George Washington Surrenders His Sword
Why did George Washington willingly give up power at the end of the Revolutionary War? Colleen Shogan talks with Douglas Bradburn to explore the man who would not be king, Washington’s extraordinary copy of the Constitution, and the formative moments that shaped the nation’s first president.
Featuring Douglas Bradburn, Ph.D., President and CEO of George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
Read President George W. Bush’s essay on George Washington at Inpursuit.org.
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Doug Bradburn: He warned Americans about coming to see
each other as aliens, coming to see each other as not Americans,
because you have different political beliefs, the idea that
parties would get so hot and so angry that they could lead to a
lack of a functioning republic.
Colleen Shogan: Just before noon on December 23, 1783, General
George Washington entered the old Maryland State House where
the Continental Congress was waiting for him. The Congressman
did not rise when Washington walked into the room, nor did
they remove their hats, as they would have done in the presence
of King George the Third. They were no longer subjects of the
British crown. They were now citizens of a new republic, and
Washington was a man who would not be king. Men and women
squeezed into the galleries to witness this moment. They sat in
silence as they watched Washington resign his commission
as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, and then after
bowing to Congress and bidding his farewells, George
Washington, now a private citizen, went home. As today's
guest Doug Bradburn argues, Washington set a precedent for
those in power to follow. So what might we learn from
Washington's willingness to give up power? I'm Colleen Shogan,
and this is In Pursuit a podcast that explores lessons from
America's past to rate the history of America's future.
Episode One, "George Washington Surrenders His Sword." Doug
Bradburn, welcome to In Pursuit.
Doug Bradburn: I'm delighted to be here. Colleen, thanks for
having me.
Colleen Shogan: Well, we're here to talk about George Washington
today. So let's start at the beginning. In the early parts of
his life, George Washington grew up with a deep sense of
insecurity. Why was he insecure as a young person?
Doug Bradburn: That's an interesting way to put it. I
mean, I don't know if he was more insecure than any young man
who's worried about his future has those anxieties and tries to
fit in, but he had some challenges. His father died when
he was 11 years old, and that kind of weakens your ability to
plot out your life. He didn't, because of the death of his
father, get a formal education. So he wants to be a gentleman in
18th century Virginia. With that comes a certain sense that
you're educated, you know how to behave the right way. And both
of his older half brothers had had that education. So he would
have seen that as a weakness. And in fact, we know throughout
his life, he always thought his education was wanting, and we
could talk a little about that maybe more, but he was ambitious
too, and I think that ambition was really driving him to try to
make a name for himself despite these challenges. So how anxious
he was relative to any young man with who doesn't know what's to
come, I don't know, but he certainly had some insecurities.
Colleen Shogan: George Washington, as you said, his
father died when he was quite young. His mother, Mary ball
Washington, was influential in his life. Tell us about her.
Doug Bradburn: Yeah, I think she's an extraordinary figure
and hard to get at. I mean, a lot of women in the 18th
century, as you know, well, it's hard to get at them unless they
left a lot of letters behind, and Mary Ball did not leave us a
lot. It's led to a lot of speculation about what her
relationship with George Washington was over the time,
but it's clear to me that she was a woman of some grit. She
had some strength. Typically, a woman of her class would have
remarried. She had a lot of property to manage. She was very
difficult to do that in the 18th century environment. But she did
it on her own. She managed, you know, few 1000 acres a number of
enslaved people raised George Washington a number of children.
Washington was her eldest son. He was only 11 years old, and so
she had to serve as regent to his property. And I think she
had a big impact on his reading. I think she read a lot to him,
particularly from the Bible, from different spiritual
lessons, but it's hard to know exactly what their relationship
is. There's like three letters that exist, and I don't think
people want their relationship to their kids to be known by
three letters that randomly survive, some of which are not
that flattering towards her. It's not clear that she was a
big supporter of the American Revolution. It looks like she
had a lot of loyalist tendencies.
Colleen Shogan: That's interesting. Even when George
Washington is the general.
Doug Bradburn: Yeah, you know, it's sort of like, you know,
she's, she's critical of her son, like, you know, you're not
really doing it right, you know? And he's frustrated by her,
because there's times when she's basically impoverished or
threatened with poverty during the war, she reaches out for a
gift from the Commonwealth of Virginia. This embarrasses him.
