George Washington & Slavery

By Julian G. Simmons

Last year on Independence Day we released an episode in our series on Civility in America based on a pamphlet written by a young George Washington, "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior." It is a tongue-in-cheek dramatic reading from a list copied into his notebook when he was just a schoolboy. It's a fun episode, with its many anachronistic ideas about proper behavior seeming slightly absurd today, but it also gives us insight into the character of the man considered the father of our country. There are also links to music of the period, and a metaphoric mouse who chewed up parts of the manuscript.

Many of his "rules" still apply, and do indeed define civility, and illustrate how far we have come from a time when decency, good manners and civility were essential. However, Washington's list steps around one profoundly uncivil behavior: the fact that Washington was a slave owner.

The episode stirred up some serious discussion of that fact, with some listeners feeling it negates his legitimacy as a role model. We feel compelled to address that perspective, and why we still feel the episode has value and relevance.

Much of the criticism was based on current revisionist politics, the application of today's values and standards to the past. Historical revisionism itself is controversial; is it fair to judge past behavior by today's more evolved ethics? We can only talk about slavery in the past tense and through the historical records that were left, simply because we weren’t there. We know now that the very idea of owning another person is a horrendous wrong, no matter the circumstances. We can question how any "decent" human being could possibly have thought otherwise. We can agree that it was a major character flaw, an egregious error in judgment by Washington. Instead of setting an example for the new nation, he merely accepted the status quo and gave his tacit approval to one of our most shameful legacies.

But we weren’t privy to Washington's thoughts. His achievements -- rising from a middle-class farmer's son to lead the Revolution and become our first President -- largely depended on political calculation and his deft navigation of society and its limitations. We do know that one of his closest confidantes was his slave/personal assistant, William (Billy) Lee, who was freed upon Washington’s death. His other slaves were all freed upon Martha Washington’s death.

In fact, according to the Mount Vernon Library historical record, Washington's views on slavery evolved, and privately he was opposed to the practice and wished it could be abolished. As reflected in the Mount Vernon records,

"George Washington began questioning slavery during the Revolutionary War, when he led the North American colonies’ battle for independence from Great Britain.

"As a young Virginia planter, Washington accepted slavery without apparent concern. But after the Revolutionary War, he began to feel burdened by his personal entanglement with slavery and uneasy about slavery’s effect on the nation. Throughout the 1780s and 1790s, Washington stated privately that he no longer wanted to be a slave owner, that he did not want to buy and sell slaves or separate enslaved families, and that he supported a plan for gradual abolition in the United States.

"After the Revolution, George Washington repeatedly voiced opposition to slavery in personal correspondence. He privately noted his support for a gradual, legislative end to slavery, but as a public figure, he did not make abolition a cause.

"I never mean (unless some particular circumstance should compel me to it) to possess another slave by purchase: it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by the legislature by which slavery in the Country may be abolished by slow, sure, & imperceptible degrees." -GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1786

"When he drafted his will at age 67, George Washington included a provision that would free the 123 enslaved people he owned outright. This bold decision marked the culmination of two decades of introspection and inner conflict for Washington, as his views on slavery changed gradually but dramatically. "Yet, Washington did not always act on his antislavery principles. He avoided the issue publicly, believing that bitter debates over slavery could tear apart the fragile nation. Concerns about his finances, separating enslaved families, and his political influence as president led him to delay major action during his lifetime. Ultimately, Washington made his most public antislavery statement after his death in December 1799, when the contents of his will were revealed.

"Washington stipulated in his will that elderly slaves or those who were too sick to work were to be supported throughout their lives by his estate. Children without parents, or those whose families were unable to see to their education were to be bound out to masters and mistresses who would teach them reading, writing, and a useful trade, until they were ultimately freed at the age of twenty-five. Washington’s will stated that he took these charges to his executors very seriously:

"And I do moreover most pointedly, and most solemnly enjoin it upon my Executors...to see that this clause respecting Slaves, and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled ...without evasion, neglect or delay, after the Crops which may then be on the ground are harvested, particularly as it respects the aged and infirm."

Watch the Video "Lives Bound Together: Slavery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon"

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My own basis for my beliefs is that we live in an imperfect world and that instead of denying or changing the past, we should let it stand as an example of what to admire and what not to repeat.

In my own heritage, I can think of some very distinct examples of what was once acceptable and is no longer, and see that the world is a better place for the change. I reject revisionism. I believe it is important to acknowledge that the world my ancestors lived in is not the world we live in now.

