Broadside printed letter with Johnston’s letter of May 10, 1789 and Washington's response, from June 19, 1789, on single leaf of watermarked paper, approximately 8-1/2 x 13-1/2 in.

Provenance: A Historic Edenton Family Collection

Note: “Though this state be not yet a member of the union under the new form of government, we look forward with the pleasing hope of its shortly becoming such; and in the common interest and affection with the other states, waiting only for the happy event of such alterations being proposed as will remove the apprehensions of many of the good citizens of this state, for those liberties for which they have fought and suffered in common with others…. And in the mean while, may the state of North Carolina be considered, as it truly deserves to be, attached with equal warmth with any state in the union, to the true interest, prosperity, and glory of America….”

George Washington took his country’s presidential oath of office in April of 1789. Prior to North Carolina’s second Constitutional Convention, which ratified the federal Constitution, President Washington responded to the Governor (Samuel Johnston) and the Council of the State of North Carolina.

“[I am] gratified by the favourable sentiments which are evinced in your address to me, and impressed with an idea that the Citizens of your State are sincerely attached to the Interest, the Prosperity and the Glory of America. I most earnestly implore the Divine benediction and guidance in the councils, which are shortly to be taken by their Delegates on a subject of the most momentous consequence, I mean the political relation which is to subsist hereafter, between the State of North Carolina and the States now in Union under the new general Government.”

This lot was viewed by representatives of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and the Department does not at this time have reason to believe that the Lot contains any out-of-custody public records.