I like George Washington.
The first president of the United States is one of my top two Founding Fathers. The other one is the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.
Anyone keeping up with American politics today has probably heard the adjective likable thrown around quite a bit. As if likability is something of great importance in politics. And as if politics is a form of amusement.
Was likability of great importance with regards to George Washington? Was America’s first president actually likable?
George Washington is the only president who was unanimously elected by the Electoral College. And that happened twice. That speaks volumes about what people actually thought about him. Washington was “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” as Henry Lee aptly described him. And when you read the history, and then visit Washington DC, and then tour Mount Vernon, you can’t fail to see that George Washington still is first in the hearts of a many Americans today.
But none of that speak to George Washington’s likability. At least not in the same sense people seem to expect of, and even demand from, statesmen today. Sure, he loved the minuet, and he loved entertaining guests. But Washington the Planter/Mount Vernon CEO, Washington the General, and Washington the President, was renowned for stoicism and military stiffness, discernible even from portraits and sculptures. Hardly likable traits.
George Washington was the kind of person who never would have used social media. Can you imagine a tweet from Washington with, say, a handshake emoji? You can’t. That’s because George Washington refused to shake hands as president! He thought that shaking hands was beneath the presidency.
With his many quirks and foibles, he came across as imperial and aloof.
How about the tenor of his handwritten correspondence?
To his wife Martha, on June 18, 1775, he wrote: “I am now set down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressable concern—and this concern is greatly aggravated and Increased when I reflect on the uneasiness I know it will give you—It has been determined in Congress, that the whole Army raised for the defence of the American Cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the Command of it. You may beleive me my dear Patcy, when I assure you, in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment I have used every endeavour in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the Family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my Capacity …. I was apprehensive I could not avoid this appointment ….”
On April 1, 1789, he wrote to Henry Knox: “[M]y movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied with feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.”
To Edward Rutledge, on May 5, 1789, he wrote: “Though I flatter myself the world will do me the justice to believe, that, at my time of life and in my circumstances, nothing but a conviction of duty could have induced me to depart from my resolution of remaining in retirement; yet I greatly apprehend that my Countrymen will expect too much from me.”
How can such words make anyone likable today?
One of the chief lessons from history is that there are some things that never change. Political warfare and intrigue have always been there. Fake news has always existed, especially in some of the printed words of the Gazette of the United States and its rival the National Gazette. Political infighting has always been there, even in Washington’s own administration.
One of the few things that do seem to have changed is, strangely, how strongly we now seem to connect leadership with likability.
What happened?
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