George Washington and the New Nation, 1783-1793

George Washington #3

by James Thomas Flexner

This book begins with Washington's return to Mount Vernon, a victorious, but exhausted soldier eagerly seeking the pleasures of a quiet country life. Free of heavy responsibilities, his character expands in genial, often unexpected ways. All too soon, however, the idyll is broken. This promises to be the biography of Washington that will best serve our generation.

Genres: Biography, History, Presidents, American History, Nonfiction, American Revolution, Us Presidents

466 pages, Hardcover

First published October 30, 1970

About the author

James Thomas Flexner was an American historian and biographer best known for the four-volume biography of George Washington that earned him a National Book Award in Biography and a special Pulitzer Prize. A cum laude graduate of Harvard University, Flexner worked as a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune from 1929 until 1931, after which he worked as an executive secretary for the New York City Department of Health before leaving the job the following year in order to devote his full energies to writing.

Reviews

[Aaron Million · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flexner picks up Volume III with George Washington returning home to his beloved Mount Vernon in Virginia at the conclusion of the lengthy Revolutionary War. After being away from home for eight years, Washington is exhausted. Yet, he naively thinks that the young nation is done calling on him to render service. Flexner takes Washington's life through his relatively brief period of retirement, ending with his presiding over the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and subsequently becoming the first President of the United States. This volume goes through Washington's first term, ending as his second and final term is about to begin.

A good chunk of this book, just by the time period covered, is much less action-packed than most of the previous two volumes are. Washington is no longer a general, although he is still referred to as such by many people. The British have departed, gone back across the Atlantic Ocean or up into Canada. Washington spends a few years decompressing, enjoying his family and plantation, and trying to get his finances in order. While not nearly as financially in arrears as his fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson, he is nonetheless forced to borrow money to continue financing the operation of Mount Vernon. It is ironic to read that Washington encountered some stiff resistance from some potential lenders, with some even refusing to lend to him. Washington has become so revered in U.S. history that one wonders how that can be, but of course this was before he became President, and there were many who were lukewarm to the Revolutionary cause. Further, his wranglings with squatters on his lands in western Pennsylvania show just how greedy people were all the way back then. Washington actually had to resort to suing people to try to force them off of his immense land holdings in areas southwest of Pittsburgh.

Flexner overall remains favorable to Washington but, probably like his subject, tries to maintain a detached viewpoint. Washington, despite his financial constraints, had a certain standard of living that he wished to maintain. While he did treat his slaves with decency (I don't really even like writing that, as it seems counter-intuitive), he was nonetheless a slave owner. And was he really trying to fool himself into thinking that he would not be called upon again to serve a crucial role in the foundation of a new system of government? Washington is just the first of many to play coy at becoming President. What is amazing is just how incredibly deep the respect and admiration ran for him among most of the Congressional leaders and the vast majority of the citizens. As Flexner details, were it not for Washington's fundamental decency in refusing absolute power, our system of government undoubtedly would be much different today. The fact that the Convention totally trusted Washington not to become a tyrant or a King for life speaks volumes about the esteem that the man was generally viewed (with some exceptions as shown above, and those were more about money than power).

As Washington got deeper into his presidency, he seemed at times slow to recognize the building tension between Alexander Hamilton and Jefferson, the Secretaries of Treasury and State, respectively. Flexner sometimes misses the mark too, such as when he writes about Washington exchanging multiple letters with Hamilton and James Madison, but not with Jefferson, and offering the excuse that Washington probably did not want to disturb Jefferson's vacation (Congress was not in session so everyone seemed to take a break). That seems unlikely. More likely is that Washington was already sensing that Jefferson was moving away from him politically if perhaps not yet personally, and therefore he decided not to correspond. Flexner does acknowledge that Washington was, if not slow, then unwilling to accept at first that a feud existed between Jefferson and Hamilton. While Washington did wish to remain above partisanship (despite there not being any formal political parties as of yet), his reluctance to reel in his two Cabinet secretaries did him no favors.

Flexner concludes with a chapter summing up and analyzing Washington's first term. While a chapter such as this often is not included in a biography since it is a deviation from following the life of the subject, I welcome a thoughtful review of such a momentous period in history, and Washington's central role in it. Much of this chapter focuses on his deteriorating relationships with Madison and especially Jefferson, along with his more ideologically consistent yet more impersonal relationship with Hamilton. Flexner credits Washington for managing to navigate between the competing egos of the latter two men, and how Washington's own prestige seemed at times to keep the young government together. While Flexner does make a good case for this, it still seems to me that Washington was reluctant to confront either about their words and actions and how those things could easily prove detrimental to the long-term stability of the country. Hamilton does not come off looking particularly good in this, although he is not vilified either; Jefferson comes out looking devious and selfish, an accurate assessment from my standpoint. Flexner's portrait of Washington in this volume is fair and judicious while maintaining a consistently friendly tone. He is a good writer and nicely mixes analysis in with historical facts.

Grade: B+

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

3 books. Almost 1,500 pages...and still one more tome to complete Flexner's journey through the life of Washington. I have to admit that if I didn't really really like George Washington I certainly would have thrown the towel in on the series, in favor of some smaller cradle-to-grave biography. But the books are great, the subject fascinating, and Flexner a master of the written word. Nowadays there is as active a popular desire to destroy heroes as there was in the nineteenth century to exalt them. I can't stand this view of the founders. They were humans. They weren't perfect, just like none of us are. Instead of deifying or destroying them wholesale, we should learn from them. We should recognize their failures and their humanity, without scrapping the whole of their contributions. It strikes me as unbelievably arrogant and ungrateful. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we spit down on them as if we're the holy arbiters of moral purity. I hope in my journey I can avoid any biographies that fall into such a silly way of thinking. I'm happy to report Flexner does not.

My local library shows the book being checked out one other time, in the mid-1990s, and Goodreads doesn't show much traction either. That's a shame, because this series is really enjoyable and informative.

This book takes us from his short-lived "retirement" at Mount Vernon through his first term as President of the United States of America. Most of Washington's story, as I see it, is him trying to live quietly at Mount Vernon, and him being thrust into the absolute chaos of a fledgling nation being born. I don't think we modern Americans realize the tight rope walked by the founders. They had to birth a new nation, and avoid all the natural despotic outcomes that we have seen throughout history.

That mankind could, in modern times and on a large scale, govern themselves without recourse to kings or dictators was a proposition doubted by most practical thinkers and seemingly disproved by history...In the experiment, George Washington played the crucial role. Had he refused to walk this enlarged stage or had he moved differently upon it, there would have been a different ending, quite possibly a tragedy from which the whole future of human freedom would have suffered.

He's called to preside over the constitutional convention, which is what brings him (reluctantly) out of retirement. Among the many things that factored into his decision to do so, Shay's Rebellion also played a role. Thirty years before Karl Marx was born this rebellion certainly alarmed the General:

Their creed was "that the property of the United States, has been protected from confiscation of Britain by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be the common property of all. And he that attempts opposition to this creed is an enemy to equity and justice, and ought to be swept from off the face of the earth."

I mean. It's like. Right out of the playbook that hadn't been written yet!

Another interesting tidbit about the convention was Washington's ex-aide Hamilton showing up and basically advocating for a British model of government - a lifetime-elected monarch with an unalterable veto on all legislation. It was so extreme that it wasn't even really discussed, but the interesting point was how this occurrence ended up haunting Washington later when he backed Hamilton's financial measures. The plea was not easily forgotten by anti-Hamiltonians.

I need to read a biography on Hamilton, I think, because so far I'm not really impressed. He basically starts a fight with Washington during the revolution so he can resign, because he thinks he's too good to serve as his aide (maybe he was)...then at the end of the revolution he's part of the financiers and angry officers who are ready to march on congress and create some kind of eighteenth century military dictatorship...then he makes a plea for pseudo-monarchy during the constitutional convention...only to cozy right back up to Washington once he's elected President...then he's plotting with British agents in an attempt to control foreign policy, which can be viewed at best as naked ambition and at worst,treason...
Hamilton believed that unless the people were restrained by an aristocracy of money and brains they would wallow in blood and injustice like the beasts they were.
Hey, calm down, Plato. I guess he was a really gifted monetary thinker for his time. I admit historical ignorance in total, but, so far i'm not a huge fan.

So, Washington's first term.

