Attorney General Randolph submitted an unimpressive memorandum that branded the bank as unconstitutional. Succinct but more trenchant was Jefferson’s brief memorandum arguing for “strict construction” of the Constitution. For Jefferson, state-sponsored monopolies and central banks were oppressive tools of executive power associated with British royalty. He scorned Hamilton’s bank as the symbol of a Yankee world of commerce that would subvert his fond vision of America as a rural Eden. In the last analysis, the debate hinged on the interpretation of three words in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution—that Congress had all powers “necessary and proper” to carry into law its enumerated responsibilities. Taking a cramped view of this clause, Jefferson contended that it limited Congress to legislation that was strictly necessary to its assigned duties, not merely convenient or useful. Though not queried for an opinion, John Adams was also steaming about the bank. “This system of banks begotten, hatched, and brooded by . . . Hamilton and Washington, I have always considered as a system of national injustice,” he spluttered years later, calling it a “sacrifice of public and private interest to a few aristocratical friends and favorites.”²⁴

Though he had sat through every session of the Constitutional Convention, Washington did not pretend to any expertise in constitutional nuances—he once wrote that he had “had as little to do with lawyers as any man of my age”—and engaged in much hand-wringing over the bank bill.²⁵ He would be forced to issue a black-and-white opinion that would alienate some, gratify others, and irrevocably shape the future government. He called in Madison, supremely well versed in the Constitution, for a series of quiet, confidential talks. “The constitutionality of the national bank was a question on which his mind was greatly perplexed,” Madison would recall, noting that Washington was already biased in favor of a national bank and “a liberal construction of the national powers.”²⁶ On the other hand, Washington was shaken by the uncompromising verdicts from Randolph and Jefferson and asked Madison, as a precaution, to draft a veto message for the bank bill.

When Washington turned to Hamilton, he made plain that, unless he could vanquish the arguments of Randolph and Jefferson, he planned to veto the bank bill, telling him that he wished to “be fully possessed of the arguments for and against the measure before I express any opinion of my own.”²⁷ By this point Washington knew the vigor of Hamilton’s mind and his extraordinary knack for legal argument. In little more than a week, Hamilton, in a superhuman burst of energy, produced more than thirteen thousand words that buried his opponents beneath an avalanche of arguments. His exegesis of the “necessary and proper” clause not only made way for a central bank but would enable the federal government to respond to emergencies throughout American history. Hamilton interpreted the “necessary and proper” clause to mean that “every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign and includes, by force of the term, a right to employ all the means requisite and fairly applicable to the ends of such power.”²⁸ In other words, the Constitution gave the federal government not only the powers explicitly enumerated but also a series of unstated or “implied powers” indispensable to attain those ends.

Washington had ten days to sign or veto the bank bill and stalled in making up his mind. Perhaps by design, Hamilton delivered, and Washington accepted, the argument in favor of the bill right before that deadline expired, leaving no time for an appeal inside the cabinet. When Washington signed the bill on February 25, 1791, it was a courageous act, for he defied the legal acumen of Madison, Jefferson, and Randolph. Unlike his fellow planters, who tended to regard banks and stock exchanges as sinister devices, Washington grasped the need for these instruments of modern finance. It was also a decisive moment legally for Washington, who had felt more bound than Hamilton by the literal words of the Constitution. With this stroke, he endorsed an expansive view of the presidency and made the Constitution a living, open-ended document. The importance of his decision is hard to overstate, for had Washington rigidly adhered to the letter of the Constitution, the federal government might have been stillborn. Chief Justice John Marshall later seized upon the doctrine of “implied powers” and incorporated it into seminal Supreme Court cases that upheld the power of the federal government.

In approving the bank bill, Washington again championed Hamilton as an agent of modernity, a man who represented the thriving commerce of the seaport cities rather than the Virginia gentry from which he himself had emerged. Washington agreed with Hamilton’s defense of the bank, not simply from its superlative reasoning but because the two men subscribed to a common view of economic nationalism. Contrary to his critics, who thought him a credulous tool of Hamilton, Washington was a proud and knowing sponsor of the Hamiltonian program .²⁹ That July he insisted to David Humphreys, “Our public credit stands on that ground which, three years ago, it would have been considered as a species of madness to have foretold.”³⁰

THE UPROAR OVER THE HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM made it all the more imperative that Washington undertake a tour of the southern states, much as he had done with New England. At the time when the Quaker petitions to abolish the slave trade had awakened southern fears of northern interference, David Stuart had warned Washington, “It is represented that the northern phalanx is so firmly united as to bear down all opposition, while Virginia is unsupported.”³¹ The region also feared that the northeastern states would pay less heed to frontier communities, which were mostly peopled with settlers from the southern states. Faced with reported discontent, Washington wanted to see for himself whether the South was really so disenchanted with his programs. Also, as the country grew—by the spring of 1792, Congress had approved the admission of Kentucky and Vermont as new states—Washington wanted to maintain a sense of national cohesion amid pellmell expansion.

The southern tour was a hugely ambitious adventure. Washington would once again have to hazard nonstop socializing. As Tobias Lear noted, he found these occasions “fatiguing and often times painful,” sticking him with a dreadful conflict. “He wishes not to exclude himself from the sight or conversation of his fellow citizens, but their eagerness to show their affection frequently imposes a heavy tax upon him.”³² The projected itinerary of 1,816 miles was an enormous distance to traverse by horse and carriage. At a time of poor roads, Washington would have to withstand dust, mud, and assorted indignities. And in an era of primitive communications, he would be absent from Philadelphia for three months, making it hard to settle major policy disputes. Washington had never gone farther south than the northern part of North Carolina, and the Carolina and Georgia roads were terra incognita. Leaving nothing to chance, he consulted southern congressmen and even a Supreme Court justice about precise distances en route, which he referred to as his “line of march.”³³ The whole trip was plotted out like a military campaign, with each day mapped out in advance, complete with arrival and departure times and the name of each inn.

On March 20, 1791, Washington departed from Philadelphia in his carriage with a train of servants. A big, rough-hewn Hessian named John Fagan drove the coach, with James Hurley as the postilion. Major William Jackson, presidential porter John Mauld, and valet William Osborne trotted alongside on horseback. Washington’s slave Giles drove the baggage wagon with two horses, while his other slave in the rear, Paris, rode the white parade horse, Prescott, that Washington would ride into towns. In a playful touch, Washington included his greyhound, which he had named Cornwallis. In New York and Philadelphia, Giles and Paris had served as coachman and postilion, and their demotion to the back of the presidential procession may have been designed to placate southern sensibilities. It may also have reflected Washington’s displeasure with the two men. By the end of the tour, Washington would drop Paris from his presidential household, describing him as “lazy, self-willed, and impudent,” while Giles developed an injury that made it impossible for him to ride a horse.³⁴