The General's Standard during the Revolution. I am flying my replica outside now; you can purchase one by calling the gift shop at Mount Vernon.
Posted on 02/22/2004 3:38:06 AM PST by Pharmboy
As the Democratic primaries reach a critical stage, partisan spirit is running high, and the presidential campaign is already verging on blood sport. George Washington's birthday today serves as a reminder of how presidents can transcend politics and embody the national spirit.
From the time he was recruited as commander in chief in 1775, Washington personified the often tenuous hope of unity among the 13 fractious colonies. With most of the early patriot blood spilled in Massachusetts, the second Continental Congress wanted a Southern general who could lend a national imprint to the struggle. Washington shed his Virginia identity and forged a Continental Army that tutored its green recruits into thinking of themselves as Americans.
It is impossible to assess Washington's career without stumbling over the words "unity" and "unanimity" at every turn. He was unanimously chosen as president of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, where he presided with customary tact. Since it was assumed that Washington would be the first president, his taciturn but resolute presence reconciled many skittish delegates to the vast powers invested in the executive branch. Twice in a row, in 1789 and 1792, the Electoral College elected him president by a unanimous vote, confirming his status as a political deity who seemed to hover above the petty feuds of lesser mortals.
Nevertheless, Americans today tend to take George Washington for granted. He seems less soulful than Lincoln, less robust than Theodore Roosevelt, less charismatic than Franklin Roosevelt. His bloodless image as a remote, Mount Rushmore of a man — partly a byproduct of the craggy face recreated endlessly by Gilbert Stuart — has worked to obscure the magnitude of his achievement. Too often Washington seems a dull, phlegmatic figure, wooden if worthy, whose self-command stemmed from an essential lack of inner fire.
In fact, Washington was a strong-willed, hot-blooded personality. "I wish I could say that he governs his temper," a rich Virginian told Washington's mother when George was 16 years old. "He is subject to attacks of anger and provocation, sometimes without just cause." The young man mastered his wayward emotions by reading history, studying deportment, and learning how to dance and dress smartly. Like other founders, Washington was an ambitious, insecure provincial, committed to a strenuous regimen of self-improvement.
Over time, Washington would retreat behind an iron mask of self-control. Alexander Hamilton, his chief aide for four years during the Revolution, glimpsed the well-concealed inner man and found him unbearably moody and irritable. As with many passionate but guarded personalities, Washington sometimes burst out unexpectedly in anger.
By early 1781, despite immense respect for the general, Hamilton could no longer tolerate his short temper and abrupt manner. He exploited a brief clash to resign his staff position, then grumbled to a fellow aide of Washington, "He shall, for once at least, repent his ill humor." Hamilton's adversary, Thomas Jefferson, echoed this appraisal of Washington's nature: "His temper was naturally irritable and high-toned, but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath."
The prodigious self-restraint enabled Washington to rise above the sectional strife that threatened to tear the 13 states apart. He adopted a detached, even cryptic facade to resist association with any particular faction or interest. In a noisy world of blustering politicos, he possessed the "gift of silence," as John Adams phrased it. Washington articulated his secret succinctly: "With me it has always been a maxim rather to let my designs appear from my works than by my expressions."
The founding generation flirted with the utopian fantasy that America would be spared parties — or "factions," as they were styled — which they dismissed as obsolete remnants of monarchical government. Washington didn't foresee the savage ideological divisions that would split his administration and the country at large. His original "cabinet" consisted of just three men — Thomas Jefferson at State, Henry Knox at War and Hamilton at Treasury. There was no Justice Department, but Attorney General Edmund Randolph served as part-time legal adviser to the president.
Washington presided over his cabinet of prima donnas in a civil, high-minded fashion, soliciting their opinions, usually in writing, then weighing their merits. As Hamilton summarized his executive style: "He consulted much, pondered much, resolved slowly, resolved surely."
Washington didn't try to impose unity on his department heads or color their views or stifle dissent. He was strong enough to give free rein to vigorous internal debate. At the same time, he endorsed the bold package of programs drafted by his Treasury secretary to restore American credit and establish a monetary system.
These controversial initiatives brought about the advent of parties. The mostly Northern Federalists, led by Hamilton, favored a strong central government and a flexible interpretation of the Constitution, while the mostly Southern Republicans, led by Jefferson and Madison, upheld states' rights and strict construction.
This ideological clash — first a fissure, then a chasm — ushered in a vitriolic style of partisan politics. This wasn't just a case of the party in power being pummeled by a vocal opposition. The ferocious warfare flared up, nay issued, from Washington's own cabinet. Jefferson and Hamilton sniped at each other with relentless gusto, each trying to oust the other from the administration. Jefferson schemed to introduce a resolution in Congress calling for Hamilton's dismissal, while Hamilton blasted Jefferson in print behind the shield of various Roman pseudonyms.
