Washington [557]
As soon as word of Washington’s death spread, church bells pealed in every city and business wound to a standstill. “Each man, when he heard that Washington was dead, shut his store as a matter of course, without consultation,” one Bostonian recalled, “and in two hours all business was stopped.”26 Starting with President Adams, government officials wore black clothing, army officers donned crape on their left arms, naval vessels flew their colors at half-mast, and the hall of Congress was draped in black. At her receptions Abigail Adams demanded that ladies restrict themselves to black gloves and fans.
No political figure felt more bereft than Alexander Hamilton, who owed so much to the older man’s steadfast patronage and understanding. “Perhaps no friend of his has more cause to lament on personal account than myself,” he told an associate, saying that Washington had been “an aegis very essential to me.”27 Such deep grief was not universal. Unable to conquer his envy, President Adams quietly recoiled at the Washington adoration and later griped that the Federalists had “done themselves and their country invaluable injury by making Washington their military, political, religious, and even moral Pope and ascribing everything to him.”28 It was all a plot, he insinuated, “to cast into the background and the shade all others who had been concerned in the service of their country in the revolution.”29
On December 19 John Marshall rose in the House to register the formal notification of Washington’s death. A week later a huge, subdued funeral procession snaked from Congress Hall to the German Lutheran Church. There General Henry Lee delivered his famous funeral oration in which he eulogized Washington as “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” while further noting that the deceased was “second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life.”30 For all the fervor in commemorating Washington’s death, Congress never made good on its intention to transfer Washington’s remains to a marble crypt in the Capitol, as he had perhaps expected.
By the time of his death, Washington had poured his last ounce of passion into the creation of his country. Never a perfect man, he always had a normal quota of human frailty, including a craving for money, status, and fame. Ambitious and self-promoting in his formative years, he had remained a tightfisted, sharp-elbowed businessman and a hard-driving slave master. But over the years, this man of deep emotions and strong opinions had learned to subordinate his personal dreams and aspirations to the service of a larger cause, evolving into a statesman with a prodigious mastery of political skills and an unwavering sense of America’s future greatness. In the things that mattered most for his country, he had shown himself capable of constant growth and self-improvement.
George Washington possessed the gift of inspired simplicity, a clarity and purity of vision that never failed him. Whatever petty partisan disputes swirled around him, he kept his eyes fixed on the transcendent goals that motivated his quest. As sensitive to criticism as any other man, he never allowed personal attacks or threats to distract him, following an inner compass that charted the way ahead. For a quarter century, he had stuck to an undeviating path that led straight to the creation of an independent republic, the enactment of the Constitution, and the formation of the federal government. History records few examples of a leader who so earnestly wanted to do the right thing, not just for himself but for his country. Avoiding moral shortcuts, he consistently upheld such high ethical standards that he seemed larger than any other figure on the political scene. Again and again the American people had entrusted him with power, secure in the knowledge that he would exercise it fairly and ably and surrender it when his term of office was up. He had shown that the president and commander in chief of a republic could possess a grandeur surpassing that of all the crowned heads of