation to renew the combat,” Lee told Patrick Henry.

  Both countries have been to blame… so that while we charged them with removing the slaves from New York, they pointed to the violence with which their [Loyalist] friends were everywhere treated.… This again is followed by their detention of our western posts… and by their unfriendly interruption of our commerce.… If temper and wisdom are not employed on both sides, it is not difficult to foresee a renewed rupture ere long.18

  Lee said he hoped the nation would not give Britain any further cause for offense and, at the same time, adopt the wisdom of Switzerland, as inscribed above the arsenal in their capital city, “that people are happy who during peace prepare the necessary stores for war.”19

  To that end he told Henry of his need for funds, saying that “our friends”—that is, France and Holland—had sent “strong intimations that we must be exact in the payment of our interest upon the foreign debt and… be punctual in [our] payments, that those who have answered us in the day of our distress may not suffer for their generosity.”20

  Sitting in the chief executive’s chair, he faced the same problems he had faced during the Revolutionary War, unable under the constitution of the Confederation to pay down the national debt because of member states’ refusal to fund the central government.

  When he proposed the sale of unsettled western lands, Lee encountered “excessive rage” among the states, whose bankers and land speculators had filed individual claims as absentee owners to land actually owned by Congress. Lee argued that “Congress must sell quickly or… render doubtful this fund for extinguishing the public debt.”21 Failure to do so, Lee warned, would plunge the nation into bankruptcy and disorder.

  * Laurens was later released by the British in exchange for Lord Cornwallis and was able to sit in as an observer during the final days of peace negotiations.

  * “Yorktown Day” remains an official state holiday in Virginia.

  * Four more Confederation presidents—John Hancock and Nathaniel Gorham, both of Massachusetts, Arthur St. Clair of Pennsylvania, and Cyrus Griffin of Virginia—would succeed Lee before ratification of the Constitution and the election of George Washington as first President of the federated republic. Prior to ratification of the Articles of Confederation, eight men had served as “presidents” of the Continental Congresses—again, presiding officers with no executive authority: Peyton Randolph of Virginia (twice), Henry Middleton of South Carolina (acting), John Hancock of Massachusetts, Charles Thomson of Pennsylvania (acting), Henry Laurens of South Carolina, John Jay of New York, and Samuel Huntington of Connecticut.

  CHAPTER 10

  Riots and Mobbish Proceedings

  MAJOR OBSTACLES BLOCKED IMPLEMENTATION OF RICHARD Henry Lee’s ambition to expand America’s boundaries to the Mississippi River and open Ohio—and the thousands of acres he owned in Ohio—to settlers. With enough troops he might have overcome hostile Indian tribes, hostile British troops, and a hostile Spanish government, but he had no troops and no money to pay them, and Congress had no power to raise any. It had tried to enact a federal tax, but without the unanimous consent of the states, it could not do so. New York had vetoed the plan and left each of the states responsible for paying—or not paying—for all governmental functions, including back pay for tens of thousands of troops for their service during the
Revolutionary War.

  With Congress impotent and New York City so distant, delegates to the Confederation Congress from far-off states appeared only intermittently. A few states even stopped appointing delegates. When Congress did meet, its members—no longer the revolutionaries of the early 1770s—often had little in common and barely fathomed each other’s thinking. Without money Congress stopped repaying principal and interest on foreign debts, disbanded the American navy, and reduced the army to a mere eighty privates.1

  Richard Henry Lee sent agents to negotiate peace with western tribes, but the Shawnee chiefs, whose lands covered much of present-day Kentucky, were intractable, and as settlers and land speculators streamed across the Appalachian Mountains into Indian territory, Lee feared an outbreak of an Indian war.

  Nor did British troops abandon their forts in western Pennsylvania and other areas of the American frontier south of the Canadian border—despite negotiation efforts by John Adams. Although Britain had ceded the territory to the United States in the 1783 treaty ending the Revolutionary War, she refused to remove her troops until Americans fulfilled their obligations under the same treaty to pay all their pre–Revolutionary War debts to British merchants. As for the Spanish, they had closed the lower Mississippi River to Americans in 1784 to prevent the growing American population in the West from spilling into Spanish territory and gaining control of Mexican silver mines.