John P. Kaminski - George Washington: A Man of Action

George Washington
A Man of Action

WORD PORTRAITS OF AMERICAS FOUNDERS

George Washington
A Man of Action

Compiled and Edited
by

John P. Kaminski

Published for

The Center for the Study of the American Constitution

by the

WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESS

Published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press

Publishers since 1855

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2017 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin

E-book edition 2017

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Cover design by Erin Kirk New

Typesetting by Integrated Composition Systems

21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Washington, George, 17321799. | Kaminski, John P., compiler, editor. | University of WisconsinMadison. Center for the Study of the American Constitution.

Title: George Washington : a man of action / compiled and edited by John P. Kaminski.

Description: [Madison, WI] : Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2017. | Series: Word Portraits of Americas Founders | Published for The Center for the Study of the American Constitution. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016042454 (print) | LCCN 2016043142 (ebook) | ISBN 9780870208263 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780870208270 (ebook) | ISBN 9780870208270 (Ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Washington, George, 1732-1799Quotations. | United StatesPolitics and government17751783Quotations, maxims, etc. | United StatesPolitics and government17831865Quotations, maxims, etc. | National characteristics, AmericanQuotations, maxims, etc. | Social valuesUnited StatesQuotations, maxims, etc. | Quotations, American.

Classification: LCC E312.79 .W31213 2017 (print) | LCC E312.79 (ebook) | DDC 973.4/1092 [B] dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016042454

For the editors of The Papers of George Washington,
past and present,
who have diligently labored to preserve and disseminate
the literary and historical legacy of this
great and good man.

Contents

During the last decades there has been a renewed interest in the Founding era of American history. A few general studies of the period, as well as a handful of biographies of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton, have captured the publics attention, spawning television mini-series and lately a Broadway play. A significant catalyst for this resurgence has been the publication of the Founders papers in multi-volume series. Grants from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a few large and small foundations have supported the publication process. Several years ago, Edmund S. Morgan, Yales productive and much-admired historian of early America, noted that the publication of the Founders papers was the single greatest scholarly achievement of the twentieth century. For nearly half a century, I have been fortunate to share in this monumental effort to preserve and disseminate this critical part of the American historical, constitutional, and literary legacy.

Despite renewed interest in the Founders, Americans still know very little about this important generation. Textbooks, sometimes good and sometimes not, often relate only brief accounts of the Founders public lives, rarely mentioning anything personal.

I have been reading the Founders papers for many yearssome of them in manuscript collections in libraries and historical societies, some in various kinds of microfiche, others in hundreds of incidental publications, such as journals or selective single volumes, and many in the ever-increasing number of volumes in NHPRC- and NEH-sponsored editions. Midway through this reading, I began compiling databases of quotations describing the thoughts and feelings of several of the Founders, including Washington, Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John Jay, Hamilton, and John and Abigail Adams. While mining the papers of John Adams, I began to compile a new database: the Founders opinions of each other. In 2008, the University of Virginia Press published a selection of this database as The Founders on the Founders: Word Portraits from the American Revolutionary Era, which contained quotations describing thirty principal Founders. My database, which now consists of entries describing more than 450 people, has continued to grow.

The Wisconsin Historical Society Press has inaugurated a new series of volumes, each volume focused on a single Founder, drawing on this growing database of quotations. The quotations in each volume represent opinions of a particular Founder by contemporaries, and that Founders opinions of his contemporaries. Quotations in which the subject assesses himself are also included, as well as emblematic quotations. These final quotations are not self-reflections by the Founder, though they provide glimpses into the Founders character and therefore can be viewed as semi-autobiographical.

In December 1817, when preparing his monumental painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Trumbull wrote Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration, that Americans had a universal interest in those Patriots to whom we owe that memorable Act and all its glorious consequences. Trumbull planned to have an engraving made of his painting so that Americans could see the forty-seven signers depicted in the painting. A portrait, however, no matter how accurate a rendition of the subject, provides only a limited perspective of a person. Word portraits are needed to flesh out the character of a person and equally important to provide descriptions of the relationships between individuals. William Plumer, an early U.S. senator from New Hampshire, believed that it was important to gather as many perspectives from as many people as possible to obtain an accurate description of a person. A city appears very different when viewed from different positions& so it is with a man. Viewed in different situationsdifferent dispositions, the man thus examined appears unlike himself.

The great early national painter Charles Willson Peale wrote Thomas Jefferson telling him that a new pair of spectacles helped re-invigorate his interest in portraiture. Unfortunately, however, while wearing the glasses Peale usually painted his subject less than life size. Because such a diminution was unsatisfactory for Peale, he decided to paint the broad outlines and features of his subject without the aid of the spectacles and then fill in the detailed features later with the aid of the spectacles. So it is with word portraits. First we can obtain a broad picture of the individual by reading biographies and then deepen our understanding by gathering multiple quotations describing the individual.

Most of the quotations in this volume were taken from letters of the Founders. Other quotations appeared in journals, diaries, newspaper essays, and speeches. Some documentary editors choose to modernize their documents, while others provide literal transcriptions. I have accepted transcriptions as I found them. When drawing on original manuscripts, I have provided literal transcriptions. Editorial insertions within square brackets occur to obviate ambiguities in introducing quotations, to provide full names of individuals, and to avoid misunderstanding the archaic use of certain words, such as nervous, meaning strong and powerful; pathetic, meaning filled with emotion; and want, meaning lacking.