President George Washington (Part 3)

Ben Wilson
Hello, and welcome to how to take over the world. This is Ben Wilson. Welcome to part three on the life of George Washington. This will cover from the end of the revolutionary war through his presidency and to the end of his life. I think that the presidency of George Washington is probably the most underrated part of his legacy.

If you're an american like I am, and you grow up hearing about George Washington, I feel like you hear a lot about him as the revolutionary general and his heroic efforts there, and you hear less about his presidency and how impactful that was. And he genuinely shaped the nation, shaped what the United States would become. He was an amazing president, really effective, did a really good job as a president, and that's just not something I knew a lot about. So I think it's a really interesting part of his story. Before we get into it, I will be releasing shortly the Washington Guide to taking over the world, and that will be available to subscribers only.

So if you want to hear sort of my condensed thoughts about what made him so great and how you can follow in his footsteps, how you can follow that Washington guide to achieving greatness, then go ahead and sign up at takeoverpod dot super cast.com. And that link, as always, is in the show notes. So to start off with, George Washington ends his service as the leader of the military forces of the United States of America and goes back to Mount Vernon, his farm, and finds it in ruinous condition. It had not been kept up well while he was serving in the military. And, yeah, he just finds things really run down.

It was not profitable. Lots of parts of the estate had been neglected. So he goes about trying to set everything right. He enjoys being a gentleman farmer. One of the things, however, he doesn't enjoy is his celebrity.

People from all walks of life want to come to Mount Vernon and meet George Washington. And he felt like he couldn't really turn anyone away. It's because there was this republican attitude of equality. No one's better than anyone. And so for him to say to a prospective visitor, you know, no, I can't receive you right now, would have gone against public attitude.

And so he just had to take in everyone that came by, and people were constantly coming by to meet him. This really imposes upon him again, his estate is in ruinous condition, is not profitable, and so he doesn't have the money to be hosting and feeding people every day. And it's basically every day that people are coming by and expecting this treatment. So he comes to really, I would say, resent this celebrity. And it's interesting to hear quotes about celebrity from the 17 hundreds and how people felt the same way about it then that they do today.

So Washington said retirement from the public walks of life has not been so productive for leisure and ease as might have been expected. And even more poignantly, you know, Benjamin Franklin had the same experience. So Washington and Franklin are the first to american celebrities. Actually, Franklin was the first. And then Washington and Benjamin Franklin said, quote, celebrity may for a while flatter one's vanity, but its effects are troublesome.

I just think that's so interesting. Like, that's what you hear from celebrities today. That celebrity is great for a while when you become a celebrity, but then it's really a burden. And Franklin says almost exactly that back in the 17 hundreds. One of the things that Washington does in order to dissuade people from coming to Mount Vernon is he doesn't put up any signage, and it's kind of hard to get to Alexandria, which is the nearest town, is 8 miles away, and you have to go through woods and, and marshes.

And so he just doesn't put up any signs hoping that people will get lost trying to make their way to Mount Vernon. And many people do. They get lost trying to find George Washington. And he likes it that way. He's trying to stay as far away from all these visitors as he can, but, you know, he can't get away from it much.

And this does prove to be a huge drain on his energy and on his finances. As he goes about trying to get his affairs in order and kind of turn around his estate, he gets kind of tired of farming, of trying to make it as a farmer. You know, farming has always been a business where it's tough to be really, really profitable. And so he's saying, all right, can I try some different stuff? So he takes on some minor industrial projects.

You know, he creates mills and distilleries and just doing anything he can to say, can I turn a profit in a different way? One of the effects of this is there's this huge divide in the United States at this time between agricultural interests who are mostly in the south, you know, these big estates, these big farms, and then industrial interests in the north, you know, all these factories and mills and things like that. Well, his experience with this makes Washington kind of bipartisan in that way. He's open to both. So he has a history as a gentleman farmer, but he kind of sees the limits of that.

And he has also experience as an industrialist. And so he's open to those interests and to increasing and improving that part of the economy as well. Makes him an ideal first president because he can understand everyone in the country and all these major interests. One of the other things, this is probably on the end notes, but whatever I'm gonna say here that I thought was just kind of funny and interesting is, uh, you know, he's a very interesting guy with lots of interests, and he's very energetic, and he can accomplish all these random things. So I'll just read one quote about one of his random accomplishments.

It says, in addition to his better known title of father of his country, Washington is also revered in certain circles as the father of the american mule. So thats one of the projects that Washington undertakes is to create this new breed of mule thats very productive on his farm. And he goes through this long, selective breeding process of getting just the right temperament to be helpful and productive. And it takes a few generations, but he ends up with this great american mule, which I guess now is a prominent and useful type of mule. So thats random.

I think it gives you an idea for the energy that Washington had and his ability to accomplish things in all these different domains. You know, as Washington does this, it goes back to being a gentleman farmer. He thinks his time in the public eye is done, and he frankly wants it to be done. However, he did have this critique of the articles of Confederation, which was how the United States function. It was their constitution at the time, and he thought it wasn't strong enough, it wasn't robust enough.

The central government was way too weak. So the articles of Confederation basically gave all powers to the 13 states and made a very, very weak central government that could accomplish almost nothing. And Washington said, we are either a united people under one head, or we are 13 independent sovereignties eternally counteracting each other. And so he's saying, look, if we're eternally counteracting each other, if we're always fighting against each other, then we're never going to be able to realize greatness as a nation. The reason for this is that there was all this skepticism towards England and towards anything that reeked of englishness.

