The Essential George Washington

by Hannaford, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781884592232
• ISBN10: 1884592236
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Images from the Past Inc

Summary

What do they say about George Washington? this book includes fascinating, revealing, and often surprising opinions on the 'Father of his Country' from more than sixty selected observers of the past two centuries. This is a vivid portrait in the words of the man who -- more than any other -- brought the United States into the world. Why did Thomas Paine turn against him? Why did Martha Dangerfield Bland call him 'impudent'? What is the truth about the cherry tree story? What was his single most important quality? Why, for two centuries, has his fame endured -- as a glorified icon or as an all-too-human man? The answers to these and more questions about the 'Father of his Country' are brought to light in this collection. Washington's contemporaries are followed by famous Americans from the decades between then and now, and finally by well-known modern-day Americans. Includes biographical sketches of the contributors.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. x
Milestones in George Washington's Life	p. xvi
Voices of a Young Nation
Abigail Adams	p. 2
John Adams	p. 8
Aurora	p. 13
Martha Dangerfield Bland	p. 16
Napoleon Bonaparte	p. 18
General Edward Braddock	p. 20
Charles James Fox	p. 22
Benjamin Franklin	p. 24
Philip Freneau	p. 27
George III	p. 29
Alexander Hamilton	p. 31
Sir William Howe	p. 36
Thomas Jefferson	p. 39
Marquis de Lafayette	p. 43
Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee	p. 46
Henrietta Liston	p. 48
James Madison	p. 53
George Mason	p. 56
Gouverneur Morris	p. 59
Nordamericanische Kalendar	p. 61
Thomas Paine	p. 62
Philadelphia Federal Gazette	p. 66
Elizabeth Powel	p. 68
John Robinson	p. 70
Gilbert Stuart	p. 72
Edward Thornton	p. 74
Martha Dandridge Washington	p. 80
Mason Locke Weems	p. 82
Between Then and Now
George Gordon, Lord Byron	p. 86
James Fenimore Cooper	p. 90
Ann Pamela Cunningham	p. 92
David Davis	p. 96
Ralph Waldo Emerson	p. 98
Edward Everett	p. 100
Paul von Hindenburg	p. 102
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.	p. 104
Abraham Lincoln	p. 106
Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr.	p. 108
Benson J. Lossing	p. 110
James Russell Lowell	p. 113
Henry David Thoreau	p. 116
Artemus Ward	p. 118
Daniel Webster	p. 120
Walt Whitman	p. 122
Oscar Wilde	p. 124
Woodrow Wilson	p. 126
Washington Today--and Tomorrow
David Abshire	p. 130
Lamar Alexander	p. 132
Letitia Baldrige	p. 135
Patrick J. Buchanan	p. 139
Robert Dole	p. 143
Alvin S. Felzenberg	p. 146
Newt Gingrich	p. 150
Carew Lee	p. 154
Eugene McCarthy	p. 157
David McCullough	p. 159
George McGovern	p. 163
Ronald Reagan	p. 166
Richard Norton Smith	p. 168
R. Emmett Tyrrell	p. 171
George Will	p. 175
Bibliography	p. 178
Credits	p. 180
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Excerpt

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

(1769-1821)

FRENCH SOLDIER, EMPEROR, EXILE

"They wanted me to be another Washington."

    In 1792, the French monarchy was overthrown in the revolution, and young Napoleon--unlike most army officers--sided with the revolutionaries. He rose in power as his tactical brilliance took him to victory after victory and, in 1799, joined a plot to overthrow the French Directory, replacing it with the Consulate. Within three years he was made First Consul for life, soon crowning himself Emperor Napoleon I. In 1803, war broke out with England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden; by 1805, Napoleon's armies had crushed all rivals but England, which was protected by the sea and her powerful navy. During the first decade of the century, France dominated much of continental Europe. Napoleon installed various relatives as heads of states he controlled. His audacious invasion of Russia in 1812 proved a disaster, and he was forced to retreat, with several hundred thousand troops dying from freezing temperatures and starvation on the way. The allies--England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia--joined forces and, in 1814, captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate. He was exiled to Elba, off the west coast of Italy. In 1815, he escaped to France and for a time--called The Hundred Days--he returned to his past glory, which ended that spring with defeat in the Battle of Waterloo. Exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena, Napoleon often ruminated on his lost empire. Bold, daring, and resourceful, Napoleon Bonaparte lacked Washington's patience, reflective qualities, and consensus-building ability.

