Washington: A Life (89 page)

Seizing the moral high ground, the honorable Carleton insisted that the British would not renege on wartime promises to free slaves who had joined their ranks and stated with memorable certitude that “the national honor … must be kept with all colors.”
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Returning the former slaves “would be delivering them up, some possibly to execution and others to severe punishment, which in his opinion would be a dishonorable violation of the public faith pledged to the Negroes in the proclamations.”
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Although they didn’t say so openly, the British feared that some ex-slaves would commit suicide rather than return to bondage. Trepidation was rampant in the community of ex-slaves at the thought of returning to their masters. “This dreadful rumor filled us all with inexpressible anguish and terror,” said a young black carpenter named Boston King, “especially when we saw our old masters coming from Virginia, North Carolina, and other parts and seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New York or even dragging them out of their beds.”
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Carleton claimed that the British had pledged not to
carry off
slaves but never promised to
restore
them to owners. He left open the possibility of compensating the owners of slaves who had fled after hostilities ended and claimed to be keeping a register of former slaves for this purpose. Washington insisted that slaves would give false names and make detection impossible. Both sides agreed to name commissioners to arbitrate the issue and check passengers boarding ships in New York, although Washington doubted that former slaves would ever be reclaimed. Whatever his displeasure, he conducted himself like a gentleman. “Washington pulled out his watch, and, observing that it was near dinner time, offered wine and bitters,” recalled Carleton’s aide. “We all walked out and soon after were called to [a] plentiful repast under a tent.”
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In the aftermath of the meeting, the British refused to water down Carleton’s noble stand, and King George III indicated “his royal approbation” in “the fullest and most ample manner.”
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Before long the American commissioners in New York City found that they could only watch former slaves boarding ships and lacked any power to detain them.

 

 

AS WASHINGTON CONTEMPLATED the postwar world and wondered how to make America happy, free, and powerful, he was uniquely well positioned to affect the outcome. Adams, Jay, and Franklin were off on diplomatic assignment in Europe, while Hamilton and Madison were too junior to assume leadership roles. Washington had eliminated or outlived his military rivals, leaving his stature un-equaled. Since the Continental Army had suffered most from the defective Articles of Confederation, Washington was a natural proponent of national unity and worried about anarchy and bloodshed erupting in the war’s aftermath. He saw that the states, to protect themselves against European interference, needed to band together in a more effective union and that Congress required an independent revenue source to service wartime debt.

The prospect of peace posed exceptional challenges for Washington. Throughout the war, he had scrupulously respected congressional supremacy and restricted expressing his political opinions to private correspondence. By serving as a blank slate onto which Americans could project their values, he had been able to unify the country and enhance his own power. Now, as he returned to the status of a private citizen, those inhibitions were lifted, and he did not know how far to go in articulating his views openly. His instincts were the antithesis of a demagogue’s: he feared his own influence and agonized over exerting too much power. On March 31 he broached this dilemma to Hamilton, noting that his private letters “teemed” with opinions about political reforms, “but how far any further essay by me might be productive of the wished for end, or appear to arrogate more than belongs to me, depends so much upon popular opinion and the temper and disposition of [the] people that it is not easy to decide.”
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A major unresolved issue was whether he should cast off the burdens of public life and return to private citizenship. Writing to Lafayette, he sounded as if he meant to retire permanently to Mount Vernon. Echoing
Hamlet,
he stated that henceforth “my mind shall be unbent and I will endeavor to glide down the stream of life ’till I come to that abyss from whence no traveler is permitted to return.”
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In early June the sphinx issued a lengthy valedictory statement about the problems facing the newborn country. In this “Circular to State Governments,” Washington emerged emphatically from behind his pose of military neutrality and advised the citizenry in an almost fatherly tone. This enduring document, also known as “Washington’s Legacy,” codified his views no less memorably than his later farewell address. Reprinted in newspapers and later excerpted in countless school textbooks, it gained a wide readership. So that the circular wouldn’t smack of political ambition, Washington started out by reassuring readers that he was about to retire from public life and “pass the remainder of life in a state of undisturbed repose.”
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This pledge gave him license to publish his views: by denying any political ambition, he could dispel charges of self-interest. Striking an oracular note, he envisioned a vibrant future for America: “The citizens of America, placed in the most enviable condition, as the sole lords and proprietors of a vast tract of continent, comprehending all the various soils and climates of the world and abounding with all the necessaries and conveniences of life, are now … acknowledged to be possessed of absolute freedom and independency.” Heaven had vouchsafed to Americans “a fairer opportunity for political happiness than any other nation has ever been favored with.”
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Locating events in the wider sweep of history, he saw the American Revolution as favored by the Age of Enlightenment: “The foundation of our empire was not laid in the gloomy age of ignorance and superstition, but at an epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined than at any former period.”
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It would have been easy for Washington to dwell on wartime accomplishments and bask in the sweet glow of victory. Instead, he pushed the agenda to the challenges ahead, offering alternate visions of glory and ruin. Americans had to choose whether they would be “respectable and prosperous or contemptible and miserable as a nation.”
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Worried that a weak confederacy would tempt European powers to play off one state against another, he called for “an indissoluble union of the states under one federal head.”
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The war had scrubbed quixotic notions from his mind. At a time when many Americans, influenced by Whig ideology, equated centralized power with tyranny, Washington argued that only a supreme central power could safeguard liberty. However tempting it might be to repudiate the enormous government debt, he asserted the need to “render complete justice to all the public creditors.”
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Instead of recommending a professional army for the country, as he might have wished, Washington, making a concession to the bête noire of a “standing army,” opted for a halfway measure: uniform standards for state militias.

