In March 1789, as he prepared to leave his beloved Mount Vernon and drive to his first inauguration in New York City, George Washington dashed off letters to his closest friends and nephews. Washington had not sought the presidency, preferring, after 15 years of warfare, to rusticate in retirement and tend his Potomac acres. To Henry Knox, his old comrade-in-arms, he wrote, “My movements to the chair of government will be accompanied with feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.” But Washington had more than an abiding sense of civic duty drawing him back into public life: he was broke.
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