George Washington and the Hippopotamus

Having previously reported on George Washington's dentures, I have no idea whether the following is true (emphasis added):

By 1789 [George Washington] was using false teeth, and he lost his last tooth in 1795. At first these substitutes were very badly fitted, and when Stuart painted his famous picture he tried to remedy the malformation they gave the mouth by padding under the lips with cotton. The result was to make bad worse, and to give, in that otherwise fine portrait, a feature at once poor and unlike Washington, and for this reason alone the Sharpless miniature, which in all else approximates so closely to Stuart's masterpiece, is preferable. In 1796 Washington was furnished with two sets of "sea-horse" (i.e., hippopotamus) ivory teeth, and they were so much better fitted that the distortion of the mouth ceased to be noticeable.

H/T Lawprof Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Bloodletting

Last month, a post at Frances Hunter's American Heroes Blog, entitled Lewis & Clark's Medicine Chest, gave rise in the comments to some speculation as to whether those who lacked access to medical care in the 18th and early 19th Centuries were better off for it. Was there any empirical evidence to support the proposition?

A post at overcomingbias suggests an affirmative answer, at least with respect to pneumonia patients. The post quotes a book entitled Hard Facts as follows:

Bloodletting was used routinely until 1836 when French physician Pierre Louis conducted one of the first clinical trials in medicine. Louis compared pneumonia patients whom he treated with aggressive bloodletting and those he treated without it. Louis found that bloodletting was linked to far more deaths. . . . George Washington, the first president of the United States, . . . died two days after a doctor treated his sore throat by draining almost five pints of blood.

H/T Lawprof Mike Rappaport at The Right Coast.

Did President Washington Lie in Office?

Last Monday, Brian Tubbs at the American Revolution & Founding Era authored a post entitled Did President Washington Lie in Office?. Although Brian did not answer the question directly, the suggestion was that he did not.

Now I am a tremendous admirer of George Washington, but the historical evidence seems fairly clear that on at least one occasion during his presidency he was not, let us say, entirely forthcoming. The following comes from Stanley Elkins's and Eric McKitrick's wonderful book, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800.

The story begins on July 16, 1790, when President Washington signed into law An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States. Among other things, the Act authorized the president to locate the ten-mile square Federal District along the Potomac River.

Six months later, on January 24, 1791, President Washington issued a Proclamation Defining the Boundaries of the District of Columbia, in which he announced the location he had selected.

The Act empowered three commissioners, to be appointed by the president, to "purchase or accept" land in the District and directed the commissioners to "provide suitable buildings for the accommodation" of the government before the 1st Monday of December 1800. The Act did not, however, provide funding for these activities. To the contrary, Section 4 stated that, "for defraying the expense of such purchases and buildings, the President of the United States be authorized and requested to accept grants of money," suggesting that funds would be obtained from sources other than Congress.

President Washington did not request funds from Congress or even mention funding in his Proclamation, nor did he seek funding thereafter. This omission was intentional. At the urging of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Washington determined that financing would not involve the use of funds obtained from Congress. "Asking Congress for an appropriation, or for any other kind of assistance, might reopen the entire question of the residence."

Virginia and Maryland had promised to contribute funds totaling $192,000, but these would clearly be insufficient for the grandiose plans that Jefferson was developing. To defray anticipated costs, Washington adopted a two-part plan.

First, to acquire the land at the end of March 1791 Washington personally worked out a deal with local landowners. They would cede thousands of acres to the United States.

[U]pon its being laid off in lots the proprietor of each tract would retain every other lot. Such land remaining in private hands as might be taken for public purposes (excluding streets) would be paid for at a stipulated rate. The benefit to the proprietors, of course, was that the land they retained would be steadily enhanced in value with the unfolding of the golden future.

Second, to pay for the land to be taken for public purposes, and to fund construction, the government would auction off those lots it determined it did not need as soon as possible.

It would not be prudent to start borrowing money, at least until a sale should determine the value of the lots, and not without legislative authority. The proprietors should not be paid for public squares taken out of their property until the money for it should be raised from the sale of their own lands.

"It was at about this point, however, that everything began falling to pieces." Although Washington, Jefferson and Rep. James Madison personally attended, the first auction, held in October 1791, was a disaster. Only thirty-five of ten thousand lots were sold, "four of them taken by the Commissioners themselves in order to keep up the bidding; and the actual cash receipts came to little more than $2,000."

