Washington, A Life, by Ron Chernow

The chief argument made by Chernow in this massive tome, is that Washington was a deeply passionate and emotional man, who learned to stoically suppress his emotions in order to be an effective leader, and who succeeded so well at that task that Americans have since come to see him, wrongfully, as rather bland.  Chernow wants us to get past that, and see Washington for the complex and interesting and passionate person that he was, instead of as a marble obelisk.  Here's some of what I learned from this book that I will remember most:

-Washington had one of the most shrewish mothers in history.  She constantly placed her needs ahead of his, for example vetoing an opportunity for a Naval career early in his life which would have prevented him from caring for her (although that veto turned out for the best, for Washington and his future country).  Despite the many successes of his storied career, there is no record of his mother having ever expressed any pride in his accomplishments.  There are, instead, numerous examples of her having constantly complained of being neglected throughout her life, even though Washington actually did much to care for her financially.  Washington's ability to suppress his emotions may have been learned at an early age in trying to put up with this nasty woman.

-Washington played a key role in the first skirmish of what became a worldwide war, known in North America as the French and Indian War. His experiences in that conflict involved so many unlikely escapes from certain death (in one instance evidenced by a coat riddled with bullet holes and a hat shot from his head, but himself unharmed) that it is easy to believe he was preserved by providence for future greatness. The snubbing he and other colonial officers received at the hands of officers from Britain gave his later desire for independence a very private and personal motive.

-Washington became rich via deaths of family members which were personally painful to him. The early deaths of his father, his older brother, his older brother's widow and orphaned child (and his future wife Martha's first husband), all helped Washington to inherit assets which caused him to become one of the richest  people on the continent, in terms of land and slaves.  Nevertheless, like so many other Virginia planters, he was constantly cash and income poor.

-Washington may have been, by the standards of the day, a kinder master than many slaveholders, refusing for example to sell slaves if it would break up a family, and recognizing and honoring slave marriages, even though this policy led to his holding more slaves than he could economically productively retain.  Nevertheless, he had a moral blind spot when it came to slavery.  He complained of slaves' unwillingness to labor effectively or productively, speaking of them as though they were salaried employees who were obligated to provide an economic return, he was apparently incapable of understanding why a slave would lack the incentive to work productively.  He was capable of ordering his slaves to work long hours outdoors on days which he described in his own journal as too bitterly cold for him to leave the home.  He would pay to recover fugitive slaves and at the end of the Revolutionary War he insisted, as part of the terms of the British surrender, that the British return slaves which had fled to British control in exchange for promises of freedom (the British, to their everlasting credit, refused his demands).  Washington did finally take steps towards morally redeeming himself, to some small extent, by writing a will which would free all of the slaves legally owned by him, upon his and his wife's death.  

-Washington's experiences in the Revolutionary War, as a largely powerless Congress was unable to properly provision his forces, made him a lifelong advocate for a strong central government.  

-Washington's return of his eight-year-old commission at the end of the Revolutionary War, instead of turning his popularity and power at that moment into a grab for civilian power, was seen in Europe as one of the most noble acts in history.  For his part, though, Washington seemed less concerned with his historic reputation than with a sincere and heartfelt desire to get back to his beloved Mount Vernon, whose constant improvement was his first love.

It was a wonderful coincidence that I was reading Ron Chernow's biography of Washington when we visited D.C., where reminders of his life are everywhere.  This is the portrait of Washington returning his commission to the Continental Congress, which hangs in the Rotunda of the Capitol.  King George III is reputed to have said, when learning that Washington intended to resign as a General and go back to his farm after the Revolution, "If he does that, he'll be the greatest man in the world."

Me and my sweetie at Mount Vernon.  Maybe Washington's love for this place was the real difference between him and Fidel Castro.

- Washington's popularity was essential to the formation of our country.  The highly controversial constitution would likely never have been enacted were it not for the assurance the country was given by his presence at the Constitutional Convention, and the knowledge that he would likely act as the Country's first executive under its aegis.  Similarly, the unity felt in the Country towards Washington allowed constitutional government to get off to an 8 year-start which established it as the status quo before the Country devolved into partisan bickering once he left office.  Had a unifying figure like Washington not been the Nation's first President, and not stayed in office for at least 8 years (six years longer than he wanted), the constitutional governmental forms may never have had a chance to take effective root.

 

- Washington was skeptical about the French Revolution, rightfully foreseeing that it would devolve into bloodshed and tyranny.  He was also skeptical about any foreign power, even one like France, which had assisted us in our Revolution, forming any long-term special friendship with America, which went beyond that nation's interests.  He was also a fierce advocate for a strong central government with a strong executive, based on his firsthand wartime experiences with the frustrations of limited government.  As a result of these positions, he found himself increasingly aligned with Hamilton's Federalists, and at odds with the Jeffersonian Republicans, whose romanticized views of the French Revolution blinded them to its excesses, and whose fear of monarchy caused them to advocate for a weaker central government and executive.  As most of the prominent Jeffersonian Republicans were Washington's fellow Virginia planters, Washington's last years found him severing ties with most of the members of his own political and geographic class, as his friendships with fellow members of the Virginia agricultural aristocracy, men with names like George Mason, Jefferson, and Madison, came to an end.

-  We are extremely lucky that a universally popular figure such as Washington existed at the beginning of our country, without whose unifying influence we might have won the war for independence only to become balkanized shortly thereafter.  We are also extremely lucky that the unifying person in question was a person of Washington's character, who showed no desire to make himself a dictator for life, as so many other successful revolutionaries, before and after him, were to do.  This is a long book and I probably wouldn't have gotten through it if I had tried to read it instead of listening to the audiobook on my iPhone while commuting in my car.  But it is a book that should be read by all Americans.