American Experiment (13 page)

If the questions were not settled, the battle was—the “Feds” had won at Philadelphia. In winning they had imposed on themselves and others an enormously heavy burden of leadership. Under the new system, men must become expert brokers and dexterous improvisers so that they could operate successfully across the many vertical and horizontal boundaries separating governments. They must be masterly transactional leaders. But at times when people felt that they had lost their way, or needed new goals, leaders would have to transcend brokerage and provide a sense of unity and direction. And in times of real crisis, when people’s fundamental wants and needs, aspirations and expectations, were unmet, and when people hungered for action—any action—the system would depend on men who could reshape the political and intellectual environment; in short, the new Constitution must not altogether inhibit masterful transforming leadership.

But the Framers wanted even more than this—they wanted
virtue
in both leaders and citizens. By virtue they meant at the least good character and civic concern; at the most—with Abbé de Mably—a heroic love for the public good, a devotion to justice, a willingness to sacrifice comfort and riches for the public weal, an elevation of the soul. One reason the Framers believed in representation was that it would refine leadership, acting as a kind of sieve that would separate and elevate the more virtuous elements. Others—most notably Jefferson—believed that virtue must be nurtured at the bottom, among the “little republics” of the states, where, as he wrote later, “every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic, or of
some of the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; where there shall not be a man in the State who will not be a member of some one of its councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte.” Thus Jefferson proposed local public forums where the “views of the people,” in Jean Yarbrough’s words, “could be refined through deliberation
before
they were made known to their representatives.” The people, in short, would refine and elevate themselves; it was on the civic virtue of this cadre that the moral leadership of higher cadres would be founded.

In late 1788, however, it was the top cadre—the fifty or so national leaders and nationally known state leaders who had written or indirectly shaped the Constitution—who had the power and responsibility of leadership. Now that they had won a constitution, they must win a government. This meant organizing elections and choosing leaders at the same time that they were creating the offices the winners would occupy. If the federal leadership seemed undaunted by their tasks, it was in part because they had agreed so closely, planned so creatively, built so carefully. It was even more because they were not proclaiming a thousand-year Reich but rather inaugurating an experiment and expecting a period of trial and testing. They were undertaking a set of experiments in majority rule, minority rights, balanced representation, separation of powers, checks and balances. They were beginning the profoundest experiment of all—that of forming a “more perfect Union,” in order to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty” to themselves and their posterity.

A
ROUND TEN O’CLOCK ON
the morning of April 16, 1789, George Washington and two companions climbed up into a carriage standing outside the great hall at Mount Vernon. One of these fellow travelers was his aide David Humphreys, the other Charles Thomson, longtime secretary of the Congress then meeting in New York City. Two days earlier Thomson had ridden into Mount Vernon to inform Washington of his election as President of the United States.

“I have now, sir, to inform you,” Thomson had said at the climax of his short announcement, “that the proofs you have given of your patriotism and of your readiness to sacrifice domestic separation and private enjoyments to preserve the liberty and promote the happiness of your country did not permit the two Houses to harbour a doubt of your undertaking this great, this important office to which you are called not only by the unanimous vote of the electors, but by the voice of America.…”

Now the President-elect was leaving Mount Vernon with little ceremony. Indeed, he wrote in his diary, he was departing with “a mind oppressed with more painful and anxious sensations” than he could express, but ready to answer his country’s call. Evidently few witnessed the leave-taking. Since Washington’s carriage had to cut north through Muddy Hole Farm before turning northeastward toward Alexandria, and since he had only recently instructed his plantation manager that all able-bodied laborers, male or female, were to work diligently from dawn to dark, slaves working in the tobacco fields must have looked up, comprehending or not, as the carriage sped by.

Two hours later the little party pulled up in the busy town on the banks of the Potomac. “Federal to a man,” Washington had called Alexandria not long before, and now the Alexandrians had political as well as personal reasons to greet their old neighbor. Indeed, the President-elect found himself among creditors as well as friends. A few weeks earlier he had borrowed £500 in Alexandria—something “I never expected to be driven to—that is, to borrow money on interest,” owing to “short crops and other causes,” including the expenses of his trip to New York. But now he was being escorted to Mr. Wise’s tavern for a celebratory dinner. Toast after
toast—thirteen in all—punctuated the meal, and if Alexandrians followed their custom, each lifting of glasses was followed by the boom of cannon. Along with the new toasts to the people of the United States and to the federal Constitution, “may it be fairly tried,” and the conventional toasts to the Congress, friendly nations, heroes of the Revolution, there were salutes of a more pointed nature:

“May party spirit subside, and give place to universal zeal for the public good”…
BOOM!

“May religion, industry, and economy constitute the national character of the United States”…
BOOM!

“The American ladies; may their manners accord with the spirit of the present government”…
BOOM!

A sugary tribute to Washington by the mayor brought an address of saccharine modesty by the general.

Next day Washington, his escorts, and his carriage were ferried across the Potomac to Georgetown. There, and at Spurrier’s Tavern that evening, and in Baltimore next day, guards of honor met and fell in with him—a tribute that, along with the felicitous addresses, pleased the President-elect but so delayed him that he resolved from then on to start his daily journey at sunrise and travel all day long. He could not forget that Congress was awaiting him. Among the officers who greeted him he often found comrades from wartime, and his route lay near old bivouacs and battles, but the general seemed more occupied with thoughts of the tasks ahead than with remembrances of the darker days hardly more than a decade past.