Back in the early 1900s, my maternal grandmother was married at 14 to my grandfather who was 19. Today, my grandfather could be arrested for sex with a minor or worse, but in his time, it was not unusual for girls my grandmother’s age to marry. To judge my grandparents by today’s laws and morality is flatly unfair. In doing so, we commit a disservice to them and us. We corrupt a clean understanding of history, confusing what life was like then with what we consider "normal" today.

It was also not unusual for children to work in the 1800s and early 1900s. Historically, children were bred and raised to help in the house or with the chores. Childhood was short and not often sweet, because they were afforded none of the luxuries children have today, where a child is offered time to grow at their own pace, to play, to go to pre-school, or school at all, so they can prepare for college and a career beyond. Those things, those dreams simply didn’t exist for working-class children. Now, we consider that deplorable ... but the fact is that was simply the way it was.

Facts matter. Yet historical revisionism often erases established facts, and can gloss over the darker truths of our history, like today's movement to banish books that reflect our racist past, or the "Don't Say Gay" policies of Florida's governor. Clearly, putting blinders on our educational system to suit the myopic morality of today's religious right is a dangerous trend. I believe that progress can only happen when we are honest about our mistakes and learn from them. We grow stronger only when we own up to our errors and correct them, not pretend they never happened.

I am painfully reminded of the 1980s when President Reagan could not bring himself to say the word "AIDS" and would often make jokes about homosexuals as if they weren’t worthy of being called human. His cruel negligence translated into a delay in the development of treatment, while hundreds of thousands of young, talented, gay Americans needlessly died, made into pariahs by our own president, one of whom was my own beloved brother.

As repugnant as Reagan's behavior was, should he be erased from the history books? Should we teach our children that Hitler did not exist, that the Holocaust never happened?

No. I believe that we must be constantly focussed on the facts of history, and that the truth -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- must remain inviolate for us to advance. In the words of the writer and philosopher George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The Auschwitz Memorial cautions "Never Again." If we deny the evil embedded in our evolution, it will return. There is always another dark-hearted person waiting to lead.

With some notable exceptions, most leaders possess both astounding strengths of character, as well as weaknesses. In the end, I think a fair view of history rests on the fact that we are imperfect as human beings. Yes, we do expect better of our leaders, but at the end of the day, I am happy if they can be most things for most people. Asking them to be everything is simply not possible. In the words of poet John Lydgate, later adapted by President Lincoln, “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time".

But back to George. Washington was a man of his time, an imperfect man in an imperfect time. He knew it, too; he never wanted to be our first president, but was pressured into two terms by his fellow Founding Fathers.

I hope this Independence Day you'll listen to this episode, which is a useful and amusing example of what was considered Decent and Civil during Washington’s time and is ingrained in our national character -- just as slavery was.

Thank you and Happy Independence Day!

On Friendship: To Call...to Answer

I am editing our next episode, which may be the start of a series “On Friendship.” We initially thought it was a simple question: “What does Friendship Mean to You?”

Nothing simple about it. Friendship is a multifaceted quality. It means different things to different people. It’s fascinating, so far, to hear the comments people have submited.[1] It will not be an easy edit, to interweave these thoughts, to create a flowing narrative that incorporates so many smart and obviously emotional commentaries. But I will get there. Because it obviously means something to people, especially those of us who are getting older.

The process has also compelled me to consider my own ideas about friendship, and made me wonder who my friends are, how important they are to me, and how much I miss them. I miss them mostly because of the natural processes of life — you drift apart, you lose touch, your lives diverge. As you age, there is not that easy, daily camaraderie that came so naturally to most of us in our youth. I say most because I am well aware that many young people today do not have the easy-going lives that my friends and I enjoyed in the sixties and seventies. I have no idea, really, what it’s like for them today. I see them passing as I walk, in clusters, fast and usually happy — and I am frankly jealous. But I also know that many are isolated, especially since the pandemic devastated those very years when they could have been building friendships and finding themselves.

I want to reach out, sometime, somehow, to those younger people. But this is about me, now, and my own sense of isolation and — despite my great good fortune of having a partner of almost 40 years — my loss of so many friends. “Loss” for a multitude of reasons. And the more we shape this episode, the more I realize that having friends as we age is critical to our happiness, or self-esteem, our enjoyment of life. So I am trying, haltingly, to re-establish contact with many old friends.

