The Papers of George Washington. Presidential Series. [Volume] VII: December 1790-March 1791; [Volume] VIII: March-September 1791; [Volume] IX: September 1791-February 1792; [Volume] X: March-August 1792; [Volume] XI: August 1792-January 1793.

The Papers of George Washington. Presidential Series. [Volume] VII: December 1790-March 1791; [Volume] VIII: March-September 1791; [Volume] IX: September 1791-February 1792; [Volume] X: March-August 1792; [Volume] XI: August 1792-January 1793. Edited by Dorothy Twohig, Philander D. Chase, Beverly H. Runge, Frank E. Grizzard Jr., and others. (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2002. Pp. xxxiv, 649; xxxiv, 635; xxxvi, 668; xxxii, 726; xxxii, 689. $70.00, ISBN 0-8139-1749-2; $70.00, ISBN 0-8139-1810-3; $70.00, ISBN 0-8139-1922-3; $70.00, ISBN 0-8139-2101-5; $70.00, ISBN 0-8139-2123-6.)

The almost three thousand documents in these five volumes of this massive project cover the period from the closing days of the First Congress to the end of Washington's first administration. These two years were notable for a number of political issues and precedents, including the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States, the meaning of the "advice and consent" clause of the Constitution, and the first use of the presidential veto, as well as the emergence of the increasingly defined and sustained partisan divisions that so worried the framers of the Constitution. The volumes also include much discussion of the federal capitol and a large amount of material about the West focusing on hostilities with Indians, diplomacy with England and France, and the turbulent response to the excise on distilled spirits. Scholars of these seminal matters will find these volumes rewarding because of the material included and the accompanying editorial comment.

For example, in volume 7 the controversy over the Bank of the United States includes the objections of Edmund Randolph and Thomas Jefferson regarding its constitutionality and Washington's uncharacteristically sharp demand to Hamilton that he answer these objections. Hamilton's formidable thirteen-thousand-word response is judged by the editors to be "one of the most important state papers produced during the Washington administration" (Vol. 7, p. 422). For those familiar with Hamilton's classic central argument of implied powers, to read the full text is to renew afresh one's appreciation of Hamilton's brilliance as he dismisses Jefferson's contention that the bank was an unconstitutional violation of the laws of mortmain, alienage, descents, forfeiture, escheat, and distribution. (The editors, incidentally, are skeptical of the fabled account that Hamilton wrote this opinion in one session on the night of February 22-23.) Another seminal issue of these years arose in December 1791 when Washington nominated Thomas Pinckney, Gouverneur Morris, and William Short to posts as ministers to Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands respectively. After Washington's frustrating appearance in the Senate early in his administration--when he tentatively tried to implement the "advice and consent" clause of the Constitution regarding negotiations with the Creek Indians only to have some senators move to take the matter under further consideration--he had not formally sought advice from the Senate, nor did he in this instance. Some members considered this an executive encroachment on the prerogatives of the Senate and moved to take up the question of whether permanent ministers were needed in any event. Washington ultimately secured the three appointments, and the matter remained unsettled constitutionally. However, the issue generated partisan commentary, including an anonymous warning to Washington in early January 1792 that "You have cherished in your Bosom a Serpent [clearly Jefferson, as the editors point out], and he is now endeavouring to sting you [to] death" (Vol. 9, p. 369). The writer, almost certainly a New Englander judging from a reference to the long-standing issue of the fisheries, counseled Washington that this "Serpent" was eyeing the presidency for himself and attempting to fill Washington with such disgust for the Senate that he would retire after his first term. In fact, contrary to the anonymous warning, Jefferson urged Washington to accept a second term in a lengthy letter dated May 23, 1792, albeit with the prospect, unthinkable in today's presidential politics, that he might have to serve only one or two sessions of the legislature; that, according to Jefferson, should be sufficient to "determine the crisis" (Vol. 10, p. 413).

By this time partisan divisions generated by Hamilton's financial program were becoming increasingly heated both in Congress and the press. It is clear from Washington's cryptic correspondence with Hamilton that the president had virtually no input in the fiscal policy formulated by his secretary of the treasury, but Washington was aware of the tensions engendered by that policy. In an unusually lengthy letter from Mount Vernon dated July 29, 1792, and marked private and confidential, Washington listed twenty-one complaints he had heard on his way home and from neighbors regarding Hamilton's system. In addition to charges that speculators in the public debt had corrupted Congress with the ultimate intention of creating a monarchy, Washington emphasized that many were concerned that divisions had arisen between North and South. Earlier, on March 16, 1791, he had remarked to David Humphreys that "the line between the southern and eastern interest" over excises and the bank were "more strongly marked than could have been wished" (Vol. 7, p. 583). By August, Washington was warning Hamilton that factions were "pushing matters to extremity" and threatening to "tare the Machine asunder ..." (Vol. 11, p. 39). He urged "mutual forbearances and temporizing yieldings on all sides. Without these I do not see how the Reins of Government are to be managed, or how the Union of the States can be much longer preserved" (Vol. 11, p. 39). Washington was not worried about the creation of a monarchy (he was the only possible candidate for king), but he was seriously concerned about the Union. It was the North-South division over representation in the House after the census of 1790 that prompted his first veto, and it was his concern for the Union, along with his military experience, that explains his close involvement in administering the West.

