This is the FCB podcast network. They breed us all the tyranny, and they thought so when we were in America. And welcome back to the Growing Patriot Podcast. This is going to be our last episode about George Washington. When we left off, he had just resigned his military commission on December twenty third, seventeen eighty three. He was almost fifty two years old and very ready to go back to his home, Mount Vernon to live a private life with his family, and that's what he did. He got back home on Christmas Eve and set to work getting things done on his estate. During the Revolutionary War, things had fallen into a bit of disrepair, so there were fixes that had to be done to the house and the farms, and he updated the way farming was being done, expanded the house itself, and settled into life as a gentleman and a planter. But his happy time in retirement didn't last long. Do you remember the Articles of Confederation, that's what we had before a constitution, and by seventeen eighty seven they were already falling apart. They just weren't working. So a constitutional convention was called in May of that year in Philadelphia and George Washington attended. He went for a few reasons. First of all, he thought the constitution was really important, although at first they were really just trying to fix the Articles of Confederation, but he thought it was important to get the government right. He also knew that to a lot of people, if George Washington wasn't there, it wasn't really very serious, or they might think that he didn't support the work that was being done there. So he really had to go. He pretty much got talked into leaving Mount Vernon and going to Philadelphia. He didn't really get involved too much on one side or the other when they were debating and discussing all of the issues. His job was really trying to keep people from fighting too much, to finding a compromise that something we've talked about a lot, and trying to keep things on track and get things back on track when they went off course. And like I said, they originally met trying to fix the Articles of Confederation, and by the end of the meeting they ended up writing the Constitution and creating a whole new government for America. A key part of the government was an executive branch. But how would it work? This was one of the biggest arguments of the Constitutional Convention. The big discussion was whether there would be just one person, and that's how it turned out. One president or if the head of the executive branch would be a panel of three people to make the big decisions. I think a lot of people at the Constitutional Convention pretty much assumed that the first person to be elected to be in charge was going to be George Washington, and that's maybe one of the reasons they decided it only needed to be one person. And that's exactly what happened after the Constitution was ratified or put into practice on May twenty ninth, seventeen ninety so he thought he could live his dream, as he said, of living and dying a private citizen on my own farm. The American people wanted him back in public life. Even before the Constitution was ratified, before all of the new states decided that they would sign up for it, rumors were starting to spread that George Washington would be the first president. His good friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, wrote to him on January first of seventeen eighty eight, asking him quote not to deny your acceptance of the office of president for the first year's end quote. But he didn't really want the job, he replied, saying, let those follow the pursuits of ambition and fame who have a keener relish for them, or who may have more years in store for the enjoyment. He was saying, I don't really want to be president. I don't have ambition for it. That's not really my goal, and I don't really want to be famous. And then he was saying, I am getting to be an old man. I wouldn't I don't even have time to enjoy it if I wanted it. But the election was held on February fourth, seventeen eighty nine, and by February sixteenth, Henry Knox told George Washington, it appears, by the returns of elections hitherto obtained, which is as far as Maryland southward, that your excellency has every vote for president. The way it worked, then everyone who had a vote got to vote twice. The person with the most votes would be president, and the person with the second most votes would be vice president. All sixty nine voters voted for George Washington with one of their votes, and everyone really knew that George Washington was going to win, so the other candidates were only running for vice president, and those other candidates were John Adams, who became vice president with thirty four votes, and then John Jay, John Rutledge, John Hancock, George Clinton, Samuel Huntington, John Milton. That's right, five John's, James Armstrong, Benjamin Lincoln, and Edward Telfair. We already did a episode about his presidency, so we won't talk about that too much here, but if you visit Growingpatriots dot com to find resources that go along with this episode, i'll link to that one. But we can't skip it entirely, so here we go. George Washington honestly didn't want to accept the presidency, but the American people wanted him, and he thought it was his duty to accept. So in April of seventeen eighty nine, he left Mount Vernon again, this time to be inaugurated as the first President of the United States of America. At that time, the president lived in New York, so we had to go all the way there, not just from his home near Alexandria, Virginia, to Washington, d C. Which would have been a lot closer. He was sworn in as president on April thirtieth seventeen eighty nine. Robert Livingstone, the Chancellor of New York, administered the oath of office, and Samuel Otis, Secretary of the Senate, held the ceremonial Bible. When it was done, Livingstone turned to the crowds watching and shouted, long Live George Washington, President of the United States. One person who was there wrote, all the bells in the city rang out a peal of joy. The President bowed to all the people and then retired from a scene such as the proudest monarch could never have enjoyed the delight not only of his own nation and people, but for all mankind. In his first term as president, George Washington basically set up the presidency and government. He got to create a cabinet. At the time it was just four members Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph. Then he got to appoint the entire first Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, then James Wilson, William Cushing, John Blair, John Rutledge, and James Ayerdell. He gave the first ever State of the Union address, oversaw the first Census, the ratification of the Bill of Rights, and even the construction of the nation's new capital in what we now know as Washington, d c. And as seventeen ninety two drew to a close, you know what was on his mind again, retirement. He didn't want to be president for a second time, but many of his closest friends had to talk him into accepting another term, including Thomas Jefferson. He told him North and South will hang together if they have you to hang on. We talked before about George Washington being chosen as general and how a lot of that was because he could bring the North and South on board together in the Revolution, and now he was bringing them on