Column on george Washington

n the old days, we celebrated the 22nd of February as Washington’s birthday. His visage is all over money; his monument in Washington will be repaired from earthquake damage; we see him at Mt. Rushmore; towns (and a state)  and streets and schools bear his name. The Missouri History Museum has been filled with children on field trips visiting a good exhibition on his life. (Most noteworthy perhaps is a computer-aided reconstruction of his appearance as a young frontier surveyor).

Few people demonstrate that we can make a decision to change personality features. In some ways, he comes close to a new construction of a self, a nearly self-made person. While we need not present our young citizens with fables of Parson Weems about cherry trees, the good writer’s impulse was good. We can use models of virtue, even as we recognize that no human being is ever perfect.

Washington had a terrible temper, and he was determined to control it. It was a lifelong struggle, and of course, he slipped sometimes, but he did control that urge  toward impulsive rages.
He had a sense of the propriety and aloof distance people could seek in a leader of his time, and he took on that model. He built a persona based on being a gentleman in his society. He made himself an exemplar of behavior, especially on the public stage. It gives hope and aspiration to our Lenten disciplines, no?

He drew inspiration and models from literature.The great model was Cincinnatus, the farmer who left his fields to lead ancient rome and then returned to his home. Napoleon counted Washington the greatest man who ever lived as he could walk away from kingship and public power. as Garry Wills noticed long ago, Washington’s great use of power was knowing when and how to relinquish it. He walked away from the possibility of becoming a king of the newly freed colonies. He relinquished his military commission to the congress; he faced down a planned military coup; he established the two-term presidential tradition when he easily could have been president for life. He had the sense of history and self-confidence to create a formidable array of talent in his first Cabinet.

He was aware of the utter incommensurate view of being the “father of a free people” and the keeping of slaves. He worked assiduously to save enough money so that he could negotiate the difficult Virginia method of freeing slaves under his legal purview (see An Imperfect God by Wiencek). While the author of the Declaration of Independence grew more and more dependent on the stilted economics of slavery, Washington  agreed with those who said he owed posterity a different legacy.

When Washington died, a series of painting presented him in apotheosis, as if he were being assumed into heaven. Look at how the famous images of him also include symbols of the roman republic or a founding document of our republic, the Constitution. Part of me sneers at these heroic postures, but I do understand the impulse to create a firm foundation for the legitimacy of our new experiment in governing.

In our time, we are uncertain about how much we should sugar-coat our history as we teach our children, our future fully functioning citizens. After all,  a remarkable confluence of talent forged this nation. At the same time, part of their legacy is the continuing struggle on racial matters as the aftermath of slavery. It strikes me as a timid approach to socialization to make cartoon figures out of historical figures. Weak impressions of our institutions would demand that a fuller understanding of the virtues and vices of our history somehow be excised from developing minds. History is made of imperfect people rising to the challenges of their day.