Review of: George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father,
by David O. Stewart
by Stan Prager (1-23-22)

Is another biography of George Washington really necessary? A Google search reveals some nine hundred already exist, not to mention more than five thousand journal articles that chronicle some portion of his life. But the answer turns out to be a resounding yes, and David O. Stewart makes that case magnificently with his latest work, George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father, an extremely well-written, insightful, and surprisingly innovative contribution to the historiography.
Many years ago, I recall reading the classic study, Washington: The Indispensable Man, by James Thomas Flexner, which looks beyond his achievements to put emphasis on his most extraordinary contribution, defined not by what he did but what he deliberately did not do: seize power and rule as tyrant. This, of course, is no little thing, as seen in the pages of history from Caesar to Napoleon. When told he would resign his commission and surrender power to a civilian government, King George III—who no doubt would have had him hanged (or worse) had the war gone differently—famously declared that "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." Washington demonstrated that greatness again when he voluntarily—you might say eagerly—stepped down after his tenure as President of the United States to retire to private life. Indispensable he was: it is difficult to imagine the course of the American experiment had another served in his place in either of those pivotal roles.
But there is more to Washington than that, and some of it is less than admirable. Notably, there was Washington’s heroic fumble as a young Virginia officer leading colonial forces to warn away the French at what turned into the Battle of Jumonville Glen and helped to spark the French & Indian War. Brash, headstrong, arrogant, thin-skinned, and ever given to an unshakable certitude that his judgment was the sole correct perspective in every matter, the young Washington distinguished himself for his courage and his integrity while at the same time routinely clashing with authority figures, including former mentors that he frequently left exasperated by his demands for recognition.
Biographers tend to visit this period of his life and then fast-forward two decades ahead to the moment when the esteemed if austere middle-aged Washington showed up to the Continental Congress resplendent in his military uniform, the near-unanimous choice to lead the Revolutionary Army in the struggle against Britain. But how did he get here? In most studies, it is not clear. But this is where Stewart shines! The author, whose background is the law rather than academia—he was once a constitutional lawyer who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, Jr.—has proved himself a brilliant historian in several fine works, including his groundbreaking reassessment of a key episode of the early post-Civil War era, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy. And in Madison’s Gift: Five Partnerships that Built America, Stewart’s careful research, analytical skills, and intuitive approach successfully resurrected portions of James Madison’s elusive personality that had been otherwise mostly lost to history.
This talent is on display here, as well, as Stewart adeptly examines and interprets Washington’s evolution from Jumonville Glen to Valley Forge. Washington’s own personality is something of a conundrum for biographers, as he can seem to be simultaneously both selfless and self-centered. The young Washington so frequently in turn infuriated and alienated peers and superiors alike that it may strike us as fully remarkable that this is the same individual who could later harness the talents and loyalty of both rival generals during the war and the outsize egos of fellow Founders as the new Republic took shape. Stewart demonstrates that Washington was the author of his own success in this arena, quietly in touch with his strengths and weaknesses while earning respect and cultivating goodwill over the years as he established himself as a key figure in the Commonwealth. Washington himself was not in this regard a changed man as much as he was a more mature man who taught himself to modify his demeanor and his behavior in the company of others for mutual advantage. This too, is no small thing.
The subtitle of this book—The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father—is thus hardly accidental, the latest contribution to a rapidly expanding genre focused upon politics and power, showcased in such works as Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, and Robert Dallek’s Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life. Collectively, these studies serve to underscore that politics is ever at the heart of leadership, as well as that great leaders are not born fully formed, but rather evolve and emerge. George Washington perhaps personifies the most salient example of this phenomenon.
The elephant in the room of any examination of Washington—or the other Virginia Founders who championed liberty and equality for that matter—is slavery. Like Jefferson and Madison and a host of others, Washington on various occasions decried the institution of enslaving human beings—while he himself held hundreds as chattel property. Washington is often credited with freeing the enslaved he held direct title to in his will, but that hardly absolves him of the sin of a lifetime of buying, selling, and maintaining an unpaid labor force for nothing less than his own personal gain, especially since he was aware of the moral blemish in doing so. Today’s apologists often caution that is unfair to judge those who walked the earth in the late eighteenth-century by our own contemporary standards, but the reality is that these were Enlightenment-era men that in their own words declared slavery abhorrent while—like Jefferson with his famous “wolf by the ear” cop-out—making excuses to justify participating in and perpetuating a cruel inhumanity that served their own economic self-interests. As biographer, Stewart’s strategy for this dimension of Washington’s life is to treat very little with it in the course of the narrative, while devoting the second to last chapter to a frank and balanced discussion of the ambivalence that governed the thoughts and actions of the master of Mount Vernon. It is neither whitewash nor condemnation.
Stewart’s study is by no means hagiography, but the author clearly admires his subject. Washington gets a pass for his shortcomings at Jumonville, and he is hardly held to strict account for his role as an enslaver. Still, the result of Stewart’s research, analysis, and approach is the most readable and best single-volume account of Washington’s life to date. This is a significant contribution to the scholarship that I suspect will long be deemed required reading.

