Joseph J. Ellis (46 page)

  3.
Albert H. Smyth, ed.,
The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 1
0 vols. (New York, 1907), vol. 10, 111–112.

  4.
Jefferson to Washington, 23 May 1792, Boyd, vol. 22, 123; Schwartz,
The Making of an American Symbol
, 38–39; Gary Wills,
Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment
(New York, 1984).

  5.
Victor H. Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address
(New York, 1935), 2–3.

  6.
Matthew Spalding and Patrick J. Garrity,
A Sacred Union of Citizens: George Washington’s Farewell Address and the American Character
(Lanham, Md., 1996) is the most recent and comprehensive scholarly study. On the historiography, see Burton J. Kaufman,
Washington’s Farewell Address: The View from the Twentieth Century
(Chicago, 1969). The account in Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1787–1800
(New York, 1993), 489–528, provides the best incisive summary of the larger implications of Washington’s retirement within the political culture of the 1790s.

  7.
Spalding and Garrity,
A Sacred Union
, 45–48; Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address
, 308–309.

  8.
Syrett, vol. 20, 169–173, for an excellent editorial note on Hamilton’s role; Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address
, 30–31; Smith, vol. 2, 940, for the Ames quotation; Madison to Monroe, 14 May 1796, Smith, vol. 2, 941. James Thomas Flexner,
George Washington: Anguish and Farewell, 1793–1799
(Boston, 1972), 292–307.

  9.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 January 1797, quoted in Smith, vol. 2, 895. For Jefferson’s version of the Ciceronian posture, see Joseph J. Ellis,
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1997), 139–141.

10.
Schwartz,
The Making of an American Symbol, 1
8–19, for an excellent physical description of Washington, which also includes the quotation from Rush. Brookhiser,
Founding Father
, 114–115, is also excellent on Washington’s physical presence. Mantle Fielding,
Gilbert Stuart’s Portraits of Washington
(Philadelphia, 1933), 77–80, offers the best contemporary description of Washington’s physical features as rendered by an artist whose eye was trained to notice such things. Washington to Robert Lewis, 26 June 1796, Fitzpatrick, vol. 35, 99, provides Washington’s own testimony on aging.

11.
Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 April 1812, Alexander Biddle, ed.,
Old Family Letters
(Philadelphia, 1892), 161–173, 375–381, for Adams on Washington and “the gift of taciturnity.”

12.
The Jefferson quotation is from his “Anas” in Ford, vol. 1, 168. In the same vein, see Jefferson to Madison, 9 June 1793, Smith, vol. 2, 780–782. For the manifestations of physical decline, see Flexner,
George Washington, 1
56–157.

13.
Aurora, 1
7 October 1796.

14.
Ibid., 6 March 1796; Schwartz,
The Making of an American Symbol
, 68, 99; John Keane,
Tom Paine: A Political Life
(Boston, 1995), 430–452.

15.
Washington to David Humphreys, 12 June 1796, Fitzpatrick, vol. 35, 91–92.

16.
The newspaper quotation is quoted in Douglas S. Freeman,
George Washington: A Biography
, 7 vols. (New York, 1948–1957), vol. 7, 321. On Washington’s royal style, see especially Schwartz,
The Making of an American Symbol
, 48–61.

17.
The most insightful contemporary commentator on Washington’s unique and highly paradoxical status was John Adams, who recognized the utter necessity of a singular leader to focus the national government, and who simultaneously recognized the dangers inherent in making Washington superhuman. The most explicit discussion of this dilemma occurs in the letters Adams wrote to Benjamin Rush soon after his own retirement. See
Spur, 1
85–186.

18.
The best synthesis of the different scholarly interpretations of the Farewell Address is Arthur A. Markowitz, “Washington’s Farewell and the Historians,”
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
, 94 (1970): 173–191. See especially, Felix Gilbert,
To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy
(Princeton, 1961).

19.
The most incisive account of Washington’s dramatic sense of departure is Wills,
Cincinnatus
, 3–16.

20.
For his speech to the army, then his address to the Congress upon resigning, see
Writings
, 542–545, 547–550. For the remark by George III, see Wills,
Cincinnatus, 1
3.

21.
The two outstanding scholarly books on the subject are Don Higginbotham,
George Washington and the American Military Tradition
(Athens, Ga., 1985), and
Charles Royster,
A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character
(Chapel Hill, 1979).