So Chernow writes, Americans now define themselves as the antithesis of everything english, even if that acted to their detriment. And so people are really afraid of a strong central government because that's what England had, and that's what had led to this tyranny, or so they perceived it, and led to the revolutionary war and led to them wanting their independence. But Washington, in his role as leader of the military, had worked in the only institution that had been a functioning combination of all 13 states. And he said, you know, this is the way to go. And he actually thought that the biggest threat of tyranny came from not having a strong enough central government.

He wouldn't have phrased it this way, but he was afraid of the Napoleon option. Right. If we don't have a strong enough central government that can handle crises as they come up, then what we're going to have is anarchy. And when there's anarchy, people are willing to look to a strong leader who can give them order, even if he's despotic. And so that's what Washington's afraid of.

It would turn out to be a very prescient fear. And I think he's right. I think that if the constitution had not been adopted, there's a very strong chance that someone like this would have come along. And, in fact, we'll get more into this in the Hamilton episode that's coming up. I think Alexander Hamilton would have been the american Napoleon.

The two of them are extremely similar. Anyway, Washington has this belief, and it seems prophetic when something happens called Shay's rebellion. And what Shay's rebellion is, is a bunch of former soldiers. Revolutionary war soldiers are farmers in western Pennsylvania, and, uh, they're not happy about the taxes that are being levied against them, and they're not happy about some of the back pay that still hasn't been paid to them. And so they take up arms.

It doesn't really go very far, but it really shakes people because there's a rebellion, and the american government has a lot of trouble dealing with it. And so people see for the first time, wow, people like Washington and Hamilton are right. Uh, this is really a bad thing that. That our government can't respond to crises when they adopt. So, uh, it leads to a lot of lost sleep for the Continental Congress and has a big part in shifting american public opinion towards the idea that, yeah, we do need something new.

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Thank you miracle Maid for sponsoring this episode. So since things seem to be going the wrong direction with these articles of confederation, people come together around this idea. Okay, we need a new constitution. Let's call together a constitutional convention. Technically, when it starts, the constitutional convention is illegal.

People are plotting a new government, as there's an existing government already there. But, you know, what are they going to do about it? That's the whole point, is that the american government is so weak, they don't have a standing army, they don't have any forces with which they can stop this. And, you know, they didn't care that much. The Continental Congress, many of the people who served in it would serve in the constitutional convention.

And they do end up passing a bill, belatedly, that says, okay, this constitutional convention is okay, even though it ends up stepping beyond the powers that Continental Congress gave it. Virginia names Washington as their chief representative to the constitutional Congress without consulting him. And at first, Washington considers turning this down because he had made a promise when he left the military in 1783 that he was done with public life and he wanted to set the example that I'm not going to become a tyrant. I'm not going to try and take power for myself. My public service is done.

I'm going to go back to being a gentleman farmer. So he is nominated, but he considers turning it down for this reason. He didn't want to break a promise. But ultimately he decides, okay, well, this thing actually might fail without my presence, and we really need this. And so I'm gonna answer the call of duty one more time, and he goes to the constitutional convention to help hammer out, figure out what should our new constitution be.

He has his same approach that he always uses. I think that Chernow writes something really interesting about his approach. He says, having learned to accumulate power by withholding his assent, he understood the influence of his mystique and kept people in suspense. Okay, so that's one of the things he's doing, is keeping people in, suspensing, maybe I'll go, maybe I won't. And staying aloof and staying mysterious, having this mystique about him, I think that's one of the big lessons that I am taking away from this whole story, is, especially in the time of social media, people want to be so present.

People want to put more and more out there. And in some ways, absence is really powerful. If you're listening to a song and you hear a few seconds of silence, you go, what just happened there? In a noisy world, silence is a superpower. Silence actually calls more attention than noise does.

And so that's something I learned from this. That's something I've been thinking about, is, how do I cultivate that mystique? There's actually a good scene from one of my favorite tv shows called the Young Pope, where I think this is explained really well. And the young pope is the story of a pope who gets elected and is very young. He's played by Jude Law, and he comes in, and one of the first things that happens is the marketing director of the Vatican says, okay, we need an official portrait for you so that we can publish all these plates and pictures and all this memorabilia and merchandise with the image of the pope on it.

So what portrait do you want to use? And here is what the pope, played by Jude Law, says about his portrait. Very good. And now I'm going to tell you what you, as curator of the image of the Holy Father, are going to do. You are going to fire the Vatican's official photographer immediately.

No photographs of the pope are to be issued, just as there were none when I was a cardinal or a bishop. Do you know why? I never allowed my picture to be taken. And when someone managed to sneak a photograph of me, I always bought them up before they could be published. Now that I think about it, I've been training my whole life to be an invisible pope.

And so for my first address, you will see to it that the lighting is so dim. No photographer, no tv cameraman, and not even the faithful will see anything of me but a dark shadow, my silhouette. They will not see me because I do not exist. If I may, Holy Father, what you. Are proposing is nothing short of suicide.

Media suicide. Media suicide, you say? Fine. Now, try to keep up with me if you can. I'm right with you, Polly.

Ben Wilson
Father. Good. Okay, so who is the most important author of the last 20 years? Careful. No, not the best.

Virtuosity is for the arrogant. The most important. The author who sparked so much morbid curiosity that he became the most important? I wouldn't know. I'd say Philip Roth.

No. Salinger. The most important film director. Spielberg. No.

