Sublime

Isolated critics branded Washington a hypocrite for clinging to his slaves after a revolution fought in the name of freedom. At the Massachusetts convention that ratified the Constitution, one speaker deplored his status as a slaveholder. “Oh, Washington, what a name he has had! How he has immortalized himself!” he exclaimed, then remarked that Was

During his presidency, many newspapers had gone from being staid and neutral to being organs of party politics and propaganda. In May he asked Jefferson to dismiss Freneau from his State Department job after the editor made the nonsensical statement that Washington had issued the neutrality statement only after “Anglomen” had threatened to chop off

Jefferson extolled Washington as “the best horseman of his age and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback,” an appraisal echoed by many others.17

It speaks to Washington’s humility that the greatest man of his age was laid to rest in a communal tomb where nobody could single out his grave or honor him separately. All visitors could do was peer through the slats of a rough oak door into a gloomy, malodorous den of ancient coffins.

Taking the high road in his first inaugural address, President Jefferson named Washington as “our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country’s love.”53 Martha Washington was not assuaged. “Her remarks were frequently pointed and sometimes very sarcastic on the new order o

John Adams said that if Washington “was not the greatest president, he was the best actor of the presidency we have ever had.”18