WASHINGTON 



6204 



WASHINGTON 



enemy so easy and practicable a business. I can 

 answer those gentlemen that it is a much easier 

 and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances 

 In a comfortable room, by a good fireside, than to 

 occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost 

 and snow, without clothes or blankets. However, 

 although they seem to have little feeling for the 

 naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabun- 

 dantly for them, and from my soul I pity those 

 miseries which it is neither in my power to re- 

 lieve or prevent. 



This was good, plain English, and here was 

 a man who was not a safe person to oppose too 

 far. His soldiers knew that he felt for them 

 and that he did for them all that was humanly 

 possible, and for him they suffered as they 

 would for no other leader. But when the war 

 was over, Washington asked nothing more than 

 peace and quiet for himself and justice for his 



soldiers. He urged Congress to pay their 

 claims, and then, at the close of the year 1783, 

 he resigned his commission and retired to pri- 

 vate life. 



In the interval which then elapsed before 

 Washington was recalled from Mount Vernon 

 to become the first President of the United 

 States, he found plenty to do on his planta- 

 tion. His personal affairs had suffered much 

 for lack of attention, and he was also interested 

 in the course of public affairs. It was natural 

 that Virginia should send him as a delegate to 

 the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia 

 in 1787, and equally natural that he should be 

 chosen to preside over that body. Then, after 

 the Constitution was adopted, he was unani- 

 mously elected to the Presidency. 



The Administration of George Washington 



That the labors of the Constitutional Con- 

 vention would have been brought to a suc- 

 cessful conclusion without the assistance of 

 George Washington is doubtful. After the 

 Constitution was drafted he labored constantly, 

 chiefly by letters to his friends, to arouse pub- 

 lic opinion in its favor. Certainly without his 

 support the Constitution would have been de- 

 feated in Virginia, and without Virginia the 

 new plan would almost surely have failed. 

 Then, when the great experiment was about 

 to begin, it was fitting that he should again 

 take the chief command. Without any seeking 

 on his part, the Presidency was placed on his 

 shoulders by the unanimous vote of the Elec- 

 toral College. John Adams was elected Vice- 

 President. Washington left Mount Vernon for 

 the North on April 16, 1789. He wrote in his 

 diary: 



About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Ver- 

 non, to private life, and to domestic felicity ; and 

 with a mind oppressed with more anxious and 

 painful sensations than I have words to express, 

 set out for New York, with the best disposition 

 to render service to my country, in obedience to 

 its call, but with less hope of answering its ex- 

 pectations. 



From Mount Vernon to New York it was a 

 long, triumphal procession. The roads were 

 lined with people to see him pass. In the vil- 

 lages all work stopped, bells were rung and guns 

 were fired, and flowers were scattered in his 

 path. Through it all Washington was pro- 

 foundly moved, but sober and almost sad. To 

 his constant friend, his diary, he confided that 

 the ovations filled his mind with "sensations as 

 painful (considering the reverse of this scene, 



which may be the case after all my labors to 

 do good) as they were pleasing." In other 

 words, he was thinking more of the greatness of 

 his task than of his present glory. He was 

 inaugurated on April 30. After taking the 

 oath of office on the balcony of the Senate 

 Chamber, he withdrew into the Chamber and 

 read his inaugural address to the assembled 

 Congress. 



Organizing the Government. With character- 

 istic thoroughness Washington at once under- 

 took to inform himself of the details of his new 

 task. He personally supervised the organiza- 

 tion of the different departments of the gov- 

 ernment. It is interesting that his Cabinet, 

 which included Thomas Jefferson, Alexander 

 Hamilton, Henry Knox and Edmund Ran- 

 dolph, was not appointed until September, 

 more than four months after Washington took 

 office. 



The three great events of Washington's first 

 term were the adoption in 1789 of the first 

 import tariff, following Hamilton's famous Re- 

 port on Manufactures; second, the establish- 

 ment of the Bank of the United States; and 

 third, the assumption of the state debts and 

 the funding of the national debt. All three 

 measures were largely the work of Alexander 

 Hamilton. (See TARIFF; BANK OF THE UNITED 

 STATES; HAMILTON, ALEXANDER.) The contro- 

 versy over the assumption of state debts was 

 linked with the question of the location of the 

 national capital. By clever manipulation votes 

 for the assumption were secured on condition 

 that the capital should be located in the South. 

 Shortly after the organization of the govern- 



