We have Pride MONTH in June, and Transgender Awareness MONTH in November. Yet, on Monday, February 17, we celebrate Presidents’ Day in New York. However, my research shows that in more than 30 states, Monday the 17th was considered Washington’s birthday. Whether it is Washington’s Day or President’s Day, the fact that the other celebrations each have a MONTH designated for remembrance rather than a day is disappointing. We should rejoice that our first president was George Washington. That reality is more important to our well-being today than the existence of any subculture in our midst.
When I was teaching history for twenty plus years in NYC, even though George Washington was our first president, sadly no time was spent celebrating him or any other president. However, Washington was truly the father of our country. He refused the title of King, making it clear that the Executive Branch was not going to be merely a modified monarchy but would be one of three branches charged with special duties and limits. We were not to be committed to being a constitutional monarchy but were committed as a country to being a democratic republic.
Further, he showed even-handed wisdom in dealing with differences between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton regarding their respective visions of the future of the American economy and body politic. Jefferson was linked to the yeoman farmer individualistic ideal whereby the citizens’ link to agriculture and nature was the centerpiece of our American individualism. Hamilton was more identified with the potential for manufacturing and finance to define our economy and the identity of individuals within our culture.
Jefferson was much more concerned than Hamilton about overreach by the federal government. The yeoman farmer was his citizen ideal, whereas Hamilton saw the economic growth potential that was inherent in the industrial revolution, which was in its early stages in England and the USA. These visions competed intensely during the years after Washington’s terms in office and certainly contributed to our Civil War, although slavery and the question of the right of states to secede from the Union were paramount in precipitating that War. However, in the decades following the Civil War, the Hamiltonian vision for our growth as an economic and political entity clearly won out.
Washington, although not fully siding with Jefferson was nevertheless part of the Southern gentry along with Jefferson. Unlike Jefferson, Washington stipulated that his slaves continue to serve his wife, but all 123 were freed within a year of his death as was stipulated in his will. In Jefferson’s case, some slaves had been freed by Jefferson, but their freedom was not stipulated in his will and most continued in bondage. The slavery question was an issue as early as the founding of our country, and it is clear to me that Jefferson was highly conflicted on this issue. I don’t believe his attachment to slavery can be disassociated from his views about the legitimacy of secession and of the yeoman farmer.
Nevertheless, he gave lip service at the very least to opposition to slavery in his early drafts of the Declaration of Independence, but caved in and removed them under pressure from his slave-owning relatives at the Convention that finally declared independence on July 4, 1776 (some say it was actually July 2). Despite the continued existence of slavery after the Revolutionary War, it was clear that opposition to slavery was alive and well. Slavery was forbidden by law in the Northwest Territories gained from Great Britain in 1783 at the end of the War of Independence.
Lastly, reviewing George Washington’s speeches and writings, we find frequent references to Divine Providence or simply Providence. The Christian view of history as providential was, and I believe still is, essential for good leadership. Unlike the Marxist view of the mid-19th century, which was a variation of the Hegelian dialectic view of history, the Providentialist view does not see history moving dialectically from thesis encountering an antithesis that destroys the thesis, and following said conflict, there emerges a synthesis. The synthesis is not a mere amalgam of the thesis and antithesis but is a new expression of the social order that is the result of God’s will.
The Providentialist, like George Washington, sees the will of God as directing the transformations from one historical era to another. The shift in political ideals towards greater democracy, the shift from a barter to a money economy, the creation of universities, the rise of cities, the scientific revolution, the Protestant Reformation, and the renaissance in art can, according to the Providentialist view, be traced not towards dialectical dynamics but towards the hand of Almighty God working out the destiny of all nations.
Furthermore, the Marxist view doesvetails neatly with the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche in the late 19th century, which speaks of the transvaluation of values being the next stage of history. This transvaluation of values is not depicted as communism, which his predecessor Karl Marx predicted, but like Marx, the transvaluation represented an overthrow of the dominant Christian, i.e., Bible-centered, values of Western Civilization in the 19th century that had gained authority since the first century AD. But, again, George Washington’s understanding of history as providential is the antidote to the philosophical daydreams of Nietzsche, a man who spent the last twelve years of his life in a psychotic stupor.
So here we are. Washington’s Birthday. No parades in the street and no encomiums to the Father of Our Country. It is such a shame that so many are hearing praises and incantations in their minds to Obama or Trump but not to the first President. Despite the history requirements in public education, the mindset of the American public seems to be ahistorical.
Jeffrey Ludwig
Photo: Redoubt News
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