He's the commander in chief of the army at the time, and he's
like, we will supply you. Mother, stop asking for help. He
encourages her not to come live at Mount Vernon at one point in
her life. He says, it's like a well, resorted tavern, Mom, you
wouldn't like it. You'd have to get dressed every night. We have
dinners every night with all these random people. You know
you'd. Be on a stage. So those kind of letters convinced some
historians that they didn't have a good relationship. But in
fact, she's critical to him, I think. And it's interesting the
way historians have treated her over American history in the
19th century, she's the greatest example of womanhood because
Colleen Shogan: she raised public motherhood, republican
Doug Bradburn: mother, she raised the greatest citizen of
America. So the women are going to raise the male citizens,
we're going to be in the public sphere. And so Mary Washington
was this saintly woman. It's nice that she had the name Mary
as well, so the Protestant Americans could have their own
Mary to worship. The first national memorial to a woman was
to Mary ball Washington, a monument in Fredericksburg with
an obelisk. The whole deal. In the early 20th century, she
became this uneducated shrew that Washington hated. Has a
little bit to do with the way Freud talked about men who were
raised by strong mothers made them not quite manly enough, and
so that kind of dominates some of the historiography
interpretations in the 20th century, and people point much
more towards Lawrence's older half brother, as the father
figure in his life. But more recently, really, in the last 15
years, have been a number of great new books on Mary ball
Washington, which really make her a much more fully fledged
human being, clearly a strong woman. And George Washington
didn't suffer fools. And I think he gets that from his mother.
It's clear she didn't suffer fools either.
Colleen Shogan: You mentioned that
of formal education, one thing we know he did do was copy these
Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior. George Bush, who has
written the essay on George Washington for in pursuit,
writes about this in his essay. So tell us about the Rules of
Civility. How did Washington come across them, what were they
and how were they influential as part of his education.
Doug Bradburn: The Rules of Civility that Washington copied
out when he was probably around the age 14 to 15 years old, are
110 rules that are different aphorisms about how to behave.
So never show anything to your friends that may have fright
them, and don't wipe your sleeve on your mouth at the table.
Partly, they are manner books. Also, they have some moral
implications to them as well. They also are setting up a young
man of how to live in a hierarchical society. So bow to
your betters. You make way on the street, to the people that
are higher class than you, take your hat off, that sort of
thing. So they are, in essence a rule book of how to show that
you know how to behave. Now, where did they come from? We
know that the original lists are very similar to lists that were
produced earlier in European manners and literature. So these
date to a Jesuit book from the 16th century. How did Washington
get his version? It looks like probably a tutor that he would
have had along the way had had him copy these out. But I think
what's telling about them for him is he kept these with his
papers the rest of his life. And actually, the book that he
copied these out in, he also copied out, you know,
mathematical problems that he was solving. He copied out
examples of different types of contracts that he would need as
a businessman in Virginia. So a useful book for him that showed
him not only how to behave, but how to do business in the world
that he was trying to enter into. And finally, I'll say that
you know these rules, which are, you know they're rules about how
to behave in a polite way, but they're also tinctured with this
very strong sense of ethics throughout them, that you want
to behave in a way that represents your reputation at
the highest level. You know, don't dress for flattery, don't
follow the latest fashions, don't surround yourself by
fools. These are things that actually he's going to go on to
write to his step grandchildren and nephews and nieces when
they're young, basically his own version of these roles. So I do
think they had an impact on him and the way he thought about how
to behave in this very regulated world that he's entering into.
Colleen Shogan: As Washington becomes a young adult, he's
interested in a career in the military. Why do you think he
gravitates towards military service?
