Sublime

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.

Where Jefferson and Madison dreaded a powerful national government as the primrose path to monarchy, Washington and Hamilton continued to view a strong central government as the best bulwark against that threat.

Rounding out the group were Thomas Nelson, Jr., son of the late Virginia governor, and Washington’s young nephew Robert Lewis, who had escorted his aunt Martha to New York. Among members of Congress, James Madison stood in a class by himself in his advisory capacity to Washington. When he ran for Congress, Madison had consulted Washington about how

Right before the Princeton battle, Washington informed Philadelphia financier Robert Morris that “we have the greatest occasion at present for hard money to pay a certain set of people who are of particular use to us . . . Silver would be most convenient.” 19 Washington considered Morris, a huge man with a ruddy complexion and a genial personality,

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 militar

Jefferson extolled Washington as “the best horseman of his age and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback,” an appraisal echoed by many others.17

Washington solicited written opinions from several advisers, including Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, and Robert R. Livingston, from which he would distill his preferred policy. The hallmark of his administration would be an openness to conflicting ideas.