the “New” George Washington

George Washington seems, I suspect, “timeless” to us today. But, I believe, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and a horde of current American billionaires turned into “do-gooders” as they got older, Washington after the Revolutionary War was, in part, not in total, a different fellow. Eight years of war does change a person; and, George lived eight years away from Mount Vernon, met all sorts of different people and ideas, lived in big cities–or wanted to capture them–and managed an army that was diverse by anyone’s 18th century standards. He had low points that certainly made him question his worth, values, and cherished beliefs. He risked death, saw death and caused death. If anything the War changed and broadened his perspective and views: economic, political and social. That change is essential to understanding the “new” George that settled down on Mount Vernon in 1783.

That the War period had affected Washington’s pre-war attitudes toward salient issues is best documented in his perception of slavery. “Before leaving Mount Vernon for the war [Washington] seemed never to have given the matter any thought, but during the long conflict something changed his outlook“.  By the later 1770’s, in the midst of the war, Washington wrote that he thought slavery to be “an economic burden”, part of the tobacco plantation economics. By the end of the war, he believed it to be a moral wrong. “At best, however, the issue remained an abstract philosophical matter for him as he would support abolition only if slavery were set aside, very, very gradually [1].

There is little doubt, his view on slavery would have been impacted by his concern for “property rights”, and to the extent he thought the issue immoral (as did his closest friend and neighbor George Mason–a southern abolitionist if there ever was one) he would have felt freeing slaves was a personal moral issue. Hence upon death Washington freed his slaves, did not require Martha to, and his southern abolitionist neighbor did not.

Washington, a practical man, was not much tilted to abstract thought or theory of any stripe–in today’s parlance he was not “policy-oriented”. Rather he made personal judgements which were open to change and complexity,  were always grounded on his bedrock core beliefs and vision. His evolution from a predominately private wealth creating land development-acquisition plan to a considerably more public–private “internal improvements” focus, came just previous to the War, and during the war the obvious vulnerability of the United States to European intrusion, and the equally obvious volatility of trans-Appalachian lands no doubt infused a more nationalistic perspective that came with his role as commander-in-chief. While acutely aware of the disastrous implications of private wealth and public policy-making, his concern for a perceived “disinterestedness” (absence of conflict of interest” will be discussed shortly,

Washington was likely not inclined to distrust his personal motives in pursuit of his economic development paradigm. He was quite capable, and probably likely, to blur his private and public ambitions into a “what’s good for George Washington is good for the nation”. In fairness, this was far from atypical of colonial and revolutionary war elites (or contemporary elites). The historical mentality of the colonial administration was very much a combination of private and public blurred policy-making–which was best expressed in the evolution of British “court” versus “Whig” factions then in process. Woodrow Wilson’s biography of Washington confronted this “new George” who somehow combined his concern for national unity and sustained independence with strategies and actions that brought him personal wealth”

A transformation had been worked on him [pre-Revolutionary War Washington] since then. He had led the armies of the whole country, had been the chief instrument of a new nation in winning independence, had carried its affairs by his own counsel … had seen through all the watches of that long campaigns, the destinies and the hopes that were at stake. Now he saw the crowding immigrants come into the west … A new vision was in his thought. This “western country” was now a “rising world”, to be kept or lost, husbanded or squandered, by the raw nation he had helped put on its feet. His thought was stretched at least to a continental measure, problems of statesmanship that were national, questions of policy that had a scope great as schemes of empire, stood foremost in his view. He returned home [from his 1784 western expedition] more engrossed than ever by interest, not his own, but central to public affairs, and of the very stuff of politics. [2]

I doubt the fundamentals of his character were altered, but the army sharpened his skill in working with opposition, non-Virginians, others whose frame of mind was unfamiliar to him. Bitter experience had no doubt replaced the immaturity of his younger days with cynicism and expanded his skill set a bit to enable him to find ways to achieve compromise. When George Washington first left for Boston in 1775 as head of the Continental Army, he was an early middle-ager blend of land developer, plantation land owner/tobacco farmer, and frontier military leader, in whatever order the reader wants to place them. In 1783 he was the commander of a victorious army, a national celebrity, with a loyal following of his former subordinates. His rolodex network had expanded far beyond Masons.

