George Washington: Original American Badass

[mystery-ak]

George Washington: Original American Badass
streiff


Today is "Presidents' Day," a rather lifeless midwinter holiday that gives some people a three-day holiday and retailers the chance to flog Chinese-made consumer goods at a discount. It wasn't always so. Before 1970, it was Washington's Birthday, in honor of our first president, and, if you'll stick with me through this story, a genuine American badass.

Most (I hope) Americans know he was our first president. More probably know about his false teeth and, now that the destruction of American culture is the thing, that he owned slaves than know about his life. When most people think of George Washington, they think of a rather stiff figure in a wig. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Our first president was a badass in his own right.

At a time when Europeans born in America were about 5 feet 4 inches, George Washington stood 6 feet 3 inches. He was athletic and had a charisma that attracted the attention and admiration of men and women. The scion of minor Tidewater gentry, Washington could've led a comparatively easy life as a planter. But that wasn't his style. He was called to an active life that bordered on the reckless.

At the age of seventeen, he was a licensed surveyor. Family connections got him an appointment as the official surveyor of Culpeper County, VA. In 1750, at age eighteen, he began surveying wilderness tracts across the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Shenandoah Valley. Surveying the Shenandoah Valley was not a trivial undertaking. The Shenandoah was unexplored, and the people who settled there were mostly Irish borderers — or what we now call Scots-Irish to distinguish them from the Irish Catholics who began arriving in the first third of the 19th century — who were not known for docility or paying much attention to the law. Thomas Jefferson lamented, "The wild Irish, who had gotten possession of the valley between the Blue Ridge and North Mountain, forming a barrier over which none ventured to leap, and would still less venture to settle among." They gathered there by choice, flowing down the Cumberland Valley from Pennsylvania, as many of them had reason to prefer to be at a distance from authorities. The British Crown wasn't displeased. They formed a useful barrier between the French and their Indian allies and British settlements east of the Blue Ridge.

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https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/02/19/george-washington-original-badass-n2170314

[Cyber Liberty]

His actual birthday is my birthday, in a few days.  When I was a kid, I never got Birthday Cards on my birthday, because mail did not run that day....

It seems that kids these days don't know what the date of birth is for Lincoln, either.

[berdie]

That is a very interesting article. I enjoyed it!

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Great article.

Here's my favorite historical tidbit that gives a flavor of what a remarkable man he truly was:

Outside the National Gallery in London sits the strangest statue in Trafalgar Square, or maybe all of England. It's not bizarre because of its design or composition, but instead for whom the statue honors.

It is a replica, one of 25 or more, spread around the world. But it seems strange only in London, considering who it is and where the statue is placed.

It's a statue of George Washington, onetime citizen of Great Britain, father of the United States and rebellious colonial. In a square that marks one of Britain's greatest victories stands a reminder of one of its greatest defeats.

Washington's statue is not only there, but it's resplendent with symbols of authority, like the 13 wooden rods on which he leans (also a symbol of the 13 colonies). It's just hanging out in a square owned by the crown -- and built on soil shipped in from the state of Virginia.
The statue was presented to the British as a gift in 1921, when relations between the United States and the United Kingdom were much, much better than they had been in 1783. It's an exact replica of an original statue commissioned by Thomas Jefferson, which can still be seen in the Virginia State Capitol building in Richmond.

In fact, 25 casts of the statue have been made and spread all over the world, from the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., to Lima, Peru and, of course, London's Trafalgar Square.

Because legend has it that George Washington once swore he would never set foot on British soil ever again, the erectors of the Trafalgar Square statue laid it on a foundation of Virginia soil to ensure that Washington did not tell a lie.

But the idea that the commander in chief of the Continental Army is somehow unwelcome in London is the real fiction. Washington was actually well-respected by the British people -- and by one very important British person in particular.

According to author and researcher Edward J. Larson, no less than King George III himself, whose land forces Washington spent seven years evading and killing, came to admire and respect the American leader.

That respect came after the American colonies were granted independence, and Washington, the head of the Continental Army, ceded his power and resigned rather than take the country by force. The king called Washington "the greatest man of the age."

The British prime minister at the time of American independence, William Petty, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, even commissioned a life-size portrait of the first president during Washington's last year in office.

That portrait has become one of the most iconic of our first president. A copy was hung in the East Room of the White House at the end of John Adams' presidency, where it remains today. The original is owned by the U.S. National Portrait Gallery.

Lansdowne called Washington "the Greatest Man Living."

Washington is one of six American presidents who have statues or memorials in London. The others are Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

https://www.military.com/history/george-washington-statue-london-british-soil.html

Says something great about both Washington and the British, really.  I suppose they looked at him and thought "you know, he was one of us for most of his life, and look at what he did.   One of the greatest historical achievements ever, and it was done by someone raised under our values and ideas."   So in a weird way, they can take credit for what he did.

[Cyber Liberty]

Great article.

Here's my favorite historical tidbit that gives a flavor of what a remarkable man he truly was:

Says something great about both Washington and the British, really.  I suppose they looked at him and thought "you know, he was one of us for most of his life, and look at what he did.   One of the greatest historical achievements ever, and it was done by someone raised under our values and ideas."   So in a weird way, they can take credit for what he did.

Washington was an English hero in the French and Indian war.

[Wingnut]

We have really fallen in the past 250 years leadership wise.  From President Washington to the current Resident Vacation Taker In Chief.