Letter from George Washington to Henry Knox (1787)

Image: James Harvey Young. Henry Knox, Washington Administration, 1873. Oil on canvas. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HENRY_KNOX_OIL.jpg

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“From George Washington to Henry Knox, 19 August 1787,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://teachingamericanhistory.org/epla.


By slow, I wish I could add, and sure movements, the business of the Convention progresses but to say when it will end, or what will be the result, is more than I dare venture to do and therefore shall hazard no opinion thereon. If some thing good does not proceed from the Cession the defects cannot with propriety be charged to the hurry with which the business has been conducted, notwithstanding which many things may be forgot -- some of them not well digested -- and others from the contrariety of sentiments with which such a body is pervaded become a mere nihility yet I wish a disposition may be found in Congress, the several State Legislatures -- and the community at large to adopt the Government which may be agreed on in Convention because I am fully persuaded it is the best that can be obtained at the present moment under such diversity of ideas as prevail.

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