Patriotism and Profit by Susan Nagel

Author:Susan Nagel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2021-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

To seize a moment that he knew his troops would remember, Washington further conveyed that his political views were indivisible from the personal advice he wanted to impart to all of them. They would now be tested as individuals and would be assessed by history as the founders of a nation. He wished those who had served under his command “enlarged prospect of happiness” and success in the “persuits of Commerce and the cultivation of the Soil.” Prosperity, attained via the “virtues of economy [sic], prudence and industry,” should be seen by his men as not only a private ambition but also a key patriotic goal. Washington’s charge to his soldiers to reap private gain for the greater public good was a strong parallel to the philosophical “happy coincidence” and “invisible hand” symbioses proposed by economist Adam Smith.

Washington further dispatched his soldiers on a mission to “carry with them” their “strong attachments to the Union” when they returned to their “different parts of the Continent.” Though they had shed their uniforms, he instructed, the battle to shape the empire was just beginning. They had to teach their neighbors the lessons they had learned in the theater of war: that victory required a unified, overarching strategy and their new political structure required a strong federal government.

Though his men were returning to their homes and farms, General George Washington was still wandering in exile. From Poughkeepsie, New York, Washington wrote Philip Schuyler on November 15, 1783:

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that Sir Guy Carleton has announced to me his intention to relinquish the Posts which he holds on York Island [Manhattan] as far as McGowens pass inclusive on the 21st Instant and Herricks and Hamstead [Hempstead, Long Island] with all to the Eastward, on Long Island on the same day and if possible to give up the city with Brooklyn on the day following—and Paulus Hook—Denyces and Staten Island as soon after as practicable. From this disposition, I have great hopes, in case no accident should happen to retard them, that I shall have the pleasure to congratulate you on the full possession of the State by its Government before the last of this Month.

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