FATHER FIGURE. IN MOTION: 5/8 Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy, by Nathaniel Philbrick.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 6 August 2023
⏱️ 12 minutes
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FATHER FIGURE. IN MOTION: 5/8 Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy, by Nathaniel Philbrick.
https://www.amazon.com/Travels-George-Search-Washington-Legacy/dp/0525562176/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
When George Washington became president in 1789, the United States of America was still a loose and quarrelsome confederation and a tentative political experiment. Washington undertook a tour of the ex-colonies to talk to ordinary citizens about his new government, and to imbue in them the idea of being one thing—Americans.
In the fall of 2018, Nathaniel Philbrick embarked on his own journey into what Washington called “the infant woody country” to see for himself what America had become in the 229 years since. Writing in a thoughtful first person about his own adventures with his wife, Melissa, and their dog, Dora, Philbrick follows Washington’s presidential excursions: from Mount Vernon to the new capital in New York; a monthlong tour of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island; a venture onto Long Island and eventually across Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The narrative moves smoothly between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries as we see the country through both Washington’s and Philbrick’s eyes
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchler. |
| 0:11.5 | Nathaniel Filbrick, not Filbrick. His new book is Travels with George in search of Washington |
| 0:17.0 | and his legacy. George Washington inaugurated President of the United States in the spring |
| 0:21.8 | of 1789. Takes a series of trips to meet his people. Also to say thank you. Also to |
| 0:29.9 | create the presidency. So far in 1789 he's traveled to New England as far north as the |
| 0:37.1 | Kittery Point now in Maine, then Massachusetts. He's also traveled to Long Island to visit |
| 0:44.7 | we think and to thank we think the spiring that was critical in his understanding of the |
| 0:50.9 | war, the revolution. He's also made it very clear that he wants to resolve the conflicts |
| 0:57.8 | that are developing in his cabinet between two personages. John Adams, the vice president |
| 1:03.4 | who will become president and Thomas Jefferson, the secretary of state who will become president |
| 1:08.8 | and others. Alexander Hamilton, Washington is a can't we all get a long guy. However, |
| 1:15.8 | knowing that it's not possible, these trips provide him what you'd have to say robustness |
| 1:21.9 | and we're about to take a trip by sale to Newport. Not why did Washington choose to go |
| 1:29.6 | to Newport at this point? Was it to get out of town? This is August of 1790. Get out |
| 1:36.7 | of town to get away from the conflicts. Something compelling him to travel to the state that |
| 1:43.4 | didn't vote for him. Right. Well, I think a lot of people today, if you know political |
| 1:48.0 | operatives would tell the president, the last place you want to go is a place like Rhode |
| 1:52.6 | Island, which was the last state to ratify the Constitution. You know, the biggest doubters |
| 1:58.0 | in the country were in Rhode Island. In fact, when Washington had gone on his New England |
| 2:03.2 | tour, he had made every effort not to venture in Rhode Island. He wanted to make a point there |
| 2:09.6 | and wanted to apply pressure. And then eventually Rhode Island enters the country and |
| 2:18.0 | ratifies the Constitution. Washington hears of it. And in August decides, spur the moment, |
... |
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