Wonderful letter. But its a letter which is here in the library. He wrote from never about to go and take command at cambridge. But he was worried that she would be lonely and that, and he was worried that he would be worrying about her being lonely. Well, as it turned out, he was lonely. And they never thought at the beginning of the war that she would be going to him, but he was who sent for her. And i think the war changed their relationship as wars do change relationships. But i think that was when he really realized, and that was when he said during the war, he said to Benjamin Franklins daughter, mrs. Batch, im not sure which is right, he said dancing at a ball during the war he said ive been, today it was 12 night, it was epiphany, january the 6th, and he said this is the day 20 years ago i was married to mrs. Washington. And much later he told marthas wayward granddaughter, eliza custis who i rather love, he said to her that marriage is the foundation, most Important Foundation of life. And it was his marriage to martha that made him think that. I dont think i mean, marriage is the most Important Foundation of etchs life, but of everyones life, but for washingtons, i do think it was. He was married to the right person. One more. Yep. Did Martha Washington keep a diary [inaudible] if she did, she burned it, unfortunately. But we, we do have her letters. I find her letters extremely vivid. And as doug said, the Martha Washington papers project is underway. And i, theres, you know, who knows where there may not be Martha Washington letters that were not published in the edition of her papers by joseph fields. Its going to be very exciting over the next four or five years. I think it will go online and be published as well in about four years. So im, i have to say its one of the few times that im looking forward to revising my book. [laughter] because then i can read all marthas, all the new letters that i hope will come out. Because, you know, americas a treasuretrove of 18th century papers in the different historical societies, and people travel so much in america like marthas great granddaughters in her papers are in louisiana. And so its, hopefully, everyones going to come forward with new martha letters which would be exciting. And there might be a diary. That will be too exciting for words. [laughter] [applause] so, flora, thank you very much. You will all be delighted to know that flora fraser will be outside to sign books. I invite you all out for a cocktail reception, and i want to thank you all for being here, so thank you very much. Thank you. [applaus this is about an hour. Professor Timothy Breen is currently the james marsh professor at large at the university of vermont, a guggenheim fellow, professor breen has also taught classes at oxford, cambridge, yale, the university of chicago and also Northwestern University which he just retired from. He has written several awardwinning books on Early American History on subjects raking from the tobacco ranging from the Tobacco Culture of early tidewater planters to the consumer politics of the American Revolution. His new book tells the story about a series of journeys that George Washington took to all of the original 13 states during his first term in office. Through his detailed account of the president s travels, professor breen demonstrates the vital importance of washingtons ambitious trip, vealing the role that it plays revealing the role that it played in helping unify a scattered nation. Renowned historian gordon wood notes, quote it is hard to think that anything new could be said about George Washington. But breen has done it in clear and accessible prose. He has given us new insights into the acute political skills of our first president and the state of the country in the 1790s. End quote. Please join me in welcoming professor Timothy Breen. [applause] thank you very much for coming out on this cold, coming from vermont i need not apologize about the cold, but i gather a little snow down here is pretty lethal business. [laughter] i would be happy to answer questions at the end of my remarks. The remarks are somewhat truncated so that there will be time for discussion. Washingtons, George Washingtons journey, i should say unabashedly, was the most fun book ive ever written or researched because i followed the road that the president took during his first term of office, drove the same well, not exactly the same roads because theyre now paved, but washington took a trip to america, all 13 original states, a journey of well over 2,000 miles. It was in several segments, the longest and most difficult by far was from the thencapital, philadelphia, to savannah and augusta and around into the back country on roads that were extremely difficult. He had a very heavy coach and took with him 13 horses not because that was the number of states [laughter] but he was, he was very proud. This one . Yeah. Hello. Thank you. He was very proud that not one single animal died, which is really amazing. What is also equally almost providential is that twice on washingtons journey to the American People he almost had, he had near fatal accidents, both of them crossing water, once in the Chesapeake Bay and one a river in northern virginia. And one can only imagine what the country, the new republic would have been like if the most popular, the strongest figure in American History had been killed in the first few months of office. But as he was not shot during the American Revolution, he didnt die on the journey. My book is not what i would call a founding