An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America by Henry Wiencek  (28)
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Washington led the fight for American independence?for whites only. The fact that the revolution did not free the slaves who worked his plantations at Mount Vernon was not lost on his abolitionist contemporaries. Evidence suggests that Washington went from being a firm believer in the slave system before the revolution to becoming a mild abolitionist after the Treaty of Paris. His final act was to free his slaves after his death. Hirschfeld, editor of the John Hancock papers, explores Washington's life as a slaveholder and his views on slavery in detail, concluding that Washington refused to deal with the slavery question publicly because he thought the new nation could not withstand such a divisive issue. If Washington, Hirschfeld maintains, had actively supported abolition in his lifetime, there may not have been a Civil War. Despite such a conclusion, which stretches conjecture to the breaking point, Hirschfeld has written a thoroughly researched book on a topic not often dealt with in detail. For all libraries.?Grant A. Fredericksen, Illinois Prairie Dist. P.L., Metamora
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Recently several writers (e.g., Conor Cruise O'Brien in The Long Affair) have critically examined the racial hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson, who preached equality but practiced slavery. Now fellow Virginia slaveholder George Washington receives like treatment. Hirschfeld, the editor of the John Hancock Papers, shows that in the pre-Revolutionary era Washington ran a successful plantation with slave labor and participated in the most brutal aspects of the slave system: He purchased and sold slaves, pursued runaways with vigor, and subjected wayward slaves to harsh punishments. The Revolutionary War and its Enlightenment ideology changed that: both because of concerns about his reputation and rapidly developing moral doubts about the justice of slavery. Mostly drawing on Washington's own correspondence and diaries and those of contemporaries, Hirschfeld shows how Washington's attitudes toward slavery evolved during his life. Prewar plantation records show that he assembled a large slave population, apparently without moral qualms, as his landholdings expanded, but in 1775 he reversed an earlier decision to bar African-Americans from military service. By 1779 he was expressing a distaste for the slave trade, and in 1786 he even wrote, ``I never mean . . . to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted, by the legislature by which slavery in this Country may be abolished by slow, sure, & imperceptible degrees.'' He refrained from breaking up slave families, even though this practice made his plantation unprofitable, and finally in his will he freed his slaves. Hirschfeld shows that Washington's private dislike of slavery didn't lead him as president to exercise his moral leadership to end the institution. Hirschfeld speculates that Washington understandably didn't want to jeopardize the new nation's unity. Describing his final attitude as ``lukewarm abolitionism,'' the author concludes that Washington's was a mixed legacy. A thoughtful and well-documented work that does not diminish Washington's greatness, but shows the iconic Gilbert Stuart figure at his most morally vulnerable. (20 illustrations) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Washington led the fight for American independence?for whites only. The fact that the revolution did not free the slaves who worked his plantations at Mount Vernon was not lost on his abolitionist contemporaries. Evidence suggests that Washington went from being a firm believer in the slave system before the revolution to becoming a mild abolitionist after the Treaty of Paris. His final act was to free his slaves after his death. Hirschfeld, editor of the John Hancock papers, explores Washington's life as a slaveholder and his views on slavery in detail, concluding that Washington refused to deal with the slavery question publicly because he thought the new nation could not withstand such a divisive issue. If Washington, Hirschfeld maintains, had actively supported abolition in his lifetime, there may not have been a Civil War. Despite such a conclusion, which stretches conjecture to the breaking point, Hirschfeld has written a thoroughly researched book on a topic not often dealt with in detail. For all libraries.?Grant A. Fredericksen, Illinois Prairie Dist. P.L., Metamora
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Recently several writers (e.g., Conor Cruise O'Brien in The Long Affair) have critically examined the racial hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson, who preached equality but practiced slavery. Now fellow Virginia slaveholder George Washington receives like treatment. Hirschfeld, the editor of the John Hancock Papers, shows that in the pre-Revolutionary era Washington ran a successful plantation with slave labor and participated in the most brutal aspects of the slave system: He purchased and sold slaves, pursued runaways with vigor, and subjected wayward slaves to harsh punishments. The Revolutionary War and its Enlightenment ideology changed that: both because of concerns about his reputation and rapidly developing moral doubts about the justice of slavery. Mostly drawing on Washington's own correspondence and diaries and those of contemporaries, Hirschfeld shows how Washington's attitudes toward slavery evolved during his life. Prewar plantation records show that he assembled a large slave population, apparently without moral qualms, as his landholdings expanded, but in 1775 he reversed an earlier decision to bar African-Americans from military service. By 1779 he was expressing a distaste for the slave trade, and in 1786 he even wrote, ``I never mean . . . to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted, by the legislature by which slavery in this Country may be abolished by slow, sure, & imperceptible degrees.'' He refrained from breaking up slave families, even though this practice made his plantation unprofitable, and finally in his will he freed his slaves. Hirschfeld shows that Washington's private dislike of slavery didn't lead him as president to exercise his moral leadership to end the institution. Hirschfeld speculates that Washington understandably didn't want to jeopardize the new nation's unity. Describing his final attitude as ``lukewarm abolitionism,'' the author concludes that Washington's was a mixed legacy. A thoughtful and well-documented work that does not diminish Washington's greatness, but shows the iconic Gilbert Stuart figure at his most morally vulnerable. (20 illustrations) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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15
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- Alienable Rights: The Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man's Land, 1619-2000 by Barry Sanders in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- George Washington and the Founding of a Nation by Albert Marrin in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Systemic Racism by Joe Feagin in Back Matter
- George Washington's Leadership Lessons: What the Father of Our Country Can Teach Us About Effective Leadership and Character by James Rees in Back Matter
- The Grand Idea: George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West by Joel Achenbach in Back Matter
See all 15 books citing this book