Washington [528]
The next day, his last in office, Washington toiled under fierce pressure to sign legislation dumped on his desk at the last minute. The Constitution gave the president ten days to sign bills, and Washington resented that legislators had allowed him “scarcely an hour to revolve the most important” ones, as he protested to Jonathan Trumbull. “But as the scene is closing with me, it is of little avail now to let it be with murmurs.”14 At the end he struck a note of serenity, a faith that the American experiment, if sometimes threatened, would prevail. While fearful of machinations, he told Trumbull, “I trust . . . that the good sense of our countrymen will guard the public weal against this and every other innovation and that, altho[ugh] we may be a little wrong now and then, we shall return to the right path with more avidity.” 15 It was an accurate forecast of American history, both its tragic lapses and its miraculous redemptions.
On March 4, inauguration day, Washington did not even bother to mention the event in his diary, preferring to jot down the temperature. “Much such a day as yesterday in all respects. Mercury at 41,” says the entry in its entirety.16 Shortly before noon, dressed in a suit of solemn black, he marched alone to Congress Hall. As he approached the building and entered the House chamber, the cheers and applause of an immense multitude showered down on him. Jefferson next appeared in a blue frock coat and sauntered down the aisle in his loose-limbed style. President-elect Adams then disembarked from a splendid new coach operated by servants in livery. As he made his way into the chamber and up to the dais, he wore a pearl-colored suit with wrist ruffles and a powdered wig and toted a cockaded hat. Looking sleepless, harried, and a little overwhelmed, he glanced over at Washington, who seemed to be shedding his wordly cares. “A solemn scene it was indeed,” Adams wrote, “and it was made affecting to me by the presence of the General, whose countenance was as serene and unclouded as the day. He seemed to me to enjoy a triumph over me. Methought I heard him say, ‘Ay! I am fairly out and you fairly in! See which of us will be happiest!’”17 From the outset, Adams confronted a tough assignment: any president who followed Washington was doomed to seem illegitimate for a time, a mere pretender to the throne.
After introducing Adams, Washington read a short farewell message, filling the silent hall with an overwhelming sense of sadness. The country was losing someone who had been its constant patriarch from the beginning. Adams said that the weeping in the galleries surpassed the sobbing of any audience at a tragic play. “But whether it was from grief or joy,” he wondered aloud to Abigail, “whether from the loss of their beloved president or . . . from the novelty of the thing . . . I know not.”18 A woman named Susan R. Echard captured the scene’s emotional intensity: “Every now and then there was a suppressed sob. I cannot describe Washington’s appearance as I felt it—perfectly composed and self-possessed till the close of his address. Then, when strong nervous sobs broke loose, when tears covered the faces, then the great man was shaken. I never took my eyes from his face. Large drops came from his eyes.”19 It was one last proof, if any were now needed, of just how emotional the man of marble was beneath the surface. After taking the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth, President Adams talked of Washington as someone who had “secured immortality with posterity.”20 Doubtless relieved that he was no longer the protagonist of the American drama, Washington ended the inauguration ceremony with an exquisite gesture: he insisted that President Adams and Vice President Jefferson exit the chamber before him, a perfect symbol that the nation’s most powerful man had now reverted to the humble status of a private citizen.
Afterward Washington walked from the executive mansion to the Francis Hotel, where President Adams was temporarily staying, and he became aware of a tremendous throng of