Doug Bradburn: That's a great question. We know little exactly
about his innermost thinking when he's young, but it's clear
his brother had a military career. He actually had a
commission from the King. Had served in what's known as the
War of Jenkins Ear, which was the British Empire fight against
the Spanish Empire, really over control of the Caribbean and
access to their markets. And so his brother, Lawrence
Washington, who's about 13 years older than George Washington,
half brother, goes on this expedition, and he serves with a
guy named Edward Vernon, and comes back to Virginia and names
his estate after Sir Edward Vernon, and it becomes Mount
Vernon today. So that's an interesting note. So Lawrence
Washington had this role in the Virginia colony as the Adjutant
General of Virginia militia, and that was a role that put him in
a place where he was kind of the leading military figure in the
colony, involved in military decisions, and so encouraged his
brother George to follow in those footsteps. And I think it
was appealing to George Washington as well. On the other
hand, Lawrence also recommended that George Washington become a
midshipman in. The British navy, which would have changed history
if he did that. And it was his mother, Mary Ball Washington,
who asking her uncle, who lived in England, if this was a good
idea. And he said, You'd better be apprenticed to a tinker than
serve in the Royal Navy. And so she stopped George Washington
from running off to sea as so many young men did in the 18th
century, whose prospects were limited. I mean, I think that's
a critical thing to understand about George Washington. He
didn't have a huge estate that he controlled. The prospects for
getting more was difficult, unless he could, could find a
way to do that. And so through Lawrence, and through Lawrence's
father in law William Fairfax, and also Thomas Lord Fairfax,
they really helped George Washington see a path for
himself become a surveyor first and then take opportunities as
military opportunities opened up.
Colleen Shogan: So the military opportunities do open up, and
George Washington finds himself actually very close to where I
grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania in 1754 so tell us
about the stories of Fort Necessity and jimmonville Glen,
and what kind of hard lessons does Washington actually learn
that summer?
Doug Bradburn: It's a great question because it's
astonishing to people who don't know George Washington's story
well, to know he launched the first shots that launched the
Seven Years War of the French and
Colleen Shogan: Indians. Now, do we know that that?
Doug Bradburn: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the latest
scholarship says that he he Well, certainly he was in
command when the first shots were shot, and it's possible
that he himself was actually shooting when those first shots
went off. But at any rate, the colony of Virginia was obsessed
with getting control of the Ohio Valley, because that was where
the future fortunes would be made. The land there was
fertile. It was claimed by Virginia going back to their
earliest charters, and it wanted to control. But it was
contested. First of all, the French had claims to it, pretty
extraordinary claims as well, but it was actually controlled
by Native Americans. This is Indian country, but also claimed
by the Iroquois Confederation, who doesn't really live there
either. So you have these three competing polities, Iroquois,
the Haudenosaunee, and then you have the French, and then you
have the British in Virginia reaching into that area. And you
probably had Pennsylvania claims as well. But at any rate, George
Washington brings word, actually, as an envoy to that
region, to the colony in Williamsburg, that the French
were moving into the valley, and Williamsburg mobilizes this
troop of men, the Virginia provincial regiment to go seize
that area before the French can get there. So Washington is
marching out towards what's now Pittsburgh, towards what with
the time was the Forks of the Ohio and the Allegheny rivers,
and he has Native American allies with him. He runs into a
scouting group, or some kind of group coming from the French at
Jumonville Glen. It's called Jumonville Glen because the
young officer leading the French is Jumonville, and they end up
having a skirmish. In fact, it's more like an ambush, where the
Virginians and their Indian allies ambush Jumonville and his
French soldiers and essentially killed most of them. It's a
bloody battle. It's a victory from George Washington's sense,
in the sense that they defeat these French, they take some
prisoners, but it's also a terrible learning lesson for
Washington, because he can't control his native American
allies. They end up killing some of the captives, which was not
what the Virginian was there to do, including brutally,
Jumonville, who's murdered,
Colleen Shogan: who has some connections.
Doug Bradburn: It turns out, exactly who's connected,
absolutely, his brother is in command of a much larger group.
And this is an interesting moment, because it leads
directly to Fort Necessity, which we should talk about, but
I'll say quickly about Jumonville 's Glen. You know,
George Washington writes a letter to his brother during
that skirmish in which he says, I heard the bullets whistle. And
let me tell you, there's something charming in the sound
now famously, that letter, it gets circulated in England. And
fact, George the second, having heard of it, says, If this young
officer had heard more bullets whistle, he wouldn't think
they're so charming. And that's an important story, because
George Washington still at jamalville school, and you get
the you know, he's 21 years old. He's a young man. He still has a
romantic idea about war. He sees it as about glory, adventure,
honor for himself and opportunity for himself. And
that's something that will change over the course of a
lifetime that becomes dedicated to military service. And that
first lesson comesat Fort Necessity.
