Noble Blood - King George Washington I

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

One of the most enduring stories about the founding of the United States of America is that before George Washington accepted the position as President, he declined the position as King. But "enduring" doesn't necessarily mean true. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. The first three fun facts that you learn about George Washington are wrong. Before we're even out of elementary school in the United States of America, we learn plenty of myths about our first president, George Washington. Take, for instance, the famous anecdote about George Washington cutting down a cherry tree. If you haven't heard it or haven't heard it in a while, the basic story goes like this.

At six years old, George Washington gets a brand new hatchet and excited to try it out, he sets about swinging it at his father's prize cherry tree in their front yard. When George's father gets home, furious about either the hatchet marks in the tree or the fact that it had been cut down altogether, Mr. Washington asks his son if he was the responsible party. Ever the paradigm of moral virtue, even as a kindergartner, George Washington admits what he did right away with the phrase, I cannot tell a lie. If you didn't already know that story, endearing as it is, simply isn't true.

It first appeared in a biography written by Mason-Lock Weems, who published his book trying to cash in immediately after Washington's death, although the cherry tree anecdote didn't actually appear until the book's fifth edition published six years later. That story just detailed enough to be memorable and vague enough to apply as a life lesson for all children, immediately caught on. In 1836, a Presbyterian minister and professor named William Holmes McGuffey

included it as a lesson on morality in a children's grammar school textbook, sort of a 19th century equivalent of a highlights magazine, Goofus and Gallant. McGuffey's textbook stayed in print for almost 100 years. The year before the textbook came out, circus ringleader and conman P.T. Barnum purchased an elderly enslaved woman named Joyce Heth and put her on display as a sideshow attraction, claiming that she was the slave who had raised George Washington. Heth, who would have been 161 years old if Barnum's claim was actually true, told stories to rapt audiences about Washington, including the then-already-famous, Cherry Tree anecdote. It's easy to understand why the Cherry Tree story had such longevity. It's an American Horatio Alger novel in anecdote form, a modern Tudor morality play, and it's a perfect celebration of the larger myth of America that we're a land of meritocracy. If you're a good person, like the six-year-old

who was honest to his father, then you can and will go on to achieve great. things. Americans love mythologizing our founding fathers, turning them into superhero mascots of our own national self-celebration. The next myth about George Washington is a little bit harder to trace, the idea that George Washington had wooden teeth. He didn't. He did suffer from issues with his teeth throughout his life, and by the time he gave his first presidential address, he only had one of his original teeth left in his mouth. But his dentures were never made of wood. Really, that seems like an awful idea for dentures on any level.

Wood is porous and absorbent. It warps and cracks. I mean, imagine the splinters. Throughout George Washington's life, he had multiple sets of dentures made for materials like ivory, gold, lead, and slave teeth. Yes, probably slave teeth. In George Washington's ledger, he noted that on May 8th, 1784, he paid six pounds and two shillings to, quote, Negroes for nine teeth. While it's possible that he was buying them for a family member, it's just as likely that they were meant for his own mouth.

As the Mount Vernon website itself notes, selling teeth to dentists was a common way to make money for poor people since at least the end of the Middle Ages. but it is important to remember that although Washington paid for these teeth, the enslaved people in Virginia in the 18th century had no choice when it came to participating in the transaction. So where did the idea of wooden teeth come from? Most historians agree that Washington's ivory dentures became stained and brownish over time, which made them look wooden. But why would that story be so enduring? It doesn't have a simple moral narrative like the cherry tree story,

unless you assume that Washington carved the teeth himself, and then, sure, it does give him a rugged, self-sufficient man-of-the-people-type power. But, well, wooden teeth themselves are memorable. They're oddly specific and a little gruesome in their imagery. And weirdness, especially in conjunction with a historical figure that's so often portrayed as so virtuous he may as well just be a marble sculpture is interesting. It makes George Washington seem human and lets us, in the modern day, shake our heads in superiority at how antiquated, how positively medieval things were 200 years ago.

