Lafayette, that true friend of popular rights, was extremely anxious to free our country from the reproach which slavery brought upon it. Washington wrote to him in 1788: “The scheme, my dear marquis, which you propose as a precedent to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this country from the state of bondage in which they are held, is a striking evidence of the state of your heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work.”
In his last will and testament, he inscribed these noble words: “Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all the slaves which I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom. To emancipate them during her life would, though earnestly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties, on account of their mixture by marriage with the dower negroes, as to excite the most painful sensation, if not disagreeable consequences, from the latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same proprietor; it not being in my power, under the tenure by which the dower negroes are held, to manumit them.”
Long before this he had recorded his resolve. “I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.”
Mrs. Washington, immediately after her husband’s death, learning from his will that the only obstacle to the immediate emancipation of the slaves was her right of dower, immediately relinquished that right, and the slaves were at once emancipated.
The 12th of December, 1799, was chill and damp. Washington, however, took his usual round on horseback to his farms, and returned late in the afternoon, wet with sleet, and shivering with cold. Though the snow was clinging to his hair behind when he came in, he sat down to dinner without changing his dress. The next day, three inches of snow whitened the ground, and the sky was clouded. Washington, feeling that he had taken cold, remained by the fireside during the morning. As it cleared up in the afternoon, he went out to superintend some work upon the lawn. He was then hoarse, and the hoarseness increased as night came on. He, however, took no remedy for it; saying, “I never take anything to carry off a cold. Let it go as it came.”
He passed the evening as usual, reading the papers, answering letters, and conversing with his family. About two o’clock the next morning, Saturday, the 14th, he awoke in an acute chill, and was seriously unwell. At sunrise, his physician, Dr. Craig, who resided at Alexandria, was sent for. In the meantime, he was bled by one of his overseers, but with no relief, as he rapidly grew worse. Dr. Craig reached Mount Vernon at eleven o’clock, and immediately bled his patient again, but without effect. Two consulting physicians arrived during the day: and, as the difficulty in breathing and swallowing rapidly increased, venesection was again attempted. It is evident that Washington then considered his case doubtful. He examined his will, and destroyed some papers which he did not wish to have preserved.
His sufferings from inflammation of the throat, and struggling for breath, as the afternoon wore away, became quite severe. Still he retained his mental faculties unimpaired, and spoke briefly of his approaching death and burial. About four o’clock in the afternoon, he said to Dr. Craig: “I die hard; but I am not afraid to go. I believed, from my first attack, that I should not survive it: my breath cannot last long.” About six o’clock, his physician asked him if he would sit up in his bed. He held out his hands, and was raised upon his pillow, when he said: “I feel that I am going. I thank you for your attentions. You had better not take any more trouble about me, but let me go off quietly. I cannot last long.”
He then sank back upon his pillow, and made several unavailing attempts to speak intelligibly. About ten o’clock, he said: “I am just going. Have me decently buried, and do not let my body be put into the vault until three days after I am dead. Do you understand me?” To the reply, “Yes, sir,” he remarked, “It is well.” These were the last words he uttered. Soon after this he gently expired, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.
At the moment of his death, Mrs. Washington sat in silent grief at the foot of his bed. “Is he gone?” she asked in a firm and collected voice. The physician, unable to speak, gave a silent signal of assent. “’Tis well,” she added, in the same untremulous utterance. “All is now over. I shall soon follow him. I have no more trials to pass through.”
On the 18th, his remains were deposited in the tomb at Mount Vernon, where they now repose, enshrined in a nation’s love; and his fame will forever, as now, fill the world.[166]