AS WASHINGTON CONTEMPLATED the postwar world and wondered how to make America happy, free, and powerful, he was uniquely well positioned to affect the outcome. Adams, Jay, and Franklin were off on diplomatic assignment in Europe, while Hamilton and Madison were too junior to assume leadership roles. Washington had eliminated or outlived his

As the most glaring negation of the American Revolution’s ideals, slavery was bound to ignite controversy after the war. All the talk of liberty clashed with the reality of widespread bondage. Slavery posed the supreme challenge to the ideas that Washington had imbibed during the war and tested the pronouncements about peace and understanding that

The French foreign minister, the Count de Vergennes, who was pondering an alliance with America, claimed that “nothing struck him so much” as the Battle of Germantown. 52 He was impressed that Washington, stuck with raw recruits, had fought two consecutive battles against highly seasoned troops. In writing about the battle, Washington stressed how

France’s entry into the war would precipitate a radical shift in British strategy. Both empires controlled lucrative islands in the West Indies, whose vast sugar and cotton slave plantations had yielded considerable profits. When Clinton was ordered that spring to divert eight thousand men, or a third of his army, to reinforce the West Indies and

Making a major statement about the peril of the American revolt, the Crown had enlisted seventy warships, a full half of the Royal Navy, to deliver an overwhelming blow against the Americans. It decided to gamble all on a military solution to a conflict that was, at bottom, one of principle and that depended ultimately on recovering the lost trust

In the aftermath of the meeting, the British refused to water down Carleton’s noble stand, and King George III indicated “his royal approbation” in “the fullest and most ample manner.”23 Before long the American commissioners in New York City found that they could only watch former slaves boarding ships and lacked any power to detain them.

By August 11 bank scrip had zoomed from the $25 offering price to $300, with government bonds also touching delirious new heights. When bankers drained credit from the market, speculators dumped their scrip, the bubble burst, and prices plummeted. Hamilton steadied the market by buying government securities, but Jefferson was convinced that scrip

NOT LONG AFTER Washington wrote so gloomily to Hamilton, the Constitutional Convention experienced a spectacular breakthrough. In mid-July it was agreed that the small states would be represented equally in the Senate, while the House would have proportional representation based on population. For Washington and other Virginia delegates, it was a

Congress failed to act on Hamilton’s manufacturing report. In Washington’s view, it didn’t “comport with the temper of the times,” but he still availed himself of every opportunity to promote American manufacturing.9