- There is a fascinating
What if ...
article by Michael Bechloss about George Washington and his distillery at Mount Vernon (The New York Times, 12-Feb-2016). Following his presidency in 1797, Washington found himself in need of money, despite an 8,000 acre plantation and labor byhundreds of enslaved African-Americans.
His plantation manager suggested starting a distillery, which in 1799produced nearly 11,000 gallons
andachieved a profit of about $7,500 (about $142,000 today).
What might have become one of the great businesses of the early republic — it was already the largest distillery in America — was cut short when Washington died in December 1799.
George Washington, Distiller
It is difficult to recapture the intensity of excitement felt by Americans in 1776 over the prospect of forming new republican governments. It is a work,
said Thomas Jefferson, of the most interesting nature and such as every individual would wish to have his voice in.
Even the business of the Continental Congress was stifled because so many delegates — including Jefferson — left for home to take part in the paramount activity of erecting the new state governments. Constitutions,
remarked Francis Lightfoot Lee, employ every pen.
... Nothing — not the creation of [the] confederacy, not the Continental Congress, not the war, not the French alliance — in the years surrounding the Declaration of Independence engaged the interests of Americans more that the framing of these governments.
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776—1787 (1969)