board together again as one country. Unusually for the time, a woman also worked to persuade George Washington, a friend named Elizabeth Powell. She wrote to him on November fourth, seventeen ninety two, after they spoke in person, and she wrote that she was worried she gave him pain by wounding his feelings, but that she cared more about the welfare of their common country. She said the country was still so new that without George Washington the new government might crumble and decay, but that he would not and could not let that happen, And of course he did not let that happen. The second presidential election took place in December of seventeen ninety two with the exact same outcome. George Washington won every vote and John Adams was the vice president again. But things were not as unified as it would seem. As we get into later Founding Fathers, you'll see that after the goal of liberty was achieved, there were different ia ideas shaping up about how America should run that conflicted, but for this election, things were still unanimous. When Washington took the oath again, he said, I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its chief magistrate. And the election was unanimous. But this second presidency was more difficult, as he worked to hold the new country together while it faced problems from the inside and the outside. Inside, there were conflicts with Native Americans. A new tax on whiskey and distilled spirits started up a rebellion that threatened the country, and Washington himself had to lead a militia into western Pennsylvania and western Virginia to stop it. Different political groups were forming in the New America, which Washington didn't like to see. Plus Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, two of his cabinet members, were fighting all the time outside of America. France had gone to war with Britain in seventeen ninety three, but George Washington insisted that the US stay out of it, even though France was so important in our war against Britain. By seventeen ninety four, America looked like it was about to be at war with Britain too, but America made it through. When he left office in seventeen ninety six, we were still one country, and we have to wonder if anyone else could have seen America through it. And when he left, he was so happy to get back to Mount Vernon again, finally, at last. By this time, George Washington was sixty five years old, which was pretty darn old for the time. He wrote to his friend Connecticut Governor Trumbull that he would never go more than twenty miles from home again, and he would not as he said inter metal in politics. Trumbull didn't really seem to believe him. He thought it was pretty unlikely that the country would need him again. He said, I most devoutly pray Heaven to grant that no evil demon of discord may be suffered to arise and agitate the peace and happiness of our country so as again to drag you from your pleasing quiet and repose. But of this event, I am far from being confident. So he was saying, I really hope that nothing ever happens again that would make you have to leave Mount Vernon to keep our country united and happy. But I'm not very sure that that's going to happen. And just two years after he wrote that letter, in seventeen ninety nine, he wrote to Washington again asking if he might just think about being president for a third time. But this time George Washington said no. He said that by this time there were political parties and they were two divided. He said that not even he could fix it anymore. And then a month later George Washington wrote to him again saying, I hope you heard me the first time. Do not suggest my name for president? So what did he do? Once he actually left public life In September of seventeen ninety six, After George Washington left public life. Finally, the most important thing was that he and Martha finally went back to live at Mount Vernon like they always wanted, arriving in March of seventeen ninety seven, they we really ready to get back to expanding the work of the farm, completing renovations on the house, and just enjoying their private life. But life wasn't really as private as they wished. After all, they were celebrities and people were always stopping by to see them. In seventeen ninety eight, it was said that the Washingtons had six hundred and seventy seven guests. After all, George and Martha were polite Southerners and couldn't just be rude. George Washington also found new ways to help his farm make money. After he retired, he built a distillery that made whisky, and it became one of the largest distilleries in the nation. It made a lot of whisky and a lot of money, and as he was getting older, he was thinking about the future what would happen when he was gone. In seventeen ninety nine, he wrote a will saying what would happen to everything he owned? When he did, He left almost everything to Martha saying that everyone in his family who owed him anything didn't have to pay. He forgave their debts. He gave away some of his land and his stocks to create educational institutions to help other people learn. And he gave his papers and his books to his nephew, the Supreme Court Justice Bushrod Washington. Let's also talk about the enslaved people at Mount Vernon for a minute. One of the reasons that he was always creating new work things like the distillery at Mount Vernon, aside from making money, which he certainly did, was to have enough work for all the new enslaved people. The people living there were growing up and having families of their own, and he wanted to provide enough work so nobody would be sold. So in his will he did a few things. He freed William Lee, his valet from the war, who was an enslaved person. He also emancipated or freed all of the enslaved people that he owned, but that still left more than three hundred enslaved people at Mount Vernon who were actually owned by Martha Washington's first husband neither so he could not legally free any of those people. Legally, they belonged to Martha's heirs. It gets pretty confusing, but what George Washington could do, and what he did do in his will, was provide money and education for everyone too young or too old to work and prohibit them from being sold or brought outside of Virginia. It was far from perfect, but it was really the best thing that he could do for them. Now, let's talk about December twelfth, seventeen ninety nine. George Washington left the house for a ride that morning, just like he did most days, but the weather got pretty nasty. It was a wet snow, so he was soaked by the time he got home. And guess what, there were guests waiting, just like there were so many days. Well, George didn't want to be rude, so instead of making the guests wait even longer while he went and put on a dry change of clothes, he sat through dinner in his wet clothes and got a cold, and two days later he passed away. A funeral was held on December eighteenth at Mount Vernon and he was buried there After she was widowed. Martha Washington's health also declined, and she died two and a half years later on May twenty second, eighteen o two. She is buried beside George. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Growing Patriot podcast. For more resources about this episode and every episode, visit growingpatriots dot com. The creed to solve the tyranny everything, and they thought so. We work in America and
