King Washington the Wicked

Earlier this month, Ubisoft announced that the first DLC for Assassin’s Creed III will be a provocative alternate-history campaign called The Tyranny of King Washington. The press release includes art of George doing a Joffrey Baratheon impression, and promises to pit ACIII protagonist Conner against his former, presumably corrupted, compatriot. Executive Producer Sebastien Puel summed it up: “While Assassin’s Creed III concentrates on history as it happens, we wanted to take some liberties with this DLC and tell you how things, ‘could have happened.'”
That’s a strange left turn in a series where you fail missions for violating the historical timeline, but it’s also an intriguing idea that could help us think about the Revolution a new way.

You see, Washington wanted to be king. He was a royalist and a monarchist. He lusted for power and set himself up as an aristocrat–if you believe the newspapers, anyway. But you shouldn’t. Washington’s presidency saw the birth of America’s partisan press, a place that took as many liberties with the truth as Ubisoft’s DLC.

“In truth, there was never widespread fear that Washington would declare himself a king,” says Dr. Denver Brunsman. Dr. Brunsman is a history professor at George Washington University, where he teaches a class at Mount Vernon called “Washington and His World.” He points out that Washington was a widely trusted individual who had walked away from power twice: once when he voluntarily resigned his commission as General of the Continental Army and again when he refused to run for a third term of office. Rather than money and power, what motivated Washington was a desire for an honorable reputation and esteem from his countrymen, a goal better accomplished by showing he could walk away from executive power rather than by dominating it.

The “King Washington” image Ubisoft plays off of is part of a smear campaign, an invention of Washington’s political rivals and the product of America’s first foray into the partisan press. When newspapers accused Washington of harboring royal ambitions, it was an intentional distortion of his belief that America needed a strong federal government in order to survive. To use a modern parallel, Washington was a monarchist in the same way Obama is a socialist. “The political rhetoric was even more hyperbolic in Washington’s day,” adds Dr. Brunsman. “And in that time, the charge of being a “monarchist” or “royalist” carried the same negative connotations as “socialist” does today.”

Which isn’t to say people didn’t believe it might happen. In 1782 and 1783, immediately following the Battle of Yorktown, Washington kept the Continental Army together in case of a British return, leading some in Congress to voice that a standing army in peacetime was a major enemy to freedom. These concerns were understandable, first because every republican government in history had been crushed by a military dictator, and second because the Continental Army was growing increasingly disillusioned and frustrated with the Confederation Congress, who owed them years of back pay. The issue of pay and pensions grew poisonous. Rumors circulated that Alexander Hamilton, probably drunk, suggested marching on Philadelphia and disbursing Congress. A young officer wrote to Washington saying that Congress had proved unequal to the task of government and Washington should declare himself king — possibly under a title more palatable to the public. Washington told the officer to banish these thoughts, saying the idea was “big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my Country.” The pot finally boiled over on March 16th, 1783, during what history has come to call the Newburgh Conspiracy. On that date, five hundred Continental officers gathered in the New Building at Newburgh, New York to discuss staging, or threatening to stage, a coup in order to force Congress to address their grievances. Washington interrupted the meeting, and lectured the conspirators on the importance of civilians presiding over the military. But the real turning point came, Dr. Brunsman says, when Washington donned his spectacles to read a letter. The officers had never seen their general wear them before: “Washington fumbled for his glasses and remarked, ‘I have grown old in the service of my country, and now find that I am going blind.’ The sight of the great man appearing so vulnerable led the men to break into tears, and the threat of a coup dissipated.” Later, after the Treaty of Paris officially ended the war, Washington resigned and retired to Mount Vernon.

However, Washington’s retirement wouldn’t last long. In 1787 he found himself reluctantly dragged out of retirement to serve as part of the Constitutional Convention, followed by a unanimous election to the Presidency (remembering Newburgh, he wore a simple suit rather than a uniform to his inauguration, to head off rumors the election was a military coup). Largely, this was because the American experiment was threatening to fall prey to factionalism, and Washington was a unifying figure. Though we often imagine the Founders as a brotherhood, in reality they could be a supremely dysfunctional family. By 1792, two factions had formed: the Federalists, who believed that sovereignty should be shared between the states and a strong federal government, and the Democratic-Republicans, who saw the nation as a confederation of individual states with strong state governments and a weak federal government. The split tended to be geographic and economic as well as ideological. Federalists tended to be New Englanders, more urban, and involved in banking, manufacturing, and shipping. Democratic-Republicans largely hailed from the southern and western states, were farmers, plantation owners, and frequently slaveholders.

Washington fell strictly in line with the Federalist faction, an ideology shaped by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. The accomplishments of the first term were largely economic — the formation of a National Bank, development of manufacturing, a tax on whiskey to pay down debt, and assumption of state debts by the federal government — all measures that increasingly alarmed the Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The Republicans saw these Federalist plans as selling out the Revolution to moneyed interests, the “stockjobbers” and “monocrats” as Madison called them, who commanded inordinate influence in Hamilton’s marriage of money and government. Jefferson, for his part, worried about the waning influence of Virginia farmers and thought that the wave of investment and financial speculation had turned the country into “a gaming table.” According to Jefferson and Madison, the administration was shape-shifting into the same corrupt, British-style government they’d thrown off. The problem was that Madison was the head of the House of Representatives and Jefferson was the Secretary of State, meaning their deep links to the administration made it difficult to criticize policies. To remedy this, they took to the press.

Jefferson founded his own newspaper, the National Gazette, and hired an editor to churn out attacks against Federalist policies in return for a highly-paid do-nothing job at the State Department. The scheme had multiple layers of corruption, as Jefferson secretly bankrolled an opposition press to assault his own administration, while simultaneously paying the editor out of the government’s coffers. The National Gazette got to work immediately. In its first issue, it stated that though “the American Aristocrats have failed in their attempt to establish titles by distinction of law … the destructive principles of aristocracy are too prevalent among us.” (The line was probably in response to a suggestion by Vice President John Adams that the President be referred to as “His Majesty the President.”) In the same issue, the Gazette railed against Hamilton and his financial policies, stating that the “accumulation of that power which is conferred by wealth in the hands of a few is the perpetual source of oppression and neglect to the rest of mankind.” The paper would fold in 1793, and when Washington later discovered Jefferson’s duplicity, the two never spoke again.

The National Gazette wasn’t alone in its attacks; it was supplanted by the Aurora, written and printed by Benjamin Franklin Bache, the grandson of Benjamin Franklin. Early on, the papers chose to attack Washington’s cabinet and Vice President Adams, while generally holding back criticism of Washington himself. However, events half a world away would end this moratorium and put Washington on the firing line.

Just before Washington’s second inauguration, French revolutionaries guillotined Louis XVI, kicking off a major crisis for the administration. In response, Britain reignited its war with France, hoping to return the country to an absolute monarchy, and the Democratic-Republican faction — and a large section of the public — supported the U.S. joining the war on France’s side. Washington, knowing that the nation could ill-afford a war with Britain militarily or economically (Britain was America’s largest trading partner), declared the country neutral, angering the largely pro-French Democratic-Republicans. The attacks on Washington intensified, with opposition papers suggesting that the President favored monarchist England over republican France, excoriated his “royalist” tendencies, like hosting levees, where he granted audiences with common people, speaking only to a close-knit group of advisors rather than seeing the advice of Congress, and riding to his inauguration in an ornate carriage. The France question only got more difficult as small grassroots groups called “Democratic-Republican Societies” sprang up around the country, dedicated to opposing Hamiltonian finance and “Federalist monarchism” as well as supporting France. Their cries grew louder as the British began to poach American shipping.

Federalists like Washington, largely elites that didn’t take well to populist politics, worried that the Societies resembled the Sons of Liberty, and might grow into a wider revolutionary movement. Worse, that year saw an armed rebellion by distillers who refused to pay Hamilton’s sin tax on whiskey production, some gathering in town commons around mock guillotines to show solidarity with France. “The largest rebellions, which involved mostly the destruction of property, took place around Pittsburgh in the summer of 1794,” notes Dr. Brunsman. “In September, Washington ordered 12,000 federalized militiamen to quell the Rebellion, which they did. Washington briefly led the troops himself-the first and only time a sitting President has led troops in the field.” The federal militia put down the Whiskey Rebellion quickly with minimal violence, but it was the first time in Washington’s career that he met sustained public criticism, and the first time a President had turned troops on the American people.

The next year, 1795, marked the height of attacks on Washington’s supposed monarchism. A year before, Washington had dispatched Chief Justice John Jay to Britain in order to negotiate a treaty that would prevent a costly war. The Jay treaty accomplished that goal, as well as the removal of the last British garrisons from American soil, but otherwise it was a disappointment. While a long-term victory, it looked like Jay capitulated to British interests. The treaty had barely been discussed in Congress before someone leaked it to the Aurora and, to paraphrase a hundred pages of primary-source documents: People. Went. Apeshit. Riots broke out in New York and Boston. Protestors surrounded the Presidential mansion in Philadelphia chanting pro-French and anti-Washington slogans, some demanding war with Britain. So many mobs burned effigies of John Jay that the Chief Justice said he could walk across the country by their illumination. The press attacks on Washington were vicious — he was arrogant, dishonest, an “usurper with dark schemes of ambition,” and a “tyrannical monster.” One writer wished him a speedy death. Papers compared him unfavorably to absolutist monarchs, though even that wasn’t enough for some, who compared him to period visions of foreign despots. Washington presided over the country like the “grand lama,” a harem keeper, or Nebuchadnezzar. In the Aurora, Benjamin Franklin Bache suggested the treaty recognized merchants “as a privileged class,” and caused America to be “realigned with a despotic rather than a republican state.”

These attacks were, of course, unfounded. A year later, public support swung behind the Jay Treaty, and at the end of his second term, Washington’s retirement cleared his name of the hyperbolic accusations of monarchism. It was a move that once again reasserted his belief that the American Presidency should be an office of political service, rather than a power grab. “He was aware that his actions as President would establish important precedents for the republic,” says Dr. Brunsman, “What distinguished Washington from the Cromwells and Napoleons of history is that rather than become a dictator, he expressly rejected power — not once, but twice. Washington’s rejection of power ultimately did more than anything to secure the early American republic. Still, his elite governing style lends just enough credibility to make this videogame’s premise work as historical fantasy.”

So what can this tell us about Assassin’s Creed III? Well, first of all it’s likely that Washington is somehow corrupted by the Apple of Eden shown on his scepter in the press art. It’s also likely that the turning point comes either during the Newburgh Conspiracy of 1783, or during the Whiskey Rebellion. Assuming that’s the case, we can expect to see Conner allied with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, opposing Washington and a Federalist-turned-monarchist administration — a narrative that would play into the series’ theme of populist power rising against corrupt, centralized authority. Perhaps, if we’re lucky, Benjamin Franklin Bache might show up (Bache was later arrested by the Adams administration under the Alien and Sedition Acts, and died in prison). How Ubisoft will address slavery while allying Conner with the pro-slavery faction is an open question that will be interesting to see.

Grounded in proper history or not, I like The Tyranny of King Washington, even in my callous, overly-picky, history major’s heart. To many Americans, George Washington is a face carved out of marble, a man we’ve raised up so high we can no longer reach him. We often talk of him in terms of destiny and fate, when in reality he was just a man who made good choices, and perhaps the best way to understand that is to think about what might’ve happened if he made bad ones.

Robert Rath is a freelance writer, novelist, and researcher based in Austin, Texas. You can follow his exploits at RobWritesPulp.com or on Twitter at @RobWritesPulp. Have questions about this topic? Tweet them to: @Crit_Int

This column drew upon the following books: His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis; John Adams by David McCullough; The Ascent of George Washington by John Ferling.