"There was one description of visitors, however, to be found about the first President's mansion on all days. The old soldiers repaired, as they said, to headquarters just to inquire after the health of his Excellency and Lady Washington. They knew his Excellency was, of course, much engaged, but they would like to see the good lady, one had been a soldier of the life guard, another had been on duty when the British threatened to surprise the headquarters, a third had witnessed that terrible fellow, Cornwallis, surrender his sword; each one had some touching appeal with which to introduce himself to the peaceful headquarters of the presidoliad. All were 'kindly bid to stay,' were conducted to the steward's apartments, and refreshments set before them, and, after receiving some little token from the lady, with her best wishes for the health and happiness of an old soldier, they went their ways, while blessings upon their revered commander and the good Lady Washington were uttered by many a war worn veteran of the Revolution." {1}
The simple mode of life above described did not save Washington from public censure by those who are always ready to carp at the doings of distinguished men, however unexceptionable their conduct may be. Free levees were said to savor of an affectation of royal state. In a letter to his friend, Dr. Stewart, Washington thus puts to silence this calumny, with his usual good sense and unanswerable argument:
"Before the custom was established which now accommodates foreign characters, strangers, and others, who, from motives of curiosity, respect to the chief magistrate, or any other cause, are induced to call upon me, I was unable to attend to any business whatsoever. For gentlemen, consulting their own convenience rather than mine, were calling from the time I rose from breakfast—often before—until I sat down to dinner. This, as I resolved not to neglect my public duties, reduced me to the choice of one of these alternatives—either to refuse them altogether or to appropriate a time for the reception of them. The first would, I well knew, be disgusting to many; the latter I expected would undergo animadversion from those who would find fault with or without cause. To please everybody was impossible. I therefore adopted that line of conduct which combined public advantage with private convenience, and which, in my judgment, was unexceptionable in itself.
"These visits are optional. They are made without invitation. Between the hours of 3 and 4 every Tuesday I am prepared to receive them. Gentlemen, often in great numbers, come and go, chat with each other, and act as they please. A porter shows them into the room, and they retire from it when they choose, and without ceremony. At their first entrance they salute me and I them, and as many as I can talk to I do. What pomp there is in all this I am unable to discover. Perhaps it consists in not sitting. To this two reasons are opposed: first, it is unusual; secondly (which is a more substantial one); because I have no room large enough to contain a third of the chairs which would be sufficient to admit it. If it is supposed that ostentation or the fashions of courts (which by the by, I believe originate oftener in convenience, not to say necessity, than is generally imagined) gave rise to this custom, I will boldly affirm that no supposition was ever more erroneous, for were I to indulge my inclinations every moment that I could withdraw from the fatigues of my station should be spent in retirement. That they are not proceeds from the sense I entertain of the propriety of giving to everyone as free access as consists with that respect which is due to the chair of government; and that respect, I conceive, is neither to be acquired or preserved but by maintaining a just medium between too much state and too great familiarity.
"Similar to the above, but of a more familiar and sociable kind, are the visits every Friday afternoon to Mrs. Washington, where I always am. These public meetings, and a dinner once a week to as many as my table will hold, with the references to and from the different departments of state and other communications with all parts of the Union, is as much if not more than I am able to undergo; for I have already had within less than a year two severe attacks—the last worse than the first; a third, it is more than probable, will put me to sleep with my fathers—at what distance this may be I know not."
The inauguration of Washington deserves particular notice, inasmuch as in its chief outlines it has served for the precedent to all succeeding inaugurations. Congress had determined that the ceremony of taking the oath of office should be performed in public and in the open air. It took place on the 30th of April, 1789. In the morning religious services were performed in all the churches of the city. At 12 o'clock a procession was formed at the residence of the President, consisting of a military escort and the committees of Congress and heads of departments in carriages, followed by Washington alone in a carriage, and his aid-de-camp, Colonel Humphreys, and secretary, Mr. Lear, in another carriage, with the foreign ministers and citizens bringing up the rear. The procession moved to the hall of Congress, where Washington alighted with his attendants and entered the senate chamber. Here he was received by the Senate and House of Representatives. The Vice-President, John Adams, conducted Washington to his appointed seat, and shortly after announced to him that all was prepared for his taking the oath of office. Washington then proceeded to an open balcony in front of the house, where was a table with an open Bible lying upon it. On his appearance in the balcony, he was received with a most enthusiastic burst of popular applause, which he acknowledged by bowing to the people. Chancellor Livingston administered the oath, while Adams, Hamilton, Knox, Steuben, and others stood near the President. While the oath was being administered Washington laid his hand on the Bible. At its conclusion he said, "I swear, so help me God." His administration proves that the oath was sincere. He then stooped down and kissed the Bible. When the ceremony was concluded, he returned to the senate chamber and delivered his inaugural address to the two branches of Congress. He then proceeded on foot, with the whole assemblage, to St. Paul's Church, where prayers were read by the bishop, and the public ceremonial of the day was completed.
The occasion was celebrated by the people as a grand festival, and in the evening there was a display of fireworks as well as a general illumination of the city.
This display of enthusiasm on the part of the people was far from rendering Washington over-confident of success in his new position. He was thoroughly aware of the difficulties which would have to be encountered in putting the new government into action, so as to insure its stability and success. The opening of his inaugural address to both branches of Congress gives a clear indication of his views and feelings on taking office. It is as follows:
"Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years; a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature, and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be effected. All I dare hope is, that if, in accepting this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity, as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some share of the partiality in which they originated.
"Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it will be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe—who presides in the councils of nations, and whose Providential aids can supply every human defect—that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States, a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of Providential agency, and in the important Revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence."