George Washington and American Constitutionalism

Description

George Washington is generally viewed as a demigod for what he was and did, not what he thought. That he played a key role in securing the adoption of the Constitution is well known, but few credit him with a political philosophy that actively shaped the constitutional tradition. In this revisionist study, Glenn Phelps argues that Washington's political thought did influence the principles informing the federal government then and now. Phelps examines Washington's political ideas not as they were perceived by his contemporaries but in his own words, that is, he shows what Washington believed, not what others thought he believed. Phelps shows that Washington's political values remained consistent over time, regardless of who his counselors or "ghost writers" were. Using Washington's letters to friends and family - written free from the constraints of public politics - Phelps reveals a man committed to a fully developed plan for a constitutional republic. He demonstrates that the first president developed - long before Madison, Hamilton, and other nationalists - a coherent and consistent view of a republican government on a continental scale, a view grounded in classically conservative Republicanism and continentally minded commercialism. That Washington was only partially successful in building the constitutional system that he intended does not undercut his theoretical contribution, Phelps contends. Even his failures affected the way our constitutional tradition developed.

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