Focus on this artwork and explain the Jay Treaty.
The Lansdowne portrait likely (and fancifully) depicts President Washington's December 7, 1795 annual address to the Fourth U.S. Congress.: 172  The highly unpopular Jay Treaty, settling claims between the United States and Great Britain left over from the Revolutionary War, had been presented to the U.S. Senate for approval earlier in the year. The Senate held a special session to debate the treaty in June, at which opposition to it had been fierce. Only two-thirds of the 30 senators (the minimum required under the U.S. Constitution) approved the treaty in mid-August, and Washington, who strongly supported the treaty, signed it in late August.: 172  In his annual address, delivered to Congress on opening day of its next session, the President acknowledged the struggle over the Jay Treaty, and called for unity. There was lingering resentment in the House of Representatives, which expressed its displeasure by declining to appropriate funding for the treaty's implementation until April 1796.In England, the Lansdowne portrait was celebrated as Washington's endorsement of the Jay Treaty:The portrait presented by the President  [sic] to the Marquis of Lansdowne is one of the finest pictures we have seen since the death of Reynolds. The dress he wears is plain black velvet; he has his sword on, upon the hilt of which one hand rests while the other is extended, as the figure is standing and addressing the Hall of Assembly. The point of time is that when he recommended inviolable union between America and Great Britain.
Washington's December 7, 1795 address was the last that he delivered to Congress in person. The following year the President published his Farewell Address in the newspapers, rather than delivering it to Congress.: 172
hat velvet England Jay Treaty United States Farewell Address sword Revolutionary War Fourth U.S. Congress left