21 Great Leaders: Learn Their Lessons, Improve Your Influence (20 page)
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Authors: Pat Williams
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Here we must acknowledge a flaw in our portrait of George Washington. As a Virginia plantation owner, he was also a slave owner. He became a slave owner at the age of eleven, when he inherited ten slaves from the estate of his late father. Though he was born into a world where human slavery was “normal,” though he purchased slaves to improve the productivity of his landholdings, his views on slavery began to evolve.
By 1786, three years before he was elected president, it was clear that the idea of slavery had begun to trouble him deeply. On April 12, 1786, he wrote to his friend Robert Morris, the merchant who helped finance the Revolution:
There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery]; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by Legislative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting.
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And on September 9, 1786, he wrote to his friend and fellow Virginian John Francis Mercer:
I never mean to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by slow, sure, and imperceptible degrees.
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You might ask, “Doesn’t slave ownership disqualify Washington as a person of character?” Historian Stephen Ambrose points out that, of the nine US presidents who owned slaves, only George Washington set his free. Ambrose goes on to say:
History abounds with ironies. These men, the Founding Fathers and Brothers, established a system of government that, after much struggle, and the terrible violence of the Civil War, and the civil rights movement led by black Americans, did lead to legal freedom for all Americans and movement toward equality….
Of all the contradictions in America’s history, none surpasses its toleration first of slavery and then of segregation….
Slavery and discrimination darken our hearts and cloud our minds in the most extraordinary ways, including a blanket judgment today against Americans who were slave owners in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. That the masters should be judged as lacking in the scope of their minds and hearts is fair, indeed must be insisted upon, but that doesn’t mean we should judge the whole of them only by this part.
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So, even though George Washington is not without his troubling flaws, Stephen E. Ambrose insists that we must assess this man as a whole human being, in terms of his character: “Washington’s character was rock solid. He was constant. At the center of events for twenty-four years, he never lied, fudged, or cheated. He shared his army’s privations…. They respected him, even loved him. Washington came to stand for the new nation and its republican virtues, which was why he became our first President by unanimous choice…. He established the thought, ‘We can do it,’ as an integral part of the American spirit.”
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It’s easy to look back from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, with the hard, bloody battles of the Civil War and the civil rights movement already won, and say, “If I had lived in that era, I never would have owned slaves. I would have fought against slavery and discrimination and hate in all its forms.” And perhaps you would have. It’s impossible to know how your views would have been shaped by the mood of the times.
But it’s heartening to realize that, by 1786, George Washington was afflicted in his conscience over the injustice of slavery. Had he lived longer, perhaps the gnawing in his conscience would have propelled him to take up the cause of abolition. But we’ll never know.
EADER IN
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INTER
When we consider the greatness of George Washington, it’s tempting to view him as more of a myth than a man. But those who knew him testify that he was a genuine human being, with real human imperfections, but also with a deep core of character. One man who knew him well, Thomas Jefferson, wrote:
I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly; and were I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these…. His integrity was most pure…. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man…. On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance.
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Historian Peter R. Henriques of George Mason University observes that throughout his life, George Washington devoted considerable thought to his own death. “It was not only very important to George Washington to live his life with honor,” Henriques writes. “It was also very important to him that he end his life with honor…. Washington always confronted the prospect of his own death with remarkable equanimity and composure.”
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Washington had faced death many times in his life, especially during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. Many times he had heard the whistle of bullets passing near his head, and he had often seen men die in war. Though Washington was not eager for death, he didn’t fear it.
In September 1799, Washington learned that his brother Charles had died. In a letter to Charles’s son-in-law, Washington contemplated his own eventual death: “When the summons comes I shall endeavour to obey it with a good grace.”
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When he wrote those words, Washington had no way of knowing how soon that summons would come.
On December 12, 1799, Washington rode on horseback around Mount Vernon, inspecting his plantation for several hours in freezing rain. He ate supper that evening without changing to dry clothes. The next morning, he awoke with a sore throat. Medical experts believe he had contracted acute epiglottitis due to a bacterial infection. Henriques writes:
The truly frightening aspect of acute epiglottitis is the obstruction of the larynx that makes both breathing and swallowing extremely difficult. The first thing an infant masters is to breathe and the second is to swallow. To have these two absolutely basic functions dramatically impaired is very frightening to anyone, no matter how brave and courageous he or she might be. Like any mortal, Washington had to face the terror of air hunger, of smothering and gasping for each breath…. Essentially, Washington slowly and painfully suffocated to death over many hours.
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The medical treatment Washington received, while the best available for that time, only added to his sufferings. He was bled by leeches four times, losing five pints of blood. He suffered from medicines that induced diarrhea, vomiting, and blistering on his skin. His would have been a difficult enough death without these miserable medicines. At one point in his sufferings, Washington said, “I die hard.”
Yet, as Peter R. Henriques concludes, the way he went through the process of dying “reveals a great deal about the man and his character.” In his final hours, Washington showed compassion to everyone around him. He reassured the nervous doctor who bled him, “Don’t be afraid.” And when Tobias Lear strained to move Washington to make him comfortable, the dying man apologized for burdening him. Not once did he complain about his suffering. His last words, recorded by Tobias Lear in his journal, were, “’Tis well.”
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EADERSHIP
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ESSONS FROM THE
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ATHER OF
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The example of Washington teaches us that character determines our leadership destiny. Our character determines how we will live, how we will lead, and how we will die. Here are some character principles that emerge from the life of George Washington:
1.
It’s not too late—start building character now
. Good character is the accumulated deposit of good moral choices. Every choice you make moves you a step closer to good character—or a step away. Commit yourself to making good choices, day by day and hour by hour, because every choice counts.
2.
Lead by example
. Be conscious of the example you display to others. Leadership is influence. How are you influencing the people you lead? Take pride in your personal excellence, your moral excellence, and in the example you set for others.
3.
Remain humble
. When the Congress chose Washington to lead the Continental Army, he said, “I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” Was that false humility on Washington’s part? I don’t think so. I believe his humility was sincere. An arrogant and overconfident leader is a danger to himself and his followers. Washington never let his authority go to his head. The greater his fame, the greater his humility.
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Take time to reflect
. Washington often pondered his own character and his own mortality. He often wondered how he would face his own death. As painful and difficult as his death proved to be, he faced it with courage and character. When his time came, he was ready.
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Obey your conscience in all things
. Washington said that he wished slavery would be abolished by a legislative authority. He said he would never purchase another slave. That’s good—but he didn’t go far enough.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, Washington had a vast deposit of moral and political capital to spend. People were ready to follow wherever he led. What if, at the height of his popularity, he had said, “I’m going to free all my slaves, and I encourage my countrymen to do the same. Our Declaration of Independence says we believe all men are created equal. Well, do we? We have liberated ourselves from the tyranny of England. Shouldn’t we liberate our African-American brothers from the tyranny of slavery?”
I wish Washington had made such a statement. Many slave owners would have rebelled, but many might have joined him. Washington might have been acclaimed not only as the Father of Our Country, but as the Great Emancipator as well.
If your conscience whispers to you, listen carefully—then act. That’s your character speaking.
Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected
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G
EORGE
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ASHINGTON
B
ILLY
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RAHAM
Moral Firewalls
The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith
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B
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RAHAM
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hen I was an undergrad at Wake Forest University, I hosted an interview show on the campus radio station. In 1962 (my senior year), Billy Graham came to speak. I booked him for an interview, little realizing it would be one of my best-ever sports interviews. I learned that Billy Graham had been a baseball and basketball player in high school and had dreamed of making it to the big leagues as a first baseman.
He told me about the time the great Babe Ruth came to Charlotte, North Carolina, for a personal appearance. It was about 1928, the height of Ruth’s career. Billy’s dad arranged for the ten-year-old to meet the baseball legend and shake his hand. Billy told Babe Ruth about his goal of playing in the major leagues, and the Bambino replied, “Well, son, you’re sure built like a first baseman! Good luck!” For years after that encounter, those words kept Billy fired up to pursue his baseball dreams.
We talked about some of the athletes he knew, especially the ones who were outspoken Christians and had shared their faith at his evangelistic crusades. He was very knowledgeable about a lot of different sports.
During his visit to Wake Forest, Graham also spent time talking to our basketball coach, Bones McKinney. Wake Forest was in the Final Four that week, and in the first game, our team was pitted against Ohio State, headlined by Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek. Graham was on hand as our players boarded the bus for the trip to the airport. Bones turned to him and said, “Billy, I hope you’ll be praying for us.”
Graham replied, “I will, Bones—but you’d better play good defense on Lucas and Havlicek!”
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My next personal encounter with Billy Graham came almost a decade later, in June 1971. By then, I was general manager of the Chicago Bulls—and I had been a Christian for about five years. Dr. Graham was bringing his evangelistic crusade to Chicago’s McCormick Center, and he invited me to share my faith before an audience of more than forty thousand people.
Billy Graham is an imposing and charismatic man, tall and angular with striking features, piercing blue eyes, and an unmistakable personal magnetism. Whenever he enters a room, conversations go silent and all eyes turn in his direction. At the same time, Billy Graham is the humblest and most self-effacing man I have ever met.
