1. For a few examples, see George Washington to John Adams, May 10, 1789, PGW, 2:245–250; George Washington to Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham, January 9, 1790, PGW, 4:551–554; “Memoranda of Consultations with the President (11 March–9 April 1792),” PTJ, 23:258–265, March 31 entry.
2. Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997), 265.
3. DHFFC, 2:5–6.
4. George Washington to United States Senate, August 21, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 3:515; Charlene Bangs Bickford, “ ‘Public Attention Is Very Much Fixed on the Proceedings of the New Congress’: The First Federal Congress Organizes Itself,” in Inventing Congress: Origins and Establishment of the First Federal Congress, ed. Kenneth R. Bowling and Donald R. Kennon (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999), 153–154.
5. William Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, ed. Kenneth R. Bowling and Helen E. Veit (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 128.
6. DHFFC, 2:31–35; George Washington to the United States Senate, August 22, 1789, PGW, 3:521–527.
7. Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, 128.
8. Fergus M. Bordewich, The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016), 133–135.
9. Legally, the attorney general was an inferior position, as Congress did not create a Justice Department until 1870. In Washington’s administration, the attorney general acted as legal counsel for the administration. Washington, however, did not treat Edmund Randolph, his first attorney general and longtime friend, any differently than the other secretaries. For the sake of brevity and in the spirit of equality demonstrated in Washington’s cabinet meetings, I will refer to the three department secretaries and the attorney general as “the department secretaries” moving forward.
10. For a few examples, see Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King: George Washington and the Presidential Title Controversy of 1789 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014); John Ferling, Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013).
11. Henry Barrett Learned, The President’s Cabinet: Studies in the Origin, Formation and Structure of an American Institution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1912); Carol Berkin, A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism (New York: Basic Books, 2017); William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010); Todd Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, Public Opinion, and the Evolution of American Political Culture (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008).
12. Joanne Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001); James Sterling Young, The Washington Community, 1800–1828 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), 141–150; Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King.
13. Catherine Allgor, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and Government (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000); David S. Shields and Fredrika J. Teute, “The Republican Court and the Historiography of a Women’s Domain in the Public Sphere”; “The Court of Abigail Adams”; “Jefferson in Washington: Domesticating Manners in the Republican Court,” Journal of the Early Republic 35 (Summer 2015): 169–183, 228–235, 238–259. For an example of work that builds off Shields and Teute, see Amy Hudson Henderson, “Material Matters: Reading the Chairs of the Republican Court,” Journal of the Early Republic 35 (Summer 2015): 287–294.
14. Gautham Rao, National Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016); Max Edling, Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783–1867 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014). See also the articles on the state by Ariel Ron, Gautham Rao, Hannah Farber, Ryan Quintana, Rachel St. John, Stephen Skowronek, and Richard R. John in Journal of the Early Republic 38, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 61–118.
15. On the “executive turn,” see, for example, Saladin M. Ambar, How Governors Built the Modern Presidency (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012); Ari Hoogenboom, Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1995); Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Imperial Presidency (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1973); Woodrow Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1908). For studies that situate the modern presidency within other parts of the state, see Richard Bensel, Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859–1977 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Daniel P. Carpenter, “The Multiple and Material Legacies of Stephen Skowronek,” Social Science History 27, no. 3 (2003): 465–474; William J. Novak, “The Myth of the Weak American State,” American Historical Review 113, no. 3 (2008): 752–772.
1. “Journey to the French Commandant: Narrative,” Diaries, 1:130–161.
2. “Expedition to the Ohio: Narrative,” The Diaries of George Washington, 1:174–210.
3. “Early Military Career,” George Washington: A National Treasure, Smithsonian Institution, https://
4. “May 1775,” Diaries, 3:325–332.
5. John Adams to Abigail Adams, May 29, 1775, The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, 1:207–208.
6. “Commission from the Continental Congress, 19 June 1775,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 1:6–8.
7. David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 310–319; Edward G. Lengel, General George Washington: A Military Life (New York: Random House, 2005), 118–123.
8. “Instructions from the Continental Congress, 22 June 1775,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 1:21–23.
9. “Instructions from the Continental Congress, 22 June 1775,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 1:21–23.
10. Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence (New York: Macmillan Press, 1971), 211; Lengel, General George Washington, 164–167.
11. John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 6, 1777, The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, 2:199–201.
12. “Council of War, 8 October 1775,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 2:123–128.
13. Lengel, General George Washington, 110.
14. “Council of War, 18 October 1775,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 2:183–184.
15. “Council of War, 2 November 1775,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 2:279–284.
16. “Instructions to Colonel Henry Knox, 16 November 1775”; Colonel Henry Knox to George Washington, December 17, 1775; Colonel Henry Knox to George Washington, January 5, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 2:384–385, 563–565; 3:29–30; Thomas Fleming, The Strategy of Victory: How General George Washington Won the American Revolution (New York: Da Capo Press, 2017), 19.
17. Council of War, February 16, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 3:320–324; Dave Richard Palmer, The Way of the Fox (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), 108; Robert Middlekauff, Washington’s Revolution: The Making of America’s First Leader (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), 108–111; Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, 98–106; Stephen Brumwell, George Washington: Gentleman Warrior (New York: Quercus, 2012), 218–225.
18. General Howe to the Earl of Dartmouth, November 26, 1775, Documents in the American Revolution, ed. K. G. Davies (Dublin: Irish University Press, 1972–1981), 11:193, cited in John Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009), 100–101.
19. George Washington to John Hancock, March 19, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 3:489–491.
20. John Hancock to George Washington, May 16, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 4:312–313; Fleming, The Strategy of Victory, 25–39. Chapter 7 of Brumwell, George Washington: Gentleman Warrior offers a thorough overview of the New York campaign.
21. George Washington to John Hancock, May 20, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 4:346.
22. Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, 156–159; Brumwell, George Washington: Gentleman Warrior, chapter 7.
23. Lengel, General George Washington, 146–148.
24. “Council of War, 29 August 1776,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 6:153–155.
25. George Washington to John Hancock, August 31, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 6:177–179.
26. Lengel, General George Washington, 148; Arthur Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men (New York: Stackpole Books, 2003), 67.
27. George Washington to John Hancock, September 16, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 6:313–317.
28. George Washington to John Hancock, September 18, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 6:331–337.
29. “Council of War, 16 October 1776,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 6:576–577; “Council Chamber, Washington’s Headquarters, Morris-Jumel Mansion,” Detroit Publishing Co. [1905–1915], Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-D4-40386.
30. Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 89–114.
31. Joseph Reed to Charles Lee in Lefkowitz, November 21, 1776, George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 86.
32. “Council of War, 12 September 1776,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 6:288–289.
33. Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 251–252.
34. John Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 175–186; Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, 166–170.
35. “Bright-Douglass House, Mahlon Stacy Park, Trenton, Mercer County, NJ,” Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, HABS, NJ, 11-TRET, 8- (sheet 3 of 5); Dorothy Troth Muir, General Washington’s Headquarters, 1775–1783 (Troy, AL: Troy State University Press, 1977).
36. Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 313–315.
37. General James Wilkinson, Memoirs of My Own Times (Philadelphia: Abraham Small, 1816), 1:139–140; Henry Knox to Mrs. Knox, January 7, 1777, in William S. Stryker, The Battles of Trenton and Princeton (Boston, 1898), 449; Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 313–315.
38. George Washington to John Hancock, January 5, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 7:519–530.
39. Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 315–323; George Washington to John Hancock, January 5, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 7:519–530; Lengel, General George Washington, 203–206.
40. Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 324–340; George Washington to John Hancock, January 5, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 7:519–530.
41. Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 310–312.
42. Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 310–317.
43. George Washington to Robert Dinwiddie, April 25, 1754, PGW, Colonial Series, 1:87–91 n. 2 “Washington and the French & Indian War,” Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington, https://
44. “Memorandum, 30 May–11 June 1755,” PGW, Colonial Series, 1:293–298.
45. George Washington to John Augustine Washington, June 28–July 2, 1755, PGW, Colonial Series, 1:319–328.
46. “Council of War, 12 July 1776,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 5:280.
47. George Washington to John Hancock, July 30, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 5:517–520.
48. Major General Nathanael Greene to George Washington, November 24, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 12:376–379.
49. “Council of War, 29 October 1777”; Brigadier General John Cadwalader’s Plan for Attacking Philadelphia, November 24, 1777; Circular to the General Officers of the Continental Army, December 3, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 12:46–49, 371–373, 506.
50. Circular to the General Officers of the Continental Army, December 3, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 12:506; Brumwell, George Washington: Gentleman Warrior, 318–321.
51. Major General Nathanael Greene to George Washington, November 24, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 12:376–379.
52. George Washington to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hanson Harrison, January 9, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 8:25–26; Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 6–9; Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 17–19.
53. PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 1:xvii.
54. Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, Secretary of War under Washington and Adams (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers Company, 1907), 27n.
55. Memoir of Lieutenant Colonel Tench Tilghman, ed. S. A. Harrison (Albany, NY: J. Munsell, 1876), 135.
56. Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone, Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016), 237; Fleming, The Strategy of Victory, 87.
57. Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 285.
58. Lender and Stone, Fatal Sunday, 290–293.
59. Gerald Edward Kahler, “Gentleman of the Family: General George Washington’s Aides-de-Camp and Military Secretaries,” MA thesis, University of Richmond, 1997, 86.
60. Robert Hanson Harrison to President of Congress, August 27, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 6:140–144; Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 67; Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington, 160–163.
61. Executive Committee to George Washington, February 26, 1777, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 6:373–374n.
62. “Farm Structure,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Digital Encyclopedia, http://
63. Brumwell, George Washington: Gentleman Warrior, 217, 270.
64. Lund Washington to George Washington, November 5, 1775, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 2:304–308.
65. George Washington to Lund Washington, August 26, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 6:135–137.
66. “Agreement with William Pearce, 23 September 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 14:120–123.
67. George Washington to Robert Orme, March 15, 1755, PGW, Colonial Series, 1:242–245.
68. Brumwell, George Washington: Gentleman Warrior, 67–70; Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington, 27–30.
69. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, 24.
70. Martha Washington to Mercy Otis Warren, March 7, 1778, quoted in Louise V. North, Janet M. Wedge, and Landa M. Freeman, In the Words of Women: The Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765–1799 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 122; Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington, 226.
71. Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781 and 1782, ed. Howard C. Rice Jr. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963), 2:513.
72. “June 15, 1778,” New-York Journal, quoted in North, Wedge, and Freeman, In the Words of Women, 121; Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 198, 309; Middlekauff, Washington’s Revolution, 178, 218.
73. North, Wedge, and Freeman, In the Words of Women, 109.
74. Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington, 156, 226.
75. John Trumbull, The Autobiography of John Trumbull, ed. Theodore Sizer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953), 22–23.
76. Chastellux, Travels in North America, 1:105–110.
77. George Washington to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hanson Harrison, January 20, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 8:116–117; Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington, 166–168.
78. “Brigadier General John Cadwalader’s Plan for Attacking Philadelphia, 24 November 1777,” and Continental Congress Camp Committee to George Washington, December 10, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 12:371–373, 588–589; Committee at Headquarters to Henry Laurens, December 6, 1777; Elbridge Gerry to John Adams, December 3, 1777; Elbridge Gerry to James Warren, December 12, 1777, Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, ed. Paul H. Smith (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1982), 8:374, 381, 404.
79. George Washington to Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Reed, December 15, 1775, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 2:551–554; Fleming, The Strategy of Victory, 17–19.
80. Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington, 100.
81. Abigail Adams to John Adams, July 16, 1775, The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, 1:245–251.
82. Lefkowitz. George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 74–75.
83. Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 74–75; David Humphreys to Alexander Scammell, June 28, 1781, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
84. Chastellux, Travels in North America, 1:105–110; Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington, 156, 226.
85. Lefkowitz. George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 74–76.
86. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, 1:42.
87. Edmund Cody Burnett, The Continental Congress (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1941), 218–219.
88. Henry Laurens to John Laurens, May 16, 1778, Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, 684–685.
89. George Washington to Henry Laurens, December 23, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 12:683–687; Middlekauff, Washington’s Revolution, 147–150; Fleming, The Strategy of Victory, 77, 116–117; Brumwell, George Washington: Gentleman Soldier, 249–252, 324; Lengel, General George Washington, 159–160, 175–177, 275–276, 290.
90. George Washington to Henry Laurens, December 23, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 12:683–687.
91. George Washington to Continental Congress Camp Committee, January 29, 1778, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 13:376–409; Fleming, The Strategy of Victory, 77.
92. Nathanael Greene to George Washington, May 23, 1780, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
93. May 15, 1780, and August 29, 1780, Journals of the Continental Congress, 17:426–429, 790–792.
94. Joseph Jones to James Madison, October 2, 1780, PJM, Congressional Series, 2:105–109.
95. Burnett, The Continental Congress, 492.
96. December 15, 1780, Journals of the Continental Congress, 18:1154–1156; January–February 1781, 19:42–44, 123–124, 180, 203; August–October 1781, 21:851–852, 1030.
97. John Hancock to George Washington, December 22, 1775, and “I. Questions for the Committee, 18 October 1775,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 2:185–190, 589–590; Continental Congress Committee on Fortifying Ports to George Washington, April 17, 1776, and Board of War to George Washington, June 21, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 4:75–76, 321–322.
98. George Washington to John Sullivan, November 20, 1780, Founders Online, National Archives, Early Access document, http://
99. Middlekauff, Washington’s Revolution, 147–150; Fleming, The Strategy of Victory, 77, 116–117; Brumwell, George Washington: Gentleman Soldier, 249–252, 324; Lengel, General George Washington, 159–160, 175–177, 275–276, 290.
100. “Diary: November 26, 1781,” “Diary: November 30, 1781,” The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784, ed. E. James Ferguson et al. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977), 3:253, 303.
101. “Diary: December 3, 1782,” The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784, 3:317.
102. “Diary: February 18, 25, 1782,” The Papers of Robert Morris, 4:249, 300.
103. George Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, December 30, 1781, Founders Online, National Archives, Early Access document, http://
104. George Washington to Nathanael Greene, December 15, 1781, Founders Online, National Archives, Early Access document, http://
105. Alexander Hamilton, “Federalist No. 74,” The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York: New American Library, 1961), 447.
106. James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987), 485–488.
107. “20 May 1789,” Gazette of the United States, in Linda Grant de Pauw, ed., Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 10:720–721.
108. Annals of Congress, 1st Cong., 1st sess., 76.
1. For just a few examples, see William Hogeland, Founding Finance: How Debt, Speculation, Foreclosures, Protects, and Crackdowns Made Us a Nation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012); Stephen F. Knott and Tony Williams, Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance That Forged America (New York: Sourcebooks, 2015); Kate Elizabeth Brown, Alexander Hamilton and the Development of American Law (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017); John Ferling, Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013).
2. Journals of the Continental Congress, 10:144.
3. Brigadier General Henry Knox to George Washington, June 15, 1778, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 15:401–402; E. Wayne Carp, To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775–1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 33–75.
4. Brigadier General Henry Knox to George Washington, December 30, 1778, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 18:532–533.
5. Harry M. Ward, The Department of War, 1781–1795 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962), 5–6.
6. North Callahan, Henry Knox: General Washington’s General (New York: Rinehart, 1958), 191.
7. Henry Knox to Robert Morris, February 21, 1783, The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784, ed. E. James Ferguson et al. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977), 7:448–449.
8. Tom Cutterham, Gentlemen Revolutionaries: Power and Justice in the New American Republic (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), 22–23.
9. “Rough Draft of Society to Be Formed etc.,” April 15, 1783, Knox Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.
10. Henry Knox to George Washington, March 24, 1785, PGW, Confederation Series, 2:458–460; Ward, The Department of War, 49–54.
11. Ward, The Department of War, 53–54.
12. Ward, The Department of War, 56; George William Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government: The Articles of Confederation and the Road to the Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 133–160.
13. “Report of Mr. Philip Liebert,” The St. Clair Papers: The Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair, ed. William Henry Smith (Cincinnati: R. Clark, 1882), 2:17–19; Ward, The Department of War, 67.
14. June 19, 1786, Reports of Henry Knox, Papers of Continental Congress, 1774–1789, National Archives, 360.2.4, Vol. 151; Ward, The Department of War, 57.
15. Journals of the Continental Congress, 31:892–893; Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government, 214–242; Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, 2005), 621.
16. “December Meeting. Indian Necropolis in West Medford: General Arrangement of the Militia: Cotton Mather’s ‘Magnalia,’ ” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 6 (1862–1863): 361–414; Ward, The War Department, 63.
17. “Treaty with the Cherokee, 1785,” Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, ed. Charles Joseph Kappler (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1903, 57th Cong., 1st Ser.), 2:9–11.
18. Andrew Pickens to Alexander McGillivray, October 20, 1786, Andrew Pickens Papers, Huntington Library; Edmund Cody Burnett, The Continental Congress (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1941), 622–629; Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government, 48–73.
19. Board of Treasury to Henry Knox, June 14, 1786, Letters of Henry Knox, Papers of Continental Congress, 1774–1789, National Archives, 360.2.4, Vol. 150; Ward, The Department of War, 59.
20. Henry Knox to George Washington, October 23, 1786, PGW, Confederation Series, 4:299–302.
21. Mark Puls, Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 193–196.
22. Puls, Henry Knox, 27–28.
23. Joseph Parker Warren, “The Confederation and the Shays Rebellion,” American Historical Review 11, no. 1 (October 1905): 46–49.
24. Journals of the Continental Congress, 31:892–893.
25. Cutterham, Gentlemen Revolutionaries, 135–136.
26. Hogeland, Founding Finance, 138–139.
27. Cutterham, Gentlemen Revolutionaries, 136–139.
28. Henry Knox to George Washington, January 18, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 5:10–15; George Washington, “December 1789,” Diaries, 5:503–512.
29. Richard H. Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” Journal of American History 59, no. 3 (1972): 567–584; Mary K. Bonsteel Tachau, “The Whiskey Rebellion in Kentucky: A Forgotten Episode of Civil Disobedience,” Journal of the Early Republic 2, no. 3 (1982): 239–259; Jeffrey J. Crow, “The Whiskey Rebellion in North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review 66, no. 1 (1989): 1–28; Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty (New York: Scribner, 2006).
30. George Washington to Henry Knox, October 9, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 17:43.
31. Ward, The Department of War, 103–112.
32. Francis D. Cogliano, Emperor of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson’s Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 15.
33. Kentucky was a district of Virginia until it gained statehood in 1792.
34. “Inspection of the Post,” April 23, 1787, Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts, ed. William P. Palmer (Richmond: R. U. Derr, Superintendent of Public Printing, 1884), 4:272.
35. “Report of the Condition of the Post at the Point of Fork by Edmund Randolph, Esquire,” May 5, 1788, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 4:434–435.
36. “A Proclamation,” March 24, 1787, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 4:260.
37. William Waller Hening, ed. Statutes at Large; A Collection of All the Laws of Virginia (Richmond: George Cochran, Printers, 1823), 12:10–17.
38. John Evans, Co. Lieut., to Gov. Ed. Randolph, January 27, 1787, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 4:232.
39. Patrick Henry to the President of Congress, May 16, 1786, Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches, ed. William Wirt Henry (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), 3:353–355.
40. Charles Frederic Hobson, “The Early Career of Edmund Randolph, 1753–1789,” Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1971, 234; Joseph Martin to Governor Randolph, February 10, 1787; Arthur Campbell to Governor Edmund Randolph, March 9, 1787; Alexander Barnett, Co. Lieut., to Governor Edmund Randolph, March 26, 1787, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 4:235, 254, 262–263; “5 January 1788,” Journal of the Council of the State of Virginia, ed. George H. Reese (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1967), 4:197–199.
41. Hobson, “The Early Career of Edmund Randolph,” 236.
42. Andrew Dunscomb to Edmund Randolph, June 22, 1788, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 4:459.
43. Hobson, “The Early Career of Edmund Randolph,” 238–240.
44. “September 8, 1788,” Journal of the Council of the State of Virginia, 4:363–371; Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government, 65–73; Burnett, The Continental Congress, 618–628.
45. Colonel William Davies to the Governor, May 21, 1791, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 5:156–157; E. James Ferguson, The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776–1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 324.
46. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, February 12, 1791, PGW, Presidential Series, 7:330–31.
47. Order of Virginia Council Placing Hamilton and Others in Irons, June 16, 1779, PTJ, 2:292–295.
48. Order of Virginia Council Placing Hamilton and Others in Irons, June 16, 1779, PTJ, 2:292–295.
49. William Phillips to Thomas Jefferson, July 5, 1779, PTJ, 3:25–28; Michael Kranish, Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 105–110.
50. Enclose: Major General William Phillips to Thomas Jefferson, July 5, 1779, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 21:536–540.
51. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, July 17, 1779, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 21:534–536.
52. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, July 10, 1779, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 21:419–421.
53. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, September 13, 1779, PTJ, 3:86–87.
54. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, July 17, 1779, and October 1, 1779; George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, August 6, 1779; September 13, 1779, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 21:534–536, 22:53–54, 413, 414, 580–581.
55. Ithiel Town, “A Detail of Some Particular Services Performed in America (Journal of Collier and Matthew’s Invasion of Virginia),” Virginia Historical Register and Literary Notebook 4 (October 1851): 181–195, cited in Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 116–117.
56. Thomas Jefferson to William Fleming, June 8, 1779, PTJ, 2:288–289.
57. Journals of the Council of the State of Virginia, ed. H. R. McIlwaine (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1932), 2:272–273.
58. Cogliano, Emperor of Liberty, 36.
59. Thomas Jefferson to Richard Claiborne, January 18, 1781, PTJ, 4:393.
60. Thomas Jefferson to Baron von Steuben, February 16, 1781, PTJ, 4:633.
61. Thomas Jefferson to William Lewis, March 4, 1781, PTJ, 5:57; Cogliano, Emperor of Liberty, 35–37.
62. John Beckley to Thomas Jefferson, enclosing a Resolution of the House of Delegates, June 12, 1781, PTJ, 6:88–90.
63. Edmund Pendleton to George Washington, February 16, 1781, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
64. Henry Young to William Davies, June 9, 1781, PTJ, 6:84–86n; Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 294–295; Cogliano, Emperor of Liberty, 26–28.
65. Cogliano, Emperor of Liberty, 29.
66. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 72, Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, http://
67. Cogliano, Emperor of Liberty, 38–39.
68. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, May 28, 1781, PTJ, 6:32–33.
69. Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, February 15, 1793, PTJ, 6:246–250.
70. LibraryThing, “George Washington,” https://
71. Alexander Hamilton to George Clinton, March 12, 1778, PAH, 1:439–442.
72. Michael Hattem, “Newburgh Conspiracy,” Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington, https://
73. Rao, National Duties, 59.
74. Alexander Hamilton to Robert Livingston, April 25, 1785, PAH, 3:608–610.
75. Hogeland, Founding Finance, 140.
76. “Annapolis Convention. Address of the Annapolis Convention, [September 14, 1786],” PAH, 3:686–690.
77. “Constitutional Convention. Plan of Government, 18 June 1787,” PAH, 4:207–211. Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier, Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 (New York: Ballantine Books, 2007), 76–86.
78. “Introductory Note: The Federalist [October 27, 1787–May 28, 1788],” PAH, 4:287–301.
79. “First Draft: First Report on the Further Provision Necessary for Establishing Public Credit [December 13, 1790],” PAH, 7:210–225; Hogeland, Founding Finance, 160–161.
