An enduring mystery of Washington’s presidency is why he relegated John Adams to a minor role. A Washington biographer is struck by the paucity of letters exchanged between the two men; Adams was clearly excluded from the inner circle of advisers. Partly this was a structural phenomenon. Under the Constitution, the vice president served as president of the Senate, thus overlapping two branches of governments. Nowadays we tend to think of the vice president as the president’s agent in the legislature, but Adams saw the vice president as a creature of that branch. He stated bluntly, “The office I hold is totally detached from the executive authority and confined to the legislative.”27 On another occasion he insisted that the Constitution had created “two great offices,” with one officer “placed at the head of the executive, the other at the head of the legislature.”28 As Washington tried to protect the presidency from senatorial intrusion, Adams was bound to suffer a demotion in the process.

Washington also had a long memory for wartime critics and knew that in the Congress Adams had sometimes been a vocal opponent of his performance. The Virginian demanded loyalty from those around him, and Adams had forfeited that trust during the war, never to regain it completely. An envious man, Adams was secretly exasperated by Washington’s unprecedented success. Always brooding about history’s judgment, he dreaded that Washington and Franklin would dwarf him in the textbooks. As he memorably told Dr. Benjamin Rush, the crux of the story would be “that Dr. Franklin’s electrical rod smote the earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod and thenceforward these two conducted all the policy, negotiations, legislatures, and war.”29 Adams went so far as to say privately that Washington’s waiving of his salary as commander in chief and retiring after the war had been egotistical acts: “In wiser and more virtuous times, he would not have [done] that, for that is an ambition.”30 There was also a profound temperamental gulf between Washington and Adams. Both were stubborn, gritty men with courageous devotion to American liberty, but Washington was far more restrained and self-effacing. It also couldn’t have helped relations between the two men that Adams was an age peer and political rival to Washington, who preferred drawing on the talents of younger men, such as Madison and Hamilton. Of his time as vice president, John Adams would render a glum assessment: “My country has, in its wisdom, contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of a man contrived or his imagination conceived.”31

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Rays of Genius

THROUGHOUT 1789 George Washington was oppressed by the need to make appointments to the new government. With nearly a thousand posts to fill—the federal government was quite unlike the states in its preponderance of appointed posts—the president was inundated with several times as many applications. Among the tidal wave of letters flooding in were those from wounded veterans and women who had sacrificed husbands or sons in the war. William Maclay noted the unending crush of aspiring officeholders who besieged the hapless president: “Men of pride, ambition, talents all press forward to exhibit their abilities on the theater of the general government.”1 At its inception, the executive branch was extraordinarily small—Washington initially oversaw a larger staff of slaves and servants at Mount Vernon than he did as president of the United States—but the new government quickly overshadowed his estate in size.

In dealing with office seekers, Washington became hypersensitive to pressure, which usually backfired. As Jefferson once observed of him, “To overdo a thing with him is to undo it.”2 Washington believed that forming an honest, efficient civil service was a critical test for the young republic. A model president in making appointments, he never cut deals or exploited patronage and ruled out “blood or friendship” in picking people.3 The criteria he valued most were merit, seniority, loyalty to the Constitution, and wartime service, as well as an equitable distribution of jobs among the states. By sticking to a policy of “utmost impartiality” with appointees, he sought to strengthen the government’s legitimacy.4 “If injudicious or unpopular measures should be taken . . . with regard to appointments,” he told nephew Bushrod, “the government itself would be in the utmost danger of being utterly subverted.”5 He turned down Bushrod’s own request for a job as U.S. attorney in Virginia, preferring to hire older and more seasoned lawyers.

Washington fretted over the design of the new government, which was still formless. From the Confederation Congress, he had inherited four departments—Foreign Affairs, War, Post Office, and the Board of Treasury—that would report to Congress until new departments were created; meanwhile they kept Washington up to date with reports. Only lightly did the Constitution sketch in the contours of the executive branch, giving Washington freedom to maneuver. In the summer of 1789 Congress created in rapid succession the Department of Foreign Affairs (soon renamed the State Department), the War Department, and then the Treasury Department in September. Assigned to lower rungs were the offices of the attorney general, who would advise the president on constitutional matters, and the postmaster general, who would preside over post offices and postal roads. That these departments belonged to the executive, not to the legislative branch, as under the Articles of Confederation, signaled a major shift in the American polity.

While the Constitution talked about executive departments, it made no reference to a cabinet, stipulating only that the president could request “the opinion, in writing” of department heads.6 Once again constitutional brevity presented an opportunity for Washington. At first he drew on the model of his wartime councils, requesting opinions from department heads, but this differed from the true cohesion of a cabinet that met to thrash out policy. As Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, later told a British minister, “We have no cabinet and the heads of departments meet on very particular occasions only.”7 Thomas Jefferson, the first secretary of state, would dub Washington “the hub of the wheel,” with the department heads arrayed like brilliant spokes around him.8

In choosing those heads, Washington surrounded himself with a small but decidedly stellar group. With his own renown secure, he had no fear that subordinates would upstage him and never wanted subservient courtiers whom he could overshadow. Aware of his defective education, he felt secure in having the best minds at his disposal. He excelled as a leader precisely because he was able to choose and orchestrate bright, strong personalities. As Gouverneur Morris observed, Washington knew “how best to use the rays” given off by the sparkling geniuses at his command. 9 As the first president, Washington assembled a group of luminaries without equal in American history; his first cabinet more than made up in intellectual fire-power what it lacked in numbers.

The one holdover from a previous executive department was Henry Knox, who was confirmed as secretary of war in early September. Washington retained his old wartime affection for Knox and used the word love to describe his feelings for his rotund friend. A few years earlier Washington had told Knox that he should “be assured that, to correspond with those I love is among my highest gratifications, and I persuade myself you will not doubt my sincerity when I assure you, I place you among the foremost of this class.”10 Expert at fending off political pressure, Washington established a rule that nobody could discuss political appointments with him unless he first brought up the topic. Frustrated by this rule, Roger Sherman of Connecticut asked Hamilton if he would champion a certain appointment with the president. “No, I dare not do it,” Hamilton replied. “I know General Washington too well. But I can tell you where your only hope lies. Go to General Knox. They say Washington talks to him as a man does with his wife.”11 With his hearty appetite and ebullient personality, Henry Knox stood forth as an immense social presence in the new administration. Maclay aptly referred to him as “a Bacchanalian figure.”12