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Charles University in Prague Faculty of Social Sciences The Charles University in Prague Faculty of Social Sciences Institute of International Studies Department of American Studies The Aspirations and Ascent of George Washington in the Context of His Times: From His Early Years to the End of the Revolutionary War Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Author: Mgr. Stanislav Sýkora Supervisor: Prof. PhDr. Svatava Raková, CSc. Year: 2012 ABSTRACT George Washington’s relatively obscure beginnings did not preclude him from admiring and acquainting himself with chivalrous role models and genteel guidelines. Longing for recognition, Washington sought opportunities to serve his influential patrons to merit their further approbation. The dissertation sets Washington’s aspirations in the context of honor-based sociocultural milieu of his day and thus provides the reader with an insight into the conventional aspects of his ascent to the upper echelons of the colonial society of Virginia. At the time of the Revolution, Washington’s military reputation, leadership, and admirable character earned him a unanimous election to the chief command of the American armies. The complexity of Washington’s venture of accepting, exercising, and ultimately resigning the supreme military powers in relation to his reputation and sense of patriotic duty is thoroughly analyzed. Key words: George Washington, convention, ascent, ambition, patriotism, virtue iii I declare that I have worked on this dissertation independently, using the sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………… Author’s signature iv CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One: The Early Influences 11 Chapter Two: “Honour and Glory” 42 Chapter Three: The Gentleman of Mount Vernon 113 Chapter Four: “It Surely Is the Duty of Every Man Who Has Abilities to Serve His Country” 123 Chapter Five: “My Plan Is to Secure a Good Deal of Land” 168 Chapter Six: “Certain I Am No Person in Virginia Takes More Pains to Make Their Tobo Fine than I Do” 184 Chapter Seven: “George Washington, Esq. Was Unanimously Elected” 195 Chapter Eight: “When We Assumed the Soldier, We Did Not <Lay Aside the> Citizen” 232 Conclusion 274 Bibliography 285 v 1 INTRODUCTION The literature on George Washington is extensive, but the focus keeps changing. “Celebration of ‘the character of Washington’” in biographies composed during the few decades after his death (e.g., John Marshall’s 5-volume biography), argues Barry Schwartz, upheld the “universal sanctity of Washington’s memory,” but the popularization of contemporaneous hagiographic narratives tended to apotheosize the American hero through various fictitious accounts (e.g., Mason L. Weems’s publications).1 Largely in consequence of Washington being so “grandly idealized” in the early 19th century, people eventually began to be “tired of hearing of him” and there was a general decline of interest in publishing about the Founding Father after the Civil War. Naturally, between 1865 and 1920, the memory of the “non-democratic” general and president was becoming increasingly “democratized,” but the transformation of his image and Union’s victory in the Civil War contributed to the fact that since the beginning of the 20th century, the number of articles printed in the United States about Abraham Lincoln began to outnumber those about Washington.2 In the 1920s, the Washington historiography tended to treat the “Father of his Country” as a “complete businessman and captain of industry,” but at the turn of the following decade, his popular image (bolstered by his bicentennial birthday celebrations) was 1 Barry Schwartz, “Social Change and Collective Memory: The Democratization of George Washington,” American Sociological Review 56, no. 2 (April 1991): 221, 223-24, http://www.jstor.org/stable /2095781; John Marshall, comp., Life of George Washington, Commander in Chief of the American Forces, during the War Which Established the Independence of His Country, and First President of the United States, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: C. P. Wayne, 1804-1807), http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/1063430.html; Mason L. Weems, A History of Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits, of General George Washington (Philadelphia: John Bioren, [1800]), http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t6pz52m8z; Mason L. Weems, The Life of George Washington; with Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable to Himself, and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen (Philadelphia: Joseph Allen, [n.d.]), http://www.archive.org/details/lifeofgeorgewashweem. 2 Editorial, New York Times, March 1, 1880, http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free /pdf?res=990CE0DC173FEE3ABC4953DFB566838B699FDE; Schwartz, “Social Change and Collective Memory,” 221, 224. 