Refusing to let Washington off the hook, Madison argued that his presence in Philadelphia would enhance the convention’s credibility and attract “select characters” from every state.8 In reply, Washington laid out his deeply conflicted feelings about the Cincinnati. He reviewed the organization’s history, telling how it had started as a charitable fund for widows and saying that he never dreamed it would give birth to “jealousies” and “dangers” that threatened republican principles. 9 Washington stood in an acute bind: he didn’t wish to insult his fellow officers, but he also refused to support measures he deemed incompatible with republican principles. His response to the predicament shows how delicately he could weigh conflicting claims and cloak the real reason behind an apparent one.

Writing to Governor Edmund Randolph on December 21, Washington formally declined appointment to the convention, secretly hoping his Virginia associates would drop the matter. But when Madison learned of Washington’s decision, he requested that he keep the door ajar “in case the gathering clouds should become so dark and menacing as to supersede every consideration but that of our national existence or safety.”10 All winter long, Washington rested in a curious limbo vis-à-vis the convention. “My name is in the delegation to this convention,” he told Jay, “but it was put there contrary to my desire and remains there contrary to my request.”11

Washington was frankly baffled and, in his time-honored executive style, canvassed friends about how to resolve his dilemma, enlisting Madison, Humphreys, Knox, and Jay. Each exchange disclosed another layer of doubt on his part. To Humphreys, Washington confessed his fear that the Constitutional Convention might fail, much as he had been haunted by fear of failure when named commander in chief in 1775. Failure “would be a disagreeable predicament for any of them [the delegates] to be in, but more particularly so for a person in my situation,” he wrote.12 Since he personified the country, he stood to lose the most from accusations of partisanship. On the other hand, this might be a last opportunity to salvage a deteriorating nation. Any failure, he said, could be construed “as an unequivocal proof that the states are not likely to agree in any general measure . . . and consequently that there is an end put to federal government.”13 In soliciting opinions, he again preferred to give a passive appearance to active decisions, making it seem that he was being reluctantly borne along by fate, friends, or historical necessity, when he was actually shaping as well as reacting to events. This technique allowed him to cast himself into the modest role of someone answering the summons of history. It also permitted him to wait until a consensus had emerged on his course of action. If Washington could never entirely resist the allure of fame, neither could he openly welcome it.

Not all of Washington’s advisers thought he should attend. Humphreys reminded him of the potentially illegal nature of the gathering and, consequently, the huge reputational risk. “I concur fully in sentiment with you concerning the inexpediency of your attending the convention,” he wrote.14 Knox favored Washington’s going but felt obliged to point out that the Philadelphia convention might be “an irregular assembly,” even an illegal one, since it would operate outside the amendment process spelled out in the Articles of Confederation. It might even expose delegates to conspiracy charges. On the other hand, Washington’s presence would draw New England states that had boycotted the Annapolis conference, converting it into a truly national gathering. To pique Washington’s interest, Jay sent him a clairvoyant sketch of a new government divided into legislative, executive, and judicial branches. “Let Congress legislate,” he told Washington. “Let others execute. Let others judge.”15 The letter foreshadowed the exact shape of the future government.

During February and March 1787 Washington alternated between passionate concern for saving the union and an insistence that he couldn’t go to Philadelphia. He likened the confederacy to a “house on fire,” saying that unless emergency measures were taken, the building would be “reduced to ashes”; but somebody else would apparently have to extinguish the blaze.16 Washington’s internal deliberations began to shift on February 21, when Congress approved a convention “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.”17 While the convention ended up exceeding this mandate, the decision momentarily retired the legality issue. With the country “approaching to some awful crisis,” he told Knox, he began to fret about a public outcry if he didn’t go to Philadelphia.18 Suddenly he seemed to lean in the other direction. “A thought, however, has lately run through my mind, which is attended with embarrassment,” he confided to Knox in early March. “It is, whether my non-attendance in this convention will not be considered as a dereliction to republicanism.”19

Wisely, Washington had allowed the issue to percolate for months, encouraging the perception that he was following rather than leading events. On March 19 Knox sent him a letter that may have clinched his decision. He said that he took it for granted that Washington would be elected president of the convention. If the convention still faltered and produced only a “patchwork to the present defective confederation, your reputation would in a degree suffer.” But if the convention forged a vigorous new federal government, “it would be a circumstance highly honorable to your fame . . . and doubly entitle you to the glorious republican epithet ‘The Father of Your Country.’”20 This was the perfect double-barreled appeal to Washington’s vanity and patriotism. Because of the high caliber of the delegates selected, Knox wagered that the convention would spawn a superior new system, and “therefore the balance of my opinion preponderates greatly in favor of your attendance.”21

In retrospect, it seems foreordained that Washington, with his unerring sense of duty, would go to Philadelphia. He was a casualty of his own greatness, which dictated a path in life from which he couldn’t deviate. Had he turned down the call to duty, he would have felt something incomplete in his grand mission to found the country, but he patently had to convince himself and the world of his purely disinterested motives. Now he could proceed as if summoned from self-imposed retirement by popular acclaim.

On March 28 Washington wrote to Governor Randolph and submitted to his fate: he would indeed attend the convention. He made it clear that he was doing so involuntarily and only submitting to the entreaties of friends. In Washington’s life, however, one commitment led ineluctably to the next, and he acknowledged that his attendance would have “a tendency to sweep me back into the tide of public affairs.” 22 To solve his dilemma with the Cincinnati, he planned to go to Philadelphia a week early and address the group, so they would not attribute his attending the Constitutional Convention instead “to a disrespectful inattention to the Society.”23 Henry Knox was bowled over by Washington’s decision. “Secure as he was in his fame,” he wrote to Lafayette, “he has again committed it to the mercy of events. Nothing but the critical situation of his country would have induced him to so hazardous a conduct.”24 Having made his decision, Washington gave unstinting support to a convention that would do far more than just tinker with the Articles of Confederation: like Madison, he wanted root-and-branch reform. He told Knox that the convention should “probe the defects” of the Articles of Confederation “to the bottom,” and he worried that some states might not send delegates or would hobble them with “cramped powers,” fostering an impasse.25 By this point, Washington was clearly primed for decisive action in Philadelphia.