Washington's First Inauguration: PART OF THE REAL STORY

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GEORGE WASHINGTON’S FIRST PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION

 

 

 

April 30, 1789

 

Place: Federal Hall, Wall Street, New York City, State of New York

 

Time Moments in the Limit: 12:50/1:50 pm

 

Nativity: (01) Washington’s first Term of Office; (02) the U.S. Presidency; (03)

the U.S. Federal Government

 

Nativity-Not: (01) Not the U.S.A. (the Nation).

 

Earliest Rectification, published in 1850: @1:20 pm (Tropical)

 

Astrologer: Thomas Hague, American, (cited by Dane Rudhyar)

 

 

 

 

 

What follows here in this next section, by way of summary, is an account of some

of the late morning twists and wrinkles seldom mentioned in the standard

histories of this first Presidential Inauguration on April 30, 1789:

 

Just prior to the Inauguration ceremony itself, at about 1:00 pm, if not as

much as 10 minutes before, having reached the greater Wall Street area by

military parade, President-elect George Washington stepped down from his

carriage at the bottom of Broad Street and then walked north some 300 yards

along Broad Street to Federal Hall, located at the corner of Wall and Nassau

streets, while the area was chock-a-block thronged by a well-wishing public:

streets jammed, roof tops sufficing for bleacher seats. New York City had

figuratively overflowed with visitors by the day before; visitors mostly with no

place to stay the night: With all inns, taverns and the like having been booked

up, people resorted to sleeping at the wharves, in the meadows, anywhere and all

over lower Manhattan Island. Why George Washington hadn’t reached this point in

the ceremonies more than an hour earlier, as officially scheduled, is a story

essentially about Senatorial politics and the lengths some were to go

that day to frustrate the schedule and so miss the originally appointed moment

of the Oath taking for 12:00 noon.

 

Working his way north on Broad Street, 300 yards to his destination at the

intersection of Broad, Nassau and Wall Streets, through the growing crowds, must

have taken Washington some 5 to 10 minutes, and then figure another 5 minutes in

order to be taken thru the pre-ceremony formalities on the 2nd floor of Federal

Hall (1st floor, for the Europeans) where the Senate Chamber was located, before

walking out on to the balcony overlooking Broad and Wall Street, where the Oath

was to be sworn. The Senate Chamber became the scene of some low drama during

that late morning, when bickering among some of the assembled Senators

contributed to the delay of the departure of the Congressional Greeting

Committee, tasked with fetching the President-elect at his house in order to

ceremonially escort him to the Federal Hall. This must have been a source of no

small annoyance to the President-elect, for it was reported that the Great Man

had been kept waiting as much as " an hour and 10 minutes "

(i.e.,: the President-elect punctually awaited the Joint Committee’s 11:00 am

arrival at his home in order to set out on the Inaugural procession to Wall

Street from his home at the corners of Cherry and Pearl Streets, at the place

known in later years as Franklin Square. The Committee’s delay appears to have

amounted to considerably more than one hour.)

 

 

[NOTE: Therefore, one may reasonably conclude: Any horoscopic rectification for

the Oath-taking’s completion, between 12:55 and 1:20 pm, is perfectly

historically defensible. The Inaugural Speech added another 20 to 30 minutes, to

arrive at the entire ceremony’s estimated completion time moment no later than

1:50 pm. The events related to the time frame: 12:50/1:50 pm are what I wish to

convey in this message; and so assist the astrologer’s work of rectifying within

this approximate range of possible time moments, reasonably consistent with the

historical record. And as well, it is hoped that astrologers will desist in

imagining that somehow the inaugural oath was taken in the late morning or at

noon. It just didn’t happen that early in the day.]

 

 

As already briefly mentioned, there is another part of the story of the Fist

Inauguration that Washington's biographers have barely touched on: that part of

the story regarding the scheduled starting time of the Inaugural ceremonies that

day, scheduled by the design of the Senate Inaugural Committee to have the Oath

of Office administered on the front balcony of Federal Hall, a balcony

overlooking the Broad and Wall Streets intersection, promptly @ 12:00 noon.

 

That morning John Adams of Massachusetts, Vice President of the U.S. as well as

the President of the Senate, and the Chairman of the Inauguration Committee,

Senator Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, were the senior members in the Senate

that morning, and so ought to be held accountable for their derelictions in what

amounted to a colossal scheduling screw-up, as a row over a point of protocol in

the Senate Chamber by a number of Senators delayed the departure of the Greeting

Party, whose job it was to fetch Washington from his official residence. Because

of that row the Senate kept the Great Man, General Washington, waiting at his

home for well over an hour. While Washington was tapping his fingers and

watching the clock, between 11:00 and 12:00 noon, the delaying event was still

unfolding in the Senate Chamber.

