The Death of Washington, with some remarks on Jeffersonian policy

Coverly published another edition of The Death of Washington with Some Remarks on the Jeffersonian Policy around 1815, using the same cut but new display type. A second edition of this text was published after Madison became president in 1809, possibly by Joseph White and with new cuts as The Death of Washington with Some Remarks on Jeffersonian and Madisonian Policy. The text is rearranged and changed here and there. See also The Death of Washington with Some Remarks on the Jeffersonian Policy (1808) and a variant text in the Walpole (NH) Political Observatory on April 14, 1804.

George Washington died on December 14, 1799, after a brief illness. Among the earliest of the well-known Revolutionary War leaders to die after the war, his death caught the entire country by surprise in the midst of political turmoil and incipient war with France and England. A flood of commemorative and mourning lyrics, hymns, and sentimental songs helped to assuage the public’s enormous sense of loss. As the nation neared a second war with England with the man who saved the nation no longer in uniform, Coverly discovered that demand for the texts mourning Washington continued strong even ten years after his death (Stillwell 403-50; Murray 282-308).