Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

Baldrick: I still can’t believe you’re leaving me behind.
Blackadder: Oh don’t you worry. When we’re established on our plantation in Barbados I’ll send for you. No more sad little London for you Balders. From now on you will stand out in life as an individual.
Baldrick: Will I?
Blackadder: Indeed. All the other slaves will be black.

Black Adder Amy and Amiability 1987

Ben Franklin:  First things first, John … Independence. America. If we don’t secure that, what difference will the rest make?

1776 1972

The final in my series of post on Why Washington Matters don’t miss Part one (Washington the Revolutionary) Part two (Washington the General) and Part three (Washington the leader/president)

If there is any post title that would cause confusion among readers it’s this one.  George Washington the Emancipator?  For most of his life, Washington owned slaves.  When he married his wife, she brought even more slaves to the marriage and at the time of his death the number of slaves he owned was considerable.

In this modern age where slavery exists only in Africa and parts of Arabia where Blacks and Muslims enslave other blacks (to the silence of the media) and the sex trade (where slavery by other names is an international scourge and also pretty much ignored) this concept doesn’t wash, but in the age of Washington Slavery was not only a norm but had been a norm in the world for the history of…the entire world.

And in addition to full slavery, there were indentured servants bound to masters by contract for years and other systems by which men were held by other men.  From Morocco to the Americas slavery and forced servitude was a norm of convenience and profit wherever you went.

To this world Washington was born and raised, in a culture where slavery was a total norm, yet look at the record as commander in chief:

In his General Orders of 30 December 1775, he gave “leave to the recruiting Officers to entertain … Free Negroes [that] are desirous of inlisting” should Congress approve the new policy. Writing to John Hancock the next day he couched his order in terms of military necessity: “free Negroes who have served in this army are very much dissatisfied at being discarded. As it is to be apprehended that they may seek employ in the Ministerial Army, I have … given license for their being enlisted.”

It would have been remarkably easy for Washington the Virginia planter and slaveholder to let this be.

At the Constitutional convention he spoke very little, how easy would it have been for Washington, slaveholder and southern to push for slavery, to argue against the constitutionally mandated end to the slave trade.  How much of a pull on the delegates would his voice have been if he choose to make the case?

As president although he singed a fugitive slave law he also signed a law  he signed a law affirming the ban on slavery in the Northwest territories. How easy would it have been for a unanimously elected Washington to argue against such affirmation? How many of his friends and fellow slave holders, involved in land speculation would have wanted to bring their “property” to those lands?

Then in the final act in his will.  He freed his slaves.

While it was acknowledged even by Confederate leaders such as Alexander Stephens that the founding fathers considered Slavery wrong:

The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away.

It was he and he ALONE of the slaveholders who would occupy the White House that would free his slaves. After carefully steering the ship of state that was in danger of splitting apart on its maiden voyage he took the act, which has great symbolic meaning at a time when it was least likely to produce an argument against but would shine as his final example at the period when an entire nation would be in mourning for him.

Some in the 21st century might look at this 18th century man’s act as trivial? Why not do this BEFORE death? One might as well condemn Lincoln for not pushing for women’s suffrage. Consider this. Just two years after Washington’s death William Henry Harrison who would later be 9th president was appointed governor of the Indiana Territory. The slaveholding Harrison pushed vigorously for the legalization of slavery there and his allies in congress managed to get article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance/ forbidding slavery suspended for ten years.

Imagine the difference in the close debate if Harrison won, imagine what the country would look like if Harrison’s foes in the debate didn’t have the example of Washington as emancipator to use?

Washington’s act was extraordinary and the proof is that Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Tyler, Polk and Taylor did not copy it. Lincoln among president might have been the great emancipator but Washington was the first emancipator.

In summary for all of these reasons:
Washington the revolutionary
Washington the General
Washington the Leader/President
Washington the Emancipator
I argue President’s day once again be known far and wide as Washington’s birthday.   I further submit and suggest that George Washington is and remains the greatest American who ever lived.

and I don’t think it’s even close.

The 3rd of a four-part series of why George Washington Matters, Monday, Washington the Revolutionary, yesterday Washington the General, today Washington the Leader/President

It has become fashionable for some historians to play down George Washington as president and raise more recent people above him.  Abe Lincoln due to his victory in the Civil War gets high marks, FDR’s win in WW 2 and Reagan’s in the Cold War both make them loom large particularly since both Reagan & FDR are still in living Memory and George Washington is from an age so remote to many his presidency becomes ancient history .  You were dealing with a smaller country, less communication,

But to really appreciate Washington the president and the leader you have to look at three specific things.

First Washington at the end of his military career.

Up to the time of Washington and afterwards as well history abounded with examples of leaders of armies who used those armies to take absolute power.  At the end of the War Washington was the single most popular person in America.  As a man with just about everything the only thing he didn’t have was a crown or a title.

It was in his grasp, all he had to do is reach out to have it and he would be the head of an American constitutional monarchy.

And he declined.

It was a move worthy of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus and a shock to the powerbrokers of Europe.

But as much as it impressed the men of Europe it impressed his countrymen more he presided at the constitutional convention having very little confidence in the resulting system but accepted the presidency when elected unanimously.

This was the 2nd phase.  Despite the lack of confidence in the system he governed with discretion and skill  knowing every action that he would take would be the model for the country to follow and acting in a manner that aided rather than retarded a system that he thought would fail measuring carefully words and deeds for the sake of future generations .

The third phase was the end of his term.  It’s one thing to refuse imperial power when you’ve never had authority, but Washington now had two full terms under him.  He could keep power with the veneer of republicanism  he might have justified serving a 3rd term simply to delay the decent into parties and partisan divisions that already existed.

He did not and when he gave his farewell address assigned the credit for all of his success to the people:

In looking forward to the moment, which is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude, which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; than, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation, which is yet a stranger to it.

In this Washington didn’t just equal Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus who twice gave up power over Rome, he exceeded him by not only giving up power but crediting his success to the people.

It would be 144 years before a president was arrogant enough to consider himself in indispensable.  In closing think of the leaders and the pols of today.  If any of them had the chance for permanent power do you imagine any of them would surrender it?

The nation has seen greatness in the White House, but it has not seen the greatness of a Washington.

Tomorrow Washington the Emancipator