 

 

 

The scene in the Senate Chamber some time after 11:00 a.m. approached what may

be fairly described in modern terms as bizarre, with all the makings of a brawl

just short of eruption, as Senators at times were screaming at each other in

disagreement over the appropriate Presidential greeting protocol to be observed

by the Senate, how to address the President-Elect on his ceremonial first

arrival at their chambers: Should it be: " Your Highness " ; " Your Excellency " ;

" Your Grace " ; " Sir " ; " Mr. " ; etc. Clearly, any suggestion even hinting at

monarchical usage was political dynamite in that era, and clearly, all the more

on this “republican” inaugural occasion. By the time order had restored itself

and tempers cooled the Greeting Committee had only then just departed to fetch

Washington, when on the way out the door they passed members of the House of

Representatives who were coming upstairs, on schedule, to present themselves in

the Senate Chambers expecting the Oath Taking to commence in

but a matter of minutes, as scheduled for 12:00 noon. Surprised indeed, to say

the least! The Reception Committee was expected at Washington's residence

between 11:00 and 11:30 am. They arrived shortly before 12:30 p.m. The Chairman

of the Senate Inauguration Committee, Richard Henry Lee among them.

 

 

SPECULATIVE CONCLUDING REMARKS

 

 

 

After repeated discussions of the protocol question in previous Senate sessions,

why still on the appointed date and hour was this point of protocol order left

still unresolved and under discussion? The President of the Senate, John Adams,

gavel in hand much of the time, was really tested that particular late morning,

to be sure, however his presiding authority was apparently found wanting. It was

as if Adams and Lee preferred to sit out the row and let things further

deteriorate. Is it only co-incidence that neither Lee nor Adams were ardent

admirers of Washington? Is it only co-incidence that, unlike Washington, neither

Lee nor Adams were Freemasons and therefore insensitive to the precise timing of

this or any other ceremonial events? Lee and Adams, the only two men in the room

who could have cut short the row in order to keep to the schedule, appeared to

take no assertive counter measures.

 

 

 

At this point in the story one should recall a bit of revolutionary history

here. The Virginian, Richard Lee, along with the Massachusetts' Adams men,

cousins John and Samuel, these three among other members who were equally ardent

men for liberty in the revolutionary Congress, were not counted among the

freemasons, such as were John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin. Yet Lee and the

Adams were among the most prominent in the phalanx of the movement for

Independency in 1774-76; [These three ideological radicals and others in the old

Continental Congress were less than affectionately referred to by their

opponents, the conservative “reconciliationists”, as the " Angry Men " , while the

reconciliationists contrasted themselves as the " Considerate Men " .] Adams and

Lee had been fast friends and cordial collaborators from the very beginning.

Famously, Richard Henry Lee had introduced in Congress the Resolution on

Independency on June 07, 1776, this parliamentary motion was then at once

seconded

by John Adams. Just about a month later this Independency resolution became

the text of the actual declaration-as-abjuration, enacted by Congress on behalf

of the constituent colonies on what should have been recognized in public

celebration, but is not, as the real American Independence Day: July 02, 1776.

 

 

Adams and Lee: both men revolutionists, yes; Masons, no way. (Ref. Ronald

Heaton, MASONIC MEMBERSHIP OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS). How these two non-Masons in

their respective official presiding capacities, may well have connived in

allowing this " Masonically” arranged 12:00 noon Oath Taking ceremony to be

spoiled by a delay of more than one hour, makes for another story yet to be

told; a story of rivalries of an intensity, at least the equal of the political

party rivalries of the Federalists and the Republicans that troubled the early

formative years of the American Republic..

 

 

 

 

 

EXCERPTS HERE BELOW: The works cited are those of recognized scholars who were

familiar with, and worked from the primary source historical records; as well as

contemporary accounts of journalists and other eye-witnesses. Together they tell

more of the Story, “small bones” and all:

 

 

1789: THE WASHINGTON INAUGURATION with Program of Ceremonies. Papers by Mrs.

Martha J. Lamb

(White and Allen: N.Y., 1889) Page: 19

(From the “Magazine of American History” of December, 1888, February 1889, March

1889):

 

“On the 29th the inaugural committee reported their scheme for the conduct of

the ceremonies on the 30th, which proving satisfactory; a few copies were

printed on foolscap sheets for the convenience of those participating. One of

these has been preserved and is now the property of the New York Historical

Society, through whose courtesy it is given verbatim to our readers as an

illustration of the significance with which details were regarded at that

period”

 

“That the members of both Houses of Congress assemble in their respective

Chambers precisely at 12 o’clock; and that the Representatives preceded by the

Speaker of the House…proceed to the Senate Chamber, there to be received by the

Vice President and the Senators rising.”