But it's the third George Washington myth that we'll be talking about in depth today, a myth that has so infiltrated the popular culture that I admit I didn't know it was false myself until I started doing my research for this very podcast. You see, with all the attention on the American executive branch during a presidential election, I found myself thinking about the historical fun fact that I've heard so many times, the fulcrum point in American history that could have changed the course of our nation with a single decision. the notion that they offered to make George Washington not the first president of the United States, but the first king. Of course, you know the rest of that story. George Washington, he of the moral backbone to come clean after an act of fruit tree vandalism, refused the crown,

and he ushered our young country in as a representative democracy. George Washington could have been a king, they say, and he chose not to be. It's a story that makes Washington, and by extension, America, look honorable and virtuous. It's the type of story we want to believe about ourselves. But the truth is always a little more complicated. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. In 1780, while the soldiers of the Continental Army fought against the British,

the delegates of the Second Continental Congress passed a statute, promising that the American soldiers would receive a pension after they retired, half of their current pay for the rest of their lives. It was a mighty promise from a government that could barely find the funds to pay the soldiers as it was. At this point in American history, the federal body had almost no actual power. beyond the symbolic, especially when it came to money. Congress had no power to tax the states. To pay the army, the federal government relied on requisitions from the states that the states would pay voluntarily. And as you might imagine, these voluntary payments weren't nearly enough.

After the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, the war on land between the colonists and the British was largely over. Peace talks were beginning, and even though British ships still bobbed, visible in the Atlantic Ocean, cutting off trade, independence was imminent. But the Continental Army remained vigilant, monitoring British-occupied New York City from their base in Newburgh, 60 miles to the north. But the soldiers were well aware that they occupied a strange no-man's land. they were soldiers for a country that didn't quite exist yet, and with the war ending, they were about to be unemployed. In the meantime, Robert Morris, the superintendent of finance,

who would be called the financier of the Revolution, had to stop Army pay in 1782 to cut costs. He made the assurance that it would be only temporary that Congress would pay back all of its soldiers, their back wages, and the pensions they were promised. It was just, under the Articles of the Confederation, they had no way to actually do that. A group of congressmen, including Alexander Hamilton, recognized that discrepancy. Without a strong central federal branch of the government with actual power, this new country

wouldn't be a country at all. And so Hamilton proposed an amendment to the Articles of the Confederation, a workaround for the no-federal taxes rule that would allow Congress to levy an import tariff, it was immediately shut down. Soldiers wrote to Congress demanding their pay and their promised pensions, and Alexander Hamilton would read these letters aloud in chamber trying to convince his fellow congressmen that they needed to do something in order to actually pay their army, but no amendments or agreements passed. Soldiers who had gone months without pay were beginning to feel

forgotten. Officers covered their tattered, tearing uniforms with blankets. Lower-ranking soldiers didn't even have blankets to cover themselves up with. They were all cold and hungry and frustrated. While waiting for the war to officially end, they also waited to find out what sort of government they would be serving on the other side. And the government that they currently had under the Articles of the Confederation didn't seem to be working out for the government. It was during this period of tension that an officer named Colonel Lewis Nicola wrote a letter to George Washington. To say that they were colleagues would be incredibly generous to Nicola, work acquaintances,

maybe. Nicola was born in Ireland, and before the Revolutionary War, he lived in Philadelphia with a subscription circulating library. He went on to join the Continental Army to serve as city major Philadelphia. and it was actually he who proposed that the Continental Congress form an invalid corps, a group of men who wouldn't be fit for actual combat, but could serve as guards or teachers for other soldiers. The Corps wasn't quite a success.

Nicola, as its commander, was plagued with challenges when it came to recruiting enough men, and he struggled with order and discipline in the ranks he commanded. And things were getting even harder for Nicola, as Congress continually refused to honor their promises of wages and pensions. The wages they did get, Nicola believed, were in paper money whose value had been so depreciated that was worth far less than promised.

As the war drew to a close, Nicola was, as one historian characterized him, quote, a man harassed and brooding over the universal gloom and sense of injustice at the Nicola. which the army was experiencing. He began his letter to George Washington explaining those grievances. Soldiers, he wrote, have, quote, much reason to fear that the future provision promised two officers by Congress

will be little attended to when our services are no longer wanted, and that the recompense of all of our toils, hardships, expense of private fortune during several of the best years of our lives will be forgot and neglected by such as reap the benefits of our labor without suffering any of the hardships. It's at this point in the letter that Nicola notes that he is not, quote, a violent admirer of the Republican form of government. The republics of Europe, which Nicola names Venice, Genoa and Holland, were short-lived in their periods of power when compared to monarchies. Let us consider the principal monarchies of Europe, Nicola writes.