80. Hogeland, Founding Finance, 176–182.
81. “Final Version of an Opinion on the Constitutionality of an Act to Establish a Bank [February 23, 1791],” PAH, 8:97–134; Hogeland, Founding Finance, 183–185; Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 91–107.
82. For examples of scholarship that include these arguments, see Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Ferling, Jefferson and Hamilton; Leonard D. White, The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History, 1789–1801 (New York: The Free Press, 1948).
83. William Bradford to James Madison, June 2, 1775, The Papers of James Madison, 1:148–151.
84. Ibid.
85. William Bradford to James Madison, June 3, 1776, The Papers of James Madison, 1:184. Evidence suggests he may have participated in the siege, but it’s inconclusive.
86. David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 293–307.
87. Richard M. Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers: The Battles for Trenton and Princeton (New York: Holt, 1999), 361–364.
88. James Kirby Martin and Mark Edward Lender, “A Respectable Army”: The Military Origins of the Republic, 1763–1789, 3rd ed. (New York: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 104.
89. George Washington to Richard Peters, December 14, 1777, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 12:607–609.
90. Edward Pinkowski, Washington’s Officers Slept Here: Historic Homes of Valley Forge and Its Neighborhood (Philadelphia: Sunshine Press, 1953), 126–127.
91. Martin and Lender, A Respectable Army, 105.
92. William Bradford to Thomas Jefferson, November 22, 1780, PTJ, 4:138–141.
93. William Bradford to Thomas Jefferson, November 22, 1780, PTJ, 4:138–141.
94. George Washington to the United States Senate, January 24, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 15:113.
1. David Golove and Daniel Hulsebosch, “A Civilized Nation: The Early American Constitution, The Law of Nations, and the Pursuit of International Recognition,” New York University Law Review 54, no. 4 (2010): 932–1066; Eliga H. Gould, Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Order (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).
2. Eliga Gould, The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 14–30; Brendan McConville, The King’s Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688–1776 (Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture by the University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 22; G. M. Trevelyan, The English Revolution, 1688–1689 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938), 3–98.
3. Gould, Persistence of Empire, 14–30; Trevelyan, The English Revolution, 3–98.
4. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–1770), 1:234.
5. Jeremy Black, George III: America’s Last King (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006); Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, “ ‘If Others Will Not Be Active, I Must Drive’: George III and the American Revolution,” Early American Studies, 2, no. 1 (2004): 1–46; Gould, Persistence of Empire, 14–30; McConville, King’s Three Faces, 17; Eric Nelson, Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 19–20.
6. Edmund Raymond Turner, The Cabinet Council of England, 1622–1784 (New York: Russell & Russell, 1932), 1:7, 19–21.
7. Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, 1770, in Edmund Raymond Turner, The Cabinet Council of England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1930), 2:319–320; Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash, Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 205), 39–41.
8. McConville, King’s Three Faces, 49–50; Steven C. Bullock, Tea Sets and Tyranny: The Politics of Politeness in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 8–14; Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992).
9. George Washington to Robert Dinwiddie, June 10, 1754, PGW, Colonial Series, 1:129–140.
10. McConville, King’s Three Faces, 15–36.
11. McConville, King’s Three Faces, 17, 49–50; Don Higginbotham, “War and State Formation in Revolutionary America,” in Empire and Nation: The American Revolution in the Atlantic World, ed. Eliga H. Gould and Peter S. Onuf (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 56–57, 61; Gould, Persistence of Empire, 14–30; Nick Bunker, An Empire on Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), 13–17; Nelson, The Royalist Revolution, 3–22.
12. Sarah Knott, Sensibility and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 106.
13. Knott, Sensibility and the American Revolution, 23–24; McConville, King’s Three Faces, 7–8; T. H. Breen, “ ‘Baubles of Britain’: The American and Consumer Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century,” Past and Present 119, no. 1 (1988): 73–104.
14. S. Max Edelson, The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America before Independence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), 1–196
15. Gould, Persistence of Empire, 109.
16. Alan Taylor, American Revolutions (New York: W. W. Norton, 2016), 95–115; Higginbotham, “War and State Formation in Revolutionary America,” 56–59; Gould, The Persistence of Empire, 109–116; Bunker, Empire on Edge, 17–19.
17. “London, February 10,” South-Carolina Gazette, April 5, 1770.
18. “From the General Advertiser, on Lord Mansfield,” Gazette of the State of South Carolina, May 5, 1779.
19. Gould, Persistence of Empire, 109–118; Nelson, Royalist Revolution, 21–22; Taylor, American Revolutions, 114–115.
20. Gould, Persistence of Empire, 109–118; Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, 2005), 56–73; Taylor, American Revolutions, 94–100.
21. Gould, Among the Powers of the Earth, 81–93, 105–106, 123–134; Taylor, American Revolutions, 94–100.
22. Gould, Among the Powers of the Earth, 81–93, 105–106, 123–134; Taylor, American Revolutions, 91–94.
23. “Boston, March 20,” Virginia Gazette, April 7, 1775.
24. John Barker, The British in Boston, Being the Diary of Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s Own Regiment from November 15, 1774 to May 31, 1776 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924), 40.
25. William Bradford to James Madison, July 18, 1775, The Papers of James Madison, 1:157–159.
26. George Washington to George William Fairfax, May 31, 1775, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 10:367–68.
27. “Second Petition from Congress to the King, 8 July 1775,” PTJ, 1:219–223.
28. In The Royalist Revolution, Eric Nelson argues that colonists sought a return to the absolute monarchy of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This claim ignores the colonists’ deep devotion to a Protestant monarchy and the constitutional requirement for the king to convene regular legislative sessions. They just wanted their legislatures to stand on equal footing with Parliament. Colonists’ ire at the king’s ministers reflected their belief that the king should be responsible for policy and that the ministers had corrupted him. Nelson, The Royalist Revolution, 4–22.
29. Pauline Maier, American Scripture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 25.
30. Boston News-Letter, August 14, 1760, in McConville, King’s Three Faces, 251, 253.
31. John Adams to John Thomas, November 13, 1775, The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, 3:293–294.
32. George Washington to the Chiefs of the Passamaquoddy Indians, December 24, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 7:433–434.
33. Brigadier General William Heath to George Washington, October 21, 1775, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 2:215–216n; Gould, Persistence of Empire, 109–134; “Baltimore, August 7,” Pennsylvania Gazette, August 15, 1781.
34. For a few examples of these communications, see “Address from the New York Provincial Congress, 26 June 1775”; Massachusetts Committee of Safety to George Washington, July 6, 1775; Beverly Committee of Correspondence to George Washington, December 11, 1775, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 1:40–41, 68–69, 2:530–531.
35. Benjamin Franklin to Samuel Cooper, March 21, 1776, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. William B. Willcox (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982), 22:387–388.
36. Enclosure: Poem by Phillis Wheatley, October 26, 1775, and George Washington to Phillis Wheatley, February 28, 1776, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 2:242–244, 3:387.
37. George Washington to the States, June 8, 1783, Founders Online, National Archives, Early Access document, http://
38. Joanne Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), xix.
39. George William Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government: The Articles of Confederation and the Road to the Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 102–132; Edmund Cody Burnett, The Continental Congress (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1964), 613–653.
40. Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government, 74–101, 214–244; Burnett, Continental Congress, 613–653; Tom Cutterham, Gentlemen Revolutionaries: Power and Justice in the New American Republic (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), 123–142.
41. Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government, 133–187; Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), 198–224; Burnett, Continental Congress, 613–653.
42. John Adams to William Stephens Smith, December 26, 1787, Founders Online, National Archives, Early Access document, http://
43. Jack N. Rakove, A Politician Thinking: The Creative Mind of James Madison (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017), 66; Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 66, 92, 123.
44. John Jay to George Washington, March 16, 1786, PGW, Confederation Series, 3:601–602.
45. Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government, 245–278; Burnett, Continental Congress, 654–668; Cutterham, Gentlemen Revolutionaries, 143–147.
46. George Washington to James Madison, November 18, 1786, and December 16, 1786, PGW, Confederation Series, 4:382–383, 457–459.
47. George Washington David Humphreys, December 26, 1786, PGW, Confederation Series, 4:477–81.
48. George Washington to Henry Knox, February 3, 1787; George Washington to James Madison, March 31, 1787; George Washington to Henry Knox, April 2, 1787, PGW, Confederation Series, 5:7–9, 114–117, 119–121; Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government, 245–278; Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 1–29.
49. George Washington to Henry Knox, April 27, 1787, PGW, Confederation Series, 5:157–159.
50. [May 1787], Diaries, 5:147–164; Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government, 245–278; Maier, Ratification, 1–29.
51. Rhode Island refused to send delegates to the Federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
52. This was how many Americans viewed the relationship between the king’s council and the king. In reality, George III agreed with the measures passed by Parliament and eagerly pursued war against the colonies.
53. US Const., Art. I, Sec. 6.
54. US Const., Art. II, Sec. 1.
55. Prakash, Imperial from the Beginning, 37–40, 48–53; Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier, Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 (New York: Ballantine Books, 1986), 274–311; David O. Stewart, The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 151–162, 207–217.
56. James Madison, Journal of the Federal Convention, ed. E. H. Scott (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1898), 1:101.
57. Madison, Journal, 2:684.
58. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Max Farrand (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1911), 203; Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: United the States, 1783–1789 (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 140–142; Collier and Collier, Decision in Philadelphia, 274–278; Thomas E. Cronin, “On the Origins and Invention of the Presidency,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 17, no. 2 (Spring 1987): 230–231.
59. “The Virginia Resolutions, 29 May 1787, Charles Pinckney’s Plan, 29 May 1787,” DHRC, 1:243–247; Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 59, 71–74, 84, 119; R. Gordon Hoxie, “The Presidency in the Constitutional Convention,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 15, no. 1 (Winter 1985): 27–28; R. Gordon Hoxie, “The Cabinet in the American Presidency, 1789–1984,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 14, no. 2 (Spring 1984): 209–210.
60. Bilder, Madison’s Hand, 59, 71–74, 84, 119; Prakash, Imperial from the Beginning, 39–42.
61. James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1966), 596–601. No notes exist to document the proceedings of the Committee of Postponed Matters. On September 7, Gouverneur Morris rejected an amendment to include a council and cites the committee’s deliberations on the issue. Morris served on the Committee of Postponed Matters but not on the Committee of Detail, so he must have been referencing the Committee of Postponed Matters meetings that took place from August 6 to August 31. Larson, Return of George Washington, 161–167; Bilder, Madison’s Hand, 144–145; Hoxie, “The President in the Constitutional Convention,” 29–30.
62. Madison, Notes of Debates, 596–601; Bilder, Madison’s Hand, 226.
63. US Const., Art. 2, Sec. 2, cl. 1–2.
64. [James Iredell], “Marcus II,” February 20–March 19, 1780, Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal, in The Debate on the Constitution, ed. Bernard Bailyn (New York: Library of America, 1993), 1:371–378; Prakash, Imperial from the Beginning, 39–42.
65. US Const., Art. 2, Sec. 2, cl. 1–2.
66. Collier and Collier, Decision in Philadelphia, 293–311; Hoxie, “The Cabinet in the American Presidency,” 212.
67. “June 1787,” Diaries, 5:164–172; Larson, Return of George Washington, 137–139, 140; Stewart, Summer of 1787, 30–45.
68. Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government, 248–275; Maier, Ratification, 3–26.
69. The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution Digital Edition, ed. John P. Kaminski, Gaspare J. Saladino, Richard Leffler, Charles H. Schoenleber, and Margaret A. Hogan (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009), http://
70. “Federal Farmer: An Additional Number of Letters to the Republican,” Letter VIII, January 3, 1788, New York Journal, May 2, 1788, in DHRC, 8:324.
