What Can Martha Teach Us About Today's Politicians?
Age regressioned Portrait of Martha Washington by Micheal J. Deas www.michaeldeas.com
The brouhaha which surrounds the David Barton book, Jefferson Lies, has made me wonder what is it that makes one history book more popular than another? Moreover, why do we persist on wanting to believe that our founding fathers (and their wives) were impervious to self-serving inclinations? Today’s politicians lead us into a grey area of morality yet we persistently raise up our founding fathers as examples of moral and religious superiority. To the historians, who dare to question this premise, we call them leftist revisionists – and in some of the rarer cases of explorations on these founding women, we call these historians:” feminists”. Coincidentally, I have just finished two biographies of Martha Washington; the first book was: Martha Washington: First Lady of Liberty by Helen Bryan written in 2002 and the second: Martha Washington: An American Life by Patricia Brady written in 2005. The first 50 pages of both of the books are so similar that I wondered why Brady’s was not considered a copyright infringement on the earlier book. However, Brady’s seemed to be the more popular of the two
Brady’s book made it into paperback, and had a nice blurb from Cokie Roberts, additionally, even NPR picked up an interview over the sexy age regression-ed photo of Martha Washington that adorns the cover. Did Brady have a better editor or publisher? What exactly was cut out of those 100 pages? In Bryan’s book there are many anecdotes about the gossip, lore and the technicalities of the laws of inheritance and slavery- system which contained the essence for the perpetuation of the Washington’s large fortune.
To read Bryan, one might see Martha as a much more calculating being than the love smitten Martha of Brady. It is the missing hundred pages which build a case for a very complicated Martha. In Bryan’s Martha, we see a rich widowed woman who chose George because she knew that her and her two children’s money would be better protected with him than many other suitors. Bryan maintains that it was essential that she remarry to sustain and manage the large plantations that she had just inherited from her first husband. Bryan’s Martha was a “clothes horse” who continued to buy imported English goods well after her patriot sisters turned to home spun in the northern states. Both George and Martha had very friendly relationships with the British appointed Governors during the turbulent late 60s and even attended a ball to honor Governor and Lady Dunmore as late as May 1774. In fact, early in the war, there were rumors that she and George had separated because she was actually a Loyalist (Many of the southern planters were slow to join the liberty movement). Martha made a calculated journey to winter headquarters to improve her image. Bryan refers to her trip in her homespun as an act of “spin doctoring”.
Then there was the slavery. Although Brady gives this incident a mention, she does not give it the treatment that Bryan does. While George and Martha lived in Philadelphia during Washington’s term as president in 1791, a new law was passed in Pennsylvania which allowed slaves to claim their freedom after six months of residency in that state. George and Martha prepared a plan to send their servants back to Mount Vernon on small errands to ensure that those slaves would not be eligible to meet the residency requirements. It is here that Bryan notes: “Although George Washington is often held up as a model of enlightenment who freed his slaves on his death, the truth is more complex and less comfortable. His response to the new Pennsylvania law shows one side of his ambivalent attitude about slavery...while George was happy to go on using slaves, he had to be careful about how he was perceived by the public.” A letter that Bryan cites from George to his secretary Tobias Lear substantiates his awareness of image as he made arrangements for the transportation of Martha’s dower slaves back to Virginia while they were both traveling.
…in case I shall be found that any of my slaves may, or any of them shall attempt their freedom at the expiration of six months, it is my wish and desire that you send the whole, or such part of them as Mrs Washington may not chuse to keep home-for although I do not think they may be benefited by the change, yet the idea of freedom might be too great a temptation for them to resist. At any rate it might, if they conceived a right to it make them more insolent in a State of Slavery. As all except Hercules and Paris are dower Negroes, it behoves me to prevent the emancipation of them, otherwise I shall not only lose them, but may have them to pay for (under the law, George had use of Martha money and use of dower slaves) If…it is found expedient to take them back to Virginia I wish to have it accomplished under pretext that I may deceive both them and the Public…
Bryan is not a historian; she is a lawyer (a London barrister) who grew up in Virginia. Brady is a “real” historian (well... she has a PhD in History). I was shocked that Brady did not even acknowledge Bryan as a source except to make note in the afterword that Bryan accepted “post-Civil war family mythology… disregarding Martha Washington’s moral and religious character…” Moreover, interestingly many of the reader comments in Amazon regarding the book, refer to Bryan as a “feminist, liberal”suffering from Slave guilt. Read them for your self. Perhaps together we will come up with the conclusion that although the 18th century America was a different time with a different economic system etc., politicians are really not so different in many ways – and we still want to believe that our heroes are perfect.
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Comments
"the truth is more complex and less comfortable."
gosh,no shit?
~
washington was ok in my book. why?
he was with the Zeitgeist, his Ideas were good and true and
beautiful
even though he was just a human being.
The Zeitgeist was the product of many factors.
The Enlightenment scholars of Europe, some of them scandalous.
War was on the horizon in this era.
time for a paradigm shift, and these old boys
were surfing the crest of it. especially jefferson.
The time is now near at hand
which must probably determine whether Americans
are to be freemen or slaves;
whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed,
and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness
from which no human efforts will deliver them.
The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.
Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only
the choice of brave resistance,
or the most abject submission. We have, therefore,
to resolve to conquer or die.
Address to the Continental Army before the Battle of Long Island (27 August 1776).
wow. he overstated his case cuz he believed it.
it was on the surface a money thing,sure, taxes taxes.
for god's sake, when has it not been about taxes taxes?
but underneath.
there was a new thing coming, america.
the answer to everything.
they damn well knew it too.
martha was the wife of a very great man.
thus she loved him, and
merged her greatness
with his.
their habits are interesting, but merely of historical interest, right?
Con- I was thinking the same thing. I may need to revise this title. I was trying out Jake Sugarman's suggestion to make the title more ????
The ceremony was performed by Reverend David Mossom.
Rated.
This, by the barrister Bryan, probably contains a factual error.
Any trip to Mount Vernon will likely reveal that GW's Will freed his slaves upon Martha's subsequent death. Either he hadn't thought this through, or he held an opinion of his slaves not shared by his wife.
Widow Martha freed their slaves while still alive believing that her husband's good intentions nevertheless gave her servants an inappropriate interest in her continued good health.
Presuming this to be the more accurate rendition of history, we have George's perspective that his slaves would not harm his family and Martha's that they would. In both cases, however, their motivations to free their slaves seems less than ideal.
Thanks for the additional enlightenment from the book. There is some interesting context here. However, the politicians we so often revere seem to have acted in their own self interest and not according to the ideals so well expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
Never gave a thought to Martha Washington but now I'm interested in reading the Bryan book thanks to your excellent post.
In answer to your thought-provoking question, "...why do we persist on wanting to believe that our founding fathers (and their wives) were impervious to self-serving inclinations?" I think at least part of the reason is that it gives us the illusion that things were different and better at one time. That there was a time when men (and women) unselfishly put their own interests aside to serve the greater good. Of course it wasn't true then just as it's not true now (remember the fiction of George cutting down the cherry tree? "I cannot tell a lie.") George probably told a lot of lies, just like they do now. But it's comforting to think things were better then and also, to have examples to point to for our kids. We can't exactly use anyone who's still alive, can we?
There really was some level of the Age of Enlightenment that was going on at that time. Even though some people cynically dispute this. ie, There was a free exchange of ideas about what a world should look like and what rights human beings should have. Just like under the tyranny of today where countless people are rejecting the status quo's lack of moral clarity. ie, Our politicians today are the self-centered royal elites of the English empire in 1776. It's really little different than the Essene movement during the times of Jesus. There was a radical, transformative element in many historical times with an intent of subverting the tyranny and corruption of the status quo through the exchange of ideas to build a better world. One defeats selfishness through selflessness.
Obviously, there was self-interest involved in all times of transformative change. But, were these men able to generally rise above the self to greater levels of selflessness? There is ample historical evidence that they were. Including many of the writings of people like Paine and Jefferson. Some of which have been manipulated and distorted by corrupt elements in the status quo today. Even many of their personal writings were filled with selflessness and moral clarity. One must remember, these men were NOT politicians. They were often men of wealth and education but none of them were politicians.
To be fair, I think one has to look through the glasses of people like Gandhi, Jefferson, MLK, Jesus, Mandela, Mother Jones and other transformative elements rather than looking through the jaded eyes of the status quo today. These people were able to rise above the human condition to achieve great levels of selflessness. Just as many transformative elements are trying to do today.
I think many of our founding fathers were noble although most certainly imperfectly so. The evidence of their nobility lies in the fact that you are able to sit here and write this post and I am able to respond.
But, I must say, I do have to take exception with your perspectives that the status quo loyalists took a risk. That seems to be an almost paradoxical perspective. It seems akin to saying Pontius Pilate and the jack boot of the Roman Empire, the British Empire's jack boot on India and elsewhere, South African Apartheid supporters and the modern day Democratic or Republican Parties took a risk. Those who align themselves with any status quo that lacks moral clarity stands for little other than their own selfishness.
Thanks for the post........
Thanks again.
And, therefore, they essentially forbid this nation its own currencies, as it had been using, and forced them onto paying the debts of the private banking cartels in England. In other words, privatize the gains and socialize the losses. And, in doing so, enslave the most productive and poor people to do so. Sound familiar? It's a clear form of covert violence, predation and victimization that is no different than the war it waged on Indians and other colonies. Private for-profit banking is a tool of slavery that has always been used to create empire, pilfer and destroy human rights. The rule of law was determined at the end of the muzzle of a gun. And, a massively corrupted one at that. The actions of the British Empire were no different than that of Marie Antoinette. ie, Where similar policies in France led to the same revolution.
However, in England there was dissent against the King's policies toward the colonies. The dialog within Parliament reflects much debate. In one of my older posts I cite a partial quote by John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London as he addressed the House of Commons prior to the war where he admits that these policies are aimed
“for the subjection, the unconditional submission of a country (the colonies) infinitely more extended than our own (Britain’s) of which everyday increases the wealth, the natural strength the population”
It is interesting to see how the confluence of these events could stir all of the 13 colonies into action. Never the less, at this time, 1760-1770,I think it is important to realize that due to the abundant natural resources of this country many of the inhabitants ( Free citizens : excluding chattel slaves and indentured servants)of the colonies enjoyed a respectable income per capita -even under the tyranny. Much more so than many in in land- strapped England and This is one reason why Loyalists existed.