‘ve got to say that sometimes it feels like you guys aren’t
even trying. While looking for fake George Washington quotations I lurched into
this one at a site called Ignorant Fishermen:
Make sure you are doing what
God wants you to do—then do it with all your strength.[a]
This is wretched. Pitiful. And no, it’s obviously not
Washington’s. Mind you, I went through the motions of consulting the varied
online repositories of Washington’s writing. Nothing turned up. I searched on
synonyms, combinations of words, phrases. Still nothing. If it’s a paraphrase
of something he said, I didn’t find it.
Oddly enough, the oldest posting of this saying I could find
anywhere online was at Free Republic on 25 February 2010.[b] The poster called
himself The Ignorant Fisherman. When somebody asked him for a source for his
quotations (there were several) he replied: Google it.
Never trust a jerk who
gives you a Google It instead of a citation.
Out of curiosity I took a look at some of his other (alleged)
George Washington quotations. Many of them are familiar, and most of them are
legitimate—up to a point. The same goes for his fakes—except for this one, most
of them are familiar at any rate. Anyway, here’s a rundown, starting with those
that are substantially genuine.
The Ignorant Fishermen (TIF) quotes Washington as saying (sans
citation):
I earnestly pray that the Omnipotent Being who has not deserted the
cause of America in the hour of its extremist hazard, will never yield so fair
a heritage of freedom a prey to “Anarchy” or “Despotism”.
And this is in fact the closing of a letter to James McHenry
(17 July 1788), allowing for a word or two being off and the substitution of
quotation marks for emphasis. (As usual bold indicates the portion used in the
quotation.)
I earnestly pray that the
Omnipotent Being who hath not
deserted the cause of America in the hour of its extremest hazard; will never
yeild so fair a heritage of freedom a prey to Anarchy or Despotism.[c]
The next two items come from Washington’s first inaugural
address of 30 April 1789. Presidential speeches, like other official
pronouncements, have difficulties of determining actual authorship—many of them
are written by, or at least contain significant input from, people other than
the person who delivers it. Ghost writing is an interesting occupation; the
actual writer is not writing as himself but as somebody else. It lies somewhere
in the hinterland between editing and parody, in that the object is to express
the (alleged) author’s ideas in a way in which he would have expressed them
given the time and the ability without slavish fidelity (as in editing) or
outré exaggeration (as in parody). The actual author of Washington’s first
inaugural address is believed to have been James Madison. This isn’t to say
that it’s wrong to attribute them to Washington; only that the situation is
likely to be a bit more complicated than that. Anyway, here is TIF’s version of
this next item:
No people can be bound to acknowledge the Invisible Hand which
conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every
step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation
seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.
Other than the omission of the words “and adore” it’s pretty
much what the inaugural address actually had:
In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and
private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than
my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either: No People can be bound to acknowledge
and adore the invisible hand, which
conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every
step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation,
seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.[d]
And likewise from that same address (again uncited) TIF has
Washington say:
The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation
that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has
ordained.
And here is the first inaugural address a bit further on:
I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent
love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly
established, than that there exists in the œconomy and course of nature, an
indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage,
between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid
rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less
persuaded that the propitious smiles of
Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of
order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the
preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican
model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment
entrusted to the hands of the American people. [d]
About this next one there are no (as far as I know) caveats or
qualifications. TIF quotes Washington as follows:
I am sure that never was a people, who had more reason to
acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United
States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency,
which was so often manifested during our Revolution, or that they failed to
consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them.
This one is practically dead on, except for a couple of
punctuation differences. Washington in fact wrote in a letter to John Armstrong
(11 March 1792):
I am sure there never was a
people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their
affairs than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that
they have forgotten that agency which was so often manifested during our
Revolution—or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is
alone able to protect them.[e]
Next The Ignorant Fishermen presents us with a handful of
fragments, one taken from Washington’s General Orders, 9 July 1776, about
chaplains, another taken from a routine reply to a church offering its
congratulations (19 August 1789), and still another from his Thanksgiving
Proclamation of 3 October 1789, written at the request of Congress.
