Washington [365]
The post of president raised Washington to a nonpartisan, nonspeaking role—ideal for his discreet nature. The Constitutional Convention was yet another situation where the need for national unity imposed a congenial silence upon him. It spared him the need to voice opinions or make speeches, enabling him to bridge divisions and restricting his lobbying to the social hours. He followed the debates closely and later said he “attentively heard and read every oral and printed information on both sides of the question that could be procured.”53 Occasionally he cast a vote, descending briefly from his Olympian perch, then resumed his high place. Most of the time he stood forth as a neutral arbiter and honest broker.
Although highly intelligent, Washington lacked a philosophical mind that could originate constitutional ideas. John Adams once observed that the founding generation had “been sent into life at a time when the greatest lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live,” but this particular brand of greatness eluded George Washington.54 It is hard to picture him springing to his feet in debate or remonstrating over an issue. He was doubtless content to be consigned to the sidelines and contributed little during the debates. At the same time he lent the proceedings his tacit blessing, allowing others to act as architects of the new order. He embodied the public excluded from the secret proceedings, and his mere presence reassured Americans that the delegates were striving for the public good instead of hatching a secret cabal behind closed doors.
As convention president, Washington assumed a dignified and sometimes severe air. William Pierce of Georgia recounted how one day a delegate dropped a copy of some proposed resolutions. This paper was brought to Washington, who was appalled that someone had so carelessly threatened the secrecy of the deliberations. He promptly rose to chastise the delegates and, as always, had a knack for projecting suppressed wrath: “Gentlemen, I am sorry to find that some one member of this body has been so neglectful of the secrets of the convention as to drop in the State House a copy of their proceedings, which by accident was picked up and delivered to me this morning. I must entreat [the] gentlemen to be more careful, lest our transactions get into the newspapers and disturb the public repose by premature speculations.” He tossed the paper onto the table before him. “I do not know whose paper it is, but there it is—let him who owns it take it.”55 Washington donned his hat and strode angrily from the room. Momentarily unable to find his own copy, Pierce crept to the rostrum with some trepidation and was relieved to see someone else’s handwriting on the paper. In the end, nobody had the nerve to claim it and confront Washington. The vignette shows how Washington functioned as the conscience of the convention and could make this room full of dignitaries feel like guilty schoolboys, summoned to the headmaster’s office for a reprimand.
Washington paid such strict heed to the convention’s secrecy rule that, even in his diary, he refrained from recording developments, limiting himself to saying, “Attended convention as usual.” Otherwise he drew a discreet veil across the proceedings, dwelling on his social activities. In correspondence, however, he drummed up support for the convention’s work, telling Jefferson that the central government had virtually ceased to function and that “unless a remedy is soon applied, anarchy and confusion will inevitably ensue.”56
A story told of Washington at Philadelphia that may be apocryphal highlights several truths about his relations with his colleagues. One evening some Continental Army veterans were discussing the general’s aloofness and the way he communicated to people that he didn’t like to be touched or treated familiarly.