They wanted me to be another Washington.

--The above quotation is from a letter by Benjamin West, the painter, to Rufus King, May 3, 1797, published in Literary History of the United States (1963). This was soon after Napoleon's early victories, when he had begun to see himself as the potential leader of a great French empire.

THOMAS PAINE

(1737-1809)

POLITICAL THEORIST, PAMPHLETEER

"The character and services of this gentleman are sufficient

to put all those men called kings to shame."

    Passionate and combative, Tom Paine become the chief propagandist for the American Revolution. Born in Thetford, Norfolk, England, this small, wiry son of a Quaker farmer and corset maker left school at thirteen to work for his father. Several jobs later, he became an excise tax collector. In 1772, he was dismissed after publishing a pamphlet agitating for higher salaries for excisemen as a means of ending corruption in the service. Meanwhile, he was studying on his own and had met Benjamin Franklin. In 1774, armed with a letter of introduction from Franklin, he sailed for America and landed a job as assistant editor of Pennsylvania Magazine in Philadelphia, a position he held from 1775-77. He also published articles anonymously, including one denouncing slavery. At the time he took up his editorial duties the colonies were divided over the issue of whether to declare independence from Great Britain.

    On January 10, 1776, Paine's pamphlet Common Sense was published. It galvanized support for independence. He wrote, "Freedom has been hunted around the globe. Asia and Africa have expelled her ... and England has given her warning to depart. O, receive the fugitive and prepare in time an asylum for mankind." Washington credited Paine with changing many minds from doubt to support for independence. In particular, Common Sense had a powerful effect on the men who created the Declaration of Independence. After the Declaration, he joined the Continental Army, seeing first hand the hardships being suffered by the ill-equipped troops. Public discouragement was widespread. In December 1776, Paine published the first of sixteen pamphlets in the series titled The Crisis . The first opened with the words "These are the times that try men's souls." Washington ordered it read to "every corporal's guard in the army."

     Paine's passion and frankness would, however, ultimately get him into trouble. In 1781, he joined John Laurens's diplomatic mission to Paris, and in 1787 went on to London where he wrote The Rights of Man , attacking critics of the French Revolution (Member of Parliament Edmund Burke in particular) and English institutions in general. In this work Paine held up Washington as a model for monarchs to follow. This tome so angered British authorities that he was indicted for treason.

     He fled to France, where he was elected to the National Convention. He argued, on humanitarian grounds, against the execution of Louis XVI, angering the Jacobins. Narrowly escaping the guillotine himself, he was imprisoned in Paris in 1793. He languished there for ten months before James Monroe, then United States ambassador, and other American friends secured his release.

     In 1794-96, deeply affected by the French Revolution, Paine wrote The Age of Reason , in which he attacked organized religion and extolled Deism, the belief in a God who exerts no influence on the actions of individuals. His once-widespread popularity with the American public evaporated. Washington's friends, in particular, turned their backs on him after he wrote a scathing and bitter letter, blaming Washington for insufficient effort to extricate him from his French prison sentence. Paine returned to the United States in 1802, ostracized. His health began to fail, and in 1809 he died an outcast in New York City.

The character and services of this gentleman are sufficient to put all those men called kings to shame. While they are receiving from the sweat and labors of mankind a prodigality of pay to which neither their abilities nor their services can entitle them, he is rendering every service in his power, and refusing every pecuniary reward. He accepted no pay as commander-in-chief; he accepts none as President of the United States.

--From Rights of Man , 1791-92

As to you, sir, treacherous to private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor, whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you ever had any.

--Letter to Washington, July 30, 1796

ANN PAMELA CUNNINGHAM

(1816-75)

SAVIOR OF MOUNT VERNON

"Oh, it cannot be possible!"

    As a young woman living near Charleston, South Carolina, Ann Pamela Cunningham was severely injured in a horseback-riding accident and became a semi-invalid. During her convalescence, her mother visited relatives in Washington, D.C., and returned home by boat. As the boat glided down the Potomac, the mother spied Mount Vernon. Her excitement turned to shock, for George Washington's home was going to ruin. Columns were missing from the portico, the roof was in disrepair, the grounds overgrown. When this was related to Ann Pamela, she decided to make the rescue of Mount Vernon her life's work.