Kubrick. Contemporary artist. Jeff Koontz. Oh. Marina Abramovich.

Banksy. Electronic music group. Oh. I don't know the first thing about electronic music. You say Harvard is a good university anyway.

Daft punk. The best italian female vocalist. Mina. Ah, brava. Now, do you know what it is?

Ben Wilson
What? The invisible red thread that connects them all, all these most important figures in their respective fields. None of them let themselves be seen. None of them let themselves be photographed. But you are not an artist, Holy Father.

You are ahead of a state. Yes. Of a city. State so small it has no outlet to the sea. And in order to survive, its leader has to make himself as unreachable as a rock star.

The Vatican survived thanks to hyperbole, so we. We shall generate hyperbole, but this time in reverse.

Ben Wilson
Okay. And I think that really gets at it. George Washington created this mystique by being inaccessible, and that led to this frenzy to get him involved, get his attention. And so I think that's something that can definitely be learned from when he gets to the constitutional convention. They want a president to preside over the thing.

The only people considered are him and Benjamin Franklin. And Benjamin Franklin actually nominates George Washington to be the president of the constitutional convention. One so that there's not conflict. The last thing that either of them want is for this to devolve into petty partisanship. And then the other thing is, Benjamin Franklin is older than Washington, and his health is not great at that point, so he doesn't think he has the energy to be the president.

So he nominates Washington. Despite Franklin Washington really wanting this to be nonpartisan, non contentious. It does get very contentious. You know, there are different states with different interests, different ideas about how this new constitution should look, and it gets very, very heated for a while. Washington himself tries to stay above it all.

Here's a good quote. Most of the time, he stood forth as a neutral arbiter and honest broker. Okay? So that's all he's trying to do. Arbitrate, be an honest broker, gather all the views, synthesize, and kind of keep people moving forward productively.

This whole thing happens in Philadelphia. And so as an attempt to seem like a neutral party who is inclusive of everyone, one of the things he does is he goes to many different churches in Philadelphia, and he attends different services, showing that religiously, he's kind of a man of all seasons, a man for all people. He doesn't go to church with him, but he goes to a dinner with one of the prominent jewish merchants, and he goes to a catholic mass. So he's showing that, hey, it doesn't matter if you are episcopalian or Presbyterian or Catholic or Jewish. You know, I can get along with you, and I want all of you involved in this new american project.

One of the other things that's interesting to me is a lot of people, when they meet Washington, they want to go down memory lane. You know, they want to talk about the victories of the Revolutionary War and all the successes that he had had and all the experiences they'd had. And Washington did not like to do that. Here's the quote. It says, active and forward looking.

Washington did not amble very often down memory lane. And that's a really common attribute of the greats. You know, whether it was Steve Jobs who hated talking about his childhood, Edison was the same. Like, they don't like to look backwards. They only like to look forward.

And that might seem like a small thing, but to me, I mean, just consider how different the course of America would have been if Washington had used this constitutional convention as an opportunity to replay the hits, if he had been consumed with what he had already accomplished. But he wasn't. He was forward looking. He had everyone focused on this new constitution. And that leads to some great results.

One of the biggest contributions that Washington makes to the new constitution is just his presence, because they're talking about three branches of government from the very beginning. This is called the Virginia plan. And so they have a legislative branch, an executive branch, and a judicial branch. And the executive branch people are very skeptical of because, again, they're really afraid of tyranny, of an english model of government. So they don't want anyone that looks like a monarch or who has a lot of power centralized in a single person.

And so if Washington wasn't there, the executive would have been very, very weak, and it would have been a sclerotic, I think, and weak government that couldn't get much done, however, because Washington is there. When people are talking about and thinking about the executive, they are thinking about Washington. In Washington, everyone trusts, because he had voluntarily put down power, he had never tried to get more power for himself, and he's just a incredibly trustworthy character. And so with him in their mind, here's the quote. This is true.

Now, he says that the delegates overcame their dread of executive power and produced an energetic presidency can be traced directly to Washington's imperturbable presence. Pierce Butler doubted that the presidential powers would have been so great had not many members cast their eyes towards general Washington as president and shaped their ideas of the powers to a president by their opinion of his virtue. With his image before their eyes, the delegates were inevitably governed by their hopes instead of their fears. And so, you know, the constitution as written does have a pretty strong executive branch, a much stronger than many were thinking. Without Washington's presence, this process of the constitutional convention, a lot of compromises have to be arrived at.

No one loves what comes out of it because of these compromises. But I think it's interesting. Here's another Chernow quote. He says, whatever his misgivings about individual provisions, Washington was no lukewarm supporter of the final document. And so they come out with this document, with this constitution, and Washington strongly supports it.

And I think there's this temptation for many people to not strongly support something that they don't 100% agree with. And I think it takes a lot of bravery to take something, whether that's a document, a constitution, or a product. And you might not love everything about it, but you helped create it, and you're a supporter of it and champion it anyways. And that's what he does. This constitution.

He. He might not have loved everything that went into it, but he puts aside his misgivings about individual provisions and is a strong supporter and works hard to get it passed. Without Washington's presence, I don't think that the Constitution would have been ratified by all the states, certainly not the constitution that the United States eventually did adopt. And, in fact, Washington kind of doesn't want to be the first president. You know, he really does just want to be done with all this public service.

Ben Wilson
But many of the people, especially one governor Morris, I think he's the governor of New York, says to Washington, look, dude, if you make it known that you're not going to be the first president, this constitution is not going to pass. People aren't going to ratify it. You're the only person that people trust to not take power for yourself. And so Washington does basically get kind of forced into running as first president of the United States of America. He doesn't campaign.

