Inspiration in an Unexpected Place

A letter that symbolizes the moment and why it matters

This past week, I was in England for a work trip. My colleagues and I visited with peers and saw incredible treasures at Cambridge, Oxford, and Windsor. If you want to see more pictures, I shared a bunch on Instagram and saved them all under “highlights” on my profile. Our colleagues put in so much time and effort to pulling items for us to see and crafting a memorable experience. I was really touched by the thought and care.

We saw so many archival resources that deserve further consideration and study, but one letter we saw at the Royal Archives at Windsor has stuck with me because it has such incredible impact on my own work. I will admit, I was expecting to see amazing things. I wasn’t expecting to see a letter like this.

Here we are at Windsor, with the famous round tower, behind us. The tower, which is the oldest part of the castle, houses the Royal Archives. For security reasons, we weren’t permitted to take any photographs inside (which was absolutely painful).

This photo shows the outside of the Royal Library. This portion of the castle was built by Queen Elizabeth I (you can see her initials above the door).

Once inside, we had the opportunity to view their George Washington letters, including a letter from Washington to James Bowdoin, discussing the recently-drafted Massachusetts State Constitution in 1780.

On April 26, 1780, Washington wrote to Bowdoin, who was then the president of the Massachusetts state constitutional convention and future governor of the state, thanking him for sending along a copy of the state’s proposed constitution. Because I can’t show you the final version, here is the draft of the letter, in Alexander Hamilton’s hand, is at the Library of Congress. Hamilton regularly drafted correspondence for Washington during the war, and he got so good at mastering Washington’s voice that the commander-in-chief delegated great authority over his correspondence to the young lieutenant colonel.

In the letter, Washington wrote that he hadn’t yet studied the draft constitution in great detail, but “from a cursory view it appears to me to be a very judicious one.” This next part can be tricky to read, but the part worth noting says that the government seems “to possess of all the requirements [illeg] to secure the liberty and happiness of the people…and at the same time give enough energy to the [government]. The latter is essential to the former.”

He continued by acknowledging, “it is of great importance that a state which is of so much weight in the union as that of Massachusetts should have a well combined and vigorous government and nothing will give me greater pleasure than to learn that the people have adopted one…”

At this point, Washington had spent nearly five years commanding the army and reporting to Congress. While he always remained subservient to civilian authority, he understood better than most the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation. Congress lacked sufficient authority to raise funds, manage interstate relations, negotiate diplomatic agreements, and provide for national defense. That inability regularly undermined the war effort and harmed the army. By 1780, many troops hadn’t received pay in years, rarely had sufficient clothing, and often suffered for want of food.

At the end of the war, Washington urged the states to reform Congress and give it more authority so that it could act with more “energy.” He played a critical role at the Constitutional Convention, which crafted a document designed to address many of the failures of the Articles of Confederation. And once president, regularly carved out jurisdiction for the president to assert decisive power.

All of that was in the future, however, when he wrote this letter. He did not yet know that when the delegates met in Philadelphia in 1787 to draft a new federal constitution, they would use the Massachusetts state constitution as a model. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t know that John Adams, his future vice president, was the author of the Massachusetts version. In Bowdoin’s letter, he didn’t mention it.

In 1860, eighty years after the drafting of the letter, Prince Albert visited Mount Vernon with President Buchanan. If I remember correctly, Ann Pamela Cunningham, the regent of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, gifted Prince Albert this letter as a memento of the trip. It has remained in the Royal Archives ever since.

The George Washington Papers project doesn’t include Washington’s letter. The Hamilton papers include this notation:

Morristown [New Jersey, April 26] 1780. Thanks Bowdoin for a copy of “the plan proposed for the constitution of [his] state.”

I am sure I skimmed over that notation when I was doing my research for The Cabinet, but I had never read the full letter until last week. Even if I had, I’m not sure I would have grasped the full significance until I was knee-deep in my Adams research.

One of the arguments I make in my written and speaking work is that Washington and Adams were actually aligned on most major issues—everything from foreign policy to the powers of the presidency. Adams saw it as his duty to fight for the character of the presidency as Washington had established it. Washington forged the daily practices of the presidency consistent with the Constitution, or at least how he believed the delegates intended the executive branch to work. Or in other words, sometimes Washington practiced flexibility and innovation to insure the presidency could manage the demands of the office consistent with the spirit the Constitution intended. And the Constitution drew on the Massachusetts state document, written seven years earlier by Adams.

It is an incredible full circle moment. So why does all this matter? Many of our conversations in England focused on the upcoming anniversaries, how Americans will celebrate (or not?), and how best to discuss the founding legacy.

I always answer that final question by describing the founding legacy as one of innovation and experimentation. The founding generation, full of flawed humans, was deeply aware that the things they created were imperfect. And they spent decades trying to make it a little more perfect, bit by bit. Never fully achieving a perfect union, but always trying to get closer to the vision. They expected each generation to do the same. That legacy is useful: we don’t need perfect humans to do great things. We just have to keep trying.

This letter—halfway across the world, in the Royal Archives of the mother country, then enemy, then frenenemy, then most special of friends—shows a baby republic struggling to figure it out in the midst of war. It is a small, but glorious reminder of where we have been and where we can go.

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If you are new to my newsletter, thank you! If you’d like to read more, please consider The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution and Mourning the Presidents. You can also buy my new book, Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic.

Available for purchase on Amazon, Bookshop, or wherever you like to buy books. You can buy signed copies of Making the Presidency at Politics & Prose.

Op-eds:

“Lexington and Concord at 250: Can We Still Hear the ‘Shot Heard Round the World’?” The Bulwark, April 18, 2025.

Podcasts/Radio:

Listening to America, May 12, 2025: Ten Things About the American Revolution

Washington Today, May 3, 2025: Weekend Edition- President’s Trump’s First 100 Days in Office, Political Polarization, and a new Harvard Youth Poll

History As It Happens, May 2, 2025: 1775 Independence Days

Press:

“‘Spit Not in the Fire’ – Words to Live by from the Father of Our Country,” The Saturday Evening Post, April 30, 2025.

“Program to focus on religious liberty and the First Amendment,” Rappahannock Record, April 30, 2025.

“Clay Jenkinson, Lindsay Chervinsky headline Historic Christ Church Speaker Series,” Gloucester-Mathews Gazette – Journal, April 30, 2025.

Events:

May 15: Historic Christ Church, An Evening with Clay Jenkinson and Lindsay Chervinsky

May 19: Monumental Conversations with Rick Atkinson

May 22: Thomas Crane Public Library, Quincy 400

May 29: Metropolitan Club

July 14: Truman Presidential Library