George Washington: \"His Excellency\" Writing

George Washington: "His Excellency"

Writing a biography about a figure as revered as George Washington, the first President of the United States, can be a daunting task, given the fact that he has acquired mythical status in our society. He is both loved and hated by scholars and laymen throughout the country. As Joseph J. Ellis, author of His Excellency, writes in his preface, "For reasons best explained by Shakespeare and Freud, all children have considerable difficulty approaching their fathers with an open mind. Washington poses what we might call the Patriarchal Problem in its most virulent form: on Mount Rushmore, the Mall, the dollar bill, and the quarter, but always an icon - distant, cold, intimidating" (xi).

The above quote is an excellent summation of the theme of Ellis's biography, a theme that distinguishes it from prior attempts at elucidating the life of one of America's best-known heroes. In His Excellency, Ellis acknowledges the difficulties inherent in writing about such a figure as George Washington, especially from the standpoint of the present day (the book was published in 2004.) Ellis resolves to go looking for the man, rather than the statue (xii). Only this way, he proclaims, will we be able to find out if there is any substance behind the myth that has arisen in our politically correct era, namely that Washington single-handedly gave rise to an oppressive, racist, imperial, patriarchic culture.

Not content with merely attempting to dismiss or confirm this view of the politically correct times we live in, Ellis departs employs the following departure point as a provocation:

It seemed to me that Benjamin Franklin was wiser than Washington; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; Thomas Jefferson was more intellectually sophisticated; James Madison was more politically astute. Yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior. Within the gallery of greats so often mythologized and capitalized as Founding Fathers, Washington was recognized as primus inter-pares, the Foundingest Father of them all. Why was that? (Ellis xiv)

The difficulty of Ellis's task is compounded by the fact that seemingly very little is known about Washington's private life. He was a man who famously accomplished a lot throughout the course of his life, but said very little regarding his own thoughts. We know that he was born on the 22nd of February 1732 and died on the 14th of December 1799. He served two full terms as the first President of the United States of America, between the years of 1789 and 1797. He is considered to be, alongside Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of the three best presidents that the United States has ever had. Washington is widely considered to be the prime example of republicanism in practice. In his devotion to civic virtues, his example is unprecedented among American leaders. Famously, during his funeral oration, Henry Lee stated that Washington was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." Ellis then attempts to fill in the spaces that exist between the lines formed by the bare facts that we know about Washington, while dispelling many of the commonly believed myths that have evolved surrounding his person. In this, Ellis manages to convey a precise picture of the man behind the legend.

Ellis accomplishes this through a heavy reliance on primary sources throughout. Indeed, as he informs us in the Acknowledgments section at the end of the book, the inspiration for His Excellency came out of Ellis's own ambition to read the Washington papers in their entirety - a task that many have attempted, but few have accomplished (Ellis 277). Rather than relying on second-hand accounts of George Washington's life, Ellis goes straight to the source, choosing to center his discussion and analysis on the man's own words - a feat that is certainly to be commended.

It is often difficult for authors to determine what is true or not about a particular individual when penning a biography. This is particularly appropriate for those figures for which history has surrounded by myths. Separating the myths from the reality can be incredibly taxing. One of the ways to go about doing this, however, is to rely on primary sources. The use of primary sources gives us a direct insight into the figure's thoughts - but at the same time, you cannot always trust everything you read, as occasionally the figure may distort events for opportunistic purposes. Still, when one employs primary sources, you get a better look inside the head of the person who is being written about. But in order to temper this reliance and thus get a more balanced, objective view of the subject, secondary sources should also be employed.

Ellis gets it just right with his biography of Washington. While the vast majority of the book's sources come from Washington's own diaries, letters, and papers, there are still enough secondary sources evoked in His Excellency to provide us with pertinent commentaries on many of Washington's most famous deeds and actions.

The biographical format has become somewhat standard throughout the course of history. Structurally, it is nearly always rooted in a chronological approach. As such, it is always the beginning that is most boring for the reader, as very little happens in the figure's first years of life that distinguish him or her from other individuals who are perhaps not so unique. Ellis implicitly acknowledges and masterfully avoids this dilemma by departing his narrative from a pivotal moment in Washington's life: when, at the age of twenty-one, he served as a messenger on "a dangerous mission into the American wilderness" (Ellis 3).

Once he hooks us in with this bit of narrative intrigue, the book then reverts to a chronological methodology that is as interesting as it is informative. One of the nice things about Ellis's book is that, unlike other biographies of George Washington, his is short, concise, and to the point. At only 320 pages (including footnotes and index), Ellis employs great precision in his prose, rendering an apt picture of one of America's greatest heroes of all time. In the course of seven brief, readable chapters, Ellis accomplishes what has taken most previous biographers several volumes. Ellis avoid this tedium by focusing his narrative on those aspects of Washington's life that will be most important to the general reader, while also providing a useful summary for the scholar. Ellis's book is supplemented with a section of useful renderings of Washington, from the most famous paintings to more obscure images, such as a portrait executed by Charles Wilson Peale on the occasion of Washington's visit to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. There are also such interesting tidbits as an original plan for the city of Washington, dating from 1792. Such images provide a useful supplement to Ellis's text.

All in all, I have to say that I greatly enjoyed reading Ellis's biography of Washington. I think the most impressive aspect of the book is its inherent readability - one never grows bored learning of Washington's vast accomplishments, not to mention the many flaws in his character. After all, no one is perfect, and Ellis's intention is not to idealize Washington, but to show us how human he was, despite his many accomplishments. Ellis's prose flows in a masterful way. He is a fine master of metaphor and paints vivid images of a period in American history that very few of us have any real knowledge of. I think the real strength of Ellis's book is that he focuses mainly on Washington's character, rather than all the mundane aspects of his life. He wants to give us a firm impression of what George Washington was really like. What is more, by focusing a lot of his analysis on Washington's formative years, he shows us how youth often has an influence on how we will develop as adults. This makes the book quite inspiring for younger people. Washington certainly experienced a lot in his young age. While he did not receive the advanced education that most U.S. presidents enjoy today, he saw many things in battles that the most hardened of us would not be able to take. Such experiences early in life, Ellis infers, are what made George Washington the leader he was later to become. This is not to say that Ellis presents a romanticized version of George Washington's youth; rather, he bases his analysis on hard facts - most of which originated from Washington's own quill.