George Washington, the self-made icon

Josh Marshall has an interesting piece in TPM on George Washington. It’s the second of two commentaries on Presidents Day. Presidents Day was originally celebrated as George Washington’s Birthday. When the effort to declare Abraham Lincoln’s birthday a national holiday failed, due to opposition from white Southern politicians, Presidents Day replaced Washington’s birthday.

In the earlier commentary, Marshall (who has a PhD in American History from Brown University) argues for a separate Lincoln’s Birthday because the consequences of his presidency far outweigh those of Washington. In the second essay, he elaborates further:

“Washington wasn’t terribly creative. He wrote nothing of note. He didn’t have terribly original ideas. He wasn’t even always that good of a general. But the people around him pretty universally held him in a sort of awe. Almost all the craftier and more notable members of the Revolutionary generation had great confidence in his presence, the fact that he was around, the fact that he was commanding what then passed as the United States Army. They felt reassured that he would be the first president.”

 

And yet . . .

“But you look closely and there really are these repeated moments where his presence, the vision of him and this kind of impassive dependability held everything together. And it wasn’t some native genius in the old sense of the word or some charisma. It was an act of will, a grinding down of all the spontaneity and expressions of one’s inner self — with our torments and our dreams and fears and exuberances — that we today so laud. He made himself into this almost-marble-in-life actor-out of resolve, disinterest, self-denial and republican virtue. And that really did play a crucial role in holding together and then shaping the young republic.”

Being the first president is certainly consequential. And Washington was offered the powers of a king and declined. He stepped down voluntarily after two terms. Contrast that with Trump’s teasing an unconstitutional third term.

 

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-uncanny-artifice-of-george-washington/sharetoken/62d8ff76-2105-4c4c-acb0-0c61b4e89b71

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