Colleen Shogan: Yeah. What happens at Fort Necessity? Tell
us about that.
Doug Bradburn: Yeah. So there is Washington marching out there in
Pennsylvania defeats Jumonville gets word that a larger French
group are coming at him. He tries to retreat and finds a
patch of ground on great Meadows Pennsylvania, and he decides to
build a little fort. He called Fort Necessity because he knows
it's not a great place. In fact, it's a terrible place. It's sort
of a low portion of a piece of ground. It can be attacked from
all sides, and in fact, it could be shot at from the woods, so
enemy can be undercover and attacking into this fort so
built quickly as a way to protect his troops, the Native
Americans he's with. Once he gets surrounded by the French
and their native allies, they flee because. They know this is
untenable. And he gets out of there. And then there's a battle
in Washington, you know, they get rained on the whole time,
and it's a disaster. He loses a lot of men. Ultimately has to
surrender, loses his army, essentially. And in that
surrender, he doesn't speak French, and he uses a
translator, and he admits to assassinating poor Jumonville in
the French, which is going to go on and become important later,
as the French are trying to argue that the British are
savages and out of control, and they started this war. But for
his own purposes, it's remarkable that Washington has a
later career, because it's a disaster, a kind of disaster he
would never have again. But also, I think the reality of
soldiering in the 18th century that really comes to roost for
him there that no amount of valor is going to beat good
tactical and strategic approaches. It really is a
learning episode for him.
Colleen Shogan: How does the lessons that he learns in 1754,
and beyond? How does that affect his leadership of the
Continental Army during the Revolutionary War?
Doug Bradburn: First of all, he never loses an army in the
American Revolutionary War. And he makes some crazy escapes. As
we know, he escapes in the face of the British in Long Island.
And he's very good at retreating, you know, without
voting to lose, yeah. So don't lose your army. It's one big
thing. But the other thing you know, in the aftermath of Fort
Necessity, he goes on to have a long career in the French and
Indian War, multiple years training the Virginia regiment
defending the frontier, building up the kind of Officer Corps and
training of the soldiers that he needed, constantly getting the
supply in place. So one of the things he's really advocating
for is when he becomes General of the United States Army for
the first time, preparation, practice, training, reading, it
takes more than the title to make the officer. You need to
know your business. You know this isn't just like, Oh, I'm in
charge now and I'm out here doing things. You actually have
to know how to manage an army in the field and take care of your
logistics, take care of your men, be concerned about their
training, their discipline. And that's a critical thing he does,
because he builds the American army, its culture and character
from scratch when he becomes the commander in chief in 1775.
Colleen Shogan: We fast forward into 1783 and Washington, after
the Revolutionary War has concluded and Washington enters
Annapolis and is going to resign his commission as the general of
the Continental Army. Tell what happens at Annapolis and
also why is this considered one of the most important moments in
Doug Bradburn: The surrender of his commission, the retirement
of his sword after the end of the American Revolutionary War
was considered one of the greatest acts of the age, and it
was something that he'd been promising to do since the very
beginning, when he took his commission, he said, I will give
American history?
this back when the job is done. He thought the job would be
done, I think, a lot longer than earlier years. But you know, it
is remarkable, because this does not happen military leaders who
win great victories in the European context are rewarded,
they certainly don't go back home and into retirement. His
whole idea was he would never be involved in public service or
take public gratitude, and certainly wouldn't take control
of this new country as a military dictator, which has
happened so many times in world history, but before and after
him. I mean in the English context, at the end of the
English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell marches into Parliament
and says, "You have sat too long here," and rules with his army
for the next 10 years as the Lord Protector. I mean,
overthrows this parliamentary regime. And that was the English
tradition. And then, of course, we see what Napoleon does at the
end of the French Revolution, declaring himself Emperor. Other
revolutionary leaders, like Stalin, goes on to become
dictators. We see it in the Castros. There's so many others
revolutionary leaders who become military dictators because they
feel like they're the only ones who can secure the revolution.