father book. We have plenty of those. You can find everything both praiseworthy and salacious about every founding father. We probably know what they ate and who they loved and to on. But this is and so on. But this is not that kind of book. Its a book about a critical moment in our nations political history when a president who, i argue, was one of the most astute political leaders, a man who knew how to read a political situation as well as, well, lets think lincoln, fdr, our great, great president s, he stands with them as a political figure. Interacted on this journey with the American People at a time when no one, including the president , was quite certain what the future of a republic republics were historically very fragile, they usually ended in revolutions or coups. And at the time that washington took this, these segmented tours, 1789 and then the long tour to the south in 1791, he was none too sure that the country was table. He worried a lot about faction and regionalism and states pulling away maybe in the name of slavery or in new england the name of perhaps different commercial situations. But he felt very much that the country was imperilled even after the ratification of the constitution. And as i argue, we should see washington at this moment in his life as perhaps we see other great revolutionary leaders such as gandhi or mandela as a person who recognized that a revolution is not over when the last battle is fought. Revolutions must lead to stability of the regime, a security of property and a political process that you can count on x. So that washington and so that washington as president was trying to fulfill the goals of the American Revolution. He wasnt looking forward to us, he was trying to cement what he felt was a wonderful and grandly promising new republic. And i emphasize that on the road at this time in order to seal this countrys future he brought a positive message thats so important. I think even in these political times which i shall not comment on, when you hear so much negativity about our country and about our people, washington was smart enough to realize that the message he had to take to georgia and to New Hampshire and to the middle colonies was one of positive possibilities. If the country would simply unite and support a union, they would become more prosperous, prosperous in a way that no state could guarantee because the projects were larger than simple states. That a strong union would guarantee security. There were still many countries Great Britain one of them, but youll say france and spain that would have loved to have taken one of our states and incorporated it into their own empires. He knew that. And no state could defend the country, but the country as a unit could stand strong. And and as i also argue in the book, washington had a strong sense of what we might call human rights. Maybe thats stronger or than it should be, but he understood that People Living in small communities, small communities are easily marginalized and denied their rightings. And if there is no a force Strong Enough to guarantee those rights, to protect those rights, then there are no rights at all. And so he saw a large federal union as the guarantor of the basis of our constitutional rights. And that was the message he took to the people. If you let the revolution go, if you do not fulfill your own revolution, if you let the future slide away, its your own fault. But we can pull together. And the idea of the trip, which was formulated in the very first months of his presidency he was inaugurated in 1789 in the thencapital, new york city the idea of a trip, a journey to the American People was entirely his own. And i might add that almost all the books that you can read about the Founding Fathers, you know the names, theyre like celebrity ball players, jefferson and also also and madison and now hiphop hamilton. [laughter] you know who they are. They did fine things, and im not going to demean their stature. But washington usually is put in the background as sort of the friendly, wellmeaning uncle that didnt quite get the jokes and you hope didnt embarrass you at dinner. Washington doesnt, is not seen as a bold or creative political figure. In my research and my many, many, many hours of driving the roads with George Washington, i found him to be of equal stature. He was a man who did not write noble documents that we read in school. He was a man of action. He was a pragmatic figure. And when he saw a problem, he tried to solve it immediately, and that problem was, of course, as ive indicated, the unity of the new nation. And so on his own, he decided that a man elected by the people who owed his office to the people must be in some way accessible to those very people. This was a republic. We had put down monarchy. No one had stature simply because their fathers or mothers had proper bloodlines. It was a new republican world. As washington said, i walk on untrodden ground. Everything he did was a new precedent, an experiment in republican government, government of us, of us all the time. And he realized that by taking a trip to places like charleston and savannah and augusta or boston, salem, portsmouth, to all the little cities in between that he was by his very person bringing a greater sense of emotional bonding to the country. We might call it patriotism. Maybe we would call it nationalism. But he was giving a sense of this emotional identity to a larger, new republic. But i also found and what you will see when you look at my book, and that is washington was a master of political theater in a way that really surprised me as an author. He understood how to make the right move, the right gesture at the time. I suppose thats what all great politicians do, but he was a master of it. Let me give you an example. He had a really extraordinary coach which impressed people. And behind the coach as he went around the country was a smaller baggage wagon in which there were tough, you know, baggage. And when he got to the area outside of a town, hed call a halt and go to the baggage wagon and put on his full regalia as the commander in chief of the continental army, the man who had won the revolution. Then he would get on a special white horse, a charger, a battle horse and ride into town. Can you imagine if you were in a little town like tarboro, North Carolina, newburn or worcester, massachusetts, and youre did you see that . [laughter]. A man on a trip who came to your town and was welcomed by parades and special songs and every window illuminated in these villages. It was a massive outpouring of the sense of the people responding to their leader. Their leader coming with the message of the possibilities if our country would just take the invitation. In a sense, the the people and their leader were crafting what i call a new republican narrative, getting away from the old monarchical rule. Then we have a certain amount of time so instead of talking about George Washington, a man about which i thought i knew a lot until i actually dealt with him. It was a wonderful sense of discovery doing this research, of meeting a person who i thought i respected and then coming to know that i really, really admired this gentleman. This is not true of all the Founding Fathers when you dig into their personal lives. Sometimes you wish you hadnt looked under the rock and the large thing is that he is what he purported to be. Hes an extraordinary person. I dont want to talk about that. I want to talk briefly, before we have questions, about some of the American People. The ordinary people, ordinary people, men and women who encountered George Washington on the road and their encounters with this man must have transformed his their lives in some way. Weve all met famous people or remember some historical moment when they punctuate their lives. The first person i want to introduce is a young teenage woman who lived on a farm in North Carolina a few miles south of southbury. The road runs up from charlotte to the middle of North Carolina. George washington was riding outside of his coach for exercise. It was a hot day. He decided it would be really wonderful to have a drink the water. He came to this farm and he knocked on the door and ms. Betsy brandon answered and she was in a sour mood, and said young lady, what is wrong with you. She said, all my family has gone up to saulsberry to see the president of the united states. [laughter] they left me back here to take care of the animals. I just dont think thats fair. Washington was taken aback. He said young lady, i am the president. You can imagine what her reaction mightve been. Betsy brandon in North Carolina is a figure people still talk about as a young girl who met the president. There was another young girl that was influenced by the president. She lived in salem massachusetts. Washington came there and there was a tremendous reception of people and many, many of the young women and men went. Nancy fisher wasnt invited but when it was over, she asked her friends, her lady friends, what was he like . Was he really handsome . It was sort of like iraq group going through in town and they all told her how washington looked and so on. She wrote a letter that night which is a letter i would say is a start. I would say it was a letter i misread peer i went back to the letter four times to make sure i had not rejected modern values onto the past. Nancy fisher said, many of my friends save that George Washington is a god, hes an angel, he something more than us she said no, he isnt. Hes hes just a man. Hes a human being because if he wasnt, he wouldnt pay any attention to us. Angels dont come to salem that often. But hes a man and i want to tell you theres only one thing that would make me more happy and that would be to discover that George Washington was a woman. This was in 1789. You can see, i read back, no, i have miss read this document, but she could imagine a political situation in which our country would turn to a female leader. He was also an inventor and an oddball. His nickname was crazy rumsey. James rumsey lived out in western virginia and he told washington he had invented about in the late 1780s that, without a motor, could propel itself against the current. This this is remarkable. He built one of these boats and it looked like a goldberg contraption. It worked good unless the current got above a couple knots. Nonetheless, washington went to crazy rumsey because he understood, washington did, washington did, that the future of the 13 original states depended on its ability to incorporate new territory, new states and if kentucky and tennessee and ohio were treated the way they treated massachusetts and virginia, we would have a problem on our own hand. So washington spent a great deal of his journey talking about rivers and canals. A man last night, when i gave a presentation, he said he thought he would like to compare washington to dwight d eisenhower. I said to some extent, for washington, washington, on this journey, canals and rivers were like highways. Our ability to keep ourselves as a union is dependent on our ability to have commerce flow. Crazy rumsey is a figure you will meet in my book and he was a nutter, but a very desirable one. Also, you will meet in one of the most touching scenes of the whole journey, a man who just buys to the state of rhode island. They were reluctant to ratify the constitution and in fact on washingtons first trip to new england, he carefully of avoided setting foot in rhode island as a way of drawing attention that they hadnt joined the union. But when they did, he took a trip and went to newport but when he was in newport, he was very interested in jewish culture. That is something he hadnt had much experience with. He met a very extraordinary man who was the head of the synagogue, one of the oldest and most beautiful synagogues in america. He represented this Jewish Community and they came out in washington and exchanged greetings. Let me read the words of moses and washingtons response, because i think it was his most touching and articulate expression i ran across. So moses sextus feel we have been denied of valuable rights of citizens and we know we behold a new government elected by the majesty of the people. A government which to bigotry gives new sanction, to perk persecution no assistance but generously affording to all liberty of conscious and deeming everyone of whatever nation and whatever tongue or language equal part in the great governmental mandate. 1790, washington himself responded, the American People provided mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy. A policy worthy of imitation. They assured the jew of new parts and it is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were by the indulgence of one class of people than another enjoy the exercise of their inherent right. In other words, the jews of newport have their rights simply because they were people. The governments responsibility was not to give them toleration but to protect their rights as human beings. 1790, and open inclusive sense of our republic. So these men and women in various places, boston gave one of the largest parades. People came forward and express their part of being part of a wonderful new experience and relaying George Washingtons fears about a new republic. I want to close my comments by telling you about the moment of my research that was most meaningful. A lot of my life has been spent in archives, reading documents that my wife claims smells of mold. Shes probably right, ive gotten used to it. One day i was driving with George Washington near South Carolina when George Washington took this trip, he kept a diary and i highly recommend buying his diary. There are a wonderfully printed source. He said he was bored out of his mind because the roads were sandy and the roads were tiny. There werent many houses. He decided to break the tedium by stopping at a plantation just north of georgetown called hampton. Hampton was a huge rice plantation. Rice plantations had to be huge because there was so much drainage and other things. Its so different than tobacco plantations pretty left the road to go to hampton and he was greeted by three women. Very, very strong women. One was elijah pinckney. She is credited with making indigo a commercial crop. Her daughter, herriot, who was a new widow because her husband had been killed in battle in the American Revolution and then harriets daughter. Washington spoke with the women and i suppose as to keep the conversation going, they took a little stroll in front of hampton. There is a huge tree, i wish i could show you but as many of you come from the south you know what a live oak tree is. At the interval, beautiful plant plant tree. There was one right in the middle of the front of hampton and she said, mr. President , i think im going to cut this tree down because it obstructs the view of the house. As you come up the road, youre supposed to see the grandeur of the house and it must speak to the people and heres this tree in the way. Washington looked at her and looked at the tree and said let it stay. That tree can do no harm. It was then 200 years old. Its now almost 500 years old. So i invite i invite all the readers of my book to stop at hampton and touch the tree thats called the washington oak it connects you with the father of our country. Thank you. [applause]. Was there any concern on washingtons part, did he articulate any concern of danger . Was there any danger presented to him about his travels . Yes, the question is about the dangers. It was extremely Risky Business travel in those days. He bought a coach in philadelphia in one of the largest trips to the south. I have a chapter in the book about the mystery of the coach. The coach at mount vernon, if you go down there its a beautiful coach, but its its not a washington coach. Its a faux coach. That coach was purchased by the mayor of philadelphia. The real anyway, to answer your question, it was a very large vehicle and the roads were terrible. When washington left philadelphia, Thomas Thomas jefferson warned him and said youre going to have a terrible accident. This is top heavy. Its like an suv going over in the wind. Besides, theres rocks and tree stumps and its really bad business. He did not have an accident of that kind but in crossing the Chesapeake Bay over to an apple, a terrible storm came up and all of the boats in the Washington Group went aground. It was a terrible moment because the governor and everybody in maryland could see from the shore what was happening but they could not do a thing. Washington was crossing the river near here in the horses got spooked and pulled