The Ascent of George Washington

The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon

by John Ferling

The Ascent of George Washington

For two centuries our image of the father of our country has been almost too good to be true. Alone among our Founding Fathers, George Washington has been seen as a selfless leader who wielded power without ambition and who stood above the fray of partisan politics. Asked by his countrymen to take the reins of power, he answered the call of duty and led our nation as its first president with a disinterested impartiality. Yet in The Ascent of George Washington, historian John Ferling takes issue with this portrayal, instead revealing Washington as an ambitious, skilled and often partisan politician.

Ferling examines the nearly 20 years Washington served in the Virginia Assembly, describing how the future president honed his political skills while building a stout phalanx of supporters and protectors who would serve him well in the struggles to come. Ferling also scrutinizes Washington’s military service in both the French and Indian War, where he led Virginia’s army, and as commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, observing that Washington not only committed “dreadful blunders” in both wars, but in each war actually opposed the strategy that led to ultimate success. Yet Ferling shows how the general’s talent for damage control and his deft handling both of Congress and of local authorities allowed him to emerge from his military career as a hero. Furthermore, Ferling argues that despite Washington’s limitations as a tactician and strategist, his diplomatic and political skills—as well as his sterling character—made him the proper choice to be commander of the Continental Army.

As a war hero, Washington would preside over the Constitutional Convention of 1787 before serving two terms as America’s first president beginning in 1789. Yet Ferling argues that despite Washington’s reputation as being devoid of any partisan agenda, he had decidedly Federalist leanings, consistently supporting Alexander Hamilton’s aspirations for a strong centralized federal government. And by the time Washington was using force to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, Thomas Jefferson was lamenting that the man who had once been “the head of a nation” had become instead “the head of a party,” the Federalists, who for their part had come to idolize Washington and were hoping he might seek a third term.

The Ascent of George Washington is not a biography; it eschews personal matters in favor of political activities. The result is a clear-eyed analysis of the career of a man who “alone of all of America’s public officials in the past two centuries succeeded in convincing others that he was not a politician.” It’s this very fact that makes him, in Ferling’s view, one of the very best politicians in American history.

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Excerpt

Like Terry Malloy, the pug in the movie On the Waterfront who wanted to be somebody, young George Washington wanted to go places ,to be known, to win acclaim. At his birth in 1732,George’s prospects were poor. He was a product of his father’s second marriage. The sons from the first marriage, George’s half-brothers, had been provided a formal education, including study abroad. They also received a bountiful inheritance when their father, Augustine Washington, died in 1743. But Augustine’s demise appeared to stop George’s ascent before it began. There was no money for continuing George’s formal education, much less for sending him to England to complete his schooling, and his inheritance was meager. George received ten slaves and Ferry Farm, a worn-out tract across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg,Virginia. With that bequest he might become an important figure in King George County, though no one in the broader world would know him. But from an early age, George Washington wanted more. He wanted to stand apart from others. He wanted to be seen as a man of substance. George said almost nothing about his father, mentioning him in only three passing references in thousands of pages of correspondence. Augustine had accumulated a small fortune as a tobacco planter, land speculator, and proprietor of an iron forge, and he was a prominent figure in northern Virginia, where he held several local offices. Ambitious young males usually aspire to surpass the accomplishments of their fathers, and that appears to have been true of George. Yet it was not Augustine who was George’s role model. It was Lawrence Washington, an older brother from their father’s first marriage. Fourteen years older than George, Lawrence had studied in England. After returning home, he enlisted as an officer in a colonial army raised to fight alongside British regulars in a war with Spain, the oddly named War of JenkinsÕ Ear that erupted in 1739. Lawrence was sent to the Caribbean, then to South America, where he experienced combat. The war was a bloodbath for the American troops, and Lawrence was fortunate to survive and return home. Worldly, educated, well-to-do, dashing in his resplendent uniform, and deferred to as a hero by the most influential men and captivating women in Virginia, Lawrence cut an impressive figure. His stature increased when he was appointed adjutant general of Virginia, a post that made him the foremost soldier in the province. Soon, he was elected to the House of Burgesses, Virginia’s assembly, a feat never realized by Augustine. The crowning touch came in 1743. Lawrence married into the Fairfax family, which claimed title to six million acres in Virginia and, needless to say, was the most prominent clan in the Northern Neck, the area around the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers. Lawrence and his bride took up residence on a lush green rolling estate overlooking the Potomac River. - from THE ASCENT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON © 2009 John Ferling

Author Interview

Your book paints a different portrait of George Washington – our first president as a politician. Why do you think this aspect of his personality has been lost in histories over the years?

It’s often said that Washington didn’t want to be our first president after the American Revolution, that he was pushed into the top job – how accurate is this? Was he hiding his ambition?

Washington was genuinely conflicted about taking the presidency in 1789. He was fifty-seven years and came from a family in which males seldom lived long lives. He was convinced that he probably had only four or five years left and he longed to spend them in the comfort of Mount Vernon. In addition, when Washington resigned his commission and left the Continental army in 1783, he had pledged never again to hold public office. He feared that he would be seen as a hypocrite if he broke that pledge by accepting the presidency. Finally, Washington feared that he might fail as president. He had never held such a lofty political office as the presidency and he wasn’t sure that he possessed the political skills to cope with the challenges he would face. One thing he knew for certain was that the first president would face myriad challenges, none greater than solving the economic crisis that plagued the nation and somehow holding together the nascent American Union. If he failed, the enormous reputation that he had won in eight long years of commanding the Continental army might be destroyed. But having said all of that, Washington liked to be at the center of action and he knew that this was a watershed moment in the history of the American people. What is more, if he declined the presidency and someone else assumed the office and succeeded, their reputation would overshadow his. George Washington did not like to be overshadowed!

