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DID WASHINGTON ASPIRE 
 TO BE KING 
 
George Washington 
 
Did Washington 
 Aspire to be King 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR T. ABERNETHY 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 ADDRESS ON WASHINGTON 
 
 Hon. SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER, LL. D. 
 Governor op Pennsylvania 
 
 NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON 
 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 1906 
 

 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 APH 9 1906 
 
 Copyright Entrx - 
 r ^^ COPY 6. ** 
 
 W?;yi ! !VH!iM * r".iia 
 
 COPYRIGHT, igo6 
 BY ARTHUR T. ABERNETHY 
 
To Thomas Sawyer Spivey, Esq. 
 OF Washington,, D. C. 
 
 That fearless exponent of the truth of things, 
 who has never faltered to promote the truth 
 whether it met with public approval or awak- 
 ened wrath ; who, by his writings, liberality, and 
 courteous assistance and encouragement has 
 enabled the author to pursue the early determi- 
 nations of his mind to give this book to the 
 truth-seeking public, this work is respectfully 
 dedicated by 
 
 The Author. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 During the early part of 1905 there appeared 
 in the columns of The Philadelphia Evening 
 Bulletin, in that section of the publication con- 
 ducted by Mr. Perrine, the editor-in-chief, the 
 following- articles referring directly and indi- 
 rectly to my attitude toward the first President 
 of this Republic : 
 
 Mr. Evan T. Ellis submits the following obser- 
 vations : 
 
 "There is a large book — size of a family Bible — 
 just published. It is called 'Bohemia,' and is the 
 official publication of the International League 
 of Press Clubs for the building and endowment 
 of the Journalists' Home, of which only 500 copies 
 are issued, and No. 125 is especially, so it says, 
 printed for the Philadelphia Bourse, where I saw 
 it. 
 
 "There are some 300 odd contributors from 
 all sorts of people. Journalists, statesmen and 
 actors predominate, and there may be a thou- 
 sand or so illustrations, mostly portraits. Alto- 
 gether one of the most interesting and amusing 
 
8 PREFACE 
 
 pieces of literature of recent times and from the 
 very limited edition I suppose will only be found 
 in libraries. 
 
 "On page 398 is 'The Passing of William M. 
 Singerly/ signed simply A. T. A., and is, I 
 believe, the only (to me) anonymous writer of 
 the 300 odd in the book. 
 
 "The article is highly eulogistic and much in 
 the main as all of us would cheerfully endorse. 
 After reciting a number of instances of ingrati- 
 tude to well-known historical characters followed 
 by a revulsion to the opposite extreme generally 
 after the death of the individual, commencing with 
 Christ, who, he says, was stoned by the populace 
 one day and the next they strewed his pathway 
 with flowers and their rich vestments on his tri- 
 umphant ride into Jerusalem, he says of Coriola- 
 nus that he saved Rome and was voted a public 
 enemy, and so on down to Dewey, whom we 
 screamed ourselves hoarse at over Manila and 
 hooted when he asked for the nomination of the 
 President at home. He takes up Aaron Burr 
 thus : 'Burr, the patriot, who had stemmed the tide 
 of British victory and risked his life at Quebec, 
 died alone in the world and misjudged by his con- 
 temporaries, and discredited by history.' But 
 unfortunately there are these lines that should 
 never have been printed, and I do not believe the 
 editor of the book ever noticed it. It is : 
 
 " 'Not even Washington (who hated him 
 (Burr), because Burr had opposed his secret 
 ambition to become King of America) loved his 
 country more.' 
 
PREFACE 9 
 
 "Now, I believe it is a fact that at one time dur- 
 ing the nation's struggle for independence there 
 was such an idea among some of the young subor- 
 dinate officers in Washington's army — but it 
 reached the commander's ear, and we are told that 
 he gave them such a rebuke and warning that they 
 never attempted the thing again. I wish I had the 
 words he spoke ; as I recall from history, they were 
 those of a man deeply grieved and hurt." 
 
 Mr. Arthur T, Abernethy submits the follow- 
 ing statement: 
 
 "Dear Penn : My attention has been called to 
 the communication of last Saturday in which Mr. 
 Evan T. Ellis offers some observations relative 
 to 'Bohemia,' the publication of the International 
 League of Press Clubs, and an article signed 'A. 
 T. A.' on 'The Passing of William M. Singerly,' 
 in which allusion is made to the historical allega- 
 tion that Washington at one time aspired to be 
 king of the United States. 
 
 "Seven years ago, harassed by conflicting state- 
 ments appearing everywhere in Washington's 
 biographies, I began a candid and exhaustive re- 
 search into the conduct of General Washington, 
 and for the past seven years I have continued 
 these personal investigations as conscientiously as 
 possible to a man of my means. After having 
 read every work bearing on the subject which I 
 have been able to obtain in the libraries of Phila- 
 delphia, Pittsburg, Washington, New York and 
 points of less importance where excellent mem- 
 
10 PREFACE 
 
 oranda of those early days have been preserved, 
 and after personal visits to the old haunts of 
 General Washington throughout Virginia, Mary- 
 land, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and, in fact, 
 among his family relatives wherever found, I have 
 reached a conclusion which I believe to be the one 
 which must ultimately be that of every conscien- 
 tious student of history who is unswerved by per- 
 sonal enthusiasm and unbiased by preconceived 
 notions of prejudice — that General George Wash- 
 ington's one prevailing hope was that his country, 
 relieved of the oppressive conditions heaped upon 
 it by England's incapable management of the 
 colonial affairs, would organize an independ- 
 ent regality over which, as the leader of the 
 nation's hosts, he should be the logical choice 
 for king. The arguments supporting this view 
 are too numerous for a brief communication to a 
 daily publication, and I have embodied as many 
 of them as were personally discovered as a result 
 of my researches in a book which I shall publish 
 within the next few months. This manuscript 
 has been submitted to the leading recognized 
 authorities on Washingtoniana in a conscientious 
 desire that if they knew anything historically re- 
 futing the statements made therein they would 
 submit them so as to assist the writer in arriving 
 at the truth. The leading magazines have flatly 
 refused their columns to the author of this 
 pamphlet, not with the usual 'returned with 
 thanks,' but with the astounding suggestion that 
 'if the facts be true they would rather suppress 
 than make them public, because anything which 
 
PREFACE 11 
 
 tends to destroy patriotism without giving a com- 
 mensurate return is equivalent to the destruction 
 of reHgion itself.' To me it is a pathetic thing 
 that within so near a date of the life of Washing- 
 ton we should find ourselves unwilling to tell or 
 even to know the truth about him ; that we should 
 delegate to him a monopoly of patriotism, and 
 utterly and ignorantly close our eyes to the serv- 
 ices of Hamilton, Jefferson, Randolph, and, as 
 a matter of fact, the majority of his contempo- 
 raries who served him for his skilful political 
 ability to hold the people together in an hour of 
 crisis, but who recognized in his individual enter- 
 prises tendencies to monarchy which were far 
 from agreeable. But we must not forget that 
 republics were not familiar forms of government 
 in those early days — ^the colonists had been taught 
 for years to revere the institutions under which 
 they were born — and were doubtless as patriotic 
 in their way as we are in our own. Washington 
 knew this, and he knew, too, when he 'declined' 
 the kingdom (offered him in an anonymous com- 
 munication and by a few military adventurers who 
 were without authority) that he was the elected 
 head of the Army, and that the recognition of 
 any mutiny — even for his own promotion — in that 
 moment of the Army's discontent, would have 
 been disastrous to his oath of office, his personal 
 standing; and since much of the miHtary discon- 
 tent was leveled against Washington himself 
 (which should be well considered) there was by no 
 means any assurance of the permanent or even 
 partial success of his individual aspirations to be 
 King. 
 
12 PREFACE 
 
 "Let me remind your correspondent that this 
 letter (the words of which your correspondent 
 endeavors to quote as a refutation of my refer- 
 ences) to Washington (which he received in 
 1782) did not contain any proffer of a title to 
 Washington, as, indeed, there could not have been, 
 since the suggestion came without official author- 
 ity behind it; and Washington's reply, far from 
 being a bold avowal of his refusal, was more a 
 denial of the inferences that he had seemed remiss 
 in the defense of the rights of the soldiers ; that 
 it was a shrewd political side-step from a sugges- 
 tion which would have only served to widen the 
 breach between Washington and the Republicans, 
 and Washington knew that the only power behind 
 the suggestion was one of bloodshed, in which he 
 did not care to engage in the satisfaction of his 
 ambition. It must be calmly recognized, too, that 
 at the time this proposition was made the govern- 
 ment of the United States was not yet per- 
 manently organized, and Washington was the 
 head of the Army, in which he was in honor bound 
 to maintain the loyalty of discipline; any out- 
 burst would have been directly chargeable to the 
 Army's head — especially one favorable to the 
 commanding general. 
 