It is not easy. I’m plagued with depression and tend to go dark, and — who needs that? I’m unlikely to share that. It’s toxic. So I’m unlikely to share, period.

But I wasn’t always this way, and old friends — from my school days — are more likely to remember my upbeat self. (Photo: Me and my old pal Angelo Rossi, circa 1979. Photo courtesy Steve Lanning Loo). That fun, confident guy is still in there — just submerged in the sediment of a long series of disappointments and difficulties. I do have my good days, and I can be funny and even uplifting — so I try and concentrate those qualities in the moments I choose to reach out. I try to add a smile to someone’s day. Facebook, where “friend” first became a verb, is not the venue for real connections. Too many of us rely on it for “staying in touch,” when it really is only really good for silliness, and photos. If you accept that, it’s fine. I like scrolling through it. But it does not really fulfill the potential of friendship. We need more.

There is definitely much more to all of us — deeper subjects, real struggles, challenges and worries — and friends are (I think) supposed to be there to listen and support one another. We can also gather, share a meal, some wine, and lift one another up — there is nothing to compare to a room full of friends laughing hilariously. Nothing.

That seemed easy, once. Once, I had no trouble being spontaneous, being funny, being goofy -- among friends. But then, so much gets in the way of such crucial conviviality. Money, for one thing. We may all start out on an even playing field, where money was our parent’s concern. But then some of us rose, and some of us fell — and that tends to divide people.

Dreams come true, and dreams shatter. If you’ve not done so well, it is hard — even on Facebook — to listen to our well-to-do friends gush over their tour of Europe or share photos of the marvels of their property. It’s painful, and that pain is directed inward, into guilt and shame and, well, isolation.

But there I am, being toxic. I don’t seek sympathy, not really. I want to continue to do something well, even after actual employment has moved on. I am going to channel my skill — mostly as a professional communicator — into this blog, and our podcast (OURGENPOD.com). I intend to contribute to the happiness and enlightenment of others, be they friends or strangers. I’ll try to stick to that path as this blog meanders on toward the horizon.

There’s a good friend I made at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in New York and stayed in close touch with for many years, until geography and career paths led us down diverging paths. But happily, Bryan Miller and I have recently reconnected. Bryan rose to the stratosphere of journalism as the New York Times Restaurant Critic, but I was amazed to learn that he achieved that despite a devastating decades-long battle with a bipolar disorder, about which he bravely wrote a book, "Dining in the Dark" . He conquered that demon somewhat magically, when he first held his newborn son. But we quickly realized that we have both suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Resuming our friendship has given us both a much-needed boost. At least it has for me -- and I think the feeling is mutual. I care about him. When I told him that we were collecting people’s definitions of “Friendship,” Bryan had a great response:

“A friend is someone who calls for no reason.”

Eons ago, back when we were in school, or actually once we’d escaped the pressure-cooker of that year, fora few years we kept up a rather remarkable correspondence. In our letters (typed on real typewriters!) we played a game, to see who could use the biggest words. In college, I had acquired the dubious skill of affecting a scholarly tone and composing papers bloated with an overblown vocabulary. Often, just for fun, I wrote letters laden with verbose prose that had little to do with communication. Sheer literary silliness; the true value of good writing is NOT to use big words.

One of the best pieces of advice on good writing came early in our year at Columbia, when I turned in an article reflecting that literary pretension left over from college. Less than an hour later, it appeared in my box, with these big red words scrawled across the top by my professor, Melvin Mencher (who just turned 90): "Wilson: first meaning, then words."

I guess that's why Bryan and I enjoyed the Big Word game: we were breaking that cardinal rule and just indulging in a sort of Scrabble of bunkum and balderdash. I finally killed it with the word “sesquipedalian,” which means “given to or characterized by the use of long words.”

The fun of it was trying to make sense while stuffing our correspondence with as many obscure words as possible. I took a nostalgic stab at it in response to his perfectly precise one-liner:

My Dear Friend:

Do not relish the isolation. Do not embrace the anomie. Do not savor the peace of wind chimes, fountains and bird songs….they are impermanent and unreliable.

I am going to call you for no reason.

There will be a loud, an intrusive tone — likely a loud ringing — that will set your nerves aflame. In the few seconds that it repeats its obnoxious intrusion into your carefully cultivated cocoon, you must calculate your response: if you answer, the future is uncertain. What might be transmitted might not be conducive to your ease. It may force to the surface thoughts and matters you have chosen to repress, But think: if you don’t…that silence you have chosen may fester, like a placid mountain lake succumbs to eutrophication, overtaken by algae unwelcome and depressing. Silence, for long, is seldom golden. It can become rank, and offensive to the senses.

