Since the big 250 is coming up, I've decided I'm gonna do a daily thread thing where I post each president we've had in the US of A so farSo first up is George WashingtonWhat do you think about the cherry chopping chud?
He is cherished.
Great wartime leader. Mediocre president. Disappointing that he didn't take more of a moral stand against slavery while he had the chance. He did come to hate it later in life, as revealed by his diaries, but at that point he had already squandered his political influence in a largely defunct presidency and was effectively retired, so he simply used his remaining fortune to take in injured and infirm slaves on his Mt Vernon estate, and wrote their emancipation into his will. It's not much, or really anything in the grand scheme of things, but I guess it shows his contrition.
>>18487859>Mediocre presidentI disagree. He doesnt have a lot of smash hit policies under his belt so it comes across as "mediocre" but his leadership is unmatched especially with the brand new American Republic. He guided America through continued international conflicts by not getting involved in the French Revolution and resisting French and British attacks on America because of this. His handling of things like the Whiskey Rebellion is also amazing. Essentially a peasant's revolt due to the policies of Hamilton, his Treasurer, Washington actually led troops into the field AS President, something that has never been done since. And with the Rebellion squashed, he pardoned pretty much all the leaders because he sympathized with their plight and was actually magnimus like that. Compare this to someone like Lenin would would have used it as an excuse to go on a paranoid freak mass murder spree.His Cabinet was also great. He didnt surround himself with yes men and specifically kept Jefferson around because he disagreed with him. When Jefferson said he wanted to leave, Washington begged him to stay because he needed him to balance out Hamilton. He also appointed Knox as Secretary of War and he essentially built the US military as we know it today. Knox had zero military experience, joined the revolution as an artillery officer, and Washington put him in charge of the famed canon run. Knox was just some uneducated kid who worked in a book store and read a lot of military books, thats it. This is like if the president appointed some kid who worked at Gamestop and played a lot of RTS as a general and then that kid was actually fucking good at his job. Washington is the GOAT
Traitor to his king and country. Should have been publicly hanged.
>>18487866Madison also led troops into the field during the War of 1812 and almost died
>>18487833Did he ever tell a lie?
>>18487833From his farewell address:> Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. Sadly, presidents particularly in the 20th century ignore this and have burdened us with harmful alliances.
>>18487889One of the wisest statements ever stated by a president.
>>18487833>where I post each president we've had in the US of A so faronly to Clinton. remember, 25 year rule.
>>18487866did you also know that John Marshall's entire legal training consisted of three weeks of attending a law lecture when he was 19?
>>18487901Bush Jr. was 26 years ago, it counts
>>18487905Theres an interview with Orson Wells where someone from the audience asks him about the near mystical years long training it takes to become a director and he immediatly dismissed that idea and insisted that he could teach anyone how to be a director in like a week long course. I think a lot of professions are like this and all the schooling around them is a scam.
>>18487907Only the first couple months of his presidency are on topic though.
Georges great grandfather, John Washington, originally came to Virginia from England in the 1650s. He came to see about purchasing tobacco to sell back home, but after being shipwrecked, he decided to stay and get into the tobacco business himself and opened up a plantation. When George was very young, his father who he adored died. After this his older brother Lawrence became head of the family and was a role model for him. He had tried to convince George that a life in the British Navy was a good career path and he ran away as a young teenager to join it before his mother caught him and stopped him. When Lawrence travelled to the British colony of Barbados as a treatment for his tuberculosis, George accompanied him and this was the only time he left the country. This turned out to be very formative because Washington became impressed by the plantations on the island and their methods of cultivating crops and more importantly the military presence on the island. His brother used his connections to get George a tour of a military fort and it basically set in his mind that he wanted a career as an officer in the British Army. After a period of seven weeks, George returned home and his brother secured him an audience with the Governor to seek an appointment as an in the militia. It was the last time the brothers saw each other.
