Washington and His Colleagues | Page 2

the Confederation had foundered. There the
most skillful pilotage was required if the new government was to make
a safe voyage. Washington's first thought had been to get Robert Morris
to take charge again of the department that he had formerly managed
with conspicuous ability, and while stopping in Philadelphia on his way
to New York, he had approached Morris on the subject. Morris, who
was now engaged in grand projects which were eventually to bring him
to a debtor's prison, declined the position but strongly recommended
Hamilton. This suggestion proved very acceptable to Washington, who
was well aware of Hamilton's capacity.
The thorny question of etiquette was the next matter to receive
Washington's attention. Personally he favored the easy hospitality to
which he was accustomed in Virginia, but he knew quite well that his
own taste ought not to be decisive. The forms that he might adopt

would become precedents, and hence action should be taken cautiously.
Washington was a methodical man. He had a well-balanced nature
which was never disturbed by timidity of any kind and rarely by
anxiety. His anger was strong when it was excited, but his ordinary
disposition was one of massive equanimity. He was not imaginative,
but he took things as they came, and did what the occasion demanded.
In crises that did not admit of deliberation, his instinctive courage
guided his behavior, but such crises belong to military experience, and
in civil life careful deliberation was his rule. It was his practice to read
important documents pen in hand to note the points. From one of his
familiar letters to General Knox we learn that on rising in the morning
he would turn over in his mind the day's work and would consider how
to deal with it. His new circumstances soon apprised him that the first
thing to be settled was his deportment as President. Under any form of
government the man who is head of the state is forced, as part of his
public service, to submit to public exhibition and to be exact in social
observance; but, unless precautions are taken, engagements will
consume his time and strength. Writing to a friend about the situation
in which he found himself, Washington declared: "By the time I had
done breakfast, and thence till dinner, and afterwards till bed-time, I
could not get relieved from the ceremony of one visit, before I had to
attend to another. In a word, I had no leisure to read or answer the
dispatches that were pouring in upon me from all quarters."
The radical treatment which the situation called for was aided by a
general feeling in Congress that arrangements should be made for the
President different from those under the Articles of Confederation. It
had been the practice for the President to keep open house. Of this
custom Washington remarked that it brought the office "in perfect
contempt; for the table was considered a public one, and every person,
who could get introduced, conceived that he had a right to be invited to
it. This, although the table was always crowded (and with mixed
company, and the President considered in no better light than as a
maître d'hôtel), was in its nature impracticable, and as many offenses
given as if no table had been kept." It was important to settle the matter
before Mrs. Washington joined him in New York. Inside of ten days
from the time he took the oath of office, he therefore drafted a set of

nine queries, copies of which he sent to Jay, Madison, Hamilton, and
John Adams, with these sensible remarks:
"Many things, which appear of little importance in themselves and at
the beginning, may have great and durable consequences from their
having been established at the commencement of a new general
government. It will be much easier to commence the Administration
upon a well-adjusted system, built on tenable grounds, than to correct
errors, or alter inconveniences, after they shall have been confirmed by
habit. The President, in all matters of business and etiquette, can have
no object but to demean himself in his public character in such a
manner as to maintain the dignity of his office, without subjecting
himself to the imputation of superciliousness or unnecessary reserve.
Under these impressions he asks for your candid and undisguised
opinion."
Only the replies of Hamilton and Adams have been preserved.
Hamilton advised Washington that while "the dignity of the office
should be supported ... care will be necessary to avoid extensive disgust
or discontent.... The notions of equality are yet, in my opinion, too
general and strong to admit of such a distance being placed between the
President and other branches of the Government as might even be
consistent with a due proportion." Hamilton then sketched a plan for a