An Open Letter to George Washington (and Happy President's Day)

www.michaeladelberg.com

Dear George,

I wish you a belated happy birthday.

As a boy, I thought the world of you. Your birthday meant a day off school. You looked cool in that general’s uniform.

To most Americans today, you’re cartoon character: you sell cars, you’re a comic prop on Family Guy. You’ve slipped to the second tier of American luminaries: Kennedy was cute, FDR was compassionate, Lincoln was quotable. You’re the unsmiling guy with wide hips.

Over the last twenty years, I’ve read hundreds of pages of your Revolutionary War correspondence and Presidential papers. So I think I know you pretty well. You were not ideological—you handled problems pragmatically. You spoke directly and respected others, good traits, but also ordinary—hardly the stuff of heroes.

Despite this and your modestly, I hope you’ll indulge me as I argue why you are probably the greatest of all American heroes and one of the great heroes of world history.

Twice, as the victorious general of the Revolutionary War and again as the first President of a new republic, the only effective checks on your power were those you imposed upon yourself. When the Continental Congress could not pay, arm, or clothe your men—you didn’t go home or march on Philadelphia. You maintained discipline in the ranks and waited for the day when civil government might do better. At the end of the war, when subordinates dangled schemes of using the Army as a springboard to extra-constitutional power, you quickly dismissed all overtures. As President, you established precedents for limited executive power, neutrality in foreign affairs, and an orderly transition of power. When you retired, you avoided Monday morning quarterbacking, even when baited.

You certainly were not perfect. As a general, you lost more battles than you won. Your drive to instill European drills into the Continental Army probably exacerbated some of the early defeats. As President, you gave your ambitious Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, too much rope (i.e., letting him raise an army to crush the so-called Whiskey Rebels).

But the circumstances under which you operated were incredibly difficult. Today, we lampoon bureaucracy and complain of the checks that create gridlock in government. But you operated in a normless world in which your decisions were frequently high-risk and unprecedented. And you navigated this dangerous world without a bureaucracy or well established to checks to prevent abuses of power. Yet you were so honest and decent that you never trumped the fragile constitution or feathered your nest. How many of us would be so pure?

The new American Republic was made of tissue paper: saddled with massive debts, disputed and insecure borders, and terrible inter-state conflicts. The Founding Fathers championed republican government, but also thought republics were inherently short-lived. Jefferson believed that all governments inevitably became tyrannical; he suggested that a Revolution every couple of generations was necessary. Against this backdrop, you calmly argued that a republic could last as long as its leaders respected their constitution—and then governed accordingly.

There is a long list of leaders--Napoleon, Mao, Tito, Castro, Mugabe, and many others—who accomplished remarkable things at the head revolutionary armies and then throttled their nations with absolutism and abuses of power. Sadly, it is the norm in world history.

We should all take this simple test: list the Revolutionary leaders who successfully toppled the previous government and then took power: put a check next to those leaders who ruled without personal aggrandizement, put a second check next to those who willingly walked away from power without setting up a son or crony. The leaders who get two checks next to their names are the true heroes. How many can you name?

It takes a great leader to lead a revolutionary army to victory. It takes a greater person to subjugate himself (or herself) to civil authority. Ceding power gracefully and voluntarily may be the rarest (and perhaps greatest) human trait.

So many times you could have taken advantage of your celebrity and the weak institutions around you—and you never did. The stability and success of the American experiment owes more to your example than anyone else.

Thanks George.