Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past (Sexuality Studies) (7 page)

The controversy over how best to interpret such letters has been generally overlooked by popular writers, who typically accept such letters as historical artifacts or documents to be taken at face value and read with modern sensibilities in mind. Academic historians and literary scholars, however,
have long argued that eighteenth-century letters are anything but transparent and, as was the approach of the day, often inflect popular literature as
well as the style guides published in letter-writing manuals. Moreover, as
one scholar reminds us, "Letter reading, as opposed to writing, was until
quite recently an entirely social affair." Letter writers would typically indicate which passages were to be kept private, and, as letters between John and
Abigail Adams illustrate, writers would often hold back for fear of public
exposure of private sentiments.58 The later letter is referred to in nearly all
twentieth-century biographies of Washington.59

A 1926 biography, subtitled The Human Being and the Hero, mentions
not only his attraction to a "Lowland lady" and to Philipse but also his
involvement with Fairfax. Rupert Hughes includes a chapter entitled the
"Mystery of Sally Fairfax," in which he calls their lost love a "tragedy." He
derides Wilson's handling of the Fairfax attraction, charging that by not
mentioning her by name, he is able to "evade direct mention of the most
pathetic and baffling incident." Critical of those who deny the interpretation of the letter as proof of the engaged Washington's love for the married
woman, Hughes writes, "Sally Fairfax can not be ignored in Washington's
life-story. She ought not to be. She deserves the honor of having a profound
influence on the formation of his character. She stirred his heart more deeply
than any other woman ever did."" Others biographers follow suit. Despite
emphasizing "love at first sight" between George and Martha, another
account points out that "Martha was not George's first love, nor his third,
nor yet his fifth; nor was she ever, perhaps, his real love."61 Still another
1920s biography, after discussing the Lowland Beauty and Philipse, turns to
Fairfax, who is identified as "the grand passion of Washington's life." This
account views the letter written just a few months before Washington married Martha not as scandalous but rather as something that tells readers that
"he was human enough to love in such a way." Echoing popular ideas of the
day about masculine prowess, the author notes, "George Washington had
courage to face sentiment as he had courage to face his foes, and, in both love
and war, his unusual tactics made him victorious."62

These observations rang true at a time when Sigmund Freud's influence
was making its early and initial impact on American culture by highlighting the centrality of romantic and sexual desires to human existence and
personal development.63 Washington, Hughes writes, may well have been
"cold" and "silent" and "under almost perfect self-control." "But," he continues, "he could love. He did love." Critical of his nineteenth-century predecessors, specifically Sparks and Weems, Hughes writes that his biography is "a study of the man." And he laments that in previous generations, Washington's memorializers have so obscured his personal life that "he was a man of
whom it may almost be said that he had no private life."64

Striking a similar tone, Eugene Prussing published George Washington
in Love and Otherwise, explaining that his early-twentieth-century account
corrected an earlier generation's avoidance of Washington's intimate life"This is what Washington meant to be and was." Prussing includes a chapter
entitled "In Love" alongside his coverage of Washington the "Engineer" and
"Captain of Industry." Setting Washington's personal life on par with his
professional self, Prussing explains that "the most difficult test of character"
for men and women is "their conduct when in love." Like Hughes, Prussing
publishes the letters to Fairfax and reads them as evidence of a "startling
confession" of love for her. And he does so with the explanation that Washington had done "what nearly every man has done at some time"-that is,
he told "a woman he has no right to tell, that he loves her, whom he has no
right to love."65 Another account similarly emphasizes the normativity of
Washington's desires, commenting on the Fairfax letters that his "romantic
strain... will not be unfamiliar to many men who can honestly recall their
youth."66

Underscoring his view that one's conduct in love could reveal much
about the individual, something espoused by Weems but now laden with
new psychological meaning, Prussing writes about Washington's turning
away from Fairfax and deciding to marry Martha: "Such was Washington's
romance. He had firmly removed it from his path when it became dangerous." He continues, "In place of it he had put a wholesome plant, which he
carefully and faithfully tended .1117

