Washington [438]
Such devious tactics ran counter to Washington’s professed abhorrence of slavery, not to mention his storied honesty. Even more startling was the acquiescence of Tobias Lear, the young idealist who had balked at working for Washington because the latter owned slaves. In the midst of corresponding with Washington over foiling the Pennsylvania law, Lear suddenly remembered that he and Washington were supposed to be long-term opponents of slavery, and he wrote guiltily to the president: “You will permit me now, Sir . . . to declare that no consideration should induce me to take these steps to prolong the slavery of a human being had I not the fullest confidence that they will, at some future period, be liberated and the strongest conviction that their situation with you is far preferable to what they would probably obtain in a state of freedom.”36 This strange declaration shows that Washington had already told a few confidants of his intention to free his slaves someday, while saying that, in the interim, the slaves were somehow better off than if they were emancipated.
Washington and Lear wondered whether the slaves knew of the Pennsylvania law that lay behind these subterfuges. They were especially curious about Hercules, who had been told he would be sent by stagecoach to Mount Vernon in June. Since he would arrive a little ahead of the president, Tobias Lear informed him that “being at home before [Washington’s] arrival, he will have it in his power to see his friends.”37 When somebody in the presidential household evidently tipped off Hercules to the true reason for his return, he was outraged, but not for the obvious reason. As Lear wrote privately to Washington, Hercules “was mortified to the last degree to think that a suspicion could be entertained of his fidelity or attachment to you. And so much did the poor fellow’s feelings appear to be touched that it left no doubt of his sincerity.”38 As we shall see, Hercules was an extremely shrewd man who knew how to feign loyalty and play his master to perfection. To reaffirm her faith in Hercules, Martha Washington told him that he could stay in Philadelphia past the six-month expiration point before returning to Virginia. Hercules took her up on the offer, stayed past the deadline, then dutifully returned to Mount Vernon. Perhaps to make the return more tolerable, Tobias Lear bought Hercules two new shirts for the trip.
All this collusion occurred against a backdrop of unusual turmoil on the slavery issue. Even as Washington and Lear conspired to keep slaves in bondage, Lafayette rose in the National Assembly and demanded the extension of full civil rights to free blacks in the French colonies. In August 1791, inspired by the French Revolution, slaves in the French colony of St. Domingue (later Haiti) began a bloody rebellion that raged for a dozen years. Many slave owners fled to American seaboard cities, where they stoked dread among American masters that their slaves, too, would stage a bloody insurrection. In 1792 the House of Commons in London enacted its first ban on the slave trade, further fueling fears among slave owners that abolitionism might spread.
Faced with such ferment, Washington struggled to find a stand on slavery that reconciled his economic interests with his private principles. As president, he insisted that the British compensate Americans for slaves spirited away during the Revolution. Politically, his weakest backing lay in the southern states, which were alarmed by Hamilton’s financial system, and this disaffection made it difficult, if not impossible, for him to take a courageous public stand against slavery. All the while he remained the symbol of American liberty, so that abolitionists yearned to claim his aegis for their cause. One antislavery society was named “The Washington Society for the Relief