Book Review: His Excellency

Title
His Excellency: George Washington

Author
Joseph J. Ellis
Professor of History – Mount Holyoke College

Publication Date
2004

Reason for Reading
With all the talk recently about what the Founding Fathers intended for the country, I’ve had an increased curiosity about the American Revolution and the people involved in starting it. I figured Washington to be a good place to start and wasn’t disappointed in my selection. Both Washington as a topic and Ellis as an author were good. Ellis has written a number of books on the period, and his reputation seems to be quite good. He won the Pulitzer for his book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation.

Synopsis
Setting aside Washington’s youth due to a lack of historical evidence, Ellis essentially opens the biography with Washington’s entry into prominence with his role in the beginnings of the French and Indian War, and from there proceeds to cover the rest of his life. The focus is obviously on the well-known aspects of Washington’s life – the military, congressional, and presidential aspects, and this is done quite well for the breadth of information intended (as it is a relatively short book for such a historical figure). The peripheral aspects of Washington’s life, at least in terms of what may be conveyed in an elementary or secondary text book, though surely had more weight in his own life, garner lengthy sections on some topics (his meticulous running of Mount Vernon even while away), but are noticeably absent on others (Martha Washington, “his most intimate confidante,” post-marriage seems to be little more than a footnote).

Review
Overall, I was quite pleased with the book. For me, it essentially served as an in-depth primer on Washington’s life. I hope to learn more as I continue reading on this period, and will find an easier time doing that now that I have a better grasp on Washington’s life as a whole.

I especially appreciated the structure of the book. As Washington had very little education compared with many of the other founding fathers, I thought the book was well structured to reflect the pace with which Washington both came to hold his views and became more knowledgeable on the issues he needed to be. The early chapters of the book focus more on his experiences and how he reacts to many things, with brief notes on what he thought, such as the earlier feelings he started to have toward the British military for their condescending attitude toward colonials, or his treatment by his trading partner in Britain under the consignment system. But as the book progresses, Washington becomes more firmly entrenched as a singular icon, and America begins to forge as a nation, it seems Washington’s beliefs fortify into their eventual positions, at which point Ellis can expound upon them in greater detail.

As with any representation, whether biography, portrait, or anything else, the image projected depends entirely on what the writer or artist chooses to illustrate and on what they may concentrate. By writing the biography with a sense of brevity, the author essentially paints broad strokes of Washington’s life without often giving more thorough details on some issues and interactions that would shed a great deal of light on Washington to an unaccomplished reader. A couple specific relationships that I would have appreciated more information on would have been those with Martha Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and to a lesser extent, Thomas Jefferson. Martha Washington, as previously mentioned in this review, draws hardly a mention in the book after their marriage. This lack of information almost makes the implication that the marriage was more for money (hers) than for love (as he was smitten with another woman just before marrying Martha Custis). But the few statements they do make on her belie this possibility. The relationship with Hamilton I am especially eager to learn more about, as many accused Washington of bordering on senile during his presidency, and being misled by Hamilton to accomplish Hamilton’s vision of America. And Jefferson simply because he was what Washington thought of as the proverbial “prodigal son” in the family who was one of those making the accusations of senility.

Ultimately, Ellis portrays an extremely astute man who believed in his own independence and therefore also for the land in which he lived. But despite his independent spirit, he was ever mindful of how he was viewed by those around him, and those in generations to come. Because of this, one may be intrigued by the notes of his closest commanders, who all essentially swore never to publish memoirs after the war, or by his personal letters to his wife, which were apparently all destroyed by her after his death. But these are aspects of his life that were not intended to be public, and never will be.

As stated previously, I expected this book to be a primer on Washington moreso than an in-depth covering of his entire life, and the author even alludes to this in the preface, noting that there are many biographies out there that are multiple-volume works covering Washington alone. As such, I think it easily fulfilled the hope I had of what I would get out of it, and would definitely recommend it.

Quotes
“He received the modern equivalent of a grade-school education, but was never exposed to the classical curriculum or encouraged to attend college at William and Mary, a deficiency that haunted him throughout his subsequent career among American statesmen with more robust educational credentials.” (9)

Of his time in the French and Indian War:
“He had come to regard himself as superior to anyone, British or American, in conducting this kind of guerrilla war, and it rankled him that neither he nor his troops were paid at the same rate as British regulars.”
“His protest on this score was more personal than ideological; that is, it derived less from any political convictions about colonial rights than from his own disappointment that neither he nor his regiment were sufficiently appreciated.” (26)

“Appearances aside, he was an intensely passionate man, whose powers of self-control eventually became massive because of the interior urges they were required to master.” (37-8)

“Because he could not afford to fail, he could not afford to trust. For the rest of his life, all arguments based on the principle of mutual trust devoid of mutual interest struck him as sentimental nonsense.” (39)

“Just as the standing army he sought to create contradicted the political principles it claimed to be fighting for, Washington’s king-like status contradicted the potent anti-monarchical ethos in revolutionary ideology. In both cases, Washington acknowledged the incongruity but preferred victory to consistency.” (82)

“And the lesson Washington drew from that experience, learned not from books but from struggling on a day-by-day basis with its implications, was that the meaning of the American Revolution, at least as he understood it, had been transformed during the course of the war into a shape that neither he nor anyone else had foreseen at the start. It was a war not just for independence, but also for nationhood.” (112)

This is a direct quote from Washington that Ellis used:
“Men are very apt to run into extremes; hatred to England may carry some into excessive confidence in France . . . ; I am heartily disposed to entertain the most favourable sentiments of our new ally and to cherish them in others to a reasonable degree; but it is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.” (123)

“His embrace of the Potomac mythology also inspired some of his most visionary renditions of America as ‘the Land of promise . . . for the poor, the needy, & oppressed of the Earth.’ Waves of immigrants would flow over the Atlantic and through ‘the front door’ that was the Potomac, on to ‘the fertile plains of the Western Country,’ in one rendition reaching all the way to California.” (155)

“He did not view Native Americans as exotic savages, but as familiar and formidable adversaries fighting for their own independence: in effect, behaving pretty much as he would do in their place.” (212)

“Back in Philadelphia, Washington addressed Congress, justifying his military response on the grounds that “certain self-created societies” were in fact subversive organizations that threatened the survival of the national union. He was not disputing the right of aggrieved citizens to dissent, but he was insisting that dissent could not take the form of flagrant violation of federal authority.” (225)

“He confessed to Jay that the vicious personal attacks and willful misrepresentations that dominated the debate were ominous signs of a new kind of party politics for which he had no stomach.” (230)

“At some level he recognized that political parties were transforming the shape of national politics, making character as he understood it irrelevant, even a liability. The new ground rules, soon to triumph in the new century, struck him as both alien and awful, a world in which he had no place.” (267)

“For Washington, the American Revolution was not about destroying political power, as it was for Jefferson, but rather seizing it and using it wisely. Ultimately, his life was all about power: facing it, taming it, channeling it, projecting it. His remarkably reliable judgment derived from his elemental understanding of how power worked in the world.” (272)

Further Reading
The Journal of Major George Washington
George Washington
1754

Founding Brothers
Joseph J. Ellis
2000

The Life of George Washington
John Marshall
1849