Pulitzer Winner Joseph Ellis on George Washington & American Revolution 250

The Learning Curve Joseph Ellis

Albert Cheng: [00:00:00] Well, hello everybody, and happy Fourth. This is Albert Cheng coming at you with a brand new and special episode of the Learning Curve podcast. I’m joined today by Kelley Brown. Kelley, welcome to the show

Kelley Brown: Hi, Albert. Thanks so much for having me, and I’m so excited for today’s show.

Albert Cheng: Yeah, me too, and glad to be doing another show with you.

And for, uh, listeners who may not have caught some of the episodes that you’ve done with us, why don’t you introduce yourself?

Kelley Brown: Sure. I am a government and history teacher at East Hampton High School in East Hampton, Massachusetts, where I teach a fantastic group of students every year in the We the People program, and just absolutely love teaching American [00:01:00] history and civics with my students.

Albert Cheng: Great, and speaking of We the People, and that’s gonna get to the topic of our special episode to commemorate this Fourth of July. But it’s not just any Fourth, it is the 250th anniversary of the Founding, and we’re going to have an interview with Professor Joseph Ellis, Professor Emeritus of History at Mount Holyoke College, and a Pulitzer Prize winner, author of several books, among which are, uh, ones on George Washington and, and many others on the Founding, including one that’s recently come out.

But before we get to Dr. Ellis, Kelley, why don’t we just kind of set the stage a little bit? And, you know, one of the things that I’ve wanted to ask you about was how you engage with or prepare your students for the Fourth. I mean, it’s kind of an odd holiday, right? It’s, it’s in the middle of summer, so it’s not like school’s in session, but I’m, I’m curious, do you do anything in the middle of the year to talk about the Fourth and kinda prime them to celebrate it?

Kelley Brown: [00:02:00] Yeah, so this year has been pretty interesting, of course. Because it is the 250th anniversary, we’ve actually talked a lot about, you know, how do we celebrate the nation’s history, how do we think about 1776? Because of course 1776 is an incredibly important year in the American Revolution, and in my We the People course we learn a lot about the American Revolution.

And really starting in January of 1776, it really is a marking point, maybe a turning point in the American Revolution. So we’ve actually spent a lot of time this year thinking about, you know, what does it mean to be 250? Are we young? Are we old? Should we celebrate all of the amazing things that this country and the people of this country have done?

Should we expect more? And I think probably the answer to all those questions is yes. And something that struck me on a podcast [00:03:00] that we did for this show a while back with Professor Gordon Wood, who very sadly passed away recently, is he just really pointed out that we’re a young country, and in that 250 years we have accomplished a lot.

But I also think it was a revolution born of dissent, and a revolution that really pushed Americans and Republican government to ask, you know, what else can we do? How can we improve? And so I think that’s kinda where my students- settled. It was like, “You know what? We’re a young country. We’ve done a lot of amazing things that need to be celebrated,” and it’s kind of American to say like, “What else do we have to get better at?”

And I think that’s where they were at

Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah. Well, well said. You know, as, as you’re talking about the age of our country, or really, you know, I mean, how long has this American experiment been going on? For mortals like us, 250 years sounds like a long time, but in the grand scheme of things, it, it really isn’t.

I, I remember as a young [00:04:00] student, I think it was when I was in 11th grade, complaining about how difficult learning American history was because there was so much content. My mom replied to me and said, “Well, you know, when I was a kid, I had to learn all of Chinese history, and you only have 250 years to cover.”

You know, “I had thousands of years to remember.” And I was like, “Oh, huh.” And then which gave me a really, a dose of reality here that, hey, you know, we are a young country, and but I think you’re right. We’ve done a lot, and certainly we’ve fumbled our way through history and did things right, did things wrong, did things well, did things poorly.

And to your point, it’s useful to have that perspective, you know, not to be overly idealistic, but to be optimistic. I think that’s part of the American character, isn’t it? To be hopeful for the future.

Kelley Brown: Yeah. I wholly agree, and I think that we can think about the principles that Americans agree upon and really celebrate those on the 4th.

I know my students and I are volunteering at a local event [00:05:00] here in town that involves fireworks and music, but it also gives us an opportunity to come together to, you know, have some civic virtue and volunteer to help out at this really important community event. And to me, that’s kinda what the 4th is all about- Mm-hmm

is just sort of thinking about, you know, what is our place here in this country, and what are the things that we can come together about, and then also, you know, to have some fun and celebrate. How about you- Yeah … Albert? What are you gonna do for the 4th?

