Evanston RoundTable, Oct. 4, 2024
It wasn’t a dream or a fantasy so much as a thought experiment: What if, sitting alongside me, inexplicably riding shotgun in my beat-up Chevy, the two of us motoring north on Ridge Avenue in Evanston, was the nation’s indispensable man, the father of the country, the rock of the republic, savior of our nation, first in the hearts of his countrymen, without whom we might still be British subjects genuflecting to the king?
But George Washington wasn’t amazed with my driving skills or our astonishing 21st century technology, as I had hoped.
Instead, he seemed terrified.
“What is this conveyance? How fast is it traveling?” he squealed, covering his eyes. I got it: This was certainly faster than anyone had ever traveled in the 18th century — obviously before cars, planes or trains — when horsepower meant horses, such as the president’s own favored steeds Blueskin and Nelson.
“It’s called a car, Mr. President,” I said, in a soothing voice, hoping to calm his nerves. “And we’re only going 30 miles an hour. I could easily go twice or even three times faster.”
“No, please, I beg of you,” he said with terror in his voice. But at least he had started looking around, taking in the sights.
I meant to impress my most distinguished passenger — driving serenely past the fine homes, the traffic side by side in both directions on the narrow four-lane street orderly and well-regulated, as I thought he’d appreciate.
“Whaddya think? Nifty, huh?” (though I doubted if “nifty” was a word he’d ever heard before).
Lots of changes
“But where are the horses? The stables? The riding paths?” he said, wrinkling his eyebrows in confusion.
“Sir, horses and stables were replaced a century ago by these cars. And we built these hard-surfaced roads for cars to drive on.”
“And how are they fueled? Are they sentient?” he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him, leaning over to run a tentative hand across the sleek metallic dashboard, like the monkeys stroking the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
“Ah, good questions, Mr. President. They have engine parts, mechanical devices that cause the wheels to revolve hundreds of times a minute. The moving parts are fueled by oil we’ve extracted from below ground. As for sentience, cars are smart. But the driver provides the direction and velocity, with our hands on the wheel like this,” and I swerved just a bit to show him (at which he grimaced), “and our feet control the levers below,” I said, pointing to the pedals, and tapped lightly on the brakes (at which he gasped).
“Well, that is something,” he said, seeming to settle in more comfortably to the unique sensation (for someone born in 1732) of riding in a car.
As we slowed for a light, I peered at my famous companion. He looked like his many portraits, but I noticed a few things the artists had discreetly left out: a scar that curved under his left eye, a mole below his right earlobe and smallpox scars on both his nose and cheeks.
“Tell me,” he said, turning to me with a look of concern, “what is the status of our republic? Did we keep it, as Franklin warned Mrs. Powel after the convention?”
Bragging rights
“Oh yes, we’re the world’s oldest republic. This is the year two thousand and twenty-four, almost 250 years since the Declaration. Wonderful thing, what you and the other founders started.”
“It appears they’ve been duly recognized,” he said, nodding at the signs for Monroe and Madison streets as we drove north. “And there too!” he added with a touch of what sounded like pride, as we passed Washington Street.
“Indeed, sir. We also have a Washington School in our fair city. And there’s an obelisk over 500 feet tall called Washington’s Monument in the nation’s capital. And a very large state along the Pacific Ocean is named after you. And your picture is engraved on our dollar bill and the 25-cent coin, of which there are billions in circulation. And there are statues of you ….”
“Stop, stop, I beg of you,” he exclaimed, covering his ears as if to ward off the offending plaudits. “It fills my head with such gaseous air surely it will explode!” But I thought I detected a slight smile indicating he wasn’t entirely displeased at these memorials, despite his well-documented modesty. Or maybe the “smile” was just the skew of his dentures, which troubled him endlessly.
“More important than these tributes,” he said, pulling himself up to his full bulk, a considerable presence in my small car, “what of the nation? How far does it extend?”
“Sir, the United States runs ‘from sea to shining sea,’ as the song says, a continent wide. We’re one country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and even beyond – altogether 50 states and 333 million people.”
He frowned in confusion. “There were 4 million in my day. Where in the world do they all fit?”
“Oh, there’s plenty of room, sir — more than 2 billion acres.”
“Has it always been thus — a single, unified republic?” he asked, glancing at me with what I took to be a hint of anxiety.
Civil War and slavery
“I’m afraid not, there was a massive civil war starting in 1860 after the secession of 11 southern states over the issue of slavery, including your beloved Virginia. More than 600,000 young men died in the fighting, which only ended with the South’s surrender in April 1865. Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois man” — and I pointed to the car ahead of us with an Illinois license plate and Lincoln’s portrait — “was president during the war. He freed the enslaved people and defeated the Confederacy and restored the union.”
“Thank God for that man,” he said with passion. “I would hope with all my being we shall always remain one nation, whole and strong. I would like to pay my respects to President Lincoln. Is his grave nearby?”