Faced with a result that cast serious doubt on the viability of the District of Columbia project, "Washington in his annual message to Congress referred to the affairs of the Federal City in a manner that was anything but candid":

Pursuant to the authority contained in the several Acts on that subject, a district of ten miles square for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States has been fixed, and announced by proclamation; which district will comprehend lands on both sides of the River Potomack, and the towns of Alexandria and George Town. A City has also been laid out agreeably to a plan which will be placed before Congress: And as there is a prospect, favoured by the rate of sales which have already taken place, of ample funds for carrying on the necessary public buildings, there is every expectation of their due progress.

A second sale, held a year later in October 1792, was likewise "a failure, and Washington knew it." This time he told Congress nothing in his annual message.

A third auction held in September 1793 "fared even worse than had the previous two." Washington "suspended all further public sales," but "not a word to Congress."

Facing disaster, Washington apparently approved what seems to have been an extra-legal scheme to avoid having to go to Congress:

[T]he Commissioners with Washington's approval furtively began borrowing money, or rather trying to borrow it, though not authorized by law to do so. A syndicate was formed by three men of acknowledged standing in financial circles . . . to purchase several thousand lots, pay for them in seven annual installments, sell a portion to private buyers at the enhanced prices which would presumably be created by their activities, provide the Commissioners with a monthly sum for operating expenses, and negotiate a large loan abroad, using the lots (title to which had been transferred to the syndicate before they were paid for) as collateral. The promoters, however, could not sell their lots, could not meet their installments, and could not interest any investors, foreign or domestic, in a loan of any such nature. Their entire structure collapsed, and by the fall of 1797 all three were in debtor's prison.

Having run out options, Washington "finally faced the bitter choice early in 1796 of asking Congress for authority to borrow money openly on the security of public property." Elkins and McKitrick characterize Washington's message as "a true masterpiece of evasion." Washington

transmitted a memorial from the Commissioners praying that an act to this effect be passed, and he told the House and Senate that in such an enterprise as the building of a capital "difficulties might naturally be expected; some have occurred; but they are in a great degree surmounted, and I have no doubt if the remaining resources are properly cherished, so as to prevent the loss of property by hasty and numerous sales, that all the buildings required . . . may be compleated in season, without aid from the Federal Treasury." But Washington and the Commissioners understood full well that what they were asking for was not really a loan after all, but "aid from the Federal Treasury," and the reason was the same as that for which all the other schemes had failed.

The key phrase in the memorial was the final one: "that, in case the property so pledged shall prove inadequate to the purpose of repayment, the United States will make good the deficiency." . . . The question was dragged out for four months before a loan of $500,000 [sic; the statute states $300,000] was finally authorized.

About the illustration:

In July 1790 Congress decided to move the seat of the federal government from its original site in New York to Washington, with Philadelphia as an interim capital. The unidentified satirist gives a cynical view of the profit opportunity which this presented for Philadelphians. A three-masted ship with a smaller boat in tow sails toward a fork in a river. It is being lured by a devil toward the lower fork (eventually leading to Philadelphia), which falls precipitously in a rocky cataract, and away from the fork which leads to the "Potowmack" river. A devil beckons them on, saying, "This way Bobby" (referring to Robert Morris, the alleged instigator of the move). A man in the bow of the ship remarks of the figurehead, "This looks more like a goose than an eagle's head." Behind him another says through a bullhorn, "Starboard your helm Coffer-- don't you hear your friend on the Rock." Another passenger waves a hat and shouts "Huzza for Philadelphia." A man (possibly Morris) holding the helm says, "I will venture all for Philadelphia." In the boat in tow the following conversation is in progress: "Cut the Painter [tow line] as soon as you see the Ship in danger." "I wonder what could have induced the Controller to sign our Clearance." "Self gratification I suppose for it cannot be any advantage to the owner." "If they had come round in the S. Union the constitution would not have been lost." "They might have known that the Ship would have been in danger by comeing this way." "Ay, Ay, I had best do it [cut the rope] now for I believe she is going to the devil." Below the falls, three men in a dinghy say, "If we can catch the cargo never mind the Ship," "Keep a sharp look out for a majority and the treasury," and "Ay, Ay that's what we are after."