In most policy disputes, Washington had sided with Hamilton simply because his policies had worked, as Washington once reminded Jefferson pointedly. Another president might have conducted a purge to foster greater cohesion among his colleagues. But Washington clung to his idealistic vision of tolerance and became the binding agent of a divided country. He pleaded with Jefferson and Hamilton to cease their assaults.
Jefferson replied loftily that he refused to be slandered by Hamilton, "whose history, from the moment at which history can stoop to notice him, is a tissue of machinations against the liberty of the country." Hamilton wasn't about to retire the heavy artillery, either. "I find myself placed in a situation not to be able to recede for the present," he told Washington.
It is hard to resist the impression that Washington's tenure in office was often painfully solitary. To defend national unity and curb partisan bickering, he had to keep his principal advisers at arm's length. Nevertheless, critics tagged him as a Federalist, even a doddering old man who had become mere putty in Hamilton's nimble hands. At first, Washington's sacred status as leader of the revolutionary army rendered him immune to direct press criticism, with most hostility deflected to Hamilton.
By the end of Washington's first term, however, Republican scandalmongers had declared open season on him, accusing him, along with Hamilton, of being a closet royalist. The president's pent-up passion and sensitivity finally boiled over.
Jefferson recorded Washington's memorable explosion at a cabinet meeting in 1793: "The president was much inflamed; got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself; ran on much on the personal abuse which has been bestowed on him; defied any man on earth to produce one single act of his since he had been in the government which was not done on the purest motives . . . that by God he had rather be in his grave than in his present situation; that he had rather be on his farm than to be made emperor of the world; and yet they were charging him with wanting to be a king."
There ensued a pause as Washington tried to regain his composure. Even though Jefferson had helped to orchestrate many salvos against Washington, he acknowledged the president's acute sensitivity, noting that he was "extremely affected by the attacks made and kept on him in the public papers." He added, "I think he feels those things more than any person I ever yet met with."
In his farewell address in 1796, Washington warned against "the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party." By this point, however, it was abundantly clear that the two-party system was here to stay. During his single-term presidency, John Adams, a nominal Federalist, tried in vain to perpetuate the notion of a president above party labels. When his successor, Thomas Jefferson, was inaugurated, he intoned famously, "We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists" — a neat rhetorical flourish that thinly disguised his status as the first president to head a political party.
Ever since, the occupants of the White House have experienced an uneasy tension between their role as party leader and as president of all of the people. George Washington never doubted which role should come first.
Ron Chernow is the author of the forthcoming "Alexander Hamilton."
The differences resolved when, at Yorktown, Washington gave Alex the honor of leading the charge against the most difficult and dangerous British fortification.
The General's Standard during the Revolution. I am flying my replica outside now; you can purchase one by calling the gift shop at Mount Vernon.
The Republican party was founded in 1856. Its first presidential nominee was John C. Fremont. Abrahan Lincoln was the first Republican elected to the presidency.
Prior to 1856 there were NO Republicans.
I easily found this information on a posted chapter of a book called The Life of Abraham Lincoln by Henry Ketcham. The link to the chapter detailing the birth of the Republican Party is HERE.
I find it appalling that someone could insert this lie in a historical discussion of Washington.
Hamilton almost single-handedly invented American capitalism. It is said that although there were many brilliant men that amde up the Founders (Washington, Jay, Mason, Henry, and especially Jefferson and Madison), if an SAT were given to them Hamilton would have scored the highest. Even scholars that do not care for Hamilton admit this.
Your Obdt. Svt.
PB
There were Southern Federalists: Washington was first among them. John Marshall was another. And Jefferson wasn't especially conservative or God-fearing in his day. He was a major admirer of the French Revolution, which the conservative Federalists abhorred. Jefferson questioned the orthodox Trinitarian theology of his day and disestablished the Anglican/Episcopalian Church in Virginia. One thing Jefferson and Madison disliked about New England was its strongly established Puritan/Congregationalist Church. The ill-feeling was mutual, and many clergymen attacked Jefferson for his unorthodox religious views.
New England and the South do seem to be the permanent opposing poles in American politics. If Massachusetts votes one way, Mississippi votes the opposite. The same is more or less true of Connecticut and Alabama, or Vermont and South Carolina, but the actual positions each region takes change over time. The South was solid for FDR when Northern New Englanders stood up for individualism, low budgets, and limited government. Nor was "state's rights" always a libertarian cause.
One could trace the opposition between the two regions back to the English Civil Wars, or the wars between Anglo-Saxons and Celts, or to slavery and Black-White divisions, or to the New Englander's preference for living together in towns and Southerner's desire to live spread out and separately, but it would be a mistake to assume that American history was always the same thing with one permanently good region and another permanently bad one. The different regions of our country benefit from being in the same union. The strengths of each region compensate for the weaknesses of the others. If you're interested in learning more Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer is a great book on American regional differences.
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