ABSTRACT
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are America’s most celebrated founding fathers. Monuments to their legend adorn the nation’s capital, the site for which was chosen by and then named after the first president. In 1963 Martin Luther King stood in the sight of the Washington monument and implored America to live up to the true meaning of its creed, quoting Thomas Jefferson’s words that all men are created equal. Jefferson and Washington, however, were slave holders. Their lives, like those of so many other Americans in the eighteenth century, were inextricably linked to slavery; an institution which clearly drew the parameters of American citizenship. Joseph Ellis has described the issue of slavery as ‘the proverbial ghost at the banquet’.1 Washington led the fledgling American nation as it threw off the shackles of British imperialism. However, in 1796, when his slave Oney Judge fled in order to quench a ‘thirst for complete freedom’, Washington denied her attempts to achieve liberty.2 Jefferson contradicted his famous 1776 statement of equality for all men when five years later he wrote, in Notes on the State of Virginia, that blacks were ‘inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind’.3 Jefferson strongly opposed any mixing of the black and white races and yet he fathered children with his slave mistress, Sally Hemings. Jefferson’s place as an American icon is such that it is difficult to
scrutinise his career and person ‘without appearing to assault the very core of American society’.4 Indeed Washington and Jefferson’s duality, as national heroes and as slave holders, raises questions about their role as symbols of the nation. Does their status as slave masters provide an irremovable stain on their record as American icons or does such a condemnation reflect an unhelpful presentism? It is wrong to apply twenty-first-century standards to men of the eighteenth century. Instead we must view their ideas concerning slavery against one
another and in the context of men of their generation. To find fault with the founders is not to diminish their place in American heritage but it helps illuminate further the nation’s struggle to frame and live up to its chosen creed. Unlike Jefferson, who wrote about the issue of slavery and struggled
to justify its existence in a land dedicated to liberty, Washington made few public statements on the issue. A man with the highest public profile in Revolutionary America, Washington knew that it was ‘imprudent for him to speak about slavery openly’.5 As Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, chairman of the Constitutional Convention and then president of the United States, he was present at some of the most important discussions about slavery but he remained largely silent on the issue. Perhaps because of this hesitance to speak publicly about the issue, historians have long disagreed on the evolution of Washington’s views on slavery. What is certain, however, is that there was a change in his thinking as his life progressed. The final expression of his views on slavery came in his will. Washington wrote that he wished for all of his slaves to be freed upon the death of his wife. He not only willed that his slaves should go free but he maintained that this should happen after the death of his wife. This was, in part, to ensure the survival of families formed because of marriage between his slaves and those of his wife but also to protect her from the distress of having to deal with the separation of families during her lifetime.6 In this consideration he showed more concern for his slaves than Jefferson who freed only five slaves in his will and left some 200 others to be auctioned. Jefferson also had no compunction when splitting up his own slaves from their families.7 Indeed, writing about the black race Jefferson observed, ‘love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient.’8 It would be easy to criticise Jefferson in comparison to Washington on this matter. It is worth noting, however, that the former had much greater debts than the latter and that Jefferson lived longer than Washington and had children who would inherit his estate. Economically, it was much easier for Washington to use his will to ensure eventual freedom for his slaves. Washington’s views were consistent with other planters of his gen-
eration. By the time he was a young man the slave system was well established in Virginia and Washington’s life became inextricably linked with slavery. By the age of sixteen he already personally owned 24 slaves and by 1799 the figure was 164. The slaves who worked his land were treated as beasts of burden and he exhibited a largely detached attitude towards them.9 Given that he freed his slaves while
others of his generation, most notably Jefferson, did not, the question then is, when his mind was made up, when was he compelled to untangle himself from the slave system? It is here that historians have disagreed and admirers of the first president may be disappointed. Given his status as the pre-eminent founding father it would be gratifying for Americans if their first great leader had experienced an epiphany, if the moral contradiction of slavery in the land of liberty had irresistibly prodded his conscience. The majority of Americans in the late eighteenth century did not, however, see slavery as an anomaly, a system out of place in a ‘democratic’ America. Slavery was imbedded in the Constitution and an accepted part of US life. Furthermore, Washington was not a natural idealist; his primary concern was the day-to-day reality of power. As Joseph Ellis has noted, Washington was a man of ‘rock-ribbed realism’.10
