Washington: A Life

by Ron Chernow

When Washington heard about the bargaining, he dismissed such negotiations as “totally inadmissible.”56 He found himself tangled in the coils of a terrible contradiction: just as he meditated the emancipation of all his slaves, he was trying to return one of them to bondage. Abashed, he told Whipple that “however well disposed I might be to a gradual abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of people (if the latter was in itself practicable at this moment), it would neither be political or just to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference and thereby discontent beforehand the minds of all her fellow servants, who by their steady attachments are far more deserving than herself of favor.”57 In other words, Washington insisted that, as long as slavery existed, he must obey its cruel logic. He and Martha clung to the self-serving tale that Judge had “been seduced and enticed off by a Frenchman” who had roguishly sated his lust and then discarded her.58 Unwilling to compromise, Washington demanded that Judge either return voluntarily and “be forgiven by her mistress” or be put “on board a vessel bound either to Alexandria or the Federal City,” conveniently bypassing Philadelphia.59 In a telling concession, Washington instructed Whipple to forget about capturing Judge if forcibly abducting her served to “excite a mob or riot.”60 Shortly to leave office, Washington wanted no incident that might tarnish his departure, especially since he feared that...