In reading Washington’s Farewell Address, it is understandable why one may be mystified by its contents, or lack thereof. Despite the issue causing heated debates in both the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Washington remained silent on the increasingly contentious question of slavery. Was it because he was one of the largest slave owners, not just in Virginia, but in the country, and did not want to appear hypocritical? Perhaps it was because so many knew that he had circumvented a Pennsylvania law that granted freedom to any slave brought into the State after six months. During the time when the capital was in Philadelphia, Washington would send his personal slaves back to Mount Vernon for a few days and then transport them back.
Nevertheless, he had privately come to oppose slavery on both moral and economic grounds. Before the Revolution, he not had been opposed to slavery. But by 1779, he had told his manager at Mount Vernon that he wanted to sell his slaves in the event of an American victory. As a businessman, he had concluded that people who were compelled to work would never work hard. And as a moral man, he talked against the institution of slavery to his companions – in 1786, he declared to Robert Morris, ‘there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.’
Washington on his death-bed
Some historians present a seemingly rational explanation for his contrastingly silent public stance. During his eight years in office, Washington did everything in his power to encourage national unity; the raising of the question of slavery would have only caused discord. Instead, he embraced Hamilton’s vision of developing from an agricultural society to one of manufacturing and mechanization, one that would no longer require slave labour. Sadly though, he never publically opposed slavery, although he was the only significant Founding Father to demand in his will the manumission (liberation) of all his slaves after his passing.
Washington’s retirement lasted a mere three years, but characteristically he was active to the end. Due to undependable farm managers, he complained that he had ‘houses and everything to repair’. There were ‘rooms to paint, paper, whitewash, etc.’ At the north end of the main house, he completed a stately dining room that would seat ten people. He spent hours sorting and arranging over thirty cases of Revolutionary War documents, and answered a deluge of letters. Always the military man, he returned to his daily routine of rising at 5 am and reading or writing until 7 am. After a simple breakfast, he would ride out on horseback to inspect his five farms. After dinner, he would read newspapers, have tea at 7 pm, and retire at 9 pm. Despite it being a day of snow, sleet and hail on 12 December 1799, Washington maintained his regular routine. When he arrived home he complained of a sore throat, and that night a little after 2 am, he woke his wife Martha because he ‘was feeling extremely unwell’. It is believed that he suffered from a virulent bacterial infection of the epiglottis. As the infection progressed, the epiglottis closed off the windpipe until breathing became impossible. After enduring hour after hour of the sensation of being strangled to death, he died on the evening of 14 December.
Washington is often depicted as a self-made man determined to become a self-made hero. But unlike ambitious men who had tried to gain and retain glory, his appeal and success appear to have rested on his selfless, straightforward authority. Washington attained his reputation by surrendering power rather than trying to keep it: he laid down his sword after the Revolution, and then declined a certain third term as president. His surrendering continued even in death. At the time, it was still a practice for the eldest offspring to inherit the core of an estate, which would sustain a family’s status over several generations. Washington, instead, gave equal shares of his estate to as many as twenty-three heirs, thereby eliminating the possibility of a ‘Washington dynasty’. In death, as in life, Washington acted in the interests of the many, rather than an individual.