Passage II

SOCIAL SCIENCE: This passage is adapted from the article “The Reluctant President”by Ron Chernow (©2011 by Ron Chernow).

On February 4, 1789, the 69 members of the Electoral College made George Washington the only president to be unanimously elected, but Congress was unable to meet until April to make the choice official.

The Congressional delay in certifying George Washington's election as president only allowed more time for his doubts to fester as he considered the herculean task ahead. He savored his wait as a welcome "reprieve, " he told his former comrade in arms and future Secretary of War Henry Knox, adding that his "movements to the chair of government will be accompanied with feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution." His "peaceful abode" at Mount Vernon, his fears that he lacked the requisite skills for the presidency, the "ocean of difficulties " facing the country—all gave him pause on the eve of his momentous trip to New York. In a letter to his friend Edward Rutledge, he claimed that, in accepting the presidency, he had given up "all expectations of private happiness in this world."

The day after Congress counted the electoral votes, declaring Washington the first president, it dispatched Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, to bear the official announcement to Mount Vernon.The legislators had chosen a fine emissary. A well-rounded man, known for his work in astronomy and mathematics, the Irish-born Thomson couldn’t have relished the trying Journey to Virginia, which was "much impeded by tempestuous weather, bad roads, and the many large rivers I had to cross." Yet he rejoiced that the new president would be Washington, whom he venerated as someone singled out by Providence to be "the savior and father" of the country. Having known Thomson since the Continental Congress, Washington esteemed him as a faithful public servant and exemplary patriot.

Around noon on April 14, 1789, Washington flung open the door at Mount Vernon and greeted his visitor with a cordial embrace. Once in the privacy of the mansion. he and Thomson conducted a stiff verbal minuet each man reading from a prepared statement. Thomson began by declaring, "I am honored with the commands of the Senate to wait upon your Excellency with the information of your being elected to the office of President of the United States of America" by a unanimous vote. He read aloud a letter from Senator John Langdon of New Hampshire, the president pro tempore. "Suffer me, sir, to indulge the hope that so auspicious a mark of public confidence will meet your approbation and be considered as a sure pledge of the affection and support you are to expect from a free and enlightened people. " There was something deferential, even slightly servile, in Langdon's tone, as if he feared that Washington might renege on his promise and refuse to take the job. Thus was greatness once again thrust upon George Washington.

Any student of Washington's life might have predicted that he would acknowledge his election in a short, self-effacing speech full of disclaimers. "While I realize the arduous nature of the task which is conferred on me and feel my inability to perform it, " he replied to Thomson," I wish there may not be reason for regretting the choice. All I can promise is only that which can be accomplished by an honest zeal. "This sentiment of modesty jibed so perfectly with Washington's private letters that it could not have been feigned: he wondered whether he was fit for the post, so unlike anything he had ever done. The hopes for republican government, he knew, rested in his hands. As commander in chief of the Continental Army, he had been able to wrap himself in a self-protective silence, but the presidency would leave him with no place to hide and expose him to public censure as nothing before.

Because the vote counting had been long delayed, Washington, 57, felt the crush of upcoming public business and decided to set out promptly for New York on April 16, accompanied in his elegant carriage by Thomson and aide David Humphreys. His diary entry conveys a sense of foreboding: "About ten o'clock. I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity and, with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York...with the best dispositions to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations. Waving goodbye was Martha Washington, who wouldn't join him until mid-May. She watched her husband of 30 years depart with a mixture of bittersweet sensations, wondering "when or whether he will ever come home again." She had long doubted the wisdom of this final act in his public life. "I think it was much too late for him to go into public life again," she told her nephew, "but it was not to be avoided."