Ian Carpentier
September 26, 2015
APUSH
On March 30, 1796, George Washington, sent a brief letter to the Gentlemen of the House of Representatives in which they had asked Mr. Washington to be a part of the House of Representatives. He responded to them with an intelligent letter that states he would do everything in his power to "...preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution." He often refers back to the word secrecy. Saying that most of success comes from secrecy. If secrecy was not performed by any president, prime minister, or any kind of leader things would lead to "...immediate inconveniences, perhaps danger and mischief..." Secrecy and caution were factors that led to making treaties and confining bodies and branches of strong government.
Another factor or idea that George Washington proposed was to be an independent country to not join powers with any foreign country or outside forces. As this letter was received, from Go. Washington, the House of Representatives was trying to arrange a treaty with Great Britain. However, when they read Washington's letter they rethought their decisions and looked towards him to be their new commander and chief.
George Washington had said that the constitution was'...the result of a spirit of amity and mutual concession. By this he means that everyone in the House of Representatives had to always be on the same page and be in some sort of agreement on all decision making factors that would affect the rest of the nation. He then led on to believing that large state governments were a better choice. For being a small state government were "...deemed to depend on others." Whereas large states could help one another out in a significant mutual relationship type of way. He wanted to make sure that all men in the House of Representatives would not sign any treaty without it being ratified by the law and being reviewed by all men and making the decision together as a whole.
As Washington is finishing up his letter he says "... a just regard to the constitution, and to the duty of my office, under all the circumstances of this case, forbid a compliance with your request." As you can see he denies the request of the House of Representatives for being part of their committee, and continue being " General " George Washington. Well, at least for the moment.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/washingtons-response-to-a-congressional-request-for-documents-30-march-1796/
Ok- Good things first- You did an amazing job in the content and context of this letter. You used a wide array of evidence from the actual text which is extremely important and always appreciated when analyzing a source. And of course, authorship and audience are also represented well here. But what are the limitations? What is missing?
ReplyDeleteAnd the biggest part of all :) is that it isn't from the time period I asked you to analyze. Your time period was from 1754-1774, and I gave you a wide range of topics. If I were asking about the foundations of nation's origins- this would be stellar.
All in all good try- but try to stick with the assignment
Also -- I love the font and the layout of the blog- for your next one- try to incorporate some visuals.
Ok- Good things first- You did an amazing job in the content and context of this letter. You used a wide array of evidence from the actual text which is extremely important and always appreciated when analyzing a source. And of course, authorship and audience are also represented well here. But what are the limitations? What is missing?
ReplyDeleteAnd the biggest part of all :) is that it isn't from the time period I asked you to analyze. Your time period was from 1754-1774, and I gave you a wide range of topics. If I were asking about the foundations of nation's origins- this would be stellar.
All in all good try- but try to stick with the assignment
Also -- I love the font and the layout of the blog- for your next one- try to incorporate some visuals.