George Washington on This American President | History for Your Road Trip
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Jenn interviews Richard Lim, host of the podcast This American President, about his book Refusing a Crown: How George Washington Changed the World. Lim explains how a conversation with a relative from China sparked his deeper interest in Washington, arguing Americans reduce him to “first president” and “slave owner” while missing the global significance of his restraint in giving up power.
They discuss the risky nature of America’s founding, the Newburgh Conspiracy, Washington’s resignation at Annapolis, and how his adherence to civilian control shaped expectations for republics all over the world.
Join us for a fresh (and less discussed) perspective on Washington and the landmarks that keep his legacy alive.
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Transcript
I mean, you, may have heard this quote, but it's something like
Speaker:a, a country without history is like a person without memory,
Speaker:so well in this book.
Speaker:I'm Jenn of Talk With History.
Speaker:I am one half of of I'm the historian side, Scott's the tech side.
Speaker:I'm here today to host, and he set it all up for me,
Speaker:please introduce yourself, Richard, and your book, and let's dive into this.
Speaker:It's so great
Speaker:Oh, well, thank you.
Speaker:Thank you for having me.
Speaker:It's great to be on, uh, to just talk to a fellow history nerd.
Speaker:As I said earlier, I love the flags that you have and the, and just
Speaker:the stories associated with them.
Speaker:So yes, uh, my name is Richard Lim.
Speaker:I have a, the podcast This American President.
Speaker:Have done it for almost a decade.
Speaker:Next year will be 10 years.
Speaker:Uh, you mentioned, uh, Scott, the second half of your podcast.
Speaker:The second half of my podcast is my buddy Michael, uh, Michael
Speaker:Neal, and he's the techie guy.
Speaker:And so he's great.
Speaker:There'd be no podcast without him.
Speaker:And, uh, he puts up with me.
Speaker:Uh, but, uh, yeah, about 10 years ago, I was in a job that I took just
Speaker:for the money, which is not a good thing to do, and so I was miserable.
Speaker:Uh, the job was oversold to me, so I wasn't doing what I w- I, my skill
Speaker:set was or, you know, I, I wasn't doing anything I was interested in.
Speaker:And so in those situations, you try to stay sane, and I was thinking of
Speaker:avenues of escape, and doing a podcast, uh, was something that, uh, just a lot
Speaker:of people were suggesting at the time.
Speaker:They, they, they knew I, I was the, the guy that in every group setting,
Speaker:I always had that random history fact.
Speaker:Uh, and so they would say, "Oh, you sh- you know, you should start a podcast."
Speaker:The podcasts were all the rage.
Speaker:So Michael, being a very techie person, he and, and having
Speaker:listened to a lot of podcasts, he said, "Hey, yeah, I'm actually
Speaker:interested in starting a podcast."
Speaker:And when you start a podcast, uh, y- you literally, y- you can plan it
Speaker:out, but literally at some point you just need to sit down and record.
Speaker:Yep
Speaker:and so that's what we did.
Speaker:Uh, I scripted episodes.
Speaker:Back then when I was, uh, had less obligations in my life, I
Speaker:was… I had more time to script.
Speaker:Uh, and, and my buddy Michael at the time also had less obligations, so
Speaker:he did a lot of the sound editing.
Speaker:And so yeah, that's, that's how it started.
Speaker:And, years later, now, you know, at the time we rented a microphone and
Speaker:had a, um, uh, rented out space at a library and then now we have…
Speaker:I, I have my own microphone, and I, I have, uh, space in my house now.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:so yeah, um, I, I think that's some form of progress.
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:yeah, a- as far as the book goes, it- it's funny because, so my
Speaker:podcast is about presidents, and
Speaker:what
Speaker:different
Speaker:that?
Speaker:Like, what made you choose that avenue?
Speaker:Yeah, it's funny because, well, first of all, I, I think, and I'm sure
Speaker:you've gone through this, whenever you love history, you always think
Speaker:of, "Oh, this topic would make a great book or a great movie," right?
Speaker:I mean, there's so many moments in history.
Speaker:So, uh, and, and I think it's w- been one of those things where I, I,
Speaker:I've always wanted to write a book.
Speaker:I think that at some point when you've studied something so much,
Speaker:you start thinking, "Yeah, someone should write a book on this
Speaker:subject." So I have had different phases with different presidents.
Speaker:When I was a kid, it was about, it was the 30th anniversary of JFK's assassination
Speaker:1993, and documentaries, movies, books came out about him, so I got hooked.
Speaker:And when, when you start reading about a president, you read about JFK, y-
Speaker:you learn about other presidents.
Speaker:You learn about Eisenhower, Nixon, Johnson, and so you get interested
Speaker:in them, and before you know…
Speaker:So I got obsessed with that era.
Speaker:When I went to college, I got obsessed with Lincoln, and then finally afterwards,
Speaker:I got obsessed with Washington.
Speaker:And the reason why was because I was on a vacation with my family.
Speaker:This was 2007, so almost 20 years ago.
Speaker:And I was at, at a family reunion and talking to a relative who was from China,
Speaker:and he did not speak a lick of English.
Speaker:But my dad was translating for us, and we were talking about politics.
Speaker:You know, us guys talking about politics, uh, you know, us nerdy, manly men.
Speaker:Sure
Speaker:and he, he was talking about mainly the Iraq War, and he was bashing American
Speaker:foreign policy and all this stuff.
Speaker:And it's like, okay, you know, I, I had my own opinion, but I'd
Speaker:love to hear just his perspective.
Speaker:And then the conversation veered into, randomly into history, and he said, just
Speaker:kind of out of nowhere, he said, " The historical figure I admire so much is
Speaker:George Washington." And I thought about that, and I, I, I was thinking, "Here's a
Speaker:guy that lives in a completely different country, 200-plus years later, and he's
Speaker:saying he loves George Washington."
Speaker:And I, I wondered why.
Speaker:What, what about him was so compelling?
Speaker:And he's one of those, Washington's one of those figures, he's so familiar.
Speaker:He's everywhere.
Speaker:He's on our currency.
Speaker:He's in our books.
Speaker:He's on a mountain in… Car- his face is carved into a mountain.
Speaker:And what do young people learn about him today?
Speaker:They learn really two things.
Speaker:The first is that he was the first president, and the second is that he owned
Speaker:slaves, and both of those things are true.
Speaker:Mm-hmm
Speaker:m- with that said, okay, first president.
Speaker:Well, what did that mean?
Speaker:How did he get there?
Speaker:And I, I learned he was just so much more than the first president.
Speaker:He was, obviously, he was our Founding Father, but he was also
Speaker:a figure that really changed the definition of greatness.
Speaker:And when a man has a chance to be the most powerful person in the country
Speaker:and completely, utterly gives that up.
Speaker:And when I say utterly gives that up, I mean he could have… He, he, he
Speaker:had very strong opinions about what the country should do policy-wise
Speaker:after the war in order to survive.
Speaker:He could have either stayed on and fudged it and said, "You know, the war's over.
Speaker:People want me to leave, but, you know, I think they need me." Or if not
Speaker:fudge it, he could have kind of coerced Congress in some way or influenced them
Speaker:and say, "You better do this, because I think this is the right thing to do."
