Being George Washington (33 page)

Executive Mansion

Philadelphia

Washington laced his hands together, cupping them behind his head. He looked to the heavens and sighed. There seemed to be no end to the issues he had to address before leaving office—or in completing his Farewell Address—and foreign policy was among the most vexing of them all.

His right index finger traced the words of his warnings against foreign entanglements and the dangers of basing American foreign policy on emotion rather than national interests. “Nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded and that in place of them just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.”

He smiled that the words first drafted four years ago still applied
today. But now there was more to add, he thought; the Genêt affair had proved that. He began writing in his large, round script. “The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy.

“The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.”

He put his pen down and closed his eyes. America was too vital an experiment in human liberty to risk by emulating and aligning itself with fashionable—but miserably flawed—foreign social experiments.

November 10, 1793

Notre-Dame Cathedral

Paris, France

A mob, wild-eyed, disheveled, and self-satisfied, burst through the doors of Paris’s greatest house of worship. Above the doors the words “To Philosophy” had been hastily carved in centuries-old stone.

Musicians from the National Guard and the Paris Opéra blared forth newly composed hymns. These songs were not in honor of God but to the revolution. Their tunes mixed raucously with the obscene lyrics sung by the reveling “worshippers” who rushed into the centuries-old cathedral not in piety but in crude, drunken reverie.

The sanctuary itself had already been stripped bare. Statues of the Old Testament kings of Judah were beheaded. There were no clergy present in the ordinary sense, no tabernacles. Readings of the revolutionary acts replaced those from the gospels. “Reason” itself would be exulted this day in song and blasphemy. On other days, it received the sacrifice of guillotined heads. Eventually, of course, those who officiated that sacrifice would find their own necks resting on the same blood-soaked executioner’s block.

Completing the day’s blasphemy, the mob escorted a blowsy “Goddess of Reason”—some said she was an actress, some said she was a prostitute—down Notre-Dame’s crowded main aisle. Those Created were no longer worshipping their Creator. They were worshipping themselves.

Satan, after all, had said it first, a very long time ago:

“Ye shall be as gods …”

April 29, 1796

Reviewing the Farewell Address

Executive Mansion

Philadelphia

Yes, it was time to think of God.

“When you speak of God or His attributes,” Washington’s
Rules of Civility
noted, “let it be seriously and with reverence.”

Washington had once served as a vestryman and warden of his parish. Now he smiled as he recalled delaying his first inauguration to have a Bible rushed to him from over on Water Street so that he might place his powerful hand upon the more powerful words of Genesis 49–50 and gain strength from them. Concluding his inaugural oath, he had bent his massive frame down low to kiss the holy book before him.

Later that same year he maneuvered Congress into requesting that he declare a national day of public thanksgiving to “that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be….” George Washington, like Thomas Jefferson, recognized that humanity enjoys whatever rights it possesses because it has, in fact, been endowed with them by its Creator.

But in France, “Reason” supplanted—no, it crushed—that concept. It preached tolerance, but it strangled opposition. Proudly trumpeting its new morality, it conveniently forgot the morality of “Thou shalt not kill.”

Washington thought about the French Revolution and how different it was from the revolution he’d helped lead.

Americans fought and died to preserve their long-standing rights as freemen from a grasping Parliament, he thought. We fought to limit government, not to create a vengeful, all-powerful state. A revolution to support the existing order of freedom was one thing, but it is quite another to revolt in pursuit of a Godless tyranny.

Washington mourned the fact that Paris’s mobs had lost their faith in God. The guillotine’s blade commenced its work with Louis XVI. It continued with the heads of revolutionary radicals like Hébert and Danton and Robespierre severed on the same executioner’s block. Thomas Paine, whose words had been read to Washington’s troops prior to the pivotal crossing of the Delaware River, barely escaped their fate.

The Altar of Reason was, in fact, an Altar of Blood.

He whispered aloud the words written in the draft in front of him. “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

A people without God, Washington knew, would soon turn to darkness.

October 16, 1794

Encampment of the Army of the United States of America

Bedford, Pennsylvania

“It still fits.”

“Pardon me, Mr. President, but did you say something?”

“Oh, nothing,” George Washington responded to General Light Horse Harry Lee. Washington, in full military uniform, was mounted atop his horse, inspecting an American army ready to march. “I was just marveling that this old blue uniform still fits this even older gray body.”

“Ah, just like old times, Mr. President,” chuckled Lee.

“No, General,” Washington mournfully responded, “not like old times at all. Then we only fought the British and Hessians. Today we march against fellow Americans.”

The Americans Washington spoke of were those western Pennsylvanians who had resorted to arms and violence to oppose the new federal whiskey excise tax. But the whiskey tax was no Tea Act or Stamp Act—it had been legally passed by a Congress that fully and fairly represented its citizens. Yet these insurrectionaries still refused to pay it.

Washington could not tolerate that.

Either the Constitution will prove stronger than the Articles of Confederation, thought Washington, or America will not long survive. And if he needed to squeeze into his old blue uniform once again to preserve this new constitution, then by God he would.

Preserving his nation required taking action against all enemies, foreign
and domestic
.

April 29, 1796

Reviewing the Farewell Address

Executive Mansion

Philadelphia

The night was growing long and George Washington still had much work to do. His review of the address, and the memories it had triggered, had taken its toll. He was growing frustrated with how much he still had to convey; and with how much of it seemed like it should be self-evident.