The responsibility of leading the experiment that could be the last great hope of the human race hung heavy on the shoulders of the man who had intended to spend the rest of his life in retirement, who felt that he had passed his physical prime, and who had never made a profound study of government. That he had been forced to borrow the cash that would carry him to New York and the Presidency showed that although his estate had grown in size and complexity, he had not been, from a businessman's point of view, successful. He had failed in his command during the French and Indian War. The Revolution had, it is true, ended up as a victory, but only after years of such anguishing travail as his physique would perhaps no longer bear. And the new task would surely be the hardest of all, since the outcome was so transcendently important. If the experiment failed through some fault of his own, how unforgivable would be the guilt that poisoned the future of mankind!

No pressure, George.

Along with the crippling debt, operating the executive office without any precedent to guide him, the Spaniards and English threatening the frontier, France in the throes of revolution, and the Hamilton-Jefferson debacle beginning - Washington was also just trying to get the motor of the federal government up and running. And we think we live in turbulent times.

...he did not, in any official or concerted way, use his charisma or his office to influence legislative debates. Nor did he attempt to achieve by executive order any matter which the strictest interpretation of the Constitution could regard as within the legislative domain. The separation of powers has never known a more devoted champion.

Washington's conception of the Presidency was, although it perfectly suited the period of the formation of the government, quite far from that which operates today.

I think he did an admirable job. One thing is for sure, Hamilton reservations aside, Washington always had a knack for surrounding himself with really gifted people, from generals to aides to secretaries - he could spot talent.

Seeking the most brilliant possible help in carrying out his functions, Washington in three shots hit the bull's-eye every time. No historian would deny that the most important American statesmen in the generation after Washington were Madison, Hamilton, and Jefferson. To recognize such a constellation revealed the insight of genius; to get three such men in a single harness required both genius and the complexion of the times...Although himself an older man, Washington was marching with the younger generation. Since the younger generation was marching with him, he was able to get together its three most fruitful leaders; all agreed that the federal government must be made to work.

The problem was that instead of this younger generation pulling together in the same direction, they end up beginning to pull apart in his first term. I sense the mythological interpretation of a duel between the supporters of humble farmers on one hand and would-be aristocrats on the other, is probably not nuanced enough.

Jefferson and Washington certainly didn't see eye to eye on everything.
Washington, for his part, shook his head sadly when Jefferson insisted that, in order to make the legislature "honest," everyone who owned securities that were involved in governmental policy-which meant in effect the whole financial community-should be prevented from voting on financial measures. Washington...could not help noticing that Jefferson did not suggest that no agrarians, no land speculators, no slaveholders be permitted to vote on matters of special import to them.
Jefferson was pretty pro-revolution in France. Washington, like an old war veteran, was less sanguine about it. Perhaps he remembered how close their own revolution came to bloodshed among it's own citizens.
Washington could not possibly have agreed with these [Jefferson's] sentiments [on the Terror in France]. He had, of course, led battles, ordered men to kill as Jefferson had not. Yet he had labored, among the passions of warfare, to protect Tories from persecution. He believed that extralegal violence, whether initiated by aristocrats or republicans, traveled the same road.

I guess it's fashionable for revisionists to cast Washington as merely a tool to be wielded by Hamilton? But there's a lot of things between the two that go against that. First of all, I don't think George Washington was any man's "tool," nor was he ineffectual as a leader. Furthermore, Washington almost vetoed Hamilton's bank bill, he abandoned Hamilton's report on the manufactures program - thinking it impractical and probably unconstitutional, and the two were certainly at odds when it came to foreign policy.

I think Washington mostly thought Jefferson and Hamilton were both wrong, and the path to be walked was somewhere between the two.

Washington was equally opposed to despotisms of the mob or the aristocracy. He saw, indeed, little distinction between the two, since both subverted personal liberty.

Jefferson favored the minimum amount of governmental interference in men's affairs, while Hamilton was an advocate of powerful control...[Washington's] acts in this area remained, during his first term, so close to the center that they were endorsed by both Jefferson and Hamilton.

Jefferson saw Hamilton's schemes as a method to elevate city speculators, with whom Hamilton had always associated with, over the dead body of the farmer. Washington agreed that America's economy for generations to come would be basically agricultural, but he also saw Hamilton's measures strengthening a weakness in an economy that was too agrarian - he experienced enough of this during the debasement of currency during the revolution. He just had more faith in democratic institutions than Jefferson...he saw reversibility in Hamilton's fiscal schemes, not the permanent subversion of republicanism.