Albert Cheng: I mean, of course, the usual. You know, visit some family and have a meal together and then do the, the usual things that we do, I guess.

You know, parades and fireworks and that kinda thing. But wow, you’ve kind of … You know, I don’t know if it’s convicted me a little bit. You know, I gotta think through. Wow, I mean, I’m, I’m encouraged that you and your students are, are even thinking of doing some kind of service event. And it’s all the more impressive that you, you’re actually getting your students together in the middle of summer to, to do this, which I think that, to me, I’m, I’m [00:06:00] encouraged because I think that cuts to the heart of the American experiment, right?

It’s how we can give of ourselves to seek the common good and preserve this republic and keep this experiment going and seeking the good of our neighbors. So I’m glad to hear that, and, and you’ve got me thinking about, huh, maybe I need to … I might do a little bit of that to commemorate the 4th.

Kelley Brown: Yeah, I think it’ll be a good time, and I think it brings us maybe back full circle to George Washington, who certainly, you know, developed his own virtues throughout his life and through his experience.

And certainly Joseph Ellis’ book about George Washington also reminds me of something you said earlier, which is- It is amazing. The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know very much. And reading his book and the details about George Washington, I think my students really enjoy thinking about virtue as kind of one of the key elements of the founding generation, and George Washington really came to [00:07:00] exemplify that.

Hmm. And I think he did so in his own way, and I really just enjoyed reading Joseph Ellis’ book about him because it taught me so much that I didn’t know already.

Albert Cheng: Hmm. Well, indeed, history is a great teacher, and certainly those that have come before us, you know, although they’re not no longer with us, there’s a lot to learn from them, not just about how they thought and their, you know, the content and the knowledge they produced, but certainly as you, you said, the virtue and character that they embodied that we definitely need to keep this experiment going.

So well, why don’t we invite Professor Ellis to the show to talk about George Washington and the Founding? So he’s gonna come up on the flip side of the break.

Joseph Ellis is Professor Emeritus of History at Mount Holyoke College, and among the nation’s leading scholars of [00:08:00] American history. The author of 12 books, Ellis was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, and won the National Book Award for American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson.

His in-depth chronicle of the life of our first president, His Excellency George Washington, was a New York Times bestseller. Ellis’s most recent book, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding, was published in fall 2025. Professor Ellis’s essays and book reviews appear regularly in national publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, The New Republic, and The New Yorker.

Ellis’s commentaries have been featured on CBS, C-SPAN, CNN, and PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He has appeared in several PBS documentaries on early America, including John and Abigail Adams for PBS’s The American [00:09:00] Experience, and a History Channel documentary on George Washington. He received his AB from the College of William & Mary, and earned his MA and PhD from Yale University.

Professor Ellis, welcome to the show. So we’re here to talk about the founding, and George Washington in particular. As you know, we’re, we’re celebrating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, and so could you start by giving a brief overview of Washington’s role as the indispensable man? And you said, “Without Washington, we don’t get the American Revolution.”

So could you unpack that? What do you mean by that?

Joseph Ellis: First of all, on the face of it, how could a group of independent colonies who had no history of cooperation come together and defeat the dominant military and economic power in the world? That looks like a, a miracle, and Washington’s not the sole answer to that question.

And Washington himself said at the end of the war, right after the last battle in the war, [00:10:00] “If a true history of the American Revolution is ever written, the writer will be accused of writing fiction.” And so in order for the American Revolution to succeed, we have to win the war, and one of the r- reasons we won is that at some point in the middle of the war, Washington came to the conclusion that turned out to be extraordinarily significant.

No great general in American history has ever lost more battles than Washington. He was out-manned many times, and he was commanding soldiers that were less experienced than the British Army, of course. But at some point in time, right about the time of Valley Forge, he realizes a big thing: he doesn’t have to win the war.

The British have to win the war And he from that point forward fights a war he called, in which they call a war of posts, meaning he would not engage with the British Army unless he had a, a [00:11:00] major advantage, and that the British had to win the war. And at some point in time, all the British soldiers that went back to England after the war said, they said from their side, they could never win the war.

The American theater was too large. The opposition to the, the British was very sound, even though there were a lot of people who sided with Great Britain, 15%. But that the way in which he conducted the war made American victory possible, and it’s difficult to imagine anybody else capable of doing that.

