Presidents,Presidents,Presidents–even Washington
What’s cool about Presidents’ Day (designed to come close to George Washington’s birthday), and Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is that they both fall smack in the middle of African-American History Month, which makes folks reflect on what these two iconic presidents have to do with the central problems of race and slavery in American history. I talked about Lincoln in my last post.
We can never over-emphasize the fact that four of the first six American presidents were slaveholders, and that slavery, and attitudes toward slavery, played a huge role in shaping colonial life and the early United States. That Thomas Jefferson, author of our “inalienable rights” in the Declaration of Independence, did not free his slaves when he died, has always stuck in my craw. And then George Washington, that austere, proud, distant fellow I’ve never been able to warm to, freed all of his!
So, in honor of Presidents’ Day (ok, it was yesterday, but GW’s birthday isn’t until the 22nd), I’ll post a piece I did a while back for the Hartford Courant on the occasion of my University hosting the National Archives’ American Originals exhibit, which included a letter of Washington.
On June 16, 1775, the American Colonies were still more than a year away from the Declaration of Independence, but the revolution had begun. Popular protest against British authority had bubbled during the Stamp Act crisis 10 years earlier (when a determined Boston mob had sacked the home of Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson) and had periodically boiled over into near-rebellion. The Boston Tea Party in December 1773 infuriated the British Parliament, which promptly passed acts that inflamed the Colonists still further, leading them to call the First Continental Congress in September 1774 and then a second Continental Congress in May 1775.
Britain and her obstreperous American Colonies were headed for even more serious trouble. At Lexington and Concord, just outside of Boston, on April 19, 1775, Colonial militiamen and irregulars had killed 73 British soldiers while losing 49 of their own. Patriot leaders in Massachusetts put out a call for help, and thousands of militiamen took up positions around the British stronghold in Boston.
As tensions grew in Massachusetts, the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, was trying to walk a tightrope: Without declaring independence outright, the Congress knew it had to defend Colonials against the bullets and bayonets of the “mother country.” All the same, and even at this late date, many, perhaps a majority, on both sides of the Atlantic still hoped for some kind of reconciliation in the empire.
But the Congress took fateful, decisive action: On June 15, it offered command of the fledgling Continental Army to delegate George Washington of Virginia, the tall, wealthy, immensely dignified (some thought him wooden) planter and veteran of the French and Indian War.
Washington appeared to gain the appointment as much from his “soldier-like air” (John Adams), the fact that he wore his Virginia militia colonel’s uniform in the Congress and the political importance of Virginia as from any history of military successes. The appointment nevertheless filled him with “inexpressible concern” — and for good reason.
Even before he could get to Boston to try to turn 15,000 Colonial militiamen into the Continental Army, the British attacked. The Battle of Breed’s Hill (June 17, 1775) — which has come down in history misnamed as Bunker Hill — turned out to be a portent of the future. The Americans lost the battle, as they lost most Revolutionary War battles — but they won a public relations victory, in that they killed or wounded fully half the British troops, and brought pride to patriots. “A dear bought victory,” according to British Gen. William Howe; “another such would have ruined us.”
What of Washington himself, the father of his country, first president of the United States, and a man so worshiped by his people that he could have been a new king?
The wickedly insightful novelist Gore Vidal has a fictional Aaron Burr describe him as “His Mightiness,” speaking “the way one imagined a statue would speak.” No brilliant tactician, Washington nevertheless had a profound grasp of the larger strategic and political realities. Facing the most powerful empire on Earth, he had to keep his small army intact and hold out militarily against full British control, which would give the Congress time to obtain foreign recognition and assistance. His strategy worked, aided by the very size of the American Colonies, the length of the British supply lines and the fierce determination of enough Americans to live free of the British yoke. Despite losing more than he won, Washington kept the loyalty of his officers and the confidence of his bosses — the Continental Congress.
To measure his achievement, imagine a commanding general since Washington being allowed to fight an inconclusive war for six years, until he could win a conclusive battle (at Yorktown) — and then being elected president for another eight years!