Free A Disease in the Public Mind by Thomas Fleming Page A

emancipation work in Virginia or any other southern state. 8
    Several months later, the ex-president had an unnerving dream. He was sitting with Martha, chatting about their happy memories, when a “great light” suddenly surrounded them. From it emerged an angel who whispered in Martha’s ear. Martha “suddenly turned pale and began to vanish” from his sight. The obvious interpretation was Martha’s early death. But Washington told her that dreams often have opposite meanings. “I may soon leave you,” he said.
    Martha tried to make a joke of the dream, but Washington remained haunted by it. Soon Martha came across scraps of writing in his study that indicated he was composing his will. The document began with a very predictable sentence. He directed his executors to care for “my dearly beloved wife Martha” for the rest of her life. The second sentence revealed why Washington had made this abrupt decision, now. “Upon the death of my wife, it is my Will & desire that all the Slaves which I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom.” Following that declaration were three pages ofextremely explicit directives for his slaves’ emancipation. He wanted them to be educated and trained to earn a living. Aging or ill slaves who could not leave Mount Vernon were to be supported there until their deaths.
    The ex-president did not mince words. “I do hereby expressly forbid the sale . . . of any slave I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatsoever.” Summing up, he commanded all concerned “to see that this clause respecting slaves and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled without evasion, neglect or delay.”
    In a South where many thought blacks should not be taught to read and write, or worse, that they could not be taught, Washington was calling for their education. He was also emancipating all his slaves in one stroke of his pen—something he clearly sensed his heirs would not like. If Martha had not been alive, he may well have freed them all immediately. Out of consideration for her, he delayed their emancipation until her death because so many of his slaves had intermarried with slaves that belonged to her. 9
    â€¢Â Â Â Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â Â Â Â â€¢
    Six months later, in December 1799, Washington awoke with an alarming constriction in his throat, which made it extremely difficult for him to breathe. He awoke Martha and asked her to send for their family doctor. But there was little the physician or other doctors who were summoned could do with the primitive medical skills of their era. Already suffering from a bad cold, Washington had contracted an infection of his epiglottis, a cartilage just below his larynx. At the end of an agonizing day of struggling for breath, which he endured with remarkable stoicism, he died with Martha weeping beside him.
    The news of Washington’s death fell like a thunderclap from on high across the entire nation. The loss was so huge, so absolute, it seemed to alter everything from the nation’s politics to its confidence in the future. The fact that he had emancipated his slaves dwindled to a blip in the context of the other meanings of his departure. His act of emancipation excited little or no comment. Part of the reason may have been the fact that the slaves all had to remain at Mount Vernon until Martha’s death. There was no opportunity for newspaper stories of an exodus to freedom.
    A year later, Martha freed all Washington’s slaves unilaterally, and allowed them to leave Mount Vernon. Why? When President Adams’s wife, Abigail, visited Mount Vernon on the first anniversary of Washington’s death, Martha told her she feared one of the freed slaves might poison her to hasten their emancipation. Abigail, who described Martha’s anxiety in a letter to her sister, thought it was doleful proof of “the banefull [ sic ] effects of slavery.”