    On hearing rumors that Washington's estate might be sold to Northern interests as a factory site, she was appalled and launched her campaign with an open letter to "The Ladies of the South" in a local newspaper. Following this, she mounted a concerted effort to enlist the aid of political, business, and civic leaders and historians to raise the money to buy Mount Vernon.

    Finally, in 1858, Miss Cunningham and her band of women volunteers had the funds to purchase Mount Vernon. Restoration work began at once, but was suspended during the Civil War. She obtained the agreement of both sides to treat Mount Vernon as neutral ground, a promise that was kept. Indeed, soldiers on leave from both sides visited the estate throughout the war. After the war, restoration work resumed and continues to this day. The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, which Miss Cunningham headed for twenty-one years, is governed by an all-woman council, headed by a regent. Each of thirty-two states is represented by a vice regent. By the terms of its by-laws, Mount Vernon accepts no government funds.

Can you be still with closed souls and purses while the world cries "Shame upon America," and suffer Mount Vernon, with all its sacred associations, to become, as is spoken of and probable, the seat of manufacturing ... noise and smoke, and the "busy hum of men," destroying all sanctity and repose around the tomb of your own "world's wonder"? Oh, it cannot be possible!

WASHINGTON, and his principles and spirit, appear no longer to influence the City which bears his name. Oh! who that have a spark of patriotism, but must mourn such early degeneracy, when they see who fill our Legislative halls and crowd our political Metropolis!

One of your countrywomen feels emboldened to appeal in the name of the Mother of Washington, and of Southern feeling and honor, to all that is sympathetic and generous in your nature, to exert itself, and by your combined effort now, in village and country, town and city, the means may be raised from the mites of thousands of gentle hearts, upon whom his name has yet a magic spell, which will suffice to secure and retain his home and grave as a SACRED SPOT for all coming times.

A spontaneous work like this would be such a monument of love and gratitude, as has never yet been reared to purest patriot and mortal man; and while it would save American honor from a blot in the eyes of a gazing world, it would furnish a shrine where at least the mothers of the land and their indignant children, might make their offerings in the cause of greatness, goodness, and prosperity of their country.

A Southern Matron

--From "To the Ladies of the South," published in the

Charleston Mercury , December 2, 1853

WOODROW WILSON

(1856-1924)

TWENTY-EIGHTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED

STATES, 1912-21

"Children desired sight of him,

and men felt lifted after he had passed."

    Son of a Presbyterian minister, Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia. After graduating from Princeton and obtaining a law degree at the University of Virginia, he practiced law briefly, then turned to academia, teaching history and political economy at Bryn Mawr and Wesleyan before becoming a professor at Princeton. He was elected president of that university in 1902. In 1910, he was elected governor of New Jersey; in 1912, he became president. Reelected in 1916 on the slogan "He kept us out of war," Wilson led the country into World War I the next year. Idealistic, he championed self-determination for all peoples. His health broke in 1919, and he failed to achieve his ambition to bring the United States into the League of Nations. Among the books he authored are Congressional Government (1885) and George Washington (1897).

There was something about Washington that quickened the pulses of a crowd at the same time it awed them, that drew cheers which were a sort of voice of worship. Children desired sight of him, and men felt lifted after he had passed.

It was good to have such a man ride all the open way from Philadelphia to Cambridge, in sight of the people, to assume command of the people's army. It gave character to the thoughts of all who saw him.

--Description of Washington's trip to Massachusetts to take

over the Continental Army, from George Washington (1897)

The real Washington was as thoroughly an American as Jackson or Lincoln. What we take for lack of passion in him was but the reserve and self-mastery natural to a man of his class and breeding in Virginia. He was no parlor politician, either. He had seen the frontier, and far beyond it where the French forts lay. He knew the rough life of the country as few other men could. His thoughts did not live at Mount Vernon. He knew difficulty as intimately and faced it always with as quiet a mastery as William the Silent.

--From Mere Literature (1896)

* This paragraph is noted in pencil in the flyleaf of Wilson's window's personal copy of the book as a "description of G. W. which so perfectly describes Woodrow Wilson himself."

Copyright © 1999 Peter Hannaford. All rights reserved.