off the barge and threatened to take the whole paraphernalia into the water. The day was only saved because there were so mini spectators, people who would come out in small boats to see the president on his trip that they rescued the situation. So yes, it was dangerous. Washington always survived. What about human danger. Yes. It is a thought that the president of the united states, with one secretary and a number of servants probably unarmed with no military or Police Protection could travel the length of our country and not worry about assassination or terrorism. Its a strange idea. This journey was undertaken, i suppose in large part to help cement the union. Given that perhaps the largest fault line in that union, did you encounter any references in the documents to how the issue of slaves or freed men in any of those colonies became a part of that journey . Thats a question that i should bring to everyones mind. A larger percentage of the American Population at the time were africanamericans then. Even today. These were not invisible folks. There were two, if i may say, to incidents, one that absolutely surprised me and i wonder if any of the reviewers of my book will pick up the good one first. George washington, one of his goals was to promote american industry because he thought that a great and struggling should not be dependent on foreign imports. He wanted americans to be selfsufficient especially in textiles which was the largest import at the time. He went to the mills and looked around and praised what was really up pretty pathetic factory, but being a good president he tried to put a good face to it. Soon after he left back, he received a letter from england, from wales from amman by by mr. Howells. He had a grandson who became a fairly good novelist in america later. This man was a quaker and he owned a stateoftheart mill in wales, 80 employees in those days, and he said to the president , mr. President , i like the idea of the freedom and the expansiveness of the republic. Id like to bring my mill to virginia and start and help you become selfsufficient. He said, but i know that you probably are not going to get many farm boys to come and work in the factories. Ill tell you what we can do. You have very talented young men and young women and we will bring them into the factory in a kind of internship. After they learn the skills necessary to make good cloth, they will be given their freedom. It will will be a transitional experiment. Now when i read this letter i thought i bet washington just through this out the coach indo. Thats not what he did. He took the letter, endorsed the plan, sent it sent it to the governor of virginia, a man by the name of beverly and said we ought to think about this. Everyone in the virginia government in 1790 new that it represented a road to freedom through work. I didnt invent this. Its right in washingtons letter. But no historian ever noticed this extraordinary possibility that washington was holding out. Now what happened . Someone came to him and said do you realize that if this guy brings the stateoftheart mills to america, youre going to break every International Treaty and law about the importation of technology from Great Britain . He said oh my goodness, as pres. , i cant break the law. But thats the good story. The bad story is washington had, and you you can see his picture, an extraordinary slave, a man of immense charisma i the of hercules. He was the cook and when washington was on his tour, he learned from the attorney general that pennsylvania law allowed any slave brought into the state of pennsylvania, after six months you automatically became free. That went for slaves of president s, congressmen or anybody. These guys came all the way up from georgia and South Carolina. They thought slavery slavery was forever and heres this law and they went berserk. They said were going to lose our greatest cook in the world and so they tried to fool hercules by telling him about five months and someday that he was needed back in mount vernon and it was a total hoax. Hercules, to his credit realized they were fooling with him and went to martha and said, im part of your family. Why dont you trust me . You doubt my integrity. To go through all this kind of conspiracy against me. Martha broke down in tears because washington was exposed and he was the only man we know of that forced washington to tell a lie. Its really me more remarkable. You see both sides. Of all the southern Founding Fathers, he was the only one who freed his own slaves on his deathbed. We always quote Thomas Jefferson and all these others. They wrote the words but they didnt do the act. Thank you. President washington, of course has zero well documented reputation as a host of mount vernon. Im wondering if you learned anything or what you learn from your research about what he was like a guest in all these peoples homes or the houses that he stayed. Sure. The guess, especially during the , they would pour in. People would just appear and say hello, i was was just passing through. Im from france and im here. Lets have it in her. It was quite annoying. Frankly he got a little tired of it, but let me get you another aspect. People have compared his tour or asked me to compare it to what james in queens in europe did. They would go on the road with 60, 70, 80 retainers and drop in at somebodys castle and say kill the local boxes and take care and you foot the bill. That was a way of basically keeping the queens treasury full and also reminding the local lords who was boss. Washington