 "I send these lines as a partial defense of my 
 utterances concerning Burr and Washington in 
 the article criticised by Mr. Ellis in your column, 
 and trust that in the consideration of any historic 
 fact we may ever be led to agree with Cicero : 'It 
 is the first and fundamental law of history that 
 it should neither dare to say anything that is false, 
 
PREFACE 13 
 
 nor fear to say anything that is true, nor give any 
 just suspicion of favor or disaffection.' 
 
 "A. T. A." 
 
 Professor Brandt, of the High School, has 
 made a comparison of the Roosevelt inaugural 
 ceremonies to the second inauguration of Wash- 
 ington as President, which took place in this city, 
 and refers to the pageantry of the one as com- 
 pared with the simplicity of the other. Yet at 
 the time when Washington was inducted into 
 office there were observers who thought that his 
 manner of exercising public function was royal- 
 istic or aristocratic and criticised it as such. It 
 is to be borne in mind, too, that the government, 
 as an institution, was a feeble affair, that it had 
 existed here for only three years, that there was 
 hardly more than the semblance of a national 
 military power, that there was not even a Navy 
 Department and that consequently it would have 
 been difficult to organize a Federal display on the 
 occasion. It is also to be borne in mind, however, 
 that at the President's birthday, ten days pre- 
 vious, there had been a parade of militia, an 
 artillery salute, a reception at his house, the ring- 
 ing of bells, and a ball at the chief hotel of the 
 city. But when the inauguration day came, 
 although Washington lived only two or three 
 minutes' walk distant from the hall of Congress, 
 at Sixth and Chestnut streets, he went thither in 
 a state coach and six, his person attired in rich 
 and elegant costume, and his presence announced 
 by attendants or ushers with rods. These and 
 
14 PREFACE 
 
 similar acts were regarded by his political critics 
 as undemocratic. Thus Jefferson, in a letter to 
 Madison three months after Washington's second 
 inauguration, said: 
 
 "I remember an observation of yours made 
 when I first went to New York, that the satellites 
 and sycophants that surrounded him (Washing- 
 ton) had wound up the ceremonials of the govern- 
 ment to a pitch of stateliness which nothing but 
 his personal character could have supported, and 
 which no character after him could ever main- 
 tain. It appears now that even his will be insuffi- 
 cient to justify them in the effect of the times 
 to common sense as the arbiter of everything. 
 Naked, he would have been sanctimoniously 
 reverenced ; but enveloped in the rags of royalty, 
 they can be hardly torn off without laceration." 
 
 In connection with Mr. Abernethy's remarks 
 on the story of Washington and the crown, the 
 opinion which Jefferson expressed in his Anas is 
 worthy of consideration : 
 
 "The alliance," he said, "between the States 
 under the old Articles of Confederation for the 
 purpose of joint defense against the aggressions 
 of Great Britain, was found insufficient, as treaties 
 of alliance generally are, to enforce compliance 
 with their mutual stipulation ; and these, once 
 fulfilled, that bond was to expire of itself, and each 
 State to become sovereign and independent in all 
 things. Yet it could not but occur to every one, 
 
PREFACE 15 
 
 that these separate independencies, like the petty 
 States of Greece, would be eternally at war with 
 each other, and would become at length the mere 
 partisans and satellites of the leading powers of 
 Europe. All of them must have looked to some 
 further bond of union which would insure internal 
 peace, and a political system of our own, inde- 
 pendent of that of Europe. Whether all should 
 be consolidated into a single government, or each 
 remain independent as to internal matters, and 
 the whole form a single nation as to what was 
 foreign only, and whether that national govern- 
 ment should be a monarchy or a republic, would 
 of course divide opinions according to the consti- 
 tutions, the habits, and the circumstances of each 
 individual. Some officer of the Army, as it has 
 always been said and believed (and Steuben and 
 Knox have ever been named as their leading 
 agents), trained to monarchy by military habits, 
 are understood to have proposed to General 
 Washington to decide this great question by the 
 Army before its disbandment, and to assume him- 
 self the crown, on the assurance of their support. 
 The indignation with which he is said to have 
 scouted this parricide proposition was equally 
 worthy of his virtue and his wisdom." 
 
 As to the use of the name Republican in de- 
 scribing Jefferson's followers, or the party of 
 which he was the chief founder, now the Dem- 
 ocratic party, a correspondent states his impres- 
 sion that there was no such name as Republican 
 given to the party which elected Jefferson to the 
 
16 PREFACE 
 
 Presidency. But the fact is that the name Dem- 
 ocratic or Democrat was not applied to it gen- 
 erally or distinctively until a number of years after 
 Jefferson had retired from the Presidency. Dur- 
 ing his active political career the organization was 
 known as Republican in its early stages and also 
 Democratic-Republican. The title was intended 
 to distinguish the party from its opponents, the 
 Federalists, whom Jefferson condemned as mon- 
 archical. It was employed time and again by him 
 in his correspondence, was common to the politi- 
 cal literature of the period, and was adopted by 
 all the leaders of the party. In addition the 
 societies, clubs and conventions which were in 
 sympathy with the Jefferson doctrines were des- 
 ignated either "Republican" or "Democratic- 
 Republican." 
 
 In addition to these articles there were 
 numerous less important references in the 
 Bulletin and elsewhere, and the publication 
 of these comments brought me such a flood 
 of personal criticism from zealous devotees of 
 the first President that, but for a full confidence 
 in the ultimate judgment of the American 
 student of history, I should have abandoned 
 all intention of publishing this booklet. While 
 none of these printed or privately written 
 communications brought out any new material 
 calculated to disprove my personal contention 
 as to the attitude assumed by General Wash- 
 
PREFACE 17 
 
 ingtoii, they did have the effect of convincing 
 me that my position was thoroughly misunder- 
 stood, and that the impression had become 
 current that my purpose was to defame the 
 illustrious Washington and to dethrone him 
 from his exalted position in the minds of the 
 young people of America. 
 
 A very distinguished jurist whose father had 
 been at one time the honored Prime Minister 
 of a European power did me the honor to visit 
 me personally, to urge upon me, although him- 
 self a foreign-born citizen of this republic, the 
 irreparable injury to hero-worship my attitude 
 toward General Washington would produce. 
 Distinguished members of patriotic Revolu- 
 tionary War societies wrote me, enclosing clip- 
 pings taken bodily from rare old works, in a 
 friendly and, I believe, conscientious effort to 
 disabuse my mind of its deep-seated convictions. 
 While immensely flattered by these considerate 
 attentions, the fact remains that nothing has 
 yet been produced to disprove the statements 
 which have been made by the writer both 
 herein and elsewhere, relative to General Wash- 
 ington's political desires. 
 
 That the writer ever meant to underestimate 
 the magnificence of the part played by the 
 illustrious Washington in the construction of 
 
18 PREFACE 
 
 this republic is entirely disproved by a perusal 
 of the pages of this work. To the contrary, it 
 must ever remain a silent yet forceful tribute 
 to him that he forsook the earlier purposes to 
 which his mental inclination and political aspir- 
 ations drew him, and "found the private in 
 the public good." What I have maintained, 
 still maintain, and believe should be the duty of 
 all history, is that history must be divorced from 
 hero-worship, and the actual conditions made 
 bare for the student who would know them as 
 they were. It were infinitely more to the credit 
 of General Washington that, with a consuming 
 desire to wear a crown, he should have yielded 
 to the popular clamor and assumed less preten- 
 tious yet more arduous duties, as he did. 
 
 The writer may be permitted to add, it is 
 his honest opinion that General Washington, in 
 desiring that America should have become an 
 empire with a king, was far more wise in his 
 day and to his duty than his compeers. The 
 benefits to literature, arts, and the sciences 
 which are vouchsafed under such an adminis- 
 tration of national affairs as were those of 
 Elizabeth of England and Louis XIV of 
 France but minimumly demonstrate the advan- 
 tages of a monarchic form of government over 
 a republican form. It is not the purpose of the 
 
PREFACE 19 
 
 writer to enter into an extended defense of 
 monarchy, since every student of political 
 science may see by comparisons which he may 
 make for himself. It seems to be invariable 
 that in controversies respecting the relative 
 merits of republican forms of government and 
 monarchic, one usually contrasts an ideal 
 republic with an actual monarchy. The gre- 
 garious homo begins his career by forming a 
 free republic, until the fiercest savage is either 
 elected a chief, or he swings himself into that 
 power, thus establishing a monarchy, a dynasty, 
 which in turn grows into tyranny. Then, 
 tyranny produces revolution, the people return 
 to anarchy, and then to republicanism again. 
 Thus, in the discontents of human existence, 
 there is a constant and invariable rotation from 
 one mode of government to another mode. I 
 have always maintained (and in this contention 
 have had the co-operating views of such 
 students of government as Montesquieu) that 
 one of the most conservative influences of 
 monarchy is to be found in its service in the 
 proper restriction of ecclesiastical power. 
 