A parenthetic note about military orders: I personally object
to quoting them as the words of the officer involved, simply because they are
often actually written by subordinates and merely signed by the guy in question.
And they tend to be pragmatic instructions, not well considered expressions of
opinion or the result of deep thought on a subject. You might as well quote
interoffice memos or grocery lists. But anyway, TIF has a fragment (uncited of
course) from Washington’s General Orders of 9 July 1776:
The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will
endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest
rights and liberties of his country.
The subject of this section is chaplains; the full context is
more or less self-explanatory:
The Honorable Continental Congress having been pleased to allow a
Chaplain to each Regiment, with the pay of Thirty-three Dollars and one third
per month—The Colonels or commanding officers of each regiment are directed to
procure Chaplains accordingly; persons of good Characters and exemplary
lives—To see that all inferior officers and soldiers pay them a suitable
respect and attend carefully upon religious exercises: The blessing and
protection of Heaven are at all times necessary but especially so in times of
public distress and danger—The General
hopes and trusts, that every officer, and man, will endeavour so to live, and
act, as becomes a Christian Soldier defending the dearest Rights and Liberties
of his country.[f]
Another version of the text has “a Christian and soldier” in
place of “a Christian Soldier”.
When Washington was elected the first president of the United
States under the Constitution he received many congratulations from people and
groups throughout the nation. It appears to have been his practice to reply
briefly to each of these communications, recycling at least some of their
content while putting his own spin on it. It is from one of these replies that TIF
lifted the following phrase:
Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.
A communication of 19 August 1789 from the Protestant
Episcopal Church had concluded “We devoutly implore the Supreme Ruler of the
Universe to preserve you long in health and prosperity, an animating example of
all public and private virtues—the friend and guardian of a free, enlightened,
and grateful people—and that you may finally receive the reward, which will be
given to those whose lives have been spent in promoting the happiness of
mankind.” George Washington picked up on this wish in his reply:
The satisfaction arising from the indulgent opinion entertained by
the American People of my conduct, will, I trust, be some security for
preventing me from doing any thing, which might justly incur the forfeiture of
that opinion. And the consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected, will always
continue to prompt me to promote the progress of the former, by inculcating the
practice of the latter.[g]
Official proclamations (like presidential addresses) have the
difficulty of determining actual authorship in any meaningful way. Washington’s
Thanksgiving proclamation of 3 October 1789 was ordered by Congress and is in
the hand of William Jackson; how much of it is Washington’s is anybody’s guess.
TIF gives this snippet from it:
It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of
Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to
implore his protection and favors.
This is from the first clause of the proclamation, which reads
Whereas it is the duty of
all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to
be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and
whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to
recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and
prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal
favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to
establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”[h]
I’ve dealt with this
elsewhere, and I’ll probably write about
it again some foul day. But anyway, the fragment is reasonably accurate, though
it should have been presented as a fragment, not a stand-alone item. But
whatever.
The next item is one of those “quotations” remembered by
somebody else after a lapse of time. In this case the author is Gouverneur
Morris, recalling something Washington supposedly said a decade before. TIF
gives it like this:
If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how
can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise
and honest can repair. The rest is in the hands of God.
Now historians differ as to its authenticity. I’m inclined to
reject it, myself, for two reasons—first, the lapse of time makes it unlikely
that Morris would remember the exact wording of the thing. And second, it comes
from a goddamn funeral oration. In my observation, funeral orations rank with
sermons as unreliable vectors for accurate transmission of quotations. It’s
like the rules don’t exist at such times. You say something nice about the guy
even if you have to make it up. Maybe Morris remembered something of the sort—or
maybe he flogged his memory until it produced something suitable. Anywhere,
here is the context:
Americans! let the opinion then delivered by the greatest and best
of men, be ever present to your remembrance. He was collected within himself.