He kind of can't. His hands are kind of bound because, you know, that's his whole brand, is the guy who doesn't want to take power. But it doesn't matter. No one really runs against him. There's not a lot of debate.

And in the first ever election for president of the United States, Washington receives all the electoral votes. He wins in a landslide, unanimously. You know, Flexner points out that it's a good thing that he didn't have to run for president because he wouldn't have been a very good candidate. He wasn't very good politician. Here's what he says.

With his rather formal personality, Washington was lucky that he didn't need to engage in electioneering, for he lacked the requisite skills for such campaigning. Had he been forced to make speeches or debate on the stump, he would not have fared very well. And I think this is something a lot of people who are interested in the political sphere could learn from. If you can't be a great politician, if you're not good at shaking hands and kissing babies, then you need to be a movement. You need to be larger than life, and you need that mystique.

You need to be a little mysterious. That way you're a blank canvas that people can kind of project their hopes onto something Washington does very well. So in 1788, George Washington is elected as the first ever president of the United States of America. He is 56 years old, and immediately he starts setting precedent that would become important for how the United States would function. The first thing he does is at the inauguration.

He decides not to wear his military uniform, thereby emphasizing that there is civilian control over the United States and that he's not taking power as a military leader, but as a civilian one, as an elected official. It's funny how slapdash his entire inauguration is, because this had never been done. There are no rules, there are no precedents. So, for example, the Constitution sets out that he should take an oath of office, and at the last minute, people putting it on decide, well, he should swear on the Bible, but there is no Bible where they're doing the inauguration. So they have to run over to a masonic lodge and just grab a random Bible.

And that's the one that he swears on. You know, the other thing to realize, I mean, this is just such a crazy situation. Something that I had not thought about. When George Washington takes over as president of the United States, it's literally just him. He is the entire executive branch of the federal government.

And even for the first few months, his presidential staff is smaller than his household staff. Here's the quote from Chernow. At its inception, the executive branch was extraordinarily small. Washington initially oversaw a larger staff of slaves and servants at Mount Vernon than he did as president of the United States. But the new government quickly overshadowed his estate in size.

So it does quickly grow. But he has to decide everything about what the executive branch is going to look like. And that's an incredibly difficult thing to figure out. How do I go about creating a government from scratch? And, you know, over the years, the presidency has changed.

Especially, you think about Abraham Lincoln kind of reshaped the american presidency. So did Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Fdr. But even through all those changes, the institution of the presidency of the United States still maintains the imprint of George Washington. A ton of the precedents that he set still stand. It's amazing to think about that legacy that's lasting 250 years later.

Now, just to give you an idea of what a challenge this is, at first, he can't get any work done because similar to his time at Mount Vernon, people are just coming to see him all day and petition him and meet him. And again, he kind of thinks as a republican leader, as a leader of a democratic country, he can't turn down anyone. So he's just taking meetings with random people all day, every day. And eventually he says, look, this is not working. And so he creates special times.

When people come to meet with him. He'll come down, shake their hand to say hello, and then go back to getting work done. The first thing he does is set up a staff. And so he makes his first few crucial hires. And I think this is the real key to the Washington presidency, is the team that he puts around him.

So initially, there are only three departments of the United States. So there is the Treasury Department, the State Department, and the War Department. And for his three leaders, he gets Thomas Jefferson as his first secretary of state. Okay, so he's handling international relations. As his first treasury secretary, he gets Alexander Hamilton.

So he's in charge of all the finances of the United States. And then as his war secretary, he gets a general who had served with him in the revolutionary war named Henry Knox. And it's kind of interesting because he only has these three departments. They kind of take on random duties a lot of time, especially Hamilton. Hamilton is very active and has a strong vision for how the government should look.

So any kind of random initiatives end up getting sucked under Hamilton. So he's got these three really strong leaders. They're brilliant, and that's the first thing. But they have strong personalities, and they're definitely not easy to manage. And so I think it's interesting to take a look at how he did that.

Here's a really good quote from Chernow. He says, Thomas Jefferson, the first secretary of state, would dub Washington the hub of the wheel, with the department heads arrayed like brilliant spokes around him. In choosing those heads, Washington surrounded himself with a small but decidedly stellar group with his own renown secure. He had no fear that subordinates would upstage him and never wanted subservient courtiers whom he could overshadow. He excelled as a leader precisely because he was able to choose and orchestrate bright, strong personalities.

So the way that he does this, the way that he orchestrates these strong, bright personalities, is one, he takes his time. There are a bunch of quotes about this that are good, but he wanted to hear every side of the issue, and he wanted to take his time before deciding on. On anything. That way, he didn't let himself get bowled over by men who were, frankly, a little bit smarter than him. Okay, so he takes into account every viewpoint and really takes his time to understand the issue before making a decision.

Another thing he does is make sure that he hears dissenting voices. So he set a very cordial tone, a collegiality. So it's open, it's kind of friendly, and people really felt like they could make their voices heard uninhibited, and they weren't going to be punished for voicing an unpopular view. Another good quote says, through his tolerant attitude, he created a protective canopy under which subordinates could argue freely. But, and I think this is the third key, once decisions were made, he wanted the administration to speak with one voice.

So internally, lots of dissent. Externally, no dissent. That was one of his rules. He hated disloyalty and really punished it. So internally, yes, argue strongly.