George Washington while political, was not a seriously dedicated or skilled politician. He was a businessman-farmer in his previous sixteen years, one who part-time was in the Burgesses and various local government offices which were standard fare for a Virginia plantation oligarch. Of special note, Washington was not a professional politician, and to the extent his interests and concerns took a political bent–as they necessarily would–he did not envision his personal leadership of an activist political movement.

On politics, he preferred, strongly, to working with others more skilled in the profession. He would invest his political charisma, and seek to preserve as much as he could his “disinterestedness” in politics-laden activities, but he would look to others for policy-making. In political maneuvering and legislative policy-making, he delegated whenever possible. For most of the first decade after his 1783 “retirement”, he used a young fellow Virginian oligarch, James Madison.

George Washington knew what he liked to result from politics, but he was not very interested of skilled in practicing politics or legislative policy-making, and was not versed in political theory. An ardent and since American revolutionary, I have never once seen evidence he abandoned the quest for American independence. As to the structure of government or the composition of the franchise, that was out of his military job description. He was certainly not like Jefferson who did not serve with the military and instead became a professional politician.

Washington remained remarkably quiet in Burgesses debate, and in the Continental Congresses spoke little, wrote political texts not at all; his ability to relate to the War-time Congress, the Articles of Confederation leaders, and the politics of his own military staff was not especially distinguished, and he endured several episodes that nearly toppled him from his command. Whatever he proposed to due upon his military retirement in 1783, did not envision or involve an active political life at any level of government. He wanted to return to farmer-businessman-perhaps family–or so he said. He just didn’t do it very well. I can sympathize; I am writing this volume in my mid-seventies “retirement”.

What happened when he returned home was he immediately focused on restoring a rather run-down Mount Vernon, a Mount Vernon/Martha’s sizable estates that lost considerably profitability, needed reinvestment badly, and simple attention to the mechanics of agricultural production. His finances were exhausted in that his investment was in land and income generated from the plantations–and so he sold some land for capital. His initial post-retirement concern was for his own personal finances, which were in a legitimate state of disorder.

From that perspective, he was much concerned with restoring the income flow from his various investments (a large and seemingly prosperous mill in West Virginia), and rents from a host of squatters who had taken over some of his western land holdings. In true form the old Washington, the expansive aggressive visionary, returned in the first two years. He aggressively secured control over large tracts of Virginia plantation land to expand his agricultural production and income–and he managed it so well that his biography, John Ferling reports by the mid-eighties he was turning sizable profits and income from this plantations.

At the start, in 1783, he was back on board with his old land development agenda: land acquisition and access to the hinterland, trans-Appalachian interior through canals and Potomac River-based navigation. There was one noticeable difference however, in how he approached land development and access to the interior, side-by-side with this still evident quest for personal wealth and a sincere desire that Virginia and his beloved Potomac should be paramount in tasting the economic benefits of this investment, was also a very believable commitment to a public interest, a national public interest in opening up the trans-Appalachian interior.

On that national perspective, Washington was articulate, he wrote on it, actively lobbied it, and did so as a private businessman, awkward political activist on that issue, and finally as President of the United States. As far as I can tell, he was consistent to it, without wavering, until his death. So committed to this access to the interior mission that his contemporaries thought it proper they continue it, in his name, in honor of his heritage and service to his nation. As Tom Brady would say: access to the trans-Appalachian interior by canals was “part of his very being”. For us, that was the core of the “new” George.

As to the evolution of this trans-Appalachian economic development strategy paradigm, the core of the new George, we observe that even in his cut-throat land development business days–where land was above all his path to wealth and personal status, there always was a sort of romantic, but very practical notion that to be successful required a strong and coherent public-governmental involvement.

He had no doubt that, while public officials may see opportunities for personal wealth in his opening up the West (Dinwiddie certainly did), that the western opportunity was also a legitimate opportunity for Virginia and it citizens. Even in the early days, he saw that Virginia could be so much more than a tobacco plantation economy, if it took the lead and seized the opportunity to become the funnel of North American trans-Appalachian economic development.

