By Allen C. Guelzo, Ph.D., Gettysburg College
George Washington looked forward to the influence that commerce could have on human society. Read how his involvement in the Potowmack Navigation Company resulted in Potomac being declared a common highway by Virginia and Maryland, the two states which shared it as a boundary.
Mount Vernon: George Washington’s Plantation
On the day George Washington finally returned to Mount Vernon, his plantation on the Potomac River, he had been absent for almost a decade, and in the meantime, much had gone a-begging. The British had actually raided the area, and a British naval officer who threatened to bombard Mount Vernon from the Potomac had to be bought off by Washington’s manager and cousin, Lund Washington, with barrels of flour and water, and hams from the smokehouse.
Washington sternly reproved his kinsman when he heard about this—he would have preferred putting a match to Mount Vernon himself rather than giving the British anything.
But he wondered whether he had even the stamina necessary now to bring Mount Vernon back to productivity. Labor was so scarce that he hired German immigrant workmen to begin rebuilding the grounds, and he wrote to old acquaintances to ask for samples of seed and for a young bull.
Learn more about Washington’s fears about post-Revolutionary America.
American Colonies and British Credit
Mount Vernon was not the only drain on Washington’s energies. The American colonies—now the American states—had always been blessed with one great asset and two great debits. The asset was land; the debits were the shortage of labor to work the land and make it productive, and the lack of credit to buy more.
As long as the colonies were colonies, Americans like Washington had ready access to British credit, and to British politicians who could smooth the way for land acquisitions. Now, the British politicians were gone, and so was the access to British credit.
This is a transcript from the video series America’s Founding Fathers. Watch it now, Wondrium.
Potowmack Navigation Company
Before the Revolution, Washington and his brothers had made substantial investments in land development schemes, like the Ohio Company and the Mississippi Company.
After the Revolution, he became deeply involved in plans for the Potowmack Navigation Company, which aimed to develop the Potomac River as a major artery of American commerce, and to link it through the construction of five canals along 190 miles with the Ohio River, and thus make the Potomac the chief commercial highway of the United States. This would also bind the trans-Appalachian West more firmly to the East Coast states.
The Potowmack Company cost Washington a lengthy survey of the headwaters of the Potomac and the equivalent of $1 million in modern currency. But the company would have to attract the equivalent of $40 million from investors if it were to succeed, and that kind of capital was not going to be forthcoming so long as foreign investors feared that reckless state legislatures would allow hard-pressed American borrowers easy relief from their obligations.
Washington and Commerce
Washington did not have any distaste for commerce.
I cannot avoid reflecting with pleasure on the probable influence that commerce may hereafter have on human manners and society in general,” he told Lafayette in 1786. “I indulge a fond, perhaps an enthusiastic idea, that the period is not very remote, when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations and horrors of war.
But not, of course, if the behavior of little state legislatures, like Rhode Island, the demands of Shays’s rebels, and the paralysis of the Confederation Congress prevented it.
Learn more about Jefferson’s fierce critiques of religion and commerce.
Jurisdiction over the Potomac River
Investment capital was also not going to be forthcoming so long as jurisdiction over the Potomac River itself lay between the two states (Virginia and Maryland) which shared it as a boundary.
Maryland’s 17th-century charter from King Charles I set Maryland’s southern boundary as the far bank of the Potomac, effectively giving Maryland legal jurisdiction over the entire river.
Washington was able to inveigle the Virginia legislature to commission four representatives—George Mason, Edmund Randolph, James Madison, and Alexander Henderson—to meet with a like number from the Maryland legislature—Samuel Chase, Thomas Johnson, Thomas Stone, and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer—to iron out the legal difficulties.
Two of the Virginia commissioners, Madison and Randolph, never received word of their appointment and missed the meeting entirely.
Learn more about the Articles of Confederation.
The Meeting of the Commissioners
When the commissioners met in Alexandria in March of 1785, the Marylanders balked. They wanted Virginia to eliminate the tolls it was charging on shipping at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. They also wanted a renegotiation of fishing rights, and they wanted a sharing of costs for maintaining lighthouses.
The Virginia commissioners had instructions to make no concessions about the tolls, and despite the most amicable dispositions and the greatest desire of forming a fair and liberal compact, the commissioners deadlocked.
Finally, on March 24, Washington himself intervened. Both delegations were invited to Mount Vernon, and once under Washington’s roof, and with no difficulty in reading Washington’s mind, the commissioners finally agreed that the Potomac should be declared a common highway, with the remission of the Virginia tolls and a variety of other concessions very important to the commerce of the two states.
Common Questions about George Washington and Free Commerce
For the American colonies, the asset was land; and the debits were the shortage of labor to work the land and make it productive, and the lack of credit to buy more.
The Potowmack Navigation Company aimed to develop the Potomac River as a major artery of American commerce, and to link it with the Ohio River, thus making the Potomac the chief commercial highway of the United States.
Washington was able to inveigle the Virginia legislature to commission four representatives—George Mason, Edmund Randolph, James Madison, and Alexander Henderson—to meet with a like number from the Maryland legislature—Samuel Chase, Thomas Johnson, Thomas Stone, and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer—to iron out the legal difficulties.
