Newt Gingrich (46:12)
People in Congress are deliberately setting them up to fail because they want to get rid of it. And again, you get a sense of Washington subtlety. Washington, who had no children himself, had basically adopted the Marquis de Lafayette, who was in his early 20s as kind of like a stepson. He loved Lafayette. Lafayette loved him. And so Lafayette happens to write a letter to the Congress that says, you know, French king thinks so highly of General Washington that if something were to happen to him and he was no longer in command, I really fear that all French money, French ammunition, French uniforms, French assistance would disappear. And I certainly, because of my deep belief in the Revolution, wouldn't want that to happen. Well, that's it. Washington has reasserted that he's in charge. He also understands that he still doesn't have a very good army. And a guy shows up named Ludsteiben, who is a character in his own right. I mean, almost somebody you could do an entire novel about. He's a German officer, claims more credit than he really deserves, claims higher rank than he really deserves, shows up and says, you know, I can train your army. And this is one of those miracles, a little bit like Washington listening to farmers, because von Steuben looks around for a little while and realizes if I try to apply European systems, they will all rebel because they're Americans. So I can't just go in and force. And in Europe, I can force obedience because the peasants expect me to force obedience. In the US they'll all, you know, they'll just throw me out. And so he figures out, you have to tell Americans why you're doing it. But if you'll tell them why you're doing it, they actually learn faster than the Europeans. And so he begins to train this army. And when they're in Valley Forge, Washington again is very careful about a number of things. They have a huge bakehouse which bakes all the bread for the army, and they turn it into a theater. And so they bake bread in the morning. In the evening, they have plays. Washington's favorite play is Cato, which is a remarkable study in 18th century Britain, you could not directly attack the king because that would be treason. So they tended to write about the Romans because you could write about tyranny and corruption in Rome, and that's not really attacking the king, Although everybody who sees the play knows you're talking about the king. So Cato is about the Roman senator who, at the time of Caesar, refuses to accept Caesar as the head of the government. And Caesar ultimately chases him across the Mediterranean and ends up face to face and says, look, I want you to live. You're my friend. I really believe in you. All you have to do is swear loyalty, and you'll be rich and happy the rest of your life. And Cato basically says, you know, my son's already been killed. Freedom is worth everything. I would rather die as a free person than live swearing loyalty to you. This is Washington's favorite play. He cried every time he saw it. And it was the center, in a way, of Washington's own belief that he is in rebellion because he is a free man and he is not going to give in. And so they would. I think they showed it three times that winter. And then they showed other things. He was very concerned about morale. How do you keep morale up? And they began to build a real army. They collide with the British shortly after Valley Forge, and they beat them head to head. And the British suddenly realized they have a real problem. They can no longer count on the Americans breaking down. Washington then chases them across New Jersey, and the British end up going back into New York City, where the Royal Navy can sustain them. Now, by this stage, you've also got a French army showing up. You have the French Navy occasionally showing up. You have French money showing up, which is really important. But Washington can't win. He cannot break into New York. He can't drive the British out of New York. And what the British have done is they've got Washington sucked into basically laying siege to New York, while the British army is moving troops into South Carolina and Georgia and trying to reconquer the colonies from the south coming north, which turns out also to fail because Washington sends Greene, who was his best general, and they organized guerrilla warfare and ultimately organized regular warfare and gradually started chewing up the British in the South. But the Southern war is a really miserable, nasty war. And it was good that Washington couldn't go there because he would not have liked isn't who he. He wanted. He believed deeply you had to have a regular army that had discipline because it was the base of civilization. He did not want to be involved in the guerrilla war. He knew how to. I mean, he'd been fought. He'd fought the Indians. He understood a lot about how to fight a guerrilla. He thought in the end would be so bitter and so bloody that it would shatter the society. And so he really worked hard at keeping the army together. And one of the great gambles, if you ever get a chance, just look at a map. Washington's sitting in New York. The French army is actually sitting in Rhode Island. And all of a sudden, Cornwallis, who has a large British army, finds himself cooped up at Yorktown in Virginia. Remember, this is. People are marching, no trains, no airplanes, no cars. And Washington has to make a decision. If I leave New York, these people are really getting terrible. I've been at it for seven