If phase I of his paradigm was land acquisition, almost every other phase, settlement and city/town building, installation and finance of transportation infrastructure, and conscious promotion of a diverse economy to include at minimum agricultural and defense-related manufacturing, meant serious public involvement–a series of public-private partnerships.

He also knew through personal observation and experience that western site control could only be achieved from Native Americans could be sustained only with serious public involvement. In 1783, we see Washington pivot from land acquisition to the other phases of his economic development paradigm. From 1783, the new George never took his eyes off of this pivot to public sector involvement in what was now  a national defense of American independence through economic growth achieved by settlement and production generated by trans-Appalachian population growth and development of its economic bases.

possible only if united to the East Coast and foreign trade, by the mother of all canal schemes, the Grand Canal of America, the Patowmack Canal. Using this “soft power” of economic growth and economic development and population migration could the United States secure its foreign borders with North American European nations–and achieve meaningful free trade on the seas.

In this module, however, we are more concerned with the primary Washington interest, land development. Like most industrious men, Washington was involved with family and several simultaneous projects/activities: Mount Vernon, entertaining guests, dealing with bad public relations resulting from the Cincinnatus Society, land development and canals were not his complete obsession, but they did consume a great deal of his time, investment, income-raising, and canals were the project that drew him more and more into politics and an appreciation of the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation. From 1783 through 1786 one event and dynamic after another touched upon some element of his economic development paradigm.

Washington’s 1783 Mohawk Valley Tour

In July 1783, two months before the 1883 Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War was signed, General Washington toured the Mohawk Valley. His official intentions concerned his legitimate concern for “what was out there” and to supervise the series of military forts in central New York and the British forts on and near the Great Lakes. The Treaty of Paris, it was hoped (but not known due to communication issues) was to remove them, and Washington wanted a look-see as to what that meant. The truth is evident, however, that in Washington’s mind, and in the mind of several that accompanied him on his tour, Washington had already begun his pivot back to his previous land development paradigm. It is not unlikely this tour would play a major role in “the new George Washington’s” evolving economic development paradigm.

The tour initially focused on military matters, particularly around Fort Schuyler, whose namesake, the “real” Gen Schuyler–commander of the New York district– was a member of the tour. BTW also on the trip were an Italian Count (cultivated by Washington as a potential investor), Alexander Hamilton, who was to be Schuyler’s son-in-law and former Washington aide-de-camp/protégé–and about 35 others notably including  a certain George Clinton (who named two of his children, George and Martha Washington Clinton), who later became New York’s first Governor and Senator, and incidentally the fourth Vice-President of the United States (Jefferson and Madison’s), and a founder of the Democratic-Republican Party–opponent of one Alexander Hamilton. George Clinton’s future personal secretary was his nephew, the son of his brother General James Clinton who rode with Washington in the Army’s final NYC victory parade, the future Governor Dewitt Clinton–builder of the Erie Canal–but that is a separate story to be told later. Dewitt Clinton did not go on the tour; he was fourteen at the time.

Starting at Albany and proceeding on to Lake Erie by July, overawed by its vastness and raw economic potential, he recorded in his diary to “view a tract of the country which is so celebrated for the fertility of its soil, and the beauty of its situation“.  The latter quickly bought the land the fort was on, and area around it–lending credence that the Mohawk tour also included non-military agendas. An additional original intent seems to have been to purchase a mineral springs near present-day Saratoga–which General Schuyler acquired after Washington demurred. Washington also bought land as well in partnership with George Clinton around Oriskany, near Fort Stanwix.

