Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 9, 1992 TAG: 9202100186
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB WILLIS ASSOCIATE EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
GEORGE WASHINGTON'S MANY VIRTUES FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY - AND PRESERVER OF
GILBERT STUART'S portrait of George Washington has looked dourly down on generation after generation of American schoolchildren. The same visage has appeared on billions of dollar bills.In a few days that well-known face, altered by artists, will grin loopily from advertisements touting marked-down merchandise at Presidents' Day sales. This may not exactly convey contempt, but it surely proceeds from familiarity.
Of course, everybody knows ol' George. Commanded the troops at Valley Forge. Crossed the Delaware. First president. Father of his country. Good man.
That's all true. But it reduces to caricature the life of a man we would do well to contemplate at the 260th anniversary of his birth. Without him, this country would not exist today - or anyway not in a form that 20th-century Americans would recognize.
Not because Washington (or any of his compatriots of Revolutionary days) was godlike or superhuman. Indeed, he was what many an American man likes to call himself: self-made.
Not highly educated or intellectually brilliant, he was prone to blunder in his youth. But he was perceptive, shrewd and flexible. He learned quickly. He was persistent and a hard worker.
He recognized business opportunities, and took advantage of those that his means permitted. He inherited his half-brother's estate and made a useful marriage to a well-off widow; and he was living comfortably yet actively as a gentleman farmer at Mount Vernon when the cause of independence caught fire in the colonies.
Washington had wanted a military career under the king, and his exploits on the frontier and in the French and Indian War made him a warrior hero to his fellow Virginians before he was 30 years old.
But he had long been away from the military when his fellow colonials asked him, in his 40s, to command the Continental Army against the British. His height, his regal bearing, his demonstrated bravery and his evident bent for leadership counted as much as his brief career at arms. There simply was not much professional military experience on the colonies' side.
Nor was Washington a military genius. But he could adapt. He did not have to unlearn conventional battlefield lessons that did not fit the terrain and circumstances in which this war was fought.
In battle, he was unfailingly courageous, sometimes even to the point of foolhardiness. And he was the complete leader. When the incompetence of Gen. Charles Lee led to a virtual rout of the colonials at Monmouth, Washington rode upon the scene and stopped the retreat.
"His graceful bearing on horseback," said the Marquis de Lafayette, "his calm and deportment which still retained a trace of displeasure . . . were all calculated to inspire the highest degree of enthusiasm. . . . I thought then as now that I had never beheld so superb a man."
The British commanders never saw that the tactics that served them well in such venues as Europe could win them battles but not the war in America. They could defeat colonial forces but not hold territory without ever more troops. They were never enthusiastic about the war, nor was his majesty's government.
Indeed, the War for Independence should have brought victory for the colonies much sooner. It did not mainly because - unlike people such as Washington - the states put their interests ahead of the nation's. The Continental Congress was not granted the power to demand that they either raise troops or pay for those in the field.
That is why the Continental Army was chronically undermanned. That is why the soldiers lacked for guns, ammunition and other equipment - often at critical times - and why they suffered at places such as Valley Forge. Washington pleaded constantly with Congress for financial support. Many patriots gave of their wealth; some lent sizable sums, never to be repaid. The commander in chief himself was reduced to paying some war expenses out of his own pocket.
Meantime, Washington was the target of envy, backbiting and intrigue by those - including some of his generals and soldiers of fortune from abroad - who thought they could do his job better. Through all this, Washington, despite a disposition tending to melancholy, remained steadfast. He would not forsake or abuse his cause.
"Sensitive to the obligation of a man to live up to his responsibilities," writes the historian Howard H. Peckham, "he was strengthened by his great moral integrity." Nor did he, like so many others, turn the revolution to personal gain. He would take no pay other than expenses. After the war, some legislatures and individuals tried to press rewards upon him; he refused.
Given the way the states stinted on support during the war, it is no surprise that there were occasional mutinies, or that there was strong sentiment among the army to use its arms to compel Congress - or somebody - to give the pay the soldiers had earned. Washington felt keenly the sacrifices they had made and the obligations he owed them as their commander. But he used his tremendous prestige and the respect he had won to dissuade the rebellious officers.
In this way he kept the revolution from being perverted, from changing to a form that today we might call fascistic. "The moderation and virtue of a single character," Thomas Jefferson wrote of him later, "probably prevented this revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish."
His guardianship of that cause did not stop there. He could have been crowned king; not a few, including his aide Alexander Hamilton, would have welcomed it, but Washington would have none of it. His steadying influence was to continue through the constitutional convention, which he chaired, and his support of that document overcame doubts across the countryside.
He was the obvious choice of the Electoral College as president of the new nation. Those were parlous times for the fledgling democracy, and only a person as devoted, selfless and impartial as Washington could have guided it safely. The states persisted in thinking of themselves instead of the country; there were more rebellions and threats of uprisings; there were rumors of war, and there were those who wanted the United States drawn in to support the new French republic.
Perhaps most dismayingly, parties continued to promote themselves, despite what it might cost the nation or the cause of democracy. Washington's open disapproval could collapse the sails of groups such as the Democratic Societies, which would have liked a second revolution. But scheming behind his back to boost factional interests were some of the most luminous names in America, including Hamilton, Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison and James Monroe. The president's greatest flaw as a leader may have been in failing to recognize sooner that others who supposedly served him might have baser motives.
What he did recognize at all times, however, was that the still-tiny ship of state could easily be capsized or break up on the political shoals. One reason he would not seek a third term was that he might die in office, leaving the vice president to succeed him like a crown prince ascending the throne. Democratic processes must be observed and honored.
His eight years as president - which eventually brought jealousy, rivalry and vituperation down on the hero's head - were devoted to avoiding extreme and precipitate actions. For his wisdom and courage he was called weak and spineless.
His enviers and critics were pygmies of a breed that have proliferated. To consider the lustrous example of George Washington is to be all the more depressed by the desolation of our political landscape today.