“Not far from here, sir, just a little over 200 miles. We could drive there in less than three hours.”
“Three hours to travel 200 miles? It took me six days to go 150 miles to Mount Vernon from the president’s house in Philadelphia. This ‘car’ as you call it is truly a wondrous invention.”
Emboldened by his presence, I felt compelled to ask the obvious if discomforting question, the elephant in the car, so to speak.
“Sir, regarding slavery, where …”
“Where did I stand?” he interrupted, anticipating it exactly.
He cleared his throat and rose up in his seat. “In point of fact I abhorred the practice,” he said with some heat. “I fought to end the importation of slaves. I treated my slaves with compassion and refused to separate Black families or even sell a slave against his or her will. My faithful Black servant Billy Lee was by my side for many years, including throughout the war to free us from British tyranny. And in my will, I stipulated that all my slaves were to be freed upon my wife Martha’s death.”
“Yes, sir, all well and good. But here’s a question that has troubled generations of Americans. Why didn’t you abolish slavery at the outset of the republic, or at least legislate abolition at a fixed later date? If nothing else, you could have vetoed the Fugitive Slave Act instead of signing it. That might have helped spare us the horrors of slavery and the grievous losses from the Civil War and the ongoing legacy of racism and bigotry that continues to this day.”
Washington’s excuse
Washington leaned his considerable bulk closer to me, so that we were just a foot or two apart, as if to dominate the conversation, and said with a measured cadence to make himself perfectly clear, “Since you seem to know your history, sir, you will appreciate that we were a brand-new nation, almost a country without a government. The former colonies were as different from each other as 13 states can be, with different cultures, societies, religions, even speech itself. Indeed, they sometimes seemed to have nothing more in common than the just-completed struggle for independence.
“When I took office in 1789 there was no real executive branch, a barely independent judiciary and a Congress that belied the notion of governance. Our finances were in a deeply perilous state, with huge debts from the war against the British. We had no army or navy to speak of and were barely secure in our borders, hemmed in by enemies at every turn – England, Spain, even Barbary pirates. Republican government on this scale was untried and uncertain to endure. Thus inhibited and constrained, I felt it was more important to consolidate our independence and put the ship of state on calm and steady waters rather than alienate half the nation — whose support was critical to the success of the revolution and the infant republic — where slavery was entrenched in history, law and custom.”
“Sir, you did consolidate the revolution and steadied the nation,” I said, feeling the need to press the point. “But within 60 years of your death southern slavery tore the country apart.”
He frowned deeply, whether agitated over my effrontery in challenging him or the difficulty in answering I wasn’t certain. Then he looked over at me and with an odd smile asked, “Tell me, is it not within the realm of possibility that 60 years from now, in the year two thousand and eighty-four, people will reflect on this present time with harsh judgments about some aspect or conduct of your own?”
“Uhm, like what?” I asked, a little surprised and unnerved at this line of inquiry.
He pointed behind us. “Perhaps driving around in these contrivances does damage to your air?” he asked, nodding at my tailpipe, which was unfortunately spewing a thick black trail of smoke like a chimney.
“Uh, yes, I’ve been meaning to see a mechanic about that.”
“Yet despite these noxious fumes,” he said, ignoring my mumbled excuse, “your vehicle is permitted on the road, this car of yours, threatening the lungs of your fellow citizens and endangering your future? It is true we immiserated Black lives under southern slavery, but this endangers the lives of everyone everywhere.”
I shrugged. “Sir, you have me there.”
Presidential roll call
He sighed and having made his point, chose to change the subject.
“Tell me, how many presidents have served since I retired in 1797?”
“Forty-five, sir. Our 46th president is getting ready to leave office. A Black woman is running to replace him. Women have had the vote for over a century.”
“Really?” he said, his eyebrows hiking up, once again looking astonished.
“And we’ve already had a two-term Black male president.”
“Astounding. And what of the presidents after Adams, who was serving when I died?”
“More eminent men: Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, all fellow Virginians.”
“Ah, wonderful. But what of my protégé, Hamilton?”
“Killed in a duel in 1804, I’m sorry to say.”
“By whom?”
“Burr.”
He closed his eyes. “Ah, history is a cruel witness,” he finally said.
I continued, “Then there was Jackson, from Tennessee. He forced the native Americans — the Indians, you called them — from their rightful homes to tiny, impoverished lands out west, much to our national shame. After Jackson there was a long line of incompetents and worse, who took us right up to our civil war.”
“And after that? Surely some good men at the helm, like this Lincoln,” he said, looking hopeful.
“Mediocracies and ne’er-do-wells, I’m afraid, including one early 20th century president who grew so infirm his wife secretly ran the country. Then finally there was a president, Teddy Roosevelt, who stood up to the plutocrats, established the modern U.S. Navy and won the global peace prize. He vastly increased the national parks by federalizing huge holdings out west, forever opening them to public access and appreciation.”