Was it really necessary, he thought, to explain to his countrymen that foremost among their new nation’s essential “political principles” was allegiance to the Constitution and to the rule of law?

The colonies had not rebelled because of taxes on tea or official documents. They had taken up arms because of taxes illegally imposed on them by a government that had arrogantly failed to grant them a voice in their own affairs. The United States now enjoyed lawful, representative governments whose laws had to be obeyed if freedom, if civilized society itself, were to survive.

This, Washington knew, was such a simple but important concept. It was something he’d written about nearly a decade earlier, when the Articles of Confederation were the supreme law of the land. He’d written: “[L]et the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the constitution be reprehended: if defective let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampled upon whilst it still has an existence.”

Tonight, as he sat in his Philadelphia office and recalled his words from 1787, he realized that the citizenry needed to be reminded of the very same message. He took out his quill pen for the last time and prepared to add a notation to the draft.

“The Constitution which at any time exists, until changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish
government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.”

The tallow candles flickered and burned low.

George Washington slumped back in his chair. Even when he was alone, it was not his habit to slump. But now he did. He was tired. And there was still so much to do.

He removed his spectacles and dropped them on his desk. The sound roused his manservant, who was sitting just outside. He reentered the room.

“Are you through, Mr. President?”

“Yes,” George Washington said, carefully rolling up the document before him. “I think I finally am. Put out the lights.

“My work is done.”

Three Years Later, December 1799

Mount Vernon, Virginia

George Washington was sick.

Three inches of snow had blanketed Mount Vernon, but that had not prevented Washington from inspecting the exterior of his sprawling estate. For five hours he had ridden its grounds, and his neck and hair were now wet with snow. Tobias Lear, his secretary, advised him to change out of his damp clothes, but Washington ignored him.

That turned out to be a bad decision. The next day Washington felt even worse. Lear suggested that he take some medicine for the cold that seemed to be coming on, but Washington hated taking anything except in the most serious of circumstances. “Let it go as it came,” he answered Lear, repeating his longtime mantra for dealing with illness.

As the afternoon wore on, the chills only got worse. By evening they were accompanied by nausea and a sore throat. By midnight he was having trouble swallowing.

He knew it was time to try to get some sleep.

Washington entered the bedroom as quietly as possible, but the creaky wooden floors betrayed him. Martha spoke gently. “George, you are not well, why have you stayed up so much later than usual?”

He found it difficult to speak with his usual firm tone, so he lowered his voice to a whisper. “I came as soon as my business was accomplished,” he said. “You well know that through a long life, it has been my unvaried rule, never to put off till the morrow the duties which should be performed today.”

“Yes, George,” she replied, “I know.”

Night brought no comfort. His throat burned. His chills become relentless. Sometime between two and three that morning he awoke to confess to Martha that he felt extremely ill. Perhaps, he suggested to her, he might have the ague. She wanted to summon help, but he would have none of it. He did not want anyone disturbed. He would be fine.

When dawn finally broke, Martha took stock of her husband’s deteriorating condition and immediately sent a courier to nearby Alexandria for Dr. James Craik. The 69-year-old Craik had served with Washington since the days of the French and Indian War and they’d been friends ever since. He came without hesitation.

“I believe you have inflammatory quinsy, General,” the Scottish-born Craik said. “Treatment is straightforward: gargle some sage tea with vinegar and then we’ll bleed you a little.”

By that afternoon, a lot of tea had been gargled and Washington’s veins had been cut in three different places to allow for bleeding. Still, he was only getting worse. His throat was so swollen that it was becoming difficult to breathe.

Two more local physicians were summoned: Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick of Alexandria and Dr. Gustavus Richard Brown of Port Tobacco. “Perhaps,” Dr. Dick, who, at 37, was by far the youngest of the doctors present, suggested, “we should consider a tracheotomy. It would allow him to breathe much better.”

It was a shocking proposal—cutting a hole in a patient’s throat to allow for airflow was a new technique practiced by only a minority of doctors. Dr. Craik would not hear of it. “No, Dr. Dick,” Craik replied, “we would never try such a dangerous, unproven procedure out on a man like this. We must continue with the tried-and-true remedies. Now, let’s find another vein and bleed him some more.”

“But he needs all his strength—,” Dr. Dick protested, “bleeding him more will only diminish it.”

They cut into Washington’s veins a fourth time. This time his blood ran thick and slowly. He could barely speak, but he continued to issue instructions about what needed to be done regarding his estate. He asked that his will—a magnificent document, written on a specially watermarked paper, adorned with the image of the goddess of agriculture wearing a liberty cap—be brought to him. He had personally inscribed it so that the right end of each line perfectly matched that of every other line. But it was more than just a beautifully composed document—it was also one with a beautiful purpose: it would free all of his slaves upon the death of his wife.

Hope was fading as fast as winter’s sunlight.

The doctors, friends, and family who gathered around the seemingly invincible man could not avoid the reality that whatever now ailed him was far more deadly than the enemy bullets he had faced down for so many years. Martha, the three doctors, and Tobias Lear all waited faithfully. Three female slaves—Caroline, Molly, and Charlotte—acted as nurses and stood near the door awaiting instructions.

Washington noticed that his personal black servant Christopher Sheels had been standing for a very long time at his bedside. He motioned for the young man to sit down, seemingly far more concerned for his comfort than for his own.