On February 1, 1790, the Supreme Court held its inaugural meeting in the Merchants Exchange on Broad Street, with four justices present; its first session lasted only ten days. When Associate Justice William Cushing arrived in a British-style judicial wig, he was jeered in the streets and had to return to his residence for a more pedestrian wig. In the beginning, the Court lacked the majesty it would later attain and often seemed like an institution in search of a mission. Because of the newness of the federal judiciary, appeals had yet to percolate up from lower courts, resulting in little work at first. The Court’s early procedures now seem quaintly antiquated. Instead of issuing written opinions, justices handed them down verbally from the bench without an official reporter to record decisions.

WASHINGTON’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS as president were no less groundbreaking than his deeds in the Continental Army. It is a grave error to think of George Washington as a noble figurehead presiding over a group of prima donnas who performed the real work of government. As a former commander in chief, he was accustomed to a chain of command and delegating important duties, but he was also accustomed to having the final say. As president, he enjoyed unparalleled power without being autocratic. He set out less to implement a revolutionary agenda than to construct a sturdy, well-run government, and in the process he performed many revolutionary acts.

Starting from scratch, Washington introduced procedures that made his government a model of smooth efficiency. Based on the fleeting mention in the Constitution that he could request written opinions from department heads, he created an impressive flow of paperwork. Jefferson noted that he would forward them letters he received that fell within their bailiwick, then asked to peruse their replies. They would gather up daily bundles of papers for his approval. Although this briefly delayed replies, Jefferson explained, “it produced [for] us in return the benefit of his sanction for every act we did.”37 This paper flow also meant that Washington was “always in accurate possession of all facts and proceedings in every part of the Union and . . . formed a central point for the different branches; preserved a unity of object and action among them,” and enabled him to assume personal responsibility for all decisions.38 Besides giving him a spacious view of the executive branch, this practice also kept his cabinet members on a tight leash. Jefferson noted that, however open-minded Washington was in asking for opinions, he took umbrage when offered unsolicited advice—the technique of someone who wanted to set the agenda and remain in control.

Among his department heads, Washington encouraged the free, creative interplay of ideas, setting a cordial tone of collegiality. He prized efficiency and close attention to detail and insisted that everybody make duplicate or even triplicate copies of letters, demanding clarity in everything. Once he upbraided an American diplomat in Europe by saying, “I will complain not only of your not writing, but of your writing so illegibly that I am half a day deciphering one page and then guess at much of it.”39 He wanted to be able to sit at leisure and compare conflicting arguments. Through his tolerant attitude, he created a protective canopy under which subordinates could argue freely, but once decisions were made, he wanted the administration to speak with one voice. Understanding the intellectual isolation of the presidency, he made sure that people didn’t simply flatter him. He told Henry Lee, “A frank communication of the truth . . . respecting the public mind would be ever received as the highest testimony of respect and attachment.”40 Washington grew as a leader because he engaged in searching self-criticism. “I can bear to hear of imputed or real errors,” he once wrote. “The man who wishes to stand well in the opinion of others must do this, because he is thereby enabled to correct his faults or remove prejudices which are imbibed against him.”41 The one thing Washington could not abide was when people published criticisms of him without first giving him a chance to respond privately.

As in other walks of life, Washington exhibited to a clockwork order in his daily routine and employed his time economically. There is poetic justice in the fact that when the capital shifted to Philadelphia, he often stopped at his watchmaker on his daily constitutionals. One British diplomat observed of Washington that “his time is regularly divided into certain portions and the business allotted to any one portion strictly adhered to.”42 When he settled upon weekly levees, Tobias Lear noted that they would allow “a sufficient time for dispatching the business of the office” and give “dignity to the president by not obliging him to expose himself every day to impertinent and curious intruders.”43

Many people observed that President Washington spoke slowly and took time to make decisions, letting plans ripen before enacting them. Politics gave him more time to deliberate than did warfare, and he made fewer mistakes as president than as a general on the battlefield. To Catharine Macaulay Graham, he summed up his executive style: “Much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness.”44 Hamilton concurred that the president “consulted much, pondered much; resolved slowly, resolved surely.”45 By delaying decisions, he made sure that his better judgment prevailed over his temper. At the same time, once decisions were made, they “were seldom, if ever, to be shaken,” wrote John Marshall.46 Jefferson agreed, saying that Washington’s mind was “slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion.”47 Once a decision was made, Washington seldom retreated unless fresh evidence radically altered his view. “Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence,” Jefferson wrote, “never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt but, when once decided, going through with his purpose whatever obstacles opposed.”48 Jefferson did not rank Washington as a first-rate intellect on the order of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke, but he admitted that “no judgment was ever sounder.”49 Well aware of his own executive style, Washington once instructed a cabinet member “to deliberate maturely, but to execute promptly and vigorously.”50

Washington was a perceptive man who, behind his polite facade, was unmatched at taking the measure of people. People did not always realize how observant he was. “His eyes retire inward . . . and have nothing of fire or animation or openness in their expression,” said Edward Thornton, a young British diplomat, who added that Washington “possesses the two great requisites of a statesman, the faculty of concealing his own sentiments, and of discovering those of other men.”51 Washington once advised his adopted grandson that “where there is no occasion for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent, for there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.”52 Washington’s seemingly veiled eyes were penetrating, and Gouverneur Morris credited him with a cool, unblinking perspicacity: “He beheld not only the affairs that were passing around, but those also in which he was personally engaged, with the coolness of an unconcerned spectator.”53

A taciturn man, Washington never issued opinions promiscuously. A disciplined politician, he never had to retract things uttered in a thoughtless moment. “Never be agitated by more than a decent warmth and offer your sentiments with modest diffidence,” he told his nephew Bushrod, noting that “opinions thus given are listened to with more attention than when delivered in a dictatorial style.”54 He worried about committing an error more than missing a brilliant stroke. Washington also hated boasting. Bishop William White of Pennsylvania observed, “It has occasionally occurred to me when in his company, that if a stranger to his person were present, he would never have known from anything said by the president that he was conscious of having distinguished himself in the eyes of the world.”55