George Washington

F

Social Routine

While Congress was in recess in the fall of 1789, Washington made arrangements to move to a larger house, which was made ready by the following February. The details of his social routine were by this time fairly well established. He received visitors only by appointment except at two receptions each week for those who desired merely to pay their respects. He made no visits himself. Mrs. Washington held a weekly reception of her own, at which the president usually appeared for a time.

There was some objection to the ceremony the president thought appropriate to his office. His use of six cream-colored horses to draw his carriage on occasions of ceremony, the servants in his hall with powdered hair, and his elaborate dinners were all criticized as exhibiting monarchical tendencies. For the support of his establishment the president had a salary fixed by Congress at $25,000 a year. Determined to make no profit from public service, Washington saw to it that expenses slightly exceeded this sum.

G

National Finances

When Congress reconvened in January 1790, by far the most important business was the financial plan submitted by Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. It called for the paying of arrears in interest on the national debt and the funding of the principal. It also proposed the assumption by the national government of the war debts of the individual states. Payment of the foreign debt was to be supported by negotiating new loans abroad at lower interest rates. Revenue from higher tariffs on some items and an excise tax on spirits distilled in the United States would meet the interest on the domestic debt.

H

Illness

In the spring of 1790, Washington was felled by a severe cold and then by influenza. For several days it was thought that he could not live. The illness and the anxiety it caused throughout the country underlined Washington’s importance to the new nation. Abigail Adams, wife of the vice president, wrote: “It appears to me that the union of the states and consequently the permanency of the government depend under Providence upon his life. At this early day when neither our finances are arranged nor our government sufficiently cemented to promise duration, his death would ... have ... the most disastrous consequences.”

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I

Logrolling

At the time of Washington’s illness the question of the location of the permanent seat of government arose again and became entangled with the debate over Hamilton’s proposed financial legislation. The result was perhaps the first example in congressional history of the practice of logrolling. This expression came from the frontier and originally referred to the help that settlers gave each other in building their log cabins. Jefferson helped Hamilton by lending support to Hamilton’s financial proposals, and Hamilton in turn supported Jefferson’s efforts to locate the seat of government on the Potomac River.

The seat-of-government proposal was passed in July 1790. Philadelphia was to serve as the capital until 1800, when a federal district on the Potomac would be established. The finance bill, a simplified form of Hamilton’s original draft, but embodying its essential features except for the excise tax on whiskey, came to Washington for signature on August 2. Washington was pleased with both accomplishments and with the teamwork developed by his Cabinet members on these issues.

J

Rigid or Flexible Constitution

This harmony, however, was to prove short-lived. Hamilton, requested by Congress to report to the next session any further action necessary to establish the public credit, had his next step well in mind. In December 1790 he submitted a proposal for the chartering of a national bank with a capital stock of $10 million. A dispute immediately arose over whether Congress had the power to charter a bank. The text of the Constitution did not say so explicitly, and argument was heated. Along with the bank proposal, Hamilton asked again for an excise tax on distilled spirits, the production of which was rising rapidly. The bank bill won final passage in February 1791, amid protests by opponents that it was unconstitutional. With the bill presented to him for signature, Washington now had to decide the question. He consulted his advisers, and this time Jefferson and Hamilton locked horns.

Jefferson asserted that the bank bill was unconstitutional because the Constitution nowhere vested Congress in plain words with power to charter a bank. Hamilton’s opposing view was vigorously expressed: The Constitution did give Congress wide powers in such matters as taxation, payment of the public debt, coining of money, and regulation of commerce. To Hamilton a national bank was essential for the effective exercise of these powers.

Here for the first time was at issue the great question of rigid versus flexible interpretation of the Constitution that has been the subject of heated partisan dispute through much of the life of the United States. Washington set down nothing in writing on this point, but he had frequently made clear his unshakable belief that a strong central government was essential to the survival of the United States. A strong government required reasonable freedom of action because unexpected situations were certain to arise. Washington signed the bill in February 1791, creating the first Bank of the United States. The excise bill was passed on March 1 and also approved.

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