Washington [414]
As in other walks of life, Washington exhibited to a clockwork order in his daily routine and employed his time economically. There is poetic justice in the fact that when the capital shifted to Philadelphia, he often stopped at his watchmaker on his daily constitutionals. One British diplomat observed of Washington that “his time is regularly divided into certain portions and the business allotted to any one portion strictly adhered to.”42 When he settled upon weekly levees, Tobias Lear noted that they would allow “a sufficient time for dispatching the business of the office” and give “dignity to the president by not obliging him to expose himself every day to impertinent and curious intruders.”43
Many people observed that President Washington spoke slowly and took time to make decisions, letting plans ripen before enacting them. Politics gave him more time to deliberate than did warfare, and he made fewer mistakes as president than as a general on the battlefield. To Catharine Macaulay Graham, he summed up his executive style: “Much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness.”44 Hamilton concurred that the president “consulted much, pondered much; resolved slowly, resolved surely.”45 By delaying decisions, he made sure that his better judgment prevailed over his temper. At the same time, once decisions were made, they “were seldom, if ever, to be shaken,” wrote John Marshall.46 Jefferson agreed, saying that Washington’s mind was “slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion.”47 Once a decision was made, Washington seldom retreated unless fresh evidence radically altered his view. “Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence,” Jefferson wrote, “never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt but, when once decided, going through with his purpose whatever obstacles opposed.”48 Jefferson did not rank Washington as a first-rate intellect on the order of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke, but he admitted that “no judgment was ever sounder.”49 Well aware of his own executive style, Washington once instructed a cabinet member “to deliberate maturely, but to execute promptly and vigorously.”50
Washington was a perceptive man who, behind his polite facade, was unmatched at taking the measure of people. People did not always realize how observant he was. “His eyes retire inward . . . and have nothing of fire or animation or openness in their expression,” said Edward Thornton, a young British diplomat, who added that Washington “possesses the two great requisites of a statesman, the faculty of concealing his own sentiments, and of discovering those of other men.”51 Washington once advised his adopted grandson that “where there is no occasion for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent, for there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.”52 Washington’s seemingly veiled eyes were penetrating, and Gouverneur Morris credited him with a cool, unblinking perspicacity: “He beheld not only the affairs that were passing around, but those also in which he was personally engaged, with the coolness of an unconcerned spectator.”53
A taciturn man, Washington never issued opinions promiscuously. A disciplined politician, he never had to retract things uttered in a thoughtless moment. “Never be agitated by more than a decent warmth and offer your sentiments with modest diffidence,” he told his nephew Bushrod, noting that “opinions thus given are listened to with more attention than when delivered in a dictatorial style.”54 He worried about committing an error more than missing a brilliant stroke. Washington also hated boasting. Bishop William White of Pennsylvania observed, “It has occasionally occurred to me when in his company, that if a stranger to his person were present, he would never have known from anything said by the president that he was conscious of having distinguished himself in the eyes of