 Another feature" of the life of Washington 
 which has aroused adverse comment whenever 
 dwelt upon by one less inclined to the hysteria 
 of hero-worship, but who loves the truth, has 
 
20 PREFACE 
 
 been that relative to his affairs of the heart. 
 Criticisms have been made against the writer's 
 references on one occasion to a current belief 
 that General Washington's death resulted from 
 an injury inflicted by an irate tenant on his 
 estate v^ho objected to the General's attentions 
 to his comely spouse. It would be difficult, and 
 cruel to attempt, to confirm such allegations. 
 There seems a widespread opinion to this effect. 
 It is generally known that the "Father of His 
 Country" was popular with women, and 
 enjoyed their promiscuous company. But if 
 such were the case, it is no reflection either on 
 the moral courage or the patriotic principles of 
 General Washington. Besides, it must be 
 admitted that this has ever been the relaxation 
 of soldiery. Heroism has seemed to find its 
 recreation in the society of the gentler sex, and 
 the men who have maintained the country's 
 honor have not infrequently found it necessary 
 to look well to the protection of their own. 
 Napoleon not only wedded a woman of ques- 
 tionable character, but was often accused of 
 intrigues with ladies of his courts. General 
 David had his Uriah; Andrew Jackson his 
 pretty actress friend; Csesar had his holidays 
 with Cleopatra, and there were whisperings of 
 his attentions to the mother of Brutus ; while 
 
PREFACE 21 
 
 the roll-call of the military chieftains of ancient, 
 medieval, and modern history would evoke no 
 end of more or less well authenticated romantic 
 rumors. There was never a greater naval 
 victory than that of Admiral Schley, diminished 
 though its glories were by the divisionary dis- 
 cussions between the zealous adherents of the 
 two ranking officers into whose hands the com- 
 mand of the Santiago campaign had been 
 placed. But the Admiral is no less a philoso- 
 pher than sailor. One is forced to recognize 
 the volume of common sense in his comments, 
 made to the ladies who requested permission to 
 board his flagship on its return from the mem- 
 orable victory : "By all means let the ladies 
 come aboard. I have always felt that our arms 
 are the ladies' defense and their arms our 
 recompense." 
 
 The rich blood that fires the furnaces of the 
 martial soul, also kindles the glow on the altar 
 of the heart. To dare is to be loved; to be 
 loved is to find aroused a like passion for either 
 the inciting or some other cause. 
 
 Pope said : 
 
 "Love seldom haunts the heart where learning lies, 
 And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise," 
 
 but he purposely avoided any such execution 
 of the poetic license against the fiery Mars. 
 
22 PREFACE 
 
 This peculiarly indescribable inclination of the 
 world's heroic souls has not confined itself to 
 the soldiers of sword and buckler, sail and sea- 
 weed. Milton, blinded to physical things, saw 
 his affinity even without the pale of his own 
 cubiculum et thorum; broad-browed Martin 
 Luther could not resist the gentle priestess' call ; 
 John Wesley had no method that succeeded in 
 holding his own heart in proper pasture; and the 
 military spirit will ever dominate the mastery 
 men. 
 
 When the maidens of ancient days sang of 
 the victories of David and of Saul and cast 
 invidious comparisons upon the self-created 
 style of the elder's warfare, they were but 
 breathing the spirit of the air which permeates 
 every region, every realm, and every soul of 
 man. 
 
 In fact, it is to this deferential spirit of 
 chivalry that we owe our custom of lifting our 
 hats to the ladies. 
 
 In the days of knight-errantry, heroes were 
 full-armored in the presence of friend or foe. 
 Once in the company of women, the knight 
 lifted his ponderous helmet, exposing his head 
 to manifest his confidence that he was safe in 
 their company. 
 
DID WASHINGTON ASPIRE 
 TO BE KING 
 
 "Self-love forsook the path it first pursued, 
 
 And found the private in the pubHc good. 
 
 For forms of government let fools contest; 
 
 Whate'er is best administered is best: 
 
 For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ; 
 
 He can't be wrong whose life is in the right ; 
 
 In faith and hope the world will disagree, 
 
 But all mankind's concern is charity; 
 
 All must be false that thwarts this one great end. 
 
 And all of God that bless mankind or mend." 
 
 In these days of peaceful Presidential elec- 
 tions, it is difficult to contemplate an almost 
 riotous condition in the political existence of 
 our beloved country when it was the will of 
 those highest in authority that America, freest 
 of republics, should have a ruler king. That 
 there are many wise and cultured gentlemen, 
 born in this glorious country where every man, 
 woman, and child is vouchsafed the ease of 
 liberty which any prince might crave, who 
 even to-day believe American institutions and 
 humanities would be best conserved under a 
 
24 DID WASHINGTON 
 
 hereditary titled administration of the executive 
 functions, cannot be denied. It is the province 
 of Hberty that individual opinions may not be 
 "embargoed," and America is freest of them all. 
 The effort of this paper is, then, not to ques- 
 tion the right or propriety of such opinion, but 
 to establish the historical fact. That General 
 Washington was a brave and valiant officer, 
 that despite his unpopularity in the second-hand 
 exploitation of his heart's desire to see his 
 country installed under the British Constitu- 
 tion, the sturdy makers of our republic recog- 
 nized in Washington those stern and autocratic 
 ideas of administration which were essential to 
 the early security of the common country, is 
 best established beyond doubt by the unanimity 
 with which he was selected to guide the people 
 in every crisis. The bare fact remains that, 
 stripped of the deification to which we subject 
 all our brave military heroes. General Wash- 
 ington was a princely, aristocratic, often over- 
 bearing, good executive, an autocratic Presi- 
 dent, conscious of his unique place in the galaxy 
 of history-makers, and a man to whom the 
 riounces and fol-de-rol of the regal court-room 
 were quite innocently alluring; it must be 
 eventually taught our children in the schools, 
 and made a part of the truthful history of our 
 
ASPIRE TO BE KING 25 
 
 republic. We have no right to disillusion the 
 coming generations in minor facts while we 
 deceive them in important individual incidents. 
 
 It is no reflection that Washington enter- 
 tained views of royalty; he is more to be com- 
 mended in that, having himself fondled the 
 ambition to be our king, he should have grace- 
 fully yielded to the dominant will of the 
 majority. There have been Presidents who 
 did not so. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman, 
 stepped from the platform of eloquent oration 
 to the broader one of philosopher when he said : 
 "It is the first and fundamental law of history 
 that it should neither dare to say anything that 
 is false, nor fear to say anything that is true, 
 nor give any just suspicion of favor or disaf- 
 fection." 
 
 I know there are enthusiasts, men of brilliant 
 minds who lived either in the time of, or 
 immediately following, the era of General 
 Washington's administration, who flare out the 
 open denial with volumes of words. These 
 will be considered, in their turn, in this paper. 
 
 It seemed the invariable custom of Washing- 
 ton, when writing of the early organization of 
 the country, to speak of it as "the empire." In 
 his correspondence with Marquis Lafayette, he 
 particularly emphasized this definition of a 
 
/ 
 
 26 DID WASHINGTON 
 
 then unorganized republic when he said, "How- 
 ever unimportant America may be considered at 
 present, * * * there will assuredly come 
 a day when this country will have some weight 
 in the scale of empires.'' When, even after his 
 election to the Presidency, Washington was led, 
 like Caesar, through the Roman triumphal arch 
 built over Gray's bridge and especially designed 
 for him by the loyal citizens of Philadelphia, a 
 civic crown was mechanically let down on his 
 brow, Washington, the aristocrat, did not, like 
 Caesar, thrust the crown away, and thus seize 
 the most opportune moment of his history to 
 avow his deference to republicanism. When it 
 is remembered that he had been sorely criticised 
 already for his leaning toward monarchy, this 
 incident is more significant. It was openly 
 charged against Washington that the inaugura- 
 tion of the "Reception Hour' (which was 
 merely an American introduction of the custom 
 of European royalty to receive their subjects) 
 was another of Washington's efforts at the 
 assumption of royalty., Dr. Stuart, one of his 
 most loyal friends, called his attention to this 
 criticism, and North Carolina and Virginia 
 took notice of these "trespasses on royalty's 
 ways" and commented freely on the regal enter- 
 tainments of Mr. and Mrs. Washington. The 
 
ASPIRE TO BE KING 27 
 
 weak apologists of history, who have openly 
 belied the fortitude and patriotic impulses which 
 induced Aaron Burr, have never given us a 
 clear historical understanding as to why Wash- 
 ington failed to yield to Burr the frequently 
 merited and often promised military recog- 
 nition, and have seen nothing in the factional 
 friendship between Washington and Hamilton 
 save a "full confidence in his Secretary of the 
 Treasury." They forget to tell us that Alex- 
 ander Hamilton had long secretly entertained 
 aristocratic and autocratic notions of govern- 
 ment, — well, similar to regality, if not in 
 name, — and that these views were as sweet 
 morsels to Washington. Even so loyal an 
 apologist for Washington as John Marshall, 
 who owed much to the friendship of the first 
 President (and who afterward held the impor- 
 tant office of Chief Justice), in his able work on 
 the life of Washington, "compiled," as he tells 
 us, "under the inspection of the Honorable 
 Bushrod Washington" (and hence, certainly 
 authentic), is betrayed into using this candid 
 language concerning Hamilton's attitude: 
 "Hamilton is understood to have avowed 
 opinions in the convention favorable to a system \ 
 in which the Executive and Senate, though 
 elective, were to he rather more permanent than 
 
28 DID WASHINGTON 
 
 they were rendered in that which was actually 
 proposed." Views doubtless announced through 
 Hamilton as the mouthpiece of the commander- 
 in-chief, since Hamilton held his commission 
 under Washington and was his aide-de-camp. 
 As a matter of fact, Hamilton actually offered 
 an amendment to the Constitution, making the 
 "tenure of office of the President (and Senate) 
 during life." 
 