The Washington-Jefferson Snow Storm January 1772

Some news articles about the blizzard now hitting Washington and environs are referring to the Washington-Jefferson snow storm of late January 1772, so called because both Washington and Jefferson referred to it in their diaries.

The Jefferson reference occurs in his Garden Book (click on page 35).

Washington refers to the storm in his diary, noting on January 29 "the snow being up to the breast of a [?] horse everywhere."

"And what, Mr. President, do you suppose it is?"

Henry Clay concluded his speech of January 29, 1850 introducing his compromise resolutions by stirring the patriotic feelings of his auditors. He did so by invoking that great symbol of the Union, George Washington. And he invoked Washington by “relating an incident, a thrilling incident” that was both improbable and calculated to encourage his listeners to suspend their disbelief.

That very morning, Clay related, a man came to his room. Unaware that Clay was just about to give a speech seeking to save the Union, the man offered him an object that he described as “a precious relic.”

He then drew out of his pocket, and presented to me, the object which I now hold in my hand.

Here Clay dramatically thrust out his hand. Addressing Vice President Millard Fillmore, Clay continued:

And what, Mr. President, do you suppose it is?

It is a fragment of the coffin of Washington – a fragment of that coffin in which now repose in silence, in sleep, and speechless, all the earthly remains of the venerated Father of his Country.

Was it portentious that it should have thus been presented to me? Was it a sad presage of what might happen to that fabric which Washington's virtue, patriotism, and valor established?

No, sir, no. It was a warning voice, coming from the grave to the Congress now in session to beware, to pause, to reflect before they lend themselves to any purposes which shall destroy that Union which was cemented by his exertion and example.

Sir, I hope an impression may be made on your mind, such as that which was made on mine by the reception of this precious relic.

A brief coda followed:

And, in conclusion, I now ask every Senator, I entreat you, gentlemen, in fairness and candor, to examine the plan of accommodation which this series of resolutions proposes, and not to pronounce against them until convinced after a thorough examination.

This site suggests it is conceivable that Clay was given a fragment of George Washington's coffin – or at least that such fragments or purported fragments existed and were in circulation:

George Washington Purported Coffin Fragment and Memorabilia. Including a photograph of his tomb, a colored engraving, card with Washington's coat of arms, overall: 15 1/2" x 16" (sight), matted together and framed, Together With a photograph of a group outside his tomb, 8" x 10". When George Washington was originally buried, his body was placed in a wooden casket which was then placed in a closed vault. In 1837, his body was removed from the wooden casket and re-interred in a new marble sarcophagus. The exhumation was witnessed by a number of neighbors and celebrities of the day. The old wooden casket was broken into pieces and presented to those in attendance. This piece, measuring 1 1/2 " x 3/4 " x 3/4 ", is attached to a newspaper clipping (c. 1837) and is mounted with prints of Washington and his gravesite. The newspaper article reads: Some of Washginton's Coffin [From the Milledgeville (Ga.) Union and Recorder]." We held in our hand yesterday a piece of the black walnut coffin in which George Washington, the "Father of His Country" was buried. It was in the possession of H.V. Sanford and about the size of a woman's hand. Mrs. General John W.W. Sanford, formerly of this society, was a lady of great refinement and cultivation, a great traveler, and of fine education. She was present when Washington's coffin was exhumed and procured several pieces of the coffin much larger then [sic] the one handled yesterday, which are now in the possession of a sister of H.V. Sanford. The pieces are about half an inch in thickness, and on account of age, and the many years that they were in the ground, are very light."

George Washington's Dentures

I am not sure this is true (although you can find pictures on the internet that suggest it is), but I'm never going to look at those portraits of George Washington (or the $1 bill) the same way again:

For me, the most interesting part of the story about George’s teeth is the mechanism of their fabrication. The upper and lower gold plates were connected by springs which pushed the upper and lower plates against the upper and lower ridges of his mouth to hold them in place. Washington actually had to actively close his jaws together to make his teeth bite together. If he relaxed, his mouth would pop open. There is speculation that this is the reason that the Father of Our Country always looks so stern in his portraits. Take a look at a dollar bill. George isn’t upset - he’s just trying to keep his teeth in!!!

