Washington [407]
Washington also had a long memory for wartime critics and knew that in the Congress Adams had sometimes been a vocal opponent of his performance. The Virginian demanded loyalty from those around him, and Adams had forfeited that trust during the war, never to regain it completely. An envious man, Adams was secretly exasperated by Washington’s unprecedented success. Always brooding about history’s judgment, he dreaded that Washington and Franklin would dwarf him in the textbooks. As he memorably told Dr. Benjamin Rush, the crux of the story would be “that Dr. Franklin’s electrical rod smote the earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod and thenceforward these two conducted all the policy, negotiations, legislatures, and war.”29 Adams went so far as to say privately that Washington’s waiving of his salary as commander in chief and retiring after the war had been egotistical acts: “In wiser and more virtuous times, he would not have [done] that, for that is an ambition.”30 There was also a profound temperamental gulf between Washington and Adams. Both were stubborn, gritty men with courageous devotion to American liberty, but Washington was far more restrained and self-effacing. It also couldn’t have helped relations between the two men that Adams was an age peer and political rival to Washington, who preferred drawing on the talents of younger men, such as Madison and Hamilton. Of his time as vice president, John Adams would render a glum assessment: “My country has, in its wisdom, contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of a man contrived or his imagination conceived.”31
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Rays of Genius
THROUGHOUT 1789 George Washington was oppressed by the need to make appointments to the new government. With nearly a thousand posts to fill—the federal government was quite unlike the states in its preponderance of appointed posts—the president was inundated with several times as many applications. Among the tidal wave of letters flooding in were those from wounded veterans and women who had sacrificed husbands or sons in the war. William Maclay noted the unending crush of aspiring officeholders who besieged the hapless president: “Men of pride, ambition, talents all press forward to exhibit their abilities on the theater of the general government.”1 At its inception, the executive branch was extraordinarily small—Washington initially oversaw a larger staff of slaves and servants at Mount Vernon than he did as president of the United States—but the new government quickly overshadowed his estate in size.
In dealing with office seekers, Washington became hypersensitive to pressure, which usually backfired. As Jefferson once observed of him, “To overdo a thing with him is to undo it.”2 Washington believed that forming an honest, efficient civil service was a critical test for the young republic. A model president in making appointments, he never cut deals or exploited patronage and ruled out “blood or friendship” in picking people.3 The criteria he valued most were merit, seniority, loyalty to the Constitution, and wartime service, as well as an equitable distribution of jobs among the states. By sticking to a policy of “utmost impartiality” with appointees, he sought to strengthen the government’s legitimacy.4 “If injudicious or unpopular measures should be taken . . . with regard to appointments,” he told nephew Bushrod, “the government itself would be in the utmost danger