Speaker:After two terms as president, he had very strong opinions on
Speaker:which candidate would be better.
Speaker:He could have influenced the election that way.
Speaker:Both times he just said, "No, I'm letting go. The p- the people are the ones to
Speaker:decide that." That's incredible restraint, and that's something that I think has
Speaker:incredible power around the world.
Speaker:And we Americans don't understand that power.
Speaker:We take it for granted, but it has, that story has incredible power.
Speaker:Uh, and I th- that's why I wrote the book, so that we know that,
Speaker:the, the power of that story
Speaker:That's so great.
Speaker:So what, let's, what, what's the name of the book, just so we can
Speaker:yeah, yeah.
Speaker:It's called Refusing a Crown: How George Washington Changed the World
Speaker:I it.
Speaker:So like you said, the, these are the two things we're first introduced
Speaker:to with George Washington, but it's because we have 200 years to just,
Speaker:to dumb him down to those two things.
Speaker:When you really think about how he's setting such a precedence of
Speaker:the government of the country we have today with no real roadmap,
Speaker:with no r- real blueprint, right?
Speaker:It's so easy for us to go back and go, wow, it's, that must have been
Speaker:so easy for him, or it was so simple for him, or of course he did that.
Speaker:But this is a person who's really doesn't know what the outcome's going to be,
Speaker:and he's just, he's giving it his best.
Speaker:He's looking at it from different directions and going,
Speaker:"This is the best chance."
Speaker:He's very well-read.
Speaker:He loves the classics.
Speaker:He loves these older Roman emperors and their examples and what they have done.
Speaker:So he's using some kind of history to guide him into his choices, but has
Speaker:no idea how this is gonna turn out.
Speaker:And the way it's turned out makes us just belittle all of those choices
Speaker:and intentions that he took because it's, it turned out so well that we
Speaker:just don't even think about it now.
Speaker:Yeah, but
Speaker:those choices and what he did.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:A- and I'm glad you mention that because the founding s- especially
Speaker:when you study the founding of America versus the founding of almost any other
Speaker:country, America's founding looks so linear, and it looks so neat, right?
Speaker:Here we were, these happy colonists.
Speaker:Britain taxed us.
Speaker:We got mad.
Speaker:We declared independence.
Speaker:We won, created a constitution, had a pre- you know, created a,
Speaker:the presidency, and, uh, everyone lived happily ever after, right?
Speaker:It just seems so linear, but what people forget is that it was an insane gamble.
Speaker:You have, uh, basically a, a people that have decided we are going to create a
Speaker:free society, freer than any society that ever existed, and this is a time
Speaker:when monarchy, and I talk about this in the book because this is also the
Speaker:story of A- A- America's transition away from monarchy as a legitimate system
Speaker:of government, where every single, virtually every single government in
Speaker:the world was a monarchy of some form.
Speaker:Even, like, tribal governments had some form of monarchies.
Speaker:And for a country to say, "We're not gonna have that, and we're gonna…
Speaker:We actually believe that the best kind of society is a free society. It's
Speaker:not only the right kind of society, but it actually will work better than
Speaker:the previous society." And when I say monarchy, it isn't just monarchy.
Speaker:It's also having a nobility.
Speaker:It's also having an aristoc- aristocracy.
Speaker:This was seen as a natural form of government.
Speaker:This was, like, you know, having an aristocracy uh, a nobility
Speaker:was natural, having a monarchy.
Speaker:Th- they, they would write about how monarchs were basically a, a, a
Speaker:lineage all, going all the way back to Adam, that in a sense Adam was the
Speaker:first monarch or that the Israelite patriarchs like, uh, Abraham and, and
Speaker:Isaac and Jacob were monarchs in a sense.
Speaker:And so the… And the way a father is the head of the household, a
Speaker:monarch is the head of the country.
Speaker:And for Americans to say, "No, that's actually wrong, and from what we studied
Speaker:in scripture, it, that's actually not God's ideal form of government."
Speaker:And so they created this new system, but then it was a question of, well,
Speaker:what does this actually look like?
Speaker:What does it mean for a country to be a republic?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:you're like, first of all, you have to remember all these people really see
Speaker:themselves as British subjects after winning the French and Indian War, right?
Speaker:They're like, "We're British subjects." And then when they start
Speaker:to get upset about taxation without representation, they're not mad at
Speaker:the king, they're mad at Parliament.
Speaker:So they still
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:as loyal to their king, and it's like you said, it's not, this is
Speaker:not happens, like boom, boom, boom.
Speaker:It's takes a while, and it's really when Thomas Paine comes out with Common Sense
Speaker:that they start to see, oh, it's not biblically correct to have a king, right?
Speaker:And that's when they start to break down that idea.
Speaker:But I, I tell people all the time, it doesn't happen overnight,
Speaker:and it's not linear like that.
Speaker:It was, we're British subjects.
Speaker:Now it's Parliament who's not representing us.
Speaker:Now it's the king that's the root of it all.
Speaker:It takes time to get to that process of thinking, and I like how you did that
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:It was a very dynamic process, and by the time 1776 rolls around and
Speaker:the founders declare independence, th- it was clear that they wanted
Speaker:to create a republic with no king.
Speaker:And, and there were these broad principles they believed in that
Speaker:everyone had God-given rights, everyone, you know, was of equal, equal worth.
Speaker:Eh, but how does that actually play out in practice?
Speaker:And that was something that was debated, and it's still being debated today.
Speaker:So even something as simple as should the country- should a
Speaker:republic have a standing army?
Speaker:Because for centuries, standing armies were symbols of tyranny, and there was
Speaker:this idea that just having a standing army was a reflection that the society
Speaker:had already become corrupted because the people fighting for the country
Speaker:weren't really fighting for the country, they were fighting for money, right?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:And so that expectation unfortunately led to a lot of suffering by the soldiers.
Speaker:They weren't being paid.
Speaker:The people that were fighting weren't the ones that republican
Speaker:theorists thought would be fighting.
Speaker:They thought all the landowners would be fighting 'cause they had the great
Speaker:incentive to fight, and that was the, the republican soldier were the landowners.
Speaker:Well, it turned out that it was al- mostly the poor people that
Speaker:were fighting, and they needed money, but they weren't being paid.
Speaker:And so all these questions about a republic and the, just the practical
Speaker:questions Washington had to deal with as commander-in-chief, and
Speaker:he had to win a war respecting these very fluid principles, right?
Speaker:And, and, uh, you know, principles that were still being tested.
Speaker:And so no general had to do that before, where they had to, where they
Speaker:had to, you know, cons- they, they had to fight under republican principles.
Speaker:And the fact that he succeeded, that, that not only did they win the war,
Speaker:but the fact that he, he ended the war basically with the country believing
Speaker:he had adhered to these principles is one of the great achievements.
Speaker:And so wh- when I talk about Washington resigning his commission,
Speaker:it isn't just about that moment.
Speaker:That moment is an incredible moment, but it's everything that led to
Speaker:that moment that was necessary.
Speaker:For him, he ha- he respected civilian authority in a way that,
Speaker:uh, had never been done before.
