Foolery, Foppery, and Finery

"These "levees," as they were called, were not loose occasions. Washington stood by the fireplace in a dining room cleared of its chairs. Dressed in a black velvet suit, hair powdered, hat in hand, he greeted guests with a formal bow. Handshakes, familiar and egalitarian, were prohibited. Conversation was sparse. The president, per Alexander Hamilton's instructions, might talk "cursorily on indifferent subjects," but nothing more."

"If little was said at Washington's levees, much was said about them, beginning with the fact that the entire practice was imported from the royal courts of Europe. For Hamilton and others close to Washington, this was precisely the point. The public needed to appreciate the full "dignity of the office," a goal best accomplished by setting a "high tone in the demeanour of the Executive.""

"The guests were sycophantic, exhibiting the "cringing servility" of courtiers. All of it reeked of royalty. After attending a levee in December 1790, Senator William Maclay of Pennsylvania confessed to his diary the hope that Washington might just die. "If there is treason in the wish, I retract it," he wrote. But if the president "were in Heaven," he continued, "we would not then have him brought forward as the constant cover to every unconstitutional and irrepublican act.""

George Washington held weekly half-hour levees in which visitors were received formally and briefly. He stood by a cleared dining-room fireplace, dressed in black velvet with powdered hair and a hat in hand, greeting guests with a formal bow while prohibiting handshakes and limiting conversation. Alexander Hamilton instructed the president to speak only cursorily on indifferent subjects and to promptly disappear after being seen. The levees modeled European royal court practices to project the dignity and a high tone for the Executive. Opponents condemned the receptions as sycophantic and monarchic, with critics like Senator William Maclay expressing extreme animus.

Read at The Atlantic