Chipping a ‘Marbleized’ President : L.A. Historian Takes Washington Down a Peg or Two

Contrary to historical myth, George Washington was not a reluctant father of his country but actually a shrewd, calculating politician who eagerly pursued votes and played a major role in shaping his own legend.

This is what Los Angeles historian Paul K. Longmore concluded after he took a chisel to the First President’s “marbleized” reputation and discovered a man who actively sought office and deftly played to his constituents, both as a soldier and a public servant.

Longmore has detailed his research in a new book, “The Invention of George Washington,” to be published Wednesday by the University of California Press. For the 42-year-old Longmore, a polio victim, the book’s publication represents the triumph of an effort that spanned 10 years. (It is a bittersweet victory too. In a well-publicized demonstration last month, Longmore burned a copy of the book to protest rules that will disqualify him--and potentially others--for eligibility for federal disability programs because royalties from books currently are classified as unearned income.)

‘A Masterful Study’

Early judgments on Longmore’s effort are favorable. Respected UC Berkeley historian Robert Middlekauf, author of “The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789,” read the book in manuscript and, in a cover blurb, calls it “a masterful study” of Washington’s career to the point when he assumed command of America’s revolutionary army.

In a telephone interview, Middlekauf said, “Longmore shows that Washington was a much more self-conscious politician than anyone has shown before.” He added, “I think Longmore makes him a much more impressive political figure than anyone has before.”

Longmore himself said that the popular image of Washington that developed during the Revolutionary War has been generally accepted by historians and made to fit all of Washington’s life.

Washington’s biographers have failed to recognize “that Washington was constantly and carefully fashioning his public self and presenting to his public symbols that would touch upon their concerns and ideals and fears,” Longmore said.

In matters both great and small, Longmore asserts, Washington had a keen eye for what would play in Colonial Peorias.

Following his first election victory to Virginia’s Colonial legislature in 1758, Washington plied his supporters with 160 gallons of wine, rum, punch and cider--and worried that it wasn’t enough to show proper gratitude for their votes.

Washington also fretted over the quality of his tobacco and the prices he received on the London market because Virginia gentlemen gained greater public respect and personal honor if both were high.

‘Citizen Soldier’

As he was summoned to command rebel American troops at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Washington was careful to show himself as a “citizen soldier” who posed no threat as a potential dictator, Longmore said. Washington repeatedly said, “I will submit to civilian authority and I will obey the laws” which was “one of the things they (his fellow citizens) praised him for,” the historian explained. “The gesture of refusing pay (to command the army) was a way of saying, ‘I’m not in this to get rich off the public, I’m doing this to serve my country.’ ”

Other historians and biographers, Longmore said, “have seen those things and just assumed that is innately who he was, rather than realizing that this was a reflection of his shrewdness as a political leader.”

Longmore was quick to add, however, that Washington wasn’t being deceitful when he massaged public opinion.

“He understood what his contemporaries wanted in leadership and he tried to make himself that kind of leader, both in his creation of an image of himself and in his conduct because he too shared those ideals,” Longmore said. In some ways, his reassessment of Washington is similar to that of a more recent President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Longmore said.

Long thought of as a genial, bumbling sort, Eisenhower is now seen--at least by some--as a deft politician who used his seeming ineptitude to deflect criticism while pursuing political goals.

“One of the problems has been that historical critics of Washington have often assumed that Washington was a tool of other people like (Alexander) Hamilton,” Longmore maintained. “He wasn’t anybody’s tool, he was in control.”

Longmore believes it is “significant” that Washington modeled himself on strict 18th-Century standards of rectitude partly because “his generation told him that’s what he better be.” The future President “knew that if he violated those requirements that they would excoriate him as they did others. There was constant reiteration all through that era about the ways in which political leaders abused power, violated the laws, oppressed their own people, aggrandized themselves and offended the liberties of their fellow citizens,” Longmore explained. “So Washington knew if he wanted contemporary honor and lasting historical fame, he’d better live up to that ideal.”

Longmore isn’t sure what the ultimate reaction to “The Invention of George Washington” will be. But he conceded that some may be “shocked” to find that Washington actually played politics. “I think there are some people who want to believe legends and don’t want to find out how human beings really were and how they behaved,” he said.

On the other hand, some “go out of their way to find out historical heroes were somehow corrupt or grasping,” Longmore noted. “One question I often get from non-historians is, ‘Well, did he really die of venereal disease?’ When I tell them no, they seem disappointed. They want to find out that all these heroes engaged in sexual peccadilloes. . . . I didn’t approach George Washington cynically, I didn’t set out to debunk him.”

Moreover, Longmore contended, politicians of Washington’s time were held to higher standards.

“I cannot imagine that in that era a Richard Nixon could have become an elder statesman,” he said. “They certainly would not have regarded (retired Marine Lt. Col.) Oliver North as a hero. The defense his (North’s) lawyers are currently presenting (in legal proceedings stemming from the Iran-Contra scandal) that no one had told him that it could lead to prosecution if he lied to Congress, they absolutely would have been furious at such a defense. They would have regarded that as scandalous.

“So I think maybe one lesson is that we get the kinds of leaders we demand.”