Imagine in some parallel universe that General Washington duly did his two terms as the first US President, and then declared his retirement into private life, but then stayed effectively immortal up to the present day.
He steadfastly sticks to his decision not to return to the Presidency (and loses his chance to in 1951 anyway), and also makes a vow not to make public processions of who he prefers, in an effort to avoid his weighty opinion swaying the populace.
Who do you think he’d have voted for in the US elections after his retirement? I know there’s 54 elections to consider.
IIRC, most of Washington’s issues with alliances and the like was fear of the young USA getting pulled into wars. He felt the nation needed some time to grown into it’s britches, as it were.
The fact that the French and British took turns raiding American trade probably helped his view, as well.
What side would he have taken in the Civil War? A Lee-like loyalty to his State? Or a War Democrat? Or a firm Lincolnite Republican? Or a hardened Confederate?
The “young USA” is not the 241-year old USA, and does not exist in the 21st century world. One supposes that our immortal Founding Father paid attention during the years following his Presidency.
Are we to assume that his personality and knowledge stayed stagnant, or that he did something with his life and managed to succeed in his industries throughout the years?
This is quite different than the “imagine he was brought here in a time machine” scenario.
I hate to thread-shit or hijack, but I think the more interesting question might be – tangentially related to the O.P. – who would George Washington be today? And then me might be able to circle back to the O.P. and figure out whom he voted for.
I’m not historian enough to even conjecture, so I will sit back and enjoy the responses!
I’m honestly not sure if he would have voted. Some things he wrote that I have read over the years leaves me with the impression that he wasn’t a great fan of the soldiers and officers having a say in who their Commander-in-Chief was and that possibly it would be inadvisable for outgoing Presidents to remain active and vocal in politics.
It’s an interesting question and hard to answer. The pace of change–of every kind–has been astonishing over the last 150 or so years. I’m guessing that the US and its politics up to 1860 would have seemed somewhat familiar to Washington. The factional slaughter of the Civil War, and in its aftermath emancipation, rapid industrialization, urbanization, creation and concentration of mass wealth–these would be massive changes for a man born in 1732. And I’m just talking about the US up to pre-WWI. As for today, we all of us find it difficult enough to adjust to the pace of change, not sure how Washington could digest what’s happened since WWII–in government, the creation of a vast administrative and national security state apparatus–or more recently to the easy access to, and rapid dissemination of, massive amounts of information or “information.” The vitriol he would be used to, there was plenty of that in his day.
I won’t guess about every election since his death, but I will make a guess about 2016–I think he would have voted for Trump, because he would be sympathetic to the argument that whites are getting overwhelmed, too much free stuff goes to the (violent) coloreds, and what the hell is a woman doing running for President?
Okay, one more guess. I think Washington would certainly have backed Lincoln–he would have wanted the Union preserved. He fought a war to establish it.
Not exactly. Robert E. Lee married the daughter of Washington’s step-grandson. They were direct descendants of Martha Washington through her first marriage.
An uncultured charismatic billionaire Real-Estate Dealer who was a born ( if not totally brilliant ) leader, deeply vain, yet of modest personal tastes, reliant on others for theory, suspicious of social change and a boundless capacity for profiting from office.
I think that is exactly right. No guarantee that his thoughts couldn’t evolve over 200 years but the Washington that left the White House would have stayed out of politics completely.
OK, I found a quotation from a book I just re-read here:
The book shows how Washington’s thoughts on slavery & race evolved during his life. In his will, he provided for his slaves to be freed on Martha’s death. (She freed them earlier, partly out of fear.) Washington provided for the support of elderly ex-slaves & the education of young ones–none of this “Send them back to Africa.” It was a late emancipation but none of the other slaveholding presidents did as much.
Washington was unable to free the slaves Martha brought from her marriage–or their descendants. Some of whom were eventually inherited by Mrs Robert E Lee…
First of all, he wouldn’t be able to vote. He wouldn’t be able to get an official birth certificate from VA in order to get a valid ID.
Secondly, Clinton all the way. He’d be slightly uncomfortable about her being female. But the most basic comparison of abilities, backgrounds and honesty would wipe any doubts about that away.