In closing, Washington referred to the character of Jesus, “the Divine author of our blessed religion.”
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It was a fitting ending: despite his paean to the Enlightenment, the entire circular had the pastoral tone of a spiritual father advising his flock rather than a bluff, manly soldier making a dignified farewell. The ending rose to the fervor of a benediction: “I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the state over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field.”
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With the war drawing to a close, Henry Knox spearheaded the formation of a fraternal order of army officers called the Society of the Cincinnati. Its aims seemed laudable enough: to succor the families of needy officers, to preserve the union and liberties for which they had fought, and to maintain a social network among the officers. Its very name paid homage to George Washington: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a Roman consul who had rescued Rome in war, then relinquished power. Little dreaming how controversial the organization would become, Washington agreed to serve as president and was duly elected on June 19, 1783. Something of an honorary president, he was fuzzy about his actual duties and asked Knox that September to tell him “in
precise terms
what is expected from the President of the Cincinnati previous to the general meeting in May next. As I never was present at any of your meetings and have never seen the proceedings of the last, I may, for want of information … neglect some essential duty.”
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What Washington didn’t foresee was that the hereditary character of the society—eldest sons could inherit the memberships of deceased fathers—would engender fears that the society was fomenting an embryonic American aristocracy.

Perhaps nothing signaled the war’s end so dramatically as the sudden resumption of correspondence between Washington and his friend George William Fairfax, Sally’s husband, who had repeatedly sent Washington letters during the war only to have them confiscated by the British government. One letter that made it through in early July 1783 told how influential figures in England, who had once shunned Fairfax as pro-American, now pestered him for letters of introduction to the American general. On July 10 Washington sent an affectionate reply, calling upon the Fairfaxes to return to Virginia and become his neighbors once again: “Your house at Belvoir, I am sorry to add, is no more, but mine (which is enlarged since you saw it) is most sincerely and heartily at your service till you could rebuild it.”
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It says much about Washington’s nostalgia for prewar life at Mount Vernon that he wished to re-create the status quo ante in this fashion. He reported to Fairfax that Martha had been in poor health, suffering from chronic liver and abdominal problems. All in all, it was clear that any romance between George Washington and Sally Fairfax had receded into ancient history and that he thought it safe to summon back that ghost from his past.

In the interlude before the signing of the final peace treaty, Washington toted up his expenses from eight years in the army. The deal he had struck with Congress back in 1775 stipulated that he would forgo a salary but would be compensated for food, travel, entertaining, equipment, and other incidental expenses. Congress still owed him money, starting with the uniform he had purchased for his original journey to Cambridge back in 1775.At first he wavered about including Martha’s annual travel expenses to the American camp, then decided to list them, since he would otherwise have incurred the expense of round trips to Mount Vernon himself. In his final tally, Washington submitted a bill for 8,422 pounds for household expenses and another 1,982 pounds paid out of pocket for “secret intelligence.”
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Since Congress trusted Washington wholeheartedly, he received every penny he listed. He had kept scrupulous records of his spending, recorded in account books in his own handwriting, and was baffled when the total fell far short of his expectations. “Through hurry, I suppose, and the perplexity of business (for I know not how else to account for the deficiency),” he had “omitted to charge” many items.
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Another major project consuming Washington’s time was the preservation of his wartime papers. Early in the war he had had aides cart his personal annals from campsite to campsite, conserving them like sacred relics. Even before the war ended, he had received queries from historians who wished to examine this archive, and he hoped it would someday preserve his future fame. That June, to transport his papers safely to Mount Vernon, he ordered six strong trunks, covered with hide and “well clasped and with good locks,” each one bearing a brass or copper plate with his name and the year on it. In August Richard Varick delivered to Washington the twenty-eight volumes of correspondence that his team had transcribed over two years. “I am fully convinced,” Washington told Varick, “that neither the present age or posterity will consider the time and labor which have been employed in accomplishing it unprofitably spent.”
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Afraid of sending the bundled papers by sea, Washington took inordinate pains to organize a wagon train laden with this precious cargo, which he sent to Virginia accompanied by a full military escort. Those transported papers, he knew, would prove the final bulwark of his historical reputation.

In the summer of 1783, as he awaited news of the definitive peace treaty, Washington found himself trapped in a strange limbo. About two-thirds of his army had been sent home, enabling him to indulge thoughts of relaxation for the first time in eight years. Having always wanted to visit upstate New York, he now seized the chance. Traveling by horseback and canoe, he covered 750 miles in a little more than two weeks, showing he was still a hardy specimen. It was a measure of Washington’s self-assurance that he wanted to visit the Saratoga battlefield, the scene of Horatio Gates’s signal triumph. Reverting to prewar form, Washington even engaged in some land speculation along the Mohawk River. Back at camp, Washington and his officers had so much extra time on their hands that they took turns stepping on a scale and recording their weight. For all the austerity of war, they weren’t a terribly lean bunch: Washington weighed 209 pounds, Henry Knox a robust 280 pounds, and eight of eleven officers tipped the scale at more than 200 pounds.

In late August Congress summoned Washington to its temporary home in Princeton, New Jersey. The legislature had temporarily been banished there after mutinous troops from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, brandishing weapons, had stormed into Philadelphia and demanded back pay. Washington briefly postponed the trip to Princeton because Martha was “exceedingly unwell” and he didn’t wish to leave her behind.
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When they finally made the journey, they resided at a farmhouse in Rocky Hill, a few miles outside Princeton, where Washington planned to stay until the definitive peace treaty arrived.