Speaker:He respected the rights of even British loyalists, which was
Speaker:something that stunned the world.
Speaker:And so yeah, it, it, it was an incredible challenge, and he was able to do it.
Speaker:Yeah, I really liked how you talked about the Articles of Confederation
Speaker:and how everyone had to agree, and here you have these 13 colonies who
Speaker:really see themselves as independent you know, entities, and Rhode Island
Speaker:was the big holdout in a, in a tariff that could have helped pay the soldiers,
Speaker:and then they didn't pay the soldiers.
Speaker:And and then George Washington has to overcome a couple of, you know,
Speaker:American soldiers seeing, the British pay for things, and people giving
Speaker:them food 'cause they have gold and, and he has to kind of overcome that.
Speaker:I really enjoyed how he has to kinda keep it together, what a
Speaker:leader does to keep it together.
Speaker:And I really appreciated how you point out who the Republican patriot
Speaker:is because it is… You know, we do believe, again, the idealism of our
Speaker:forefathers is the same idealism we give to the Republican patriot, is this
Speaker:landowner, and he's- he wants to fight for his land, and that really wasn't it.
Speaker:It was, like, indentured servants and immigrants and people who
Speaker:wanna make their name and receive some reward for doing this.
Speaker:Or the landowners would send their enslaved out, or they would
Speaker:pay a fine to not go, right?
Speaker:And so I really enjoyed how you talked about that.
Speaker:What I find most interesting, too, is I was just in Marietta, Ohio.
Speaker:So Marietta, Ohio, is the first city in the Northwest Territory,
Speaker:after the American Revolution.
Speaker:And their cemetery there has more Revolutionary War officer graves than
Speaker:any other cemetery in America, the
Speaker:Wow
Speaker:is 'cause they were given all these land grants as payment for their
Speaker:service in the American Revolution.
Speaker:And so
Speaker:That's so interesting.
Speaker:Wow
Speaker:was w- how they were paid.
Speaker:Thank goodness, right?
Speaker:At least somebody, you know, bought this land in Ohio and- or
Speaker:it belonged to after the war and the British seceded it to America.
Speaker:The Congress gave it as payment to all of these officers, and they went,
Speaker:and they staked their claim, and they made this city, Marietta, Ohio.
Speaker:And then when they died, they're all buried in this one cemetery.
Speaker:So it really lends itself to this idea, like, people joined the military to make
Speaker:their name, to make their lives, right?
Speaker:That this was a way to get your fortune.
Speaker:Advancement.
Speaker:and so
Speaker:Right
Speaker:Ohio, and that graveyard is a very good example of that.
Speaker:And when I was there, I was like, most people don't know that most
Speaker:Ameri- American Revolution officers of any cemetery are in Ohio, right?
Speaker:Right, yeah.
Speaker:That's so interesting, yeah.
Speaker:And that, that was the western frontier at the time.
Speaker:totally.
Speaker:Totally.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:right?
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well I'll, I'll, I'll have to check that out.
Speaker:Where, uh, is that near… Uh, what big city is that near over there?
Speaker:Or what part of Ohio?
Speaker:past Wheeling.
Speaker:It's along the Ohio River.
Speaker:So I just did the Ohio River from Pittsburgh all the way to
Speaker:Louisville, and I stopped at
Speaker:Okay
Speaker:and that Marietta, Ohio.
Speaker:And usually I'm not a Ohio fan, I'll put it out right now, 'cause I went to Penn
Speaker:State, so I avoid Ohio at all costs, but that was this super cool town, and I
Speaker:Sure, sure.
Speaker:and that,
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:do on my channel, Richard, is I go to the locations, right?
Speaker:Yep, yep
Speaker:like that's the whole… Like, I take you there and I show you.
Speaker:So I take you to that cemetery, and I show you the graves, and I talk
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:There, there's nothing like going to historic sites.
Speaker:And I, I remember the first time I went to Washington, DC, I was in college.
Speaker:And to go there and to see … And I know, you know, it's, it's the swamp and
Speaker:all that stuff, but the historic stuff.
Speaker:You go there and you see the, the, obviously the monuments that everyone
Speaker:knows, but just even the little things, to know that, oh, this president
Speaker:was here, and this statesman was there, and it just blows my mind.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:So I, I love… I think your idea of, for this podcast is brilliant, because
Speaker:when you go there, you actually feel it.
Speaker:You breathe it.
Speaker:You s- you know, you, you experience it
Speaker:I loved, in DC, we'll go off a tangent right here.
Speaker:I went behind Ford's Theatre into the
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:right?
Speaker:And that,
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:it hasn't changed much since 1865.
Speaker:So you can
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:the door John Wilkes Booth ran out.
Speaker:You can see the path he took through the alleyway on the horse to get
Speaker:away, and you can stand there.
Speaker:And everybody knows the front of Ford's Theatre and go to the Petersen
Speaker:House, Washington's carried across.
Speaker:But to go behind it into
Speaker:Lincoln, yeah
Speaker:it's just like another place there for you to kinda stand in American history.
Speaker:So like you said, it's there for you.
Speaker:Like, it's yours.
Speaker:Go see it.
Speaker:Yeah, it, it's one of those things where it, when you read this stuff
Speaker:as a kid, you just think, oh, it happened somewhere out there.
Speaker:But it, it, it happened in a very particular place.
Speaker:All this stuff happens a- in places on planet Earth and you, you can go there.
Speaker:It's incred- And to be able to go to a place like that, I, I
Speaker:personally think it's a privilege to, to act- Like, the fact…
Speaker:I think it's cool that we allow this kind of stuff to happen.
Speaker:And it's funny because I remember… So Buffalo, New York, has a, a, a
Speaker:surprising amount of presidential history.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:Millard F- Millard Fillmore
Speaker:taking the oath
Speaker:yeah, Gro-
Speaker:our
Speaker:yeah, yeah,
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Cleveland, one of my favorite obscure presidents is from there.
Speaker:And yes, McKinley was killed there.
Speaker:Teddy Roosevelt, you can go to the historic site.
Speaker:And I, I went to not just where Teddy was inaugurated or, or rather
Speaker:took the oath of office, but also where McKinley was assassinated.
Speaker:the boulder.
Speaker:a normal n- it's just a normal neighborhood now.
Speaker:And I, I just think, I, I walk around and I'm like, do you people, uh, who live here
Speaker:have any idea how important this place is?
Speaker:It's just, uh, it's just in the middle of the neighborhood.
Speaker:They didn't maintain whatever the site was.
Speaker:It's just… And, and, you know, and it's crazy to me.
Speaker:That's where the president was assassinated
Speaker:Richard, we could talk about this for a while.
Speaker:Garfield.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:of the street, and
Speaker:Right
Speaker:it because they don't want people running out to the middle of the street, and
Speaker:all he has on the mall is two little signs on the mall that's saying he was
Speaker:assassinated across the street over there.
Speaker:And I'm like,
Speaker:Poor guy.
Speaker:Garfield?"
Speaker:Poor guy.
Speaker:I know
Speaker:Not, I mean, uh, four presidents have been assassinated.
Speaker:They're all obviously very important moments in American
Speaker:history and, and tragic.