22.
Washington to John Barrister, 21 April 1778, Fitzpatrick, vol. 6, 107–108.

23.
The decision to execute André was Washington’s most unpopular decision during the war and generated a spirited correspondence. See
Writings
, 387–390.

24.
Washington to Henry Laurens, 14 November 1778, Fitzpatrick, vol. 13, 254–257. The significance of this observation was emphasized by Edmund S. Morgan in his biographical essay on Washington in
The Meaning of Independence
(New York, 1976), 47–48.

25.
Writings
, 516–517.

26.
Ibid., 517.

27.
Isaiah Berlin,
The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History
(London, 1954).

28.
Washington to Humphreys, 3 March 1794, Fitzpatrick, vol. 32, 398–399.

29.
Writings
, 840; Washington to Charles Carroll, 1 May 1796, Fitzpatrick, vol. 37, 29–31.

30.
Lawrence Kaplan,
Entangling Alliances with None: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Jefferson
(Kent, Ohio, 1987), emphasizes the consensus that existed among American political leaders; Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism
, 375–450, take the party divisions as more serious expressions of deep division. I tend to think they are closer to the truth.

31.
Three scholarly accounts are seminal here: Samuel Flagg Bemis,
Jay’s Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy
(New Haven, 1962); Jerald A. Combs,
The Jay Treaty: Political Background of the Founding Fathers
(Berkeley, 1970); Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism
, 375–450.

32.
Smith, vol. 2, 882–883; Adams to William Cunningham, 15 October 1808,
Correspondence Between the Honorable John Adams
 … 
and William Cunningham, Esq
. (Boston, 1823), 34; Washington to Edmund Randolph, 31 July 1795, Fitzpatrick, vol. 34, 266.

33.
Madison to Jefferson, 4 April 1796, Smith, vol. 2, 929–930; Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 30 November 1795, Ford, vol. 7, 39–40.

34.
Smith, vol. 2, 887–888; Jefferson to Monroe, 21 March 1796, Ford, vol. 7, 67–68.

35.
Jefferson to Madison, 27 March 1796; Madison to Jefferson, 9 May 1796, Smith, vol. 2, 928, 937; Jefferson to Monroe, 12 June 1796, Ford, vol. 7, 80. Jefferson’s political assessment of the reasons for passage of Jay’s Treaty were shrewd, but Washington’s influence, while crucial, was aided immeasurably by a shift among voters primarily concerned with access to lands in the West. The English promise to withdraw from forts, in effect to implement commitments made in the Treaty of Paris (1783), was itself important in producing the shift. But equally important was the news of Pinckney’s Treaty, in which Spain granted access to the Mississippi River and thereby enhanced the prospects for settlements and commerce in the vast American interior.

36.
For a fuller version of this side of Jefferson’s mentality, see Ellis,
American Sphinx
, especially 151–152.

37.
This is the conspiratorial perspective Jefferson embraced in his “Anas,” the collection of anecdotes and gossip he gathered for eventual publication during his retirement years. For the anecdotes themselves, see Ford, vol. 1, 168–178. The best analysis of the “Anas” is Joanne Freeman, “Slander, Poison, Whispers and Fame: Jefferson Anas’ and Political Gossip in the Early Republic,” 1
11
15 (1995): 25–58. The most revealing statement by Jefferson, which includes the “They all live in cities” remark, was “Notes on Professor Ebeling’s Letter of July 30, 1785,” Ford, vol. 7, 44–49.

38.
On the Whiskey Rebellion, see Thomas P. Slaughter,
The Whiskey Rebellion
(New York, 1986). On Washington’s response to the insurrection, see Richard H. Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,”
JAH
59 (1972): 567–574.

39.
Jefferson to Mann Page, 30 August 1795, Ford, vol. 7, 24–25. See also Jefferson to Monroe, 26 May 1795, Ford, vol. 7, 16–17; Jefferson to Madison, 30 October 1794, Smith, vol. 2, 858. The standard assessment of Jefferson’s conspiratorial perspective is Lance Banning,
The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1978).

40.
Jefferson to Phillip Mazzei, 24 April 1796, Ford, vol. 7, 72–78. The letter was eventually published in a New York newspaper,
The Minerva
, on March 14, 1797. After its publication, all correspondence between Mount Vernon and Monticello ceased.