The trip lasted 19 days and ended around Buffalo. On Aug 1, they reached Otsego Lake (Cooperstown) where he no doubt slept at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Anyway, there he wrote a letter to the Marquis de Chastellux (general/liaison of the French Army) in which he admitted what was really on the back of his mind during the trip. The letter sets the stage for the tour as an important input into a more sophisticated and robust economic development paradigm, but also one in which bolstered his personal enthusiasm and commitment to it importance. Washington noted:

I could not help taking a more extensive view of the vast inland navigation in these United States, and could not but be struck by the immense extend and importance of it, and the greatness of that providence which has dealt it favors to us with so … profuse a hand. Would to God we may have the wisdom enough to improve them. I shall not rest contented until I have explored the western country, and traversed those lines or a great part of them, which have given bounds to a new empire. [5]

Washington stressed in his letter to the Marquis, that he was fearful the nation would not embrace his passion to open up the western territories and realize their immense economic potential. Washington finished the tour convinced the newly independent United States, and its  Articles of Confederation, were directly threatened by the still open and vast expanse of America’s continental hinterlands-almost all, save the present day east of the Mississippi Mid-West and South Central territories, were held by foreign powers. Unless and until that land was secured, and economic prosperity generated from it, the United States was politically vulnerable.

So in his mind it was imperative that these territories should be quickly settled, and that required access to migrating populations, and transportation of goods and produce to and from these territories from coastal port-cities. The raw power of the rugged Appalachian Mountains stood In the way of this access and made transportation of  goods and produce and overcoming that became in his mind a matter not only of personal profit and economic growth, but of national survival. In 1784 roads and turnpikes could provide access to migrating populations, but goods and produce was another matter.

These heavy bulk products would never make across the mountains unless an affordable and cost effective mode of transportation into the interior were available. Already truly committed to canals and rivers, Washington almost became obsessed by it in the subsequent several years. But very evident from this tour was that New York enjoyed an advantage in this canal construction across the Appalachians. New York had the easiest, lowest set of elevations than that found in any state to the South–especially western Virginia on down to South Carolina. In regards to river potential, however, Washington fervently believed the Potomac River was superior “to open and make easy” access to the west. “The navigation of this river is equal, if not superior to any in the nation. This will become the great avenue into the Western Country” [6]. 

The Treaty of Paris was signed in mid-September, 1783-in Paris, of course. The core draft was agreed to in November 1782, and so the unofficial terms of the treaty were known by Washington previous to his western tour. The Articles of Confederation signed/ratified the agreement in January 1784, Britain in April and took effect May 2, 1784. Perhaps unexpectedly, the British conceded the vast expanse of the east of the Mississippi trans-Appalachian west, but not Florida which remained a controversy until its actual purchase in 1819. In the interim, Spain acquired control of land in Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. Later much of it would be transferred to France. The Articles of Confederation Congress attempted to digest this new and huge volume of contested and unsettled land through a series of ordinances that commenced in 1784, 1785, and climaxed in the Northwest Ordinances of 1787 and 1789.

In this debate much of the old issues engendered by the 1763 Proclamation Act, in particular the ill-defined colony, now state boundaries–and the unwillingness of the states to negotiate boundaries in good faith–greatly affected Washington’s economic development paradigm, in its smaller Virginia-based version, and its newly-enlarged national version. Major rivers were a clear boundary, and so as the boundaries were resolved–Virginia transferring its western claims to the Article in 1785, for example, the unfortunate consequence for those with a vision to use canals to cross the Appalachians, was that a different, and rival, state was on each bank of the river. Say it another way, river travel and trade became inter-state. The same could be said of the Mississippi–with Britain, Spain, later France on the other bank. New Orleans, the entrepot, and the cork in the Mississippi River bottle, remained in “European” control. That a consider number of none-to-happy Native Americans lie in residence added yet another dimension to the Peace Treaty and trans-Appalachian settlement.

George Washington upon the expedition’s return to Albany in September, joined by Martha, began his transition as commander-in-chief to civilian. He appeared before the Articles Congress to appeal they approve forts in the new trans-Appalachian west. He wadded through one military pay controversy after another, one a very serious near-mutiny. Another appearance before Congress he urged it to construct a sort of “West New Country” regional system that encouraged its settlement and the advance of “civilization”, a civilization which neither the Scots-Irish squatter nor the Native American were much in agreement. The core of that early western settlement program nexus was:

Peace in that region was essential … common decency also dictated policies that might prevent another blood bath, while common sense suggested that prudent restraint would more rapidly open the area for settlement. Washington hinted at something like a federal territorial policy … that would control the flow of population into this region, making it conform to the national interest. In addition, he proposed the return of all Indian prisoners and the creation of an office to supervise trade with the Native Americans [7] 

