Washington [527]
Thomas Jefferson believed that George Washington had led a charmed life, stealing credit from the more deserving while sticking them with his blunders. This envy was reflected in a comment he made to Madison that January: “[Washington] is fortunate to get off just as the bubble is bursting, leaving others to hold the bag. Yet, as his departure will mark the moment when the difficulties begin to work, you will see that they will be ascribed to the new administration and that he will have his usual good fortune of reaping credit from the good acts of others and leaving to them that of his errors.”8 Embittered by his dealings with Washington, Jefferson clearly thought that the first president had been terribly lucky and overrated. By 1814 Jefferson would arrive at a more balanced verdict on Washington: “On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great.”9
During a Philadelphia winter so frigid that residents skated on an ice-encrusted Delaware River, Washington ended up pioneering in one last area: how to behave as a lame duck president. Like later presidents, he endured an excruciating round of farewell parties, balls, dinners, and receptions. Though harassed by the final duties of public office, he seemed rejuvenated as the albatross was slowly lifted from his shoulders. Sick of party rancor, homesick for Mount Vernon, he craved a little privacy before he died. Martha too looked forward to the retirement that had always been her fond but forlorn dream.
Washington’s last birthday in office, his sixty-fifth, was crammed with festivities, including an “elegant entertainment” at Ricketts’ Amphitheater, followed by a dinner and ball “which for splendor, taste, and elegance was perhaps never excelled by any similar entertainment in the United States,” judged Claypoole’s newspaper.10 The vast gathering of twelve hundred guests took place in the cavernous circus hall, floored over for dancing. Like the couple atop a wedding cake, George and Martha Washington sat on a raised couch beneath a canopy and periodically descended to mill about with guests. Washington indulged in one last bout of gallantry with the ladies when he rose to present his toast: “May the members thereof [the dancing assembly] and the Fair who honor it with their presence long continue the enjoyment of an amusement so innocent and agreeable.”11 Showing her esteem for the outgoing president, Elizabeth Powel emerged from extended mourning for her husband and appeared radiant in a black velvet dress. There was no question that George and Martha, overcome by emotion, felt that an epic saga was ending. “Mrs. Washington was moved even to tears with the mingled emotions of gratitude for such strong proofs of public regard and the new prospect of uninterrupted enjoyment of domestic life,” a Judge Airedale reported to his wife. “ . . . I never saw the president look better or in finer spirits, but his emotions were too powerful to be concealed. He could sometimes scarcely speak.”12
On March 2, in one of his last acts in office, Washington wrote a condolence note to Henry Knox for his loss of three children. Perhaps moved by his old friend’s pitiable plight, he sought to repair the unfortunate damage inflicted on their long friendship by the Whiskey Rebellion. When he returned to Mount Vernon, Washington planned to travel no more than twenty miles from home again, which would sever him forever from old friends. This led him to say to Knox, “I am not without my regrets at parting with (perhaps never more to meet) the few intimates whom I love, among these, be assured, you are one.”13