Washington's mid-twentieth-century definitive biographer, Douglas
Southall Freeman, includes the full text of the Fairfax letter in his sevenvolume biography. He acknowledges that no original exists, that it came to
be known only after being published in the New York Herald in 1877, and
that some biographers discredit the letter because its existence has not been
verified. Weighing in on a debate about its authenticity, he notes that in style
and writing, he believes it to be authentic. Moreover, he argues in a footnote
as a matter of "interpretation not a statement of fact" that it should be concluded that "he was going to marry Martha but was in hopeless love with
Sally and wished above everything else to know whether she loved him."68

Some biographers read the letter to Fairfax in a different light. John
C.Fitzpatrick, author of a multivolume publication of Washington's writings, in his biography expresses discomfort with the interpretation that most
would come to accept. For Fitzpatrick, the letter is clearly an expression of love for Martha and for her alone. If it is not, Fitzpatrick remarks, Americans
would have to think of Washington as a "worthless scoundrel." The letters
written to Fairfax while Washington was encamped during the French and
Indian War, he explains, were prompted by a "bored state" and "to claim
more than this requires an imagination unresponsive to the niceties of honor
and good breeding." Fitzpatrick sees these desires as elements of normative
masculinity but believes that Washington's writings are best interpreted as
stemming from "the tendency of youth to exaggerate personal romance."69

Regardless of how his interpretation stands in contrast to the popular
notion of the story of a young Washington deeply in love with, and never
able to have, Fairfax, what is underscored by his discussion is the extent
to which biographers, academic or lay, have had to deal with the public's
knowledge of and interest in this story of one of Washington's early loves.

Twentieth-Century Happy Family

In addition to the importance they attach to the Fairfax story as evidence
that Washington was capable of deep love, twentieth-century biographies
also depict his household as a happy one. For much of the century, biographers downplay his childlessness and emphasize his paternal nature, which
was demonstrated by his fatherly emotions and material care that he gave to
the children that Martha brought from her previous marriage.

Although the 1926 title The Family Life of Washington might lead us to
expect a discussion of his childlessness, readers receive only two phrases that
assume knowledge of his childlessness-and are never offered any explanation or reason for it.70 Another biographer explains, "They kept hoping
for children" but offers no more than this claim on the topic.71 Similarly,
another notes that his "faithfulness and lifelong devotion to Martha Washington were not rewarded, as we think they deserved to be, by children, to
carry it on."72

The view of Washington as the ideal family man gained new currency
in the twentieth century, and many biographies emphasize that his was a
household that raised children. Thus, Charles Moore, for example, asserts
that Washington was "naturally affectionate to the point of indulgence, and
dearly loving children." And on his not having "offspring," he writes, "he
made up for this lack by fatherly care of his wife's children and grandchildren and his own nephews and nieces."73 On taking in the grandchildren,
one author writes, "He and Martha were a childless couple who loved children."74 Even books that focus on the domestic life of the Washingtons take
this approach. One notable exception is an early-twentieth-century account that insinuates that the childlessness was Martha's responsibility, stating that
his life might have been quite different if he had married Philipse: "There
might have been children if she had been Washington's wife," the author
postulates, "to gambol on the green slopes of Washington's childless home."75

In the nineteenth century, childlessness was relatively rare, happening
in less than 10 percent of married families. Through the twentieth century,
however, shifting contexts would contribute to the issue of Washington's
childlessness as being one that begged for more explanation-and perhaps
compensation. At the turn of the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt
famously talked about "race suicide," drawing attention to the alarming
drop in the birth rate for white, middle-class, native-born families. This
comment was explicitly linked to concerns about American manhood
becoming weakened and sexually degenerate." Historian Elaine Tyler May
discusses the "pressure to procreate" that white middle-class families felt in
the early decades of the twentieth century. Yet, for the most part, few earlytwentieth-century writers venture beyond the above statements, perhaps to
avoid raising questions about Washington's potency, which was becoming
an increasingly important element of American manhood."