Certain broad principles came to him as revealed truth: Freedom was better than tyranny; order than chaos; kindness than cruelty; peace than war. Royalty was evil; the government belonged to the people and should be responsive to their will. The pursuit of happiness, which it was the government's duty to encourage, included the pursuit of property; no man or groups of men, rich or poor, should be allowed to steal from each other. Government should be strong enough to protect as well as foster. No nation should dominate any other, and the United States in particular should keep out of foreign quarrels.
He saw happiness in being content with your lot, or changing it. He didn't try to legislate poverty away because he didn't see poverty as an aspect of class struggle. He was charitable in trying to educate the poor, but distinguished between worthy and unworthy poor. He was sensitive to personal attacks and criticisms, but weathered them throughout at least the second half of his first term without ever trying to use an anti-republican means to strike down those who libeled him. He was not an intellectual, but humbly surrounded himself with minds more brilliant than his - if he thought it served the greater good. He had some humility. A lot of people in the country thought he was a deity, but he knew better. He was just trying to do his best. And he really just wanted to sit on his porch at Mount Vernon.

There's a lot to learn from George. Now I tackle the final book in this series.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://bestpresidentialbios.com/2013/...

“George Washington and the New Nation (1783-1793)” is the third in Thomas Flexner’s four-volume series on George Washington. This volume covers Washington’s life from his restless (and short-lived) retirement at Mt. Vernon following the American Revolution to the beginning of his second term as our nation’s first President.

This third part of Flexner’s “mini-series” on Washington picks up nicely – and effortlessly – where the second left off. And true to expectation based on his previous works, Flexner’s story-telling abilities again proved superior, and his command of the facts of the day quite remarkable. Happily, this volume was written in a style of language somewhat more modern than Volume II (and certainly its predecessor), helping the book move quickly and efficiently.

At first blush, it may seem little happened during the first four years of Washington’s presidency – other than the important task of the federal government beginning to coalesce. But as the new nation struggled to sort through the delicate dance of checks and balances required by the new Constitution, the Indians (along with both the British and Spanish) caused persistent troubles on the frontier, and Alexander Hamilton aggressively advocated for, and helped build, what essentially became the United States’ first “central bank” against the loud protests of Jefferson, Madison and many others.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, a large number of French citizens began to violently revolt against their aristocratic leadership (an ally of the United States during the Revolutionary War) and the capital of the United States was moved from New York to Philadelphia and then even further south to the rural banks of the Potomac River, in a delicate and complex compromise, to what is now Washington DC.

And while we tend to believe the politics of our day to be distressingly challenged and unique, they hardly seem any worse or more grating than those of the earliest years of our government when Hamilton and Jefferson seemed not unlikely to rip the new nation into two distinct entities. For anyone who thinks that cutthroat political in-fighting and the ever-looming threat of a massive national debt are unique to contemporary citizenry, a quick perusal of this volume and its tales will shock the casual reader with a powerful wake-up call.

Overall, though the early days of our nation may not have been quite as exciting as those spent fighting the British for independence and marching a bedraggled army across the eastern seaboard, Flexner’s third volume does far more than adequate justice to the times. Indeed, his analysis of Washington and his political contemporaries during the ten years beginning in 1783 is both penetrating and remarkably uncanny.

I am almost compelled to read the volume again, for fear that I may have missed an important moment or interesting twist in American history somewhere. But the fourth and final volume of the series sits on the edge of my desk, and although I claim to remember most of what happened in Washington’s final years, the last 500 pages of the quartet (tetrology?) are calling my name rather loudly.

Overall rating: 5 stars

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another outstanding entry in the four volume biography of Washington by James Flexner. This volume covers his years from the end of the War though the end of his first term as President. I feel like I have read a great deal about Washington but not much of it has focused on his quiet years or his Presidency so I learned a lot reading this book. I look forward to the final volume even though I know that the shine has worn off Washington by his second term and he will struggle to his retirement.

[Mike Ehlers · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is interesting to me that the parts of Washington's life that he seems to have liked the best, his time at Mount Vernon, are the most boring parts of this series. Not through any fault of the author, that's just not where the action is. But it is where this book starts.

