There was no shortage of talent among the founders of the United States. Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison are the most prominent in a long list of extraordinary, accomplished individuals.

George Washington would not be included in this talented group as he was not a great thinker, writer or orator. However, as Washington biographer, James Thomas Alexander states, he was “the indispensable man” of the revolutionary era. Shortly before Washington took office as the first president (a position he accepted with great reluctance) on April 30, 1789 Thomas Jefferson told him: “We cannot, Sir, do without you.”

Washington demonstrated his battlefield courage and leadership skills throughout the Revolutionary War. He was a man of integrity and fortitude who kept the Continental Army together under the most trying circumstances. After the war Washington could have easily assumed powers as a dictator — for life — and reluctantly agreed to become the first president. He was even more resistant to serving a second term, and established the precedent of a two terms presidency.

It’s highly unlikely anyone but Washington (with near god-like status) could have saved the newly established republic from collapsing as the political divide between Hamilton’s Federalist Party and Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans grew ever more acrimonious and ugly.

When the 67 year-old first president died in December 1799, Congress chose his close friend Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee — a major general in the Continental Army and father of Civil War Gen. Robert E. Lee — to deliver the eulogy. Near the conclusion of his farewell, Lee stated that Washington was “First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

Had Donald Trump and his MAGA loyalists been alive, Washington would not have been “first” in their hearts. To the contrary, they would have viciously attacked him on numerous issues starting with his vaccination policy during the Revolutionary War.

By late December 1776 — almost two years after the battles of Lexington and Concord — the Continental Army was taking heavy casualties with 90 percent of deaths the result of diseases, especially smallpox. To curtail this outbreak General Washington ordered that all troops coming through the capital of Philadelphia as well as Morristown, New Jersey, (after the Battle of Princeton) had to be inoculated against smallpox with the inoculations commencing on Jan. 6, 1777.

In a February 1777 letter to Dr. William Shippen (3rd Director General of Hospitals of the Continental Army) Washington stated: “Finding smallpox to be spreading much and fearing that no precaution can prevent it from running through the whole of our Army, I have determined that the troops shall be inoculated…Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the Army in the natural way and with its usual virulence, we have more to dread from it than from the sword of the enemy.”

To offset the loss of soldiers as they healed from the inoculation, military doctors inoculated divisions in five day intervals. The military used private homes and churches as isolation centers to control the spread of smallpox. Washington’s inoculation strategy was a bold move for at least two reasons: First, this decision contradicted a 1776 proclamation by the Continental Congress banning inoculations. Second, Washington was well aware that inoculations (primitive by today’s standards) could well backfire and cause more cases of smallpox than they prevented.

By disobeying Washington’s inoculation orders his own generals prevented him from having the number of soldiers he needed for the 1777 summer campaign. According to historian Janet Aker, Washington’s inoculation policy was “largely successful” as isolated cases of the disease occurred but did not incapacitate a single regiment. The Tucker Carlsons of the day would have been screaming that General Washington was overrated, incompetent and likely a traitor attempting to destroy the Continental Army.

Washington despised religious fanaticism and was an early advocate of religious tolerance. In August 1790, President Washington wrote a letter to Moses Seixas of the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, expressing tolerance for and the freedom of religion. He considered these to be a foundation of the newly established nation: “The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

The final paragraph of Washington’s letter addresses the American Jewish community directly, noting the relation among individuals, religious institutions and the government.

“May the Children of the Stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants — while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.”

One can imagine armed demonstrators rushing into the capitol building in 1790 chanting “Jews will not replace us,” and “Hang the Jew-Lover George Washington.” Then as now these people despise much of what the leader of the Continental Army and the first president of the United States championed.

THE END

P.S. Words of another founder should be kept in mind as we celebrate Independence Day. On the last day of the Constitutional Convention (Philadelphia, September 17, 1787), a woman asked Benjamin Franklin if we have a republic or a monarchy. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

George J. Bryjak lives in Bloomingdale and is retired after 24 years of teaching sociology at the University of San Diego.

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Sources

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“‘A republic if you can keep it’: Elizabeth Willing Powel, Benjamin Franklin, and the James McHenry Journal” (2022) January 6, Library of Congress Blogs, HYPERLINK http://www.blogs.loc.govwww.blogs.loc.gov

Aker, J. (2021) “General Washington ordered smallpox inoculations for all troops,” Military Health, HYPERLINK http://www.health.milwww.health.mil

Chernow, R (2010) Washington: A Life, Penguin Press: New York

“First in war, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of His Countrymen” (accessed 2023) George Washington’s Mount Vernon, HYPERLINK http://www.mountveronon.orgwww.mountveronon.org

Flexner, J. T. (2017) Washington: The Indispensable Man, Back Bay Books: New York

“From George Washington to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, 18 August 1790” (accessed 2023) Founders Online HYPERLINK http://www.founders.archive.www.founders.archive..gov

“George Washington and the Jews: His famous letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport,” (accessed 2023) My Jewish Learning, HYPERLINK http://www.jewishlearning.comwww.jewishlearning.com

“Smallpox inoculation and the Revolutionary War,” (accessed 2023) National Parks Service,

HYPERLINK http://www.nps.govwww.nps.gov

“What Made George Washington a Great Leader?” (1984) Constitutional Rights Foundation,

www.crf-usa.org