41.
The quotation is from Jefferson to Tench Coxe, 1 June 1795, Ford, vol. 7, 22.

42.
Jefferson to Coxe, 1 May 1794; Jefferson to William Short, 3 January 1793, Ford, vol. 6, 507–508, 153–156.

43.
Jefferson to Monroe, 16 July 1796, Ford, vol. 7, 89.

44.
Washington to Jefferson, 6 July 1794,
Writings
, 951–954. For the pro-Jefferson version of this episode, see Dumas Malone,
Jefferson and His Times
, 6 vols. (Boston, 1948–1981), vol. 3, 307–311.

45.
The best analysis of Monroe’s behavior as minister to France is Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism
, 497–504. The correspondence in which Washington tried to fathom Monroe’s statements includes: Washington to Hamilton, 26 June 1796, Syrett, vol. 20, 239; Washington to Secretary of State, 25 July and 27 July, 1796; Washington to Monroe, 26 August 1796, Fitzpatrick, vol. 35, 155, 157, 187–190. See also the note on Monroe’s support for French seizures of American shipping in Fitzpatrick, vol. 35, 155, 157, 187–190. See also the note on Monroe’s support for French seizures of American shipping in Syrett, vol. 20, 227.

46.
The most succinct summary of Randolph’s fiasco in the modern scholarly literature is Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism
, 424–431. See also two old but helpful accounts: W. C. Ford, “Edmund Randolph on the British Treaty, 1795,”
AHR 1
2 (1907): 587–599; Moncure D. Conway,
Omitted Chapters in the History Disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph
(New York, 1988).

47.
The correspondence on the episode includes: Randolph to Washington, 20, 29, 31 July 1795; Washington to Randolph, 22 July, 3 August 1795, Fitzpatrick, vol. 34, 244–255; see also Washington to Hamilton, 29 July 1795, Syrett, vol. 18, 525. Randolph’s reputation is defended in a somewhat excessive fashion in Irving Brant, “Edmund Randolph. Not Guilty!”
WMQ
7 (1950): 179–198.

48.
For a convenient summary of the debate over the authorship question, see Spalding and Garrity,
A Sacred Union
, 55–58.

49.
Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address, 1
60–163, 212–217, 227.

50.
Ibid., 14–15, 241–243. The story is nicely summarized in Spalding and Garrity,
A Sacred Union
, 46–49.

51.
Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address
, 242.

52.
Ibid., 246–247; the “first draft” Washington sent to Hamilton is reproduced in ibid., 164–173.

53.
Ibid., 249–250.

54.
Ibid., 250–253, 257. See also Syrett, vol. 20, 265–268, 292–293.

55.
Washington to Hamilton, 25 August 1796, Syrett, vol. 20, 307–309. The “incorporating draft” that Washington did not like as well is reproduced in ibid., 294–303. On the editorial process and the changes Washington made, see Spalding and Garrity,
A Sacred Union
, 53–54.

56.
Writings
, 968.

57.
Ibid., 974–975.

58.
Paltsits, ed.,
Washington’s Farewell Address
, 260.

59.
Ibid., 172.

60.
Ibid., 252–253.

61.
Ibid., 258–259.

62.
Ibid., 245–257;
Writings
, 972.

63.
For Washington’s Eighth Annual Address, see
Writings
, 978–985. The Hamilton draft is in Syrett, vol. 20, 382–388.

64.
Flexner,
George Washington
, 324–327, and Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism
, 495–496, call attention to the strongly nationalistic message Washington delivered. While some historians dismiss the message as Hamilton’s handiwork, and therefore as evidence that Washington capitulated to the Hamiltonian wing of the Federalist party in his last executive statement, it seems to me this interpretation misses the larger point, which is that Washington required no instruction from Hamilton on these issues, and retained his own reasons for regarding the enhanced powers of the federal government as indispensable instruments, the chief reason being that his own departure created a vacuum that would need to be filled by federal institutions. Even Jefferson, who ascended to the presidency in 1801 fully intending to dismantle rather than buttress those institutions and policies, discovered in his first term that Washington’s projection, though the great man was now in the grave, still haunted the political landscape. Even with the Jefferson triumph in the early years of the nineteenth century and the parallel defeat
of the Federalist party as a national force, the core of Washington’s vision remained alive, because without it the American nation itself would have ceased to exist. A reincarnated Washington, I am suggesting, would have gone with Lincoln and the Union in 1861.