Sailing to Rhode Island and the Storms of Politics — Nathaniel Philbrick — Washington sailed to Newport, Rhode Island in August 1790 to embrace the state after it finally ratified the Constitution , completing the original union of thirteen states. Philbrick recounts his own terrifying contemporary experience with a tornado while retracing this historical route by boat, using the meteorological storm as a metaphor for the political turbulence and factional conflicts Washington confronted. Philbrick highlights the complex historical paradox of Rhode Island : a place of genuine religious freedom that simultaneously served as the center of the American slave trade . Philbrick personifies this contradiction through the Brown brothers : John , a slave trader, and Moses , an abolitionist who profoundly influenced Washington to sign anti-slavery legislation and humanitarian reforms. 1889
