George Washington Study Guide: Curtain Call, Death, Legacy

Analysis

Washington's old age was a tragic time for him. He felt isolated from his friends and from the society in which he had been raised. By the end of his life, he had relatively little in common with his fellow planters. He had seen the country and was convinced of the importance of the federal government. He sympathized with Hamilton's plans to build a powerful economy based on trade and manufacturing in addition to agriculture. He enjoyed the fine food and intelligent people he found in cities such as Philadelphia.

Most significantly, Washington came to doubt the culture he had come from. He grew to hate slavery. He distrusted Jefferson's ideal of an agrarian society because he recognized that such a society relied on slaves. He hoped for slavery to end and saw that it would ultimately divide the North and South. He even admitted in private that if the North and South should separate, he would go to the North.

With his belief in an American future involving a strong national government, Washington was becoming a Federalist. He resisted the name and tried to stay distant from the two developing political parties. In reality, though, he was on the side of the Federalists and always had been. Though he ultimately failed to stay "above politics" as he thought the president should, he succeeded in making the presidency a legitimate office. By the time he left office he had many enemies, but no one called for the office of president to be changed or abandoned. This fact is remarkable given how many Americans feared a strong leader before Washington took office.

Though he angered many people as president for supporting Hamilton's pro-capital and pro-British policies, Washington's reputation remained strong. After his death this reputation grew to mythic proportions. Americans soon made it a custom to place portraits of Washington in their homes and speak of him reverently, as though he were a god. Myths (like the one about the cherry tree, which of course never happened) sprang up everywhere. The press would routinely compare political leaders to Washington, always unfavorably. He was the gold standard of heroism. He has become such a hero, in fact, that today many Americans find it difficult to relate to Washington. He seems huge but strangely faceless, much like the monument that honors him in Washington, D.C. This is appropriate in a way. Washington wouldn't necessarily have wanted us to know his as a man, but rather as a leader.

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