On Friday, November 25th 1783, the last British soldier left the United States, to celebrate which a parade followed the British unit to the dock. On December 4th, a good-bye affair was held at Fraunces’s Tavern, a collection of officers, led by Henry Knox, the only officer remaining who had been with Washington when he first arrived in Boston in 1775, and bade him adieu. Washington left the affair, after notable comments, in tears. He and Martha left for the final trip back home. On December 23, he reached Annapolis where the Articles Congress was in residence. There he read before Congress his final address and surrendered him command officially. At twilight on Christmas Eve, he arrived at the door of Mount Vernon–a gentleman farmer once again.

Return to Virginia and Mount Vernon: Washington’s Aborted Retirement

A few months after the tour, General Washington stood down from his command (December 23, 1783 in Annapolis, the temporary national capital) and returned to Mount Vernon. It is claimed Washington was among America’s most wealthy businessmen. True enough, but as would be said today, Washington had liquidity problems. Most of Washington’s wealth was concentrated from two competing sources: his and Martha’s plantation farms whose income came from crops produced and sold and the second, a huge portfolio in western wilderness land ownership, and large tracts of land  widely dispersed in Virginia and other more settled geographies.

Both had been neglected, the latter essentially abandoned during the eight years of war. By 178, as acknowledged in several of his letters and statements, he considered restoring his financial stability as his first order priority. The “new George” paid a price for his war experiences and maturity; like many Tidewater oligarchs, on the edge of financial insolvency. Washington’s many biographers often focus on the “Mount Vernon” Washington, the Tidewater plantation owner. But Washington was always a land developer first, certainly in his personal interest.

He collected land parcels like FDR collected stamps. The liquid income needed to pay the bills and live his lifestyle came from the former, and 18th century farming was capital intensive. While Washington had accumulated considerable reserves in land assets which served as collateral for his projects-(in the previous section we mentioned he had just bought land in New York’s Mohawk Valley), when he arrived at Mount Vernon  in 1783. There was tension between his land assets and his plantation income.

Widely dispersed, and by this time paid for, with no taxes imposed, Washington sold some to finance improvements on a run-down Mount Vernon and to acquire large Virginia plantations to add to his planting acreage and annual income. He also had to find a way to pay for the land he had just acquired in New York. As we shall soon see, he wasted no time in returning to his various land and canal development schemes, and that required money, lots of it.

Up to this time Washington could be patient with his land holdings–and that land development strategy, his “art of the deal”, used previous to 1783 came under considerable stress. Previously, he could wait  to sell his claimed land for better prices when access was possible. So he left it unsold–i.e., it generated no income. In the meantime, he proposed to “rent” the land to settlers who tricked into the area. To them he offered reasonable terms as had been traditional Northern Neck-Fairfax custom, knowing it encouraged the renters to make improvements including farm house, barn, well and even some access roads, pastures, and clearing fields. Washington’s three principles of pre-1783 land acquisition were:  buy (or claim as bounty for public service) as much good land as possible, trade poor land for better land whenever possible, and never sell for cash”.

But whatever one reads of Washington land development approach, in 1783 it was in crisis. Unless Washington generated some cash from his land holdings, he might would be unable to reinvest in his income-producing plantation and business assets that paid his bills. His western land ownership situation was further compounded by the hard reality that in the eight years of war, the better parcels, and some of the “less better” had been taken over by squatters, who paid no rent. Either the squatters paid rent, or Washington would have to sell/subdivide the land. If this were not sufficient, Washington in 178 as we have proclaimed was a “man with a mission”: his western access and settlement national defense paradigm required him to not only advocate its pursuit, but to place himself and his home state in the lead.

Indeed, access to these western territories was a way to make his western land holding “liquid” and income-producing. So, at a certain level, Washington’s personal financial issues “blurred” into tension from income-producing plantation farming, non-liquid, non-income-producing and troubled land assets, and the capital intensive needs of carrying forward his personal and national mission of western access and settlement as a national defense strategy.

