Posted on 01/16/2017 1:42:49 AM PST by Jacquerie
As Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, George Washington knew like no other man of the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation (AC). From the despair at Valley Forge in 1777-78, and a congressional recommendation that he plunder the Pennsylvania countryside for supplies, George Washington and his men felt the full measure of inadequate government.
On March 15th 1783, Washington prevented a mutiny of his army encamped at Newburgh NY that would have changed the course of American history. The Revolutionary War did not end with victory at Yorktown; British troops still held New York, Charleston, Savannah, and western outposts. Ironically, it was rumors of peace that put soldiers in a mutinous mindset, because they rightfully feared a penniless congress might disband the army without paying it off. Thomas Jefferson credited Washington with preventing the revolution from closing as most others, in a subversion of the liberty it was intended to establish.
Washington managed, in part, to cool tempers by promising to exhort congress and the states to form a stronger union. In his June 1783 circular letter to the states, he rhetorically asked if the revolution was a blessing or a curse. To remain a blessing, he urged “an indissoluble Union of the States under one Federal Head.” The war was the thin glue that held the states together. Without it, why remain in confederation, especially when congress was powerless to enforce its resolutions?
(Excerpt) Read more at articlevblog.com ...
My wife and I have been watching on DVD the George Washington miniseries, and we just finished watching the John Adams miniseries. The more I learn of George Washington, (and he was my hero when I first read a biography of him when I was in third grade) the more I agree with Flexner’s subtitle of “the Indispensable Man.”
The more I learn of history, the more I see how rare he was, and how so often revolutions and civil wars end so badly. History has more Robepierres, Napoleons, and Stalins than George Washingtons.
There were so many occasions when Washington singlehandedly prevented us from going the way of the Latin American banana republics.
(I know this is a bit off topic, but I was moved to comment.)
Well said. My favorite comparison is to the Roman, Cincinnatus. Like GW, he was a farmer. At the beginning of a war during the early republic, he was given dictatorial power for six months. After defeating Rome’s enemy, he simply returned to his farm.
Yes, GW was THE Indispensable Man.
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