Chapter Nine: A Delicate Situation Summary and Analysis

When President Washington left the city, Secretary of War Henry Knox was in charge of the government. But Knox soon fled to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he was forced to stay quarantined for several weeks. Other federal heads were struggling to keep their departments functioning. Washington was only getting infrequent and vague updates about the situation in Philadelphia and only a few official documents made their way to him. Government officials could not agree whether or not it was legal for Washington to call Congress to session outside Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison feared the government could devolve into a parliamentary government under a monarch-like figure such as in England. Attorney General Edmund Randolph agreed with Jefferson and Madison.

As the autumn deepened toward winter, the epidemic seemed to be on the...