2 disfigured by “cynical debunking.” Following the World War II, impressively detailed accounts of Washington’s life were produced by Douglas S. Freeman (1948-57) and James T. Flexner (1965-72). The seminal multivolume biography by Freeman, in particular, remains in the vanguard of Washington scholarly literature.3 In his classic biography, Marcus Cunliffe (1958) hoped to humanize the American legend still largely entombed in what he termed “a metaphorical Washington Monument” that secreted his real character. Washington was, writes Cunliffe, “a good man, not a saint; a competent soldier, not a great one; an honest administrator, not a statesman of genius; a prudent conserver, not a brilliant reformer. But in sum an exceptional figure.”4 Bernhard Knollenberg’s object in providing a publication “of a scholarly bent” on various aspects of Washington’s pre-Revolutionary years (1964) also constitutes a meritorious contribution to authoritative literature.5 The 1980s witnessed a literal “outpouring” of Washington studies, which included notable Paul K. Longmore’s The Invention of George Washington, John Ferling’s First of Men: A Life of George Washington, and Garry Wills’s Cincinnatus: George Washington and The Enlightenment.6 Yet, in the past two decades, scholars have again begun to point out that Washington is studied less than other great American leaders like Jefferson and Lincoln (the 3 Schwartz, “Social Change and Collective Memory,” 221; Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography, 7 vols., vol. 7 completed by John A. Carroll and Mary W. Ashworth (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948-57); James Thomas Flexner, George Washington, 4 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965-72); David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 446-47, http://books.google.com/books?id=Oreq1YztDcQC. 4 Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man and Monument (Boston: Little, Brown, 1958), 5, 212, http://www.archive.org/details/georgewashington005796mbp. 5 Bernhard Knollenberg, George Washington: The Virginia Period, 1732-1775 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1976), v. 6 Kenneth R. Bowling, “An Extraordinary Man: A Review Essay on George Washington,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 73, no. 4 (summer 1990): 287, 289-91, http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/wmh/archives /search.aspx?area=browse&volume=73&articleID=37802; Paul K. Longmore, The Invention of George Washington (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988; reprinted Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999); John E. Ferling, The First of Men: A Life of George Washington (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988); Garry Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (New York: Doubleday, 1984). 3 American hero has likewise not drawn long due attention from Czech authors).7 Additionally, scholarly attention has been repeatedly called to a lack of high-quality studies and new perspectives on the “Father of his Country.” Joseph Ellis recently remarked that “we do not need another epic painting, but rather a fresh portrait” of Washington.8 One of the repetitive motifs still appearing in the Washington historiography of the several past decades is an endeavor to discover the “real man” behind the many myths that have accumulated around his persona since the early nineteenth century.9 The aim to humanize the distanced and somewhat deified Washington is now eased by the extensive University of Virginia project, which is in the process of transcribing and digitizing a complete incoming and outgoing Washington’s correspondence (The Papers of George Washington is projected to comprise 88 printed volumes).10 The possibility of not only browsing but also searching the Washington’s papers through a full text mode opens new venues for research that were unavailable to the past historians. The most recent scholarly attention has focused on several aspects of Washington’s life, such as dispelling widely circulated fictitious stories about Washington, his political philosophy, religious beliefs, and the nature of his character and ambition.11 The latter two 7 The only Czech publication on GW (with over 50 pages) accessible in Czech libraries is Ivan Brož, George Washington (Praha: Petrklíč, 1994). While the biography treats all significant aspects of GW and highlights several historical details that could be of interest to the Czech reader (e.g., Bohemian or Moravian immigrants and descendants), it contains no source references or bibliography. 8 Don Higginbotham, “The Washington Theme in Recent Historical Literature,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 114 no. 3 (July 1990): 436, http://dpubs.libraries.psu.edu/; William Guthrie Sayen, “‘A Compleat Gentleman’: The Making of George Washington, 1732-1775” (PhD diss., University of Connecticut, 1998), 1; Joseph J. Ellis, His Excellency: George Washington (New York: Vintage Books, 2004),
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