Speaker:But um, yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker:And then being able to go to the Kennedy assassination site in Dallas,
Speaker:and I, I just think this place is so, it's so, what's the word?
Speaker:Seared into the American memory.
Speaker:And people drive through it every day.
Speaker:I mean, it's, it's just, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna drive through Dealey
Speaker:Plaza," but it just blows my mind.
Speaker:That's where this… probably poor choice of words.
Speaker:I didn't intend that.
Speaker:But it, it, it's incredible that that's the place where it happened
Speaker:Yeah, and honestly, like, it's, it's just like you said, it's still
Speaker:a part of our American experience.
Speaker:Like, it's… That's why it's so important to get out there, because you may not
Speaker:know that you're walking in history.
Speaker:It's right in your own backyard.
Speaker:Everybody
Speaker:Right
Speaker:right there.
Speaker:It's… But you may not know what happened there.
Speaker:That's what's so important about studying it and going, "Oh, that happened here?
Speaker:Right, right
Speaker:gosh." And when you talk about, like, I loved this idea of George Washington
Speaker:squashing this rebellion by really humbling himself and putting his glasses
Speaker:on, I loved this, Richard, because I'm a John Wayne fan, and if you ever saw
Speaker:The Girl in the Yellow Ribbon, he's a,
Speaker:Hmm
Speaker:a cavalry officer, and he's going to rally his troops, but he's old, he puts his
Speaker:glasses on, and he feels embarrassed to do it, but his men really, like, resonate
Speaker:that he has given his life to us, right?
Speaker:And when you talk about George Washington doing this, and how George Washington
Speaker:was very calculated in how he acted, but also that he was a figurehead to
Speaker:his men, and he served them for eight years as their commander-in-chief,
Speaker:and now they wanna rebel, and now they wanna, you know, put him in, in the
Speaker:front, and he puts on his glasses.
Speaker:And whether or not he needed them, which he probably did, a moment where the
Speaker:men feel so connected to him they, they s- look at him completely different,
Speaker:and now he actually, in that moment, w- e- even what he said, it makes his
Speaker:men realize again that he does have the best interest of all of them at
Speaker:heart, and I loved that humanization.
Speaker:And I don't know, I'm not g- we can't, I mean, we can't speculate if George
Speaker:did it on purpose or not, right?
Speaker:But that
Speaker:Right
Speaker:is so human, and it just shows you how human he was as a leader.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:The, the Newburgh Conspiracy, it, it's one of those stories that I, I honestly
Speaker:wonder why it's not more well-known.
Speaker:And, and I, I, I don't wonder sometimes because when you learn about the
Speaker:Revolution, you wanna learn about the battles, and crossing of the
Speaker:Delaware, and all that stuff is awesome.
Speaker:But I often feel like the Washington of 1782, 1783 is, is peak Washington.
Speaker:Here's a man that is having to deal with the most fundamental aspects of what it
Speaker:means to be a republic, and what it means to be a republic is that you have to
Speaker:solve the dilemma that every country has to solve which is how do you, and, and
Speaker:you being in the, a, a veteran understand this, this idea of civilian control.
Speaker:How do you empower a military to defend the nation, but to not
Speaker:empower it so much that it threatens the nation that it's protecting?
Speaker:And that is a dilemma that so many countries around the
Speaker:world have not figured out.
Speaker:In fact, there are countries that actually have written into their
Speaker:constitution that a coup can happen because they figure well, uh, it's liable
Speaker:to happen, so let's just find a way to kinda regulate it in the Constitution.
Speaker:And America has had the most remarkable record of civilian control in human
Speaker:history, and we've had regular elections, never been threatened by the military.
Speaker:The military has done its j- job, and then goes home, and that's remarkable.
Speaker:And as Americans, we, we just take it for granted because it just kind of
Speaker:as- we just kind of assume, oh yeah, I mean, we don't even think about it.
Speaker:But the, that, the fact that we've had this remarkable record of stable
Speaker:elections and civilian control of the military that was almost not the case.
Speaker:It almost didn't happen right at the beginning, and one historian says
Speaker:that had that trust been shattered- between the civilian the civilians,
Speaker:the pop- the pop- population and the military, it can, it, it's like glass.
Speaker:It won't ever be the same.
Speaker:It, it cannot be reestablished easily.
Speaker:And so at that moment, it, it was literally at a breaking point, and
Speaker:Washington had to appeal to his men, and many of them were resentful of him.
Speaker:And
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:there are, there are a lot of different theories about what w-
Speaker:was the extent of the Newburgh conspiracy how much were officers
Speaker:in cahoots with members of Congress.
Speaker:And it w- the truth is, is that we'll never know.
Speaker:We will never… It's not like they documented everything.
Speaker:We'll never know that if there really was a super hatched out plan or if it was
Speaker:kind of amorphous and, and disorganized.
Speaker:It was probably somewhere in between.
Speaker:But the fact of the matter is, is that they were playing with fire, and it's not
Speaker:eas- a- and if something, uh, it's like f- you, with, with fire, it could break
Speaker:out, and you could have a situation where the soldiers were rebelling, and they were
Speaker:really considering disobeying Congress.
Speaker:And they honestly, it's, it's hard to blame them in some ways because they were
Speaker:not being treated fairly, and the rank and file soldier was not being treated fairly.
Speaker:And so the fact that Washington was able to diffuse that with some f- a
Speaker:form of incredible stagecraft, and hi- the, the speech he gave is probably the
Speaker:most eloquent speech he ever delivered.
Speaker:And he was not known, of all his gifts, he was not known for being a great speaker.
Speaker:And so that and then that gesture of the, the glasses you
Speaker:could say really saved America
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, always say, like, we go from 1781, Yorktown, to the Constitution,
Speaker:right, 1787, and what are these years in between, right?
Speaker:Like, what's happening in America?
Speaker:What's governing?
Speaker:What's ruling?
Speaker:What's going on?
Speaker:And that, this is a prime example of that.
Speaker:Like, this is like people are starting to talk.
Speaker:People are starting to get restless.
Speaker:There are groups forming together who kinda like, " Well, if they're not gonna
Speaker:do it, we're gonna do it, and if we're not gonna get recognition, then we're gonna
Speaker:take it." And George Washington, at this time, is very precarious in trying to keep
Speaker:the plan going, keep this moving forward because there is a greater plan here.
Speaker:We just… The Articles of Confederation weren't the ones.
Speaker:We gotta get something better in place, and this is when he looks at, you
Speaker:know, what the play, right, that he really loved, and, like, he starts to
Speaker:Cato
Speaker:at, ah, Cato, like, how do we have an executive branch that's, or, and, and
Speaker:the different parts of government, and how do we have civilian control
Speaker:of the military like you had said?
Speaker:How do we put someone in power who is not absolute, right?
Speaker:And they're, they're working through all of this, and it takes this time,
Speaker:but during this time, people are gonna restless, and people are gonna talk,
Speaker:and people are gonna whisper, and, and this i- this is a great example of that.
Speaker:And like you said, I wish more people knew about it, and how George
Speaker:Washington was the guy who stopped it.
Speaker:George Washington was the guy who put a squash to it, and he didn't put a
Speaker:squash to it to put himself into power.
