Washington: A Life

by Ron Chernow

So that its legitimacy would derive from the people, not the state governments, the framers required ratification by a special convention in each state; the document would be activated when nine states approved.

Everybody recognized the signal importance of Washington’s imprimatur on the new charter, reassuring a public skittish about such fundamental change.

While preserving an air of Olympian detachment, Washington moved stealthily in the background of the ratification process, one of his chief worries being that the Constitution’s detractors would prove more adept than its advocates.

New York quickly emerged as a major locus of dissent, and Madison, based there as a delegate in the waning days of the Confederation Congress, warned Washington of a powerful backlash gathering force:

After leaving the convention in July, Hamilton had fired anonymous salvos in the New York press against Governor George Clinton, who felt threatened by centralized power.

To combat vocal foes of the Constitution in New York, Hamilton published in late October the first essay of The Federalist under the pen name “Publius” and rushed a copy to Washington.

Without tipping his hand, Washington became a secret partner in the Federalist enterprise, transmitting the essays to David Stuart in Richmond.

Curiously, Washington had not figured out that John Jay was the third member of the Federalist triumvirate.

In March, Henry Knox finally let the cat out of the bag: “The publication signed Publius is attributed to the joint efforts of Mr. Jay, Mr. Madison and Colo. Hamilton.”

He must have known that these tidings would carry in their wake an insistent plea for him to become the first president. In backing the new charter, Washington had waged an enormous high-stakes campaign, and his prestige soared even higher with its enactment. “Be assured [Washington’s] influence carried this government,” declared James Monroe.

With the Constitution having squeaked by in Virginia, George Washington owed an incalculable debt to Madison for making his presidency possible.

The success of the new government was hardly self-evident, and only Washington, he argued, could put the new Constitution to a fair test. If the first government failed, “the framers of it will have to encounter the disrepute of having brought about a revolution in government, without substituting anything that was worthy of the effort.”

The public clamor for Washington to become president arose from his heroism, his disinterested patriotism, and his willingness to surrender his wartime command. Another, if minor, factor was his apparent sterility and lack of children, which made it seem that he had been divinely preserved in an immaculate state to become the Father of His Country. In March 1788, in listing the arguments for electing Washington, the Massachusetts Centinel included this one: “As having no son—and therefore not exposing us to the danger of an hereditary successor.”

Casting their votes on February 4, 1789, they vindicated Lee’s prediction: all 69 electors voted for Washington, making him the only president in American history to win unanimously.

Washington understood firsthand the need for Alexander Hamilton’s fiscal program as treasury secretary.

he took an unprecedented step to salvage his finances. He had suffered a treble blow: another year of poor crops, a continuing inability to collect debts except through long, tedious lawsuits, and the failure to sell land at decent prices.

National policy needed to be rooted in private morality, which relied on the “eternal rules of order and right” ordained by heaven itself.

On the other hand, Washington refrained from endorsing any particular form of religion.

Perhaps nothing underlined this improbable turn of events more than the extraordinary fact that while Washington had debated whether to become president that winter, on the other side of the ocean King George III had descended into madness.

“I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances.”

To posterity, it seems shocking that Washington imported slaves into the presidential mansion, but Jefferson would bring a dozen slaves from Monticello to the White House; the tradition of having slaves in the presidential household unfortunately lasted until the death in 1850 of Zachary Taylor, the last of the slaveholding presidents.

That Washington walked the streets and made himself accessible to ordinary people carried important political overtones.

Another place Washington encountered New Yorkers was at his presidential pew at St. Paul’s Chapel, where he often appeared on Sunday mornings.

After he designated Thursday, November 26, 1789, as the first Thanksgiving Day, for example, he contributed beer and food to those jailed for debt.

Still, the public had no notion of the gravity of the president’s illness.

At the same time he wanted it understood that the Senate felt no obligation to explain its reasoning to the president. The episode marked the start of “senatorial courtesy,” whereby senators reserved the right to block nominations in their home states.

Knox declared that the Indians, as rightful owners of the land, should not be deprived of it by violence or coercion. Rather, he advocated paying them for their land and concentrating them in a system of federally protected enclaves.

An enduring mystery of Washington’s presidency is why he relegated John Adams to a minor role.

Adams saw the vice president as a creature of that branch. He stated bluntly, “The office I hold is totally detached from the executive authority and confined to the legislative.”

As Washington tried to protect the presidency from senatorial intrusion, Adams was bound to suffer a demotion in the process.

Washington also had a long memory for wartime critics and knew that in the Congress Adams had sometimes been a vocal opponent of his performance. The Virginian demanded loyalty from those around him, and Adams had forfeited that trust during the war, never to regain it completely.

Washington believed that forming an honest, efficient civil service was a critical test for the young republic.

The criteria he valued most were merit, seniority, loyalty to the Constitution, and wartime service, as well as an equitable distribution of jobs among the states. By sticking to a policy of “utmost impartiality” with appointees, he sought to strengthen the government’s legitimacy.

Only lightly did the Constitution sketch in the contours of the executive branch, giving Washington freedom to maneuver.

He excelled as a leader precisely because he was able to choose and orchestrate bright, strong personalities.

Expert at fending off political pressure, Washington established a rule that nobody could discuss political appointments with him unless he first brought up the topic.

“I know General Washington too well. But I can tell you where your only hope lies. Go to General Knox. They say Washington talks to him as a man does with his wife.”

He worked diligently, gave Washington unquestioning loyalty, and promptly responded to requests, but he was not an original policy thinker and was relatively passive compared to the assertive Hamilton and the quietly tenacious Jefferson.

Although Washington seemed unaware of it, Hamilton had been training for the Treasury post throughout the war, boning up on subjects as diverse as foreign exchange and central banks.

Of particular importance, he presided over an army of customs inspectors whose import duties served as the government’s main revenue source.

he was a systematic thinker who knew how to translate principles into workable policies.

Such was the misery of riding circuit that several of Washington’s judicial selections declined for that reason, prompting a high turnover in the Supreme Court’s early years.

In no area did Washington exert more painstaking effort than in selecting judges, for he regarded the judicial branch as “that department which must be considered as the keystone of our political fabric,” as he told Jay in October 1789.34

As president, he enjoyed unparalleled power without being autocratic.

Among his department heads, Washington encouraged the free, creative interplay of ideas, setting a cordial tone of collegiality. He prized efficiency and close attention to detail and insisted that everybody make duplicate or even triplicate copies of letters, demanding clarity in everything.

He wanted to be able to sit at leisure and compare conflicting arguments. Through his tolerant attitude, he created a protective canopy under which subordinates could argue freely, but once decisions were made, he wanted the administration to speak with one voice.

Washington grew as a leader because he engaged in searching self-criticism.

The one thing Washington could not abide was when people published criticisms of him without first giving him a chance to respond privately.

Many people observed that President Washington spoke slowly and took time to make decisions, letting plans ripen before enacting them. Politics gave him more time to deliberate than did warfare, and he made fewer mistakes as president than as a general on the battlefield.

To Catharine Macaulay Graham, he summed up his executive style: “Much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness.”