On Washington

I just finished Joseph Ellis' book His Excellency, on the life of George Washington. The book comes after Ellis' review of the newly catalogued Washington papers, which apparently contain anything and everything left of what Washington wrote.

Admitteldy, I am not an avid book reader, and usually those books I do read are church books, Harry Potter, or most anything by C.S. Lewis. That said, it's been a goal of mine for some time to branch out, turn off the TV a little more frequently, and read more. This month long business trip of mine seemed like the perfect opportunity--especially once the "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Seinfeld" reruns no longer seemed like good company in my hotel rooms.

At any rate, I had some difficulty grappling with a "realistic" portrayal of George Washington. As the author himself admits, historians dealing with the founding usually fall into one of two camps: Those who practically deify the Founders (especially Washington) such that they could do no wrong, and those who villify them--finding them all to be power hungry, conniving, duplicitous, and racist. Washington again proves an easy target here--precisely because he took such great pains eliminate any evidence of his thoughts and feelings that bordered on being personal (for example, he had Martha burn all of their personal letters after he died)*. I suppose I am guilty of preferring the former treatment of the Founders (deifying them), mostly because of Wilford Woodruff's vision of the Founders appearing to him in the the temple (I forget which) wherein they nearly demanded their work be done. I think this information has been helpful when weighing the merits of certain accusations against them, but I realized recently it has lead me to virtually ignore anything that might reveal character defects.

Ellis' book does not shy away from Washington's apparent character deficiencies while reviewing his life: Washington's early letters reveal he was more ambitious than perhaps he even cared to admit, he was stern and unforgiving at times, even a bit arrogant, and was possibly a bit too fond of the wife of his friend (though no evidence of any indiscretion), and to modern day observers his passive opposition to slavery appears to lack the moral fortitude one would expect from the Father of Our Country. Ellis didn't seem to delight so much in Washington's weaknesses, though, as much as he saw them merely as a necessary part of understanding who Washington was.

Washington certainly comes off as flawed, in fact he comes off as an aggressive and stubborn commander of the Continental Army that at several points could have (and should have) lost the Revolutionary War. His greatest lesson, and the evidence of the moulding of his famous character, was learning to restrain his aggressive tendencies.

Even so, the weight of the evidence, at least presented in this book, reveals a man terribly concerned with propriety who knew from early on that people would hang on (and very likely preserve) his every word, and that he had become more of a symbol than a man and had to somehow be everything to everyone. He seemed to be in constant development in his mastery over his ambition, even if he did still seemed greatly concerned that future generations view him well.

In short, His Excellency tore down many of the glamourized images I had of Washington. I still found, though, plenty of reasons to revere him and his contributions to the founding of the United States of America. His steady leadership during rough times in the Revolutionary War, his surrender of his sword at Annapolis, MD once it was over, and his lack of an appetite for power and the limelight in his later years are but a few of the many things I find admirable. And perhaps most importantly, I do not find his life inconsistent with Wilford Woodruff's vision--where Washington presumably was one of the Founder's imploring that his work be done. In the end, I guess that's the standard against which I'm likely to judge any treatment of the life of Washington, or any of the other principle Founding Fathers.

*In fact, I started to read one book on Washington, by Forest McDonald, for a class at BYU that essentially sought to paint him as the greatest fake of all time. It was a perspective I could not tolerate, and admittedly never got beyond the introduction.