years. I leave New York, I march down through Philadelphia and get to Yorktown. Will Cornwallis still be there? Will the French navy show up? And will the French army walk with me, go with me, and can I raise the money to pay the troops? And if it works, I might be able to win the battle that will lead to victory in the war. If it fails, we may well collapse. And because we've been at this so long and we're so tired, this is one of the great strategic game. It takes a no. If you imagine the courage to sit there and think this through and go, you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to move. I'm going to decoy the British with just enough forces left behind that they think I'm still in New York and we're going to march as fast as we can. And when I get to Philadelphia, I'm going to see Gouverneur Morris and beg him to bring together all the rich people in the city to see them raise enough money to pay the army to keep moving. And hopefully, by the time I get to Yorktown, if you're marching, this is a long march. Hopefully, by then the French navy will have shown up so we can cut Cornwallis off so the British navy can't take him off Yorktown. Well, it is said that when Washington crossed the last ridge and could see Yorktown and beyond Yorktown could see the French fleet, that he physically jumped off his horse and did a jig. The only people said it's the only time in the entire war that he saw him just lose control. He was so excited because he had him. So the French and the British, I mean the French and the Americans lay siege. Cornwallis, who's a good professional British officer, who later on, goes on to become a very successful governor General of India, recognizes after a couple days that, you know, he can't win. So he sends the word that he's prepared to surrender to the French. And the French send the word back, no, surrender to Washington. And then Cornwallis says, I am not surrendering to Washington. I'm sending a junior officer. At which point Washington says, fine, I'm sending a junior officer. So General Lincoln, who was, I think, a brigadier general at the time, accepts the surrender of the British. And supposedly the band plays the World Turn Upside Down. Now, Washington at that point does the most hurl like which people really undervalue. They go back north because the war is not over. I mean, the fighting's over now. The diplomats are negotiating. You got to work out all the details, so you have to keep an army in bay. And his officers get really angry because they're not getting paid. The Congress in that period was setting a standard. The current Congress is matching. It was often irresponsible, often failed to do what it should do, often had really dumb policies. And in this period, they weren't paying the army. So a group of the officers get together and decide that Washington should become a dictator. And there was a precedent for this because 100 years earlier, in the English Civil War, Cromwell had emerged and established a dictatorship. And in fact, a lot of people had worried about Washington getting to be too powerful and too popular precisely because he would become Cromwell. There's a great scene where the officers have met in the schoolroom, and Washington comes in, and as he recounted, he took out his glasses in order to remind him that he'd grown old in the service of his country. And he pulls out this letter, and he reads a letter, the essence of which is, do you really think that we rebelled against George III to create George I? This would destroy everything that we fought for for years. The officers all do, okay, he won't be the dictator. I guess we'll continue. He then does something that is remarkable. And George III says, if Washington gives up power, he'll be the greatest man of the century. So Washington on the way home, having been. I always tell people when they get frustrated and they get tired of trying to do something, Washington spends eight years in the field. He's in Mount Vernon for two weeks in the entire war, and he loves Mount Vernon. So now he's on the way home. So he goes to Annapolis, where the Continental Congress is meeting, and you can actually go to the State House. They still have the room, and they have it set up with statues. The Congress is sitting, Washington is standing, and the Congress is sitting to show that he is obedient to them, but that they are his superior collectively. And he gives them his sword. He literally says, I've now done my job. I'm returning to you the sword that I was given back in Philadelphia. And he then goes home. He's at home, he's happy. He's being a farmer, Martha's happy, and things don't work very well. And it turns out people forget this. Virtually every state, as they've now become ceased to be colonized, has to rewrite its Constitution. They all fail. And so you have people getting pretty good practice of writing constitutions. And people got involved in a variety of fairly dumb ideas. Repudiating the debt, inflating the currency. And people begin to write Washington and say, you know, we're going to have to do something to fix this. This is not working. And it's creating a vacuum where the British and the French and the Spanish can come in and exploit us. Washington writes several of his friends and says, no, people aren't tired enough yet. They've got to finish celebrating. They've got to finish getting over this. And I'm not going to go now, because if I go now, it'll be too soon. And so he's very patient. Now again, everybody