Hat tip to The Other McCain.

The Potomac Canal and the Constitution

Susan Dunn notes an irony in the fact that, in subsequent years, many of Virginia’s founding fathers disputed that the Constitution authorized the federal government to support “internal improvements,” as they were then known. After all, Prof. Dunn observes,

The Framers of the Constitution had come together in Philadelphia precisely to create a national government with the capacity to plan and support a system of roads and canals. From the very beginning, “internal improvements” – roads, canals, bridges – had been not only the new government’s mission but its raison d’etre.

As Prof. Dunn recounts, the pre-history of the gathering of the Constitutional Convention lay in the possibility of using the Potomac River to develop a Potomac Canal that would funnel trade from Ohio through Virginia. Thomas Jefferson supported the idea, and George Washington was particularly enthusiastic.

Because the Potomac River lay between Virginia and Maryland, Washington organized a “Mount Vernon Conference, at which representatives from Virginia and Maryland would meet in March 1785 to work out commercial and legal issues.” That plan developed into a larger conference, to be held in Annapolis in the fall of 1786, at which “representatives from all thirteen states would gather to consider a ‘uniform system’ for regulating commerce and transportation across the nation.”

The resulting conference, known as the Annapolis Convention, convened at Annapolis, Maryland in September 1786 to consider, in the words of the resulting Report, “how far an uniform system in their [the states’] commercial intercourse and regulations might be necessary to their common interest and permanent harmony.” The Annapolis Convention, however, “proved a disappointment, with delegates from only five states in attendance.” Nonetheless, the delegates issued a Report in which they called for yet another conference, at which, they hoped, delegates would agree to authorize the federal government to initiate and orchestrate infrastructure projects. In the words of the Report:

Your Commissioners, with the most respectful deference, beg leave to suggest their unanimous conviction, that it may essentially tend to advance the interests of the union, if the States, by whom they have been respectively delegated, would themselves concur, and use their endeavours to procure the concurrence of the other States, in the appointment of Commissioners, to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday in May next, to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union; and to report such an Act for that purpose to the United States in Congress assembled, as when agreed to, by them, and afterwards confirmed by the Legislatures of every State, will effectually provide for the same.

That proposed conference became the Constitutional Convention. “And so, a direct line of descent can be traced from the Constitutional Convention – at which Benjamin Franklin called for ‘a power to provide for cutting canals where deemed necessary’ – back to George Washington’s Potomac Canal.”

It is perhaps appropriate to give the last word to John Quincy Adams, who during his presidency “called once again for a national plan for internal improvements."

Unlike [James] Madison, [Adams] had not attended the Constitutional Convention, but he did not doubt that the Constitution allowed for such federal undertakings. If it had not, Adams mused, it could be said that the Founders “performed their work in a manner so ineffably stupid as to deny themselves the means of bettering their own condition.”

Favorite Presidents

In honor of Presidents' Day, National Review has solicited fourteen commentators to identify their favorite presidents and briefly explain their choices.

What is interesting is the variety of opinions. The usual suspects -- George Washington and Abraham Lincoln -- appear: Lincoln gets 2 1/2 votes and Washington gets 1 1/2. As you might expect, Ronald Reagan gets a vote, and William Henry Harrison gets two tongue-in-cheek nods (for dying before he could do any harm). But serious arguments are made in favor of no fewer than seven other candidates: Chester Alan Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge, Warren G. Harding, James K. Polk, Teddy Roosevelt and . . . wait for it . . . none other than Millard Fillmore!

Martha Washington, Hot Babe

This is really cool. Michael J. Deas portrays Martha in her 20s.

Did Alexander Hamilton Concede that Canals "were beyond the sphere of Federal legislation"?

In his wonderful The Last of the Fathers: James Madison & the Republican Legacy, Drew R. McCoy discusses James Madison's continuing conviction that the Constitution did not authorize the federal government to construct internal improvements, as they were then known. I was particularly intrigued by the following sentence:

[In a January 6, 1831 letter to Reynolds Chapman,] Madison recalled that even [Alexander] Hamilton, in his 1790 report on the Bank, had conceded that canals "were beyond the sphere of Federal legislation."

I had not heard before that Hamilton – supposedly the epitome of broad constitutional construction – had made such a concession. It struck me that, if he had, it was a powerful piece of evidence concerning the original understanding of the meaning of the document.

When I looked at Hamilton’s December 1790 report on the Bank, however, I could find no such discussion of canals. But then I wondered whether Madison had misremembered the source.

You probably know that President Washington invited members of his cabinet to submit to him memoranda explaining why they maintained that the proposed Bank legislation was or was not constitutional. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Attorney General Edmund Randolph submitted memoranda arguing the negative. Hamilton then submitted a memorandum in support of constitutionality, which ultimately convinced the president to sign the legislation. Might Madison, I wondered, have been thinking of Hamilton’s 1791 memo?

Well, it turns out that Madison almost certainly was referring to that memo, because it does indeed contain a discussion that touches on the constitutionality of canals (emphasis added):

Another argument made use of by the Secretary of State [Jefferson] is, the rejection of a proposition by the Convention to empower Congress to make corporations, either generally, or for some special purpose.

What was the precise nature or extent of this proposition, or what the reasons for refusing it, is not ascertained by any authentic document, or even by accurate recollection. As far as any such document exists, it specifies only canals. If this was the amount of it, it would, at most, only prove that it was thought inexpedient to give a power to incorporate for the purpose of opening canals, for which purpose a special power would have been necessary, except with regard to the western territory, there being nothing in any part of the Constitution respecting the regulation of canals. It must be confessed, however, that very different accounts are given of the import of the proposition, and of the motives for rejecting it. Some affirm, that it was confined to the opening of canals and obstructions in rivers, others, that it embraced banks; and others, that it extended to the power of incorporating generally. Some, again, allege, that it was disagreed to because it was thought improper to vest in Congress a power of erecting corporations. Others, because it was thought unnecessary to specify the power, and inexpedient to furnish an additional topic of objection to the Constitution. In this state of the matter, no inference whatever can be drawn from it.

But whatever may have been the nature of the proposition, or the reasons for rejecting it, nothing is included by it, that is the proposition, in respect to the real merits of the question. The Secretary of State will not deny, that, whatever may have been the intention of the framers of a constitution, or of a law, that intention is to be sought for in the instrument itself, according to the usual and established rules of construction. Nothing is more common than for laws to express and elect more or less than was intended. If, then, a power to erect a corporation in any case be deducible, by fair inference, from the whole or any part of the numerous provisions of the Constitution of the United States arguments drawn from extrinsic circumstances regarding the in tension of the Convention must be rejected.

I’m not at all sure what to make of Hamilton’s statement. Madison had clearly latched on to the phrase, “there being nothing in any part of the Constitution respecting the regulation of canals,” as an unambiguous concession, and he has a point. On the other hand, in the context of the Hamilton’s overall argument, the canal point is subsidiary to the point of being a throw-away.

About the illustration, which dates to 1812:

A patriotic broadside illustrated with emblems of the United States composed chiefly of typographic elements. A large central framework incorporates a small "Temple of Freedom" surmounted by a small Liberty figure, and containing the words "The Federal Constitution." On each side are oval bust portraits of Presidents (left to right) Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. Above them are small vignettes representing (on the left) Agriculture and Domestic Manufactures, the "immoveable pillars of the Independence of our country," and (on the right) Commerce, "a strong support to our national edifice." In the upper section of the framework are the seal of the United States and a listing of the names of the seventeen states with their 1810 census figures. Various quotations and brief texts are included, the longest of which are an account of George Washington's resignation of his commission, a description of the geography, government, and people of the United States, and the song "Columbia" written by "Dr. Dwight, President of Yale College."

Boola Boola!

Senate Chamber 1850

I may have been wrong. In the this illustration, a larger version of which may be accessed here, the portrait appears to be that of George Washington.

The LA Times Does History

According to the LA Times, George Washington served only one term as president:

In his portrayal of our second president, Paul Giamatti creates a man perpetually dissatisfied, disgusted by the preening ambition of politics even as he is infected by it. If his relentless crankiness was a bit hard for some of us to take in early episodes, in the second half of the series it makes much more sense. While exhorting angry men to throw off the shackles of tyranny offers many opportunities for rhetorical fabulousness, setting up a new government is a bureaucratic nightmare, with oversized personalities disagreeing over things both petty and fundamental. George Washington (David Morse) so quickly tired of the infighting among his Cabinet and vagaries of public opinion that he stepped down from the presidency after a single term. "I know now what it is like to be disliked," he says to Adams, his perpetually disliked vice president.

