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George Washington: Too Good to Be True?
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11875 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1987 |
2,867 Words |
| Author
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Marcus Cunliffe
Marcus Cunliffe is professor of history at George Washington
University. |
GEORGE WASHINGTON
The making of an American Symbol
Barry Schwartz
New York: Free Press, 1987
250 pp., $22.50
Was George Washington perfect? If so, how could he have been, unless (unlikely?) he were a saint, or (blasphemous?) a god? If, on the other hand, Washington had faults and limitations, what were they? Did his contemporaries spot these weaknesses? If not, why not? If they were aware of his blemishes, did they pretend not to notice?
Those are questions that come up in every serious discussion of the man who, in the words of Henry Lee's famous obituary tribute, was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." Our ancestors, of course, were readier than we are to believe in the possibilities of human greatness. The twentieth century is credited with inventing the "debunking" biography. The previous century tended to follow the rule of de mortuis nil nisi bonum - speak nothing but good of the dead. The tradition of biography they had inherited stressed the virtues of the person under review. Sexual or other possible scandals were ignored.
In such a tradition, no American hero has benefited more than George Washington. The pattern of pious anecdote was set even during his lifetime and given popular shape within a few years of his death n the little biography produced by "Parson" Mason Locke Weems. Weems, for example, bequeathed to posterity the immortal story of the hatchet and the cherry tree, as well as the vignette of General Washington praying alone in the snow at Valley Forge. Weems was in fact acquainted with Washington, though nowhere near as closely as he claimed. Along with other Americans of the time, Weems established the view that Washington was well-nigh perfect. In this respect he was an almost unique human being. In order to take the measure of this wondrous creature, you did not look for similarities between him and other warrior-statesmen of history. What you emphasized was dissimilarity, contrast. Julius Caesar, Cromwell, Marlborough, Napoleon were great soldiers formidable leaders, yes; but, in relation to Washington, they were disastrously flawed.
Thus from the cherry tree tale grew the belief that Washington "could not tell a lie." He became the yardstick, the benchmark of good conduct, against which to set the behavior of subsequent generations of his countrymen. During the 1970s one cynical
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