Washington rejects all that, and in doing so, he's reenacting
this incredible story from ancient times of virtuous Roman
generals in the Roman Republic who would step out from their
farm save the Republic, and then go back to the plow. And that's
why George Washington is called Cincinnatus, who's this Roman
figure basically partly mythical, partly real. And I
think one of the telling stories that of this is George the
third's reaction his great enemy, who asked Benjamin West,
who was a painter, painting Queen Charlotte, at the time,
American born, you know, "What will Mr. Washington do if the
United States gained their independency?" And he says,
"Well, I think he's going to retire to a private situation,
Your Highness." And the king says, "if he does that, he'll be
the greatest man of the age." So Washington. When he shows up in
Annapolis, everybody knew what he was going to do. It had been
reported in the papers. He's on his way to Annapolis where he
will return his commission and become like Cincinnatus. It's in
the news. So it's an incredible event. When he gets there,
everybody's nervous. The Congress is nervous. They stay
seated when he comes in, rather. Understanding to show the
civilian authority over military rule. He takes off his hat, he
delivers a short speech and returns his commission, and
after that, he rides 60 miles and gets back to Mount Vernon on
Christmas Eve, 1783. It's a remarkable thing, and it's the
first story Americans would tell about themselves as to what
makes us different. Americans have often thought of ourselves
as an exceptional people and why the American system is
different. The first story that we told that made us distinct
from European monarchies is that George Washington resigned. He
wouldn't become a king. We would have a country based on the rule
of law and not on men.
Colleen Shogan: It's one of the most interesting lessons in
history that Washington actually, by rejecting power,
gains more authority and legitimacy.
Doug Bradburn: It's extraordinary, right? It's this
idea of walking away from power makes it more powerful than
ever, and what he gains is this very valuable commodity that
politicians crave, which is trust, the trust of the people
in a country that's going to be based on popular opinion, trust
is one of the most valuable things that politicians should
be gathering. And in your study of all these precedents you're
going to see, I think this question of trust, where they
get it, and how they marshal it, and where they lose it. In this
case, Washington gains incredible trust. Because one
other way to show that you can be trusted with power than by,
you know, giving up power that you had. And so that's going to
be critical to him when he helps rally the nation back to reform
the Articles of Confederation, to ultimately write a new
constitution and get it ratified. Certainly one of the
greatest political achievements in American history, to put a
whole new government into place without a shot being fired,
without blood being spilled. That completely overthrows the
national federal regime, a regime that had actually won the
war. The new constitution is really remarkable. It never
could have happened in Philadelphia in 1787 without
George Washington's presence there, because of how much he
was trusted. And Americans don't trust a lot of people. They
worry about conspiracies. They worry about ulterior motives.
But without Washington in Philadelphia, that would have
been very difficult. And then the ratification itself only was
guaranteed because George Washington put his imprimatur on
it, and then ultimately, because he was going to be the first
president. So we created this new powerful office, or
potentially powerful office. Why will it be okay? Well, because
George Washington will be the first.
Colleen Shogan: Certainly, at the National Archives, there are
notes from the Constitutional Convention and George
Washington's annotation as that debate is ongoing in front of
him. He doesn't say very much during the convention, but is
annotating some of the notes along the way. But at Mount
Vernon, you have an extraordinary document as well
from a little later in 1789 after he becomes president. Tell
us about that document.
Doug Bradburn: Well, this is a book which we own that we call
the Acts of Congress for short. But what it is is all the laws
passed by the first session of Congress under the Constitution.
They meet in March of 1789 Washington is inaugurated
President in April of 1789, their session, that first
session, lasts from March to September. So that session of
Congress takes the Constitution and turns it into a working
government. They pass the first lighthouse bills, they pass the
first customs laws, the first tariffs right. They create the
judiciary. They create the executive branch. And then, of
course, at the end of that session, they pass the
resolutions that are ultimately going to become known as the
Bill of Rights. Washington signs all these things. He's president
at the time. And the Congress, they print, they all these laws.
They publish them. They give this book to George Washington.