>>18487921When George returned to Virginia, he had his meeting with governor Dinwiddle where he explained his desire for a military career. He had no real formal education and no military training, but Dinwiddle appointed him as a an officer in the Virginian Militia. The militia force was separated into four districts and George was placed in command of one of these and given the rank of Major. He was only 20. His first mission was to travel into the Ohio Valley to deliver a message to the French commander in the region and demand that they leave the area. This was untamed wilderness and disputed territory between the French and British empires along with various indian tribes. Its basically like if someone had to travel into Afghanistan today and demand that the Chinese military presence there vacate. On this mission he was accompanied by Lieutenant Christopher Gist. Despite being a lower rank, Gist basically ran the mission. He was a grizzled frontiersmen in his 50s who knew the area, the tribes, and the languages and George knew it. He had no problem with basically just being Gist right hand man and Gist saved his life once. They made the trek and George used the opportunity to formally meet various indian tribes and leaders which Gist introduced him too. They eventually reached the French military base and were received by the Commander who had a dinner with him, but he basically told this ragged old man and this young clueless kid to fuck off.
>>18487833Still the greatest President there ever was.
>more battlefield losses than victoriesHe was a mediocre general at best.
Have you ever read about General Washington and the Siege of Boston? He sent a fat man named Henry Knox through the hyperborean snows to retrieve artillery in upstate New York, a fat man indeed marched through Appalachian frost for George Washington and the cause!
>>18487833He pretended to be above politics but also heavily supported federalist policies. But, in peacefully stepping down as he did and supporting the next presidential election, he is the GOAT.
Sulgrave Manor, the Washingtons' ancestral home in England
>>18488610A stupid and reductive view of military success. He lost battles, but his army was not defeated, despite being vastly inferior in every way to the British professional military. His troops were volunteer militia without even basic uniforms, they had to ration out gunpowder and muskets because they were perpetually short on everything. In the winter, his men froze and starved. They were never paid on time. Washington put down two mutinies in the ranks by simply talking to the men, he didn't kill anyone or threaten anyone, he just talked to them in person, and they agreed to end the mutiny. He had remarkable personal charisma to pull this off. A lesser general would've been utterly defeated within a few weeks in Washington's place. The ramshackle assemblage of militias he pretended was an army was wholly unequal to the task of fighting the armies of Great Britain, yet he somehow held them together and won.
>>18487909It's more that not everybody is smart and intuitive enough to pick up on things that fast. You could teach a bright, eager young man just about anything, and he'd learn it very fast on the fly. But these types of quick studies and sharp minds are not a majority of the population. Most people do need rigorous, tedious study to learn things. That is who public education (and modern university) is designed for: the average IQ person. It's why there are endless stories of clever, ingenious young men succeeding without a formal education. Because formal education wasn't meant for them, and would only hold them back.
>>18489531> A stupid and reductive view of military success. He lost battles, but his army was not defeated, despite being vastly inferior in every way to the British professional military.He was defeated in several battles like the battle of Long Island where he lost thousands of men, not to mention forts, cities and supplies.> His troops were volunteer militia without even basic uniforms, they had to ration out gunpowder and muskets because they were perpetually short on everything. In the winter, his men froze and starved. They were never paid on time. Washington put down two mutinies in the ranks by simply talking to the men, he didn't kill anyone or threaten anyone, he just talked to them in person, and they agreed to end the mutiny. He had remarkable personal charisma to pull this off.I agree, but he didn’t have the Napoleonic-old world kind of charisma which is hypnotizing and magnetic. He was like a grandpa basically> A lesser general would've been utterly defeated within a few weeks in Washington's place.And he was>The ramshackle assemblage of militias he pretended was an army was wholly unequal to the task of fighting the armies of Great Britain, yet he somehow held them together and won.because France and Spain saved his ass, lol
>>18489548>And he wasI don't recall Washington ever giving his surrender to the enemy commander which is usually what happens when a commander is utterly defeated. At least, if he lives through the defeat, that's what happens. Washington never surrendered, he wasn't killed, he wasn't forced to quit the field, so I truly don't know by what standard you can claim he was "utterly defeated". He bloody won the war.
>>18489548>uh his victory doesn't count because he lost a bunch of men and forts and stufflol, wars aren't a video game, you don't win by having the higher score, you win by forcing the other side to give up
>>18489557>he won because he didn’t lose and was carried by France and SpainReally? Honestly for a country that is (or really once was) a global superpower with unprecedented hard and soft power, that’s a really mediocre origin story
>>18489563Yes and Fagshington only got the British to surrender because of France and Spain
>>18487888>Did he ever tell a lie?I know the incident is portrayed that way but what it really means is he knew he was caught and wouldn't be able to lie his way out of it.
>>18489531The British were also operating a long way from home and it took weeks for communications to pass from America to England. The American colonies were additionally rough frontier country and hard to fight in.
>>18487833he was not a true president