I reviewed other works by David O. Stewart here:

Review of: Madison’s Gift: Five Partnerships that Built America, by David O. Stewart

Review of: Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy, by David O. Stewart

Review of: George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father, by David O. Stewart https://regarp.com/2022/01/23/review-of-george-washington-the-political-rise-of-... ( )

A comprehensive and well written account of probably our more significant president. Indeed George Washington did more to set the stage for what we became as a nation that anyone. He was eclipsed in greatness probably by Abraham Lincoln who was tasked with keeping it together.

What made this book so readable and entertaining is that we get a wonderful insight into the character and personality of the man and how it played mainly to to his strength as a leader in the most stressful circumstances of waging war for independence and then forming a government the world had never seen before under the most challenging conditions of the different factions that vied for their own interests. It took a man with the character of Washington to steer this course with the right mix of will and constraint.

The personal sacrifice he put out for the cause so to speak was remarkable and his willingness to stay the course beyond his first term when the pressures from the forming political parties was equally so.

It is hard to imagine another man filling the role of what was needed to create this great experiment and have it succeed. It is all laid out here and here looking back into our history as a nation, inspired by an equally great man who was more than anyone else responsible for success. ( )

An experienced biographer, historian David O. Stewart focuses on how George Washington became a “master politician,” and how this skill helped him navigate the very treacherous shoals of the early years of the American Republic. The increasingly poisonous atmosphere, especially during Washington’s second term in office, won’t sound so foreign to the current audience.

Stewart devotes most of his attention to Washington’s early years, and especially to those events that defined his later character. He recounts Washington's experiences in the French and Indian War; his terms of office in the Virginia House of Burgesses; service as a judge on Fairfax County Court; and commander of armed forces in the American War of Independence. Stewart documents how, over time, Washington gained control over his apparently fierce temper, and learned the importance of building political coalitions and avoiding controversies whenever he could.

Washington, Stewart reports, never minced words about what he wanted: his goal was renown. Moreover, he craved “the regard and esteem” of fellow countrymen. He had a lifelong dread of any smudge on his reputation, and therefore of failure in any of his endeavors. As he wrote to a relative in 1775, “reputation derives it principal support from success.”

Because he needed success to make a good impression, some controversies were more difficult to avoid than others, especially as they directly would determine the outcome of his biggest challenges. One was the matter of getting colonists to cough up money. The Revolution was tied to Americans’ hatred of taxes, a dislike that has never in fact been dented much. And yet, at the same time, Americans wanted much that depended on government funding, such as an army that could repel the British; protection by an army from Natives increasingly unhappy over the usurpation of their land; and roads and other infrastructure that crossed state boundaries. Washington, who spent so many years leading soldiers who had little food, clothes, equipment, and wages, knew firsthand that a resistance to taxation and demand for services were incompatible desires.

Washington’s awareness of the country’s need for money carried over into his presidency, during which he aligned with Alexander Hamilton on fiscal policies that would retire the war debts and get a standardized currency approved. These unpopular measures needed to have the force of law behind them. As Washington observed back in 1778, “Few men are capable of making a continual sacrifice of all views of private interest, or advantage, to the common good.” He went on to aver that no institution relying on that faulty premise would succeed.