They have suffered great internal commotions, have worried each other, have had periods of vigor and weakness, yet they still subsist and shine with luster. But Nicola is also quick to point out that he is not a fan of absolute monarchy. The answer, he suggests, is in a government not dissimilar to the one that existed in Britain at the time, a constitutional monarchy. From there, Nicola proceeds to what he calls his scheme. What if Congress made good on all of their promises by giving soldiers tracts of land west of the existing colonies

where each individual soldier could, quote, have his due, land with swamps, mountains, lakes, and rivers, and all of the soldiers could put their land together, quote, into a distinct state under such much, mode of government, as those military who choose to remove to it may agree upon. Congress could also put some of that pension in cash up front so that the soldiers in the new state could buy farm equipment. For his part, Nicola believes that that agreed upon government should be a constitutional monarchy. I quote, this war must have shown to all, but to military

men in particular, the weakness of republics and the exertion of the army that we've been able to make by being under a proper head. Therefore, I have little doubt when the benefits of a mixed government are pointed out and duly considered, but such will be readily adopted. In this case, it will, I believe, be uncontroverted that the same abilities which have led us through difficulties apparently insurmountable by human power to victory and glory, those qualities that have merited and obtained the universal esteem and veneration of an army, would be most likely to conduct and direct us in the smoother paths of peace. In other words, soldiers understand how nice it is when it's clear who's in charge,

and when that person in charge is as good at leading as you are, George, dot, dot, dot, if you catch my drift. quote, some people have so connected the ideas of tyranny and monarchy as to find it very difficult to separate them. It may, therefore, be requisite to give the head of such a constitution as I propose some title apparently more moderate. But if all other things were once adjusted, I believe strong argument might be produced for admitting the title of king, which I conceive would be attended with some material advantages. The letter is seven pages long, filled with adorable justifications and ideas. This new state is especially smart, Nicola writes, because won't Congress and the existing colonies want soldiers on their Western flank

protecting them from Native Americans? And we can also protect them from Canada. It's a win-win. The letter has the self-delighted and slightly delusional energy, of a friend who thinks he's figured out how to beat the house in a Vegas casino once and for all. It's somehow at the same time both naive and also the result of way too much thought and research. George Washington was wildly freaked out by this delusional pitch from a guy who was a polite work friend at best. Washington wrote his response the very day he received the letter and just to make sure that he was on the record,

loud and clear, Washington had his secretary write an exact copy of his response to keep in his own files. I will read the entire second paragraph of his response here, just because I can't imagine a more brutal shutdown. Quote, I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which, to me, seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. At the same time, injustice to my own feeling, I must add that no man possesses a more sincere wish to see ample justice done to the army than I do, and as far as my powers and influence in a constitutional way extend, they shall be employed to the utmost of my abilities to affect it, should there be any occasion.

Let me just conjure you then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect to me, to banish these things from your mind and never communicate as from yourself or anyone else a sentiment of the like nature. With esteem, I am your most obedient servant, George Washington. And Nicola received the message. Upon getting such an icy response from the man. and he admired so much, George Washington himself, for what he thought was his brilliant little intellectual idea, Nicola absolutely panicked. He wrote back not just once, but three times in a single week,

backtracking and begging for George Washington's forgiveness, saying he must have been misunderstood, but he realizes he was way out of line. We don't have Washington's response to these frantic triple messages, but we assume that Nicola was forgiven and his little indiscretion forgotten because the relationship between him and Washington returned soon enough to the way it had been before the letter,

the 18th century equivalent of saying hi at the Christmas party. Washington, for his part, never told another person about Nicola's letter, lest the idea get any legs. This is the sole source and origin of the rumor that George Washington was offered the position of King. This is the closest that anyone got. One guy, not even a congressman, just a colonel, writing a letter, floating a weather balloon for a new idea

for what the soldiers could do after the war. Just a blue sky pitch from one guy who thinks monarchies are more efficient than republics and wanted to run his idea past the big guy. That's the historical basis for the story that some faceless capital T, they offered George Washington a crown. I read so many direct excerpts above from Nicola and from Washington, because I want to be fully transparent about how I get my information.

