Reading Wednesday -- George Washington's Journey: The President Forges A New Nation

George Washington's Journey: The President Forges A New Nation (2016) by T.H. Breen.

It's a commonly expressed belief that histories are at least as much about the time in which they are written as about the past period being written about.

This slim book is a good example of what that means.  Breen's argument in George Washington's Journey is that the new president of the new nation deliberately marshalled his many theatrical / political talents during the tours of the states he made in his first administration to present an image of himself as the worthy example of the benefits of the strong, central federal government in which he believed. Without a central overarching authority, there was no way for the states' rights states to either hang together as a fully functioning independent nation, or to protect the democracy's declared intention of religious tolerance (i.e. the diversity / minority rights of the day) and other less majority groups.

One sees Breen's argument, which he makes at least once on every page, directed deliberately at those elements of our national political life who have been expressing for years contempt and hatred for central government of the U.S.A.

It's heartening to see this argument so sincerely presented by a member of the insider U.S. History scholars.  His book is endorsed by both Gordon Wood and Douglas Bradburn, a librarian at Mount Vernon.

When looking at the fate of the CSA, it's impossible not to conclude that those who despise government can neither govern nor create a functioning government.  That's the lesson we need to get out there, quite a few of us believe.

Locally Today Is Not the Best Day for Birthdays

It's Washington's birthday.  It's also another Fashion Week in NYC.

The record low for this date in New York City has been broken, which has been held since 1888 -- when North Dakota wasn't yet state!

Hudson River From Above - U.S. Coast Guard

Manhattan shore of the East River, Monday, February 16, 2015

Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, Hudson River.

Washington's first inauguration, April, 1789

I imagine George Washington in Manhattan on his birthday during his first administration. He'd have had his first birthday as President in 1790. It was probably even colder than today, as the northern hemisphere was still in the throes of the Little Ice Age in 1790. *

Presumably however cold it was on his birthday in 1790 Washington's circumstances were a deal more comfortable than on the night of December 25–26, 1776.

Mr. Washington, hasn't fared well on his birthday NYC today either. See today's NY Times's "George Washington, Slave Catcher."  In truth, this column rather depressed me, as if waking up in frigid temperatures on my birthday after a night of waking el V four times with my nightmares wasn't depressing enough.

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*   1790 - 1820 was a period of particularly extreme weather anomalies -- which were significant factors in the French Revolution's momentum, which had already started (1789), as there had been so many failed crops = famine.

Independence Day - Built On Slavery

"Plain as Dirt: History Without Gimmickry"

An Excavated Passage Leads Visitors Deep Into the Story of Washington and His Slaves

[ But tunnels have a fascination that transcends their pragmatic explanations. For historians and archaeologists, the discovery of the tunnel was an interesting new bit of knowledge about the house, and a reminder that Washington kept slaves while he lived there in the 1790s. For others, it seemed to suggest that a man whose name is synonymous with probity was trying to deceive both his neighbors and history about his deep involvement with the peculiar institution of slavery.

"People jumped to the conclusion that Washington was hiding slaves," says Levin. "But he couldn't." He couldn't because they cooked his meals, cleaned his stables, tended his carriage and managed just about every mundane detail of life. But he wasn't advertising their extended presence in Philadelphia either. Pennsylvania had a law that required slaves to be freed after six months of residence. So Washington was forced to shuttle his slaves back and forth between Philadelphia and Mount Vernon to evade the residency clause -- which he hoped in vain could be done without his slaves realizing the reason.

"I wish to have it accomplished under pretext that may deceive both them and the Public," he wrote to his secretary, an act that author and Washington biographer Henry Wiencek called "perhaps the only documented incident of George Washington's telling a lie." Perhaps even more disturbing than Washington's lie was his very vigorous pursuit of slaves who escaped his service. When Ona Judge, a slave who tended primarily to Martha Washington, carefully planned and successfully executed an escape to New Hampshire, Washington was furious and attempted to use his prestige to pressure a federal official to help recapture her.

"Everything about this was illegal," wrote Wiencek in "An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America."

Agitation for a memorial that included discussion of Washington's slaves and women such as Judge, who lived with Washington at the President's House, was fueled by a sense that the Park Service was hiding this history. With discovery of the foundations of the original house and evidence of the tunnel, it seemed as if the city of Philadelphia had discovered a bombshell bit of new history: that the father of the country kept slaves in the first executive mansion. But this was well known. The archaeological dig merely brought forth visible, tangible evidence of a house that, like so many houses at the time, was what a later president would call "divided against itself." ]