Washington had several factors that worked in his favor in the early republic. One was that Americans then, like now, “craved a hero.” It was generally easier to find someone to fill that need who played a military role, in spite of the fact that Washington’s military victories were few and far between. Much of his success in the Revolution could be attributed just to outlasting the British, who were fighting far from home. But as Stewart points out, it was political savvy, rather than military prowess, that was central to Washington’s success. In the internecine battles for control over the army and influence in Congress, Washington was often just the last man left standing.

Washington always wanted to make sure that everyone knew he didn’t want all these responsibilities (a claim belied by his pursuit of them). Thus if he failed, it wasn’t really his fault because he kept trying to turn down all these positions to which he was unanimously elected.

Once he did accept a position, however, he exerted tight control over that institution. Today he would be called a “micro-manager.” He was deeply involved in every aspect of his army and with all the deal-making under his presidential administration, in spite of his seeming reticence publicly. In fact, one interesting passage in this book deals with the famous compromise over war debt assumption by the new country and the location of its capital. Most histories claim that Jefferson somehow engineered the deal at a dinner party; Stewart contends this was largely a re-writing by Jefferson of what happened. It was a long-term process, Stewart avers, and Washington manipulated all of it.

By Washington’s second term, however, Washington was no longer seen as someone who could do no wrong. The country had grown, and dissent had grown along with it. Opponents launched bitter and often untrue attacks on him. Stewart explores the factors that led to this increase in factionalism, including French interference in American politics; the growing rivalry of Jefferson, who co-opted Madison, a former ally of Washington’s, to his cause; and of course, taxes. Washington couldn’t wait to escape the growing acrimony of political life. On the day John Adams was inaugurated as the second president, Adams later wrote that Washington looked “as serene and unclouded as the day.” He added, “Methought I heard him say, ‘Ay! I am fairly out and you fairly in! See which one of us will be happiest!’”

Washington died in 1799 after a difficult illness that started out as a cold. In his will he freed what slaves he could (some were owned by Martha’s estate and not his to free), and provided for care of others. He never made a public condemnation of slavery, however. Stewart speculates that Washington knew how controversial slavery was and didn’t want to damage his standing any further. Stewart also thought Washington must have known he would have sounded hypocritical if he spoke out against slavery. [That consideration never stopped other Founding Fathers, such as Jefferson.] Moreover, Washington never seemed to have awareness of how awful the state of being “owned” must be to another person. When he was younger, for example, traveling to Barbados with his older half-brother Lawrence in 1751, he gushed in his diary about being “ravished” by the beauty of Barbados, the gorgeous mansions, and the great meals, but evinced no awareness of the harsh lives of the slaves there who made all that possible, especially the short-lived workers in the sugar-cane fields. And much later in life, when Martha’s favorite slave Ona Judge ran away, Washington fumed in a letter:

". . . however well disposed I might be to a gradual abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of People (if the latter was in itself practicable at this moment) it would neither be politic or just to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference; and thereby discontent before hand the minds of all her fellow-servants who by their steady attachments are far more deserving than herself of favor.”

The Washingtons were incensed and offered a reward for Ona's recapture.

In Washington’s view, Ona, who was money walking out his door, was “ungrateful.” What about a desire for freedom? It seems that for Washington, that wasn’t a relevant or legitimate desire for African Americans.

His blindness about “life, liberty, and happiness” for all extended to Native Americans. When fighting against them on America’s then western border, he reported how upset he was over “barbarous” Indians killing settlers - “poor innocent babes and helpless families.” He never considered why they might have acted that way, insofar as they were being evicted from their homelands, and subject to barbarous murders themselves by settlers covetous of Native property.

Stewart doesn’t make these flaws in Washington’s perception and character central, however, choosing to focus instead on Washington’s self-reinvention and political genius, and how he accomplished the former and developed the latter. In that respect, he does a fine job. ( )