Speaker:He didn't put a squash in it to put himself up front.
Speaker:He squashed it because he knew that this could unravel what they're moving
Speaker:forward to, and he knew if he did it, because these are his guys, these are
Speaker:his people, he's fought with them, if he just c- goes out there as a real
Speaker:person and say, "This is n- really not what you want, and I get it, but this
Speaker:is where we're moving forward to," and he really humbled himself and did that.
Speaker:I was just… I think more people do need to know that about him
Speaker:Absolutely, and, uh, what, uh, what people also don't realize is that because of
Speaker:the, the nation's system of government, the, the economy was in complete shambles.
Speaker:The, the nation's credit was in the toilet, and some historians have
Speaker:compared the economic crisis during the founding of the country, during
Speaker:the Revolutionary War, to the Great Depression in, in terms of the effect.
Speaker:So, so the leadership in America is having to deal not just with
Speaker:winning a war, but with this uh, you know, essentially a, a terrible
Speaker:depression which ruined the credit.
Speaker:So it's … Yes, the soldiers were starving, and it, it was so galling for
Speaker:them because, uh, America's currency, I mean, it was a patchwork of, of currency.
Speaker:Congress was printing money, IOUs really that became a form of
Speaker:currency, and they were completely worthless, and there wasn't a lot of
Speaker:trust, uh, that they would be paid.
Speaker:And so if you're a merchant, who are you gonna sell to?
Speaker:Are you gonna sell to American soldiers, uh, and get currency that
Speaker:is worthless, or are you gonna sell to the British who have sound currency?
Speaker:And so y- yeah, you have to imagine how angry they were, w- how angry
Speaker:Washington was seeing this happen.
Speaker:And so … And all of that really could trace back to the fact that, that
Speaker:there really wasn't a government, and Washington didn't have a, a … The fact
Speaker:that he respected civilian authority is amazing because it wasn't clear
Speaker:w- who was the, the authority was.
Speaker:He had, in a sense, 14 masters.
Speaker:There was a national government that was very feckless but nonetheless
Speaker:had control over him, uh, which he accepted, but he also had all these
Speaker:states that he had to defer to, very few of which were wanting to bear
Speaker:their share of the burden of the war.
Speaker:And so yeah, it was, uh, unbelievable that it, it turned out so well
Speaker:given all of these problems.
Speaker:And then he, then he resigns his commission in Annapolis.
Speaker:And then the reason why it's in Annapolis is at the time
Speaker:that was the capital, right?
Speaker:the capital was moving around.
Speaker:They used to say it was the capital on wheels.
Speaker:It would end up in New York for a little bit.
Speaker:Obviously Philadelphia had been the capital.
Speaker:So yeah, it was, it had moved around and, and it was in Annapolis for a bit
Speaker:and that's why it happens there.
Speaker:I always tell people, well, it's not, it's not because it was the Maryland
Speaker:State Capitol or Naval Academy.
Speaker:It
Speaker:Right
Speaker:that.
Speaker:It has to do with that was the capital of America at the time, just for like a year.
Speaker:It wasn't even very
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But he resigns his commission there, and again, he has people
Speaker:who are kind of against him, people who are not big fans of his.
Speaker:H- and Jefferson really helps him with the theatrics, the visuals, right?
Speaker:Telling him to bow making sure that the Congress doesn't bow in return, but
Speaker:just nods because, you know, Congress doesn't answer to the the military.
Speaker:The
Speaker:to military.
Speaker:answers to Congress, and then he does the same thing.
Speaker:He reads an impassioned one-page letter about his service to the country, and
Speaker:about being in the mud and the swamps, and hungry and tired, and seeing his men.
Speaker:And there's not a dry eye in the room he's very emotional and
Speaker:can connect to the people there
Speaker:One of my favorite accounts of that moment is from James McHenry, who,
Speaker:uh, had been an officer, and he says that the moment was overpowering.
Speaker:He was writing to his fiancée, and, and he talked about how the resignation
Speaker:during that moment, it wasn't just that moment, but it was the, the memories
Speaker:were flooding back of the whole war and just how unlikely this whole endeavor
Speaker:had been and, and unlikely that they were at the moment they were in,
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:a moment of victory with the leader giving up power and all
Speaker:it took to get to that point.
Speaker:And it's one of those things where sometimes as a, as a historian, you
Speaker:wonder if the people living it at the time understood what they were doing
Speaker:and understood how remarkable that was.
Speaker:And, and McHenry's letter w- it really shows that, that at least he did, but
Speaker:I'm sure the people there understood not, not just how unique it was, um, but how
Speaker:just privileged they were to be there.
Speaker:It, it was … They, they understood that they had won a war
Speaker:that they felt was the cause of mankind, that transcended America.
Speaker:It was about the rights of man, and they understood just the, the unlikeliness
Speaker:of that victory, and they understood how unique George Washington was to do that.
Speaker:So it, it's one of those things where you, you think about what it was like to be
Speaker:there, and I, I think it, it takes a lot to get people to cry at a public moment.
Speaker:Yeah, dudes.
Speaker:You, y- yeah, it's not like people are crying during a presidential inauguration.
Speaker:I mean, it, those moments are powerful, but it's not like
Speaker:they're, they're in tears.
Speaker:But when you read about how people felt at that moment, and, and Washington himself,
Speaker:where uh, McHenry says that when he read the part of the speech that mentioned the
Speaker:soldiers, y- no man in America saw the suffering of sol- uh, saw more suffering
Speaker:of the soldiers than George Washington.
Speaker:He saw it, he saw, he kn- he knew the soldiers, so many of them that had died,
Speaker:and so hi- his McHenry wrote that his voice faltered and his hand shook and
Speaker:see the payer shaking,
Speaker:yeah, yeah, and it was just such an a moment that I think is without comparison
Speaker:really in, in all of American history.
Speaker:I know, and I think that moment, Richard, like when I think about
Speaker:it, that cements him as you believe in him as a leader, right?
Speaker:It kinda gets him in the, his foot in the door to lead the the
Speaker:First Continental Congress, right?
Speaker:As they start to write the Declaration of
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The Constitutional Convention
Speaker:And then it cements him as being their first pick for president, right?
Speaker:Because here's a guy who's, not afraid to be vulnerable, he's
Speaker:not afraid to be honest, right?
Speaker:He doesn't care how this looks.
Speaker:It's authentic, and people can see that, and they so moved to belief, right?
Speaker:And when you get to this, to this real change of loyalty, right, where you're
Speaker:like, "I'll do anything for this person.
Speaker:I will walk…" And when it's your country and your government and it,
Speaker:that moment, I think, cemented the leadership that Washington is gonna
Speaker:have in the rest of his career, is cemented in that resignation speech.
Speaker:And I really feel like that kinda sets the tone for the next part of his career here.
Speaker:Yeah, and, and historians have rightfully pointed out that it, it wasn't a
Speaker:dilemma in the sense that Washington was really considering staying, which
Speaker:I think speaks to his character, right?
Speaker:But that's not the point.
Speaker:It's everything that, that … It's everything that it took to get
Speaker:to that moment where a, a leader would be willing to leave you know,
Speaker:having won the war, having respected civilian authority h- throughout his
Speaker:entire tenure as commander-in-chief.
