Washington: A Life

In early June the sphinx issued a lengthy valedictory statement about the problems facing the newborn country. In this “Circular to State Governments,” Washington emerged emphatically from behind his pose of military neutrality and advised the citizenry in an almost fatherly tone. This enduring document, also known as “Washington’s Legacy,” codified his views no less memorably than his later farewell address. Reprinted in newspapers and later excerpted in countless school textbooks, it gained a wide readership. So that the circular wouldn’t smack of political ambition, Washington started out by reassuring readers that he was about to retire from public life and “pass the remainder of life in a state of undisturbed repose.”26 This pledge gave him license to publish his views: by denying any political ambition, he could dispel charges of self-interest. Striking an oracular note, he envisioned a vibrant future for America: “The citizens of America, placed in the most enviable condition, as the sole lords and proprietors of a vast tract of continent, comprehending all the various soils and climates of the world and abounding with all the necessaries and conveniences of life, are now . . . acknowledged to be possessed of absolute freedom and independency.” Heaven had vouchsafed to Americans “a fairer opportunity for political happiness than any other nation has ever been favored with.”27 Locating events in the wider sweep of history, he saw the American Revolution as favored by the Age of Enlightenment: “The foundation of our empire was not laid in the gloomy age of ignorance and superstition, but at an epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined than at any former period.”28

It would have been easy for Washington to dwell on wartime accomplishments and bask in the sweet glow of victory. Instead, he pushed the agenda to the challenges ahead, offering alternate visions of glory and ruin. Americans had to choose whether they would be “respectable and prosperous or contemptible and miserable as a nation.”29 Worried that a weak confederacy would tempt European powers to play off one state against another, he called for “an indissoluble union of the states under one federal head.”30 The war had scrubbed quixotic notions from his mind. At a time when many Americans, influenced by Whig ideology, equated centralized power with tyra

In closing, Washington referred to the character of Jesus, “the Divine author of our blessed religion.”32 It was a fitting ending: despite his paean to the Enlightenment, the entire circular had the pastoral tone of a spiritual father advising his flock rather than a bluff, manly soldier making a dignified farewell. The ending rose to the fervor of a benediction: “I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the state over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field.”33

With the war drawing to a close, Henry Knox spearheaded the formation of a fraternal order of army officers called the Society of the Cinci

Perhaps nothing signaled the war’s end so dramatically as the sudden resumption of correspondence between Washington and his friend George William Fairfax, Sally’s husband, who had repeatedly sent Washington letters during the war only to have them confiscated by the British government. One letter that made it through in early July 1783 told how influential figures in England, who had once shu

In the interlude before the signing of the final peace treaty, Washington toted up his expenses from eight years in the army. The deal he had struck with Congress back in 1775 stipulated that he would forgo a salary but would be compensated for food, travel, entertaining, equipment, and other incidental expenses. Congress still owed him money, starting with the uniform he had purchased for his original journey to Cambridge back in 1775.At first he wavered about including Martha’s a

Another major project consuming Washington’s time was the preservation of his wartime papers. Early in the war he had had aides cart his personal a