 

 

JOHN ADAMS Volume II 1784-1826, Chapter LVI

By Page Smith

(Doubleday: N.Y., 1962) page: 749

 

At 12 noon: “Meanwhile the rumor penetrated the Senate Chamber that the Speaker

of the House and the Representatives were waiting at the door of the Senate to

decide how to receive them. The result was complete confusion. Senators left

their chairs, everyone talked at once, and Adams hammered in vain for order. At

last order was restored and the Speaker and Representatives were got in

pell-mell and given seats to await the President.

With Congress assembled Lee, Izard and Dalton were dispatched to fetch the

President. It was an hour before Washington appeared with his escort.”

 

 

 

WITH THE FATHERS: STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. Chapter:

“Washington’s Inauguration”

By John Bach McMaster

(D. Appleton & Co: N.Y., 1896) pages: 150-181

 

At 12 noon: “In the Senate all was confusion, all the business was stopped, and

the three senators, who ought to have attended the President long before, set

off for his house. As Washington could not leave until they arrived, the

procession, which had been forming since sunrise, was greatly delayed, and for

an hour and ten minutes the Senators and Representatives chafed and scolded. At

last the shouting in the street (Wall & Nassau) made known that the President

was come. A few minutes later he entered the room, and both Houses were formally

presented.”

 

 

 

THE CENTURY MAGAZINE: April 1889, Volume XXXVII, No. 6 Washington’s

Inauguration—Centennial Number

“The Inauguration of Washington” pages 803-833

By Clarence Winthrop Bowen

 

“The military were meanwhile preparing to parade, and at 12 o’clock marched

before the President’s house on Cherry Street. A part of the procession came

direct from Federal Hall. The full procession left the Presidential mansion at

half past 12 o’clock. When the military, which amounted to not more than 500

men, arrived within 200 yards of Federal Hall, at 1 o’clock, they were drawn up

on each side, and Washington and the assistants and the gentlemen especially

invited passed through the lines and proceeded to the Senate Chamber of the

Federal State House.”

 

 

 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, A Biography Volume VI, “Patriot and President” (1784-1793)

By Douglas Southall Freeman

(Scribner’s: N.Y., 1954) Pages: 187-193

 

“If he was awake at sunrise on this, his inauguration day, he heard the bark of

thirteen guns from the war-time fortifications at the southern end of New York

Island, just thirteen years from another April day when he had caught the sound

of a friendly gun from the Battery. When Washington had eaten his breakfast, the

bells of city churches began to ring, some of them merrily at first and then all

of them solemnly in a summons to prayer at 9 or 9:30 o’clock. Expectancy was in

the air, pervading everything, but no call came for Washington until noon was

past; then he heard the joint committee of Congress was arriving to escort him

to Federal Hall. At half past 12, off rode the General in slow stateliness, his

vehicle drawn by four fine horses. Down Cherry Street into Queen and along Queen

to Great Dock Street the procession moved, past smiling crowds. At Great Dock

the column turned westward and moved to Broad. Then it swung northward until the

front rank halted about 200 yards south

of Wall Street, at which crossing, on the north side, Federal Hall was

located.”

 

(Footnote: “In other words, the parade followed the existing Pearl Street down

to Broad and then went north on Broad to Wall and Nassau The full order of the

procession will be found in the DAILY ADVERTISER, May 1, 1789, p. 2: Further

stated, on stepping down from his carriage: “the Presidential party walked 300

yards” to Federal Hall)

 

 

 

FORGE OF UNION ANVIL OF LIBERTY: A Correspondent’s Report on the First Federal

Elections, the First Federal Congress & the Creation of the Bill of Rights

By Jeffrey St. John

Chapter 13, “Washington Takes Oath” (Jameson Books, Ill, 1992) pages: 107-108

 

“A hush fell over the throng when a little after one o’clock today…the solemn

six-foot one-inch Virginian turned and took a few graceful steps inside the

Senate Chamber toward a dais raised a yard above the floor…Members rose….The

General bowed to both sides and was escorted to the center of three chairs under

the dais canopy by Vice President John Adams. They exchanged bows (A brief

formal statement by Adams and they proceeded to the front balcony). The General

put his right hand on the book and repeated after Livingston the 34 word oath of

office. Livingston said quietly: ”It is done.”

 

 

 

THE ASTROLOGY OF AMERICA’S DESTINY: A Birth Chart for the United States of

America

By Dane Rudhyar

Chapter: “A Chart for the Beginnings of the Federal Government”

Random House, N.Y., 1974) page: 148

 

“According to astrologer Thomas Hague (in 1850), though legally scheduled to

occur at noon on April 30, Washington actually took his oath of office at 1:20

pm. This time gives early Virgo rising and Gemini at the Mid Heaven (Sidereal:

Leo rising; MC Taurus). The Sun and Venus are in the 9th House and the Moon is

coming to a conjunction with Jupiter in the 11th House.”

