George Washington

C

1

Mount Vernon Conference

The Potomac Company laws were immediately followed by an agreement between Virginia and Maryland assuring freedom of navigation on the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay on a basis of complete equality. The commissioners who met at Alexandria, Virginia, to draft the details of this pact were greeted by Washington and invited to adjourn to the quiet comfort of Mount Vernon. There, in March 1785, they signed the agreement. It included, apparently at Washington’s suggestion, a provision for annual consultations between representatives of the two legislatures to deal with commercial questions.

This provision was the seed from which the Constitutional Convention grew. In the Maryland legislature, ratification of the Mount Vernon Conference agreements resulted in a suggestion that Pennsylvania and Delaware be invited to the next annual conference to widen the program of development. When this idea reached Richmond, Virginia, state legislator James Madison suggested a meeting of all the states. An invitation was accordingly sent by the Virginia legislature to all the other states suggesting an early meeting to consider the trade of the United States, and “how far a uniform system in their commercial regulation may be necessary for their common interest and their permanent harmony; and to report to the several States such an act relative to this great object as ... will enable the United States in Congress effectually to provide for the same.”

C

2

Annapolis Convention

The meeting convened in Annapolis in September 1786. Although all the states had accepted the invitation, only five sent delegates. However, among the 14 delegates who came to Annapolis were 2 to whom Washington had fully opened his mind. These were Madison and Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s trusted wartime aide. The delegates at Annapolis sent out a summons for a convention to meet in Philadelphia in May 1787 to consider measures “to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union.”

C

3

Shays’ Rebellion

Washington was shocked over news of Shays’ Rebellion, an insurrection led by debt-ridden farmers against the government of Massachusetts in 1786. A letter from his old comrade Henry Knox, now secretary of war, indicated that the federal government was almost helpless to deal with the insurrection. Washington wrote to Madison at Richmond urging that Virginia make haste to set a good example in seeking a stronger central government. “Without some alteration in our political creed, the superstructure we have been seven years raising at the expense of so much blood and treasure, must fall. We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion.”

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D

Constitutional Convention

The Virginia legislature answered this appeal swiftly. Virginia would set an example. Its delegates would go to Philadelphia instructed to seek “a general revision of the federal system,” and the legislature unanimously chose Washington to lead the delegation. Washington was bitterly reluctant to be dragged from his long-sought retirement, but now many who had his friendship and respect appealed to their old commander in chief to lead them again.

At Philadelphia, Washington was elected president of the convention. In the weary days of labor and successive crises that followed, he made little public contribution to the debates. He kept scrupulously to the impartiality he believed was the duty of the presiding officer. Off the floor, however, it was otherwise. His deep concern for the future of the nation was somehow conveyed not only to his fellow delegates, but to the country at large. “To please all is impossible,” Washington wrote, “and to attempt it would be vain”; and to New York delegate Gouverneur Morris he said, “If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hands of God.” On September 17, 1787, the convention’s work was done. The completed Constitution of the United States received the formal signatures of the delegates, and the convention adjourned.

E

Fight for Ratification

The next day Washington started for home, bent once more on quiet withdrawal from the turmoil of public life, but already disturbed by suggestions that he and only he could fill the new office that the Constitution, when ratified, would create; that of president of the United States.

Ratification by nine states was required before the new government could be organized, and Washington, whatever his qualms about the presidency, threw himself with vigor into the struggle. He was convinced that the Constitution was the best that could be hoped for at the time, and his anger was roused by those, especially in his own Virginia, who wanted to call a new convention and start all over again. He was startled to find, from many sources, that the most appealing argument in favor of the Constitution was simply that George Washington had signed and approved it. To Washington himself the issue was simple. The choice lay between ratification of the proposals of the convention, or “a continued drift toward ruin.” He hammered home this point at every opportunity. Through the spring and early summer of 1788 the struggle dragged on in 13 state capitals. In June the great decision became final when New Hampshire produced the ninth and decisive ratification of the Constitution.

VI

President of the United States

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