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Why Washington wept at the Fraunces Tavern
Here is information about George Washington which I’ve never seen in any of his biographies. Writing in the New York Sun, historian Thomas Fleming explains that when Washington bade a tearful farewell to his remaining officers at the Fraunces Tavern in New York City on December 4, 1783, what moved him to tears was not the taking leave of long-time companions-in-arms, since he personally knew only a half-dozen of the officers present, but rather the bitter and humiliating fact that, despite all Washington’s efforts, the Congress was disbanding the army without having paid the men the wages owed to them.
While Fleming does not mention the point, the article deepens our understanding of Washington’s desire for a national government. For eight and a half years, he had led a rag-tag army while serving faithfully a Congress that was unwilling or unable to act as a real government, particularly when it came to the most basic function of government, the provision of an army, which in turn requires the power to raise revenues. Washington had suffered and experienced with his whole being what it was like to live under a government that was incapable of acting like one. This was what motivated his Circular Letter to the states of September 1783, in which he urged that the United States go beyond the Articles of Confederation and form a truly national government—a vision that, shared by others, led ultimately to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. Email entry |