But where were the rest of the country’s supposedly great men?
One would have searched the assembled crowd in vain for Jefferson, Madison, or Monroe. Though I could well imagine the three Republicans clustered around a dinner table, wickedly toasting Washington’s demise and the opportunity it now gave their party to rise to power.
For my part, I was forced to steal away to the privacy of my room so that the children would not see my tears fall as I remembered the first time that godlike man spoke my name in welcoming me to his military encampment.
My heart bled for Martha.
She must feel so alone now, I thought. Inconsolable. She’d had children from her first marriage, but none with Washington. And she’d had only two years with her husband after a lifetime of public service. Only two years to sit together upon their piazza overlooking the Potomac and dine together in the privacy of their rooms. And yet, even then, I knew Mount Vernon resembled a well-resorted tavern, with people stopping by for a glimpse of the former president and in expectation of southern hospitality. A meal, a room for the night, a stable with feed for their horses—all at Washington’s expense, of course.
We consumed him, I thought, clutching the pendant I wore containing his hair.
We might not have chopped off Washington’s head and lapped up his blood from the paving stones as the French mobs did with their king. But we’d taken the best years of his life—his sweat, his toil, his wisdom, his vigor and energies. And what did we give him in return? For eight years we called him president. Now we called him the Father of the Country.
Who then, was the heir?
All eyes, it seemed, turned to an increasingly erratic President John Adams. But finding him wanting, some looked to Alexander Hamilton. And for the first time, I found myself almost grateful for the exposure of my husband’s infidelity. Because it meant that he hadn’t the stature to run for the presidency. Not now, at least.
We were stuck with President Adams. The alternative was unthinkable.
The alternative was Jefferson.
“Did you remember to deliver the parcel to Widow Rhinelander?” I asked Philip when he absconded with a piece of bread, trying to slip out the back door.
“I could scarcely forget, with all your reminders.” My tall son leaned against the butcher block table in the basement kitchen of our rented town house, affecting a manly devil-may-care pose. He was still dutiful about helping to deliver baskets to the needy, but having graduated from Columbia College, he would not be at my beck and call for long. He was grown now—and keen to prove it. “Fortunately, Mrs. Rhinelander has a very pretty girl living next door to her . . .”
“Naughty young man,” I scolded, for he was entirely too much like his father had once been—irresistibly brilliant, shamelessly flirtatious, and outrageously handsome. I’d already had to warn him against making eyes at our pot-scrubbing girl. Now I snatched the butter before he absconded with it, too. “Don’t make me fear to send you on errands for the charity lest you flirt with the ladies.”
“I wouldn’t flirt with Widow Rhinelander.” Philip’s mouth twisted into a feigned expression of horror and he shuddered. “She reminds me of the Baron von Steuben, may he rest in peace. Besides, she says all her German gentlemen friends are voting Republican . . .”
Of course they were.
Which was why, for the coming elections, I found myself undertaking the most energetic role in the political wrangling that I could without forfeiting my dignity as a lady. While going door to door and church to church raising charitable donations, I’d made careful note of those with Federalist sympathies who might be approached for support. Every day that my husband—who should’ve been about the business of the military—rode hither and yon, haranguing passing crowds on street corners, attending committee meetings in various wards, and even enlisting our sons to stand watch at polling stations where we suspected election trickery, I pinned my black Federalist cockade to my hat and went out to praise the virtues of courage and perseverance in the Federalist cause.
It was an unseemly business to electioneer in support of President Adams, but we’d been forced to it by Aaron Burr, who opened his house to offer refreshments and a mattress upon the floor to any grubby miscreant willing to campaign for a populist sweep of Jeffersonians into the government.
And now Philip complained, “It seems Colonel Burr sent someone to the neighborhood who spoke German. And he’s drawing up lists of voters in all the immigrant precincts.”
“For all the good it will do him,” I said, smugly. “To vote, immigrants must have resided here fourteen years, and own substantial property.”
But, having embarked upon the study of the law in his father’s footsteps, Philip explained, “Burr’s found a legal loophole. He’s going to have them pool the value of their property so they can qualify to vote.”
Damn Aaron Burr! Was there no end to his schemes?
Of course, it was just what Alexander would’ve done if he’d thought of it. My husband had, after all, filled the Federalist slate with booksellers, a grocer, a mason—precisely the sort of working people who ought to appeal to populists. And, as if in diabolical mockery, Burr filled the Republican slate with rich and venerable old Clintonites and Livingstons for the cachet of their family names.
Despite what he’d said to me on the street that day, however, I didn’t think Burr’s tireless campaigning came from any principled stance; he simply wanted to be vice president. And perhaps that wouldn’t be so terrible an ambition if he didn’t want to serve under Jefferson, who would assuredly plunge us back into a world of chaos, starvation, and riots.
“We’d better warn your father,” I said, grabbing up the lunch basket I’d filled with fruit and pastries. I wouldn’t open my home with mattresses
