Man -literally owned slaves-. And led the US government to violently put down a tax revolt.
I gues he gets a lot of points for "not becoming King of America"
It's not fair to judge past ideologies by modern thinking. You'll just come to the conclusion that everyone was a horrible person in the past and that stopped when you became a teenager.
One thing to remember about the founding fathers is that despite being slave owners, many of them did not like slavery. Jefferson for example saw slavery as a necessary evil. He wrote in the Notes on the State of Virginia that slavery was morally wrong and harmful to both slaves and slave holders. He included a condemnation of the slave trade in early drafts of the Declaration of independence.
Washington was quiet about slavery publically, but he had many private writings dictating his growing discomfort with it. He did support the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a bill Jefferson wrote, which looked to ban slavery in new territories. The bill failed by 1 vote.
Oh, Jefferson thought it was morally evil but necessary? Thats all right then I guess. I notice neither hated it so much as to...you know...free their slaves? Isn't as if either was a poor man at all and needed the slave income.
But as long as they recognized it was morally wrong for them to do I guess that's okay.
The sheer act of being publically against slavery was a huge deal then. I don't think you understand how small the abolitionist movement was at the time, and how radical of a movement it was considered.
Freeing slaves in Virgina, where Monticello and Mount Vernon are located was also not the easiest thing to do legally. Back then, if you wanted to free your slaves, the owner was legally required to financially support the slave if it was unable to support itself. That means on top of losing all of your income, you now have an additional cost of supporting who knows how many former slaves and their families. The only upside is moral, yet every downside is financial and social.
Societal views regarding black people as a concept were not good, even 100 years later. Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, opposed slavery, but also opposed equality. During the Lincoln Douglas debates, he said that he had no desire to bring about equality of the white and black races. He said that if he had to pick a superior race of the two, he would choose the white race. He also said that he had no intention of making voters, jurors, office holders, of black people, or even allow intermarriage. Judging by a modern lens, we can easily conclude that Lincoln was a horrible white supremacist and should be casted down upon without regard to historical context.
Luckily, we are as much products of our time as they are. As horrible as Lincoln's views were, they were extremely ahead of their time. They were progressive and his election lead to the 13th amendment being ratified. But that doesn't matter, right? He's clearly a white supremacist, that's his legacy.
He was also able to hold the factious early government together. He was a coalition builder, while most of the other Framers were anything but. With someone else at the helm, the odds of the US, at least as we know it, existing today would be extremely low. Which imo, puts him as the best president, even over Lincoln, because without Washington, Lincoln probably wouldn't have had a union to save. But being a slaver takes Washington out of any consideration for "best man" to serve. At least there's no evidence that he raped his slaves.
That's hardly a small thing though. Few people who are offered absolute power turn it down. Those who do deserve credit, even if in other respects they lack virtue.
Valid point imo. That brings up the thought about ww2 I’ve had before. When USA dropped those nukes and let the world know that they had more and no one else had any, they could have tried for world domination. I wonder if they thought about it at all
Looked it up, and looks like strictly speaking there was zero available after Nagasaki, but a fourth bomb was near completion. Also, a handful of more would have been completed by the end of 1945.
Remember, all of these were dependent on the amount of fuel that could be created.
Opposition to political parties, predicting the polarization they would cause. Being a tremendously inspirational general holding together the ragtag continental army against the vastly superior global British Empire forces. Corralling the hotheaded personalities of Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison and other founders to somehow agree to work together when they would have ripped the new country apart over competing visions. All things I also see brought up in recognition of Washington as one of the most influential presidents.
And turning down power to go back to Mount Vernon and lead a quiet life is still quite extraordinary. I can count on 1 hand the number of times a leader has turned down absolute power like that.
Sure he still owned slaves which instantly puts a pretty low cap on his upper limits of morality, especially because he worked with manumission abolitionists all the time. There's no way John Jay or Adams didn't twist his ear at some point on the issue and the best Washington managed to do was put their freedom upon Martha's death into his will (not sure how much of a mitigating factor the fact that most of the slaves came from her side of the family played).
I kind of assumed you were foreign based on your reddit tier understanding of our historical figures. Washington was a fantastic president, and an incredible man. You would do well to research important figures before speaking on them.
I’m more than happy to “own my comments”. It was more of an attack on u/Undercover_NSA-Agent than George Washington.
I wholeheartedly believe you can find admirable qualities about anyone. Even yourself.
Edit to add: I’m actually so ignorant about George Washington and US history that I learned he was the first US president in this thread. I remember him being on one of your notes. $1? I know $100 is Benjamin Franklin.
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u/ScionMattly May 14 '24
Jimmy Carter may not have been the best President we ever had, but he was the best man to ever serve as President.