Where one began and the others left off was surely hard for anyone to discern. In his mind, I am personally sure, they all intertwined–and they came to a head in the period of his retirement (1783-87). How he resolved this tension did affect our economic development history–indeed it probably forced, in its way, his return to public life, and to his advocacy of a strong federal government whose leadership in the implementation would open up the west and redeem his troubled western land portfolio. Shades of Charles Beard!

This nexus of financial problems and national policy advocacy came to a head in his famous 1784 expedition into western Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky. On that extended trip, he realized his land ownership properties were in more crisis than previously realized, and that his traditional approach to real estate was no longer operative. He became acutely aware that huge segments of the American populace did not “buy into” his vision of the American Dream–and indeed held to their version which starkly contrasted with his–and that land development was unlikely to satisfy his American Dream, but land access/river navigation could. His desire for  profits would come from canal tolls, not land sales, from ports and settlement of cities situated at key points along the way. The new George by 1787 was moving away from real estate development into the more public tasks and strategies commonly associated with economic development. Let us now turn to his land development and river navigation evolution.

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Among his initial retirement efforts were an attempt to revitalize his pre-War Dismal Swamp Land Company, and to renew and update his James River/Potomac canal initiatives. Both projects sat on the shelf during the course of the war, and Washington, true to form, wanted to see what could be jump-started. His obvious objective was to commercialize his now vast land holdings in trans-Appalachian west. These lands, whose legal title had been uncertain due to the British Proclamation Act, and a substantial part deriving from the controversial Dinwiddie land grant, as well as from the unstable nature of western land ownership legal titles were in 1783 had to be resolved. In his mind he possessed legal title to about 60,000 western acres, the task he turned to was to turn them into income-producing holdings.

When he left the Dismal Swamp, the swamp-draining venture had collapsed and the corporation had instead pivoted to using swamp materials, for example cypress planks to make shingles, for raw materials manufacture, and, more importantly to construct a canal through the swamp to connect North Carolina travelers, settlers, and the produce of North Carolina to Norfolk port city, the terminus of the proposed swamp canal. During the War nothing progressed, and the project stalled. Accordingly, Washington called together the board of directors in 1783 and after discussion, the board agreed to Washington’s proposal to advertise the project in Europe in a quest for additional investors, and to import cheap skilled labor on canal construction. While little came from these initiatives, at the next year’s board meeting Washington further secured their agreement to secure the state of Virginia financial assistance by pledging to it the proceeds from the tolls that would be generated [3]

It was the Potomac/James River canals where his heart truly lay. On the eve of his departure to the Continental Congresses Washington, almost in a flurry of personal excitement, had attempted to secure the approval of a canal projects, subsidized and endorsed by the state of Virginia. To secure the approval of Burgesses/state legislature Washington had chosen the more popular James River option, but his clear preference, for both good (better location into the interior) and bad (he owned serious amounts of relevant land) he returned to the canal on the Potomac.

the Man with a Mission: the Early Republic’s First Economic Development Paradigm

Literally, in the next module–a long one–and the one after that, we are watching Washington going “up the creek” with a paddle, crisscrossing through weeds and thickets.  It will be tempting to the reader to see these modules as merely “Washington the frontiersman”, or for the more Freudian-inclined, “Washington the obsessive compulsive”. As we have already seen, Washington’s return to Mount Vernon in which he seemingly picked up where he left off in 1774, Mount Vernon, acquiring and managing his land portfolio, navigating the Potomac River, and canals.

Yet

Footnotes

[5] http://threerivershms.com/washington.htm, also cited in John Seelye, Beautiful Machine: Rivers and the Republican Plan, 1755-1825 (Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 59-60

[6] [5] Quoted from Washington and Jefferson correspondence by Peter Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters: Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation (W. W. Norton, 2005), p. 69

[7] John Ferling, The First of Men: a Life of George Washington (University of Tennessee Press, 1988), p. 316

[1] John Ferling, The First of Men (University of Tennessee Press, 1988),  pp. 330-1

[2] Woodrow Wilson, George Washington: a Life (Littoral Books, 1917), p.242

[3] John E. Ferling, The First of Men, pp. 332-3; The Founders and the Pursuit of Land, https://lehrmaninstitute.org/history/founders-land.html