Evolution of a Leader... and a Republic: Mount Vernon Part II

Gracious mansions, handsome youths in uniform, flirtatious belles in lavish dresses, and devoted servants: Gone with the Wind’s portrayal of 19^th century plantation life seemed romantic when I was 16. A spring vacation trip to South Carolina with Andy to visit my grandmother added to the mystique. The heady scent of gardenias, trees shrouded with gray-green Spanish moss, and tales of destruction during Sherman’s March to the Sea cemented my teenage southern sympathies. 

How had I missed the stain of slavery permeating those impressions? How could a country touting equal rights and liberty condone it for over 200 years? How could George Washington, a man idolized for his virtue, have been a slave owner? 

In my 1960’s American History classes in Pennsylvania, we were taught that the roots of the Civil War were largely economic, a collision between the industrialized North and the agrarian South. Beyond that, we were told, pointedly, that slavery was not the cause: the war was fought over states’ rights. True enough, but, as Confederacy vice president Alexander Stephens proclaimed in his Cornerstone Speech, the right so fiercely pursued by Confederate states was the right to own humans. 

Why did my teachers hedge?

Our decade is not the first to dodge “discomfort” while teaching the young. Was it deemed too discordant for a country founded on equality and liberty to delve into the brutality and hypocrisy of slavery when televisions were broadcasting into American living rooms scenes of violence against peaceful civil rights protesters? Were those images already tarnishing, to a distressing degree, the heroic post-WW II image of the United States? Could be. From the country’s founding, denial has continued to prove dangerous in masking past shame, allowing the resulting wounds to linger, and impeding the attainment of democratic ideals.  

President Washington was born into a world where denial thrived as fortunes flourished due to enslaved labor. While field hands were kept cowed and at a distance, the intelligence, talents and humanity of house servants, skilled seamstresses, weavers, carpenters, cooks, and farmers would have been evident. One must imagine, for those of heart and integrity such as Washington, a constant struggle of conscience. 

Washington’s thinking, and, equally important, his willingness to voice it, evolved during the Revolutionary War. In the courage of Black soldiers, in his bond with his valet William Lee, and in meeting accomplished Black – female! - poet Phylis Wheatley, it would have been ever harder to deny what was apparent. In 1786, he said, “There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for this abolition of [slavery] but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, & that is by legislative authority.” 

In his will, finally, he made peace with his conscience and freed his slaves. 

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On Saturday, as predicted, my friends and I woke to a light drizzle. In raincoats and sensible shoes, we left the Quarters, enjoying the scent of wood smoke wafting from the re-enactors’ encampment. George Washington as farmer and gardener was our focus, and Dean Norton, Director of Horticulture, was our guide. 

With eyes bright and every gesture conveying his knowledge and love of the glorious gardens and plants surrounding us, Dean was a font of anecdotes and information acquired during his fifty years at Mount Vernon. He led the way beneath towering trees planted by the first president and, as we strolled the brick path bordering thriving lettuces and prickly artichokes in the vegetable garden, pointed to the spot where he, Dean, had proposed to his wife. 

George Washington loved his home and grounds and was meticulous about documenting everything, including the timing and success of different plantings. He was fascinated by innovation and science, and when wrenched from home and family by duty to this new country, he wrote constantly to his farm managers with questions, instructions, and adaptions. Every change in approach brought new burdens for the enslaved, some of whom, one must note, also knew the agony of being wrenched from home and family. But Washington drove himself hard in all he undertook and demanded from his laborers the same devotion to work. 

One of our pilgrimages was to the memorials dedicated to Mount Vernon’s enslaved individuals. Some are buried in unmarked graves on a wooded rise not so far from George and Martha Washington’s tomb.  

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For over three centuries, presidents of these United States have commissioned or been honored with presidential libraries. The country’s first president - he who accepted the challenge of a radically new democracy and set the precedent honored until 2020 of a peaceful transfer of power - had none. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association (MVLA) wished to remedy that, and in 2010 launched a fundraising campaign to construct a library. They raised $106.4 million, all from private donors, and broke ground in 2011. The library opened in September of 2013, and in 2024, with Andy and archivist Rebecca Baird, we were invited into the inner sanctum.

Shelves of 18^th and 19^th century books lined the room, some formerly owned by the Washington family, others, actually the President’s. In one, held open by a looping “book snake,” Washington had written his name in the upper right corner of the title page, just as I have done in my books any number of times. Another volume, a replica of an original owned and acquired by the MVLA through heated bidding at a Sotheby’s auction, was Washington’s personal copy of the Constitution. Did I imagine the glow that seemed to surround it?     

And how to explain the aura in the conference room. Was it the lighting? The warmth of burnished sycamore paneling from a single three-hundred-year-old tree? Or was it the busts of the Founders, elevated on high, Washington presiding as Jefferson and Hamilton eyed each other warily from their plinths across the room? 

Encircled by images of those whose vision shaped our government, I sensed something beyond solemnity. Given today’s divisiveness and threat to Democracy, I was reminded of Benjamin Franklin’s charge in response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question in 1787: “Well Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”   

“A Republic, if you can keep it,” he replied.

Can we? Are we, the voters, going to honor that charge and prevent a Project 2025 styled dictatorship?