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To: GMMAC

"her first President, his entire Cabinet"

I don't think this is even technically true...but even if technically true, it is a huge exaggeration and very misleading.

Washington's ancestors on his father's side came over from England in the mid seventeenth century. I have never even heard it suggested that his mother was a Scot or or Scottish descent.

Jefferson was in Washington's cabinet - but his mother was born in London and his father was born in Virginia.

Hamilton was in Washington's cabinet - but Hamilton's mother was French, he was born in the West Indies. His father may well have been a Scot, but since he abandoned his son, and Hamilton's entire life was marked by him trying to overcome his illegitimacy, I don't think I would hold that up as an example.

Edmund Randolph was in Washington's cabinet - and though he was the son of a Scot, his father was a loyalist and returned to the homeland. Not exactly an American patriot. Don't think I would use that as an example, either.

Samuel Osgood was the final member of Washington's first cabinet. His father was English. Not sure where his mother was from, but to say he was a Scot or descended from a Scot is a real stretch.

Obviously John Adams (VP under Washington, not a cabinet member, but one of the most important architects of independence) descended from a long line of Englishmen. Franklin doesn't have any Scottish blood in him, either.

All that said, clearly the Scottish Enlightenment was enormously important for America and John Witherspoon was a true Scot and those are important facts. In fact, there are plenty of reasons to say why Scotland was important to American independence. That is true.

But to say that Washington and all of his cabinet were descendents of Scotland is simply false or so grossly exaggerated that has no meaning whatsoever.


24 posted on 01/08/2007 11:29:33 AM PST by ConservativeDude
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To: ConservativeDude
I'll stand by my openly credited source, Duncan A. Bruce, since given the esteemed view Burke's Peerage takes of his scholarship, it will surely take considerably more than your mere nay-saying to refute it.
51 posted on 01/08/2007 6:42:47 PM PST by GMMAC (Discover Canada governed by Conservatives: www.CanadianAlly.com)
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