Алистер Смит - The Spoils of War - Greed, Power, and the Conflicts That Made Our Greatest Presidents

In telling the political story behind his success and its ties to the American Revolution, we want to be emphatic that Washington was a man of his times and, as such, he pursued success as best as he could in the context of his times. We do not wish in the slightest to diminish the commendable life he lived. Indeed, we believe that his life is arguably the most remarkable and successful life lived by any American. This is not hyperbole; it is grounded in impressive evidence. In George Washington we have a man who was preeminent as an entrepreneur, a land developer, a devoted family man, a military man, a politician, a leader, and a nation builder. Who else can claim to have accomplished so much in so many fields with such long-lasting and beneficial consequences? Still, with the greatest respect for what he achieved, we do wish to move him from the pedestal on which his memory resides to the solid ground of reality, where he can be seen as a remarkable flesh-and-blood person who successfully exploited life’s opportunities.

George Washington was the least schooled of American presidents. He did not go formally beyond elementary education. His expectation of following his older brothers to England to continue his schooling was cut short by their father’s untimely death. Despite the lack of formal education, Washington was a studious man who read and worked hard to improve his ability to speak and write well and who relied on books to instruct him in practical matters, such as better ways to farm and, critically, in better ways to comprehend the military arts and sciences. Despite his great efforts, his lack of education in some regards made him stand out as a black sheep among his fellow revolutionaries. Some of the leading lights of his time were not shy to criticize his lack of education. John Adams, always jealous of the public affection bestowed on Washington, noted, “That Washington was not a scholar was certain. That he was too illiterate, unread, unlearned for his station and reputation is equally past dispute.”10 Still, Washington was ambitious in everything he did. Leaving school behind, he trained as a land surveyor, then a demanding occupation requiring both good skills in mathematics and in withstanding the trials of the wilderness. He was good at both.

The story of Washington’s many successes and many of his reasons for supporting revolution begin indirectly with the marriage of his brother Lawrence to Anne Fairfax. Anne was the daughter of William Fairfax who, in turn, served as a land agent for his powerful cousin, Thomas, sixth Lord Fairfax. William Fairfax, a wealthy and influential man from an impeccable family, took a great liking to George Washington. Fairfax’s affection and family tie to Washington were manifested in opportunities for Washington while he was still in his teens. It was Fairfax, for instance, who gave Washington his first real opportunity to survey land. More crucially, because of his ties to Lawrence, whose own opportunities owed a great deal to his family tie to William Fairfax, George gained the chance to learn to be a military leader, as well as the opportunity to acquire land and familiarize himself with valuable tracts of land that he would gain ownership over in the future, thanks to his military service.

The Ohio Company and George Washington’s Prospects

GEORGE’S EARLY OPPORTUNITY FOR A MILITARY CAREER, BEGINNING when he was a scant twenty-one years old, derived from family ties. He was, as we saw, sent west over the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio Valley both to survey land and help oust the French. The territory west of the Alleghenies was, in the mid-eighteenth century, difficult to access, nearly impassible, and, consequently, of scant interest to most colonists. There were almost no English settlers. Instead, there were but a few scattered, thinly populated German settlements, as well as the French aspirations to control the area to which we have already referred.

The eighteenth-century Ohio Valley, which spans portions of today’s West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, had great untapped economic potential. Its land was fertile, well endowed with waterways and a temperate climate. If it could be settled by hard-working, productive farmers, it could become a great asset to whoever controlled it. What is more, there were navigable rivers that flowed together, providing the opportunity for large settlements. The Forks of the Ohio, in today’s Pittsburgh, was but one such example and one that was well known to George Washington as he was involved in its survey as well as in a great, unsuccessful battle against the French at Fort Duchesne, which they built at the Forks.

To those who had an eye for investment opportunities (such as Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and a great many other founding fathers), land in the American frontier, the hinterlands beyond the Alleghenies, was a great attraction. We should not be surprised to find that such gentlemen as had the interest and the means, either in money or in hard labor, to acquire and develop this land would challenge alternative settlers, be they French or Indian or anyone else who might impose restrictions on their own opportunity to do so. As we shall see, those like George Washington, who embraced revolution on the grounds that the king was restricting their opportunities for land acquisition, were making arguments very much aligned with their self-interest in accumulating a fortune, perhaps more so than with their concern for the king’s alleged tyranny against the average colonist.

King George III’s Proclamation of 1763 imposed the threat of tremendous financial losses on land speculation organizations, such as the Ohio Company, which had been founded in 1747 with the idea of developing the frontier in the Ohio Valley. Indeed, the Ohio Company had received a royal grant in 1749 of up to 500,000 acres (200,000 at first and an additional 300,000 acres later) north of the Ohio River, if it met two conditions: the establishment of a fort and settlement by at least one hundred families within seven years; that is, by 1756. As for meeting the requirement of a fort and garrisoning it, Washington built Fort Necessity (recall the charge that his activities in the Ohio country were “a scheme to promote the interest of a private company”) near to where the Jumonville battle occurred. He then lost Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754, on the one and only occasion when he was compelled to surrender to his enemy, in this case the French.

As we know, Washington’s military actions in 1754 helped precipitate the French and Indian War. With the war in full swing, it proved all but impossible to attract settlers to the land and so, perforce, the Ohio Company found itself unable to meet the land grant conditions within the seven years it had been allotted. Matters went from bad to worse for the company. Following the death of King George II in 1760, George III adopted new policies, including the Proclamation of 1763. The proclamation prohibited the colonists from settling on land in the Ohio Valley, which meant that neither the Ohio Company nor any other colonial land speculation enterprise—the opportunity for land acquisition remained open to English investors—could capitalize legally on the land development opportunity it believed made investment in the Ohio Valley so attractive.11 We mention “legally” because, as will become evident, George Washington did not have serious qualms about violating the king’s proclamation.

Back in 1747, all of the harmful circumstances that were to arise for the Ohio Company lay in the unknown future. At its outset, the company provided an opportunity for great enrichment. Its original founders were Thomas Lee (1690–1750), John Mercer (1704–1768), and Lawrence Washington (1718–1752). Thomas Lee was a wealthy landowner, the manager of Lord Fairfax’s estate (Northern Neck), and briefly the governor of Virginia, as well as a longtime member of the House of Burgesses and the Council of the State of Virginia on which he served until his death in 1750. He was also the father of two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot Lee, both also members of the Virginia House of Burgesses. His was a wealthy, powerful, and important family that continued to exert a strong influence on American politics for over a century, counting, for instance, among its later members, General Robert E. Lee.