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Young Washington
- Thread starter william
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- Joined
- Feb 4, 2024
The USA no longer bears any resemblance to that first president.
This is a very strong feeling, widely shared by many historians and citizens today: the gap between George Washington's ideals and the reality of modern America seems immense. Current political divisions, extreme polarization, and the functioning of American institutions stand in stark contrast to the vision of the first president. History shows that America today has strayed from his legacy on several fundamental points:
1. The absolute rejection of political parties. In his famous Farewell Address in 1796, Washington issued a solemn warning against the creation of political parties. His vision: He believed that parties would divide the nation, distract citizens from the common good, and open the door to corruption or foreign influence. The current reality: The United States is now completely locked into a hyper-polarized two-party system (Democrats versus Republicans), where political compromise has become extremely rare.
2. Distrust of permanent international alliances. Washington advocated a foreign policy based on neutrality and trade isolationism. He feared that America would become a puppet or arbiter in European wars. The current reality: The United States has become the world's leading military power, at the center of permanent alliances like NATO, and regularly intervenes in global conflicts.
3. The Paradox of Liberty and Equality: This is the most glaring contradiction in Washington's legacy: His image: He waged war to liberate a people from British tyranny and refused to become a king, laying the foundations of democracy. His dark side: He was himself a wealthy plantation owner who owned hundreds of slaves. This original wound of slavery and systemic racism continues to deeply fracture contemporary American society.
4. The Transformation of Presidential Power: Washington deliberately limited his power by refusing a third term, creating the tradition of a two-term limit to prevent a president from becoming a dictator. Today, the American presidential function has become hyper-centralized and possesses executive powers (particularly military) of a scope that Washington could never have imagined.
This is a very strong feeling, widely shared by many historians and citizens today: the gap between George Washington's ideals and the reality of modern America seems immense. Current political divisions, extreme polarization, and the functioning of American institutions stand in stark contrast to the vision of the first president. History shows that America today has strayed from his legacy on several fundamental points:
1. The absolute rejection of political parties. In his famous Farewell Address in 1796, Washington issued a solemn warning against the creation of political parties. His vision: He believed that parties would divide the nation, distract citizens from the common good, and open the door to corruption or foreign influence. The current reality: The United States is now completely locked into a hyper-polarized two-party system (Democrats versus Republicans), where political compromise has become extremely rare.
2. Distrust of permanent international alliances. Washington advocated a foreign policy based on neutrality and trade isolationism. He feared that America would become a puppet or arbiter in European wars. The current reality: The United States has become the world's leading military power, at the center of permanent alliances like NATO, and regularly intervenes in global conflicts.
3. The Paradox of Liberty and Equality: This is the most glaring contradiction in Washington's legacy: His image: He waged war to liberate a people from British tyranny and refused to become a king, laying the foundations of democracy. His dark side: He was himself a wealthy plantation owner who owned hundreds of slaves. This original wound of slavery and systemic racism continues to deeply fracture contemporary American society.
4. The Transformation of Presidential Power: Washington deliberately limited his power by refusing a third term, creating the tradition of a two-term limit to prevent a president from becoming a dictator. Today, the American presidential function has become hyper-centralized and possesses executive powers (particularly military) of a scope that Washington could never have imagined.
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True Washington did adamantly reject the party system. And as I’ve pointed out before Washington admonishments failed because on this point they went against human nature. What modern nation state does not have political parties. They do so to enable people who think alike to coalesce together and magnify the policies these individuals and groups share. Ask the Chinese Cubans North Koreans Vietnamese how a one or no party nation state runs.
All true and it is an ever shifting balance. Ironically it is the current president who returned to using tariffs for revenue and trade protection. Just as Washington did as well with the 1789 tariff act. I’m sure Washington would agree with current US efforts to extricate our involvement and commitments to NATO.
Given that he cautioned us from being entangled in affairs of the old world. It could reasonably be proposed he would have approved of the Monroe Doctrine. Which in essence dictated that the US work actively work (including use of military force) to keep old world nations out of the western hemisphere. So he very well might have supported recent actions taken in Venezuela. You know the driving out of Old world nations.
Washington was cognizant of this just as Jefferson was. Jefferson had given voice to freeing the slaves in his ownership. He was prevented from it due to Virginia’s law that prevented it because those people held in chattel slavery were regarded as collateral. Jefferson being in debt could not grant them freedom.
Jefferson’s original draft to the declaration of Independence included a passage castigating the king for encouraging the slave trade and transportation of people to different hemispheres. As well as keeping open markets where men should be bought and sold. It was cut to mollify the southern slave owners.
Washington was also caught in a legal quandary he could not outright free over half of them because they came as a dowery with his wife. The slaves which
he owned and those in the dowery from Martha family had intermarried. They did not want to split those families.
Washington’s opinions on slavery had evolved significantly over the course of his life. By his latter years he recognized the practice as evil and despised slavery. Shortly after his death his wife Martha freed all of them because legally she was able to do so without separating families.
The US after the revolution was in a time where notions of morality and right and wrong were changing rapidly and rightly so. It was a time of transition 250 years removed from today. Faulting men’s actions using today’s perspectives and notions of morality without considering the times. At worst lacks honest curiosity and insight. And is indicative of an attempt to promote a political narrative rather than an honest consideration of history.
Do not make the mistake of applying modern notions of propriety and norms with those removed multiple generations.
Chattel slavery is wrong, hard stop. But singling out or attempting to paint disparities in the US today as some monstrous evil is embarrassingly simplistic. In light of what’s occurring in the rest of the world today is not honest.
It’s also very easy just to move the needle delineating what is discriminatory unjust.
For example indentured servitude was a commonly accepted practice in the world. It was never once regarded as anything like chattel slavery. An individual promised their services for seven years in return for learning a trade or paying passage to the new world.
The first indentured servant in the US to be claimed as chattel property was John Castor a black man. The farmer who sued to claim him as chattel property was Anthony Johnson, also a former indentured servant who ironically was also black.
As far as fracturing society, frankly the only reason it’s still a thing is because it’s a tool used politically specifically to cause division. Not as a pervasive reality representative of the nation as a whole.
Not such a clean narrative now is it.
While it certainly true there have been times where the executive has exceeded those limits of power. It is not however correct to assume that even from the beginning that the constitution, the judiciary, and legislative branches have recognized the necessity for the executive to act unilaterally using military power absent a declaration of war. Specifically using the military to confront threats well away from our shores that did not pose any direct threat to the US as a whole. The Barbary wars fought by Jefferson also had no formal declaration from Congress.
Lastly it is absolutely correct the US does not look like the America of Washington time. Here is a clue to consider, neither does the world and technology today remotely resemble the late 17th century. So one should be careful in making claims of generality’s while ignoring the changes and differences 250 years have brought.