Since Congress can’t impose taxes, there’s no money to spend. Army officers are owed months, even years, of back pay. Desperate and angry, last week some of them set up a secret meeting in Newburgh, New York. There’s talk of defying Congress.

Washington stepped in. He called an official meeting today, and showed up in person to read a letter from Congress.

Squinting, he put on his glasses. “Gentlemen,” he apologized, “I have not only grown gray, but almost blind, in the service of my country.”