But it will happen. The phone will ring, or buzz, or jangle — unbidden, this sudden auditory intrusion into your (I presume) quiet existence — shatter whatever concentration you have achieved on some pressing task — and will already have spewed glutamate into your hypothalamus, instantly telegraphing a chemical message down the bio-wires of your body to command the involuntary squeezing of the glands where adrenaline is nebulized like an injection of air and fuel into the pressurized engine that moves your emotions and involuntary nervous system. A jolt.

To answer, or not to answer? The decision, pressed unnervingly upon you in these few seconds by my call, is: Which is worse: to answer, or not to answer? In this you are not alone. This is a broad and pervasive quandary of modern life, where technology has compressed our responses into annoying little imperatives, reducing the time we have to assess our options. It is a microcosmic instance of Koyaanisqatsi , life out of balance, this current liminal epoch that keeps us incessantly unconsciously uneasy. We may not like it, but it exists, and we have slavishly succumbed to an autonomic obedience to the demands of technology.

But let us be realistic: While far from ideal, this imminent decision rests on the fleshy fulcrum of the see-saw of your current (albeit interrupted) homeostasis: Will this uncertainty be somehow qualitatively improved if you answer? Will it unleash a pleasing brew of dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins into your synaptic river? Will the ensuing conversation lift you up? How can you know?

You cannot. Even though you most likely already know (again, through technology’s wonders we have by the tech-bio osmosis of our time made our own) that it is me within whom the motive for this call and its content resides (and already begun formulating your probable replies and interjections, the degree of truth, honesty, and enthusiasm), and thus even subconsciously ascertained the likely effect its prospect holds for the aforementioned neurochemical processes.

Thus, as we are wont to transfer all of our accumulated past knowledge into an expectation of the future, you may have by the second ring, or buzz, or jingle, incorporated this anticipated amalgam of our personalities and conversations over 50 years into your calculation, decide to answer, or to let the noise run its course, and leave you again in your private space, all chemicals and autonomous affect dissolving into your prior state (notwithstanding your feelings engendered by having ignored my call, or what my own sense of such perceived rejection might then be — a measure of your own level of empathy, whether general or specific toward me). There is no way this call will leave you as you were. I will have chosen to have some effect, and only guessed at its nature. I will have taken a risk. And you will, as in a reflection in a mirror darkly, feel some aftermath — if only to affirm your own isolation, be it pleasing or painful.

Or perhaps I will not call at all. You may deduce from that what you will.

Therein, the dilemma, and challenge, of spontaneous telecommunication in the twenty-first century.

Rob

[1] You can send in your VOICE answer to “What does Friendship Mean to Me?” on our COMMENT PAGE at https://www.talkinboutourgeneration.com/comment

The Father of Our Country is telling us to BEHAVE!!

Times have Changed. That's evident in a pamphlet assembled by George Washington around 1745 when he was just a 13-year-old schoolboy, later published as "Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation." The 110 "Rules" stand in stark contrast to what passes as "Civility and Good Behavior" in America today. The somewhat archaic text gives us a fascinating -- and somewhat amusing - glimpse of the rigid rules of polite society that shaped our first President. It also contains some standards that are quite relevant still.

In Episode 15 of OURGENPOD.com, Host Julian Simmons delivers a wry tongue-in-cheek dramatic reading of Young Master George's "Rules," which had a profound influence on his character. The background music in the podcast is a collection of tunes that George probably tapped his foot to -- even though Rule #4 admonishes:

In the Presence of Others sing not to yourself with a humming Noise, nor Drum with your Fingers or Feet.[1]

Although there may be plenty to criticize in the social order to which Washington obviously aspired, it's helpful to avoid a revisionist bias and put the Rules in the context of Washington’s era. The early 1700's were a time when the colonies had not yet coalesced into the "United States of America," before the rebellious, egalitarian American character took hold. Many of the Rules that Washington recorded are unique to his time -- such as the manner in which one should or should not remove one's hat, or the easy acceptance of social rank, referring to "those of better birth," "Your Superiors," and "Men of Quality," to which elaborate deference is frequently dictated.

It is also painfully evident that it was a time of rampant misogyny. The Rules make no mention of women whatsoever, which shouldn't be blamed on the 13-year-old school boy. Women in 18th century America were excluded from public life, expected to run the household, weave, cook, and teach children morals and spirituality.