So we have his actual copy of all those laws. But what it has
in the front of it is a copy of the Constitution. And when he's
sitting down in January of 1790 to give the first State of the
Union address, we think of President, state of the address.
He gives the first he rereads the Constitution, and he rereads
that whole session to see what they did, and he marks up the
Constitution in the margins, which is incredible, because he
was at the Constitution convention, he's been president
for 10 months, but here he is reading it again to make sure
that he's doing what he's supposed to be doing. And so in
those areas of the Constitution, in Article One, where the
legislative branch has to mix powers with the executive
branch, he puts little brackets in the margins that say
"President," like the veto power, President. Article Two,
all about the presidential power. He writes "President"
right next to the top. It gets down where it says President
Powers. He writes "President Powers," and then it says the
next one, the laws shall be faithfully executed, he writes
"required" so at an extraordinary moment, because
this is a man using a highlighter, but this is a mind
in focus, not a commentary on the Constitution, but really
making sure that he knows what his job is, the creating the
presidency is the first time doing it. It's really a
remarkable piece that we were able to acquire at Mount Vernon,
and I think it's an incredible way to look at Washington the leader.
Colleen Shogan: Do you think he understood the precedents that
he was setting would last? I mean, they would have these ramifications.
Doug Bradburn: I guarantee it. He wrote about that many times,
that the challenges they were facing was making precedence for
the ages, not just for their time and particularly actually,
writes an incredible letter to Catherine Macaulay, great
English historian, the same day he's writing in this book on
January 9, 1790, writes an incredible editor in which he
says, "I walk on untrodden ground. Everything I do is
subject to two interpretations," which every president complains
about. But he also writes, "everything I do is making a
precedent." that sense that he is not just trying to execute
the laws passed by Congress, but every aspect of this role would
have ramifications in the extreme. And he writes great
letters in which he asks for advice. In them, saying, "We
have to be very careful, because the things we're creating now
will magnify in the future." He's really looking at the
generational news cycle, not the 24 hour news cycle, or the 15
minute news cycle, which is what we have in 2026 and I think
we're the beneficiaries of that, because when you are looking at
the longer term, you're able to find compromises. You're able to
use prudence and not act sometimes. You're able to be
firm when you think is very critical, but it allows you
perspective, I think, and I'd love to see more leaders
thinking about the longer term, and not the next election cycle.
Colleen Shogan: Did Washington, at the end of his life, did he
have any sources of regret?
Doug Bradburn: He was a slave owner his whole life, and we
know that he writes that, you know, he has one unavoidable
source of regret when he's referring to slavery. Before the
American Revolution, George Washington doesn't express any
real concern about slavery as the moral institution. He was
frustrated with some of the economics of slavery in the
context of the way the British Empire worked, but it really had
to do more with the tobacco trade. Specifically, after the
war, his attitude is clearly different after the war in the
1780s you know, you do see him expressing concerns about
slavery, both economically and as a moral institution. He
writes by the 1780s that he wants it ended in Virginia, but
he thinks it needs to be ended by legislation. In this case,
he's referencing the Commonwealth of Virginia. He
thinks that's the way to orderly end slavery in Virginia, kind of
like the way Pennsylvania had with a gradual Manumission bill.
And so these states in north of Virginia are starting to try to
figure out ways to end slavery gradually. He thinks that's what
should happen and will happen in Virginia. The Constitution
changes the political dynamic, because the Constitution becomes
a compromise with slave states and these rising non slave
states, and as President of the United States, he fears that he
can't himself do inaction freeing slaves that would create
a political maelstrom at a time when the union was very fragile.
That's my sense of it, at least. But it's clear by 1793 he's
trying to figure out how to end slavery at Mount Vernon. He's
got these schemes that never pan out. It's clear one of his major
challenges is the fact that the people enslaved at Mount Vernon,
some of them are owned legally by him, some of them are owned
by the estate of Martha Washington, so not even by
Martha Washington, but her children and her heirs because
the estate of her former husband, that's the law, George
Washington can't do anything about that property, but he
starts trying to negotiate with some of those heirs in 1796 when
he's leaving the presidency, and that never works out. So
ultimately, he does free the people he owns at Mount Vernon
in his will, but he's not able to free the ones owned by Martha
Washington's estate. And the tragedy there, of course, is
that many of those families had intermarried. There's a human
cost beyond the great tragedy of slavery itself. And so I think
that's a critical aspect of Washington's. You know, living
in a world where you couldn't figure out a route to get out of
a system, to us, it looks like perhaps a moral cowardice, but
we live in the 21st Century in very different constraints upon
us. I think it speaks to the limit of even the greatest
political leaders in this country to achieve all the
things that they thought needed to be achieved.
