The following is a guest post by Lena Bleckmann, a foreign law intern working with Foreign Law Specialist Jenny Gesley at the Global Legal Research Directorate of the Law Library of Congress.
In a letter to David Stuart dated June 15, 1790, George Washington shared that he would “rather be at Mount Vernon with a friend or two about me, than to be attended at the Seat of Government by the Officers of State and the Representatives of every Power in Europe.” Such sentiments were not new to the president, who had expressed similar wishes throughout the American Revolution, but he did not return to his home often before resigning as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. His following presidency also kept him away from the Virginia