In general, women were still not formally educated, and they did not enjoy the same freedoms and social power as men. They could not vote, own land while married, go to a university, earn equal wages, enter many professions, and even report serious cases of domestic abuse. Women who were found to be too argumentative or radical could deal with cruel and humiliating public penalties. It was clearly a man's world in which Washington grew up, and to which he aspired.

The character of the colonists was still largely reflective of English and European etiquette, where class divisions were stark. There were four main classes: the Nobility, the Gentry, the Yeomanry, and the Poor. There was little chance of upward mobility; you were born into your class, and likely to stay there. A person's class determined how they could dress, where they could live, and the kinds of jobs people and their children could get.

The 18th century society was largely segregated into estates and orders and it was the church and aristocracy who controlled social and economic power. The "estates of" the territory were the expansive "orders of social hierarchy" adopted in Christian Europe from the medieval period to early modern Europe; this was Washington's world.

Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He was the eldest of Augustine and Mary's six children, all of whom survived into adulthood. The family lived on Pope's Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia. They were moderately prosperous members of Virginia's "middling class," and active in the Anglican Church. His father died when he was just 11, leaving little money for his education.

Unlike many of his contemporaries in the Continental Congress, Washington never attended college or received a formal education. But the pursuit of knowledge was a life-long passion. He may have received elementary instruction from private tutors and in a public school in Fredericksburg, but he was largely self-taught with the support and encouragement of his mother. Like most boys at the time, he learned arithmetic, geography, astronomy, and handwriting by copying text into a copy book.

While the current pamphlet has been erroneously attributed to him, he copied most of the Rules from a collection of maxims in a French volume that originated in the late sixteenth century and were popularly circulated during Washington's time. Such copy-work was a common method of teaching handwriting as well as memorizing a subject, which Young Washington apparently did very well.

Washington clearly took the "Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior" to heart. The charm and decency of his character for which he later became famous no doubt helped him to navigate the steep slopes of 18th Century American society. In his youth, Washington became close friends of the wealthy Fairfax family of Fairfax County. They were descended from a prominent family based in Yorkshire, England, that had obtained a Scottish peerage from King Charles I in 1627.

By 1719, Thomas Fairfax the sixth Baron of Cameron, inherited control of the vast Northern Neck Proprietary, a five-million-acre land grant between Virginia's Rappahannock and Potomac rivers. In 1734 he asked his cousin William Fairfax to act as his land agent in Virginia. By 1743, William and his family were comfortably settled into their new home on the Potomac, Belvoir.

That same year, George's older brother Lawrence married the elder Fairfax daughter Ann, and they moved into the newly-renamed Mount Vernon Estate, just down the Potomac from Belvoir. It eventually became George Washington's home:

George spent many happy years with the Fairfax family, who helped him further his education, gave him his start as a surveyor, counseled him in the acquisition of land, and eventually ushered him into politics and the military.

George's first known original publication is a record of his work as a surveyor, "Journal of my Journey Over the Mountains," mapping the vast holdings of the Lord Thomas Fairfax, Baron of Cameron, in Northern Virginia.

The journal reveals Washington's extraordinary mastery of mathematics and the practice of surveying. The Full text of Washington's Journal has been made available for free by The Project Gutenberg, a library of free online books. You can read the Journal at:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52395/52395-h/52395-h.htm

It's not a stretch to imagine Washington's wonder at the hugeness of America, at the raw beauty of the land, and perhaps how his journey "over the mountain" imbued in him the vision that inspired him to go on to lead the Colonies to Independence.

Unfortunately, there are no actual portraits of Young George Washington. But this clever time-lapse video by “The Photoshop Surgeon” is a fun way to imagine what he might have looked like:

#GeorgeWashington#USA#PhotoshopSurgeon https://youtu.be/g7XRI4U2MHo

It is tempting to chuckle and scoff at many of the antiquated precepts expressed in Washington's little volume, but as J.M. Toner, M.D., the man who first transcribed and published them in 1888, wrote in his introduction:

"These particular rules of civility and good behavior, although quaint, must always possess peculiar historical interest, because of their origin as well as for their intrinsic merits. It is therefore hoped that the publication of a true and complete copy of them from the original manuscript may prove not only gratifying to American pride but be of benefit to the growing youth of our country."

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[1] We have included a page on our website where you can listen to the selections we used as background. See https://www.talkinboutourgeneration.com/washington-s-music