Speaker:And yes, by the time he resigns his commission, he is the most admired
Speaker:man arguably on planet Earth,
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:which is incredible.
Speaker:And there's a reason why he w- he was unanimously elected the c- the president
Speaker:of the Constitutional Convention and then as his two terms as president.
Speaker:Even his second election as president after serving a term in which he made
Speaker:decisions that, like any president, is going to disappoint half the country
Speaker:he makes decis- he has to make very hard decisions because he's the first
Speaker:one that has to take Republican theory and turn it into practice, right, for
Speaker:this, uh, this, uh, untried system.
Speaker:And so very fundamental questions like does a republic have a
Speaker:strong national government?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:the time there was this sense that republics should have
Speaker:weak national governments.
Speaker:Wasn't it a strong national government that we had rebelled against, the
Speaker:strong one coming out of London?
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:can we be a republic and still have that kind of system?
Speaker:Can we have a republic where the national government has powers of taxation?
Speaker:Didn't we protest over taxes?
Speaker:Can a n- should a national government have a, a national bank?
Speaker:Uh, rather should a republican government have a national bank?
Speaker:Should a republican government have a, a, an executive with power?
Speaker:Didn't we rebel against a, a, a executive with too much power?
Speaker:These are very difficult questions, and they're questions we still debate today.
Speaker:They're, they're not questions that, that I think have clear answers.
Speaker:And so the fact that he made decisions that disappointed people, because
Speaker:that's every president is inevitably going to disappoint some people, and
Speaker:yet still get elected unanimously during the second election just
Speaker:shows how much people admire him.
Speaker:And I think what's interesting is his relationship in
Speaker:particular with Patrick Henry
Speaker:Okay
Speaker:Patrick Henry was he obviously another founder from Virginia and he
Speaker:he loved Washington and yet when it came to ratify the Constitution he
Speaker:was on the other side of that debate.
Speaker:He opposed the ratification of the Constitution.
Speaker:He said that it would lead to tyranny
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:and he was p- probably the most prominent anti-Federalist.
Speaker:Well, when the Constitution is ratified and Patrick Henry, he is on the losing
Speaker:side of that debate, Patrick Henry becomes a, an elector in the Electoral
Speaker:College and guess who he votes for?
Speaker:George Washington because in Patrick Henry's mind he could say, "Well I
Speaker:disagree strongly with Washington in this but he is such a great man and a
Speaker:great leader that there's no one else."
Speaker:And even the anti-Federalists and Jeffersonians agreed
Speaker:that they needed Washington
Speaker:when he squashes the Whiskey Rebellion, right?
Speaker:He puts on his uniform again to do
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:right?
Speaker:And so he's again with
Speaker:this looks like, what… And he does it, and he's very adamant
Speaker:about the military going.
Speaker:And what always gets me about the Whiskey Rebellion is, A, I grew up in
Speaker:Canonsburg, all of this took place, right?
Speaker:And so I'm… I love the Whiskey Rebellion flag.
Speaker:It's probably one of my favorite flags, and I love the I- I love that in our
Speaker:parades, our Fourth of July parades, we always have guys march through
Speaker:represent the Whiskey Rebellion.
Speaker:Like, we're so proud of
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:it happened there, right?
Speaker:Right
Speaker:it was Washington's friends.
Speaker:These are people he served with, right?
Speaker:So he's like, "Not only do I have to go and stop you guys, but you know me.
Speaker:Like, we served together. Like, like some of you people, like Braddock, like you
Speaker:know me." And so he puts on his uniform.
Speaker:Now, his, his… I like the way he logics this.
Speaker:It's like, this is not taxation without representation.
Speaker:You have representation.
Speaker:You have people who represent you, that you voted for, that voted for this tax.
Speaker:So now that you're rebelling against it, taking up arms instead of doing your
Speaker:civic duty and voting those people who represent you, if they don't represent
Speaker:your best interests, out of office.
Speaker:Instead, you're gonna take up arms, and that's a problem.
Speaker:That's against the law, and now I'm gonna come here and stop it.
Speaker:And I'm gonna wear my uniform, not only to show that I'm Commander in Chief of
Speaker:the military, but I also have military experience, and most of you guys know
Speaker:because we served together, right?
Speaker:And
Speaker:Right
Speaker:it, it's squashed before it even starts, right?
Speaker:There's no even, like, a real interaction
Speaker:right
Speaker:of that symbolism
Speaker:Well, it, it's interesting.
Speaker:So, uh, a couple things.
Speaker:The first is that sometimes I think there's this idea that
Speaker:the American Revolution was this… How do I describe it?
Speaker:It, it, it was this kind of embrace of, of just all out, you know,
Speaker:anti-authority kind of movement, right?
Speaker:It, it really wasn't.
Speaker:It- the, the whole idea behind it was ordered liberty.
Speaker:The founders embraced the concept of ordered liberty.
Speaker:So when the Boston Tea Party happens, not every founder approved of it.
Speaker:Washington, in his letters, uh, qualifies his his, what, his feelings about it.
Speaker:He essentially says that, "Well, this is a reaction to British oppression.
Speaker:However, it isn't necessarily the best way to react," because it
Speaker:was essentially lawless, right?
Speaker:Destruction of, of property.
Speaker:And so for Washington and many of the founders, I mean, there's a
Speaker:reason why John Adams defended the British soldiers in the famous trial
Speaker:of the Boston Massacre, because he was making a point that we weren't
Speaker:pr- protesting against government authority, we were protesting against
Speaker:the un the tyrannical exercise of it.
Speaker:And the whole point of the founding, especially when you read the declaration,
Speaker:and it, it says that, uh, J- Jefferson's draft, uh, acknowledges that one does
Speaker:not overthrow government for, quote, "light and transient reasons." You,
Speaker:you do it because it's a long train of abuses, and you seek to create
Speaker:a good government in its place.
Speaker:And so for, for Washington the, the, the revolution was
Speaker:not against taxation per se.
Speaker:It was against unlawful tyrannical taxation without representation.
Speaker:And so what's interesting too about it is that the n- the nation was in debt.
Speaker:The states were in debt.
Speaker:And th- the system did not provide a way to pay for it, which led to all these
Speaker:problems, because instead of paying for it upfront, the Congress during the war just
Speaker:issued currency, uh, and IOUs, which then was actually, uh, it led to inflation,
Speaker:and inflation is a hidden tax, because everything gets more expensive, right?
Speaker:And the government's able to pay for these things, but at
Speaker:the expense of everyone else.
Speaker:So that was the result of not having s- a basic power to tax, right?
Speaker:And so, Hamilton sought to pay off the debt to create that revolving fund that
Speaker:would pay off the debt, and the question was how do you pay off that debt?
Speaker:Uh, what kinda taxes do you, do you pay?
Speaker:And that was hotly debated.
Speaker:Uh, the, the country relied chiefly on tariffs for revenue,
Speaker:but there was a shortfall.
Speaker:It needed more avenues to tax.
Speaker:And the problem is is that any aven- any, any type of taxation
Speaker:was going to anger a lot of people.