Externally, we are united front, and you don't get to air any grievances once a decision has been made. And then the last thing is, yes, we're going to take a while in decision making, but once the decision is made, we are going to act fast and we're going to act strong. The actual quote is deliberate maturely, but execute promptly and vigorously. And I think that that is a really smart way to approach things. It's worth digging a little more into the Hamilton relationship.

Here's a good long quote from Chernow, who calls him Washington's unofficial prime minister. Chernow says, at a time when politicians were supposed to be self effacing, Hamilton was openly ambitious and in many respects, the antithesis of Washington, where Washington had no compulsion to shine in company. Hamilton, who was charming, urbane, and debonair, wanted to be the most brilliant figure in every group. And he usually was a prolific writer of letters, essays, and pamphlets. He was a systematic thinker who knew how to translate principles into workable policies.

Hamilton saw the advantage of setting a brisk tempo to the administration and pushing through quickly an ambitious legislative package, setting a pattern for future administrations. He wanted to capitalize on the short lived goodwill granted to a new president. Okay, so Hamilton kind of realizes, hey, we got all this goodwill, all these people love Washington. Right now. We've got this golden opportunity to implement a lot of stuff, and we got to do it now, and we got to do it quickly.

And so the amount of stuff they pass really is breathtaking. One of the first things they do is assume the state debt, which was not popular with a number of states, but a lot of these states had racked up debt during the revolutionary war, and they had done that by issuing bonds. So you got all these outstanding bonds, and they are held by mostly Americans, just american citizens. And so they're paying interest, all these bonds. And so Washington and Hamilton have this idea that the federal government is going to go buy all of this debt so that it becomes american debt.

And it seems just kind of like a bureaucratic move, right? You have still have the same amount of debt. It was just held by the states. Now it's held by the central government, just different layer of government. But behind this seemingly mundane change was a very profound difference, which is you have all these Americans who are used to doing transactions with their states.

So they're holding this debt, they're getting payments from their state governments. Now they're getting payments from the federal government. That increases their reliance on this federal government, their familiarity with it, and makes them more comfortable doing business with this brand new government. And so it seems like a little thing, but it's really crucial. And that is one of the things Hamilton was great at.

And that Washington saw and encouraged him to do was, what actions can we take that seem small, that seem unthreatening, but have a really profound impact when they're played out? Another thing that Washington pushes through, through Hamilton is a central bank. And this is really unpopular with, especially southern states. They hated the idea of a national bank. It was based on the model of the bank of England.

In fact, when Hamilton is drawing up the central bank for America, he has the articles of incorporation for the bank of England. On one hand, he's kind of just copying them over, like it's very explicitly, one for one, copying this model. And so all these southern states are like, we just tried to get away from this system of government, but it's really important for generating the capital needed to form this new federal government. And it works. Uh, there are definitely some ups and downs and complications.

There are some bank runs, you know, a bunch of boom and bust for buying and selling these bonds issued by the new central bank. But at the end of it, Washington's assessment, which is true, is our public credit stands on that ground, which three years ago, it would have been considered as a species of madness to have foretold. Okay, so the. The creditworthiness of the United States skyrockets through the creation of the central bank. Washington and Hamilton also have to implement an entirely new taxation system.

And, of course, people don't like being taxed. It's kind of unpopular, but extremely necessary. And only Washington has the public goodwill and has the gravitas to implement this without too much resistance. And I say too much resistance. It did, in fact, lead eventually to a small rebellion called the whiskey rebellion.

And so it's not like it went over without any hiccups. But the point is, this whiskey rebellion was, in fact, quite small and was easily put down. And so they are able to implement a whole new taxation structure. Anyway, there are a bunch of other stuff I can't go through, every single policy initiative. The whole point is that through all of this, they really unleash the power of the United States, especially as an industrial power on the world stage.

One of the things that Washington does is he doesn't want to be ensconced in this bubble, where he doesn't really know how popular his initiatives are and what people are thinking. So first, he goes on a tour of New England because, you know, the north was not his home. He didn't know it as well. So he's meeting people, he's talking with common people, saying, you know, what do you think of this stuff. And then once they pass this ambitious legislative package, he goes to the south, where it was most unpopular, and he's able to talk with people there, conciliate, and kind of get their viewpoint on all this stuff that has gone through.

So these tours of the north and south, where he can talk with people who are outside of his bubble and get their viewpoints, are crucial to his model for properly functioning government and administration. Now, throughout this first term, it starts as a good, unified group, but as time goes on, there are really deep fissures between Hamilton and Jefferson. So Jefferson is a committed ideologue. He's a democratic Republican. At this time, there are no political parties, but they would develop because of this, essentially.

So on the one hand, you have Hamilton, who is strongly in favor of a strong central government, who's in favor of industrial interests, who's in favor of the United States becoming an economic powerhouse, and on the other hand, you have Jefferson, who is a member of what become the Democratic Republican Party. So he's very strongly in favor of agrarian interests. He's very skeptical of a strong central government, and more sides with southern interests. Jefferson and Hamilton are increasingly at each other's throats until the point where towards the end of his first term, Jefferson says to Washington that he thinks Hamilton has a plan that is intended to, quote, prepare the way for a change from the present republican form of government to that of a monarchy, of which the english constitution is to be the model. And Washington tells Jefferson essentially, like, dude, grow up.

What are you talking about? Washington tells him, I don't think there are ten people of repute in the United States who legitimately favor a monarchy. And so this creates a fracture that can never fully be recovered. And so early in his second administration, Washington is reelected in 1792. Jefferson leaves the administration and is no longer associated with Washington and the federal government.

You know, things are already heated between the democratic Republicans and Hamilton's party, which comes to be known as the Federalists. And then everything gets turned to a nine by the French Revolution. Colors everything in Washington's second term. And that is because Washington, who is increasingly becoming affiliated with the Federalists, was very apprehensive of the French Revolution, whereas the democratic Republicans really embraced it. Here's the quote.

While Washington grew increasingly apprehensive about the violent events in Paris, Jefferson viewed them with philosophical serenity, lecturing Lafayette that one couldn't travel from despotism to liberty in a featherbed. Unlike Washington, Jefferson regarded the French Revolution as the proud and inevitable sequel to the american revolution. And Washington, you actually get to see kind of a preview of his excellent judgment, because he looks at this burgeoning french revolution and he says, this thing is going to get more and more violent. Is he going to get out of control and it's going to lead to the demise of King Louis. Initially, you know, the thought was, maybe this will just become a constitutional monarchy and it'll become a moderate republican form of government.

Washington says, I don't see that happening. Jefferson, on the other hand, predicted for France. He said, I think it probable this country will within two or three years be in the enjoyment of a tolerably free constitution, and that without its having cost them a single drop of blood. Okay, so you see, like, how wrong he was, and it just throws into contrast how prescient Washington was, how good his judgment was that he could see all of this coming. So you have the situation where the federalists, led by Washington and Hamilton, are trying hard to remain neutral.

They don't want any entangling alliances. They don't want to pick between England and France, whereas the democratic Republicans say, hey, you know, we just had a republican revolution. The French, who are having a republican revolution, these are our brothers in arms. These are our comrades. You know, we should support them.

And it's really tough for Washington to remain neutral. So there's one incident where the ambassador that France sends, his name is citizen Jeannette. Okay? And this guy is like, yeah, man, United States is totally gonna be on our side. You know, they just had this revolution.

We're having a revolution. Same, same. We're totally on the same team. And so he takes liberties that are completely inappropriate. When french privateers take british ships, he has them brought to american ports where they are refitted as french ships and sent out to battle.

And so the French are trying to use american ports as, like, a base of military operations against the English. And Washington is very strongly against this. And it's being encouraged by all these people who are democratic Republicans. This eventually evolves into essentially a red scare. It's actually amazing.

They say history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme because you have this revolutionary leftist government in France that is sort of international in its outlook, right? And so you have the leftist party in the United States that supports it. And it's just like the situation with the Soviets in the 20th century, where you do have a lot of people on the left side of the spectrum of american politics who support communism, who support socialist ideals in the United States, and then you have this really strong reaction against that and against anything affiliated with it on the american right. And so what you eventually have is Adams. John Adams, who is the next president, is a federalist, and he passes something called the Alien and Seditions act, which makes it difficult for foreigners, but especially was targeted french people, makes it difficult for the French to become american citizens.

And it shuts down republican newspapers that criticize the government and were speaking in favor of french french style ideals. It's just like the same thing as the 1950s red scare of Adam saying, yeah, this is not legitimate opposition. He thinks that this is international influence in american affairs. In fact, Adams becomes convinced that if the French were to attack the United States, people like Jefferson and James Madison, who were strong democratic Republicans, would form a fifth column and helped the French to take over the United States. And I think this is kind of a fevered imagination of John Adams, in the same way that Thomas Jefferson suggesting that Hamilton wanted to implement a monarchy is ridiculous.

The idea that Jefferson, who had fought so hard for american independence, would give that up for french control of America is also ridiculous. But I think it just shows the hyper partisanship that everyone suspected each other, not just of differing viewpoints, but of actual disloyalty. It's just like today where people on the left side of the spectrum say, hey, Donald Trump is actually controlled by Russia. And if Donald Trump is elected, it's going to lead to fascism. And then, you know, on the, on the far right, you also have people on the right side of the spectrum saying of Democrats, you know, they're globalists, they're not loyal to America.

They don't, they're not patriotic. And so everyone suspects each other, not just of differences, of opinion, of actual bad faith. Washington is able to stay above this for a certain amount of time, but especially once Jefferson leaves his administration, he says, you know, I can't get along with Hamilton anymore. You're basically passing all of Hamilton's initiatives. I don't want to be associated with his government anymore.

And it's a big blow to Washington when he leaves, because Jefferson, whatever differences of opinion they might have had, he's extremely gifted, extremely intelligent, and a really gifted diplomat who was very capable in implementing foreign policy and all that stuff. So it's a big blow to Washington's administration when Jefferson leaves. And also, he can't manage to find another southern democratic Republican to take his place, and so he has to pull in another federalist. And so all of a sudden, it seems like, yeah, Washington doesn't really stand above all this anymore. He's really a federalist.

He won't admit to it, but he's partisan just like everyone else. One of the last things to happen to make him seem really partisan is he passes something called the Jay treaty. So John Jay, who's an american diplomat, negotiates this treaty with England, ends up being called the J treaty, and then the Senate passes it the legislative branch. But, you know, it's still basically Washington's thing. And what this treaty was, was an agreement with the British.

And so what it did is it agreed on a trade deal, a very good trade deal for the United States. It got the British to remove their forts from North America as well. So that's also great for the United States. But in some ways, the British had kind of out negotiated John Jay because the trade deal was in many ways very favorable to Great Britain. It didn't stop the impressment of us soldiers.