To this day, historians completely mischaracterized that exchange. In 2004, a New York Times best-selling biography of George Washington called His Excellency covered the letter from Louis Nicola by saying that the young officer wrote in his letter that certain disaster would befall post-war America unless Washington declared himself king. That's not what the letter says. The book also claims that Nicola put into writing an idea that several officers were whispering about. That's a wild stretch on multiple levels. Lewis knew his idea was outlandish and was going to be unpopular. He himself in his letter calls it heterodox and jokes that some would hear his idea and think he should be burnt at the state.

And again, Lewis was proposing a new state, not suggesting an overthrow of the existing government. And, again, to be clear, he doesn't really offer Washington the crown explicitly, it's just implied. That book, His Excellency, continues by saying that George Washington's stern response to Nicola made its way to King George III in England, who quipped that if George Washington, actually did turn down the crown, he would be the greatest man in the world. The seed of that story is true, but it was what George III actually said 15 years later when he heard that Washington was planning on retiring after two terms as president. I'm not a professional historian, and in the course of this podcast, I have absolutely made

a number of errors. Usually years I accidentally read wrong from my script and correct as soon as I can, and, more often, errors of pronunciation. And I don't mean to call out that biographer in some sort of gotcha. I just think it's important to reflect on how appealing mythologies can be so pervasive in our culture that they just become wrote. Things we assume are true because we've heard them repeated so many times that then we ourselves repeat. The narrative of George Washington turning down the crown

is such a fundamentally appealing one in the myth of how America came to be. And if you only read George Washington's reply, and not the letter to which he was replying, it's easy to fill in the gaps of the story in your head and make it the story that you want to hear. Washington actually would drastically influence the shape of the American democracy

before the end of the Revolutionary War and prevent mutiny against Congress, but he didn't do so with the reception. response to a letter that no one else actually read. He did it with a pair of reading glasses. As things were growing more tense within the Continental Army, a delegation of officers arrived in Philadelphia to deliver a memo to Congress by hand. There would be, quote, fatal effects, they wrote, if Congress didn't supply what they had promised. The threat was almost too blatant to be considered implicit. Nationalists, by which I mean the congressmen who supported a strong national government,

like Morris and Hamilton, were able to convince the soldiers to hold tight while they fought to push their policies through in Congress. On one hand, the threat of military coup was terrifying. On the other hand, nationalists like Hamilton were well aware that from a political standpoint, the discontented military was a pretty good driving force for convincing. his fellow congressmen that they needed to give the federal government some actual power. To this day, historians argue whether the coup was a legitimate, impending course of action, or whether the threat was exaggerated for political benefit. But whether they were political pawns or not, the officers at Newburgh were getting restless. Early on the morning of March 10th,

1783. An unsigned letter circulated amongst the officers at Newburgh calling for a meeting at 11 a.m. The letter, later attributed to Major John Armstrong into camp to Washington's rival, General Horatio Gates, said that it was time for the army to take a bolder tone. You have fought for a country, the letter said, that now tramples upon your rights, disdains your cries and insults your distresses. And now, the letter said, Congress has left you to grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt. Would they consent to, quote, wade through the vile mire of dependency and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity, which has Hithrow been spent in honor? As Professor Richard Cohn phrased that, if so, they would be pitied. ridiculed for suffering this last indignity.

They had bled too much. They still had their swords. There were two courses of action, the anonymous letter posited. If Congress didn't provide the money they promised, either the army should disband and leave the brand new nation defenseless, or, once the war ended,

they should refuse to disband. After all, who was kind of? to deny them when they were the ones with weapons. Upon hearing about the unofficial meeting, George Washington formally objected. He scheduled an official meeting four days later, and, implying that he wouldn't attend himself, he asked for a full report to be sent to him after it was over. Four days later, on March 15th, Gates gaveled in the meeting, which took place at camp in a building known as the temple. But before Gates could begin with the speech he had prepared, the door opened. To everyone's surprise, General George Washington strode into the building and quietly asked

John Gates if he might be permitted to speak. Absolutely stunned, Gates relinquished the floor to his superior. Washington looked at the faces of his officers in the audience. The men, usually so reverential verging on worshipful when it came to Washington, were visibly frustrated. Even Washington's presence didn't dispel the air of discontent, of unhappiness, of impatience in the room. Still, George Washington spoke calmly and gave what would come to be known as the Newburgh address. In it, he denounced the veiled threats of mutiny against, Congress. What can this writer of this anonymous letter have in view by recommending such measures? Can he be a friend to the army? Can he be a friend to this country? Rather, is he not an insidious foe?

Washington asked his officers to give once more distinguished proof of their unexampled patriotism and patient virtue and place full confidence in the purity of the intentions of the intentions of of Congress. At this point, Washington took out a letter from a congressman that he wanted to read to his men. He stared at the paper for a moment, and then, as the room fell quiet, he took out a pair of reading glasses. None of the men had ever seen Washington in reading glasses before. Gentlemen, George Washington said, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, I have not only grown gray, but almost blind in the service of my country. Officers in the crowd felt tears come to their eyes. After Washington finished reading the letter, he folded it neatly,

placed it into his pocket, and left the meeting hall. All of their anger, their talk of mutiny, it dissolved like morning fog. Washington sent a copy of the anonymous letter that had circulated to Congress, who found it distressing, as you might imagine. Alexander Hamilton sprung into action, and he helped form a committee which ultimately finalized an agreement that would provide soldiers five full years of pay after they retired instead of the lifetime half pay. The crisis was averted. Many challenges still threaten the new nation, but for the time being, its own army wasn't one of them. Washington's career and the loyalty that he inspired in his troops was a formidable force.

The type of force that, should he have wanted to become king, maybe would have allowed him to do so. But that's a hypothetical. What George Washington actually did, when faced with soldiers discontent at the end of the Revolutionary War, how he secured the nation against military control in favor of loyalty to Congress, is more than interesting and dramatic enough to hold our attention, but still, the man who would be king story endures. After all, we do all love the allure and implied glamour of any story with a connection, however tangential to a monarchy.

Don't I know it? That's the story of George Washington's offer to become king, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear about his extremely interesting, interesting family legacy. And a quick personal note, Noble Blood is on Patreon. If you want to support me and the show, go to patreon.com slash nobleblood Tales, where you can subscribe to get behind the scenes access to bibliographies, episode scripts, first access to merch, and eventually bonus podcast episodes. But support for the Patreon is completely voluntary, just like states' requisitions

of funds under the Articles of the Confederation. Really, the best way to support the show is just to keep listening. It will always be free to listen to. And I truly cannot thank you enough for listening and supporting the show that way. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wode. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network.

It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah.

He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that.

There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation.

There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If at this point you, the listener, are frustrated that I did an entire episode about someone not becoming nobility, well, I have a bit of good news. It's going to take a discussion of a family tree, so bear with me. George Washington's great-grandfather was a man named Augustine Warner Jr. Among his children, he had two daughters, Mary and Mildred.

Mildred was George Washington's grandmother. Mary's descendants would have a slightly different pet. Mary had a daughter, also named Mary. She, married named Mary Porteus, would move with her husband from Virginia to Ripon in North Yorkshire in England. Her son, Reverend Robert Porteous, had a daughter who got married and became Mildred Hodgson. Mildred Hodgson had a son, Robert Hodgson Jr., who became the Dean of Carlisle. His daughter, Henrietta, married the daughter of the director of the East India Trading Company. And now that the family had married into money, that freed up Henrietta's daughter to marry into nobility.

Henrietta's daughter, Francis Dora Smith, married Claude Bowes-Lion, 13th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorn. Their son, the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorn, had a daughter who married the Duke of York, who, upon the unexpected resignation of his older brother, became King George the 6th. That means that their daughter would eventually go on to become Queen Elizabeth II,

the current reigning monarch of the United Kingdom. All of that is to say that George Washington and Queen Elizabeth II are second cousins seven times removed. I'm correct on that, I promise you. I checked it up and drew up a very messy family tree in my notebook just to make sure I was right. It's interesting. I mean, sort of.

Everyone is related somehow, if you can go back far enough. But with influential and dynastical, nastically important people, those records are kept and are pretty easy to find if you know where to look for them. So there you have it. For the Noble Blood Purists, George Washington was never going to be king. But he would be the very distant second cousin to a queen. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Will and Trevor Young.

Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble Bloodtales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever.

He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're, banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Yeah. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.