To many in Europe and Great Britain, George Washington seemed to step out of Roman history. In the 18th century, educated people on both sides of the Atlantic conducted much of their training in Latin which, in turn, communicated what I will call the great myth of the Roman Republic. Before the Caesars had stepped into place, this myth declared that Roman power rested on the shoulders of citizens who were first farmers and then warriors. When the Republic was threatened, they temporarily abandoned their plows in order to stand against the enemy. But no sooner had their heroism achieved the fruits of victory than they hastened back to their plows, hanging their armor on the wall until it was needed again. To an almost eerie extent, George Washington matched this ideal. He had no wish, he once declared, "beyond that of living and dying an honest man on my own farm." With great reluctance, he slowly determined to bow to public opinion and become the first president of a new nation. He was so agitated delivering his first Inaugural Address that spectators could see him shaking. For those in Europe who favored the American rebels, Washington’s passion for farming, combined with his triumph over the British Empire, made him nothing less than a Roman Republican reborn, a most suitable companion for such worthies of Roman history as Horatius who single-handedly defended a key bridge against the entire Etruscan army. And to the extent that Washington shared the Roman passion for self-discipline, the stoic note of the Roman character, he also served as a crucial model for American society, which was still defining its ideas of responsible behavior. Sometimes, when you read popular accounts of American history, Washington comes across as someone who differed in dramatic ways from the other Founding Fathers. He had actually risked his own life on the battlefield. He took only a step or two in the direction of political discourse, in contrast to those countless communications between Founding Fathers like Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and their peers who helped to reason out the details of our Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. But if we focus on the issue of political power, then we recognize what a contribution Washington made. His life demonstrated that the ancient lust for power could and should be controlled. Some Americans thought Washington should serve as a king rather than a president. Yet, having proven his success as a military commander, he left the circles of influence, returned to civilian life, and seemed to lose even the smallest appetite for triumphant power. He responded with dignified reluctance to appeals that he serve as our first president. Nor, once in office, did he acquire a passion for power. He presented himself, and treated himself, as a public servant of the common good. Washington really seemed to feel that the brand-new American nation had a right to demand some hard work from him. And for those who were inclined to cast him as a hero of the Roman Republic reborn, he served as a reminder that the Republic was in fact followed by an Empire, and that the Empire defended itself not with farmers briefly donning their armor but mainly with mercenary troops. America was going Rome one better. Its first president was teaching all of his successors that excessive concentration of power, whether in an institution or an individual, just was not American. All of this helps us to understand more clearly why Washington, like so many of his colleagues and companions, was a member of the Masonic Fraternity and why the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument on July 4, 1848, took place in a Masonic ceremony. What the Craft represented in the 18th century were ideals of enlightenment and rationality, ideals that automatically enraged the tyrants of Europe. But attempts at persecuting Freemasons turned out to be the very best way of producing more Freemasons. There was a deep affinity between the spirit of Freemasonry and the rising spirit of American democracy. What people so treasured in George Washington was a personal style that was also a political style, and both of these were fully compatible with his decision to become a Mason, a decision made by so many of his colleagues. As a major landowner in Virginia and the husband of one of the wealthiest women in Virginia, Washington could easily have become a worshipper of his own power. He could have embarked on tumultuous tours of Western Europe where nations would have struggled for the right way to pay him homage. He could even have produced, with a few secretaries to help him, a series of books that would have added to his fortune even as they provided American schoolchildren with primers filled from top to bottom with Virtue. Instead, Washington displayed all the true stoic virtues that the Roman Republic pioneered—the willingness, above all, to accept a life of careful simplicity, made up far more of duty and responsibility than of luxury and self-display. When we get through admiring our first president, we still have to ask ourselves how many of the values he embodied are still playing a role in our lives today. I’d like to suggest that when we are seeking Washington’s longest lasting influence on our nation, we should look in an unusual place, what is often vaguely described as "volunteering." One of the most famous passages in Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is the one in which he describes how often Americans, as they settled on what was then the national frontier, established voluntary associations of different kinds. To this day, you can’t approach a medium-sized American town without learning all about the many different clubs and societies that are performing good deeds for their community, outside of any governmental structure whatsoever. Much ink has been spilled to explain why Americans have such a passion for volunteering. You can find Biblical roots for this feeling. You can find others in British and European common law. You can talk about America as a selective magnet, which has always attracted the kinds of immigrants ready to help in building up new communities. Or you can even use George Washington, that Commander-in-Chief and "President of Volunteers," as a way of looking back to the ancient Roman Republic, which depended on volunteers in order to keep itself in existence. Once again, you’ll see the parallels with the Masonic Order. One thing is certain about every Mason who has ever lived. That Mason didn’t join because of a summons from the government. Rather, he made a rational choice with regard to the areas of life in which voluntary behavior made the most sense. In a sense, he was making the kind of decision George Washington himself made when he left the quiet and security of his home at Mount Vernon in order to fight with an empire and then rule those who had rebelled against it. Washington embodied the notion of a society made up of individuals with sacred and inalienable rights. Each American is in a certain sense a nation unto himself or herself. Now these millions of sovereign entities actually have to work out a way of getting along with each other, of accepting each other’s individuality, and of competing in an international economy. That task is almost impossible, yet somehow we have to do it—each and every day. In a sense, we recreate the United States of America every time we climb out of bed in the morning and go off to work or to a purely voluntary task that only makes our community a better place to live. When we, as Americans and Freemasons, celebrate the Masonic laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument, we are saying that even the monument which so dominates the skyline of the District of Columbia is not an excessive tribute to our first president. We are also saying that so many years of service as a national icon have not eliminated Washington’s meaning for the country he helped so significantly to found. Washington is us; we are Washington. And we are most of all Washington when we look around us, as Americans and Masons, for the causes to which we want to contribute voluntarily a portion of our energies and our wealth. That is Brother Washington’s legacy to us. That is the message, Roman and American, by which we all must live if we are, like Washington, to benefit our Country and honor our Craft. This article is a draft, edited for length, of remarks by Ill. Trachtenberg to the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia Banquet celebration on Saturday, July 18, 1998, of the Sesquicentennial Anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.
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