His Excellency: George Washington

This chapter deals with the relatively tranquil period in Washington’s life between the end of the Revolutionary War and his resumption of power as president of the United States. During this time, Washington believes that his political career is over and desires to live a quiet life at Mount Vernon, putting his papers in order for future historians and renovating the estate. He sees the American Revolution as continuing to its next phase, the consolidation of the federal government. He believes also that the future of America lies in westward expansion. One obstacle to this, the most “menacing western culprit,” (156) is Great Britain, which still has troops stationed on the western frontier to recover some of its lost empire. Washington aggressively pursues the acquisition of western lands for himself.

The shape and direction of the new American republic is intensely debated. The growth of the Society of Cincinnati, believed by some to be an “aspiring American nobility” (159), proves alarming to observers, like Thomas Jefferson, who believe its aristocratic tendencies are a threat to American democratic values. Washington’s ties to the society hurt his reputation, and he is forced to distance himself from it.

Meanwhile, the issue of slavery enters the national debate. Several leaders, including the Marquis de Lafayette, attempt to persuade Washington that ending slavery is “a logical outcome of the American Revolution” (162). Washington writes letters endorsing gradual emancipation, influenced both by moral objections and the conviction that slavery is economically inefficient. By the mid-1780s, Washington and his black workforce are “trapped together in a network of mutual dependency that was spiraling slowly downward toward economic ruin” (166). Instead of selling his slaves, Washington prefers to maintain and care for them at Mount Vernon.

The uncertain political situation of the republic seems headed for a crisis with Shays’ Rebellion, in which farmers protest mortgage foreclosures by the federal government in terms that recall the American colonists’ protests against Great Britain. Washington attends and chairs the Constitutional Convention, which drafts a constitution for the United States, then in 1789 is unanimously elected president, despite his reluctance to assume the office.