However ill founded the public prejudices might be, he thought this a case in which they ought to be respected; and, if it should be found impracticable to convince the people that their fears were misplaced, he was disposed to yield to them in a degree, and not to suffer that which was intended for the best of purposes, to produce a bad one." A general meeting was to be held in Philadelphia in May, 1784; and, in the mean time, he had been appointed the temporary president.
To prepare the officers for those fundamental changes in the principles of the society, which he contemplated as a necessary sacrifice to the public apprehensions, his ideas were suggested to his military correspondents; and to give weight to the measures which might be recommended, his utmost influence was exerted to obtain a full assemblage of deputies, which should be respectable for its numbers, and for its wisdom.
Officers of high respectability entertained different opinions on surrendering those parts of the institution which were deemed objectionable.

By some, the public clamour was attributed to a spirit of persecution, which only attached them more closely to the order.
Many, it was said, were in quest of a cause of quarrel with their late protectors; and the removal of one ground of accusation against them, would only induce the substitution of some other.

The source of the uneasiness which had been manifested was to be found in the temper of the people, not in the matters of which they complained; and if the present cause of irritation was removed, their ill humour would be openly and avowedly directed against the commutation.
General Washington was too much in the habit of considering subjects of difficulty in various points of view, and of deciding on them with coolness and deliberation, to permit his affections to influence his judgment.

The most exact inquiries, assiduously made into the true state of the public mind, resulted in a conviction that opinions unfriendly to the institution, in its actual form, were extensively entertained; and that those opinions were founded, not in hostility to the late army, but in real apprehensions for equal liberty.
A wise and necessary policy required, he thought, the removal of these apprehensions; and, at the general meeting in May, the hereditary principle, and the power of adopting honorary members, were relinquished.

The result demonstrated the propriety of this alteration.