Analysis: George Washinton

George Washington has been an American icon since before 1776. He is the most popular and well known Founding Father as well as the first President of the United States. He was greatly revered by his contemporaries and adversaries alike. He wasn't a politician by trade, he was a soldier. His life was the battlefield, fighting in the French and Indian War and moved up in the ranks with speed. He was devoted to discipline and efficiency, and was undoubtedly pivotal in the Revolutionary War as both a war hero and an example for his men. Despite being a main figure in the founding of America, there are still many misconceptions on his politics and beliefs. Libertarians, Democrats and Republicans all want to claim him as their political Patron Saint. Thus, in this essay, I will lay forth the beliefs, politics and ideologies of George Washington and set for him a LibertyScore along with some other information.

Politics

As the first President of the United States of America, George Washington had strong political opinions and beliefs but chose not to officially affiliate himself with any political party, even though members of his very own presidential cabinet were beginning to form divergent political parties based on their differing political opinions. These two parties were the Federalist Party (largely led by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton) and the Democratic-Republicans (largely led by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson).

Although Washington tended to side with the Federalists on most of the major issues during his presidency, he refused to tie himself to the party, as he believed that the creation of political parties was a divisive step for the American government and people. In fact, in his famous Farewell Address after the conclusion of his second presidential term, Washington warned the United States citizens and politicians of divisive effect of political parties. Therefore, Washington can be referred to today as an Independent, or a non-partisan.

Overall, his political views were more overarching in their scope, rather than specific. Washington stood for national freedom, individual liberties, and a strong central government that would serve to protect the freedoms and liberties of its citizens. Also, he believed in complete separation of church and the state. Therefore, he espoused many of the ideals of the European Enlightenment. This approach to political thought allowed Washington to remain non-partisan throughout his two terms in office. Nonetheless, President Washington was forced to make decisions during his time in office that would ultimately favor one of the emerging political parties in the young United States over the other one. One such decision was the signing of the Jay Treaty with England in 1794. This treaty was the result of increased tensions with the British, particularly in regards to free trade. The treaty was largely written by Alexander Hamilton, a Federalist; therefore, it had the support of the Federalist Party. On the other hand, the Democratic-Republicans (also known as the Jeffersonians because of their ring leader, Thomas Jefferson) did not support the treaty, mostly as a result of their worry that the American federal government would be strengthened too much as a result of closer trade ties with Britain. The Jeffersonians feared the growth of the United States federal government since they equated this growth with the loss of states' rights and individual liberties. Despite their ardent disapproval of the treaty, the Jay Treaty was signed into effect, with the backing of President Washington. This move by President Washington was one of several that proved that he believed in a strong central government. Another instance of the President's show of federal power was during the Whisky Rebellion in 1794. Citizens in western Pennsylvania had begun to hold riots during this time in opposition to a recent federal tax on distilled spirits. Washington had little patience for such behavior and summoned the state militias of several surrounding states to move into Pennsylvania and suppress the rebellion.

Harvard professor and historian Bernard Bailyn traces the ideological origins of America’s founding-era republican thought to the following principal sources: Classical Greco-Roman antiquity; Biblical theology; English common law; Enlightenment rationalism, and the writings of British Whig theorists like Algernon Sidney, John Locke, and Joseph Priestly. Although not as well read or well spoken as Hamilton, Jefferson, or Madison, Washington had embraced the republican philosophy of the founding era. His 1783 Circular to the States captured this “Whig” ideology, a synthesis of classical, biblical, common law, and rationalistic thought. The notion that men had an inalienable right to political liberty was one of the hallmarks of Whig ideology and Enlightenment thought. In his Farewell Address, Washington asserted that “public opinion should be enlightened,” and that “[i]t will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.”

During his presidency, he cautioned against America’s becoming involved in foreign entanglements. The advice Washington gave in his Farewell Address underscored his presidential policies of neutrality and diplomacy:

"The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest… . The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop."

Although Washington stood for a powerful central government, he did not believe that a single man in the United States government should have an excess of power. Therefore, he refused to run for a third term as President, setting a precedent for the future Presidents of the United States. His views would most likely align most with moderate Republicans. However, that doesn't mean that he doesn't align himself with many libertarian or democratic views thus making himself out to be a lot more centrist than anything else.

