RNING THE POMP
OF THE PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT--CUSTOMS OF THE LEVEES
ESTABLISHED--GRAND BALLS--MRS. WASHINGTON'S JOURNEY TO NEW YORK--HER
RECEPTION--HER DRAWING-ROOMS--WASHINGTON'S HABITS OF LIVING.

Washington's position was a novel one in every particular. He was the
chosen head of a people who had just abolished royal government with all
its pomp and parade, its titles and class immunities, but who were too
refined, and too conscious of their real social and political strength
as a basis for a great nation, to be willing to trample upon all
deferential forms and ceremonies that might give proper dignity to, and
respect for deserving rulers, without implying servility.

In the convention that framed the constitution, the representatives of
the people exhibited this conservative feeling in a remarkable degree;
and the extreme democratic sentiment, such as afterward sympathized with
the radicals of the French revolution, was yet only a fledgling, but
destined to grow rapidly, and to fly with swift wing over the land. Yet
the spirit was manifest, and its coalescence with the state-rights
feeling made circumspection in the arrangement of the ceremonials
connected with the president and his household extremely necessary.

Already the question of a title for the president had been discussed in
Congress, and had produced a great deal of excitement in different
quarters. The subject appears to have been suggested by Mr. Adams, the
vice-president; and on the twenty-third of April the senate appointed
Richard Henry Lee, Ralph Izard, and Tristram Dalton, a committee "to
consider and report what style or titles it will be proper to annex to
the offices of president and vice-president of the United States." On
the following day the house of representatives appointed a committee to
confer with that of the senate, and the joint committee reported that it
was "improper to annex any style or title to the respective styles or
titles of office expressed in the constitution."

The house adopted the report by unanimous vote, but the senate did not
concur. The question then arose in the senate whether the president
should not be addressed by the title of _His Excellency_, and the
subject was referred to a new committee, of which Mr. Lee was chairman.
A proposition in the house to appoint a committee to confer with the new
senate committee elicited a warm debate. The senate committee,
meanwhile, reported in favor of th