 It takes no sweep of the logical mind to 
 recognize that these views, which were objec- 
 tionable to Aaron Burr, who had seen much of 
 the sufferings of the military at the hands of 
 the indifferent government, aroused his open 
 hostility. I have found it difficult to banish 
 from my mind the strong impression that Burr 
 may have written the letters which were circu- 
 lated among the soldiers, and which determined 
 the actions of the officers in demanding the 
 soldiers' rights. The bare fact that Burr's 
 brilliant and most painstaking enemies failed — 
 with the help of the entire government — to 
 convict him of the charge of treason preferred 
 against him, is evidence enough to prove the 
 shallowness in the charges. If one needed 
 further corpus delicti to the suggestion of a 
 patient hope on the part of Washington, Adams, 
 Hamilton, etc., for a monarchical form of gov- 
 
ASPIRE TO BE KING 29 
 
 ernment in the United States, the Alien and 
 Sedition acts, fathered by Adams when he had 
 "come into his kingdom," and delegating powers 
 which were, indeed, potential and princely, 
 furnished them. Of course Washington was 
 not responsible for the enactment of these 
 laws, — at least history gives no open evidence 
 of any suggestion on the part of Washington 
 to Adams to rid himself of annoyances to which 
 Washington's administration was subjected, by 
 legislative restriction, — they served to show the 
 outbreak of the fever that long boiled in the 
 Federalist blood. Adams's proposition that a 
 "balance in government" was essential to liberty 
 and the inference that it "could be maintained 
 only by hereditary classes" was set forth in a 
 semi-official tract while holding office as Vice- 
 President, with Washington, and this fact must 
 not be overlooked in a dispassionate considera- 
 tion of the secret views of Washington. If 
 further proof be needed, it would seem sug- 
 gested in the celebrated newspaper duel between 
 Washington's Secretary of the Treasury and 
 his Secretary of State, in regard to the tax on 
 domestic spirits, so skilfully opposed as an 
 excise. Were there not open and uncontrovert- 
 ible charges made by Mr. Jefferson's clerk, in 
 his paper, The National Gazette f What of the 
 
30 DID WASHINGTON 
 
 charge made on the floors of Congress, at that 
 time, that Washington (and Hamilton) were 
 actually "designing to subvert the republican 
 institutions of America" ? It required riots in 
 Pittsburg and other parts of America to 
 enlighten the first President as to the status his 
 position occupied before he receded sufficiently 
 from his views to produce an abatement of 
 odium. 
 
 On the 22d of February, 1790, it being the 
 birthday of President Washington, a motion to 
 adjourn for thirty minutes was only carried by 
 an aye and no vote of forty-one to eighteen. 
 The treatment accorded Washington was char- 
 acterized by the National Gasette as "setting 
 up an idol who might become dangerous to 
 liberty," and as "ascribing to Washington the 
 military praise which was due to others." It is 
 a remarkable fact that Washington failed to 
 discharge from the Department of State the 
 official holding place under his appointment 
 who thus boldly described the incident. The 
 fact cannot be lightly passed over that Monsieur 
 Genet, the French Minister to the United States, 
 in the face of Washington's seeming popularity 
 with the masses, repeatedly bantered, bulldozed, 
 and' challenged Washington, using terms so far 
 out of the rules of diplomacy as to astound us 
 
ASPIRE TO BE KING 31 
 
 to-day, describing Washington as a "partisan 
 of monarchy." Notwithstanding this unusual 
 asperity of language and continued defiance 
 from the representative of a foreign power, M. 
 Genet's public speeches in New York, Charles- 
 ton, and elsewhere were received with ovations, 
 and his threat to Washington to "appeal to the 
 people against his partisanship to monarchies" 
 loudly cheered. Marshall, while defending 
 Washington, uses this remarkable language: 
 "Writers of considerable political eminence 
 charged them (Washington's Cabinet associates 
 and Washington) as being members of a pow- 
 erful faction who were desirous of separating 
 America from France, and connecting her with 
 England for the purpose of introducing the 
 British Constitution." 
 
 And right here let me interject some infor- 
 mation which will serve to disillusion the public 
 as to the general view of Washington as Presi- 
 dent, and of Washington's co-office holders. 
 Speaking of the corruption of the government 
 in the years of Washington's administration, 
 Senator George F. Hoar, on August 9th, 1876, 
 in the House of Representatives, of which he 
 was then a member, said : "One of the most 
 famous generals of the Revolutionary War, 
 whose life extended down to the period to 
 
32 DID WASHINGTON 
 
 which I have alluded, while he was Quartei- 
 master-General, was in partnership with a firm 
 for the purpose of selling quartermaster's stores 
 to the government and making a profit. The 
 Attorney-General, and Secretary of State, 
 Washington's friend, while he was Secretary 
 of State, was detected in receiving money from 
 France as a bribe to thwart the foreign policy 
 of the administration of which he was a mem- 
 ber. Another Cabinet officer of Washington, 
 Hamilton, being charged with a corrupt official 
 relation with a citizen, defended himself by 
 acknowledging to his countrymen, over his own 
 signature, a profligate relation to the wife of 
 the person named. Still another Cabinet officer 
 of Washington wrote a letter which is in exist- 
 ence in my own State, in which he admitted to 
 his correspondent an act of personal dishonor 
 compared to which the crime charged upon 
 Belknap is as the act of an archangel. Wash- 
 ington concealed the act of his Secretary of 
 State from his countrymen, and accepted his 
 resignation." 
 
 Fisher Ames, a member of Congress from 
 Boston, under Washington, and afterward 
 president of Harvard University, in speaking 
 of Washington's times, said : "Our country is 
 too sordid for patriotism. Its vice will govern 
 
ASPIRE TO BE KING 33 
 
 it by practicing upon its folly." Then, to show 
 the spirit which prevailed in his own mind and 
 the feeling of the administration of which he 
 was a part, Ames added : "Our country is too 
 democratic for liberty. To be ruled by folly 
 is ordained for democracies." It was openly 
 declared on and off the floors of Congress 
 that the administration and associates of 
 Washington "were an aristocratic and corrupt 
 faction, who, from a desire to introduce 
 monarchy, were hostile to France, under the 
 influence of Britain; that they were a paper 
 nobility," etc. 
 
 Jefferson, in 1797, in deploring the monarch- 
 ical attitude of Washington, said : "I have 
 always hoped that the popularity of the late 
 President being once withdrazun from active 
 effect, the natural feelings of the people towards 
 liberty would restore the equilibrium between 
 the executive and legislative departments." 
 And in 1796, the year previous, Jefferson, who 
 had always appreciated Washington's patriot- 
 ism and bravery, and who had enjoyed Wash- 
 ington's fullest confidence notwithstanding his 
 political opposition, had written : "In place of 
 that republican government which carried us 
 triumphantly through the war, an Anglican 
 monarchical and aristocratical party has sprung 
 
34 DID WASHINGTON 
 
 up whose avozved object is to drazv over us the 
 substance, as it has already done the forms, of 
 the British government. Against us are the 
 Executive," etc. "It would give you a fever, ' 
 he added, ''were I to name to you the apostates 
 who have gone over to these heresies, men who 
 were Samsons in the field and Solomons in 
 counsel, but who have had their heads shorn by 
 the harlot England. In short, we are likely to 
 preserve the liberty we have obtained, only by 
 unremitting labors and perils." Again we find 
 this same republican leader, Jefferson, declaring 
 emphatically : "That the government has fallen 
 into the hands of an English party who are the 
 more closely attached to their favorite nation, 
 because they are unfriendly to republicanism, 
 and seek to assimilate the Government of the 
 United States to that of England." 
 