Religion

When studying the religious beliefs of Washington, it is difficult to make absolute, concrete conclusions. Depending on the source examined, Washington has been painted in differing lights ranging from a Deist to a believing Christian. No matter what precise conclusion is obtained, there are common facts surrounding Washington's relationship with religion.Washington gives us little in his writings to indicate his personal religious beliefs. As noted by Franklin Steiner in "The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents" (1936), Washington commented on sermons only twice. In his writings, he never referred to "Jesus Christ." He attended church rarely, and did not take communion - though Martha did, requiring the family carriage to return back to the church to get her later. When trying to arrange for workmen in 1784 at Mount Vernon, Washington made clear that he would accept "Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists." Washington wrote Lafayette in 1787, "Being no bigot myself, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct, plainest, easiest and least liable to exception."

Clear evidence of his personal theology is lacking, even on his deathbed when he died a "death of civility" without expressions of Christian hope. His failure to document beliefs in conventional dogma, such as a life after death, is a clue that he may not qualify as a conventional Christian. Instead, Washington may be closer to a "warm deist" than a standard Anglican in colonial Virginia. He was complimentary to all groups and attended Quaker, German Reformed, and Roman Catholic services. In a world where religious differences often led to war, Washington was quite conscious of religious prejudice. However, he joked about it rather than exacerbated it. Washington once noted that he was unlikely to be affected by the German Reformed service he attended, because he did not understand a word of what was spoken.

Washington was an inclusive, "big tent" political leader seeking support from the large numbers of Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Quakers in Virginia, and even more groups on a national level. He did not enhance his standing in some areas by advocating support for a particular theology, and certainly did not identify "wedge issues" based on religious differences. Instead, in late 1775, Washington banned the Protestant celebration of the Pope's Day (a traditional mocking of the Catholic leader) by the Continental Army. He deplored the sectarian strife in Ireland, and wished the debate over Patrick Henry's General Assessment bill would "die an easy death." Washington was not anti-religion. Washington was not uninterested in religion. He was a military commander who struggled to motivate raw troops in the French and Indian War. He recognized that recruiting the militia in the western part of Virginia required accommodating the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, Baptists, and Dutch Reformed members in officially-Anglican Virginia. He was aware that religious beliefs were a fundamental part of the lives of his peers and of his soldiers. He knew that a moral basis for the American Revolution and the creation of a new society would motivate Americans to support his initiatives - and he knew that he would receive more support if he avoided discriminating against specific religious beliefs.

In the Revolutionary War, Washington supported troops selecting their own chaplains (such as the Universalist John Murray) while trying to avoid the development of factions within the army. Religion offered him moral leverage to instill discipline, reduce theft, deter desertion, and minimize other rambunctious behaviors that upset local residents. It was logical for Washington to invoke the name of the Divine, but it may have been motivated more by a desire for improving life on earth rather than dealing with life after death.Wahington understood the distinction between morality and religion, and between toleration of differences and full religious liberty. Washington's replies to messages from Jews and Swedenborgians showed he was not merely accepting the differences of religion, tolerating those who had not chosen the correct path. Instead, he endorsed what Jefferson would later define as a "wall of separation between church and state."

Washington used generic terms with his public requests for divine assistance, to the extent that his personal denomination must be classified as "unknown." That vagueness has not stopped Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Unitarian Universalists from claiming him as a member, and has invited others to identity him as a Deist. Washington was a man dedicated to creating national unity, not an exclusionist seeking to identify and select those with correct beliefs for reward in this life or the next. It would have been inconsistent for him to seek to blend the westerners and the Tidewater residents, the Yankees from the north and the slave-owning planters from the South, into one national union - while at the same time supporting narrow religious tests for officeholders, or advocating the superiority of one religious sect over another.

Popular prints of the “Apotheosis of Washington” showed him ascending to heaven, as does the painted ceiling of the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. Europeans noticed that Americans put up likenesses of Washington in their homes. “Just as we have images of God’s saints,” one wrote. Many Americans still exalt Washington (along with Abraham Lincoln) to an almost-sacred level, and in Chernow’s biography we learn that Washington helped to make himself a civil saint. Washington publicly marveled at the fact that he not die sometime during the Seven Years’ War or the American Revolution, and that he survived to become the president of the improbable new nation. In the mentality typical of that divinely suffused age, he could not but help see the hand of God at work in his life, and in the nation’s. Even contemporary critics thought Americans might adore their leader too much, with one asserting that “the people of America have been guilty of idolatry in making a man their God.” But surely we can admire the man without bending the knee to worship. Achieving that balance may be the greatest success of Chernow’s biography.

Conclusion

Washington is an American icon, but throughout the years, his picture has been tainted with sensationalism and modern mythology. The pragmatist that is Washington was transformed into a fundamentalist champion for American Christianity. The facts of the matter are that he was both moderate in his politics and private in his religion. The lessons we can learn from Washington are less philosophical and more interpersonal. We can learn about topics like leadership and delegation and less in areas of theological and philosophical importance.