By mid-century, however, infertility became more of an unavoidable
topic, occurring in some 20 percent of couples. Thus, it was perhaps more of
a cultural concern in the mid-twentieth century than at other times. This
factor would be one of many that would drive discussions of Washington's
infertility in the later twentieth century. A post World War II baby boom
and the "rise of compulsory parenthood" were linked to patriotism that continued in the early years of the Cold War. Post World War II fatherhood
"was an important responsibility and evidence of maturity, patriotism, and
citizenship." Childlessness was linked to subversiveness, to "pinkos" and
"homos," and anticommunism nurtured the notion that it was patriotic to
have a nuclear family. Washington's lack of children had to be addressed,
and for some, his fathering of stepchildren and extended kin would be one
way to fit the bill.78

The emphasis on happy families in the twentieth century also gave rise
to greater degrees of speculation about the marriage of George and Martha.
Despite the reservations of one biographer, who reminds people that "little
is known" about Washington's marriage or courtship and that "the stories
of this part of the lives of George Washington and Mrs. Martha Custis are
nothing but gratuitous, imaginary pictures," a romanticized view of the
marriage of Martha and George grew through the twentieth century.' An
early-twentieth-century account imagines a scene where George and Martha, "infatuated with love at first sight, talk the moon down and the sun up."80 Some biographers, such as Moore, argue that the letters written to
Fairfax indicate Washington's deep love for Martha and are not evidence of
love between him and Fairfax. If Fairfax "ever sacrificed either time or affection for his sake," contends Moore, "that fact has not appeared."81 A 1926
account repeats the characterization of George and Martha's bond as "love
at first sight."82

Freeman's mid-twentieth-century biography takes issue with the argument that Washington courted Martha too soon after her husband passed
and underscores that she selected him above all others. Washington, he
argues, began his courtship at the "earliest" nearly a year after she was widowed, and, as she was only twenty-six and very wealthy, she could have
married any number of eligible men.83 Many biographers acknowledge the
utility of the union but imagine that it was also privately satisfying. It was a
"prudent engagement," writes one, but there is no reason to assume a "marriage of convenience."84

In the middle decades of the twentieth century, George and Martha
could plausibly serve as fodder for books penned in the style of romantic
novels. Such accounts continue the appealing image of Washington and
imagine his marriage in idealized romantic terms. Martha Washington: Our
First Lady, published by author and photographer Alice Desmond in 1942,
depicts the couple as perfectly matched and in love. In a chapter entitled
"Love at First Sight," the meeting of Martha and George is wrapped in the
gauzy headiness of early romance novels. Desmond imagines Martha, then
still married, at the theater when she sees George for the first time. As she
scans the crowd, she notices "a man-a young giant of about twenty-four,
in the blue uniform of a Virginia soldier. He was an unusually noticeable
figure, more than six feet tall, broad-shouldered, yet of a slender and athletic build." Even the man whom she asks about his identity admires him,
commenting, "Isn't he a fine-looking man?" Martha suddenly recalls having
met him years before: "Who could forget that commanding presence? That
handsome head poised on broad shoulders? That face with the rather large
nose, ruddy cheeks, firm lips and chin?" The image of an attractive young
Washington gives way to the still-appealing older president: "His face was
so handsome," Desmond writes, "that many a lady's heart fluttered as she
curtsied to him. Always distinguished-looking, George Washington, nearing sixty, was even more striking in appearance than in his youth."85

When mid-century smiling nuclear families in their domestic bliss symbolized the American Dream, the romantic imagining of George and Martha's relationship would take center stage and endure for decades.86 In 1969,
best-selling romance novelist Mary Higgins Clark published Aspire to the Heavens.87 Washington is the idealized masculine hero of romance novels
in this account. Women flirt with him and find him charming. He dances,
banters, and is full of manly appeal. And the chemistry between Martha and
George is evident at their first meeting.