“Amazing. And Teddy, what a funny name.”
“You would have liked him, sir, he loved riding horses, like you did. His distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt – we called him FDR – was later elected to four terms and helped the nation survive a terrible economic crisis as well as win the world war.”
“World war? All the nations fought?”
“Just about. There was a great deal of fighting in Europe and even Asia.”
He laughed, which seemed like a surprising response. “I had a hand in our own global conflict. I commanded the British and Indian troops that fought the French invaders in the Ohio Valley in May 1754,” he said with some pride. “In fact, I fired one of the first shots, which precipitated a world war of our own involving the France and England and various Indian confederations. The enormous debts from the Seven Years War triggered such Parliamentary revenue-generating legislation as the Stamp Act and the Townsend Act, taxing colonial necessities such as paper, glass and tea, resistance to which led ultimately to the war of independence. So you might say my role as colonel in the Seven Years War helped precipitate the Revolutionary War. And I was a mere 21-year-old,” he said, chuckling at the irony.
“Yes sir, quite amazing,” I said, shaking my head and stifling a smile at his unaccustomed boastfulness. I cleared my throat to continue. “After FDR came our modern presidents, one of whom resigned in disgrace and another who abetted a riot in the Capitol while the House was counting electoral votes. He was later found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records.”
“My God, what a scoundrel! Is he behind bars?”
“No, he’s running for a second term.”
Washington looked aghast.
By this time we had reached Green Bay Road. A commuter train roared overhead.
“What in the world is that?” he said with alarm, shrinking back in his seat, pointing at the viaduct.
“That’s a train, sir. They came into use shortly after you died. They carry passengers and freight all over the country.”
“Amazing! But what of those young people?” he said, pointing to a gaggle of teens walking nearby. “Is there a fabric shortage afflicting the nation?”
I laughed. “Sir, that’s the style. Ripped jeans and low-rise shorts.”
“Much has changed since my day,” he said, shaking his head disapprovingly. “And that building?” he asked, pointing across the street to a drugstore.
“It’s a store where they sell all manner of medicines and food and beverages and other notions, thousands of products — really almost anything a person could want, from flip-flops to frisbees.”
“From what to what?” he said, looking confused.
“Oh, sorry sir, just casual footwear and sporting goods.”
“Really? I would like to see some of these amazing things. Can we go inside?”
I laughed. “Sir, I do not think that would be a good idea,” thinking of Jesus’ reception in medieval Spain in The Brothers Karamazov. “You’d probably start a riot if they recognized you, and you do stand out,” I said, glancing at his iconic Gilbert Stuart image, long blue waistcoat with gold shoulder braids, white neckcloth, knee-high boots as well as his long gray hair lightly curled behind his neck and above each ear. There was also the slight paunch he carried, visible in many of his portraits, which nonetheless did not deter the amorous attention of scores of flirtatious women he met over his lifetime. If Washington were a 1960s rock band, they’d have been throwing their underwear onstage.
“Ah, too bad,” he said. “Maybe we can head off to see that fellow Lincoln’s grave. How do we get there?”
I activated the GPS monitor and pointed to the blue dot that was our car. “Here we are, sir. And I can just key in Springfield. See there, those lines show the way.”
“That looks like the documents I used to draw up as a surveyor in Virginia. I was a mere stripling of 16. Are all your maps embedded in this engine of yours?”
“Not exactly. They’re embedded in machines called servers some distance away and transmitted by satellites 50 miles above the earth at the speed of light.”
“What? No! But how do these satellites achieve such incredible heights?”
“We launch them in rockets, a little like that airplane there,” I said, pointing to one high over Evanston bearing southwest, doubtless heading to O’Hare.
He slapped a hand to his forehead. “Amazing, this aerial future of yours! Franklin saw hot air balloons in Paris and predicted they would one day cross the ocean.”
“Our planes do just that, flying dozens of times every day from Paris to New York in six hours!”
“A voyage our ships made in six weeks! What a miracle! Next you’ll tell me men are walking on the moon.”
“No, but they did 50 years ago.”
He snickered at my obvious fabrication.
“I have a request,” he said with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. “I’d like to drive this vehicle, your so-called car. Would you permit me to take over the controls?”
I laughed to think of it: George Washington driving my car!
“Sir, let’s get out of town and maybe I can pull over to show you how it works. You’d need a few minutes to master the conveyance.”
“Wonderful. I can’t wait. Surely it will be nifty!”
Author’s note: Many of the details for this column were gleaned from Ron Chernow’s wonderful 2010 biography, Washington: A Life, which won the Pulitzer Prize for best biography. Also insightful was The Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves and the Creation of America by Henry Wiencek. And a tip of the hat to former Chicagoan and Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian Jack Rakove for suggestions to improve the piece (though any mistakes are mine), as well as to Sophia Grande, who provided the nifty AI illustration through ChatGPT.