 

CONCLUSION: Hague got the time moment of closure @ 1:20 pm is precisely halfway

in the time moment limit cited at the beginning. Hereafter the 1:20 pm

rectification deserves to be referred to as the Hague Chart.

 

 

 

An abstract from a contemporary newspaper account, in the NEW YORK PACKET:

 

New York, May 1, 1789. Yesterday by two o'clock was solemnly inaugurated into

office, our Illustrious President.

 

The ceremony was begun by the following procession from the Federal House to the

President's house, viz.:

 

Troop of Horse

Assistants

Committee of Representatives

Committee of Senate

Gentlemen to be admitted in the Senate Chamber

Gentlemen in coaches

Citizens on foot

 

On their arrival, the President joined the procession in his carriage and four,

and the whole moved through the principal streets to the State House in the

following order:

 

Troop of Horse

Infantry

Sheriff on horseback

Committee of Representatives

Committee of Senate

President and

Assistants (President's Suite) Assistants

Gentlemen to be admitted in the Senate Chamber

Gentlemen in coaches

Citizens on foot

 

When the van reached the State House, the troops opening their ranks formed an

avenue, through which, after alighting, the President, advancing to the door,

was conducted to the Senate Chamber, where he was received by both branches of

Congress, and by them accompanied to the balcony or outer gallery in front of

the State House, which was decorated with a canopy and curtains of red

interstreaked with white for the solemn occasion. In this public manner the oath

of office required by the Constitution was administered by the Chancellor of

this State, and the illustrious Washington thereupon declared by the said

Chancellor, President Of The United States, amidst the repeated huzzas and

acclamations of a numerous and crowded audience.

 

After the inauguration, the President, returning to the Senate Chamber,

delivered a speech to both Houses of Congress.

 

After this the President, accompanied by both Houses of Congress, proceeded on

foot to St. Paul's Church (where divine service was performed by the Right Rev.

Dr. Provost, suitable to the immediate occasion) in the following order, viz.:

 

Troop of Horse

Infantry

Door Keeper and Messenger of Representatives

Clerk

Representatives

Speaker

President and Vice-President

President's Suite

Senators

Secretary

Door Keeper and Messenger of the Senate

Gentlemen admitted into the Senate Chamber

Sheriff

Citizens

 

Constables, marshals, etc., on each side of the Members of Congress at proper

distances, from the front of the Representatives to the rear of the Senators.

 

In the evening fireworks were displayed under the direction of Colonel

Bauman.—The brilliancy and Excellency of them does honor to the projector.

 

The houses of their Excellencies the French and Spanish Ambassadors were most

elegantly illuminated on this auspicious occasion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

JohnTWB <jtwbjakarta wrote:April 6, 1789 was indeed the first

" quorum day " for the House and the Senate under the second Constitution. The day

also marked the first ever " joint session " of the two houses, convened in order

to count the Electoral College votes cast in February for the President and Vice

President. This single purpose joint session was held between 1:30 and 2:30 pm.

 

Regarding filibustering, as such. On April 30, 1789, George Washington's

inaugural oath-swearing ceremony was delayed more than one hour beyond the

scheduled time of 12:00 noon. The reason was the deliberate but unnecessary

delaying action of certain Senators who chose to re-open a debate on certain

ceremonial protocols. This debate delayed the departure of the Congressional

Greeting Committee which was charged with the task of going to Washington's

residence on Cherry Street in order to escort him to the Federal Hall Ceremony.

This event, as deliberate delaying action, in substance certainly qualifies as a

filibuster; the first ever in Congress under the second Constitution.

 

In 1850, America's foremost astrologer, Luke Broughton, published a rectified

time of 1:20 pm for the completion of the swearing-in. If accurate, the delaying

action cost 80 minutes.

 

Dave <dadsnook wrote:

Thank you for the information. The April 6, 1789 chart, set for 12:01

PM in NYC yields an MC of 16-59 Aries and an ASC of 1-30 Leo. Like

all " noon " charts, Sun isat 17-18 Aries conjunct the MC, Uranus is on

the ASC angle at 0-45 Leo, Rx, Neptune is on the IC at 22-04 Libra.

Jupiter in the 12th at 20-32 Cancer completes a T-Square with Sun

opposite Neptune.

 

It will take some time to consider the meaning of both these dates,

the first meeting and the first quorum meeting, and to then test some

of the filibuster events. For the last Monday evening agreement

chart, the Quorum Sun is at the Agreement S.Node -- placing the T-

square on the nodal axis. Otherwise not much makes a strong first

impression.

 

Again, thanks. Dave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

" How can Pluto be in Sagittarius when it's so close to Antares? " -----

 

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