After a pleasing October visit from Elizabeth and Samuel Powel, Washington had to cope with another frigid winter at Mount Vernon. Severed from the outside world by snow, he stayed in touch by mail with federalists in many states. Resigning himself to a common eighteenth-century practice, he assumed that his letters would be opened, telling Lafayette, “As to my sentiments with respect to the merits of the new constitution, I will disclose them without reserve (although by passing through the post offices they should become known to all the world) for, in truth, I have nothing to conceal on that subject.”⁸

While preserving an air of Olympian detachment, Washington moved stealthily in the background of the ratification process, one of his chief worries being that the Constitution’s detractors would prove more adept than its advocates. Although he admitted to defects in the charter, he tended to regard supporters as righteous and reasonable, opponents as wrongheaded and duplicitous. As a stalwart realist, he thought it dangerous to demand perfection from any human production and questioned “the propriety of preventing men from doing good, because there is a possibility of their doing evil.”⁹ When Lieutenant John Enys stopped by Mount Vernon in February, Washington explained that he had followed doggedly the constitutional debates, consuming all the pertinent literature. “He said he had read with attention every publication,” Enys wrote, “both for and against it, in order to see whether there could be any new objections, or that it could be placed in any other light than what it had been in the general convention, for which . . . he said he had sought in vain.”¹⁰

New York quickly emerged as a major locus of dissent, and Madison, based there as a delegate in the waning days of the Confederation Congress, warned Washington of a powerful backlash gathering force: “The newspapers here begin to teem with vehement and virulent calumniations of the proposed gov[ernmen]t.”¹¹ After leaving the convention in July, Hamilton had fired anonymous salvos in the New York press against Governor George Clinton, who felt threatened by centralized power. On September 20 the Clinton forces retaliated with vicious glee, accusing Hamilton of insinuating himself into Washington’s good graces during the war. Said the nameless critic: “I have also known an upstart attorney palm himself upon a great and good man, for a youth of extraordinary genius and, under the shadow of such a patronage, make himself at once known and respected. But . . . he was at length found to be a superficial, self-conceited coxcomb and was of course turned off and disregarded by his patron.”¹² This remark hatched an enduring mythology of a wily Hamilton tricking the dunderheaded Washington into supporting him.

Distraught over these accusations, the hypersensitive Hamilton appealed to Washington to rebut the notion that he had imposed himself upon the commander in chief and had then been dismissed by him: “This, I confess, hurts my feelings and, if it obtains credit, will require a contradiction.”¹³ By return mail, Washington laid both falsehoods to rest: “With respect to the first, I have no cause to believe that you took a single step to accomplish [it] or had the most distant [ide]a of receiving an appointment in my [fam]ily till you were invited thereto. And [with] respect to the second . . . your quitting [it was] altogether the effect of your own [choic]e.”¹⁴

To combat vocal foes of the Constitution in New York, Hamilton published in late October the first essay of The Federalist under the pen name “Publius” and rushed a copy to Washington. Washington had told David Humphreys that the Constitution’s acceptance would depend upon “the recommendation of it by good pens,” and The Federalist must have seemed a case of answered prayers.¹⁵ Indeed, the federalists possessed the preponderance of literary talent. “For the remaining numbers of Publius,” Washington informed Hamilton, “I shall acknowledge myself obliged, as I am persuaded the subject will be well handled by the author.”¹⁶ The perceptive Washington saw that The Federalist transcended journalism and would take on classic status, telling Hamilton that “when the transient circumstances and fugitive performances which attended this crisis shall have disappeared, that work will merit the notice of posterity.”¹⁷

In November, when Madison sent Washington the first seven installments of The Federalist, he admitted in confidence to being one of its unnamed authors and urged Washington to convey the essays to influential Virginians who might get them published. Without tipping his hand, Washington became a secret partner in the Federalist enterprise, transmitting the essays to David Stuart in Richmond. “Altho[ugh] I am acquainted with some of the writers who are concerned in this work,” wrote Washington, playing things close to the vest, “I am not at liberty to disclose their names, nor would I have it known that they are sent by me to you for promulgation.”¹⁸ To maintain the flow of reprints in Virginia, Madison sent Washington packets of new Federalist essays and bound editions as they appeared. Curiously, Washington had not figured out that John Jay was the third member of the Federalist triumvirate. When a letter appeared in a Baltimore paper announcing that Jay had denounced the Constitution as “a wicked conspiracy,” Madison had to reassure Washington that the letter was “an arrant forgery.”¹⁹ In March, Henry Knox finally let the cat out of the bag: “The publication signed Publius is attributed to the joint efforts of Mr. Jay, Mr. Madison and Colo. Hamilton.”²⁰

By mid-January 1788 the Constitution had been adopted by decisive margins in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Georgia, and Connecticut. These early victories were deceptive, however, for closely contested state conventions lay ahead. The most formidable opposition, Washington surmised, would be marshaled in New York and Virginia. As the biggest, richest, and most populous state, Virginia had to be the linchpin of any union. While he believed that most Virginians stood four-square behind the Constitution, Washington conceded the influential nature of its opponents, especially George Mason, Edmund Randolph, and Patrick Henry, who he feared would stoop to demagoguery. With these dissenting delegates, Washington engaged in low-key lobbying, telling Randolph that the new charter was “the best constitution that can be contained at this epoch and that this or a dissolution of the union . . . are the only alternatives before us.”²¹ In a sign of subtle disenchantment with Virginia, Washington observed that it was “a little strange that the men of large property in the south should be more afraid that the constitution should produce an aristocracy or a monarchy than the genuine democratical people of the east.”²² It is hard not to see a veiled criticism of southern slavery behind this comment.

As he awaited its convention, Washington knew that, if Virginia failed to join the union, he would be ineligible for the presidency. After the first five states voted for the Constitution, political wrangling intensified over the future leadership of the impending government. In Massachusetts, scheduled to hold the sixth ratifying convention, federalists tried to woo a wavering John Hancock by promising to support him for vice president if Washington ran for president. They also intimated that, if Virginia didn’t ratify and Washington couldn’t run for president, they would line up solidly behind Hancock for the top job.

By May, Massachusetts, Maryland, and South Carolina had also ratified the Constitution, bringing the total to eight states, one short of the magic number needed to enact it. This put additional pressure on the states that were about to hold their conventions. Washington followed the cascading victories with mounting excitement. “The plot thickens fast,” he told Lafayette. “A few short weeks will determine the political fate of America for the present generation and probably produce no small influence on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come.”²³