Can you tell us about some examples from Washington’s early life that hinted at what was to come?

Most of Washington’s contemporaries saw him as above politics, an impression he worked hard to create. First impressions often have a lasting impact. Furthermore, most nineteenth century historians were extreme nationalists who were less interested in getting at the truth than in creating and perpetuating fables that helped bind the nation together. Twentieth century historians wrote much better history, but many appeared to be reluctant to look too closely at Washington as a politician. He was such an American icon that they may have shied away from the criticism that would almost certain result should they say anything negative about Washington.

About the time Washington entered adolescence, his father died. All hopes that young George would, like his older brothers, receive a lengthy formal education – including studies in England – vanished. So too did his hope for receiving a considerable inheritance. If young Washington wished to rise in this world, becoming prominent and powerful, there were only two options. He could become a surveyor, which held the promise of slowly accumulating wealth and status. Or, he could become a soldier, which could rapidly lead to renown and respect if one did something heroic and survived the experience. Young Washington chose both. At age sixteen, through self-study, he became a surveyor. At age twenty-three, when war broke out, he became a soldier. All signs suggest that Washington as a teen-ager and young adult was eager to gain attention and respect, and to rise to the pinnacle of Virginia society. He worked extremely hard to attain his wishes, even risking his life for five years during the French and Indian War to gain his ends. During the period between 1754 and 1775, when the War of Independence began, Washington displayed qualities that would serve him well in later years. As the twenty-something commander of the Virginia Regiment in the French and Indian War, Washington displayed incredible leadership abilities. He commanded many older and experienced officers. They remained loyal to him and at war’s end sang his praises. He achieved his success through the study of military manuals, close observation of successful British officers, considerable self-scrutiny, and relentless industry. He returned to Mount Vernon following the war and succeeded as a planter-businessman. He was bold and daring in his investments and agrarian practices, succeeding at a time when most Virginia planters were struggling to survive.

You’ve written several books about the Founding Fathers, most recently Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence. It’s also your second book on George Washington, following The First of Men: A Life of George Washington. What led you to take another look? What draws you to Washington?

I wanted to write this book for two reasons. One was that when I wrote A LEAP IN THE DARK: THE STRUGGLE TO CREATE THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC (2003), which was a political history of the era of the American Revolution, I became convinced that Washington was more political than was commonly assumed. I wanted to explore that matter to see if I was correct and, if so, to share my conclusions with others. When I wrote ALMOST A MIRACLE: THE AMERICAN VICTORY IN THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE (2007), I reached the conclusion that Washington’s generalship in the Revolutionary War was profoundly flawed. In fact, I concluded that he had been extremely fortunate to have emerged from the war with such an iconic reputation. I wanted to probe in some detail both his generalship and how, and why, he came out of the war as such a colossal military hero. Every Founder was ambitious and eager to make a lasting name for himself. Washington was more successful than any other. I keep coming back to him in an effort to understand why he succeeded. I find all of them – John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, and a host of lesser lights – to be endlessly fascinating. But I find Washington the least transparent of them all and, consequently, the most difficult to get a handle on.

President Barack Obama is also considered a political genius, though his rise couldn’t be more different from Washington’s. Nevertheless, during his campaign and early in his administration, have you seen similarities in their political styles as trail blazers – leaders during a moment of crisis?

The great similarity that I see between President Obama and President Washington is that both came to the presidency confronted by a perilous economic crisis. If today’s crisis is not solved, there will be profound ramifications for the American people and the United States. In Washington’s day, the existence of the American Union conceivably hung in the balance if the huge indebtedness brought on by the Revolutionary War – a debt that literally paralyzed the ability of the national government to act – was not satisfactorily addressed. One thing I find interesting is both Obama and Washington began addressing their respective problems in a similar fashion. Obama turned to an insider in New York financial circles (Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner), as did Washington, who of course asked Alexander Hamilton to be his Secretary of the Treasury. I’m not sure how much Obama knows about financial matters, but there is nothing in his background to suggest an expertise in that area. Washington frankly admitted that he knew little about financial matters (on the eve of his presidency he was asking for help in understanding the precise nature of public securities). Of the two, Washington appears to have chosen the more daring approach toward solving the economic crisis. President Obama is seeking to solve today’s crisis through a stimulus package that, like the New Deal in the 1930s, draws on Keynesian economic theory, and through a bailout program similar to that used in the S&L crisis in the 1980s, the Japanese financial collapse in the 1990s, and the choices employed in the final weeks of George W. Bush’s presidency. President Washington – or, to be more accurate, Hamilton – was blazing new territory in his attempts to cope with the massive debt problems left by the Revolutionary War. Obama has drawn fire, just as did Washington, for running up a huge national debt and for introducing change that would alter the shape of America. In Washington’s case, much of the criticism came from Jefferson and his followers who thought all debt a bad thing and who feared the urbanization and industrialization that seemed likely to result from Hamilton’s program. By his third year in the presidency, Washington saw signs that Hamilton’s plan was working, and he stuck by his Treasury Secretary.