Washington Wasn’t a King

Today’s federal holiday honors George Washington’s birthday. An exhibit at Mount Vernon portrays Washington wearing a crown and royal ermine, with a mace. It symbolizes what the nation’s preeminent Founding Father rejected. He would not be king, either literally or figuratively.

After the Revolution, Washington could have sought power as a military dictator. Instead, he resigned and went home. King George III predicted that if he were to do so, he would be “the greatest man in the world.” But Washington relinquished power and went home twice. He voluntarily served only two terms as president. While in office, he punctiliously stayed within the letter of the law, not seeking inordinate power for his office. He saw government as collaboration.

Reputedly Washington modeled himself on the Roman statesman and soldier Cincinnatus, who abandoned complete power to return to his farm, embodying classical virtue. Washington’s favorite drama was “Cato,” by Joseph Addison. It portrayed the Roman stoic who resisted the tyranny of Julius Caesar. “Cato” had been popular in early 1700s Britain. Young George III, as a prince, with his brothers, even performed in one portrayal. “Cato” emblemized English liberty against royal absolutism. American Revolutionaries gladly embraced its themes. It reinforced their idea that they were only claiming what Englishmen claimed for themselves, liberty against arbitrary power.

Washington combined in himself Cato and Cincinnatus, based on ancient Roman themes. But these themes of resistance to tyrannical kings were especially rooted in the Puritan rumblings of Britain in the 1600s. Washington did not identify with Oliver Cromwell, another successful general who defeated a king. Cromwell dismissed parliament and ruled as an autocrat, dying in power, unable to establish a stable settlement, and royally leaving his less talented son to succeed him. Washington wanted to leave a much better example.

Although apparently not in Washington’s extensive library, Lex Rex by Scottish Presbyterian divine Samuel Rutherford would have influenced him. Meaning “law is king,” it was a 1644 rebuttal to royalism. Rutherford was accused of high treason but died before he could be prosecuted. For decades, the book was banned and burned. But Rutherford got the last laugh, as prophets and martyrs often do. His ideas were instituted in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which capped the monarchy’s power. John Locke absorbed and took further Rutheford’s thesis, limiting the ruler to a social contract with the people, directly influencing Thomas Jefferson.

The Puritan and America’s Founding Fathers, like Jefferson and Washington, along with Rutherford and Locke, saw in the Bible a lesson against kings and arbitrary power. When the ancient Hebrews demanded a king, as the pagans had, the prophet Samuel warned:

So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.  He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

The Lord, with sadness, and in judgement, complied with the popular plea:

But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us,that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”

Few of Israel’s kings ruled justly, and even the best kings were plagued by tragedy. Yet the voice of the ancient Hebrews is the voice commonly of fallen humanity: “Give us a king! We don’t want the responsibility of ruling ourselves!

America’s revolution and launch of constitutional government was a courageous experiment in self-rule. Americans would not be subjects but citizens, responsible, before God, for their own fate. Washington, with no precedent to follow, established the presidency as an office of lawful, democratic responsibility, in collaboration with the two other branches of government. In sync with Lex Rex, the law, and not the ruler, was king.

Rule by law, and not by arbitrary power, is vexing to fallen humanity, which often shuns responsibility. But liberty is only possible with responsibility and maturity. Kings and tyrants are strong armed parents who rule by force. Citizens of a lawful republic are partners in rule, accountable to each other. The latter is more difficult and unusual than the former.

Washington led America into liberty and responsibility. It’s always difficult. Fallen human nature prefers paternalism with a king. But divine grace and wisdom, if heeded, lead to better pathways, where the law is earthly king, and God is King of Kings. Happy birthday, George Washington. And thank you for not being a king.