Francois Furstenberg - In the Name of the Father: Washingtons Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation

PENGUIN BOOKS

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER

Franois Furstenberg was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, and Washington. After graduating with a BA from Columbia University, he worked for several years in Paris before pursuing his graduate studies in history at The Johns Hopkins University, where he earned his Ph.D. He was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in U.S. history at Cambridge University, England, for one year, after which he moved to Montreal, Canada, where he is an assistant professor of history at the Universit de Montral.

PRESIDING
EDITOR

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

BOARD
MEMBERS

Alan Brinkley, John Demos, Glenda Gilmore, Jill Lepore, David Levering Lewis, Patricia Limerick, James M. McPherson, Louis Menand, James Merrell, Garry Wills, Gordon Wood

AUTHORS

Richard D. Brown, James T. Campbell, Franois Furstenberg, Julie Greene, Kristin Hoganson, Frederick Hoxie, Karl Jacoby, Stephen Kantrowitz, Alex Keyssar, Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot, Reid Mitchell, Joseph Trotter, Daniel Vickers, Michael Willrich

I N THE N AME
OF THE F ATHER

Washingtons Legacy, Slavery,
and the Making of a Nation

Franois Furstenberg

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First published in the United States of America by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2006

Published in Penguin Books 2007

Copyright Franois Furstenberg, 2006

All rights reserved

Illustrations credits appear on pages .

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Furstenberg, Franois.

In the name of the father : Washingtons legacy, slavery, and the making of a nation / Franois Furstenberg

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-101-65104-9

1. United StatesPolitics and government17891815. 2. Washington, George, 17321799Influence. 3. PresidentsUnited StatesBiographyHistory and criticism. 4. SlaveryPolitical aspectsUnited StatesHistory18th century. 5. SlaveryPolitical aspectsUnited StatesHistory19th century. 6. TextbooksUnited StatesHistory18th century. 7. TextbooksUnited States19th century. 8. Political cultureUnited StatesHistory18th century. 9. Political cultureUnited StatesHistory19th century. I. Title.

E310F97 2006

973.41092dc22 2006043481

Designed by AMANDA DEWEY

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To my parents,
Gilberte and Mark

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.

W ASHINGTONS F AREWELL A DDRESS , 1796

The Farewell

PhiladelphiaThursday morning, September 15, 1796. David Claypoole, long-time Philadelphia printer and newspaper publisher, received an unusual visitor. Tobias Lear, President George Washingtons personal secretary, had come to deliver a note summoning him to the executive residence. When Claypoole arrived at the presidents house that afternoon, he found Washington sitting alone in his drawing room. It was here that Claypoole received startling news: Washington was planning to retire from the presidency. He wanted Claypoole to publish an address making the announcement.

It was only fitting that Washington select Claypoole, who had a long history publishing important patriotic documents. He and his former partner John the Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser. That newspaper had since been renamed Claypooles American Daily Advertiser, and it would be the one to print Washingtons Farewell Address.

1. The Dunlap Print of the Declaration of Independence. This broadside was published by the order of the Continental Congress in 1776, and was the version Washington ordered read to his assembled troops in New York on July 9, 1776.

In Washingtons drawing room that afternoon, the two men discussed the mechanics of publishing the document, and agreed that the announcement would come out in Claypooles Monday edition. No doubt flattered by the commission, and knowing the importance of the document that had been entrusted to him, Claypoole spent the weekend working on the printed version of the address,

2. The front page of Claypooles American Daily Advertiser, the newspaper Washington selected to publish his Farewell Address in September 1796. The Address was never given as an oration: first published here, it would be circulated by the expanding network of printers around the country, republished in newspapers, pamphlets, broadsides, and books.