71. “Americanus II,” December 19, 1787, Virginia Independent Chronicle in DHRC, 8:244–246; Maier, Ratification, 45–48, 57, 118–119, 235, 280–281, 286, 308, 371, 392, 416, 417.
72. “Marcus II,” DHRC, 16:243–246.
73. Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers: No. 70, Avalon Project, Yale Law School, http://
74. George Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, January 31, 1788, PGW, Confederation Series, 6:73–75.
75. Larson, Return of George Washington, 177–233; Adrienne M. Harrison. A Powerful Mind: The Self-Education of George Washington (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 151–158.
76. The George Washington Financial Papers Project, Ledger B, 228, 244, http://
77. David Humphreys, Life of General Washington, ed. Rosemarie Zagarri (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 44.
78. George Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, January 31, 1788, PGW, Confederation Series, 6:73–75.
79. George Washington, “March 1, 1788,” Diaries, 5:281; Larson, Return of George Washington, 177–233; Harrison, Powerful Mind, 151–158.
80. George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, September 24, 1787, PGW, Confederation Series, 5:339. Washington sent similar letters to Patrick Henry, Thomas Nelson, and Thomas Jefferson.
81. George Washington to David Stuart, October 17, 1787, PGW, Confederation Series, 5:379–380.
82. George Washington to David Stuart, November 5, 1787, PGW, Confederation Series, 5:411–413; Larson, Return of George Washington, 201–233; Harrison, Powerful Mind, 151–158.
83. John Jay, “Address to the People of N.Y.,” Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, Published during Its Discussion by the People, 1787–1788, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (Brooklyn, NY, 1888), 4–19; George Washington to John Jay, May 15, 1788, PGW, Confederation Series, 6:275–276.
84. John Jay “Address to the People of N.Y.,” 4–19; George Washington to John Jay, May 15, 1788, PGW, Confederation Series, 6:275–276; Larson, Return of George Washington, 201–233; Harrison, A Powerful Mind, 151–158.
85. George Washington to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, June 28, 1788, PGW, Confederation Series, 6:360–62.
86. Annals of Congress, 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 17.
87. George Washington to John Langdon, April 14, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 2:54.
88. Knowing that he would have to return to public life, Washington had asked Henry Knox to find him a high-quality American homespun suit that he could wear to his inauguration. George Washington to Henry Knox, March 2, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 1:353–354.
89. “President-Elect George Washington’s Journey to the Inauguration,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon, http://
1. George Washington to Henry Knox, April 1, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 2:2–3.
2. George Washington to Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham, January 9, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 4:551–554.
3. Joanne Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001).
4. Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 7.
5. Mark G. Schmeller, Invisible Sovereign: Imagining Public Opinion from the Revolution to the Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), 22–53.
6. George Washington to David Stuart, July 26, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 3:321–327.
7. David Stuart to George Washington, July 14, 1789, and George Washington to David Stuart, July 26, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 3:198–204, 321–327.
8. Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 120–125.
9. Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 121.
10. Cassandra A. Good, Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 108–112.
11. William Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, ed. Kenneth R. Bowling and Helen E. Veit (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), xvi; Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 16–18.
12. George Washington, “[May 1787],” Diaries, 5:147–164; David O. Stewart, The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 82–84.
13. Samuel K. Fore, “John Fitzgerald,” Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington, http://
14. Alexander Hamilton to William Bingham, October 10, 1789, PAH, 5:432–433.
15. “Enclosure: [Questions Concerning the Navigation of the Several States], [15 October 1789],” PAH, 5:447.
16. “Treasury Department Circular to the Collectors of the Customs, 15 October 1789,” PAH, 5:446–447.
17. Alexander Hamilton to William Bingham, October 10, 1789, PAH, 5:432–433.
18. “Treasury Department Circular to the Collectors of the Customs, 17 May 1790,” PAH, 6:418.
19. Gautham Rao, National Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 76–81.
20. “Treasury Department Circular to the Collectors of the Customs, 18 December 1790,” PAH, 7:368–370.
21. Rao, National Duties, 76–81.
22. “Treasury Department Circular to the Collectors of the Customs, 18 December 1789,” PAH, 6:18–19.
23. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, June 2, 1780, PTJ, 3:411–412.
24. In 1796, the Aurora published a report of cabinet deliberations that took place in April 1793. Jefferson rushed to assure Washington that he had nothing to do with the leak, indicating that he understood cabinet deliberations were to remain secret. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, June 19, 1796, Founders Online, National Archives, Early Access Document: https://
25. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, March 19, 1787, The Papers of James Madison, 9:317–322; Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 202–203; Jack N. Rakove, A Politician Thinking: The Creative Mind of James Madison (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017), 11, 33–34, 126.
26. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, February 14, 1790, The Papers of James Madison, 13:41.
27. Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness (Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2009), 36–41, 53, 64–65, 70.
28. James Monroe to Thomas Jefferson, October 16, 1792, PTJ, 24:489–490.
29. James Monroe to Thomas Jefferson, September 7, 1794, PTJ, 28:145–148.
30. George Washington Financial Papers Project, Ledger B, 1772–1793, 159, http://
31. Edward G. Lengel, First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His—and the Nation’s—Prosperity (Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2016), 205–206, 240; Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: United the States, 1783–1789 (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), 59–61.
32. George Washington to John Fitzgerald and George Gilpin, January 27, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 1:257–259.
33. George Gilpin to George Washington, September 2, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 3:593–596.
34. For examples of advice from Hamilton and Jay, see Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, March 28, 1796, PAH, 20:83–85; John Jay to George Washington, March 6, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 17:618–627.
35. George Washington to Edmund Pendleton, September 23, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 14:124–126.
36. Harrison, A Powerful Mind, 13, 125, 136–137, 143, 155–157, 167.
37. George Washington to William Barton, September 7, 1788, PGW, Confederation Series, 6:501–503.
38. George Washington to William Barton, September 7, 1788, PGW, Confederation Series, 6:501–503.
39. Both Washington and the American public distinguished between private gatherings and public events. No one criticized Washington for privately socializing with his old war colleagues, but the organization received significant backlash.
40. Tom Cutterham, Gentlemen Revolutionaries: Power and Justice in the New American Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 22–29.
41. Larson, The Return of George Washington, 85, 110.
42. William Barton to George Washington, August 28, 1788, and George Washington to William Barton, September 7, 1788, PGW, Confederation Series, 6:476–478, 501–503.
43. Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King: George Washington and the Presidential Title Controversy of 1789 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), 1–6.
44. Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, 39–40.
45. Edmund Randolph to James Madison, September 26, 1789, The Papers of James Madison, 12:421; New York Daily Gazette, July 16, 1789.
46. George Washington to Davis Stuart, July 26, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 3:321–327.
47. George Washington to John Adams, May 10, 1789, and George Washington to John Jay, May 11, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 2:245–250, 270; Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, May 5, 1789, PAH, 5:335–337.
48. George Washington Parke Custis, Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, ed. John Benson Lossing (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1860), 429–430; Abigail Smith Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, July 3, 1798, Founders Online, National Archives, Early Access document, http://
49. Richard Norton Smith, Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993), 27–29.
50. Amy Hudson Henderson, “Furnishing the Republican Court: Building and Decorating Philadelphia Homes, 1790–1800,” Ph.D. diss., University of Delaware, 2008, 66–77.
51. David Shields, Fredricka Teute, and Catherine Allgor have detailed how President John Adams and First Lady Abigail Adams retained the Washingtons’ social practices. Jefferson abolished the levees. Instead, he hosted weekly dinners for congressmen and dignitaries (men only), occasional large gatherings to honor the arrival of a foreign minister, and open houses twice a year. The Madisons created a middle ground between Jefferson and Washington. Madison didn’t host levees, but Dolley hosted regular large gatherings for men and women. Catherine Allgor, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and Government (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000); David S. Shields and Fredrika J. Teute, “The Republican Court and the Historiography of a Women’s Domain in the Public Sphere,” Journal of the Early Republic 35 (Summer 2015): 170–171.
52. Smith, Patriarch, 27–29.
53. “January 1790,” Diaries, 6:1–25.
54. S. W. Jackman, “A Young Englishman Reports on the New Nation: Edward Thornton to James Bland Burges, 1791–1793,” William and Mary Quarterly 18, no. 1 (January 1961): 85–86, 110–111.
55. Smith, Patriarch, 88.
56. Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, July 12, 1789, The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, 8:388–391; Margaret M. O’Dwer, “A French Diplomat’s View of Congress, 1790,” William and Mary Quarterly 21, no. 3 (July 1964): 434–435; Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 40–45.
57. George Washington to David Stuart, June 15, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 5:523–528.
58. George Washington to John Jay, November 30, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 4:340–341.
59. “November 1789,” Diaries of George Washington, 5:488–502; Smith, Patriarch, 38–39, 190–191.
60. Smith, Patriarch, 87–107; Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 177–124.
61. George Washington to John Hancock, October 22, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 4:214.
62. George Washington to John Hancock, October 22, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 4:214; T. H. Breen, George Washington’s Journey (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016), 70–72.
63. George Washington, “October 1789,” Diaries, 5:448–488.
64. Smith, Patriarch, 87–107; Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 177–124.
65. Breen, George Washington’s Journey, 74.
66. George Washington, “April 1791,” Diaries, 6:107–125.
67. Smith, Patriarch, 87–107; Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 177–124.
68. George Washington, “April 1791,” Diaries, 6:107–125.
69. Smith, Patriarch, 87–107; Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 177–124.
70. “Legislative Acts / Legislative Proceedings,” City Gazette or the Daily Advertiser, May 14, 1791.
71. For Randolph’s appointment to aide-de-camp, see “General Orders, 15 August 1775,” PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 1:309–311. For an example of the openness with which Washington wrote to Hamilton, see George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, April 22, 1783, PAH, 3:334–337. Washington demonstrated his trust for Knox by nominating him to serve as a commissioner to negotiate with the British over prisoners of war and the settling of war claims. George Washington William Heath, September 23, 1782, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
72. For an example of Washington and Jefferson’s wartime correspondence, see George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, September 13, 1779, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 22:413–414.
73. “October 1789,” Diaries, 5:448–488.
74. Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 430–432, 487–491. Although the second party was founded as the Democratic-Republican Party, Thomas Jefferson, his contemporaries, and historians more frequently refer to the party as the Republicans or the Jeffersonian Republicans. For the sake of brevity and consistency, I will employ “Republicans” from this point forward to use the same terminology as the source material. This party should not be confused with the Republican Party that emerged in the 1850s, nor the Republican Party of the twenty-first century.
75. Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King, 1–8.
76. Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier, Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 (New York: Ballantine Books, 1986), 243–246.
77. Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997), 265.
78. For a more detailed account of Washington’s visit, revisit the introduction of the book.
79. Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, 128.
80. Fergus M. Bordewich, The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, ad a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2016), 133–135.
81. Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, 128–130.
82. Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, 182.
83. Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, 130–131.
84. Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elected King, 8–10, 142–151.
85. James Madison to George Washington, January 1, 1785; James Madison to George Washington, December 7, 1786; James Madison to George Washington, October 28, 1787, PGW, Confederation Series, 2:248–250; 4:448–450; 5:391–393; James Madison to George Washington, January 4, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 4:536–537; Larson, The Return of George Washington, 86–93; Stuart Leibiger, Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999), 58–65.
86. George Washington, “March 1785,” Diaries, 4:96–111; James Madison to George Washington, December 24, 1786, PGW, Confederation Series, 4:474–476; George Washington to James Madison, May 5, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 2:216–217.
87. Bordewich, The First Congress, 190–191; Rakove, A Politician Thinking, 156–159, 164.
88. Thomas Jefferson, “Jefferson’s Conversation with Washington, 10 July 1792,” PGW, Presidential Series, 10:535–537; Stuart Leibiger, “Founding Friendship: The George Washington–James Madison Collaboration and the Creation of the American Republic,” Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995, 272–274, 305–334, 382–389.
89. “Convention Debates and Proceedings, 5 July 17888,” DHRC Digital Edition, http://
90. “Debates, 12 December 1787,” DHRC, 2:597–598; Stewart Jay, Most Humble Servants: The Advisory Role of Early Judges (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 8–50.
91. George Washington to John Jay, December 13, 1778, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 18:404–406.
92. George Washington to John Jay, May 18, 1786, PGW, Confederation Series, 4:55–56.
93. George Washington to John Jay, May 15, 1788, PGW, Confederation Series, 6:275–276.
94. George Washington to the United States Senate, September 24, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 4:75–80.
95. Jay continued as the interim secretary for foreign affairs until the Federal Congress created the State Department on July 27, 1789. George Washington to John Jay, June 8, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 2:455.
96. George Washington to John Jay, May 11, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 2:270.
97. George Washington to John Jay, June 13, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 5:517; Jay, Most Humble Servants, 86–99.
98. Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, April 9, 1793, and John Jay to Alexander Hamilton, April 11, 1793, PAH, 14:299–300, 307–308.
99. Jay, Most Humble Servants, 99–103.
100. Cabinet Opinion on Foreign Vessels and Consulting the Supreme Court, July 12, 1793; The Supreme Court Justices to George Washington, July 20, 1793; Supreme Court Justices to George Washington, August 8, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 13:214–216, 256–257, 392–393.
101. George Washington to John Jay, April 15, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 15:596.
102. George Washington to the Cabinet, April 18, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 12:452–454.
1. Washington’s military perspective led him to pursue policies that expanded presidential authority. Recently, Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash has argued that the Constitution created expansive power in the executive branch. Washington certainly interpreted the Constitution this way and used his own experience to boost the powers written down in Article II. Prakash, Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015).
2. George Washington to Henry Knox, May 9, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 2:239.
3. George Washington to John Jay, June 8, 1789, PGW, Presidential Series, 2:455.
4. Thomas Jefferson, “Circular to the Heads of the Departments, 6 November 1801,” PTJ, 35:576–578.
5. Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, Secretary of War under Washington and Adams (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers Company, 1907), 27n.
6. Jefferson, “Circular to the Heads of the Departments, 6 November 1801,” PTJ, 35:576–578.
7. Henry Knox to George Washington, January 20, 1790, and George Washington to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, January 21, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 5:24–25, 32; Mark Puls, Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 205–208.
8. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, September 3, 1790, PAH, 7:22–23.
9. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Knox, April 4, 1791, PAH, 8:242–243; T. H. Breen, George Washington’s Journey (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016), 214–217.
10. William Short to Alexander Hamilton, December 2, 1790, PAH, 7:175–187.
11. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, April 14, 1791, PAH, 8:288–289.
12. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, May 7, 1791, PAH, 8:330.
13. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, November 25, 1791, PGW, Presidential Series, 9:231–232; Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, November 26, 1791, PTJ, 22:344–346.
14. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, November 26, 1791, PTJ, 22:344–346n.
15. Henry Knox to George Washington, December 26, 1791, and George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, December 27, 1791, PGW, Presidential Series, 9:313–323; 332–333; Colin G. Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 378–396.
16. Had this bill passed, many states in the Northeast would have received additional representatives at the expense of many states in the South and West. Understandably, many southerners opposed this idea. Henry Knox to George Washington, April 3, 1792; Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, April 4, 1792; Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, April 4, 1792; Edmund Randolph to George Washington, April 4, 1792, PGW, Presidential Series. 10:196–211.
17. “The First Presidential Veto, 3–5 April 1792, Editorial Note,” PGW, Presidential Series, 10:195–196.
18. George Washington to the United States House of Representatives, April 5, 1792, PGW, Presidential Series, 10:213–214n.
19. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, October 29, 1792, PGW, Presidential Series, 11:282–284.
20. “Notes of Cabinet Meeting on the Southern Indians and Spain, 31 October 1792,” PTJ, 24:547–550.
21. George Washington, “Diary entry: 7 May 1790,” Diaries, 6:75–76.
22. William Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, ed. Kenneth R. Bowling and Helen E. Veit (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 301; Francis D. Cogliano, Emperor of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson’s Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 77–79.
23. George Washington to the United States Senate, June 4, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 5:473–476n.
24. George Washington to the United States Senate, June 4, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 5:473–476; Cogliano, Emperor of Liberty, 77–79.
25. US Const., Art. II, Sect. 2, cl. 2.
26. “Conversation with Thomas Jefferson,” March 23, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 5:270–272; George Washington, “March 26,” Diaries, 6:54.
27. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, April 24, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 5:342–346.
28. Washington, “April 27, 1790,” Diaries, 6:68.
29. Joseph Gales, The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1834–1856), 2:1602.
30. For scholarship on the Republican Court and gendered spaces, see Catherine Allgor, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and Government (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000); David S. Shields and Fredrika J. Teute, “The Republican Court and the Historiography of a Women’s Domain in the Public Sphere,” Journal of the Early Republic 35 (Summer 2015): 170–171; Amy Hudson Henderson, “Furnishing the Republican Court: Building and Decorating Philadelphia Homes, 1790–1800,” Ph.D. diss., University of Delaware, 2008), 66–77.
31. Washington, “May 7, 1790,” Diaries, 6:75.
32. Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, 275.
33. Senate Journal, 1st Cong., 2nd sess., May 31, 1790, 147–148; Journal of the Second Session of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789–1793 (Washington, DC: Gales & Seaton, 1820), 1:145; Maclay, The Diary of William Maclay, 275, 301.
34. Washington, “June 30, 1790,” Diaries, 6:78–79.
35. George Washington to the United States Senate, June 4, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 5:473–476n.; Journals of the Continental Congress, 26:144.
36. Thomas Jefferson, “Memoranda of Consultations with the President [March 11–April 9, 1792],” PTJ, 23:258–265; Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 378–396.
37. Thomas Jefferson, “Memoranda of Consultations with the President [March 11–April 9, 1792],” PTJ, 23:258–265; Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington, 378–396.
38. Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States (Washington, DC: Gales & Seaton, 1826–), 1:561.
39. Jeffrey L. Pasley, The Tyranny of Printers: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001), 61.
40. “First Draft: First Report on the Further Provision Necessary for Establishing Public Credit [December 13, 1790],” PAH, 7:210–225; House Journal, 1st Cong. 2nd sess., January 9, 1790, 136.
41. “Final Version of the Second Report on the Further Provision Necessary for Establishing Public Credit (Report on a National Bank), 13 December 1790,” PAH, 7:305–342; Marie Sauer Lambremont, “Rep. James Jackson of Georgia and the Establishment of the Southern States’ Rights Tradition in Congress,” in Inventing Congress: Origins and Establishment of the First Federal Congress, ed. Kenneth R. Bowling and Donald R. Kennon (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999), 194–195; Janet A. Riesman, “Money, Credit, and Federalist Political Economy,” in Beyond Confederation: Origins of the Constitution and American National Identity, ed. Richard Beeman, Stephen Botein, and Edward C. Carter II (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 128–161.
42. [A Citizen], “A Review of the Revenue System in Thirteen Letters,” Independent Gazetteer, August 6, 1794.
43. Maclay, “June 18, 1790,” The Diary of William Maclay, 297.
44. Rachel Hope Cleves, The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 58–103.
45. “Notes of a Conversation with George Washington on French Affairs, 27 December 1792,” PTJ, 24:793–94. “Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on a Conversation with Washington, 7 February 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 12:105–108.
46. Alexander Hamilton, “Amicus [September 11, 1792],” PAH, 12:354–357.
47. Alexander Hamilton, “Amicus [September 11, 1792],” PAH, 12:354–357; Jeffrey L. Pasley, The First Presidential Contest: 1796 and the Founding of American Democracy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013), 52–57; Richard Buel Jr., Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, 1789–1815 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972), 8–27.
48. Henry Lee to James Madison, January 8, 1792, The Papers of James Madison, 14:183–185.
49. Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, April 24, 1794, PTJ, 28:55–56.
50. James Madison to James Monroe, September 29, 1796, The Papers of James Madison, 16:403–405.
51. [Notes for an Oration at Braintree, Spring 1772], The Adams Papers, Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 2:56–61.
52. Annals of Congress, 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 635–638.
53. “Chapter XII: An Act to Establish the Treasury Department,” Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, 1789–1873, ed. Richard Peters (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1845), 1:65–66.
54. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, October 27, 1799, PAH, 23:573–574.
55. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, August 3, 1793, and August 18, 1793, The Papers of James Madison, 15:50–51, 60–61.
56. “Notes on Alexander Hamilton’s Report on Foreign Loans, [after January 4, 1793],” PTJ, 25:20–23.
57. “Editorial Note: Jefferson and the Giles Resolutions,” PTJ, 25:280–292.
58. “Editorial Note: Jefferson and the Giles Resolutions,” PTJ, 25:280–292; “II. William Branch Giles’s Resolutions on the Secretary of the Treasury [February 27, 1793],” PTJ, 25:294–296.
59. “Fair Play,” National Gazette, 24 July 1793; “Editorial Note: Jefferson and the Giles Resolutions,” PTJ, 25:280–292.
60. For just a few examples, see Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, February 4, 1791; Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, February 7, 1791; Thomas Jefferson to Henry Innes, March 13, 1791; Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, August 25, 1791, PTJ, 19:241–242, 542–543, 22:74.
61. Thomas Jefferson to Philip Freneau, February 28, 1791, PTJ, 19:351; Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, July 21, 1791, PTJ, 20:657–658; John Ferling, Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013), 223; Pasley, The First Presidential Contest, 52–57.
62. “I. Jefferson’s Journal of the Tour [May 21–June 10, 1791],” PTJ, 20:453–45; Robert Troup to Alexander Hamilton, June 15, 1791, PAH, 8:478–479; Ferling, Jefferson and Hamilton, 222–223.
63. “Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on a Conversation with Washington, 7 February 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 12:105–108.
64. “Notes of a Conversation with George Washington, 6 August 1793,” PTJ, 26:627–630.
65. Alexander Hamilton to Edward Carrington, May 26, 1792, PAH, 11:426–445; “Catullus No. III (29 September 1792),” PAH, 12:498–506.
66. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, September 9, 1792, and “Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on a Conversation with Washington, 7 February 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 11:96–106, 12:105–108; “Notes of a Conversation with George Washington, 6 August 1793,” PTJ, 26:627–630.
67. Thomas Jefferson, The Complete Anas of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Franklin B. Sawvel (New York: Round Table Press, 1903), 163.
68. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, June 19, 1793, The Papers of James Madison, 15:33–34.
69. Jefferson, Anas, 51–53.
70. Jefferson, Anas, 90–93.
71. Jefferson, Anas, 26, 91.
72. Jefferson, Anas, 36–39; Joanne Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 62–104.
73. Jefferson, Anas, 26.
74. Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 62–104.
75. Beckwith recorded the conversation with Hamilton and enclosed a copy in a letter to Lord William Grenville, the British foreign secretary, on August 26, 1791.
76. “Conversation with George Beckwith, 12 August [1791],” PAH, 9:29–30.
77. Ferling, Jefferson and Hamilton, 233–235.
78. “Conversation with George Beckwith [July 15, 1790],” PAH, 6:497–498.
79. Alexander Hamilton, “An American No. II [August 11, 1792],” PAH, 12:188–193.
80. Alexander Hamilton, “An American No. I [August 4, 1792]”; “An American No. II [August 11, 1792],” PAH, 12:157–164, 188–193.
81. Alexander Hamilton, “Civis [September 5, 1792]”; “Catullus No. I [September 15, 1792]”; “Tully No. I [August 23, 1794]”; “The Defence No. III [July 29, 1795],” PAH 12:320–327, 379–385, 17:132–135, 18:513–523.
1. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, April 12, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 12:448–449. For the May 1787 trip, see “May 1787,” Diaries, 5:147–164. For the April 1789 trip, see “President-Elect George Washington’s Journey to the Inauguration,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon, http://
2. George Washington to Elizabeth Willing Powel, March 26, 1797, Ladies Association of the Union, Mount Vernon, VA.
3. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, April 5, 1793; George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, April 12, 1793; George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, April 12, 1793; George Washington to the Cabinet, April 18, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 12:412–413, 447–448, 452–453.
4. “The President’s House in Philadelphia,” Independence Hall Association, http://
5. Thomas Jefferson, The Complete Anas of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Franklin B. Sawvel (New York: Round Table Press, 1903), 118–119.
6. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, April 12, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 12:448–449.
7. Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, April 9, 1793, PAH, 14:297–299; George Washington to the Cabinet, April 18, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 12:452–454.
8. “Neutrality Proclamation, 22 April 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 12:472–474.
9. John Jay to Alexander Hamilton, April 11, 1793, PAH, 14:307–308; “Cabinet Opinion on Washington’s Questions on Neutrality and the Alliance with France (19 April 1793),” PTJ, 25:570–571n.
10. Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 338–339.
11. “Neutrality Proclamation, 22 April 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 12:472–474; Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, June 23, 1793, and August 11, 1793, PJM, 15:37–38, 54–56.
12. Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, April 9, 1793, PAH, 14:297–299.
13. George Washington to the Cabinet, April 18, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 12:452–453; Thomas Jefferson, “Minutes of a Cabinet Meeting,” April 19, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 12:459; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 339–341.
14. Vincent Cronin, Louis and Antoinette (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1975); Henry Edgeworth in J. M. Thompson, English Witnesses of the French Revolution (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1938).
15. “Cabinet Meeting. Opinion on a Proclamation of Neutrality and on Receiving the French Minister [April 19, 1793],” PAH, 14:328–329.
16. “Minutes of a Cabinet Meeting, 19 April 1793” and “Neutrality Proclamation, 22 April 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 12:459, 472–473.
17. Abigail Adams to John Adams, December 4, 1792, The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, 9:333–334; Rachel Hope Cleves, The Reign of Terror in America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
18. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, April 28, 1793; Alexander Hamilton and Henry Knox to George Washington, May 2, 1793; Edmund Randolph to George Washington, May 6, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 12:487–488, 504, 534–547.
19. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, May 6, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 12:534–548.
20. Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 68–73, 77–79, 339–341.
21. “Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on a Cabinet Meeting, 6 May 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 12:529–530.
22. “The Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce, 6 February 1778,” The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. William B. Willcox (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), 25:595–626; “IV. Opinion on the Treaties with France, 28 April 1793,” PTJ, 25:608–619; Carol Berkin, A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 96–97.
23. Berkin, A Sovereign People, 92.
24. Berkin, A Sovereign People, 92; David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 130–136.
25. Correspondence of Clark and Genet, Selections from the Draper Collection in the Possession of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, to Elucidate the Proposed French Expedition under George Roger Clark against Louisiana in the Years 1793–1794 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1897), 967–971; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 130.
26. Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 342–343.
27. Berkin, A Sovereign People, 92.
28. Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 341–342; Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 130–136.
29. Jürgen Heideking, Geneviève Fabre, and Kai Dreisbach, eds., Celebrating Ethnicity and Nation: American Festive Culture from the Revolution to the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001), 64.
30. “Memorial from George Hammond, 2 May 1793,” PTJ, 25:637–640.
31. Stewart Jay, Most Humble Servants: The Advisory Role of Early Judges (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 126–128, 130, 138–143.
32. Jay, Most Humble Servants, 125–127.
33. “Opinion on the Restoration of Prizes, 16 May 1793” and “Notes on the Citoyen Genet and Its Prizes, 20 May 1793,” PTJ, 26:50–52n, 71–73.
34. “Memorial from Edmond Charles Genet, 27 May 1793,” PTJ, 26:130–131; Jay, Most Humble Servants, 126–128, 130, 138–143.
35. Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 345–348.
36. Thomas Jefferson to Edmond Charles Genet, June 5, 1793, PTJ, 26:195–197.
37. John Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 278; Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence (New York: Macmillan Press, 1971), 212.
38. Arthur Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men (New York: Stackpole Books, 2003), 24, 50, 145–147.
39. George Washington to Patrick Henry, March 28, 1778, PGW, Revolutionary War Series, 14:336–337; Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 145–147. The Conway Cabal was a group of senior officers who schemed to replace George Washington as commander in chief of the Continental Army in late 1777–early 1778. It is named for Thomas Conway, a French officer, who served as one of the ringleaders. While the cabal probably never posed a significant threat to Washington’s leadership, it served to consolidate support for General Washington in Congress and the majority of the officers in the Continental Army. Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, 216–222; Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 282–285.
40. “Enclosure: Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on a Conversation with Edmond Genet, 10 July 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 13:202–207.
41. Berkin, A Sovereign People, 118–119.
42. Jay, Most Humble Servants, 126–128, 130, 138–143; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 344–350.
43. “Enclosure: Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on a Conversation with Edmond Genet, 10 July 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 13:202–207.
44. Jefferson, Anas, 137–144.
45. “Dissenting Opinion on the Little Sarah, 8 July 1793,” PTJ, 26:449–452; “Cabinet Opinion on the Little Sarah, 8 July 1793” and “Enclosure: Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on a Conversation with Edmond Genet, 10 July 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 13:180–185, 202–207; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 116–120.
46. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, July 11, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 13:211–212.
47. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, July 11, 1793, PGW, 13:212–213.
48. “Cabinet Opinion on Foreign Vessels and Consulting the Supreme Court, 12 July 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 13:214–216.
49. “Notes of a Cabinet Meeting on Edmond Charles Genet, 23 July 1793,” PTJ, 26:553–556.
50. Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 358–365.
51. The American public had largely supported Genêt and the French cause when he first arrived. It wasn’t until Genêt threatened to go above Washington’s head, thus disrespecting the president, that public opinion turned on him. For example, “That the citizens, as well as the government of the United States, are grossly insulted by Monsieur Genet, and his inferior officers”; Columbus, “Addressed to the Printers of the Connect Courant,” Harford Courant, November 25, 1793, 2.
52. Berkin, A Sovereign People, 127.
53. Tobias Lear to Thomas Jefferson, May 14, 1793, PGW, 12:572; George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, May 15, 1793, and Thomas Jefferson to William Rawle, May 15, 1793, PTJ, 26:40–41, 45.
54. Jay, Most Humble Servants, 138.
55. “From a Correspondent,” National Gazette, August 7, 1793, cited in Jay, Most Humble Servants, 140.
56. George Taylor Jr., “Cabinet Opinion on the Rules of Neutrality,” August 3, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 13:325–326.
57. “Cabinet Opinion on the Rules of Neutrality, 3 August 1793,” PGW, Presidential Series, 13:325–327; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 352–253.
58. Annals of Congress, 3rd Cong., 1st sess., 757.
59. “Notes of a Conversation with George Washington, 1 October 1792,” PTJ, 24:433–436.
60. “Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 5 March 1810,” PTJ, Retirement Series, 2:272–274.
61. George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, July 31, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 13:309–310.
62. “Notes of Cabinet Meetings on Edmond Charles Genet and the President’s Address to Congress [November 18, 1793],” PTJ, 27:399–401; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 368–373.
63. “Notes of Cabinet Meetings on Edmond Charles Genet and the President’s Address to Congress [November 18, 1793],” PTJ, 27:399–401.
64. “Notes of a Conversation with George Washington, 1 October 1792,” PTJ, 24:433–436.
65. The only record of this conversation is the notes kept by Jefferson. As such, it’s important to note that his recollection of Washington’s words might not be accurate. His description of his own feelings is perhaps more important here anyway. “Thomas Jefferson’s Conversation with Washington, 27 December 1792,” PGW, Presidential Series, 11:552–55.
66. “Notes of Cabinet Meeting on the President’s Address to Congress, 21 November 1793” and George Hammond to Thomas Jefferson, November 22, 1793, PTJ, 27:411–413, 418; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 376–378.
67. Thomas Jefferson, “Notes of a Cabinet Meeting on the President’s Address and Messages to Congress, 28 November 1793,” PTJ, 27:453–456.
68. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, September 9, 1792, PAH, 12:347–350.
69. “Notes of a Conversation with George Washington, 23 May 1793,” PTJ, 26:101–102.
70. Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 358.
71. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, May 19, 1793, PTJ, 26:61–63.
72. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, June 13, 1793, The Papers of James Madison, Congressional Series, 15:28–30.
73. For examples, see “Proposed Rules Concerning Arming and Equipping of Vessels by Belligerents in the Port of the United States, First Version [July 29–30, 1793],” PAH, 15:139–141; “Cabinet Opinions on Privateers and Prizes, 5 August 1793,” PTJ, 26:620–621.
74. “No. III to the President of the United States,” National Gazette, June 8, 1793, in America’s Historical Newspapers Online Database, v. II, (64), 254. Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 356–359.
75. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, June 19, 1793, PTJ, 26:323–324.
76. Jefferson, Anas, 40.
77. Oliver Wolcott to Alexander Hamilton, October 20, 1795, and “Explanation [November 11, 1795],” PAH, 19:364n, 400–426.
78. “Pacificus No. I [June 29, 1793],” PAH, 15:33–43.
79. “Pacificus No. I [June 29, 1793],” PAH, 15:33–43; Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, August 3, 1793, Papers of James Madison, 15:50–51.
80. “No Jacobin No. I [July 31, 1793],” PAH, 15:145–151.
81. Alexander Hamilton, “No Jacobin No. I (31 July 1793),” PAH, 15:145–151.
82. “For the Diary,” Daily Advertiser (New York), August 14, 1793, in Jay, Most Humble Servants, 144–148.
83. Joanne Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 105–125.
84. Anti-Slavery Papers of John Jay, ed. Frank Monaghan (1932), 345, cited in Jay, Most Humble Servants, 98.
85. Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789 (New York: William Morrow, 2014), 289; Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King: George Washington and the Presidential Title Controversy of 1789 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), 30–56.
86. George Washington to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, December 5, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 14:474–477.
87. “Introductory Note: To Rufus King (13 August 1793),” PAH, 15:233–239, cited in Jay, Most Humble Servants, 147.
88. The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, ed. Charles R. King (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894), 478, cited in Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 372.
89. Washington’s thin skin is well documented. For a few examples, see Breen, George Washington’s Journey, 62; John Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009), 338–340, 347.
90. “Notes of Cabinet Meeting on Edmond Charles Genet, 2 August 1793,” PTJ, 26:601–603.
91. The literature on the public’s perception of Washington is vast. For a few examples, see Breen, George Washington’s Journey, 31–40; Waldstreicher, In The Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 117–121; Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King, 30–56.
92. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, June 19, 1793, The Papers of James Madison, 15:33–34.
93. James D. Tagg, “Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Attack on George Washington,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 100, no. 2 (April 1976): 191–230; Jeffrey L. Pasley, The First Presidential Contest: 1796 and the Founding of American Democracy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013), 140–145.
94. Edmund Pendleton to George Washington, September 11, 1793, and George Washington to Edmund Pendleton, September 23, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 14:67–71, 124–126.
95. George Washington to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, October 25, 1791, PGW, Presidential Series, 9:110–117.
96. “Address to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, 6 November 1792,” PGW, Presidential Series, 11:342–351.
97. George Washington to the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, December 5, 1793, PGW, Presidential Series, 14:474–477.
98. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, October 29, 1795, PAH, 19:355–363.
1. Max Edling, Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783–1867 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), introduction n. 14.
2. Alexander Hamilton to Thomas Mifflin, September 9, 1794, PAH, 17:210–211.
3. Washington, Diaries, 6:178–179.
4. Carol Berkin, A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 15–20.
5. Jeffrey J. Crow, “The Whiskey Rebellion in North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review 66, no. 1 (January 1989): 18–19.
6. Berkin, A Sovereign People, 21–23; Mary K. Bonsteel Tachau, “A New Look at the Whiskey Rebellion,” The Whiskey Rebellion: Past and Present Perspectives, ed. Steven R. Boyd (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), 97–118.
7. Mary K. Bonsteel Tachau, “The Whiskey Rebellion in Kentucky: A Forgotten Episode of Civil Disobedience,” Journal of the Early Republic 2, no. 3 (Autumn 1982): 241–246.
8. William Bradford to George Washington, 14 July 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:343–346; Tachau, “The Whiskey Rebellion in Kentucky,” 248–249.
9. Richard H. Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” Journal of American History 59, no. 3 (December 1972): 569–570.
10. Edmund Randolph to Alexander Hamilton, September 8, 1792, PAH, 12:336–340; “Proclamation, 15 September 1792,” PGW, Presidential Series, 11:122–124; Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” 571; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 35–39; Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 108–124.
11. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 3.
12. William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 185–186; Edmund Randolph to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:523–530.
13. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 514–529.
14. For a few examples, see “Enclosure: Extract of a Letter from Kentucky, 25 January 1794,” PGW, Presidential Series, 15:291–93. The tax was so unpopular in Kentucky that Washington could not find anyone to fill the positions required to collect and enforce the tax. Similarly, he received extensive correspondence alerting him to unpopularity of the tax in western regions especially. For an example, see Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, April 18, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 15:612–614 n. 1.
15. Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 185.
16. William Hogeland, Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion that Opened the West (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2017), 340–351.
17. “An Act to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions,” May 2, 1792, Acts of the Second Congress of the United States, 264, https://
18. “Conference Concerning the Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania [August 2, 1794],” PAH, 17:9–14.
19. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 514–529.
20. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 192–196; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 185–189.
21. Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:521–522 n. 1; Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, August 2, 1794; Henry Knox to George Washington, August 4, 1794; Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, August 5, 1794; Edmund Randolph to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:460–463, 467–469, 514–529.
22. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 192–196; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 185–189; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 50–55.
23. “Conference Concerning the Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania [August 2, 1794],” PAH, 17:9–14.
24. Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 185–186; Edmund Randolph to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:523–530.
25. “Conference Concerning the Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania [August 2, 1794],” PAH, 17:9–14; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 49–52; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 185–186; Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 196.
26. “Proclamation, 7 August 1794,” PGW, Presidential Series, 16:531–537.
27. “Proclamation, 7 August 1794,” PGW, Presidential Series, 16:531–537.
28. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 196–204; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 185–206; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 59–67; Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” 576–577.
29. Edmund Randolph to James Ross, Jasper Yeates, and William Bradford, August 7, 1794, General Records of the Department of State, Domestic Letters, 1784–1906, 7:150–155, National Archives Catalog, https://
30. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, August 2, 1794; Henry Knox to George Washington, August 4, 1794; Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, August 5, 1794; Edmund Randolph to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:460–463, 467–469, 514–529.
31. Henry Knox to George Washington, August 8, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:539.
32. George Washington to Henry Knox, August 8, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:539–540.
33. Mark Puls, Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 220–222.
34. Henry Knox to George Washington, August 8, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:538–539.
35. For examples of department correspondence, see Treasury Department Circular to the Governors of the States, January 14, 1791, PAH, 7:426–427; “Circular to the Governors of the States, 1 March 1792,” PTJ, 27:815; War Department Circular to the Governors of the States, August 18, 1794, PAH, 17:107–108; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 56–59.
36. Berkin, A Sovereign People, 56–59; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 194–196.
37. Henry Knox to Thomas Mifflin, May 24, 1794, Irvine Papers, XII, 49, cited in Harry M. Tinkcom, “Presque Isle and Pennsylvania Politics, 1794,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 16, no. 2 (April 1949): 100; Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” 572–573; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 186.
38. “Cabinet Meeting. Opinion on Drafting of Militia by Governor Thomas Mifflin, 24 May 1794,” PAH 16:426–428.
39. Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, June 14, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:227–233.
40. Henry Knox to Thomas Mifflin, July 21, 1794, Irvine Letters, VI, 751–752, cited in Tinkcom, “Presque Isle and Pennsylvania Politics,” 111.
41. Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” 572–573; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 186; Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 196–204.
42. Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” 575–576.
43. Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:514–519.
44. Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:514–523n.
45. Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:521n; Charles Frederic Hobson, “The Early Career of Edmund Randolph, 1753–1789,” Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 1971, 234.
46. Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, August 12, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:553–559.
47. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, August 15, 1794, PAH, 17:96–97; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 194–195.
48. William Bradford to George Washington, August 17, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:568–571.
49. “Minutes of a Meeting Concerning the Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, 24 August 1794,” and Alexander Hamilton to Henry Lee, August 25, 1794, PAH, 17:135–138, 143–146.
50. Alexander Hamilton to Henry Lee, August 25, 1794, PAH, 17:142–146.
51. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 196–197; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 190–191; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 55–56.
52. Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, August 22, 1794, and Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, September 2, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:594–595, 624–631.
53. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, September 2, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:624–631.
54. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, August 5, 1794, and August 16, 1794, PAH, 17:24–58, 101; Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, August 15, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:564–566.
55. “Treasury Departments August 5, 1794,” Dunlap and Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), August 21, 1794, 2; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 195–196.
56. “Tully No. I [August 12, 1794],” “Tully No. II [August 26, 1794],” “Tully No. III [August 28, 1794],” PAH, 17:132–135, 148–150, 159–161.
57. “Philadelphia, Thursday, September 11,” General Advertiser (Philadelphia), September 11, 1794, 3.
58. Edmund Randolph to Jasper Yeates, James Ross, and William Bradford, September 29, 1794, General Records of the Department of State, 1763–2002, Domestic Letters, 1784–1906, National Archives, (M-60), 7:313.
59. Edmund Randolph to Jasper Yeates and William Bradford, September 8, 1794, General Records of the Department of State, 1763–2002, Domestic Letters, 1784–1906, 7:277; Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” 579–580; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 61–71; Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 196–206.
60. Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, September 12, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:673–674.
61. Thomas Mifflin to George Washington, August 5, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:521n.
62. Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, May 5, 1793, PTJ, 25:660–663.
63. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, May 13, 1793, PTJ, 26:25–27.
64. Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, May 5, 1793, PTJ, 25:660–663.
65. Hamilton requested Randolph’s legal advice on countless issues. For a few examples, see Alexander Hamilton to Edmund Randolph, March 12, 1793, March 20, 1793, and May 10, 1793, PAH, 14:196–198, 224–225, 431–432.
66. Alexander Hamilton to Thomas Mifflin, September 9, 1794, PAH, 17:210–211.
67. Kohn, “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” 581–584.
68. George Washington to Henry Knox, September 30, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:744.
69. Puls, Henry Knox, 220–222.
70. Washington, Diaries, 6:178–179.
71. “October [1794],” Diaries, 6:179–198.
72. “Notes on the March from September 30, until October 29, 1794,” in Samuel Hazard et al., eds., Pennsylvania Archives (Philadelphia and Harrisburg, 1852–1949), 2d ser., 4:361, cited in “October [1794],” Diaries, 6: 179–198.
73. “October [1794],” Diaries, 6:179–198.
74. Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 237–238.
75. Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 238.
76. Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 224; Berkin, A Sovereign People, 75–80.
77. Alexander Hamilton to the President and the Directors of the Bank of the United States, August 21, 1794, PAH, 17:119–120.
78. Alexander Hamilton to George Gale, August 27, 1794, PAH, 17:150–152.
79. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, 224.
80. Scholarship is a bit more divided. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion, and Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, both characterize the military response to the rebellion as unnecessary and the product of Hamilton’s overzealous desire to enforce tax collection and fulfill his military fantasies. Washington biographers, including Kohn, Ron Chernow, Richard Norton Smith, James Thomas Flexner, and John Ferling, offer a more positive assessment of the administration’s handling of the rebellion. Based on the evidence, I think there is no doubt Hamilton was eager to use military force, but that doesn’t mean it was the wrong course of action. In fact, establishing precedent that the federal government would enforce tax collection was critical to the financial future of the nation.
81. William Bradford to George Washington, October 17, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 17, 76–80.
82. Terry Bouton, Taming Democracy: “The People,” the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 241–242.
83. Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 215–216.
84. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, October 30, 1794, PTJ, 28:182–183.
85. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 28, 1794, The Papers of James Madison, 15:426–429.
1. Fulwar Skipwith to the Secretary of State, March 7, 1794, American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I: 429.
2. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, March 2, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 15:310–316; Jerald A. Combs, The Jay Treaty: Political Battleground of the Founding Fathers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 120–122, 142–146; Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 377–392; Richard Buel Jr., Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, 1789–1815 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972), 54–56.
3. Brigadier General E.A. Cruikshank, ed. The Correspondence of Lieut. Governor John Graves Simcoe, with Allied Documents Relating to His Administration of the Government of Upper Canada (Toronto: Toronto Ontario Historical Society, 1923), 2:148–149.
4. George Clinton to George Washington, March 20, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 15:417–419.
5. Combs, The Jay Treaty, 94–104; Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 392–394; Buel, Securing the Revolution, 54–56.
6. George Washington to John Jay, April 15, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 15:596.
7. George Washington to the United States Senate, April 16, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 15:608–609; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 120–27, 142–47.
8. John Jay to George Washington, June 23, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:264–266.
9. American State Papers, Foreign Relations, 1:472–474; Todd Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, Public Opinion, and the Evolution of American Political Culture (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008), 24–29 n. 11; Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 395–403; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 142–152.
10. John Jay to Alexander Hamilton, July 18–August 5, 1794, PAH, 16:608–610.
11. Combs, The Jay Treaty, 148–152; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 406–414.
12. John Trumbull, The Autobiography of Colonel John Trumbull, ed. Theodore Sizer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953), 181; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 406–414; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 142–152.
13. John Jay to George Washington, September 13, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:676–680; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 403–406.
14. John Jay to George Washington, November 19, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 17:173–175.
15. John Jay to Edmund Randolph, November 10, 1794, American State Papers, Foreign Relations, 1:503.
16. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, August 6, 1795, PTJ, 28:432–434.
17. Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, March 2, 1796, PTJ, 29:4–6.
18. Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, 71–103.
19. Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation between His Britannic Majesty, and the United States of America, Conditionally Ratified, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Lang & Ustick for Mathew Carey, 1795). Combs, The Jay Treaty, 150–157; Buel, Securing the Revolution, 56–68.
20. George Washington to Thomas Johnson, August 24, 1795, and George Washington to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, August 24, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:590–592; George Washington to Patrick Henry, October 9, 1795; George Washington Alexander Hamilton, October 29, 1795; George Washington to the US Senate, December 9, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 19:36–37, 93–99, 237–238.
21. George Washington Alexander Hamilton, August 9, 1798, PGW, Retirement Series, 2:500–502; Leonard D. White, The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History, 1789–1801 (New York: The Free Press, 1948), 123–125, 147, 154.
22. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, March 2, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 17:606–607; George Washington to John Adams, March 3, 1795, The Adams Papers, Early Access Document, http://
23. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, April 26, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:90–95.
24. James Madison to James Monroe, March 11, 1795, PJM, 15:487–488.
25. Edmund Randolph to John Adams, April 2, 1795, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
26. James Madison to James Monroe, December 20, 1795, PJM, 16:168–171.
27. Annals of Congress, Senate, 4th Congress, 4th Session, 855–856.
28. Annals of Congress, Senate, 4th Congress, 4th Session, 859–860; Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, 29–34.
