CHAPTER FORTY

Devil’s Bargain

FOR ALL THE TALK of agricultural modernity at Mount Vernon, there was something unreal about the entire topic for a plantation economy premised on that most antiquated and repressive of systems: slavery. As the most glaring negation of the American Revolution’s ideals, slavery was bound to ignite controversy after the war. All the talk of liberty clashed with the reality of widespread bondage. Slavery posed the supreme challenge to the ideas that Washington had imbibed during the war and tested the pronouncements about peace and understanding that permeated his postwar correspondence. For the Marquis de Lafayette, the notion that an independent America would tolerate slavery was more than a contradiction in terms: it was anathema to everything he believed. As he told British abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, “I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery.”¹ So profoundly in earnest was Lafayette that Clarkson called him “as uncompromising an enemy of the slave trade and slavery as any man I ever knew.”²

As early as February 5, 1783, Lafayette made it overwhelmingly clear in a letter to Washington that his idol couldn’t evade this touchy subject: “Permit me to propose a plan to you which might become greatly beneficial to the black part of mankind. Let us unite in purchasing a small estate where we may try the experiment to free the Negroes and use them only as tenants.”³ As he pointed out, Washington’s sterling reputation could make this revolutionary act “general practice” in the United States.⁴ As impulsive as Washington was cautious, Lafayette gloried in his iconoclasm. “If it be a wild scheme,” he maintained, “I had rather be mad that way than to be thought wise on the other tack.”⁵ Lafayette’s abolitionism may have been influenced by his wartime association with James Armistead, a slave who served under him in Virginia and operated as a valuable spy, infiltrating the British lines under the guise of being an escaped slave.

When Washington received Lafayette’s letter, the war was winding down and he was dwelling on his impaired finances. His economic well-being depended on slavery, so that whatever his theoretical sympathy with Lafayette’s idea, he could not have been thrilled by the timing. Not wanting to disillusion his worshipful protégé, he replied the way a fond father might write to an ardent but impractical son: “The scheme, my dear Marq[ui]s, which you propose as a precedent to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this country . . . is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work, but will defer going into detail of the business till I have the pleasure of seeing you.”⁶ This was Washington’s canny way of crediting Lafayette’s noble project while also sidestepping any specific commitment to it.

At his home in Paris, Lafayette flaunted his ties to the American Revolution, posting a portrait of Washington and American flags on the walls. His infatuation did not cool with time. He seemed to live in an eternal, high-flown rapture with Washington and wrote to him in language that was almost ecstatic. In one letter he labeled Washington “the savior of his country, the benefactor of mankind, the protecting angel of liberty, the pride of America, and the admiration of the two hemispheres”—all in a single sentence.⁷ After the war Washington was powerfully tempted to go to Paris, especially when a French nobleman assured him that King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette had “expressed their desire to be acquainted with the circumstances of a life which has so much contributed to the liberty of your country.”⁸ Washington felt the full force of this royal favor, which he labeled “one of the most flattering incidents” of his life.⁹ When Lafayette pleaded with him to visit France, Washington had to rule it out because of his financial plight and because Martha was “too far advanced in life and is too much immersed in the care of her little progeny to cross the Atlantic.” Writing like a pious hermit instead of a world-renowned general, Washington urged Lafayette and his wife to travel to Mount Vernon “and call my cottage your home . . . You will see the plain manner in which we live and meet the rustic civility. And you shall taste the simplicity of rural life.”¹⁰

Nothing could stop Lafayette’s triumphant return to America. While projecting a trip there in the spring of 1783, he wrote to Washington in a typical burst of enthusiasm, “Happy, ten times happy will I be in embracing my dear general, my father, my best friend.”¹¹ Not until the following March did Lafayette assure Washington that, before the summer was out, “you will see a vessel coming up [the] Potomac, and out of that vessel will your friend jump with a panting heart and all the feelings of perfect happiness.”¹² Washington responded with gratitude to the buckets of Gallic charm that Lafayette poured over his head at every turn.

Upon arriving at Mount Vernon in August 1784, Lafayette was delighted to find a group portrait of himself and his family in an honored place in the parlor. He bore a cherished gift from Paris, a Masonic apron that Adrienne had embroidered for the general. Lafayette was instantly entranced by Nelly and Washy. “The general has adopted them and loves them deeply,” he told his wife. “It was quite funny when I arrived to see the curious looks on those two small faces who had heard nothing but talk of me the entire day and wanted to see if I looked like my portrait.”¹³

Finding Washington busy but relaxed, Lafayette delighted in his company and treasured their dinner conversations, when they swapped wartime anecdotes. Washington guided him around the grounds and quizzed him about European flowers that might flourish there. All the while the vexed question of slavery hung heavily in the air. Earlier in the summer, during William Gordon’s two-week stay, Washington had admitted to a desire to be rid of his slaves and mentioned Lafayette’s abolitionist plans. “I should rejoice beyond measure could your joint counsels and influence produce it,” Gordon responded, “and thereby give the finishing stroke and the last polish to your political characters.”¹⁴ Unfortunately, we don’t know the specifics of the conversation between Washington and Lafayette about slavery. When Lafayette encountered James Madison, the former said he was now gripped by three obsessions: the French-American alliance, the unity of the thirteen states, and “the manumission of the slaves.”¹⁵ Madison, a large slave owner, wrote to Jefferson, another large slave owner, that Lafayette’s position on slavery “does him real honor, as it is a proof of his humanity.”¹⁶ After the Revolution it was unquestionably fashionable to utter such high-minded sentiments, but talk was cheap and direct action was quite another matter.

While in Richmond, Lafayette had a consequential encounter with James Armistead, the handsome, round-faced slave who had gallantly assisted him during the war. To help him sue for his freedom, Lafayette furnished him with an affidavit that testified to his valor: “His intelligence from the enemy’s camp were industriously collected and most faithfully delivered.”¹⁷ Not only did Armistead win his freedom and a pension from the legislature (which also compensated his master), but he changed his name in gratitude to James Armistead Lafayette.

Since Lafayette was slated to return to France in December, Washington, in a loving gesture, volunteered to escort him to his ship in New York—the first time he had ventured out of state since the war. When they reached Annapolis, however, the two men found themselves trapped in such a tedious round of receptions that Washington dreaded the ovations yet to come in Philadelphia and New York. So one day in early December, Washington and Lafayette gave each other an affectionate farewell hug and climbed into their respective carriages. Afterward, in an affecting letter that showed his powerful, if often suppressed, need for intimacy and how he equated Lafayette with his own lost youth, Washington told Lafayette of his turbulent emotions at their parting: