He was called “the American Cincinnatus” after the ancient Roman dictator who, after the crisis had been averted, left his power behind and returned to plowing his field. And, yes, the city of Cincinnati (of Cincinnatus in Latin) was named for George Washington. The picture on the left is a reconstructed composite of his features based on sculptures, paintings, and a life mask that was made of him.
Perhaps we know lots about him. He was the Father of Our Country, he couldn’t tell a lie, he led the Army of the American Revolution, he chopped down the cherry tree, he crossed the Delaware, he threw a silver dollar across the Rapahannock River.
Maybe we don’t know that during the French and Indian War he was a charming, tall, handsome, strong young colonel of enormous physical courage: bullets passed through his clothing several times and several horses were shot from under him. He operated the largest distillery in the Colonies. He was a general when being a general didn’t mean you were a clever enough bureaucrat and politician to rise from the ranks of the other officers. In Washington’s time it meant that you were charismatic enough to raise an army, smart enough to lead it, and rich enough to provision it.
He was our first president. He could have been king (there was talk of it at the time). And had he not been the man he was we might have had no other presidents. For this he has been called “the indispensable man”.
By leaving office amicably after serving two terms as president he set the standard and tone for all future presidents. His is the benchmark by which the rest are measured. While our current president, George W. Bush, is in Europe both he and we could do well to recall what Washington said in his farewell address in 1796:
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
Much of what we think we know of Washington are myths and fabrications, many of them by Parson Mason Locke Weems who wrote an early biography of Washington. If you’d like to read Parson Weems account, here it is. Let me warn you: it’s rough sledding—tendentious, preachy, and boring. But, like the Roman Cincinnatus, it’s impossible to separate myth from fact and we shouldn’t bother to try. We need our myths. Let them bind us together. I believe with all my heart that Washington chopped down his father’s favorite tree, couldn’t tell a lie, and threw a silver dollar across the Rapahannock.
As part of the official eulogy his friend and kinsman Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, the father of Robert E. Lee, called Washington “first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen”. Now you know. Remember him!
I learned something. I like learning stuff. Even better when it’s a really good topic. Thanks for sharing.