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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THOMAS JOHNSON. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XII (1790-1794) [1891]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. XII (1790-1794).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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TO THOMAS JOHNSON.

Philadelphia, 23 January, 1794.

Dear Sir,

Your letter of the 23d ult. came duly to hand. With regret I perceive your determination to withdraw from the Commission under which you have acted for executing the plan of the Federal City.—My wish was, and still is, if it could be made to comport with your convenience and inclination, that it should be changed, or at least suspended; for I should be sorry to see others (coming in at the eleventh hour as it were) reap the fruits of your difficult labors; but if this cannot be, I would thank you for naming (which may be in confidence) such persons as you shall think best qualified to succeed you in this interesting and important business.—My limited acquaintance with convenient characters does not enable me to do it to my own satisfaction; and even among those, which might happen to present themselves to my view, there might be local circumstances in the way, unknown to me which would render them ineligible in the opinion of the public; for the impartial execution of the trust reposed. Were it not for this I presume proper characters might be had in Georgetown, or among the Proprietors of the City, but how far their connections or jarring interests therein, may be a let to such appointments is worthy of that consideration which you can so well appreciate for my information.

With respect to Mr. Blodget I have not hesitated on former occasions to declare and I think to the Commisioners themselves from the moment his conduct began to unfold itself, that his appointment did not in my judgment answer the end which had been contemplated.—At first I was at a loss how to account for a conduct so distant from any of the ideas I had entertained of the duties of a Superintendent, but it appears evidently enough now, that speculation has been his primary object from the beginning.

My letters (if not to the Commissioners, to an individual member I am sure) when compared with the conduct of Mr. Blodget, will shew that he has in no wise answered my expectations as Superintendent for my ideas of these (in the exercise of a competent character, always on the spot with sufficient powers, and fully instructed) were, that it would render a meeting of the Commissioners oftener than quarterly, or half yearly, unnecessary in the ordinary course of the business; cases it is true might occur requiring occasional ones, but these, after the stated meetings were sufficiently promulgated, would very rarely happen. According to these ideas, fixing on a plan, giving the outlines of it, receiving the reports, inspecting the proceedings, examining the accounts, revising the instructions or furnishing new ones at the periodical meetings is all that appeared to me necessary for the Commissioners to do; leaving to the Superintendent, who ought to be competent thereto and responsible, the execution in detail.

I wish you may have yet seen the worst feature in Mr. Blodget’s conduct. Finding that he was determined to proceed in his second Lottery, notwithstanding the admonition that had been given him by the Commissioners;—that he had actually sold tickets in it—and for Georgia land;1 I directed the Secretary of State to inform him in explicit terms, that if he did not instantly suspend all further proceeding therein until the sanction of the Commissioners should be unequivocally obtained, I would cause the unauthorised mode in which he was acting to be announced to the public, to guard it against imposition. In consequence he has set out, it is said, to wait upon them. If this be true, the result you must know. Little confidence, I fear, is placed in Mr. Blodget and least where he is best known.

With much truth, I remain.

[1 ]The Minerva, 23 December, 1793, contains a sharp attack on Blodget for his speculations.