It is interesting that Henry Knox, the secretary of war, has more index entries than Hamilton. Jefferson has more still, but that was in part due to brief requests for his signature on state papers. Washington went into lengthy detail on substantive matters less often with either Hamilton or Jefferson than he did with Knox. This was partly because Washington's extensive military experience enabled him to give detailed critiques of matters such as appointments of general officers after Arthur St. Clair's costly and humiliating defeat in November 1791: General Lincoln was "Sober, honest, brave and sensible, but infirm"; Anthony Wayne was "More active & enterprising than judicious & cautious," while Major General Weedon was "Not supposed to be an Officer of much resource ... rather addicted to ease & pleasure; & no enemy it is said to the bottle" (Vol. 10, p. 74). Yet it was also because the West--with its Indian uprisings, turbulent population, and foreign intrigues--was dangerous to the Union.

Faced with the manifold difficulties of managing the West, Washington followed a temporizing policy. He rebuked St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, for exceeding his proper powers in the absence of judges, observing that "the utmost circumspection should be observed in the conduct of the Executive" (Vol. 7, p. 170). Recognizing that Indian depredations were grounded in encroachments by settlers, he opposed the purchase of lands from the Wabash, first advocated by St. Clair, "for no treaty [has] ... ever been satisfactory to them when this has been the subject" (Vol. 10, p. 653). In general he agreed with Knox that "the policy of scattering our people in distant thin settlements may be justly disputed" (Vol. 7, p. 160). In the same vein he urged Knox on August 19, 1792, to tell Governor Tellfair of Georgia that "Peace in the Southern quarter [is] indispensably necessary" and that some of the frontier settlers meant to "provoke war, rather than to promote peace with these Indians" (Vol. 11, p. 19). The Southwest was a particularly sensitive region because of the failure to secure navigation rights on the Mississippi River--an issue that some feared might provoke western settlers to separate from the Union. When Jefferson used an incident involving Spanish seizure of goods belonging to an American citizen on the eastern bank of the Mississippi above the thirty-first parallel to apply pressure on the court in Madrid, Washington considered Jefferson's words too forceful and urged him to "reconsider them" (Vol. 7, p. 533). On the other hand, Washington's general moderation in dealing with Indians and foreign powers did not extend to westerners who forcefully resisted the excise on distilled spirits. All of this was consistent with his primary objective of maintaining the Union.

Washington's rather inscrutable persona has given rise to a range of interpretations of the man as president, ranging from indispensable leader to figurehead. These volumes covering the second half of his first administration provide support in varying degrees for both opinions. He had no part in the formulation of Hamilton's nationalizing financial policies, arguably the energizing linchpin of his administration, but as Hamilton later said, Washington was crucial to their success. And in the strains accompanying the increasingly partisan politics that pitted agricultural against commercial interests and section against section, Washington's overriding concern for the Union of which he was the personification was critical for its maintenance. He embodied gravitas for a nation in the process of becoming, along with rectitude, a quality evident at Newburgh at the end of hostilities and in his desire to return to Mount Vernon after his first term as president.

Although a number of different editors and their assistants have contributed to the production of these five volumes, the editing is quite seamless, as indeed it has been since the first volume of this series. Moreover, it is excellent, and this is important. This publication is unlikely to reveal startling new information about Washington, for the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress have been available on microfilm for decades and are now on the Internet, and John C. Fitzpatrick's thirty-nine-volume edition of Washington's letters remains a standard resource for scholars, It is the wide scope of the search by the editors and staff in archives around the world for correspondence to, as well as from, Washington; the annotation for references to obscure figures and events; and the replication, often at great length, of related material that make these volumes a rewarding scholarly resource. Further, these materials lend themselves to more than traditional political history of great men. There is a good deal of information on the cultural and economic context of the times. Index entries on horticulture and slavery rival those on prominent statesmen. Letters from George Augustine Washington, Washington's nephew and plantation manager, are particularly notable in this regard. A typical letter of April 8-9, 1792, includes a report of the arrival by ship of trees from John Bartram; seeds sent by Thomas Pinckney from South Carolina; fencing, ditching, banking, and planting of corn and potatoes; the disposition of slaves in a new quarter; the erection of a stercorary, or manure enclosure, that the editors speculate may have been drawn from an illustration in a book in Washington's library; and a paragraph about the sickness, care, and death of a young slave, Billy. Altogether, these volumes provide a rich resource that will be embedded in all future Washington scholarship.

H. JAMES HENDERSON

Oklahoma State University