I don't think so.

George Washington's Salary as President

When George Washington took the oath of office as president on April 30, 1789, technically he had no salary. The House and Senate had not assembled sufficient members to form quorums until April 1 and April 6, respectively, and had passed no law setting the president’s salary.

In his First Inaugural Address on April 30, 1789, Washington announced his intention not to accept any salary or other remuneration for serving as president:

To the foregoing observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honored with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed; and being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.

Washington’s statement renewed a debate that dated back at least to ancient Athens, where Pericles introduced payment for the Council of 500 and jury service in about 450 B.C. In the American context, however, the arguments also assumed a constitutional dimension. Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 specifically addressed the issue of presidential compensation:

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

When the House began debate on a salary bill, Rep. John Page of Virginia said flatly, “[T]he constitution requires that he [the president] shall receive a compensation, and it is our duty to provide it.”

This position had substantial merit. The language of the clause included the mandatory “shall.” Moreover, as the late David Currie observed, other considerations pointed in the same direction:

If the constitutional premise was that financial independence was a crucial barrier to corruption, an officer who impoverished himself by declining his wages endangered the public interest. Moreover, if Washington was right that he need not accept this money, there would always be a risk that the President’s waiver was not truly voluntary; reading the Constitution to mean what it said would obviate the need for inquiry on this unpromising score.

This position ultimately prevailed. The Act passed by Congress granted the president an annual salary, and President Washington agreed to accept it.

At the same time, there was also a debate concerned the form of the president’s compensation. The House committee appointed to consider the issue apparently proposed a fixed salary of $20,000 plus an allowance for specified expenses, such as house rent, furniture, plate, horses, carriage and salaries for secretaries and clerks.

However, when the matter came up for debate before the House, a number of members expressed constitutional concerns. Some suggested that the allowance might be a forbidden “emolument,” and/or that it would undercut the independence of the Executive, because the president would have to justify, and Congress would have to pass on, each request to draw on the allowance:

Mr. LAWRENCE [sic, John Laurance of New York] . . . [stated that] it ought to be granted as one sum, because he is to receive no other emolument whatever from the United States . . . . but I have no objection to blend these sums together, declaring the whole to be the compensation required by the constitution . . ..

Mr. [Roger] SHERMAN [of Connecticut] thought it much better to give a net sum, because the President would then have no accounts to settle with the United States.

Mr. [Theodore] SEDGWICK [of Massachusetts] considered this a constitutional question, and therefore thought it deserved serious investigation. The provision made in the report, for paying the expenses of enumerated articles, does not leave the President in the situation intended by the constitution, which was, that he should be independent of the Legislature, during his continuance in office; that he should have a compensation for his services, not to be increased or diminished during that period; but there is nothing that will prevent us from making further allowances, provided that the twenty thousand dollars is all that is given as a compensation. From these considerations, he was led to believe that the report was founded on unconstitutional principles.

Others – including James Madison – disagreed:

Mr. MADISON did not think the report interfered with either the spirit or letter of the constitution, and therefore was opposed to any alteration, especially with respect to the property of a fixed nature. He was sure, if the furniture and plate, and house rent, could be allowed, some of the other articles might also. The horses and carriages will cost money, and sell for little, after being used for four years; this will be a certain loss to the President, or his family . . ..

In the end, however, the House decided to avoid the difficult issue by eliminating the allowance provision. It then voted to increase the fixed salary from $20,000 to $25,000. The statute was finally enacted on September 24, 1789 – almost five months after Washington took office – and provided fixed salaries for both the president and vice president:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there shall be allowed to the President of the United States, at the rate of twenty-five thousand dollars, with the use of the furniture and other effects, now in his possession, belonging to the United States; and to the Vice President, at the rate of five thousand dollars per annum, in full compensation for their respective services, to commence with the time of their entering on the duties of their offices respectively, and to continue so long as they shall remain in office, and to be paid quarterly out of the treasury of the United States.