Hacker News Reader

Comment by OfSanguineFire | Hacker News Reader

When the American Revolution erupted, society in the Colonies was split pretty evenly between those who rebelled and those who wanted to remain under England. The American Founding Fathers are representative of a side that ultimately won by doing things like burning down many loyalists’ homes, or tar-and-feathering them, and then exiling them to Canada or the West Indies, in order to cow the other loyalists into keeping quiet. Sure, that is a bit less heinous than fighting to perpetuate race-based chattel slavery. But there is no reason to view the American Founding Fathers as heroes unless you are of that small portion of the world’s population that has been through American schools and still has an attachment to the mythology presented in civics classes there.

View on HN

There certainly is reason. Did you know that after Washington defeated the British, his officers offered him a military dictatorship?

And he turned it down? Who does that? Who else in history did that?

When he became President, he turned down titles like "your Excellency" and other trappings of power. He voluntarily left after two terms, establishing a precedent that lasted until FDR.

How do you get more heroic than that?

As for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, terrible fates awaited nearly all of them.

https://michaelwsmith.com/the-sacrifices-made-by-the-declara...

> How do you get more heroic than that?

Do the same things without owning people.

He turned down owning the entire country. Do you know of anyone that meets your standard?

The French Revolutionaries, Washington's contemporaries, didn't own anybody. How'd that work out? I'll help. Millions dead, and they arrived right back where they started with Napoleon declaring himself hereditary monarch of France.

How about all the other revolutions in the Americas?

What your ascribe to nobility might simply be prudence. The American republic was founded on the ideals and rhetoric of anti-tyranny. Washington may have simply chosen the course of wisdom of not getting overthrown, himself. Or assassinated by any of his various rivals, such as Horatio Gates and the officers of the Newburgh Conspiracy, which sought to remove him as leader of the Continental Army during the war itself.

Maybe choosing not to be a dictator was simply the safest course of action. Least path of resistance.

Look at his later stepping down as President setting a precedent for two terms, despite being a shoo-in for re-election.

It's not consistent with him being afraid of assassination.

Washington passed away two years after his second term. Him not seeking a third is consistent with him being old and ailing.

It’s easy to turn honours down when you are among the wealthiest people in a country and therefore retain a great deal of power and influence even without formal trappings.

Easy? Who else has done it? FDR was very wealthy, but he clung on until he died. People like power, wealthy or not. It's the ultimate seduction.

Loads of revolutions have ended with one or more of the warlords involved relinquishing any formal role in the subsequent elected government, in exchange for simply keeping their massive wealth and networks of influence. After all, formal roles bring duties and obligations, so why bother if you don’t have to? The idea of Washington as some kind of saintly Cincinnatus is itself a literal textbook example of early American mythology.

I only listed facts, not mythology.

> in exchange for

Washington didn't do it in exchange for anything.

> any formal rule

Washington wasn't offered a "role". He was offered absolute power.

> Washington didn't do it in exchange for anything.

How do you know that? Wielding absolute power makes enemies and Washington could have eventually lost everything, just like any number of historical tyrants that his circle, so keen about Greek and Roman history, were aware of. Turning down absolute power while keeping one’s immense wealth and influence can be an attractive choice, and this is the same calculus that has guided other warlords involved in revolutions up to the present day.

He also gave up the Presidency after 2 terms, though he was a shoo-in to be re-elected.

Your portrayal of FDR is extremely unfair, and shows your biases clearly as day. The man was re-elected for his 3rd and 4th terms in 1940 and 1944, think of any extenuating circumstance that might have caused that?

Extremely unfair? After he did that, a Constitutional Amendment was passed to stop that from happening again. Presidents have an enormous advantage in reelection, and the country was concerned that we were at risk of a "president for life".

He was quite ill during his final term, which put him at a severe disadvantage in negotiating with Stalin. This was hidden from the public.

If he shouldn’t have done that why didn’t the American people sent him packing out of office? Why the arbitrary term limit of eight years?

Because the American people don't really choose who's on the final ballot. For all we know FDR in 1944 was considered "just ok", but was better than his opponent.

Then that was the fault of a lack of a challenger within the Democratic nomination. And if they really wanted to, more delegates should have voted for Harry Byrd:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944_Democratic_National_Conve...

Given that Americans tend to reelect presidents during wartime, that makes the claim that FDR was somehow unpopularly "just ok" to be even more dubious.

Rare virtue, but I wouldn’t say it was unprecedented: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus

I didn't know about him, thanks. But it illustrates my point - you had to reach back two thousand five hundred years to find an example.

Theres not a big sample size to pick from.

How many people have led armies fighting British, let alone beat them?

The sample size is people who led successful revolutions. There are plenty in history you can compare Washington to.

For the record, there is also Scipio. But yes, very few people in all of history who voluntarily stepped back when offered absolute power.

France-Albert René, Jerry Rawlings. Couple of 20th century examples of autocrats who yielded their power to democratic rule.

> France-Albert René

I'm not impressed. He took a dictatorship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France-Albert_Ren%C3%A9

> Jerry Rawlings

Not impressed with him,either. He took it back: "After handing power over to a civilian government, he took back control of the country on 31 December 1981 as the chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Rawlings

They also fought for freedom and democracy. Without their heroic example the French Revolution would never have happened and the world would still be ruled by hereditary monarchies. Also, the military in the great nation they founded has consistently protected the democracies of today from falling into dictatorship (like Ukraine)

> They also fought for freedom and democracy.

They claimed to do so. Most revolutions have some kind of noble ideology that is proclaimed over what is actually a complex mixture of self-interest and enmities.

> Without their heroic example the French Revolution would never have happened and the world would still be ruled by hereditary monarchies

The French Revolution is widely regarded as a disaster of sorts: any noble aims were downed in the blood of innocent people during the Terror that immediately ensued. Moreover, even the French reversed its achievements multiple times over the 19th century.

That the world would still be ruled by hereditary monarchies is a stretch considering that even the state that the American Colonies rebelled against had reduced the power of the monarch in favour of Parliament many decades before.

Oof, bold claims (the world would not have liberal democracies without the American revolution) and bald-faced lies (muh USA military protecting democracy, Guatemala, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, etc, would all like to have a word with you).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com