Speaker:And so the question was who do you tax?
Speaker:How do you tax?
Speaker:And there was this hope he had that a, a whiskey tax was a sin tax
Speaker:that- You could tax people that w- and it would discourage alcoholism.
Speaker:But at the same time whiskey was a form of currency in these places.
Speaker:So it, it, y- it led to all these problems.
Speaker:And I think if you, if one is honest with themselves, I, I think almost any
Speaker:form of taxation was gonna be problematic because Americans hated taxes that much.
Speaker:So again, these are the questions of how, how does a republic function?
Speaker:Does it tax its citizens?
Speaker:Um, and the founders believed that it did, but it had to be lawful taxation.
Speaker:Now, I think this illustrates a, a bigger point is that I don't think
Speaker:any … I don't think America had a president who hated being president
Speaker:more than George Washington.
Speaker:And part of it was the fact that he could only go downhill.
Speaker:He was the most admired person in the world at the time, and he knew
Speaker:that getting into politics… And he was not a political novice.
Speaker:He had served in the Virginia colonial legislature, so he knew
Speaker:how, how politics was, uh, brutal and he also knew that your, one's
Speaker:popularity could change very quickly.
Speaker:And so when he is elected president the first time, he literally says he feels
Speaker:like a culprit going to his execution.
Speaker:And but he also knows he has to do it.
Speaker:The country th- th- there are letters to him, I think it was Gouverneur
Speaker:Morris, I'll have to check though, but he literally says it, it's, it's,
Speaker:"You, you must become president."
Speaker:It isn't you should.
Speaker:It, it you must become president.
Speaker:We're not gonna survive without you.
Speaker:We have, we have questions that need to be answered, and you're the
Speaker:only guy we'll accept to answer, help us answer those questions.
Speaker:And so he hated being president, and I, I don't think he cherished having
Speaker:to squash the Risk- Whiskey Rebellion.
Speaker:Um, I think he did it because he felt it was right.
Speaker:But he … A- and it, it's really poignant that he ended up serving for eight
Speaker:years 'cause he didn't want it at all.
Speaker:And who … Why, why would he want it?
Speaker:He, he was already so beloved.
Speaker:And it's remarkable that history has judged his presidential decisions as
Speaker:being correct because at the time, he was being attacked in a way that
Speaker:I think surprises modern audiences.
Speaker:I mean, he was really being attacked viciously.
Speaker:Viciously.
Speaker:Paine wrote the whole Traitor to Liberty, right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Viciously
Speaker:and really got the nation together for the Revolution is now calling
Speaker:Washington the Traitor to Liberty.
Speaker:I think that hit him hard, right?
Speaker:And I think,
Speaker:goodness.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah
Speaker:I I like the fact that he has friends everywhere.
Speaker:He has friends that are Democratic Republicans, he has friends
Speaker:that are Federalists, right?
Speaker:And he's, he's kinda balancing it all.
Speaker:But I think when he gets hit with all of these things, like you said, it's
Speaker:like I think he wanted to just retire.
Speaker:And I
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:two terms, he's like, "Finally, I'm gonna just walk away.
Speaker:I think I ga- I gave it my best.
Speaker:I did as much as I could.
Speaker:I, I think this now this experiment has to go, and I'm gonna walk away." 'Cause
Speaker:he could've been elected to a third term.
Speaker:He probably wouldn't have lived through the whole thing,
Speaker:but he could've, you know.
Speaker:But he could've been elected to a third term, but he walked away after the
Speaker:second term, and he had to kinda let, put, take his hands off, like you said.
Speaker:And he had ideas about who c- should be the next, but he had to take
Speaker:his hands off and just let it go.
Speaker:Because now it was the time, like he gave it his best, he molded
Speaker:it the best he could, and now it really has to be run by the people.
Speaker:That's the whole idea here.
Speaker:And I think
Speaker:had to wean them off of him
Speaker:And, and e- and even to have the judgment to do that, and even having…
Speaker:It really, you know what it reminds me of?
Speaker:And this is why I love calling him a forefather.
Speaker:It's really how parents are with their kids when they hit
Speaker:18 and they go to college.
Speaker:It's like, "You're gonna have so much freedom now.
Speaker:Here you go.
Speaker:Like I've done my best.
Speaker:Hopefully you hear my voice in your head.
Speaker:Hopefully you make good decisions, but I can't be with you every
Speaker:You're your own person now.
Speaker:You're an adult
Speaker:And that's why he, forefather's the perfect word for him, 'cause he's walking
Speaker:away from his kid, he's raised him, he put the best into him, and now there you go.
Speaker:Good luck.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And yeah,
Speaker:Yeah, that, and that's a great comparison too because it's not easy and I mean,
Speaker:I'm a new parent, so I can't say I've gone through the whole process, but I
Speaker:oldest is 15, so I haven't either.
Speaker:Well, I mean, there y- I mean, that's, that's 14 years more experience than
Speaker:me, so I, I'm sure to some extent you're having to not baby him, and
Speaker:that's something that you kinda have to learn that balance yourself.
Speaker:And so, yeah, I think the fact that he knew that in the end that would be
Speaker:the, the best thing in the long term.
Speaker:And in my book, I, I, there are lots of details that I include in my book,
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:and I would say, and I, you know, I hope the readers find it interesting, but I,
Speaker:I, I would say y- there's a, there's a, in, in Washington's first w- ear- early
Speaker:draft of his farewell address, he talks about how important it is for the country
Speaker:to have an example of rotation in office.
Speaker:So when he was, when he was drafting his farewell address and, and
Speaker:deciding to leave, he understood that.
Speaker:He very clearly understood that a Republican government needed
Speaker:to demonstrate to itself and the world that you could have
Speaker:a peaceful transfer of power.
Speaker:And so, uh, I, I think he was fully cognizant of the significance of that
Speaker:and that he was doing it because he felt that, yeah, the country in order
Speaker:to survive without me has to learn how to, how to do these things without me
Speaker:Yeah, and you're, you're talking about him saying no to a
Speaker:crown, like a figurative crown.
Speaker:But do you think Washington gets too much credit for his virtue here?
Speaker:Like are you trying to say that he gets too much That he saw it bigger and he
Speaker:gets too much credit for it now after the fact, now that we can di- dissect
Speaker:it all, now the American experiment has survived for 250 years, right?
Speaker:Now do you think he gets too much credit for all the things he did then?
Speaker:What do you
Speaker:Well, I, I mean, I, I would say that he doesn't get enough credit because
Speaker:uh, as we said earlier we just kind of assume that everything fell into
Speaker:place and we just assume, oh, he was the first president and peop- people
Speaker:don't realize how contingent so much of this was and how much… A- and,
Speaker:and one thing I would say is that really the, the thing about Washington
Speaker:is that his character is everything.
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:uh, Washington had his own set of political views and not everyone agreed
Speaker:with him, just like with Patrick Henry.
Speaker:And yet the thing that they could all agree on, whether you were…
Speaker:A- and, and Americans then disagreed just as strongly as they do now.
