A Year With George Washington
March 28th, 1787 – After much cajoling by James Madison, John Jay, and others, George Washington agreed to attend the Convention in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation. The final result was the creation of the United States Constitution.
Washington, having suffered under a hamstrung Continental Congress and limited Confederation during the Revolutionary War, had been an advocate for a more robust national government for the better part of a decade. In a letter to his former Aide De Camp, now Congressman, Alexander Hamilton his expressed this sentiment. “No Man in the United States is, or can be more deeply impressed with the necessity of a reform in our present Confederation than myself. No Man perhaps has felt the bad effects of it more sensibly; for to the defects thereof, and want of Powers in Congress, may justly be ascribed the prolongation of the War.”
Though Washington had pledged and genuinely wanted to maintain his retirement, he was concerned that a disjointed collection of states would devolve into that which they had just fought and bled to escape. He worried that the European nations, particularly Great Britain, would woo the states, one by one, away from the others, writing that, “It is only our united Character as an Empire, that our Independence is acknowledged.” To his brother John Augustine Washington, he wrote, “Competent Powers for all general purposes should be vested in the Sovereignty of the United States, or Anarchy and
Confusion will soon succeed.”
Still, with forces building to modify the impotent Articles of Confederation, Washington was reluctant to publicly put his name at risk in the enterprise unless it would bear the fruit he wished. To Washington, his reputation was worth more than treasure. He was also of the opinion that the public at large had not suffered the ill effects of disunion enough to clamor for change. “Ignorance & design are difficult to combat,” he wrote to Jay. “Out of these proceed illiberality, improper jealousies, and a train of evils which oftentimes, in republican governments, must be sorely felt before they can be removed.”
It was an economic calamity that moved Washington closer to a public declaration of support for a national government. In 1786, seven states issued their own paper currency. Like the issuance of Continental Currency before, the flooding of fiat currency into the market resulted in the depreciation of many assets. Goods became scarce, and shops closed for lack of supplies. Washington, along with Madison, feared that all thirteen states would soon print “this fictitious money.”
It was not long before the economy was disrupted by debtor riots, as those with no means to pay their creditors took to the streets. Debtors’ courts in Massachusetts and other states were forced to close for fear of violence. Many Courthouses were burned to the ground.
As the violence continued to spread and escalate through the fall and winter of 1786 and 1787, Washington finally believed the “train of evils” had been “sorely felt” and became convinced that he should lend his name to reforming and strengthening the national government.
In the spring of 1787, Washington set out for Philadelphia to oversee the codification of the American experiment in government we now know as the U.S. Constitution. May it last forever alongside Washington’s memory.