and their brother is coming to Mount Vernon to spend the night, to have dinner, to chat with him. He's receiving letters from all over the country. Finally, a group gets together in Annapolis and they get him to come to the meeting. And I say, we've got to fix the Articles of Confederation because they're not working. We need to have a meeting to fix the current system. So he's the center of this. If he's willing to sign the letter, people will show up. If he doesn't sign the letter, it would never happen. So he agrees. He's the lead signer and basically says, I'm going to go to Philadelphia and try to fix this. Why don't you come join me? So every state sends a delegation to Philadelphia in 1787. And again, it's very different than people think. First of all, when they meet for 55 days, it's in secret. There's no press corps, there's no press secretary. They don't tell anybody anything. Second, at several points, it almost breaks down. One point, the oldest man there, Benjamin Franklin, says, we need to stop, have a day of fast and prayer and get our head on straight, because right now we're just screwing up they do that. They get a sermon, they pray, they fast. They're together, they talk. And people who study it carefully make the point that I think is often very misunderstood about Washington. Washington is presiding inevitably. And so he's sitting up here, and you actually go and look at the room. It occurs in. In Philadelphia. But at lunch, at breakfast, at dinner, he's constantly politicking. What if we did this? What if we fixed that? What if we pulled this together? Maybe if you work with so and so, you can work something out. So his. His underlying influence is enormous, but it's all private. It's not public speeches. It's not speaking from the chair. He represents the whole convention. And they do something which is really quite remarkable. They're sent there to fix the Articles of Confederation. And by the time they all get there, they go, this is stupid. They are not going to work. Let's just write a Constitution. So you technically have a coup d'. Etat. I mean, you have a group of people who decide they're going to fix the whole thing. They have no authority to do it. They just assert it. They then publish it. And again, Washington, when this thing started and Madison in particular was all over Washington, you got to go do this. You got to go do this. The reason Madison ends up living in Mount Vernon for a while is Washington said, fine. You come here, you do the reading, you put together the writing, you do all the work. And when you get that done, I'll think about going, but I'm not going to do all that junk. You're the intellectual. I'm not. I'm going to go run my farm. And so Washington's happily entertaining at night and going around running his farm. Poor Madison is trapped. Who loves it? Is trapped in a room at Mount Vernon, thinking through the whole thing. They then do something that's quite remarkable. They go to the 13 states and they say, basically, you have to vote. We will not be legitimate unless you vote. And the greatest political brochure in history is the Federalist Papers, because that's what it is. It's a campaign document. And Jay and Hamilton and Madison write it. And you get Washington sending a letter out to the whole country saying, basically, this is what we've done. We need you to vote yes. This is important. Not an overwhelming margin. The country says yes, and they adopt a Constitution, at which point, of course, they turn a meeting and go, gosh, we're going to need a first president. Now Washington's saying, wait a second. I'm in Mount Vernon. I've done you know, I've done my share. No, no, no. You got to come up. So he agrees. He and Martha go to New York by the end of the first term, and he's very conscious. He is setting the precedents which we still live by, and he knows that, and he operates that way. He convinces Jefferson and Hamilton to serve in the Cabinet. They hate each other. They each subsidize a newspaper to attack the other, and he doesn't care. He says, you guys are invaluable. You got to stay here, and if I got to be here, you got to be here. Late in the first term, New York newspapers are attacking Martha for holding high tea, which they regard as the first step towards monarchy. Washington is so angry that he says, I'm going home. I've served a term. It's over. I am not going to subject my wife Martha to this kind of vicious behavior. The threat of Washington leaving is so central to the survival of the United States as a concept that Jefferson and Hamilton, who have become bitter opponents, put aside their hostility, get together jointly, go to see him, and they say, you can't go home. The country's not stable enough without your leadership, without your prestige, the country won't last. You have to stay for one more term. He very grudgingly agrees. He really is so angry about the news media treatment of his wife. But they convince him that for the country, he has to stay. And as a patriot, in the end, he's going to do what the country needs. And it's a very important, very difficult period. Britain and France are engaged in a deep war which will last until 1815. He's trying to make sure the United States doesn't get drawn in on either side, because he understands it would just tear the country apart. So he's being very careful about not getting into European politics and not getting into conflict at the same time. On our western frontier, particularly in Pennsylvania, farmers