I won't get into all that. But anyways, there's some stuff that doesn't go into the treaty that a lot of people wanted in it. And so the democratic Republicans see this as Washington siding with the English over the French, and they're incensed. They're like, hey, the French just helped us in this revolutionary war. These are our allies.

They stand up for republican ideals just like the United States does. And you guys are instead signing a treaty with the monarchists, the hated monarchists. You know, you're signing a deal with the king. And part of the fallout from this is James Monroe is a democratic Republican, and he is the american ambassador to France. And when the jay treaty passes, instead of him trying to assuage the french government and say, no, look, we were just signing this deal in order to resolve some things and get on good terms with the English.

But we also want to be on good terms with you guys. Instead, he takes to the streets with the French, and he's like, yeah, can you believe what Washington did? This guy is supposed to be serving under Washington, and he's actively undermining him. In France, of course, he's recalled and fired from the Washington administration, but the damage in large part is done. And so in this environment, you know, in his first administration, Washington, he's such a national hero, he's able to avoid public criticism.

But in his second term, the democratic Republicans really come after him. They have all these newspapers, and they're sniping at him, and nothing is off limits. They're doing the classic tabloid thing. Uh, they're digging up everything. They're making really personal attacks on him.

In fact, they go back and they dig up the Zumanville incident. If you remember that thing where Washington accidentally kills the wrong frenchman and it sets off this international incident, they. They bring that back up and say that he assassinated a man under a flag of truce, and they play it up and in the worst terms possible. And you can see how petty things get by the end of his administration. In one particular story that I think is interesting, after Washington's farewell address, federalists in the Virginia House of Delegates introduced a motion that hailed Washington for his, quote, virtue, patriotism, and wisdom.

And the Republicans in Virginia, you know, they have to be kind of passive aggressive about it because Washington still is a national hero despite all of this. But they lobbied to have the word wisdom removed from the resolution, basically saying like, oh, yeah, no one can question Washington's virtue and patriotism. Oh, his wisdom? I'm not sure about that. Let's take that out.

It's very passive aggressive. And so he didn't want factionalism. He didn't want these political parties and this partisanship and this division. But, you know, I think that was a little bit naive, because at the end of the day, parts of the United States were divided in terms of what they wanted. And so no amount of saying, hey, guys, let's stick to it together, can overcome the fact that there are different interests for different groups.

And so this opposition, this division, is one of the reasons that Washington decides to step down after just two terms, eight years as president of the United States of America. Another reason that he decides to step down is his health. His health is bad. So his teeth had started to rot in his twenties, but by the end of his presidency, he had no natural teeth remaining, so he had to wear these dentures. The dentures were really uncomfortable.

Remember, this is 17 hundreds technology. So they are made out of metal, and then the teeth are made out of ivory and actually human teeth from poor people and slaves that would be bought. But these dentures are incredibly uncomfortable. They scratch his gums when he talks or when he opens his mouth. It made speech really difficult, and his gums were just often inflamed and infected and really painful.

He also has other health scares. He develops pneumonia. At one point, he has a recurring tumor in his leg that makes him very sick and has to be drained from time to time. His hearing was going, his eyesight was going like he was in his sixties. So he's not that old, but he had lived a really hard life and a very stressful life and had taken its toll on him.

And so he was aging very quickly, in his sixties, his health was not good, and so he didn't want to continue to subject himself to that. He wanted to be free of the presidency, and so he does. He steps down after two terms and, you know, peacefully turns over power, and there's a free and fair election after his presidency. It's a remarkable run. I'm just going to read at length, actually, from Chernow.

I think he has a great summary. It was kind of long, but I think it's a great summary of what Washington was able to accomplish in eight years. You know, the thing that really stands out to me is just forming a federal government is accomplishment enough. There's no precedent. There's nothing to do like just forming this whole bureaucratic structure from the ground up is a huge accomplishment.

Anything beyond that is gravy, you know, any actual initiatives. Is it amazing that he could do that as well? And yet there were many things that he did accomplish. And so let's, let's read some of that. Chernow writes, Washington had forged the executive branch of the federal government, appointed outstanding department heads, and set a benchmark for fairness, efficiency, and integrity that future administrations would aspire to match.

Washington's catalog of accomplishments was simply breathtaking. He had restored american credit and assumed state debt, created a bank, a mint, a coast guard, a customs service, and a diplomatic corps, introduced the first accounting, tax, and budgetary procedures, maintained peace at home and abroad, inaugurated a navy, bolstered the army and shored up coastal defenses and infrastructure, proved that the country could regulate commerce and negotiate binding treaties, protected frontier settlers, subdued indian uprisings, and established law and order amid rebellion, scrupulously adhering all the while to the letter of the constitution. During his successful presidency, exports had soared, shipping had boomed, and state taxes had declined dramatically. Washington had also opened the Mississippi to commerce, negotiated treaties with the Barbary states, and forced the British to evacuate their northwestern forts. Most of all, he had shown a disbelieving world that a republican government could prosper without being spineless or disorderly or reverting to authoritarian rule.

So, you know, I think to understand how successful his presidency was, you just have to look to the french example and the French Revolution. You know, the french revolution is a total mess in terms of how it's managed until Napoleon takes over. And once Napoleon takes over, he's an amazing reformer, gets the french government really in shape. But, you know, because of his temperament, it leads to all this violence and to his eventual overthrow and just multiple decades of chaos. With Washington, you get something like the napoleonic reformation, but without any of the chaos.

And so it's just smooth sailing for the United States. And to what extent is Washington responsible for all this? Because many people will just say that Hamilton was actually the one responsible. And people said that at the time. You know, the democratic Republicans definitely accused Washington of just being a marionette and that Hamilton was the one behind him pulling all the strings.

It was all of his ideas that were being implemented. And while it's true that Hamilton hatched a lot of these ideas, you know, Jefferson had a lot of ideas, too. The reason that all this stuff was implemented is because fundamentally, Washington had had the same experience as Hamilton in the continental army, and so they had a similar viewpoint. And so he agreed with Hamilton and he enabled him, and he served as a check on him. He used his judgment to pick and choose of what Hamilton put forward and saw that it was implemented.

You know, it was only Washington that had the stature to actually get this stuff through. If Hamilton himself had been president, the suspicion from the democratic Republicans would have been so strong that either, a, none of this stuff would have been passed, or b, there would have been a civil war very early in the life of the United States of America. And you can actually see that it wasn't just, you know, a genius, Hamilton as the man behind the curtains and Washington as a paper leader by what happened after they parted. Uh, regarding Hamilton, here's a good quote from Chernow. I think.

He says he began a long, tragic descent. He had achieved his most stellar feats under Washington's benign auspices and seemed to lose his moral compass when he no longer operated under his direct guidance. For all his brilliance, Hamilton's judgment was as erratic as Washington's seemed unerring. And so Hamilton and Washington really were kind of the founding partnership of the United States. And it was Hamilton's brilliance with Washington's unerring judgment, you know, his just unbelievable ability to maybe think slower but always make the right decision that led to these awesome outcomes.

And I think Hamilton's lack of accomplishment without Washington shows just how necessary he was for that to happen. After his presidency, once again, Washington tries to go home, be a gentleman farmer. Once again, he is kind of pulled into public service for a little bit. What happens is that when John Adams is president again, you know, there's kind of this cold war. Adams is really suspicious of all these democratic Republicans, all these leftists who just want to side with the communistic French.

And so there is this kind of quasi war. It's actually called the quasi war is the name. It's known by. But there's our naval action between France and the United States. It's called a quasi war because it never breaks out into actual open warfare, but it sure looks like the beginning of a war.

And so there's some thought that the French might try to invade the United States or at least try to foment a new revolution, this one not a moderate revolution like the United States had originally, but like a real rabble rousing, leftist, french style social revolution. And so an army is called together, and John Adams asks Washington to come out of retirement to lead this army. And so Washington takes some steps, tries to get his lieutenants in order. However, it never actually becomes necessary. And Adams eventually signs a peace treaty with the French that ends the whole episode.

So that is kind of the last real incident of Washington's life at Mount Vernon. Washington's health continues to degrade, and eventually he catches a sickness. It's an infection of the throat, and hes getting sicker and sicker, and its inflaming his throat more and more until swallowing is agonizing and hes having trouble breathing. Some doctors come to try and treat him, and they bleed him, which was standard procedure for the time they cut him and drained some blood. And I always thought when I heard the story that maybe the bloodletting had some impact.

But no, it was a huge part of his death. They took, there's, like two or three liters of blood from Washington's body. Half of his blood, half of the blood in his body, they end up letting out of his body. And so that incredibly weakens him to this infection. And so he continues to go downhill.

You know, Washington was such a strong personality, was such a sturdy person, that he doesn't complain at all. Despite this agonizing illness. One of the last things he says is actually to the doctors and the slaves who are tending him, he says, quote, I feel myself going, I thank you for your attentions, but I pray you to take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly. I cannot last long.

And I think that just says something about his personality, that selfless service, the thinking of others, the strong, resolute personality. He was who he was to the very end. You know, I think the thing that enabled so much of the great achievements of his presidency was not so much what he did, but who he was. The fact that he was so trustworthy, the fact that he didn't seek power for its own sake, that is what allowed all of this to happen. And the trust that it engendered with the citizenry, with the legislature, with foreign governments, with everyone.

He was one of the most trustworthy men in the world. He's one of the most trustworthy men I've ever read about. And I think that is the key to Washington and to his presidency. So what did we learn? One surround yourself with a brilliant team and enable them to do great work by creating this open environment where views can be expressed.

If you do surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, take the time to hear every viewpoint to make sure that you're not just kind of bowled over by stronger, more intelligent personalities. Another lesson I took away is use that air of mystique, that mysteriousness, that aloofness to generate excitement and energy around what you want to accomplish. And then the last thing is just that trustworthiness. That if you have that focus on a goal bigger than yourself and you're willing to subsume your personal interests and your personal ambition to that, then it's going to draw people to you. They're going to have that trust in you, and it's going to allow you to accomplish much more than you could if you were overtly ambitious.

So that's it. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Tune in next time to hear my endnotes. One things I haven't touched on at all is slavery, and that was a big part of his life and a big part of his evolution. I just there was no place where I could do this whole sidebar on slavery.

So I'll do that in the end. Notes in the Washington guide also talk about Martha Washington, how important she was, his development and success. I'll talk about his maybe potential affair and whether he had another love in his life, as well as more takeaways, more things that you can learn from his management style and how to be great like Washington was. So until then, thank you for listening to how to take over the world.

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President George Washington (Part 3)

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1: Introduction to Washington's Presidency

2: Challenges at Mount Vernon

3: Crafting a Strong Federal Government

4: Washington's Diplomatic Skills

5: Legacy and Reflections

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