Colleen Shogan: And one of the richest and wealthiest men in
the young United States still isn't able to get out from under
the institution or structure that slavery's power,
Doug Bradburn: That's right. And actually a lot of his wealth was
actually an enslaved people, and certainly in land as well, he
wasn't able to find a way. But yeah, that was certainly a
regret to him, and an expressed regret to him, a critical one.
But I do think you know, his moral leadership in the 18th
century context was important in the way Americans rethought what
political leadership should be in our context. I think his
advocacy for religious freedom and tolerance across the board
is not as well known. His letter to the Touro synagogue, you
know, an aspirational idea that we all should have freedom of
conscience and be able to worship as we please. Before the
First Amendment, before that, all the establishments have been
broken in the States, a really revolutionary idea about what
the American Republic could stand for when it came to
personal liberty, and something that I think has played out.
Colleen Shogan: Our last question, which might be a hard
one, particularly for George Washington. Washington, as you
know, in pursuit is trying to locate and identify relevant
lessons about our past for our present situation and our
future. What can we learn from George Washington? And that
might be hard to narrow down, given everything that we've
talked about.
Doug Bradburn: Well, true, and I can go on and on, so I'll try to
be succinct. First of all, he gave us advice in his farewell
address that we should be listening to. So in that address
to the American people, he warned Americans about coming to
see each other as aliens, coming to see each other as not
Americans, because you have different political beliefs, the
idea that parties would get so hot and so angry that they could
lead to a lack of a functioning Republic, where you could have
the administration clogged and not actually governing, where
people would start to identify each other as enemies to the
project. He saw that in his own cabinet. He saw it in his own
lifetime. So he wouldn't be surprised that what he sees
throughout American history, but it is a lesson we could learn
from. I would say beyond that for leaders. Look, I mean, he
led with humility, which is a hard value to lead from, but
it's a recognition that you have to listen. You have to listen to
other people who might know more than you about a subject,
particularly when you have the power to make decisions that can
lead to life and death that can affect people's lives. You need
to be willing to recognize that you might not have the right
answer. It's actually a very powerful way to lead from
because if you say in the opening, this is very hard, but
we'll do our best and we'll try to get it done. Then if it
fails, you can say, I said it was going to be really hard. I
mean, that's when he took his commission in the Revolutionary
War, he's like, I don't think I can do this, but I'll give it my
you know,
Colleen Shogan: Washington always kind of did that though.
I mean, he had kind of a way of doing that, exactly you do that,
Doug Bradburn: and then he got it done. But I think you don't
have to be the smartest person in the room. You're not supposed
to be you're the leader, you're the ones that bring people
together. And I think, you know, his insecurity about his own
education, his failures, his early military failures, his
recognition that he had sent men to their death in war. These are
humbling experiences, and gave him a lot of strength as a
leader, to listen to think about the long term, you know, and to
recognize that sometimes you have to conciliate with people
that don't agree with you. So I would want to see our leaders
taking that lesson to heart, the human beings have not changed in
250 years, so those lessons of leading people in this system, I
think, still matter.
Colleen Shogan: Doug Bradburn, thank you for joining us on In
Pursuit.
Doug Bradburn: I'm delighted to be here. Thank you, Colleen.
Colleen Shogan: To read President George Bush's essay on
George Washington and to enjoy other great In Pursuit essays
and podcasts. Visit inpursuit.org. In Pursuit with
Colleen Shogun is a podcast by More Perfect. The series is
written and produced by Jim Ambuske. Our theme music is
Kleos, by Charlie Ryan, audio mixing by Curt Dahl of CD
squared. Please rate and review the show on your favorite
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