George Washington's Anti-Daddy

**Andrew Heaton** (0:00)
There's a saying among American historians, the ghost of Oliver Cromwell sailed on the Mayflower.
Because America didn't just inherit English ideas of liberty, it also inherited English fears. Her colonists were heir to all of England's bloody constitutional drama, a vicious civil war, religious fanaticism, and military dictatorship. And not just any military dictatorship, but a ruthless military dictator who started out as a dedicated Republican, not some opportunistic hack, but a true believer, fighting against tyranny and the deprivations of sacred liberties, a man who had abolished the monarchy in favor of democracy and meritocracy, who restored parliament and the rights of Englishmen, but who had bit by bit slid into everything he opposed, conquered the whole of Britain on behalf of parliament and rule of law, and then dissolved that same institution when it became irksome, proceeded to rule England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland through generals and military occupation, and in the twilight of his life, lived in a royal palace, appointed his son heir, and literally sat the throne of St. Edward draped in purple robes, wielding a scepter and a sword.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:35)
The American colonies then didn't just know about kings.

**Andrew Heaton** (1:40)
They had a vivid memory of what happens after you topple one, and the monsters that follow when you cut one's head off.
Many republics learned this the hard way. Most republics learned this the hard way. France's bloody revolution killed King Louis only to bow before Emperor Napoleon. In our hemisphere, Simon Bolivar fought for independence against the Spanish monarchy, championing self-determination, Republican ideals and liberty. Yet became president of Gran Colombia, dissolved its legislature, assumed extraordinary powers, and died in office, basically a dictator.
Augustine de Iterbide led Mexico to independence from Spain and its monarchy only to be promptly crowned emperor of Mexico. Rafael Carrera began as a peasant soldier fighting for the common man and wound up ruling Guatemala as a military strongman. The military hero Santa Anna not only clung to power and suspended constitutional government, at one point he held a state funeral for his amputated leg. As far back as Rome, General Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in the defense of the rights of the Roman people against a corrupt elite and then never left.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:09)
Refused to leave. Refused to give up power.

**Andrew Heaton** (3:17)
The story of a popular military hero leading a revolution, only to become president for life isn't a pattern, it's the rule. Victorious generals don't come to power to retire. They don't amass authority and then politely handed over to politicians, to make up gardening. They get rid of the crown, but they keep the throne. Now, in that light, there was nothing inevitable about the United States becoming a republic after declaring its independence. Nobody in Europe thought that it would. And in fact, as we will see today, there were multiple moments where America very nearly lurched away from fledgling democracy into that familiar pattern of strongman rule. Had things gone just a little differently, just a little differently, the United States would have been governed by a generalissimo instead of the Constitution. So the relevant question is not, why did so many of our sister republics in Latin America descend into military hunters while the United States matured into a republic? No, the question is, why did the United States miraculously remain a republic instead of predictably descending into a military hunter?
The answer to that question lies in the actions of two men pivotal to the American experience, the founding father and first president of the nation, George Washington, and what we might call America's anti-founding father, its anti-daddy, Oliver Cromwell. Washington was not only familiar with a ghost of Oliver Cromwell, he was presented with alarmingly similar choices and temptations.
Two Englishmen, not quite a hundred years apart, both fought for liberty against English kings, and both of them stood at the banks of their own personal Rubicon.
Oliver Cromwell crossed his bit by bit to wind up everything he'd fought against. George Washington stood at the banks of the Potomac with an entire army cheering behind him and went home.

**SPEAKER_2** (6:15)
Today, the story of these two men and the soul of American independence.

**Andrew Heaton** (6:23)
Right here on The Political Orphanage.
Our story begins with a fat king getting stuck in a window.
That pudgy sovereign was, in a sense, the last true medieval ruler of England, or at least the last prince to actually think like one. A divine right ruler whose authority over his people was absolute, and whose consecrated authority derived from God. The monarchy served at the behest of the Almighty To defy the king was to defy the cosmic hierarchy of which the monarch was the temporal apex. Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland.