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Right Angle Club: 2016
In progress.
Washington could occasionally display a wicked temper, but in general he was a reserved and dignified man. Physically large and unusually athletic, he tended to dominate by glaring at people rather than debating them. And so, after a lifetime of leadership and distinction, he seldom engaged in arguments. As a consequence of this studied behavior, it is possible to have many opinions about his underlying thoughts, except one: he always seems to come out on the winning side. It certainly was effective: he was Commander in Chief, The President and probably the instigator of the Constitutional Convention, and the First President of the United States. To decide whether he got what he wanted means deciding what he wanted, and he hardly ever stated it.
Conrad Black, the newspaperman who went to jail, stated the Canadian point of view, which is perhaps extreme. Black's view was "the Americans" first got the British to help them throw out the French, and then twenty years later got the French to help them throw out the British. These two statements are undoubtedly true if abbreviated. Added to them was the plain history that Washington had personally started the French and Indian War. One has to wonder what was in his mind when the French aristocrat LaFayette came to join him. And later on, what he thought of Thomas Jefferson's love affair with the French Revolution. Or what he thought of the antics of the French ambassador "Citizen Genet".
Washington didn't like the Indians, and he put down the radicals of the Whiskey Rebellion with extreme prejudice. Is it so hard to perceive the barons of Runnymede acting any differently?
Originally published: Saturday, February 06, 2016; most-recently modified: Friday, June 07, 2019