By Alexander Green
Dear Reader,
At Mount Vernon last night, I had the pleasure of hearing historian Richard Norton Smith deliver the second of three planned talks on the life of George Washington.
Washington, of course, is best know as the leader of the Continental Army, the first President of the United States and the man who presided over the Convention that drafted the American Constitution, the document that not only limited his power but became a model and inspiration for free people everywhere. Many historians regard Washington as “The Indispensable Man,” the crucial Founding Father and one of the two or three greatest Presidents ever.
Yet while most of us are familiar with Washington ‘s major achievements, few know much about the man himself. And the little we do know is usually folklore or myth. Young Washington never chopped down a cherry tree. And his dentures were not made of wood.
The important thing to know about Washington the man is that he impressed his contemporaries as much by his extraordinary character as with his accomplishments.
Everything about his presence and demeanor commanded respect. Over six feet two inches tall, Washington held himself ramrod straight, was always impeccably dressed and displayed the manners of a European court. On first meeting him in 1774, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John Adams:
“You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of him, but I thought the half was not told me. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and the soldier look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.”
Washington worked on developing his character from an early age. As a teenage boy, he admired and copied into a little notebook 110 Rules for Civil Behavior that originated from a Jesuit textbook. He took the rules to heart, carrying the handwritten list with him from his military days at Valley Forge and Yorktown to his two terms as President.
Some of them are antiquated. It’s unlikely, for example, that you need to be reminded to “Spit not into the fire,” or “Kill no vermin, fleas, lice, or ticks in the sight of others.” But most of his rules describe a simple decency that’s often lacking today. He wrote, for example:
- Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.
- Do not speak badly of those who are absent.
- When in superior company, speak not until you are asked a question.
- Sleep not when others speak, sit not when others stand, speak not when you should hold your peace, walk not on when others stop.
- Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another.
- Do not overtly value your own accomplishments.
- When you speak, be concise.
- Submit your ideas with humility.
- If you are corrected, take it without argument. If you were wrongly judged, correct it later.
- Do not be hasty in believing disparaging reports about others.
- Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation. It is better to be alone than in bad company.
- Do not reprehend others when it is not your place to do so.
- Do not be curious about the affairs of others.
- Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.
To Washington , it was not enough to be well-born, well-connected, or well-educated. You had to be–above all–a person of character.
Washington believed that the inner man is cultivated by perfecting the outer man. You show integrity in how you treat others, especially those with whom you profoundly disagree.
All this is not to suggest that Washington was without his faults. Like virtually all plantation owners of his day, he was a slaveholder. (Although Washington was the only Founding Father to free his slaves.) He made military blunders and many errors of judgment, including trusting Benedict Arnold right up until he ran off with the enemy. And he was famous throughout his life for a volcanic temper. After one cabinet meeting, Thomas Jefferson recorded that President Washington “got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself.”
Yet Washington endeared himself to his contemporaries because he combined authority with modesty, skepticism and doubt. He was honored, praised – even revered by his fellow countrymen – like no American since. Yet he never lost sight of his shared sense of humanity. In Robert Frost’s words, Washington was “one of the few, in the whole history of the world, who was not carried away by power.”
He was recognized for his generosity, too. Historian David McCullough notes that “Once, when a friend came to say he hadn’t money enough to send his son to college, Washington agreed to help – providing a hundred pounds in all, a sizable sum then – and with the hope, as he wrote, that the boy’s education would ‘not only promote his own happiness, but the future welfare of others.’”
Washington contributed $20,000 in stock to the founding of what would become Washington and Lee University in Virginia . His gift was the largest donation ever made to any educational institution in the nation until then, and has since grown to a substantial part of the endowment.
But two acts, above all others, show the extraordinary nature of the man. The first was when Washington surrendered his sword to Congress after defeating the British army.
When George III heard that General Washington–having risked everything, suffered much and defeated the most powerful army on earth–had relinquished his command, turned the nation over to his countrymen and gone back to Mount Vernon, he declared, “If that is true, he’ll be the greatest man who ever lived.”
The second act was when he voluntarily resigned the Presidency after his second term, setting a national precedent for the peaceful, orderly transfer of power.
Daniel Webster wrote, ” America has furnished to the world the character of Washington , and if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.”
To Washington , only civility, conscience and character can create the harmony, the unity essential to the survival of a republic.
Funny, isn’t it? The man most responsible for self-government showed the world that the really important thing is how you govern yourself.
Carpe Diem,
Alex
Alexander Green is the Investment Director of The Oxford Club.