announced at the beginning of his tour that he would only stay at public taverns, ins or ordinaries that he would not take the hospitality of any private individual. He said there were two reasons for this. One is that he was an employee of us, the american American People and if he was going to represent us, we should pay for us and it was not the business of private people to come forward. Second, and brilliantly, he recognized that if you are in georgia near hampshire and you were maybe the wealthiest merchant or something and he stayed at your house, the next day, that person would say i have a special deal going with washington, and turn it into a political advantage. He did not want to be a source of that. He wanted to go on the two were to heal faction. People say thats really good, wow, he staying at these taverns, however, if you read washingtons private diary, which i spent many hours doing, you will find that he often hated these taverns. They were terrible. The food was awful. They mistreated his forces. The beds were full of bugs. He was too short and he was a big man. His bed was 6 inches too short and his feet were hanging off the bed. He said this is terrible. I described his diary as sort of a trip advisor. But that was for private consumption. The public was that he was republican leader doing what you should do if you are an employee of the government. The gentleman asked the question hospitality. There were two times when people fooled him and he got very cross and outside of georgetown, he stayed in the house he was told wasnt in and when he got up in the morning and presented his visa card, the guy said no, i wont take your money because this is my house. It was not a really good idea to cross George Washington. He did not like to be fooled but that was the one time that i know he stayed in a private home. Sir. I read that George Washington specified that his slaves be freed upon the death of his wife martha and subsequently, martha, not wanting to die at the hands of her slaves, she freed the slaves. Well you may know something about that that i dont, but when she became very ill, in 1799, he was at the deathbed with his loyal secretary and washington made it clear that his slaves would be freed. Most of the slaves at mount vernon were owned by martha and brought to the marriage by her former union family. She was not at all happy about freeing slaves. She did not think that was a good idea. There is some evidence that she was a little grumpy about her dead husband doing this. Im sorry, i dont know that she freed her slaves later, but i cant comment on eligible he about that. Ive read your wonderful book thank you. There are so many things in addition to what you mentioned that are great. Theres one thing i dont remember you covering and that is, he was gone for a significant period of time and while the pace of government is different than it was today, did anything anything go wrong or did anything happen that he had to fix when he got back . Right. Its a question that ive thought about because it seemed to me that that raise or erases a very difficult issue of constitutional law that to my knowledge, no one has really thought about. When washington left, the major figures in the government of his cabinet were hamilton and jefferson. So he told these men, he said im going to go away. If anything comes up, you handle it. When i come back, all rubberstamp whatever you did. So you you just know ill have your back. I dont think he had the right responsibility. He said if something really big comes up you know if the british send a gunboat up the potomac or something, then call me and ill come back. Ill handle it. But of course, that was a hollow gesture because if you were in savannah georgia, youre rushing back is not going to mean much even if he cut over to charleston and took a vote. The creases would have been long over. So in fact, it was a potential, a potentially big problem but it never came up. He didnt turn anything over to john adams. Well there you go. George washington was not a fan of john adams. He thought he was a bore. He wrote this letter to hamilton and said you handle this, i trust you, you do what you have to do. Then as a footnote, he said by the way, is the Vice President still in the capital, if so include him in the conversation. The assumption that adams would be attending the apple orchards and not minding government, washington tried to like adams. Adams was a difficult person to get along with. He was always in a perpetual snap about something. Washington invited adams to accompany him on one of the tours, ride in the coach, it was a time that adams couldve shown that he had a sense a sense for the people. But he got one of these pouts and said no, im going to ride in my own code to go to days before you go. Therefore he missed a tremendous opportunity to make his own reputation when abigail adams, who has the same political astuteness as George Washington, when she heard about this, she said what are you doing. You should be in that coach. When the coach up to boston and some of the sale in areas, adam got over his little pout and road briefly with washington. I was speculating with my wife this morning, one of the powerful marriages that didnt take place, but if George Washington had married mrs. Adams, what a powerful political combo. I wondered if you were able to connect anything in his background that led to his extraordinary political powers . I dont know about his background, but as a young man he was not one of the great families of virginia. He was