29. Hunter Miller, ed., Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1931), 2, http://
30. Annals of Congress, Senate, 4th Congress, 4th Session, 861–862.
31. Annals of Congress, Senate, 4th Congress, 4th Session, 863–864; Amanda C. Demmer, “Trick or Constitutional Treaty?: The Jay Treaty and the Quarrel over the Diplomatic Separation of Powers,” Journal of the Early Republic 35, no. 4 (Winter 2015): 586–592; Joseph Charles, “The Jay Treaty: Origins of the American Party System,” William and Mary Quarterly 12, no. 4 (October 1955): 594–596.
32. Annals of Congress, Senate, 4th Congress, 4th Session, 867–868; Demmer, “Trick or Constitutional Treaty?,” 586–592; Charles, “The Jay Treaty,” 594–596.
33. Edmund Randolph to Rufus King, July 6, 1795, in The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, ed. Charles R. King (New York: G.P. Putnam’s sons, 1894–1900), 2:15; Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, 34.
34. Demmer, “Trick or Constitutional Treaty?,” 586–592; Charles, “The Jay Treaty,” 594–596.
35. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, June 25, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:258–260.
36. “Notes from Edmund Randolph, 24 June 1795,” PGW, Presidential Series 18:254–257.
37. Oliver Wolcott Jr. to George Washington, June 30, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:276–277; Buel, Securing the Revolution, 68–71; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 161–165.
38. William Bradford to Alexander Hamilton, July 2, 1795, PAH, 18:393–397; Oliver Wolcott Jr. to George Washington, June 30, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:276–277.
39. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, July 12, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:312–326; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 165–166.
40. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, July 7, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:294–295 n. 3.
41. “Minutes of Conference with Count Wedel of Denmark, April 23, 1795,” Dropmore Papers, Historical Manuscripts Commission, National Archives, 3:59; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 164.
42. George Hammond to Lord Grenville, April 3, 1795, Records of the British Foreign Office, The National Archives, Great Britain, 5:9; Josiah T. Newcomb, “New Light on Jay’s Treaty,” American Journal of International Law 28, no. 4 (October 1934): 685–692; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 161–165.
43. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, July 12, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:312–326; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 165–166.
44. Edmund Randolph, Vindication of Edmund Randolph (Richmond: Charles H. Wynne, 1855), 21–23; Edmund Randolph to George Washington, June 29, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:272–274; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 165–167.
45. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, February 19, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 15:252–253.
46. Alexander Hamilton to Rufus King, June 11, 1795, PAH, 18:370–373.
47. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, July 3, 1795, PAH, 18:398–400; John Ferling, Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013), 272–277; Stephen F. Knott and Tony Williams, Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance That Forged America (New York: Sourcebooks, 2015), 202–206.
48. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, July 13, 1795, PAH, 18:461–464 n 7; Ferling, Jefferson and Hamilton, 272–277; Knott and Williams, Washington and Hamilton, 202–206.
49. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, July 14, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:340–341.
50. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, July 14, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:340–341.
51. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, July 29, 1795, PAH, 18:524–526.
52. George Washington Alexander Hamilton, July 3, 1795, PAH, 18:398–400.
53. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, August 31, 1795, PAH, 19:204–207; Ferling, Jefferson and Hamilton, 272–277; Knott and Williams, Washington and Hamilton, 202–206.
54. Boston Citizens to George Washington, July 13, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:327–332. Demmer, “Trick of Constitutional Treaty?,” 592–593.
55. George Washington to Boston Selectmen, July 28, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:441–443. Over the next several weeks, citizen organizations from several states sent Washington similar applications. Washington used his letter to the Boston Selectmen as a template to send similar replies to each group.
56. Oliver Wolcott Jr. to John Marshall, June 9, 1806, Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams, ed. George Gibbs (New York: W. Van Norden, 1846), 241–246; Demmer, “Trick of Constitutional Treaty?,” 592–593.
57. Timothy Pickering to George Washington, July 31, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:481–483 n. 3.
58. George Washington to Oliver Wolcott Jr. and Timothy Pickering, August 12–18, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:538–541; Irving Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” William and Mary Quarterly 7, no. 2 (April 1950): 179–198; Charles, “The Jay Treaty: The Origins of the American Party System,” 597–598; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 165–169.
59. George Washington to Oliver Wolcott Jr. and Timothy Pickering, August 12–18, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:538–541; Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 179–198.
60. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:523–530; Mary K. Bonsteel Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” Journal of American History 73, no. 1 (June 1986): 18–34.
61. “Conference Concerning the Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania [August 2, 1794],” PAH, 17:9–14.
62. Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” 18–24.
63. Combs, The Jay Treaty, 167; Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” 18–25.
64. For just a few examples, see Edmund Randolph to George Washington, July 24, 1795, July 25, 1795, and July 29, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:414–415, 419–421, 466–468.
65. Timothy Pickering to George Washington, July 31, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:481–483; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 165–170; Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” 25–26; Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 185.
66. George Washington to Burgess Ball, September 25, 1794, PGW, Presidential Series, 16:722–724; Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” 24–25.
67. Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 180.
68. Jefferson, The Complete Anas of Thomas Jefferson, 165; Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 180–181.
69. Oliver Wolcott, Jr. to Alexander Hamilton, July 30, 1795, PAH, 18:526–532; Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” 24–25.
70. Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” 28–30; Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 185.
71. “Notes of Cabinet Meeting on Edmond Charles Genet, 2 August 1793,” PTJ, 26:601–603.
72. Jefferson Thomas Jefferson, The Complete Anas of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Franklin B. Sawvel (New York: Round Table Press, 1903), 90–91.
73. Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” 25–28.
74. George Washington to Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham, January 9, 1790, PGW, Presidential Series, 4:551–554.
75. George Washington to Oliver Wolcott Jr. and Timothy Pickering, August 12–18, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:538–541; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 165–170; Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 181–186.
76. Randolph, Vindication of Edmund Randolph, 21.
77. Combs, The Jay Treaty, 166–168.
78. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, August 19, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:563–565; Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 185–186.
79. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, August 19, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:563–565.
80. George Washington Edmund Randolph, August 20, 1795, and August 22, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:571–572, 579; Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 181–186.
81. Joanne Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 66.
82. “Germantown, Sept. 15, 1795,” Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser, September 19, 1795, 3; Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 187–188.
83. Edmund Randolph to George Washington, September 21, 1795, and George Washington to Edmund Randolph, September 27, 1795, PGW, Presidential Series, 18:720–721, 741; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 165–170; Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” 30–31.
84. George Washington to Edmund Randolph, October 21, 1795, George Washington Papers, Library of Congress, Series 4, General Correspondence, 2018:https://
85. Randolph, Vindication of Edmund Randolph.
86. Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, December 31, 1795, PTJ, 28:565–567.
87. Abigail Adams to John Adams, January 3, 1796, The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, 11:120–122; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 165–170.
88. Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 188–189; Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” 31–33.
89. Brant, “Edmund Randolph, Not Guilty!,” 197–198; Tachau, “George Washington and the Reputation of Edmund Randolph,” 33–34.
90. Octavius Pickering, The Life of Timothy Pickering (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1867–1873), 3:188–190; Oliver Wolcott Jr. to John Marshall, June 9, 1806, in Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and Adams, 244–245.
91. Alexander Hamilton to Oliver Wolcott Jr., August 10, 1795, PAH, 19:111–113; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 165–170; Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, 96–97.
92. “Introductory Note: To George Washington [March 7, 1796],” PAH, 20:64–68.
93. Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, 96–126, 130–136.
94. Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, 140–143; Demmer, “Trick of Constitutional Treaty?,” 595–596; Charles, “The Jay Treaty: Origins of the American Party System,” 599–605.
95. Annals of Congress, 4th Cong., 1st Sess., 400–401.
96. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, March 6, 1796, PJM, 16:246–248.
97. Annals of Congress, 4th Cong., 1st Sess., 759; Charles, “The Jay Treaty: Origins of the American Party System,” 599–605; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 176–188; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 416–436, 444–449; Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, 154–181.
98. “Introductory Note: To George Washington [March 7, 1796],” PAH, 20:64–68.
99. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, PAH, 20:68–69.
100. Washington to the Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, and the Attorney General, 25 March 1796, George Washington Papers, Series 2, Letterbooks 1754–1799, http://
101. James McHenry to George Washington, March 26, 1796; Oliver Wolcott Jr. to George Washington, March 26, 1796; Timothy Pickering to George Washington, March 29, 1796, PGW, Presidential Series, 19:627–629.
102. Charles Lee to George Washington, March 26, 1796, PGW, Presidential Series, 19:592–597.
103. George Washington to the United States House of Representatives, March 30, 1796, PGW, Presidential Series, 19:635–639.
104. George Washington to the United States House of Representatives, March 30, 1796, PGW, Presidential Series, 19:635–639; Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, 154–181.
105. George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, March 31, 1796, PAH, 20:103–105.
106. Annals of Congress, 4th Congress, 1st Session, 1291–1292; “Introductory Note: To George Washington [March 7, 1796],” PAH, 20:64–68; Charles, “The Jay Treaty: Origins of the American Party System,” 599–605; Combs, The Jay Treaty, 176–188; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 416–436, 444–449; Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, 154–181.
1. George Washington, “Farewell Address,” September 17, 1796, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 2, Letterbooks 1754–1799, 24; John Ferling. The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010), 351–367.
2. Benjamin Rush to Dr. James Currie, July 26, 1796, Benjamin Rush Papers, American Philosophical Society.
3. John Adams to United States Congress, December 3, 1799, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
4. John Adams to United States Congress, November 22, 1800, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
5. Noble E. Cunningham Jr., The Process of Government under Jefferson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 74–75; “XII. Robert Smith’s Remarks on the Draft Message, [on or before November 21, 1801],” and “XIII. Fair Copy, First Annual Message [by November 27, 1801],” PTJ, 35:638–650; Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, 1801–1805 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1970), 96–100.
6. John Adams to Abigail Adams, November 28, 1798, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://
7. Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, June 3, 1801, PTJ, 34:242; Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, 50–66; Cunningham, The Process of Government under Jefferson, 60–71.
8. John Adams to Timothy Pickering, March 14, 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
9. Notes on Pinckney Case, March 19, 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
10. Questions about French Grounds for Dissatisfaction, April 5, 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
11. Oliver Wolcott Jr. to John Adams, April 21, 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
12. Timothy Pickering to John Adams, May 1, 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
13. Thomas Jefferson to Heads of Departments, PTJ, 39:241.
14. Thomas Jefferson to Senate, January 11, 1803, PTJ, 39:312–13.
15. Thomas Jefferson to the Senate, March 5, 1801, PTJ, 33:188–189; Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, 50–66; Cunningham, The Process of Government under Jefferson, 60–71.
16. Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, 50–66; Cunningham, The Process of Government under Jefferson, 60–71.
17. John Adams to Elbridge Gerry, February 13, 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
18. John Adams to Abigail Adams, March 17, 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
19. Oliver Wolcott Jr. to Alexander Hamilton, July 7, 1800, and September 3, 1800, PAH, 25:15–17; Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 596–662; Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 239–275.
20. John Adams to United States Senate, February 10, 1799, Founders Online, National Archives, http://
21. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, October 21, 1799, PAH, 23:544–547 n. 2; Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 617–662.
22. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, October 21, 1799, PAH, 23:544–547 n. 2; Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 617–662.
23. Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, March 5, 1810, PTJ, Retirement Series, 2:272–274.
24. Notes on a Cabinet Meeting, May 15, 1801, PTJ, 34:114–115.
25. Robert Smith to W. C. Nicholas, January 9, 1807, in Leonard White, The Jeffersonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1801–1829 (New York: Macmillan Company, 1951), 100; Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, 50–66; Cunningham, The Process of Government under Jefferson, 60–71.
26. Caesar A. Rodney to Thomas Rodney, July 1, 1807, in Cunningham, The Process of Government under Jefferson, 56–57; Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, 50–66; Cunningham, The Process of Government under Jefferson, 60–71.