Posted on 02/21/2022 12:16:49 PM PST by Retain Mike
Thanks for posting it.
Thanks for posting it.
If he were to see what the DC swamp has to the Republic, he would come back and swim across the Delaware river again.
This is from Chapter 57, dedicated to Brutus #10.
***
The Fallout from the Newburgh Conspiracy
22 It remains a secret yet to be revealed whether this measure was not suggested or at least countenanced by some who have had great influence in producing the present system.
Brutus explains how George Washington stood up to the coup plotters at Newburgh in 1783, and how his character and example stopped the budding attempt at fascism. Brutus understood that if someone of lesser character had been at the head of the Continental Army, the Confederation would have been toppled and replaced with a dictator or king. The identities of Robert Morris, the Philadelphia banker, and Gouveneur Morris, his assistant, as the instigators of the plot, were unknown at the time except among the men who had comprised Washington’s staff at the end of the war.
Robert Morris had been the Superintendent of Finance and was responsible for keeping the infant nation afloat during the war, founding the Bank of North America, the nation’s first attempt at a central bank. The bank issued paper money backed by gold, silver and commercial paper from France and the Netherlands. However, due to charges of foreign influence, Pennsylvania revoked the charter of the central bank, and the bank reformed under a charter with a much smaller domain of operations.
The Morrises were able to cover their tracks well enough that they were chosen to represent Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention. Robert, Gouveneur, and their lawyer, James Wilson, played key roles in writing the Constitution.
When Washington arrived in Philadelphia, he was supposed to stay in rooms rented from Mrs. Mary House. But Robert Morris intercepted Washington’s coach and asked him to stay at his own home. Washington had earlier turned down a written offer to stay with Morris, but he wasn’t going to be seen to turn down a public offer. After unloading his luggage at the Morris home, he immediately took leave of the financier and went to the home of Benjamin Franklin to pay his respects. Washington had delivered a message, although a subtle one.
Gouveneur Morris didn’t get off so easily. David Stewart tells of a social event preceding the Convention. Gouveneur asked Hamilton, the man who had been the conduit between the Morrises and Washington at Newburgh, if His Excellency was as austere as he had heard. Hamilton, knowing Washington’s opinion of the man, suggested he give the general a hearty welcome. Morris went up to Washington, slapped him on the back and welcomed him to Philadelphia. Washington slowly turned and gave Morris a look that would have frozen brimstone. Morris beat a hasty retreat, while Hamilton tried valiantly to hide his mirth.
Despite what had happened four years earlier, Washington let bygones be bygones. Robert Morris’ financial acumen was going to be necessary to the enterprise, as was Gouveneur’s way with words. Their able lawyer, James Wilson, was to be one of the leading lights of the Convention.
Within the tightly knit legal community of New York, Brutus may have heard whispered details of the Newburgh incident from Hamilton or others. Without naming names, he suggests the coup plotters may have been present at the Convention – which they were.
Thanks, Mike!
I highly recommend North Callaghan’s excellent one volume biography of “The General.” Keep your powder dry and your kleenex at hand.
bttt
Thanks for the post. I am just starting his volume including the Constitutional Convention.
thanks for an example that we most fervently need.
we’ve had so many “dangerous hours” and now yet another one is on us. may God once again provide for our America, as our need is surely dire.
we ask for Your Divine Providence once again, In Jesus Name. Amen.
No greater man.
And I don’t care about the slavery thing. Macht nichts.
“Americans can never be adequately grateful that George Washington possessed the power and the will to intervene effectively in what may well have been the most dangerous hour the United States has ever known.”
__________
Contrast Washinton’s self-possessed demeanor and carefully regulated behavior with that of Canada’s first Totalitarian Mammy-singer.
THE “Mr President”, George (NMI) Washington of Mount Vernon, Virginia, the irreplaceable man, general and (reluctant) politician! The man who lived to the classic Roman hero, Cincinnatus (Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus), as the able man who, while seeking fame & fortune when young, made his best history as a man aged in efforts and battles.
Washington was the man who set the mold for the US Army, that they should always be under the civil governance, and walked-the-walk by resigning his Generalship when it was the DOMINANT power of the weak, disunited former colonies. He then became PRESIDENT GENERAL of the 1787 Constitutional Convention some 3 years later. His were the ears that everyone there wanted to talk to and the voice that all listened to.
As THE FIRST PRESIDENT, he set the patterns and the expectations of that brand new government. In a SINGULAR aspect, that of the ‘Address of the Office’, he made an immortal start that cannot be forgotten. In the War, he had the title of General and was frequently addressed as “Your Excellency”. As he took his Presidency, many proffered inflated, near monarchial terms to address his position. The Houses of Congress got to the points of “Majesty” and “Most Illustrious and Excellent President” while a cynic proposed “George IV”! After much bickering and with reputed background urging by the man, himself, the solution became “Mr President”!
Then, as in all great dramas, comes the final act, the denouement of what will this new REPUBLIC does with the EXECUTIVE POWER! History is replete with revolutionaries speaking of restraint but ending with lifetime dictatorships! It was probable that other countries and elites assumed that Washington would do the same or else remain a power figure behind the new President Elect, John Adams! When it became known that Washington was, instead, following the mode of Cincinnatus again and retiring to his quiet plantation, this did again set precedent! Indeed, his former Monarch and adversary, George III, said of this; “... that act placed him in a light, made him the most distinguished of any man living and the greatest character of the age.” Not bad to go from a traitor, yet to be hung, to this near supreme compliment!
Flexner’s book “George Washington, The Indispensable Man” is absolutely terrific. A readable, scholarly, detailed book that shows exactly why Washington was “1st in war; 1st in peaces; and 1st in the hearts of his countrymen.”
I read this book 20 years ago, and have referred back to it many times since.
Detractors of Washington are either poorly informed, or they have a radical agenda, or both.
One of the most important books in my library.
Thank you, FRiend.
I will be ordering that very soon.
And it took him most of his life to reach that point.
Washington had a ferocious temper. You could pile one straw after another on his camel's back, but the straw that broke it would send him into a blue rage that would make him physically ill for days. Then he would have to go around, hat in hand, to apologize to the people he had wronged. When you saw Washington's jawline tighten, it was considered prudent to leave the premises.
It was the spiritual exercises of the Freemasons, the meditations, that permitted him to get that temper of his under an iron discipline. Martha Washington noted that he had managed to keep his temper "under exquisite control."
Amen.
I will check that out. Thank you.
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