Washington Resigns Command: Power Returns to Civilians

George Washington stood before the Continental Congress in the Maryland State House at Annapolis on December 23, 1783, his hands trembling so badly that he had to grip the parchment with both fists, and voluntarily surrendered the most powerful military position in the new nation. The act of a victorious general willingly returning power to civilian authority stunned the world and established the most important precedent in American democratic governance. Washington had every reason to keep his command. The Continental Army was furious at Congress for months of unpaid wages and broken pension promises. Earlier that year, officers at the Newburgh encampment in New York had circulated anonymous letters proposing a military coup, either to force Congress to pay or to install Washington as a sovereign ruler. Washington crushed the conspiracy in a dramatic speech where he fumbled for his reading glasses and said, "Gentlemen, you must pardon me, I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind." Officers wept. The coup evaporated. The resignation ceremony itself was brief and intensely emotional. Washington addressed the twenty assembled members of Congress, commended the interests of the country to their care, and handed his commission to the president of Congress, Thomas Mifflin. Several delegates were openly crying. Washington bowed, walked out of the chamber, mounted his horse, and rode home to Mount Vernon in time for Christmas dinner. King George III reportedly told the American painter Benjamin West that if Washington actually gave up power and returned to his farm, he would be "the greatest man in the world." Washington did exactly that. His voluntary resignation transformed the American Revolution from a military victory into a philosophical statement about republican government. Every peaceful presidential transition since has drawn its legitimacy from the example Washington set in that small room in Annapolis.