So one book I just finished reading in my travels was Joseph Ellis’ “His Excellency: George Washington.”
So here’s the fun question that the book prompts:
How might American history have been different if George Washington hadn’t been childless?
So one book I just finished reading in my travels was Joseph Ellis’ “His Excellency: George Washington.”
So here’s the fun question that the book prompts:
How might American history have been different if George Washington hadn’t been childless?
Meaning, would a George Jr. have prompted the creation of a hereditary American monarchy?
Given that Jefferson’s Republicans crowded the Federalists out very early in American political history, partly by attacking them as quasi-monarchists, I think the possibility is pretty low.
Better question: If Washington was as ambitious and avaricious as Ellis seems to think he was, why didn’t he make himself an American Napoleon and put the crown on his head with his own hands?
I’ve only read Ellis’ _Founding Brothers_ (good book BTW), but I don’t think he sees Washington as “ambitious and avaricious.” I think he sees Washington’s decision not to run for a third term as an affirmation of his dedication to Republicanism.
I wonder whether Washington would have had a more positive influence on the great unresolved issues of his time, slavery and the Native Americans, if he spoken out more.
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PD Shaw –
This blurb is featured in a lot of “reviews”:http://dartreview.com/archives/2005/01/12/his_excellency_george_washington.php –
I suppose you can have republican virtue and a monumental ego at the same time. Maybe Cincinnatus was full of himself, too.
My great-(x4)-grandfather was in Washington’s army. He was 50 years old at the time, kind of an old guy to be out humping it with the infantry, but he was from rural Pennsylvania, he was bitter against the British, and he had a gun to cling to, so …
In the Pennsylvania Militia he was with Washington at a couple of great defeats – Germantown and Brandywine. I often wonder what he would have said about him.
So- if GW had a grandson, he might have been called George the third?
#6:
A fine point. 🙂
#5:
I also had an ancestor in Washington’s Army, who was a lieutenant at Valley Forge. I expect he’d have had a few choice things to say that winter, although later in life he may have ‘remembered with advantages.’
Glen, I stand corrected. That doesn’t sound like the Washington described in _Founding Brothers._ Over the weekend I thumbed through the chapter on Washington, which focusses on the Farewell Address. His p.o.v. there, I believe, was that Washington was a larger than life figure who was essential for national unity, but whose stature distorted debate.
Washington was not the best general this Republic has ever seen, neither was he the best politician nor statesman; nor the best agronomist, surveyor or businessman. In point of fact, he wasn’t the best _anything_ this Republic has ever seen–except for one thing. He was simply the best MAN.