At the outskirts of Philadelphia the military escort gave way to outpourings of persons who crowded around the general’s carriage. When Washington, seated on a superbly caparisoned white horse, crossed the Susquehanna, he found “every fence, field, and avenue” lined with cheering onlookers. Twenty thousand people choked the central streets of the city. In Trenton—another reminder of earlier, sadder times—matrons and girls scattered blossoms before him as they sang a specially composed ode beginning “Welcome, mighty Chief!” and ending “Strew your Hero’s way with flowers!” In Princeton and New Brunswick and Elizabeth Town large throngs turned out amid clamorous church bells and thunderous salutes.

The little procession out of Mount Vernon was turning into a triumphal promenade of democracy. A people frustrated by years of war and uncertainty and hardship, a people starved for leadership and direction, citizens denied the power of directly choosing their President and often denied any vote at all—these persons were now voting with lungs and legs for their leader, a man on a white horse, a republican hero.

A gleaming new barge festooned with red curtains, its twenty-six oars
manned by the finest pilots in New York, rowed Washington across Newark Bay toward Manhattan. A long tail of sloops and smaller craft formed as the barge moved off the Battery on Staten Island. A familiar tune sounded across the water from a sloop crowded with singers; it was “God Save the King,” with the words changed to form an ode to Washington. A Spanish warship, its yards manned and rigged and bedecked with the colors of nations, fired off a salute. As the barge neared the southern end of Manhattan Island, Washington could make out masses of people crowded along the waterfront and stretching up the streets behind. Once the barge was secured, the general mounted carpeted steps to receive a delegation of officials headed by Governor Clinton. A parade was formed, but it had such trouble threading its way through the cheering crowd that it took half an hour to move from the dock to the Franklin House at 3 Cherry Street, assigned to the President-elect.

Washington was emotionally satiated. He wrote in his diary: “The display of boats …the decorations of the ships, the roar of cannon, and the loud acclamations of the people…filled my 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 are pleasing.”

A week later—on April 30, 1789—Washington left Cherry Street in a grand coach drawn by four horses, preceded by troops and accompanied by carriages filled with officials. He was wearing a dark brown suit of “superfine American Broad Cloths” that he had seen advertised in the New York
Daily Advertiser
; white stockings and shoes with silver buckles; and a steel-hilted dress sword. Milling crowds surrounded the procession. Along Queen Street to Great Dock Street, then north toward Wall Street and along Broad Street the long column wound its way to Federal Hall, an imposing building with its massive Doric columns. There, in the handsome Senate chamber, John Adams had been encouraging a last-minute debate over protocol—how should the President and the members of the lower house be greeted? There had been much reference to English practice, to the annoyance of republicans present. By the time Washington entered the crowded chamber, Adams seemed almost speechless. But finally he led the President-elect out of the chamber onto a small, partly enclosed portico overlooking Broad and Wall.

A great cheer broke out from below. Chancellor Livingston administered the oath of office; Washington, looking grave, repeated the words and then lifted the Inaugural Bible to his lips.

“It is done!” Livingston cried out, and turning to the crowd, shouted, “Long live George Washington, President of the United States!” Above the roar of the crowd and the chorus of church bells came the thunder of
salutes from the Battery and the harbor. Washington bowed, turned back into the Senate chamber, seated himself next to the Vice-President, waited until the senators and representatives took their seats, and rose to deliver his Inaugural Address. His voice trembled a bit, his words at times came slowly and indistinctly, he seemed not to know what to do with his hands, but he sounded a note of profound eloquence. After the usual modest disclaimers and supplications to the “Almighty Being who rules over the Universe,” he came to the heart of the matter:

“There is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained; And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as
deeply
, perhaps as
finally
staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

And now to the task of governing. The “old general”—still only fifty-seven—and the politicians who would launch the new republic had been gathering slowly in New York throughout the winter. The alchemy of ambition and duty had brought to the temporary capital hordes of job applicants along with elected legislators. One man who had not been eager for his job was George Washington. So often, indeed, had he informed friends during the past year that he preferred to stay in private life, and would take on public service only if duty absolutely required it, that he might have been fighting his own personal devil—a relish less of power than of fame and acclaim and deference. He had not raised a hand to influence the electors of 1789. He announced in his Inaugural Address that he would renounce any presidential salary—perhaps out of a fear of tainting his image of patriotic disinterestedness.

Washington’s election had gone so smoothly as to arouse no controversy. Electors had been chosen in popular elections in some states, by legislatures in others, and by other methods in several others; in New York the two houses fell into a quarrel over procedure and chose no electors at all. But wherever or however they were chosen, the electors acted on only one mandate—to cast their ballot for the Revolutionary leader.

The vice-presidency was a different matter. Shrewd politicians had already sized up the office as vibrant with hope but barren of power. Still, the post had interested leading candidates, the most notable of whom was John Adams, who with Abigail had returned to their beloved Braintree home after their public service abroad. Vowing even more insistently than Washington that he preferred tending his farm to another stint of politics, he yet watched narrowly as the vice-presidential jockeying began. Washington made clear that while he esteemed Adams, he would be happy to accept whomever the electors chose to choose. Into this little political vacuum Alexander Hamilton moved with gusto. He could not deny Adams’ experience and distinction, but he had long disliked his frigid and dogmatic ways, his civilian suspicion of the military during the Revolution (in which Adams had not served as a soldier), and his only slightly veiled coolness to General Washington.