Albert Cheng: Thanks for that. So why don’t we maybe back up and start from the beginning of his life. You know, his success and leadership kind of begs the question, how did he become the man he was? Tell us about his family background. And, you know, one of the things that’s maybe common to many of the founders was their education, but as I understand it, Washington had a different kind.

Just talk about [00:12:00] his upbringing and his formative experiences growing up.

Joseph Ellis: Washington had the equivalent of what we’d call a high school education, whereas Adams went to Harvard, Jefferson went to William & Mary. It was war that became his educational experience, and the leadership of men, and that his role during the French and Indian War, fighting on the British side, is important.

And early on in, there’s a battle, the Monongahela it’s called. Washington is leading the American troops, there’s British troops, too, and they’re ambushed by a group of French, but mostly Indians, at the Monongahela. And here’s it’s important. Washington had two horses shot from out on from under him. He had five bullet holes through his vest and his hat.

And he was not touched. And some say here he developed the idea that he could not be killed. One of the N- [00:13:00] Native American leaders in that ambush later went to Washington, and then they decided on the American side during the Revolution. He said, “You need to know that when I saw what was happening in the Battle of Monongahela, I told my warriors to stop firing at you.

You were a god. You know, you should’ve been killed or easily early.” And I told him that, “The gods were looking upon you, and we should stop firing at you.” There were several moments that… And anyway, that his kind of education, how to lead men, how to view America’s role in the world, came into existence during the French and Indian War.

He married the wealthiest widow in Virginia, and that’s how we get Mount Vernon. And as a planter, he came to distrust completely the British who purchased his tobacco or whatever he was selling. And his [00:14:00] hostility towards Great Britain, or his suspicion of Great Britain, developed because he believed that they were not treating him fairly.

He might have been right about that, but that his early views of Great Britain were shaped by his role as a planter who believed that the real value of his tobacco crop was not being met. So if you’re looking for a source of anti-British thought, that’s where it begins with him. Also, during that time, he also applies for admission to the British Army.

This is before he starts to become really hostile, and they turn him down. And if Great Britain ever made a tactical mistake in all its history, that was it. But finally, as a result of the French and Indian War and his role, Great Britain gave him a substantial portion of land in what is now Ohio and West Virginia, and it became the source of his fortune.

So one of the great ironies of [00:15:00] American history is that George Washington’s fortune depended, to a great extent, on what he had been given by Great Britain. And the only reason he could eventually free his slaves was that he had about a pile of money once he sold that land that would allow him to continue to have a– he and Martha to have a comfortable existence.

But it was all because of what had been given to him by Great Britain

Albert Cheng: Well, thanks for that, that background. And I guess, you know, maybe I want to press into h- all this. I mean, you’ve talked about how he increased in hostility towards the British, and that’s what kind of positioned him to then lead the Continental Army.

But I want to maybe, you know, ask the flip side of that, of Washington as a leader. What about these kinds of experiences do you think made him such a pivotal leader? You know, what character and virtues did he kind of embody to make him such a successful … I mean, not just a leader in the war, but, you know, as he become the first president?

Joseph Ellis: The one obvious, too obvious perhaps, [00:16:00] is whenever there was a meeting, Washington was always the tallest man in the room. He was measured when he died, and he was measured at 6’3″ and a half. The people at Mount Vernon think that the half shouldn’t be there because it, they stretched his toes. But the average height of a male at that time was 5’6″ to 5’7″.

And w- Adams said that, “We always chose Washington to lead us,” and Adams was the one who nominated to be head of the Con- what becomes the Continental Army. He said, “Because he was always the tallest man in the room.” So he had physical features which were dominant, and Adams wrote to Abigail and said, “He’s coming up to Boston soon to lead the army.

I want you to meet him. You’re gonna be impressed.” And Abigail wrote back and said, “Oh my God, you didn’t tell me. He’s the most handsome and the b- most biggest man I’ve ever seen.” So part of it is purely physical, but I think that the [00:17:00] distinguishing feature of his role as a leader, from our perspective way up here in the present, is his willingness to surrender power.

No president in American history did not want to be president more than Washington. He didn’t want to be head of the Continental Army, said he was ill-equipped to do that. And I think in that sense, his role as, later on as president perfectly exemplifies that. He would have retired after one term if he possibly could, but he then sets the standard as a two-term president.

But I think that in his youth, the shaping event was the leadership of the militia units that fight in the war, and he gets experience leading by doing that in the French and Indian War. And that’s the reason he will be chosen to head the American army, because he seems to be … And he’s from Virginia, we need a Virginian, the most experienced battlefield leader that we have at the time

Kelley Brown: So Ellis, I’m wondering, one of the things that you talk a lot about in your book, and then [00:18:00] also just as a professor and historian of the American founding I think is really interesting, is kind of all of these folks talked a lot about virtue as being- Virtue, right

incredibly important. Mm-hmm. But one thing that struck me in your book after studying many of the other founding generation folks is you again come back to, like, he comes to, you said, “Washington became the most notorious model of self-control in all of American history, the original marble man. But he achieved this posture the same hard-earned way that he learned soldiering, by direct experience with difficulty.”

And it struck me that you were sort of making the point that so many had had that classical education and had studied deeply those classical concepts- Mm-hmm … of virtue, yet Washington is coming back to his experience is really driving that. And so could you talk a little bit about self-control as- Mm … the trait of his leadership throughout, from his youth maybe all the way through his [00:19:00] presidency and even into retirement.

Like, what are some touch points where you think virtue and self-control play an important role in Washington’s life?

Joseph Ellis: That’s a great question. The word virtue had a very important meaning in the 18th century, and it came out of the Greek and Latin classics, which Washington himself never read, but other people like Adams and Jefferson, let’s say, and Franklin did.

And what virtue meant was the ability to do what is right even when it’s extremely unpopular. Even when, let’s say, the troops don’t wanna do it, but that more importantly in a political sense, one of the reasons that they give the Senate a six-year term is that that will make it more likely that they will be able to act in the common good or the, the good of the whole rather than their own interest.

But Washington internalizes that value [00:20:00] system based on his own experience, both as a planter in Virginia and as a leader of the, of American militia, that you’ve got to be able to think about what is the common good or what risks to take that are worth taking. And that means to distinguish between what is most immediately obvious and what is in the long-term interest of the country or of the company.

That’s the reason the United States is a republic and not a democracy. Res publica, things of the public. The public is different from the people. The people at any moment don’t understand what’s really right and wrong. They can be vulnerable to demigods and all kinds of things. But once you know what the long-term interest is, even when it might mean that you lose the election, it’s okay.

You gotta do the right thing. And Washington internalized that, and he’s always gonna do that. And when he went around [00:21:00] the country as president, the first year as president, that’s what they all called him, “The example of virtue.” How that all developed in his soul, you know, like, you’d have to be a child psychiatrist, and I’m not that, to develop that.

But that in some sense, he was on his own as a young man, and he developed a confidence in his own ability, but also a recognition that he had to always be acting in the long-term interest, in this case of his family, but later of the nation itself

Albert Cheng: That is fascinating. I mean, it strikes me, you know, your last point about how did Washington become such a person.

I, I mean- Hmm … you mentioned, you know, he wanted to surrender power, and I guess, uh- Yeah … I mean, it’s gonna be a puzzle that will

Joseph Ellis: No president in American history did not want to be president more than Washington. He could be trusted with power because everybody knew he didn’t want it. Again, if you try to press me to say where did [00:22:00] that all come from?

It came from early on, and I’ll be darned if I can put a finger on exactly when and where, but I think it was during the time he, as the head of Mount Vernon, but also the control of his plantation. By the way, if you were working on his plantation, you wouldn’t wanna work for him. He was a very tough taskmaster.

If you were in the militia that served under him and you fell asleep at duty once, he said, “If I find this again, I will hang you.” And he found it again, and he did hang him. So that he’s a tough taskmaster. He has a high standard for himself- But he expects the same of you. And again, that develops early before the American Revolution.

He’s ready to go by the time- Yeah … you get to sev- 1776.

Albert Cheng: I find that fascinating that you’re, he could be such an effective leader, whether it’s leading an army or running his plantation, and yet [00:23:00] to still be that civic-minded, to be that concerned about the public. I mean, you know, naturally those two things don’t seem to come together to me.

Right? You, we often think of- Right … excellent leaders are the ones who can kind of wrangle people and get what they want, but Washington seems to be able to do that while also- Well- … you know, taking a backseat when it’s appropriate. Is it- Well, you,

Joseph Ellis: you got to remember that Washington’s not the sole exception here, but in the 18th century, anybody that ran for office publicly was immediately dis- regarded as unworthy.

For you to campaign for office was considered a confession you lacked the c- the proper values. Washington wasn’t alone in that. Not until you get political parties and you get into the next century and you get into, do you see that anybody who wants, wants to run for national office could campaign, and that’s part of that whole world.

It’s not just Washington, though he is certainly a stellar example of it, but that anybody who wants power is automatically disqualified from [00:24:00] having it.

Kelley Brown: One of the things I find very interesting as a teacher of the Constitution and the Revolutionary era, and the Founding era as well, is Washington’s willingness to come back and be the president of the Constitutional Convention.

Something that struck me again about your book, which I really enjoyed reading, is this sort of recurring theme of coming back to his experience guiding his decisions. He really sees the fact that Congress is so weak as a major issue- Right … moving forward, and in your book you quoted him saying, “If the powers of Congress are not enlarged and made competent to all general purposes, the blood which has been spilt, the expense that has been incurred, and the distresses which have been felt will avail to nothing, and that the band, already too weak, which holds us together will soon be broken.”

It just really struck me that that thinking that he was going through, and I, and I’m wondering- Mm … just why you think he was willing to come [00:25:00] back. I know he didn’t want to at first.

Joseph Ellis: You’re raising a very important point, and it needs to be noted. Throughout the American Revolution, the war, the Continental Army was kept on life support.

People were willing to give money or to volunteer for militia for local war, but not to the Continental Army. So throughout the war, Washington is aware of the fact. Washington said, “If you give me what we could get out of this population, we could have an army of 60 to 80,000.” He never had an army more than 12,000 or 12 to 15,000.

He said he could have won the war, and Hamilton agreed with him, in two years if the, if the population had supported the Continental Army. So he is a nationalist. And remember, the government created in 1777, after the start of the war, is not a national government. It’s essentially like the European Union.[00:26:00]

All states are sovereign, and the vast majority of Americans do not think continentally. They think locally. The average American farmer never goes further from his farm than a six-hour ride on his horse. The movement to create a constitution is initiated by John Jay, Alexander Hamilton. They go to Washington and say, Jay is the one who says this, “You need to come back.

I know you think you’re gone forever, but you need to come back because without you, a constitutional convention will s- never succeed.” And Washington said, “Well, I want it to succeed, but I’m never coming back, and we need to wait until the American people are ready for this.” And Hamilton says, “No, you, you don’t understand, George.”

And I’m sure he didn’t call him George. “But we need to create a [00:27:00] national government to shape the people into a national identity.” That had some influence on Washington, but essentially what I’m saying is the calling of the Constitutional Convention was a coup d’état. Nobody wanted it. The vast majority of Americans didn’t want a national government.

And Washington was eventually persuaded to go along with this when Madison sh- showed him figures that showed that they had a shot, that most of the people opposing it decided not to participate, and that they might be able to succeed in passing some legislation that did create a national government.

And so some of Washington’s closest advisors said, “Okay, it’s a risk. You’re putting your own reputation on the line, but if it does succeed,” and here’s the first time this phrase is used, “you will be recognized as the father of your country.” So it [00:28:00] takes a long time to persuade him, and what, again, needs to be understood that the calling of the Constitutional Convention was the result of three or four people.

They said, “If we don’t get Washington, we won’t even do it. It can’t work. He’s necessary.” And Washington is there sitting in the chair, and he doesn’t say anything until the last day, but his presence, and Billy Lee, his manservant, is standing right beside him, that without Washington, we wouldn’t have won the war.

Without Washington, we wouldn’t have a Constitution.

Albert Cheng: Professor, could you say maybe a bit more about that last point you made? I mean, you, you know, you’ve mentioned that Washington hardly said anything during the- Yeah … the, uh, convention. So what was it about his presence that maybe got all the other folks to do what they needed to do?

Joseph Ellis: He, it was his sheer presence. He was the president of the… I mean, he was a, as soon as he, he was there. They named him head. I don’t know whether the term was president. The very fact that he’s [00:29:00] there is what counts. What he has to say doesn’t count. His presence counts, and it gives legitimacy to what otherwise would be regarded as less than leg- That’s the reason that the other people, especially the ones mentioned, think that without him they can’t do it.

He lends the legitimacy. He doesn’t shape much of the debate at all. But again, the term democracy is a, is an epithet. It doesn’t come into a positive value until the 1820s. But they’ve created a republic. Res publica, things of the public. The public is the long-term interest of the people which at any given time most of the people don’t understand.

Which is, by the way, one of the reasons we get that strange contraption called the Electoral College, which now is doing exactly the opposite of what the founders thought it was gonna do. At any rate, he’s the essential man. Without him, you don’t win the war. Without him, you don’t get the Constitution, and we don’t get [00:30:00] the United States as a nation.

Albert Cheng: Well, speaking about the Constitutional Convention, in your most recent book, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of American Founding- Oh,

Joseph Ellis: I’m glad you mentioned

Albert Cheng: that. Thanks. Thank

Kelley Brown: you.

Albert Cheng: Well, I wanna bring that up. I mean, essentially, you, you know, it’s a discussion, I should say, of what you call the two great failures of the founding, which is the failure to end slavery and, you know, how they treated the Native Americans.

I guess I wanna ask a specific question regarding Washington in this. Washington seems to have maybe bucked the conventional wisdom on this. Or, I mean, he-

Joseph Ellis: What, you mean on

Albert Cheng: slavery? He freed his slaves, right? So could you talk about Washington’s handling? Yeah,

Kelley Brown: yeah,

Joseph Ellis: yeah. Well, it says a lot that towards the end of his life he has 217 slaves.

He owns less than half of them. His wife owns the other half she inherited from her husband. Here’s an explanation that is important to understand. Washington did not believe there was a, such a thing as life after death. Washington believed that when he died, he was [00:31:00] going to what he called the dark mansion of my fathers, namely the grave.

For Washington, the only source of immortality was to be remembered by posterity. It’s one of the reasons he sat for all those pictures And what that meant in Washington’s mind is he had to get slavery right, because he knew that to the extent that he was associated with slavery, it would partly undermine his ultimate reputation.

So Washington’s decision to free his slaves, and he eventually did make that decision to free all the slaves he owned, was driven not by moral considerations, but by quite personal considerations so that he could be remembered. He also wanted Mount Vernon to disappear. In his will, he had it divided into five or six segments.

He wanted it to, instead of staying on to go to disappear. It didn’t, and the Ladies of Mount Vernon that came into [00:32:00] existence in 1860, ’61 preserved slavery. He Washington’s idea of a monument to him, the perfect one is the one in Washington, the tallest monument in the city and the only major monument that has no words on it.

But at any rate, the explanation is that the, the two failures of the founding generation, that Washington looks pretty darn good because he does end slavery and does argue that it should be ended, does say that he would side with the North if the war should come. And on Native Americans, really wants to create a precedent whereby, like, the Native Americans would be accepted as equal citizens, and their land could not be taken away from them without their consent.

And the Treaty of New York in sevent- in when he’s, his, in first year as president, it would create … The current state of, of Alabama would be a Native American state admitted to the [00:33:00] Union as a separate and equal state. And if that had ever worked, you could … And it then worked across the Mississippi, our whole posture towards the Native Americans would’ve been different.

They couldn’t enforce it, the flow of people flowing across. And so if you want to know who to blame for Indian removal, blame the major- the majority of white citizens Who simply w- w- want to pursue their happiness by acquiring land. And again, in my recent book say there are two tragedies here, slavery and Native Americans.

Some of my colleagues are presentists and they say, “Well, at the Constitutional Convention, they should have voted against slavery. They should have made it illegal then.” If they had did that, it would have never passed. It would have certainly never been ratified, and Washington knew that. In Washington’s mind, and I know this pretty well, they had to defer the slavery question until [00:34:00] 1807.

Now he would be dead by then, but that, that was the year the slave trade would be ended, and that we couldn’t address the issue directly because if we did, the entire republic would collapse, or we’d have an early civil war. And so those people who think they should have, during the Constitutional Convention, directly addressed the slavery issue are presentists.

If they did that, as I said, it would have never passed.

Albert Cheng: Thanks for sharing that insight. So we haven’t said too much about Washington as president, so we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about that as- Right … as the nation’s first president. Could you maybe just give us a big picture idea here? What, what was he like as a president, or some, maybe some of the highlights of his term as president?

And I’ll let you opine a little bit. Is he the best president that we’ve had?

Joseph Ellis: That’s arguable. I do think that

two other [00:35:00] presidents faced greater crises during their presidency than Washington did. In order to be a great president, you have to have faced a great crisis. Those two are Lincoln and FDR. Washington didn’t face that kind of crisis. However, Washington shaped the office of president as the first occupant in a way that nobody else could, ’cause nobody else could possibly be first.

When he was riding around on his horse, people thought he looked too much like a king, and he got accused of that by certain people. But that if you look at the Constitution of the United States and the article that dealt with executive power, you tell me what the powers of the presidency were. It’s very difficult to be able to answer that, and the real answer is that Washington shaped the office of presidency more than anybody else because he was first.

And the president is, on the one hand, [00:36:00] the visual representative of the whole nation, and also he is a prime minister. He makes most of the policy, but not all of them. And so I would make the case that more than any other president in American history, Washington shaped the office itself, and that should, in my view, make him the number one candidate as president.

And I used to rank him that in my own, when I would vote as part of the American Historical Reviews, uh, Society. But it’s arguable for reasons that I think I’ve made clear

Kelley Brown: Picking up on that, Professor Ellis, I’m interested to know, so Washington obviously relies on himself a lot, but I’m wondering about people like the Marquis de Lafayette or Eliza Powell- Uh-

or even Martha. Uh. What is your impression about some people who had influence on him that maybe he thought were a little less disinterested in power?

Joseph Ellis: Yeah, I think that [00:37:00] Lafayette became one of his closest friends, and this story unrelated, but I remember when the American Expeditionary Force landed in Paris to help women, the French in World War I, the commander said, “Tell Lafayette we have arrived.”

Lafayette was an extraordinarily close friend, and he was much, much younger. I think that Washington drew around himself very smart and very well-educated people because he himself was aware that that was a deficiency in his own background. He called them penmen, and these are the people could write for him and then sometimes think for him.

One of his closest friends is Alexander Hamilton. If all the founders, the major founders, Alexander Hamilton is the smartest. He would’ve got the highest score on the SATs, and he was a close advisor to Washington, and actually he wrote the farewell address. Washington [00:38:00] edited it, of course, but Washington was aware of certain lapses in his own formal education, and he very much brought around him those kind of leaders and those kind of educated people, and he depended on them.

Albert Cheng: Professor, we’re actually coming up, uh, against time here, so I, I wanna ask you one final question. And so as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding, what do you think it is that we should remember most about Washington? And certainly, yeah, what should we be reflecting on as we kind of look ahead, this American experiment?

Joseph Ellis: I think that the example that Washington affords us now at this moment in our history is twofold. One, to recognize what the implications of the revolution were politically. What made the American Revolution a revolution was that it changed the tectonic plates of Western political thought. Power did not flow from God to kings.

It flowed upward from that [00:39:00] mystic group called the people to the elected person or persons. Washington embodied that vision. Washington was not a king. Washington looked like a king, and so some of that could rub off to some people, but Washington took leadership as president along the lines that he was an elected person.

By the way, in the two elections that he won, nobody ran against him. He’s the only president in American history to win all the votes, electoral and personal. There’s a second thing, that Washington is a sterling example of the fact that no president stands above the law. No president can believe that he or later she is a king or a queen.

And again, his dominant power was based on the fact he didn’t want it. He could reject it.

Albert Cheng: Well, Professor Ellis, [00:40:00] thanks so much for your time and sharing with our listeners about Washington. I think there’s certainly much to glean from his example of being a statesman and the way he prioritized civic life and, and the common good.

So, thanks for sharing all of that with us.

Joseph Ellis: Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure. As I said, I’ve missed teaching, and this conversation has helped me recover some of that.

Albert Cheng: Well, Kelley, that was a privilege to have Dr. Ellis on. You know, I appreciated his reflections on the founding and George Washington, and as I said earlier in the show, history and, and the folks that have come before us certainly can be our teachers today. And so I appreciate what he shared with us today.

Kelley Brown: Yeah, it was really incredible. I just feel like it was such a privilege to hear all he had to share, and really just thinking about how the experiences of [00:41:00] that founding generation really shaped who they were and the ideals that they set forth for us in the Declaration of Independence. So I just wanna wish everybody a really happy Fourth of July, and hope you can celebrate with family, but also keep in mind those ideals and what it means to be part of this republic.

Albert Cheng: Well said, Kelley, and thanks for joining me on this episode of Learning Curve podcast. Hope we get to have you co-host soon again.

Kelley Brown: Agreed. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Albert Cheng: And before we sign off, I just wanna tease the next episode that we have on the Learning Curve podcast. We’re gonna have Dr. David Steiner of Johns Hopkins University.

He’s gonna be joining us next week, so make sure to tune back in with us. Until then, happy Fourth, and we’ll see you next [00:42:00] time.