COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CARL HERMAN IN
WASHINGTONBLOG
This is just crap.
The author knows very little about these historical
characters beyond what is in 8th grade civics classes, which are unfortunately often
taught by teachers who also know little.
George Washington, for instance, did not believe in
democracy at all. He was an aristocrat and very much believed in
"better" and "lesser" men. He was of course also a lifetime
slaveholder.
He believed in the British model of a well-trained standing
army rather than in all the quaint militia with muskets at home stuff. It was
his inability to secure a permanent commission with the British army that drove
him towards supporting some degree of independence.
When he was sent by the Continental Congress to
Massachusetts to take charge of the only true revolutionaries during the entire
war - militias formed there in response to British quartering of troops - he
essentially took over from the locals and imposed what he saw as proper order
which included the institution of flogging and hanging. We have his letters
full of contempt for the Massachusetts militias, calling them "rabble and
scum."
The militias operated on a democratic principle of electing
officers, and Washington quickly ended that.
One European historian has accurately described the American
revolt as "a local aristocracy pushing out a foreign one."
Washington proved a terrible general, losing almost all of
the battles he fought. If the British hadn't begun to show some indifference to
fighting their cousins and the French hadn't contributed decisive help, the
whole thing would have absolutely fizzled.
The French basically led and fought the decisive victory at
Yorktown. Washington had foolishly wanted to attack New York and would have missed
a key opportunity. French supplies and arms were decisive also earlier in the
conflict at Saratoga.
Incidentally, a rather selfish bunch of colonists latter
refused to repay generous French loans (sounds familiar) and helped tip France
into real revolution.
It has been estimated that the colonies were divided at
approximately one-third Loyalists, on-third indifferent to the whole matter,
and one-third "Patriots." The so-called revolution was always a
minority affair.
The Patriots showed their generosity of spirit by wholesale
stealing the property of Loyalists after the war, pushing them out to exile,
much as Israelis do Palestinians.
Of course, most of the Patriots, those lovers of freedom,
were slaveholders. The British Empire eliminated slavery long before America
did.
The whole business was not exalted or noble and after the
war, the colonies drifted around for years in a chaotic state until the
Constitution was established, and that just barely.
Many of the provisions of the early Constitution were not
even enforceable, such as the Bill of Rights, which served more as a set of
advertising slogans than rules.
There were several early revolts during the revolution and
immediately afterwards, including the Revolt of the Pennsylvania Line and Shay's
Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion. Washington used force where he was
involved.
Thomas Jefferson really distinguished himself in the
conflict, always blubbering about freedom but never picking up a gun. When a
British troop approached his plantation, he took off on a horse for a wild,
desperate ride into hiding. The event actually became a joke among many. Later,
when he was asked to serve as a peace negotiator in Europe, he declined out of
exaggerated fear of being captured by British ships. Old Ben Franklin gladly
went instead.
