Washington, George

2 pages on laid paper (9 x 7 1/4 in.; 229 184 mm) unwatermarked, paginated 47–48 in Washington’s hand and containing approximately 300 words in his holograph, [Mount Vernon, January 1789], right margin recto docketed “Washington’s handwriting, Jared Sparks”; lightly browned, a few tiny chips at fore-edge costing about eight characters, remnant of mounting guard on right margin verso, inner margin with three small sewing holes where formerly bound. Housed in a half brown morocco portfolio.

Bushrod Washington — Jared Sparks — Forest G. Sweet (Parke-Bernet, 8 May 1957, lot 370 [part]) — Nathaniel E. Stein (Sotheby Parke Bernet, 30 November 1979, lot 187)

The Papers of George Washington, ed. Abbot & Twohig, Presidential Series 2:169–70

In a highly significant section of his first Inaugural Address, General Washington explicitly argues that the Constitution is subject to amendment and, by clear implication, he advocates the adoption of the Bill of Rights. In a greatly modified form, this became the only substantive recommendation in Washington’s revised Address, as delivered.

Perhaps the chief objection to the ratification of the Constitution was the absence of a Bill of Rights: an explicit enumeration of the intrinsic and inherent individual rights articulated and protected by English common law. Other Anti-Federalist Constitutional opponents, like Virginia’s Patrick Henry, feared the enormous power vested in the central government at the expense of states’ rights. A consensus began to emerge that a Bill of Rights was necessary, but the momentum for ratification of the Constitution was too strong to stop. Several states (Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts among them) ratified the Constitution with a recommendation that a Bill of Rights be added to it. Other states continued their objections: North Carolina, which had not yet even ratified the Constitution, resolved in August 1788 that a national Convention be called to amend it with a “Declaration of Rights.” At the same time, staunch Federalists like Alexander Hamilton of New York and Fisher Ames of Massachusetts believed that any such amendments were unnecessary and even redundant for a government chartered in the name of “We, the People of the United States.”

As a Virginian, Washington felt a keen allegiance to individual rights: George Mason’s bill of rights, adopted by the Virginia legislature on 12 June 1776, had served as one of Thomas Jefferson’s fundamental sources for the Declaration of Independence. In clear and vigorous language, Washington refutes the notions that the Constitution is immutable and that a three-quarters ratification is illegitimate, while at the same time urging Congress “to secure to the people all their justly-esteemed previledges.”

[The sentence concluded on page 47 begins on a fragment of page 46, identified in 1958 as privately owned: “The reasoning which have been used, to”] [page 47:] “prove that amendments could never take place after this Constitution should be adopted, I must avow, have not appeared conclusive to me.—I could not understand, by any mathematical analogy, why the Whole number of States in Union should be more likely to concur in any proposed amendment, than three fourths of that number: before the adoption, the concurrence of the former was necessary for affecting this measure—since the adoption, only the latter.—Here I will not presume to dictate as to the time, when it may be most expedient to attempt to remove all the redundancies or supply the defects, which shall be discovered in this complicated machine.—I will barely suggest, whether it would not be the part of prudent men to observe it fully in movement, before they undertook to make such alterations, as might prevent a fair experiment of its effect?—and whether, in the meantime, it may not be practicable for this congress (if their proceedings shall meet with the approbation of three fourths of the Legislatures) in such manner to secure to the people all their [page 48:] justly-esteemed previledges, as shall produce extensive satisfaction?”

(Compare the above passage to the stiff and cautious language of the delivered address: “Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with your judgment to decide, how far an exercise of the occasional power delegated by the Fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient at the present juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged against the System, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good: For I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of a United and effective Government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience; a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen, and a regard for the public harmony, will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be more impregnably fortified, or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted” [The Papers of George Washington, ed. Abbot & Twohig, Presidential Series 2:176].)

In this leaf of his first Inaugural Address, Washington also entreats Congress to be prudent in its establishment of the federal judiciary: “The complete organization of the Judicial Department was left by the Constitution to the ulterior arrangement of Congress.—You will be pleased therefore to let a supreme regard for equal justice & the inherent rights of the citizens be visible in all your proceedings on that important subject.” Congress discharged this obligation rapidly, and Richard Bernstein has called the Judiciary Act of 1789 “the most significant and enduring law ever adopted by Congress” (Are We To Be a Nation?, p. 257).

This important leaf concludes with Washington’s thoughts on two topics that have become staples of presidential addresses: the national debt and taxes: “I have a confident reliance, that your wisdom & patriotism will be exerted to raise the supplies for discharging the interest on the National debt & for supporting the government during the current year, in a manner as little burdensome to the people as possible.—The necessary estimates will be laid before you.—A general, moderate Impost upon imports; together with a higher Tax upon certain enumerated articles, will, undoubtedly, occur to you in the course …” In fact, these questions and other matters of fiscal policy were largely handled during the first administration not by Congress, but by the executive Treasury Department and its first secretary, Alexander Hamilton.