have gotten really angry about a tax break which was designed to help big distillers in the east and actually hurts the small farmers in the west who are producing corn whiskey in small batches. And so they're refusing to pay their taxes. And there's what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion. And it takes the prestige of Washington to insist that the law be enforced. And he literally organizes an army, which they are about to send into western Pennsylvania in order to force people to pay their taxes. Confronted by Washington's prestige and by Washington's seriousness and by the size of the army he's raising, the farmers ultimately cave the Laws are changed a little bit so that they have a face saving way out. The Whiskey Rebellion disappears. But that's the kind of thing going on that indicates how shaky this new country is and how little people, people understand the concept of a central government and that it has power which can reach all the way to the boundaries of the country. Without Washington's prestige, that might not have been survivable. He does stay, and then he really is done. One of the greatest things he does is he goes home. And that's really important because it sends a signal that power is loaned to you, you don't own it, and that you have a duty to limit yourself to be disciplined. And with the exception of President Franklin D. Roosevelt In World War II, no president has violated the Washington principle of a maximum of two terms. And in fact, after Roosevelt, we passed a constitutional amendment to block anybody from serving more than two terms. So Washington set the principle that he served the people, they didn't serve him. That power was deliberately limited. He goes home finally to Mount Vernon, a place he loves. He relaxes. He goes back to being a gentleman farmer. He's just drowning in visitors because everybody wants to drop by and see the great man. He's out riding on a wet, cold, rainy day. He comes down with a fever. In that generation, the doctors thought they would help you by bleeding you. They put leeches on him, probably hurting him by draining some of his blood. Although there are some modern studies that indicate the leeches actually had for some kind of diseases. They were actually very helpful because they had certain things that they actually put in your body. But in the case of Washington, it probably further weakened him. His throat seized up and he finally died. Martha was left alone. She promptly did something which every historian ever since has regretted. She burned all of their personal letters because she felt it was private. She didn't want people to see what Washington had written to her or she'd written to Washington. And so she, literally, shortly after his death, eliminates all of the personal records which had grown up over a long lifetime and would have been fascinating. The country mourns him. The country realizes that he really had been the father of the country, that he really was first in their hearts and that he was the symbol of what a free society was supposed to be. Which is why our national capital is named for him and why the Washington Monument stands there as a memorial to a man who had literally created the modern system of freedom under the rule of law that we've come to take for granted. So when you look around the world. And you see countries failing. You see people who are in desperate trouble. You see places where the rule of law doesn't exist. You look at kleptocracy, corruption, dictatorship. It's really important to remember that the United States could have been that kind of country. It still could someday be that kind of country. But that people can make an enormous difference. The Founding Fathers collectively and by their commitment to the rule of law, to the Constitution, made that difference. And the person who was indispensable, who really surmounted all of the others, they all looked up to him, they all followed his judgment, was President Washington, first as a general, then as president, but above all as a human being. Washington personified the kind of dignified patriotism that was at the heart of the rule of law. Each of us can learn from Washington. Each of us can learn about freedom, about discipline, about persistence. Each of us can come to understand why he loved America so much and why he loved freedom so much. And then we can teach others that anybody, anywhere on the planet can learn to be free, can learn to live under the rule of law, can learn to pursue happiness. And Washington in that sense, is a person for all of humanity, not just America, and a person for all time, not just the 18th century. I want to thank my longtime writing partner and fellow George Washington historian, Bill Fortune. I also want to thank the Fred W. Smith National Library for the study of George Washington at Mount Vernon. And frankly, the person who did more than anybody else to create that library, Gay Gaines. The thank you for listening to Founding Fathers Week on Newts World. You can learn more about George Washington on our show page@newtsworld.com Newts World is produced by Gingrich360 and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Garnzi Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Pendley. Special thanks the team at Gingrich 37 if you've been enjoying Newts World, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my three free weekly columns at Gingrich360.com Newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newts World.