Washington's original letter is preserved in a vault. There is a copy hanging on the synagogue's wall, and the text is publicly read out loud every August, not long before the fall holidays. A remarkable document from a remarkable man.
His sense of duty and doing the right thing we're strong, each time avoiding temptations of absolute power. He resigned his army commission rather than become a Caesar, voluntarily stepped down from the presidency after two terms, and freed his slaves, inherited from Martha, in his will.
Washington was highly conscious of the precedents he set as first president.
"It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights."
GW wrote this while being the largest slaveowner in North America, and yet he was a man without hypocrisy. I can only imagine that he thought as did Justice Taney that blacks were not another class of people but rather a different type of people.
The Founders, Washington included, were well aware that slavery was a blot on the new nation. It was a preexisting institution that they inherited from colonial times. Many of them believed that in the fullness of time slavery would wither and die. In the meantime, for the sake of the union of the thirteen original states, they had to compromise their way past it. Any attempt to abolish slavery would have killed the United States of America in its cradle, probably leading to a slavery- based Confederacy in 1790 instead of 1860. Ironically as things turned out, the inclusion of the slave states in the union made inevitable the abolition of slavery.
One thing that General Washington could never be accused of is cognitive dissonance. With the exception of Abraham Lincoln, there has never been a greater American than the Father of Our Country. He formed the American identity that President Lincoln vindicated.
Washington disliked slavery and freed his slaves in his will. Unlike Jefferson, his estate was solvent at his death, enabling it to support the freed slaves for long enough for them to be able to support themselves.
We casually and incorrectly project later 19th and 20th century racial ideas back into the 18th century. Slavery first and foremost was a legal and economic institution before the racial justifications for it rose to ascendancy.
It was an inherited socio-legal institution formed in the 1640s in Virginia and Maryland (my home state), modeled on what the Portuguese and Spanish had already been doing for more than a century. The core of it was plantation agriculture, which necessitated large gangs of forced labor. It's better to think of that system as less "American" and more "tropical/subtropical" -- think sugar, rice, cotton, tobacco plantations. The Portuguese and Spanish started this system before Columbus in the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, modeled on what they saw of the Moors in North Africa. The center of slavery in the New World was the Caribbean, not the American South. Think Jamaica or Haiti. The largest importer of slaves, by far, was the Portuguese, in Brazil. The American South was at the periphery of this region, not the center.
Meanwhile, agriculture elsewhere in North America was mostly family farm-based for a long time, no slaves. This was the virtuous yeoman farmer class that Jefferson dreamed of, without slavery.
The culture of the American south was a "royalist" culture, not the Quaker or Puritan culture farther north. It assumed hierarchy, freedom for the few, as the norm. It's depicted in its final flourish in Gone with the Wind. After the Civil War, note the O'Haras are forced into a much more capitalistic economic situation. The pseudo-aristocratic trappings, with its disdain for work and practical knowledge, were largely gone, although taking many decades before they fully lost their grip.
Never understoofmd how epithets such as "the best" or "the greatest" add anything to our ability to discern quality in something.. Like those utterly worthless lists of "the greatest song" or "album" etc. What does calling America "the best and greatest" do for our capacity for true appreciation? Seems to me they quickly eclipse it!
Washington's original letter is preserved in a vault. There is a copy hanging on the synagogue's wall, and the text is publicly read out loud every August, not long before the fall holidays. A remarkable document from a remarkable man.
His sense of duty and doing the right thing we're strong, each time avoiding temptations of absolute power. He resigned his army commission rather than become a Caesar, voluntarily stepped down from the presidency after two terms, and freed his slaves, inherited from Martha, in his will.
Washington was highly conscious of the precedents he set as first president.
"It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights."
GW wrote this while being the largest slaveowner in North America, and yet he was a man without hypocrisy. I can only imagine that he thought as did Justice Taney that blacks were not another class of people but rather a different type of people.
The Founders, Washington included, were well aware that slavery was a blot on the new nation. It was a preexisting institution that they inherited from colonial times. Many of them believed that in the fullness of time slavery would wither and die. In the meantime, for the sake of the union of the thirteen original states, they had to compromise their way past it. Any attempt to abolish slavery would have killed the United States of America in its cradle, probably leading to a slavery- based Confederacy in 1790 instead of 1860. Ironically as things turned out, the inclusion of the slave states in the union made inevitable the abolition of slavery.
Indeed. But to pen those words while owning thousands of slaves must have taken some degree of cognitive dissonance.
One thing that General Washington could never be accused of is cognitive dissonance. With the exception of Abraham Lincoln, there has never been a greater American than the Father of Our Country. He formed the American identity that President Lincoln vindicated.
Washington disliked slavery and freed his slaves in his will. Unlike Jefferson, his estate was solvent at his death, enabling it to support the freed slaves for long enough for them to be able to support themselves.
We casually and incorrectly project later 19th and 20th century racial ideas back into the 18th century. Slavery first and foremost was a legal and economic institution before the racial justifications for it rose to ascendancy.
Slavery and that sentence are incompatible unless, like Justice Taney, you believe that black people are in a different legal class than Jews.
It was an inherited socio-legal institution formed in the 1640s in Virginia and Maryland (my home state), modeled on what the Portuguese and Spanish had already been doing for more than a century. The core of it was plantation agriculture, which necessitated large gangs of forced labor. It's better to think of that system as less "American" and more "tropical/subtropical" -- think sugar, rice, cotton, tobacco plantations. The Portuguese and Spanish started this system before Columbus in the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, modeled on what they saw of the Moors in North Africa. The center of slavery in the New World was the Caribbean, not the American South. Think Jamaica or Haiti. The largest importer of slaves, by far, was the Portuguese, in Brazil. The American South was at the periphery of this region, not the center.
Meanwhile, agriculture elsewhere in North America was mostly family farm-based for a long time, no slaves. This was the virtuous yeoman farmer class that Jefferson dreamed of, without slavery.
The culture of the American south was a "royalist" culture, not the Quaker or Puritan culture farther north. It assumed hierarchy, freedom for the few, as the norm. It's depicted in its final flourish in Gone with the Wind. After the Civil War, note the O'Haras are forced into a much more capitalistic economic situation. The pseudo-aristocratic trappings, with its disdain for work and practical knowledge, were largely gone, although taking many decades before they fully lost their grip.
Never understoofmd how epithets such as "the best" or "the greatest" add anything to our ability to discern quality in something.. Like those utterly worthless lists of "the greatest song" or "album" etc. What does calling America "the best and greatest" do for our capacity for true appreciation? Seems to me they quickly eclipse it!
Uh-huh...