This was not the next biography on my list.
I had engaged, the day previous to starting this book, in a heated exchange with a co-worker over who would comprise a list of the five most important Americans (I live an exciting life, folks). My off-hand suggestion of George Washington was dismissed with disdain, and countered with George Mason. This led down a rabbit hole which I won’t bother venturing again, but the salient point here is that I was driven to pursue greater understanding of the inimitable George Washington because of his casual dismissal as a pantheonic American by a co-worker.
George Washington is a fully-faceted, oblique figure; long canonized and enshrouded in myth and legend. He was a celebrated war hero who suffered more losses against his enemies than resounding successes. Washington longed for fame and power while simultaneously shunning either. He grew to abhor slavery while owning hundreds of people, and treated them well (all things considered) while also doing little to prevent abuse by the overseers in his employ. He both actively pursued slaves who escaped his bondage and freed his slaves in his will (which is more than be said for the other Founding Fathers). He was both incredibly wealthy and perennially broke. He fought a revolution to free himself of debt, yet was never able to live within his means. He was vocally non-partisan, and increasingly biased towards Federalism. Washington was universally respected and loved, and widely condemned in his second term. He was driven by his absolute need to control his emotions and urges, but also given to bawdy humor and passionate flirtation. He kept meticulous and detailed accounts of his life, and expended great effort in preserving them for posterity, while also urging his wife to burn their correspondence to prevent them passing into the historical record. Renown for his honesty, perhaps his most noticeable achievement during the Revolution was his superlative ability to deceive and undermine the British.
George Washington, if nothing else, was notable for his unparalleled contradictions.
But, obviously, there is so much more to the man who can almost single-handedly be attributed the existence of the Executive branch of the federal government.
Ron Chernow does a superb job divesting Washington of the myths and assumptions we might have of the American Prometheus. In this cradle-to-grave biography, Washington springs forth, fully-formed, and his foibles and eccentricities are brought to life. His errors and the criticisms levied against him are not presented as a counter to the Washington we know, they are used to show that even the most noble and celebrated amongst us, even the most impossibly good and just, are far from perfect. Washington failed to understand why his slaves were indolent. He couldn’t grasp how political division could so quickly become entrenched in American society. He was never able to abandon the colonial fixation on class and station. His vanity continually vexed his personal ambition and prevented him from ever achieving the quiet parochial life he longed for. He may have been an inveterate flirt (which I didn’t know prior to reading this), but there seemed to be great affection between George Washington and his wife Martha, and it doesn’t seem likely that he strayed.
Thankfully, this biography spends a decent amount of time talking about Martha Washington. Just as George set innumerable precedents as our nation’s paterfamilias, Martha Washington was the first in a long line of brave and intelligent women who were every bit the equal of their more renown husbands. During the Revolutionary War, Martha Washington spent significant portions of the year braving the hardship of military camps so that she could remain close to her husband. For all the perceived coldness in their marriage, this biography depicts her as an indispensable source of strength and encouragement, and shows that, in her own way, she deserves as much admiration and respect as any founding father. Her story makes me want to read more biographies of the First Ladies, but that may have to wait for next year.
George Washington was full of blemishes. These aren’t something Chernow revels in, but they do give a marvelous amount of flavor to the portrait of a man of whom all Americans are familiar. And far from off-setting his status, they only confirm, for me, that Washington was one of the greatest Americans to ever live.
George Mason be damned.
