Still, only two states are represented in the State House. For convenience it was agreed to alter the time of the daily meeting to one o’clock until enough States arrive to constitute a quorum. In the meantime, the Virginians meet together in the morning but have begun spending time with the Pennsylvania delegates, renewing old friendships, and making new ones.
Although most of the delegates from both States are nationalists, they have diverse views about how to constitute the most effective arrangement to achieve a strong central government. Slavery also divides them. Seven years ago, Pennsylvania became the first State to begin the process of gradual abolition; Philadelphia is a hotbed of abolitionist activity. By contrast, not only is slavery legal in Virginia, all of its delegates to the convention own slaves. Already the Pennsylvanians and Virginians are discussing these and other issues, hoping to understand and to be understood. Arriving at some informal consensus prior to the convention is to their great advantage.
Whether they are talking among themselves about the Society of the Cincinnati is unknown. We are not privy to their private conversations and there is no publicity about the Society’s General Meeting which convened here nine days ago. But last night General Washington dined with many of its members.
Last December, after the Virginia General Assembly unanimously elected Washington as a delegate to the federal convention, he respectfully declined the appointment, in part because he had earlier declined the request of the Society of the Cincinnati to attend its meeting. Both meetings were to be held in Philadelphia at approximately the same time. How could he attend the federal convention and not that of the Society without being disrespectful of those men with whom he had served?
However, circumstances had changed and being pressed by Henry Knox, James Madison, and others, he wrote to Governor Pendleton on March 28 his intention to attend both events.
Washington had agreed to serve as the first president of the Society in 1783, envisioning a brotherhood of Revolutionary War veterans through which they could perpetuate their comradeship and provide aid to the widows and orphans of fallen officers.
However, from its beginning the Society has been under attack. Its own correspondence indicates its concerns go beyond camaraderie, widows, and orphans. It advocates “an unalterable determination to promote and cherish between the states that union and national honor so necessary to their happiness, and the future dignity of the American empire.” Critics of the Society believe such sentiments reflect a political agenda destructive of the current government under the Articles of Confederation. Twenty-one of its members have been selected as delegates to the federal convention. What influence is the Society likely to bear?
Many believe the Society is elitist, planting the seeds of aristocracy by embracing hereditary membership, extending it to “the eldest male” in line. Might such a nascent nobility overthrow the republic? After all, there are in America some who still support monarchy. What about the Society’s admission of foreign members? Is this not an invitation for mischief in our affairs from abroad?
The number of Society members seeking public office or already in elective office across the country is ominous. Newspapers have run critiques of the Society, while candidates for the Virginia legislature debated it and the Massachusetts legislature condemned it.
Aware of these and other concerns as early as 1784, General Washington proposed seven changes to the Society’s rules, including discontinuance of hereditary membership and striking from the Society’s documents “every word, sentence, and clause which has a ‘political tendency.’” Some, but not all, of the proposed changes were approved that year by an assemblage of forty-five representatives from twelve states. The hereditary provision was eliminated for national Society membership, but state societies were not so restricted.
As was Washington’s practice, he sought advice and counsel. In 1784,Thomas Jefferson, serving as minister to France, urged him to disassociate himself from the Society. It is, he warned, is against the letter and spirit of the Confederation, “the foundation on which …is the natural equality of man…and the denial of preeminence by birth.” In November 1787, his counsel to Washington had not changed. “I have never heard a person in Europe, learned or unlearned…who did not consider it as dishonorable and destructive to our governments [and] as the germ whose development is one day to destroy the fabric we have reared.”
Reluctantly, Washington agreed to attend some sessions this year but not to preside. Nor does he wish to be reelected as its President. Nevertheless, he was reelected, with his insistence that he would be required neither to attend nor preside over future meetings.
Of all the Society members who planned to attend the federal convention, only four are attending both meetings: David Brearly and Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, Alexander Hamilton of New York, and Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania. In the end, it appears that General Washington took no part in the Society’s meetings, except for the dinner last night. Today Washington had tea with Dr. Franklin and spent the evening with John Penn, grandson of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania.