George Washington, our first president, is also the most unsullied. Here's why

In 1807, David Ramsay, a delegate to the Continental Congress, published a biography of his beloved fellow patriot, George Washington. The book lavished praise on Washington, then dead about eight years. The Pittsburgh Gazette, forerunner of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, considered the topic so important that it published an extended excerpt from Ramsay’s book, a large part of it on page one.

“The integrity of Washington was incorruptible,” Ramsay wrote, during a period when the nation’s political discourse reflected the very coarseness and factionalism the first president warned against in his 1796 farewell address. How bad had things become in the years since Washington’s exit from the national stage? Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton continued nursing a mutual hatred inflamed by disagreements over issues ranging from banking to foreign relations. Hamilton died in a duel with another political enemy, Aaron Burr, in 1804.

If Ramsay longed for the good old days, when Washington unified an infant nation, Americans weathering the vitriol of the current presidentialcampaign can emphasize. Will America ever again have a president revered like Washington, one regarded for integrity and humility that seem the opposite of the qualities today’s candidates embody?

Washington was “an extraordinary individual at a very remarkable time. Whether you thread that small needle again ... I’d say, unlikely,” said Curt Viebranz, president and CEO of Mount Vernon, Washington’s Virginia estate and now a tourist attraction.

Even Jefferson “tipped his hat” to Washington, despite the latter’s support for Hamiltion, said Richard Brookhiser, a senior editor at National Review and the author of “Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington.”

Washington commanded the Continental Army for eight years, served as president for another eight, then decided to give up power and return to Mount Vernon. It was an extraordinary example for his contemporaries, who were familiar with the excesses of figures such as Caesar and Cromwell, Mr. Brookhiser said.

Further, though he was a slave owner, Washington’s reputation has withstood the scrutiny of generations of historians. Whatever assignment the other founders gave him, Washington “did not let them down,” Mr. Brookhiser said.

Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, said Washington remains popular partly because he was “pre-partisan,” the consensus choice for the presidency before the political system fractured into Federalists and Republicans. And just for the record, Mr. Brookhiser believes the political climate in the post-Washington 1790s was uglier than it is today.

Today, the Post-Gazette republishes the excerpt of Ramsay’s book as it appeared in The Pittsburgh Gazette on Dec. 22, 1807.

THE NEXT PAGE A reproduction of The Pittsburgh Gazette with the excerpt from Ramsay's book. Page D-7