Washington [558]
Washington had dominated American political life for so long that many Americans could not conceive of life without him. A widespread fear arose that, deprived of his guiding hand, the Republic itself might founder. One preacher wondered, “Will not darkness now gather in our land? . . . Who knows but [his death] is the loud harbinger of approaching calamity.”31 Perhaps as an antidote to such apprehension, Washington was smothered beneath national piety, and it became difficult for biographers to reclaim the complex human being. The man immediately began to merge into the myth. As the subject of more than four hundred printed orations, Washington was converted into an exemplar of moral values, the person chosen to tutor posterity in patriotism, even a civic deity. In one eulogy Timothy Dwight compared Washington to Moses and noted, “Comparison with him is become almost proverbial.”32 Washington’s transformation into a sacred figure erased his tough, often moody nature, stressing only his serene composure and making it more difficult for future generations to fathom his achievements. Abigail Adams justly rebelled at the idealized portrait: “Simple truth is his best, his greatest eulogy.” 33 She was certainly correct that, to be convincing, Washington’s greatness did not need to be cleaned up or sanitized, only honestly presented.
A popular print called the Apotheosis of Washington showed him ascending to heaven above Mount Vernon. Seated on a throne, resting on a cloud, and caught in a thick shaft of celestial light, he was clad in white robes with an outstretched arm as a winged angel received him. As the Father of His Country evolved into a divinity, some clergymen wanted to insert his farewell address into the Bible as an epilogue. The departed leader’s image sprouted everywhere. “Every American considers it his sacred duty to have a likeness of Washington in his home, just as we have images of God’s saints,” observed a European traveler.34 Later deploring the “idolatrous worship” of Washington, Dr. Benjamin Rush saw it “manifested in the impious application of names and epithets to him which are ascribed in Scripture only to God and to Jesus Christ,” and he mentioned “our Savior” and “our Redeemer” as examples.35
Hagiographic biographies poured from the presses with indecent haste. The first and most influential was by Parson Mason L. Weems, an itinerant book peddler and Episcopal priest who had once been introduced to Washington by Dr. Craik. Weems had already published tracts on the perils of everything from gambling to masturbation. Eager to cash in on Washington mania, he wrote to his publisher in mid-January 1800, “Washington, you know is gone! Millions are gaping to read something about him.”36 Weems rushed out the first edition of The Life of Washington in pamphlet form that year. In that and succeeding editions, he manufactured enduring myths about Washington refusing to lie about chopping down the cherry tree, hurling a silver dollar across the Rappahannock, and praying at Valley Forge. Weems imagined future schoolchildren asking, “What was it that raised Washington to his godlike height of glory?”37 Perhaps sensing something too stern and difficult about the real Washington, Weems tried to humanize him through treacly fables designed to inculcate patriotism and morality. He showed no scruples about inventing scenes whole cloth. Weems claimed that when Washington’s father died, George “fell upon his father’s neck . . . kissed him a thousand and a thousand times and bathed his clay-cold face with scalding tears.”38 To improve sales and with an eye on the main chance, Weems deleted all partisan references, boasting to his publisher, “Adams and Jefferson both will approve our little piece.