After the last volume, about Washington's time in the Revolutionary War, I expected a drop off in this volume. But I was wrong. I found it fascinating how Washington's character is revealed to the reader through the Constitutional Convention and through the first presidential term. I've always admired his ability to listen to all sides and then stick to a (hopefully) well-reasoned decision.

But what really impressed me was Washington's awareness of the precedents he was setting for the Federal government and for future presidents. Impressive that through all the stress that had to come with putting the government in the Constitution into practice, as well as the political disagreements Washington encountered, he was able to hold the new nation together.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking forward to this installment of the series the most, and for the most part I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I found some places were kind of out in left field - like Mr. Flexner had things to add that really didn't have a dedicated spot and it felt like he just stuck them in here and there. And the last 100 pages really felt like it was more about Thomas Jefferson & Alexander Hamilton than George Washington... so while not a bad book, probably not the strongest in this series.

[Stephen Morrissey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both Washington the man, and Flexner the biographer, are at their peak performance in this third of a four-volume series on the life of the Father of our Country. Flexner beautifully charts the course of Washington re-emerging into public life, ruffled into action by the disquiet brought on by Shays's Rebellion and the perpetual difficulties of the ungainly Articles of Confederation. From there, Washington saves his country once more: a moderating influence at the Constitutional Convention, though one certain that the federal government must be strong enough to defend itself against jealous state and local rivalries and interests; a unanimously-elected president; and the precedent-making chief executive of a small country brimming with land and potential.

The true mettle of Washington, though, is in those first acts as president, both great and small. Too often, Washington is forgotten as a great president, though obviously lauded as a great man and military commander. Washington sets the course for the nation in matters ranging from the establishment of executive departments to the comportment of the executive branch towards Congress. The first president has sense enough to know when to defer to senators and congressman, and when, such as in debates on treaties and foreign policy, he must assert the preeminence of the executive.

Washington's achievements are only enlarged at presiding over the butting of heads between Jefferson and Hamilton. Flexner admirably shows that Washington was not a man taken in by Hamilton and used for the younger man's ends, but rather a shrewd balancer of egos and policies. Though Washington's stewardship of the country in a non-partisan manner is far from contemporary days filled with partisan bickering and entrenched, centralized parties, his attempts to strike a constitutionally-sound course benefiting the broadest swath of people is to be strived for, if but in a different context.

One of Flexner's concluding lines is that Washington provided the United States "charisma with hardly any cost." he was able to assume the loyalty of millions, and gradually grafted that loyalty not to his person or party, but to the nation, to republican democracy. Few men and women have displayed such a lack of pomposity, and it is the fitting epitaph for a man that could have had unlimited power, but chose not only to be constrained within limits, but to define those limits with abundant common-sense and wisdom for centuries to come.

[David Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume three of Flexner's Washington biography covers the period from the end of the war to the end of his first term as president. It is every bit as engaging and informative as the first two volumes.

We learn about Washington's struggles to get home to Mount Vernon, where he really wanted to retire from public service. But he kept getting pulled back in, and ultimately was unable to remain a farmer. We also get a nice rundown of the clashes among Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson (among others).

I won't recap the book but will point out that Flexner makes the case that, perhaps, the men who gathered to write a new constitution acted without that authority and the whole enterprise may have been illegal.

I also found some quotes near the end quite interesting given recent events.

Washington was afraid of demagogues who, because of "prejudice and evil designs" would mislead public opinion, corrupting republican government at its very source. "There are not wanting wicked and designing men whose element is confusion and who will not hesitate in destroying the public tranquility to gain a favorite point."

Flexner points out: "Almost universally, the combination of a charismatic personality with the need to discourage dissent has resulted in a dictatorship, whether monarchical, communist, or fascist." Sound like any recent public figures in the USA?

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Chernow's Washington and Joseph Ellis's look at Washington. Picked this up from thriftbooks while looking for a book about Washington's presidency. It's a worthy addition to anyone's shelf if you have an interest in Washington

[Alex Stephenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most sedate, resigned entry of the bunch to date. You feel like a lot of what happens in this entry is happening *to* Washington rather than being actions initiated by him, but the mediator role he plays is pivotal, which seems rather the point.