Speaker:And so whether you were an northeastern merchant or a southern farmer or a e-
Speaker:eastern elite or a western frontiersman, the one thing e- e- every- You know,
Speaker:they all had different views about taxes and tariffs and the power of
Speaker:the government and the power of the states, but the one thing they all
Speaker:agreed on was Washington, and the reason why was because of his character.
Speaker:And so I, I, I would say… A- and it's interesting because I cover
Speaker:in my book the impact that all of this has around the world, right?
Speaker:Napoleon had to… E- every revolutionary around the world, virtually every, had
Speaker:to deal with comparisons to Washington.
Speaker:And when they seized power, they were compared to Washington and people
Speaker:say, "Hey, Washington didn't do that.
Speaker:Why are you doing that?" Napoleon had to face that.
Speaker:And Napoleon makes this argument that there, there's a quote where he says,
Speaker:"They wanted me to be another Washington." And the way that quote is often presented,
Speaker:and this is Napoleon at, a- a- after he's been exiled and kind of reflecting
Speaker:on his career, and the way it's often presented is Napoleon lamenting his own
Speaker:inability to live up to Washington, right?
Speaker:And that makes for a nice story, but it's actually not the way Napoleon said it.
Speaker:The way Napoleon said it was, "These critics wanted me to be
Speaker:another Washington," i.e., they wanted me to give up power.
Speaker:" But if, if they knew the situation I was in," which was very different
Speaker:from America, "they knew that I, I couldn't be another Washington."
Speaker:America has two oceans.
Speaker:Uh, well, uh, let's just say at least the Atlantic separating it from Europe and
Speaker:was relatively protected versus France, which is land, uh, you know, stuck in
Speaker:between other European countries that s- sought to destroy its revolution.
Speaker:And so Napoleon was saying, "I had to take the crown.
Speaker:I had to become emperor.
Speaker:Wa- if Washington was in my shoes, he would have done the same thing." And-
Speaker:the Atlantic Ocean is the real hero here?
Speaker:Yeah, in a sense.
Speaker:And, and there, there, there's other aspects of it too.
Speaker:Bolivar, Simón Bolivar he and his compatriots would point out that,
Speaker:hey, I had to deal with a society that was not friendly to Republican values
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:the way Washington … Washington had Franklin and Jefferson and all
Speaker:these guys dedicated to Republican…
Speaker:In a sense, both of these guys are saying Washington had it easy.
Speaker:And here's the thing, there's a- th- they're not wrong in the sense that,
Speaker:yeah, their context was different.
Speaker:The context they live in was different.
Speaker:And, and yes, okay, there's something to be said for the fact that America
Speaker:had a different culture and, uh, it was conducive to republicanism.
Speaker:It had more of a record of self-government,
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:During its colonial era than France had and South America.
Speaker:That's, that's all true.
Speaker:But even within the American context, Washington's example shines.
Speaker:Because not, not every American would've respected civilian
Speaker:authority the way Washington did.
Speaker:What if you had the t- the temperament…
Speaker:I mean, it's like in World War II, you have Eisenhower, you have Patton,
Speaker:you have MacArthur, you, you have all these great generals, but why was it
Speaker:that Eisenhower was elected president?
Speaker:That's, that's not a knock on Patton and MacArthur.
Speaker:That's just a recognition that there was something different about Eisenhower.
Speaker:And so it's the same thing with Washington, I think.
Speaker:And you know, l- l- look at a guy like Andrew Jackson who
Speaker:became the dominant figure, uh, after Washington his generation.
Speaker:Would he have reacted the same way Washington did?
Speaker:Again, I'm not bagging Andrew Jackson because he was a
Speaker:unique figure for his time.
Speaker:But the point is, is that Washington played that role that perhaps
Speaker:no one else could have played.
Speaker:And I also talk about in the book in China, uh, when Yuan Shikai took power
Speaker:after the f- the Chinese Revolution.
Speaker:And despite the fact that his country was moving away from
Speaker:monarchy, he didn't understand that, and he imposed an emperor,
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:an imperial government with him in charge, and it was a disaster.
Speaker:So just because a leader has a certain environment doesn't mean that
Speaker:they're always gonna read the room, and Washington did read the room.
Speaker:So it, it, it kinda shows how nuanced that whole thing is when
Speaker:you evaluate historical figures.
Speaker:But I think however way you evaluate it, Washington still
Speaker:emerges as a r- a remarkable figure
Speaker:He dismantled the crown.
Speaker:He dismantled the idea of a crown of a monarch, and he
Speaker:does it throughout the process.
Speaker:From the very beginning to the very end, he's dismantling this whole idea, and like
Speaker:we said before, how it's not linear, how that takes time, how that takes, like,
Speaker:all this kind of jumble back and forth.
Speaker:Now we think of it as a very linear thing, a normal thing.
Speaker:Of course it happened that way.
Speaker:But at the time, no, he's un- uncharted territory, and he's dismantling this
Speaker:idea of a monarchy from people who have lived it, and centuries, governments that
Speaker:have had it, and he does it in a way, like you said, very authentic and human.
Speaker:And I think, … I f- I love this book, and I love bringing attention
Speaker:to that with George Washington.
Speaker:So thank you today for that conversation.
Speaker:just bringing more things to light about George Washington and giving him credit
Speaker:for things that we don't even talk about and don't see and forget about
Speaker:because of this idea 250 years later just how easy it must have been for him.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:Well, a- and the thing is, the symbolism of a man who was a citizen
Speaker:to become the leader during the war and then as president, and then
Speaker:revert back to being a citizen.
Speaker:And that's something that presidents do, but Washington was the first to do it.
Speaker:And the symbolism o- of it is that in a society where people rule, it's only right
Speaker:that it's one of the people that rules.
Speaker:And when that person … Well, I, I don't know if the right word
Speaker:is rule, but, uh, I would say presides, you know, he leads, right?
Speaker:And when his tenure is over, he goes back to being a citizen, and that's
Speaker:how you know the society is led by the people, when it's one of them who leads
Speaker:and then goes back to being a citizen.
Speaker:And Washington becomes that symbol.
Speaker:He becomes that symbol of a society where the people rule.
Speaker:And so anyways, I talk about that in my book and a lot more.
Speaker:And, uh, yeah just so glad to be on this podcast and, uh, to be able
Speaker:to discuss this moment in history.
Speaker:And it's a moment that i- it's written about, but I don't think there's been
Speaker:a lot of deep dive into what that symbolism is, about the broader story of
Speaker:how Washington giving up power enabled America to refuse a crown, in a sense.
Speaker:And so, yeah thanks for having me.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:I, I thank you so much.
Speaker:I mean, we could talk l- a lot more but thank you for today.
Speaker:Um, and if you wanna get the book where is it available?
Speaker:How can people order it?
Speaker:Yeah pretty much anywhere you buy books, Amazon you can go to Barnes & Noble.
Speaker:But yeah, uh, Refusing a Crown: How George Washington Changed
Speaker:the World by me, Richard Lim.
Speaker:Uh, make sure you check out my podcast as well, This American President
Speaker:where you can listen to it on wherever you listen to your podcasts
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Well, thank you, and yeah, onto our next Talk with History.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you
Speaker:This has been a Walk With History production.
Speaker:Check out the show notes for links and references mentioned in this episode.
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