His countenance had more than usual solemnity; his, eye was fixed, and seemed
to look into futurity. “It is (said he) too probable that no plan we propose
will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we
ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a
standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.” This was the
patriot voice of Washington; and this the constant tenor of his conduct. With
this deep sense of duty, he gave to our Constitution his cordial assent; and
has added the fame of a legislator to that of a hero.[j]
The rest of the Ignorant Fishermen’s quotations are fakes. I
have dealt with “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and
Bible”
before, and am in the process of writing in excruciating detail on it
again. This particular version goes back to Howard Hyde Russell, a lawyer and
founder of an anti-saloon league, who published it in 1893. He gave no
authority for it, and as he was born when Washington was cold in his Mt. Vernon
grave can hardly have heard it himself.
You’d have to be an ignorant fool to believe that “What
students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus
Christ” was an authentic pronouncement of General Washington, and of course it
isn’t. Its oldest appearance is in a 2006 book by Bob Klingenberg, entitled
Is God with America? (p. 188). I’ve
traced its course through a misunderstanding by David Barton of a passage
addressed by Washington (though probably not written by him) to the Lenape in
1779 elsewhere, but as far as this particular fake is concerned, neither Barton
nor Washington bears any responsibility for it.
The
Weekly World News
of 15 May 2001 is the only
source I could turn up for this one, given by TIF in
this form:
My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe
to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and
physical education I received from her.
For the first sentence I turned up no earlier source. The
second is a cliché, and it has been attributed (though on no authority I could determine)
to Washington. It has also been attributed to Abraham Lincoln. The final sentence
of this goes back at least as far as
an 1887 anthology (
Mile-stones of history, literature, travel, mythology, sculpture, and
art) edited by Frank McAlpine. An anonymous piece called simply “Mother” quotes
Washington as saying “I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual,
and physical education which I received from my mother.” Other
sources indicate
that this was a response from Washington when resolutions of condolence were
passed on the occasion of her death, but
still another account says that no
such resolutions were passed.
And this brings us back to where we came in. TIF finally has
something unique, a fake quotation that (as far as I can tell) originated with
him:
Make sure you are doing what God wants you to do—then do it with
all your strength.
It’s not great—but it’s something. Sources follow.
[c] “
From George Washington to James McHenry, 31 July 1788,”
Founders Online, National Archives
(last update:
2014-12-01). Source: The Papers of George Washington, Confederation Series,
vol. 6, 1 January 1788 – 23 September 1788, ed. W. W. Abbot. Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 1997, pp. 409–410.
[d] “
First Inaugural Address: Final Version, 30 April 1789,”
Founders Online, National Archives
(last
update: 2014-12-01). Source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential
Series, vol. 2, 1 April 1789 – 15 June 1789, ed. Dorothy Twohig.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 173–177.
[e] “
From George Washington to John Armstrong, 11 March 1792,”
Founders Online, National Archives (last update: 2014-12-01). Source: The Papers of George Washington,
Presidential Series, vol. 10, 1 March 1792 – 15 August 1792, ed. Robert F.
Haggard and Mark A. Mastromarino. Charlottesville: University of Virginia
Press, 2002, pp. 85–87.
[f] “
General Orders, 9 July 1776,” Founders Online, National
Archives (last
update: 2014-12-01). Source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary
War Series, vol. 5, 16 June 1776 – 12 August 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993, pp. 245–247.
[h] “
Thanksgiving Proclamation, 3 October 1789,” Founders
Online, National Archives
(last update:
2014-12-01). Source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series,
vol. 4, 8 September 1789 – 15 January 1790, ed. Dorothy Twohig.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993, pp. 131–132.
[j] Oration upon the
Death of General Washington, Delivered at the Request of the Corporation of the
City of New York On the 31st of December, 1799, by Gouverneur Morris.