 Judge Marshall, who was shocked at Jeffer- 
 son's bold reference to the Executive, said : 
 "The term 'Executive' can describe only the 
 then actual President. Consequently, it desig- 
 nates General Washington as expressly as if 
 he had been named." 
 
 Hamilton, himself a most avowed mon- 
 archist, and the official mouthpiece of the Presi- 
 dent, shuddered under the brilliant criticisms of 
 
ASPIRE TO BE KING 35 
 
 Jefferson, and said: "The Chief Magistrate, 
 himself, cannot hope entirely to escape from 
 these statements." 
 
 I presume no man acquainted with our earlier 
 political history will question the fact that 
 Hamilton was the recognized mouthpiece of the 
 Washington administration, and that Hamil- 
 ton's views were always monarchical. The 
 hope of actually convincing, by verbal evidence 
 from Washington, that he espoused monarchy 
 is futile; Presidents do not, especially those of 
 royal tendencies, make practice of miscellaneous 
 comment or injudicious public speech. But 
 there has been a recognized official representa- 
 tive of every Executive who has directly voiced 
 his views. Pickering even made the statement 
 that Hamilton composed, wrote, and furnished 
 the ideas for Washington's letters. Jefferson 
 called the administration "Hamilton's adminis- 
 tration," and referred to the government em- 
 ployees of Washington as "Hamilton's clerks." 
 
 As further proof of Hamilton's thorough 
 mastery of Washington, — of his moulding of 
 Washington's public expressions and opinions, 
 and of Washington's agreement to Hamilton's 
 ideas, — thus making Hamilton the official 
 mouthpiece, Ford says : "Washington sub- 
 mitted not only his plans, but his ideas to 
 
36 DID WASHINGTON 
 
 Hamilton. Hamilton even wrote his Farewell 
 Address. Pickering says : 'I have reason to 
 believe that not only the composition^ the cloth- 
 ing of the ideas, but the ideas themselves 
 originated generally with Hamilton and 
 Harrison,' " etc. 
 
 Washington wrote of Hamilton as "my boy," 
 and while Hamilton often grew impulsive and 
 ridiculed and even railed at Washington, the 
 intimacy of their association was most pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 Washington's apologists have always based 
 their defense against the charge of monarchical 
 tendencies in Washington on a letter written 
 by him to a prominent official of the Continental 
 army, in 1782, and in reply to one urging upon 
 Washington the ripeness of the opportunity to 
 take advantage of the general discontent of the 
 army; and the letter ended with a reference to 
 the benefits of a kingdom. 
 
 There was absolutely no proffer of the title 
 to Washington, as indeed there could not have 
 been, since the suggestion came without official 
 authority behind it. Washington's reply, far 
 from being a bold avowal of his refusal, was 
 more a denial of the inference that he had 
 seemed remiss in the defense of the rights of the 
 soldiers ; it was a shrewd political sidestep from 
 
ASPIRE TO BE KING 37 
 
 a suggestion which would have only served to 
 widen the breach between Washington and the 
 RepubHcans, and Washington knew that the 
 only power behind the suggestion was one of 
 bloodshed, which he did not care to engage in 
 the satisfaction of his ambition. It must be 
 calmly recognized, too, that at the time the 
 government was not yet permanently organized, 
 and Washington was the head of the army, in 
 which position he was in honor bound to main- 
 tain the loyalty of discipline, and any outbreak 
 or the mutiny which threatened would have 
 been directly charged to the man who had held 
 the army in his hand. We must not forget, too, 
 that Washington knew too well the prejudice 
 of Congress and the people at the time, and 
 Washington was ever a skilful politician. 
 Hamilton certainly would never have so strenu- 
 ously hoped for a monarchy while in the direct 
 confidence of Washington, without tacit or 
 patent encouragement. Of Hamilton it was 
 openly declared, he was "the advocate of 
 aristocracy, monarchy, hereditary succession, a 
 titled order of nobility, and all the other mock 
 pageantry of kingly government." 
 
 That the American public had formed the 
 opinion, from his conduct of the "Cincinnati," 
 that General Washington desired to include in 
 
38 DID WASHINGTON 
 
 the economic affairs of this country hereditary 
 poHtical principles is not to be questioned. So 
 early as October, 1783, Mr. Burk, of South 
 Carolina, published a pamphlet against Wash- 
 ington's foimdation of a hereditary order, and, 
 despite the fact that feeble apologists have 
 endeavored to discredit Burk's exposure as an 
 attempt to arouse public sentiment, the matter 
 was deemed of sufficient importance to evoke 
 from the Massachusetts legislature active 
 expression, and, to quote Washington's best 
 friend, "it is well understood that in Congress 
 the society was viewed with secret disapproba- 
 tion." Suspicions of this character do not 
 grow up unaided by some evidence of fact; 
 the people who revere a brave hero are not 
 quick, without sufficient cause, to see in him 
 qualities which are so objectionable to the 
 principles they have, with him, held dear. The 
 real Washington was rather tolerated than 
 loved. He was war-mad — a pioneer Roosevelt, 
 who suited his times admirably because he made 
 military prowess superior to technical form of 
 government ; and as that was, in the providence 
 of God, essential to the establishment of a 
 permanent independent government (whether 
 monarchy or republic), men who thought only 
 of the "lesser evil" retained Washington, know- 
 
ASPIRE TO BE KING 39 
 
 iiig "Jehovah jireh" — that "God will provide." 
 In an earnest struggle to be free from English 
 influences and English control, the Americans 
 thought it folly to quibble over the trifles of 
 governmental forms until safely established in 
 their independence — hence Washington retained 
 his control over them. 
 
 Elbridge Gerry, Roger Sherman, Edmund 
 Randolph, and Franklin's people deliberately 
 and openly despised Washington, called him an 
 incompetent general. Abraham Clark said : 
 "We have no greater cruelty than the manage- 
 ment of our army." Jonathan D. Sargent said : 
 "Thousands of lives and millions of property 
 are yearly sacrificed to the inefficiency of 
 our Commander-in-Chief, though we are so 
 attached to this man we shall rather sink with 
 him than throw him ofif our shoulders." 
 Richard Henry Lee, John Adams, William 
 Williams, James Lovell, Jonathan Trumbull, 
 Samuel Adams, Elaphalet Dyer, William 
 Ellery, Samuel Chase, F. L. Lee, Madison, 
 Jefferson, and even Monroe (who was called 
 the purest, cleanest-lived man who ever graced 
 the President's chair, and who, poor, princely 
 fellow, died in abject poverty and squalor) 
 considered Washington "an idol worshiped by 
 a frenzied people," and Jefferson, who was 
 
40 DID WASHINGTON 
 
 honest, and the best friend of popular govern- 
 ment America ever knew, declared : "He has 
 done too much good not to be sufficient to cover 
 harm also," and hoped "his political errors may 
 not furnish a second occasion to exclaim, 'curse 
 on his virtues, they've undone his country !' " 
 
 The fact is, Washington was too shrewd for 
 the early political managers, being in command 
 of the situation, and he ever held the immovable 
 opinion that he was the government; that any 
 attack upon him was a direct reflection on the 
 government. This deluded the people; it was 
 an excellent idealism of monarchical tendency. 
 The State of North Carolina once enjoyed the 
 services of a judge of its Superior Circuit 
 Court, a Mr. Cloud, who became so impressed 
 with his individual importance in the capacity 
 of the "Court" that he carried the custom with 
 him into his private affairs. On one occasion, 
 being seized with a violent fit of vomiting, he 
 rushed out through the court yard, and behold- 
 ing a number of barristers blockading his exit, 
 gravely shouted, "Gentlemen, get out of the 
 way, or the Court will vomit on you." In an 
 equal degree, Washington shrewdly answered 
 his fearless critics with regrets that they should 
 thus interfere with the government's sincere 
 efforts, etc. He was the prince of politicians ; 
 
ASPIRE TO BE KING 41 
 
 a daring man of personal bravery; a fickle flirt 
 with the whims and foibles of public sentiment ; 
 a striker of attitudes in the presence of women, 
 and that he died disappointed in not having been 
 king in name as he was in fact by virtue of hi'5 
 military influences, must eventually become the 
 sober opinion of every thoughtful and impartial 
 student of American history. 
 
Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON IN 
 PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 BY 
 
 Hon. Samuel W. Pennypacker, 
 Governor of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Are the careers of those men who have seem- 
 ing-ly fashioned the institutions of a nation and 
 moulded the destinies of a race the outcome of 
 exceptional capabilities and characteristics not 
 bestowed upon their fellows, or are the results 
 due to the favorable conditions existing at the 
 time the successful efforts were made? Did 
 Alexander of Macedon and Charlemagne found 
 empires through the exercise of their own 
 unusual power of will and gifts of intelligence, 
 or were they but the manifestations of a force 
 which made the Greeks in the one case and the 
 Germans in the other see that if great ends were 
 to be accomplished there must be a subordina- 
 tion of the lesser states surrounding them and 
 a combination of the strength of all — a force 
 
44 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 which impelled them forward irresistibly? Is 
 not this a force common to all mankind, which 
 has builded up the British Empire and is even 
 now building- up America, indicating itself in 
 the movements of trade and transportation as 
 well as those of government? Would the 
 Reformation have come in its own good time 
 had there been no Martin Luther? Had 
 Napoleon been killed on the bridge of Lodi, 
 would the French Revolution have followed 
 its own appointed channels nevertheless? Is 
 Darwin correct when he attributes even the 
 slow formation of individual and race character 
 to the nature of the environment? Perhaps a 
 safe position to assume would be that in the 
 conduct of revolutions against long-established 
 and seemingly overwhelming power, in the 
 creation and development of new governments, 
 and in the efforts to ameliorate the conditions 
 of the masses of humanity, if success is to be 
 attained, there must be the underlying currents 
 which make it possible, as well as the leader of 
 rare skill and intelligence, possessing the 
 capacity to direct them. If this be true, then 
 it may be of service to call attention, as has 
 never been done before, to the field whereon the 
 achievements of George Washington were 
 accomplished and to the surroundings wherein 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 45 
 
 his faculties were exercised, if not developed, 
 and the energies of his public career were 
 expended. 
 
 In the year 1753 the two most powerful 
 nations of Europe, — England and France, — 
 which had long been enemies and rivals, were 
 again upon the verge of a struggle. The 
 declaration of war was not made until three 
 years later, but the mutterings and rumblings 
 were being heard, the preliminaries were being 
 arranged, and all men knew that the outbreak 
 could not long be postponed. It was a great 
 stake for which the combatants were about to 
 strip, the possession of a continent destined ere 
 long to support a people among the foremost 
 upon the earth. Man proposes, but the gods 
 dispose. 
 
 When Wolfe died as he clutched his victory 
 at Quebec, there was weeping and wailing in 
 ever}'- household in the American colonies. 
 Little did they who lamented think hov/ 
 different might have been their fate if that 
 energetic spirit, instead of the dilatory Howe, 
 had confronted them at Brandywine, German- 
 town, and Valley Forge. Never did it occur 
 to either of the contestants while they were 
 pampering the savages and gathering the 
 cannon, nor when they were ready for the 
 
46 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 encounter, that no matter which of them should 
 prove the stronger or more vaHant, the reward 
 should go to neither; that in the end his most 
 Christian Majesty of France must be obeisant 
 and the King of England must submit to an 
 underhng in one of the camps. 
 
 The Enghsh colonies were along the coast. 
 The French were enclosing them with a series 
 of forts intended to run up the St. Lawrence, 
 thence to the Ohio, and to the mouth of the 
 Mississippi. In a sense it may be said that the 
 right of the French line was at New Orleans, 
 the left at Quebec, and the center at the junction 
 of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers where 
 Fort Duquesne was erected in 1754, in the 
 western part of Pennsylvania. 
 
 What a series of events had their beginnin:-^ 
 when George Washington came to Pennsyl- 
 vania in 1753! The unheeding world might 
 well have listened. A young man in his 
 twenty-second year, of limited education and 
 narrow reading, tall and well made, precise and 
 prim in his methods, stiff in his manners and 
 chirography; with an instinct of thrift which 
 led him to manage farms and raise horses, to 
 seek in his love affairs, whether maid or widow, 
 for a woman "wi lots o' manny laaid by, and a 
 nicetish bit of land," and enabled him to accu- 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 47 
 
 mulate one of the largest fortunes of his time; 
 but ever a gentleman, whose youth had been 
 devoted to fox-hunting and athletic sports, and 
 who since he was sixteen had been surveying 
 lands in the valleys of Virginia, left the narrow 
 confines of his early associations and took his 
 first step into the outer and larger world. 
 
 Governor Dinwiddle, of Virginia, sent him 
 with a little force of seven men to the French 
 commander in western Pennsylvania to protest 
 against the building of forts and the occupancy 
 of the land. Starting on the 15th of Novem- 
 ber, 1753, through forests primeval, in the 
 winter, surrounded by and often confronted 
 with the savages, fired at by a treacherous 
 Indian guide, rafting on the partly frozen 
 rivers, he found his way to the site of Pittsburg 
 and to a fort fifteen miles south of Lake Erie. 
 It was a successful journey. He delivered his 
 message and returned on the i6th of January, 
 1754, to Williamsburg, with the answer of the 
 commandant and with much knowledge of the 
 country and of the armament and garrisons of 
 the forts. As a result he was appointed lieu- 
 tenant-colonel. At the head of one hundred 
 and fifty men, accompanied by Jacob Van 
 Braam, a Dutchman, one of his former attend- 
 ants, who at an earlier time had taught him the 
 
48 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 drill, he, on April 2, 1754, started again for 
 Pennsylvania. On the 25th he had reached 
 the Great Meadows in the neighborhood of the 
 present Uniontown, in Fayette County. There 
 he learned that a body of the French were in 
 the vicinity. Supported by friendly Indians 
 and led by Scaryooyadi, a Delaware, to the 
 French camp, through the darkness, he made 
 an attack in the early morning. For fifteen 
 minutes the rifles resounded and the balls 
 whistled. Of the provincial troops three were 
 wounded and one was killed. Of the French 
 one was wounded and ten were killed, including 
 Jumonville, their leader, and twenty-one were 
 captured. Only one, a Canadian, escaped. 
 
 And so it came about that the opening battle 
 in that struggle of tremendous import, which 
 was to determine that the vast continent of 
 America should belong to the countrymen of 
 Hermann and not to those of Varus, was fought 
 by George Washington upon the soil of Penn- 
 sylvania. The victory was won. The pris- 
 oners were hurried away to Virginia. But 
 fortune does not extend her favors to any man 
 for long. The career of Washington, like that 
 of most men, was a series of successes and 
 reverses. 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 49 
 
 "To all earthly men, 
 In spite of right and wrong and love and hate, 
 One day shall come the turn of luckless fate." 
 
 It was rumored that Contrecoeur was at 
 Fort Duquesne with a force of one thousand 
 French and many Indians, and the young 
 colonel was in trouble. On the 31st he wrote: 
 "We expect every hour to be attacked by a 
 superior force." He threw up entrenchments 
 one hundred feet square and built a palisade 
 with a trench outside, which, because there had 
 been a scarcity of provisions, he called Fort 
 Necessity. The site was along the bank of a 
 little stream flowing through the center of a 
 meadow two hundred and fifty yards wide, set 
 at a considerable elevation among the hills. All 
 that remains now is a slight accumulation of 
 earth where the lines of the fort ran and a large 
 stone with a square cut in it for a corner post, 
 but what there is, ought to be carefully pre- 
 served by the State. 
 
 He received a reinforcement which increased 
 his strength to three hundred men, and he talked 
 about exerting "our noble courage with spirit." 
 Later there came one hundred more men, from 
 South Carolina. He advanced thirteen miles 
 farther in the direction of Fort Duquesne, and 
 then, learning that the French were strong in 
 
50 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 numbers and coming to meet him, he retreated 
 July I St to Fort Necessity. Thither he was 
 followed by five hundred French and several 
 hundred Indians. All through the day of July 
 3d the firing was kept up around the fort, those 
 within being huddled together in danger and 
 discomfort, until twelve had been killed and 
 forty-three wounded. 
 
 The next morning, — ^July 4th, — at Philadel- 
 phia, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg a fateful day 
 in American history, — Washington, having 
 signed papers of capitulation, marched forth 
 with his troops. He abandoned a large fiag 
 and surrendered the fort. He was permitted 
 tO' take the military stores except the artillery. 
 He agreed to return the prisoners he had cap- 
 tured and sent to Virginia ; but worst of all, 
 the papers he signed referred to 'Tassassinat du 
 Sieur de Jumonville." Our historians have 
 been prone to throw the blame for this language 
 upon the imperfect translation of Van Braam, 
 but since the French "assassinat" and the 
 English "assassination" are substantially the 
 same word, sufficient tO' attract the attention of 
 the most unlearned, the explanation fails to 
 satisfy. 
 
 The affair, as is apt to be the case when the 
 foe gains the glory and the field, became the 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 51 
 
 subject of much animadversion. Horace 
 Walpole called him a "brave braggart.'' 
 Dinwiddie reduced his rank to that of captain, 
 and found reasons for dechning to return the 
 prisoners. Thereupon Washington resigned 
 from the service, and went back to Mount 
 Vernon, and his ambition to hold a commission 
 in the English army was never gratified. 
 
 The following year Braddock disembarked 
 and encamped his army at Alexandria. Wash- 
 ington offered his services as an aid, and his 
 experience with the French and the Indians and 
 his knowledge of the country wherein the 
 advance was to be made rendered them of the 
 utmost value. It was the first army thoroughly 
 drilled, equipped, and appointed he had ever 
 seen. On that fatal battle-field near Pittsburg, 
 now covered by the mills of the United States 
 Steel Corporation {tempora iiiiitontur et nos in 
 illis miitainur), where Braddock was killed, 
 where eight hundred and fifty-five French and 
 Indians completely routed three thousand dis- 
 ciplined English soldiers, he did doughty and 
 valiant deeds. It has been described as "the 
 most extraordinary victory ever obtained and 
 the farthest flight ever made," but in the battle 
 he had two horses killed under him, and out 
 of it he came with four bullet holes through his 
 
52 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 coat. There are prophets among other peoples 
 than Israel. Samuel Davies, on the 17th of 
 August, 1755, preached a sermon at Hanover, 
 in Virginia, wherein, with less plaint than 
 Jeremiah and clearer vision than Isaiah, he 
 exclaimed : "That heroic youth. Colonel Wash- 
 ington, whom I cannot but hope Providence 
 has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner 
 for some important service to his country." 
 
 Fortune took another turn. For these two 
 defeats there soon came compensation. With 
 a regiment of Virginians in 1758 he took part 
 in the expedition of Gen. John Forbes, whose 
 bones now lie in Christ Churchyard, in Phila- 
 delphia, and at the head of his men and the 
 army, on the 25th of November, marched into 
 Fort Duquesne. The magazine had been 
 exploded. The fort had been set on fire. The 
 French had taken bateaux and departed. Their 
 influence along the Ohio River had been broken. 
 The Indians who had been their allies sought 
 the favor of the English. And George Wash- 
 ington had completed the military training 
 which was to fit him to become the successful 
 leader in the eight years' struggle of the people 
 of the American colonies for independence. 
 
 He resigned his commission and hastened to 
 Virginia. Six weeks later, on the 6th of Jan- 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 53 
 
 uary, 1759, he married Martha Custis, a widow, 
 who was the fortunate possessor of a hundred 
 thousand dollars. He was elected to the House 
 of Burgesses, and for the next fifteen years, in 
 the quiet and retirement of Mount Vernon, lived 
 a barren and uneventful life, with no ambition 
 save the pleasure of accumulation ; no exhilara- 
 tion greater than the chase of the fox, and no 
 anxiety except for the care of his herds of cattle. 
 How bare and barren the life was can be seen 
 from these extracts, showing with what his 
 thoughts were occupied, covering a month in 
 his manuscript journal from 1767: 
 
 July 14 — Finish'd my wheat Harvest. 
 
 16 — began to cut my Timothy Meadow, 
 which had stood too long. 
 
 25 — finish'd Ditto. 
 
 25 — Sowed turnep seed from Colonel Fair- 
 fax's, in sheep pens, at the House. 
 
 25 — Sowed Winter do. from Colo. Lee's in 
 the neck. 
 
 27 — began to sow wheat at the Mill with 
 the early white Wheat, w'ch grew at 
 Muddyhole. 
 
 28 — began to sow wheat at Muddyhole with 
 the mixed wheat that grew there ; also 
 began to sow wheat at Doag Run, of 
 the red chaff, from home ; also sowed 
 summer Turnep below garden. 
 
 29 — Sowed Colonel Fairfax's kind in flax 
 ground joining sheep pens. 
 
54 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 A new epoch dawned, and again George 
 Washington came to Pennsylvania. A crisis 
 big with fatahty and freighted with the hopes 
 of the future was approaching. The Stamp 
 Act had been passed, and after a storm of 
 reprobation had been repealed ; non-importation 
 resolutions had been promulgated from the 
 Pennsylvania State House, soon to be known 
 as Independence Plall, ringing with a bell 
 which is only torn from it by sacrilege ; John 
 Dickinson had written those Farmers' letters 
 wherein was expounded the creed of the 
 colonies; the tea ships had been driven from 
 the Delaware River, and an act of Parliament 
 had closed the port of Boston, when the first 
 Congress was called to meet in Carpenter's 
 Hall, on Chestnut street below Fourth, in the 
 city of Philadelphia, on September 5, 1774. 
 
 Washington appeared as a delegate. What 
 part he bore in its deliberations it is difficult to 
 tell. But he wrote to a friend upon the subject 
 of independence: "I am well satisfied that no 
 such thing is desired by any thinking man in 
 all North America." It was a time of stirring 
 events and rapid movements, but men held fast 
 to the old moorings so long as they could. A 
 few months later the muskets beean to rattle at 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 55 
 
 Lexington, and on the 15th of June, 1775, the 
 Second Continental Congress, to which he was 
 delegate, assembled in the State House. One 
 of their first acts was to determine "that a 
 general be appointed to command all the Con- 
 tinental forces raised or to be raised in the 
 defense of American liberty," and by a unani- 
 mous vote in that famed Pennsylvania hall the 
 heaviest responsibility which had ever fallen to 
 the lot of an American was imposed upon 
 George Washington. The next day in the 
 same place, declaring: "I feel great distress 
 from a consciousness that my abilities and 
 military experience may not be equal to the 
 extensive and important trust," and that "no 
 pecuniary compensation could have tempted me 
 to accept this arduous employment," declining 
 the sum which had been fixed for his salary, 
 with modest words and a serious sense of the 
 difficulties he was a1x)ut to encounter, he 
 assumed that responsibility and started forth, 
 like Moses of old, to lead his people through 
 the Red Sea of war and the wilderness of 
 uncertainty and suffering. Unlike the prophet 
 and law-giver of Israel, and unlike his own 
 prototype, William of Orange, he was destined 
 not only to see from afar, but to enter into the 
 
56 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 land of promise and safety. The war upon 
 which he then embarked was to endure through 
 ' eight dreary years. 
 
 Philadelphia was then not only the chief city 
 of the colonies, the center of science, art, and 
 literature, and population, but the seat of the 
 revolutionary government and the place where 
 the Continental Congresses held their sessions. 
 It was believed by the revolutionists that the 
 retention of the possession of the city was 
 essential to the success of their cause. The 
 Royalists believed that if it could be captured 
 the war would be speedily terminated and the 
 rebellion end in an early dissolution. A few 
 opening and indecisive contests of arms 
 occurred in Massachusetts, but the struggle ere 
 long drifted to the shores of the Delaware, and 
 the Continental army never thereafter was 
 farther east than the Hudson. In the course 
 of the war nine battles were fought by the army 
 under personal command of Washington, and 
 with the exception of Long Island, which was 
 an unrelieved disaster, and Yorktown, where it 
 was uncertain whether the laurels ought to 
 cluster about the French fleet or the American 
 land forces, all of them — Trenton, Princeton, 
 Brandywine, Warren Tavern, Germantown, 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 57 
 
 Whitemarsh, and Monmouth — were conflicts 
 the purpose of which was to control or defend, 
 to secure or retain, the city of Philadelphia. 
 
 At Brandywine there was presented to him the 
 great opportunity of his military career, when 
 the enemy, of their own motion, brought about 
 the situation which it was the object of the 
 tactics of Napoleon to secure, and divided their 
 forces in front of him. At Warren Tavern his 
 plans were thwarted and his opportunities and 
 advantages lost through what the lawyer calls 
 the act of God. At Trenton and Germantown 
 he displayed not only the courage and resolu- 
 tion bred in his Saxon fibre, but that other 
 quality more often found in the Celt, "laudace 
 toujours laudace." At Whitemarsh he boldly 
 approached within a few miles of the enemy, 
 who then held the city; defeated attacks upon 
 his right, left, and center, compelling Howe to 
 withdraw, discomfited, and won, though with 
 small loss, his greatest tactical success. 
 
 The issues of the Revolutionary War were 
 determined, however, not by the effective hand- 
 ling of large armies with consummate skill, 
 not by the exercise of that military genius 
 which enabled a Marlborough, a Frederick, or 
 a Bonaparte to see just when and where to 
 strike to the best advantage, but by that tireless 
 
58 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 tenacity of purpose which, through success or 
 disaster, never flagged and, whatever fate might 
 have in store, refused to be overcome. All the 
 poets who have sung their verse, all the histor- 
 ians who have written their books, whatever 
 students may have investigated, and whatever 
 orators may have spoken, agree in the conclu- 
 sion that such tenacity was best exemplified at 
 the close of the lost campaign, with a weakened 
 and dwindling army, through the sufferings of 
 a severe winter upon the hills of Valley Forge. 
 
 Wherever the story is read, wherever the tale 
 is told, the pluck and persistence, amid mis- 
 fortune and disheartening want, exhibited at 
 this Pennsylvania hamlet along the banks of the 
 Schuylkill, have come to be the type and symbol 
 of the Revolutionary War and to represent the 
 supreme effort and the unconquerable fortitude 
 of the American soldier. 
 
 In a German almanac printed in the town of 
 Lancaster in the latter part of the year 1778 
 Washington was first called "the Father of His 
 Country." It was at once a truthful and a 
 prophetic designation, in accord with passing 
 and coming events, and soon accepted by all of 
 the people. At the close of the war he returned 
 to Mount Vernon to his negroes, corn, and 
 tobacco, to his horses and his hounds, the latter 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 59 
 
 a present from Lafayette ; again became, in the 
 language of the Rev. Thomas Coke, "quite the 
 plain country gentleman," and, if we may rely 
 upon the journal of John Hunter, he "sent the 
 bottle about pretty freely after dinner" and 
 "got quite merry." 
 
 The war would have been an utter failure it 
 it had only resulted in a severance of the ties 
 which connected us with Great Britain, and if 
 it had left the colonies discordant, jealous, and 
 each pursuing its own selfish interests under the 
 ineffective government established by the 
 xA-rticles of Confederation. The work of 
 destruction had been successful and complete, 
 but the constructive and more dif^cult task of 
 welding the discordant elements together into 
 a vital and effective organism remained. All 
 of the South American States succeeded in 
 throwing off the control of Spain, and even 
 Hayti became independent, but what gift to 
 mankind has come of it? Upon the sea of 
 human affairs a nation was to be launched, with 
 the prospect of large proportions and unlimited 
 growth, and again George Washington came 
 to Pennsylvania. In the definite movement 
 leading up to the formation of the Government 
 of the United States of America as we know 
 it to-day, no New England State had any 
 
60 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 participation. Delegates from New York, New- 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia 
 met at Annapolis, in the State of Maryland, on 
 the nth of September, in 1786, and, after a 
 consultation, urged the necessity of a revision 
 of the existing system, and recommended the 
 calling of a convention, [with sufficient power, 
 to meet in Philadelphia on the second Monday 
 of May in 1787. 
 
 Emerson has well said that "all martyrdoms 
 looked mean when they were suffered," and 
 that "when the gods come among men they are 
 not known." He might have added that the 
 importance of the supreme events in the 
 advancement of the human race has seldom 
 been recognized by contemporaries. Even 
 Shakespeare died without any conception of 
 what he had achieved and without any foretas':e 
 of his future fame. 
 
 At the State tHouse, on May 14, 1787, at the 
 opening of 'the convention, delegates appeared 
 only from Vjrginia and Pennsylvania., Eleven 
 days later Washington was elected to preside 
 by the votes of these States and those of Dela- 
 ware and New Jersey, and at the end of two 
 weeks no others were yet represented. What 
 the members kept steadily in view throughout 
 all of their deliberations, according to Wash- 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 61 
 
 ington, was "the consolidation of our Union." 
 Of how they succeeded the world has no need 
 to be told. From that box, drawn as it were 
 by unwitting fishermen out of the sea of uncer- 
 tainties and perplexities, came forth a genie 
 whose stride is from ocean to ocean, whose 
 locks, shaken upon one side by Eurus, on the 
 other by Zephyr, darken the skies and whose 
 voice is heard in far Cathay and beyond Ultima 
 Thule. There was difficulty about the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution. Opposition was mani- 
 fested everywhere; on the part of men like 
 Patrick Henry, of Virginia, and Elbridge 
 Gerry, of Massachusetts, it was decided, and 
 in some instances intense. One of the New 
 England States held aloof for three years. But 
 in three months, on the ist of January, 178S, 
 Washington was able to write : "Pennsylvania, 
 Delaware, and New Jersey have already decided 
 in its favor." After the voice of this State had 
 been heard and its great influence had been 
 exerted, the result was no longer doubtful, and 
 he cheerfully continued : "There is the greatest 
 prospect of its being adopted by the people." 
 
 After having been elected President of the 
 nation he had done so much to create, he spent 
 the whole of his two terms, with the exception 
 of a year in New York, in the city of Philadel- 
 
62 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 phia. For ten years this patriotic city, without 
 compensation of any kind, furnished a home to 
 the Government of the United States, The 
 building at the southeast corner of Sixth and 
 Chestnut streets was given up to the use of 
 the Senate and House and became Congress 
 Hall. The Supreme Court met in the building 
 at the southwest corner of Fifth and Chestnut 
 streets. 
 
 For seven years Washington lived in a large 
 double brick building on the south side of 
 Market street, sixty feet east of Sixth, which 
 had been the headquarters of Howe. To the 
 east was a yard with shade trees, and along 
 the front of this yard ran a brick wall seven 
 feet high. Next door to him dwelt a hair- 
 dresser. All of the important events of his 
 administration — the establishment of the mint ; 
 the wars conducted by St. Clair, Harmar, and 
 Wayne against the Indians ; the Whiskey insur- 
 rection, which took him through Carlisle again 
 to western Pennsylvania, after a long absence ; 
 the troubles over Genet and Jay's treaty with 
 Great Britain — occurred during his residence 
 here. He had a pew in Christ Church. He 
 became a member of the American Philosophi- 
 cal Society, and was present at its services upon 
 the deaths of Benjamin Franklin and David 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 63 
 
 RittenhO'Use. He attended the theatre in 
 Southwark, seeing the play, "The Young 
 Quaker, or the Fair Philadelphian," and 
 Rickett's Circus, and he took part in the 
 dancing assembhes. 
 
 He and Governor Mifflin saw the Frenchman 
 Blanchard make the first balloon ascension in 
 America, January 9, 1793, amid much tumult 
 and eclat. Blanchard was described as 
 "Impavidiis sortem non timet Icariam." The 
 magistrates of the city gave him the use of the 
 courtyard of the prison, and the roar of the 
 artillery announced to the people the moment 
 of departure. Washington placed in his hands 
 a passport, which, with a pleasing uncertainty 
 befitting the occasion, was directed "to all to 
 whom these presents shall come," and author- 
 ized him "to pass in such direction and to 
 descend in such place as circumstances may 
 render most convenient." He started at nine 
 minutes after ten, on a clear morning, sailed 
 over the Delaware, and frightened a flock of 
 pigeons and a Jersey farmer near Gloucester, 
 where he landed. He prevailed upon the latter 
 to come to his help by the offer of one of the 
 six bottles of wine with which Dr. Caspar 
 Wistar had provided him. Jonathan Penrose, 
 Robert Wharton, and six other Philadelphians 
 
64 WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 chased after him on horseback and escorted him 
 back to the President, to whom he presented his 
 respects and colors. 
 
 Washington had sixteen stalls in his stable, 
 generally full, and was a hard driver, upon one 
 occasion foundering five horses. He wore 
 false teeth, in part carved from the tusk of a 
 hippopotamus. The Stuart portrait, which has 
 come in time to be the accepted delineation of 
 his features, was painted at the southeast corner 
 of Fifth and Chestnut streets. Every Tuesday 
 he gave levees, and on New Year's day served 
 punch and cake. Once he picked the sugar 
 plums from the Like and sent them to "Master 
 John," later in life to be famous as the Old Man 
 Eloquent. When James Wilson, Justice of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, opened the 
 Law School of the University of Pennsylvania, 
 and in the true sense began legal education in 
 this country, December 15, 1790, it was in the 
 presence of George and Martha Washington. 
 In this city he wrote his Farewell Address, and 
 here he was described as "first in war, first in 
 peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 
 men." He left Philadelphia March 9, 1797, 
 and two years and a half later he was dead. 
 
 The cloth is woven. The story is told. 
 Through no accident was it brought about that 
 
WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 65 
 
 Washington, though he was bom and died in 
 Virginia, spent in such great part his military 
 and official life in this State. The cause was 
 like that which took Napoleon from Ajaccio to 
 Paris, Shakespeare from Stratford to London, 
 and Franklin from Boston to Philadelphia, 
 "Every ship," wrote Emerson, '"is a romantic 
 object except that we sail in." Self-respect is 
 a saving grace in the state as well as in the 
 individual. Patriotism, like charity and all 
 other virtues, begins at the hearthstone. When 
 the Shunamite woman was urged to come to 
 the court of Solomon, her answer was, "I dwell 
 among mine own people." After the earliest 
 of the great and good men of the Aryan race, 
 he whom we call Cyrus, five centuries and a 
 half before Christ, had overcome all of his 
 enemies and had founded the most extensive 
 empire the world had known up to that time, 
 he inscribed over the gateway of his palace only 
 the simple words, "I am Kurush the King, the 
 Achaemenian." There is need of more of that 
 spirit in Pennsylvania. We too lightly forget 
 our achievements; we are too ready to desert 
 our heroes; we are too willing to leave our 
 rulers unsupported; we read with too little 
 indignation the uncanny and untrue tales told 
 by our rivals elsewhere, and repeated and 
 reprinted by the unfaithful at home. 
 
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