Did you know U.S. President Harry Truman spent eleven years, as a young man, feeding cattle, gathering milk, and working in his family kitchen? He was a farmer who decided not to be a banker. And he isn't the only one.
At least 15 U.S. presidents were ranchers or dirt farmers, including father and son John Adams and John Quincy Adams. The 15 also include four who were in office during my lifetime; although, we cannot say Ronald Reagan was among those four. Reagan's ranch was a retreat, instead of a farm.
But Lyndon "LBJ" Johnson, who finished as president in 1969, kept in close contact with his farming business while in office. And he invited at least one foreign leader to visit.
More humbly, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, were quiet about their farm work — and Jefferson kept ranching, and Roosevelt kept farming, hands on, after the White House.
Of special note, Lincoln was so understanding of the importance of farming, that he gave our nation the Land Grants that established universities as centers for agricultural research and rural outreach and support.
Maybe two or three other of the 15 were more business managers than they ever were hands-on farmers. That includes men like James Monroe, whose Charlottesville, Virginia enterprise was built on slave labor.
A Higher Calling
But George Washington's is a more elusive story. Maybe we can't entirely be sure of Washington's role as a farmer. But we know he wasn't a perfect man. We know he had a mistress. We don't know his heart of repentance. Yet, we know he had some measure of Christian faith.
His faith was not full with spiritual sight. Washington apparently didn't understand the Christian church is the "seed of Abraham," spiritually.
Instead, he believed — with childlike faith — that those still in the Hebrew tradition were Abraham's "stock" or seed. And he felt they were blessed as such.
Yet, as a subtext, I get the feeling Washington may have seen some American slaves as destined for inheritance in Christ. And I get the feeling he saw himself as a tutor or parental figure — a shepherd — in the lives of some of those who lived at the Mount Vernon plantation he was faithful to steward or to own.
According to brief information at mountvernon.org, Washington was sympathetic toward slaves and wanted freedom for them. In the story of one Mt. Vernon slave, a seamstress, there was only one whipping in 14 years, and that was with a twig from a hickory tree.
Mt. Vernon slaves tended to be social and visited family and friends at other plantations. They worked hard and apparently were not punished for frequent, small thefts in course of working.
Many also apparently attended church services at local sites away from the plantation.
Washington and wife, Martha, again seemed sympathetic. Washington had inherited the plantation and the slave tradition while he was a young child. Martha had inherited slaves, by law, as part of her late husband's estate. Both seemed to want freedom for the slaves, but, by will — or law — only Washington's slaves (not those from Martha's late husband's estate) were able to be freed upon Washington's death.
And, while he still lived on this side of life, Washington seemed to recognize the law would be hard on slaves were they to escape his watch. His interest in reclaiming one escaped slave, may have been to ensure the boy would not be mistreated. When Washington posted a newspaper article asking for the boy's safe return, he was obligated, under law, to say the boy was his "property."
I think it's possible the very few adult slaves who did "escape" Mt. Vernon, may have been allowed to leave, on purpose. Otherwise, Washington seemed to have Christian hope for those who had refuge there.
I suspect Washington unwittingly had the same hope for slaves at Mt. Vernon as he had for those souls he thought were the "stock" of Abraham, as an article at mountvernon.org may imply. This article may imply that Washington secretly wanted slaves to have their own plots of land, based on the Bible prophecy that says, "but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid."
Washington, in his heart of hearts, known only to God, may have wanted emancipated slaves to enjoy the same fruits as those he thought were Abraham's "stock."
Washinton's Mt. Vernon and its legacy was the exception in early American life — not the rule. In fact, in the brutal South, the law didn't allow slaves to read and write. But George Washington, upon being appointed to lead the Continental Army during the American Revolution, was kind toward Massachusetts slave Phillis Wheatley, who dedicated a poem to his appointment.
It's hard to imagine anyone from Mt. Vernon was denied the human right to read and learn, but I imagine fear of the law kept the Washingtons quiet about any learning among those of whom maybe they considered themselves guardians.
After all, the New Testament holds that the law is only temporary in the believer's life, but then comes awareness, independence, and freedom, including freedom to apply one's knowledge.
Escaping Today's Madness
I don't know about anyone else, but I, for one, am weary of today's reverse racism. I'm tired of the devil's accusations toward every person or group who isn't on a "progressive" platform.
I'm weary of accusations that every thing of American legacy is evil, when in fact it's the accuser who often is on the side of evil!
Recently, in our city in Louisiana, a Civil War commemorative monument was removed from the courthouse lawn. And that was well and good. But, now, there are gripes that a gracious, old oak tree at the courthouse is at least symbolic of a past lynching. Some even accuse the tree of being the actual tool of an old, publicized lynching.
But those accusers are souls tormented by the troubled, long-ago past. Those are souls who haven't known the truth, light, and wisdom of Christ Jesus. Those are souls too tormented by evil thoughts, to recognize Jews, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists alike were a past council for good in cities like ours, and that faith could get things done, quietly (including the removal of a wronged tree).
Just think: There has been as much good in our history, as there has been evil.
After all, without light and faith in Jesus, nothing would have prospered for us as a nation, today's darkness would have eclipsed our faith long ago — and the devil's schemes to destroy our faith memories, to hollow and decay our souls, to corrupt Christian marriages, to change our children, to end devout living among unmarried people, to subject us to hell as a way of life, and to end freewill doings in favor of socialism, all would have taken much of the church long ago.
The Bible does warn against a time when the church deliberately would be worn down, when sanctification would be worn out; and it appears in many ways, that we may be at that day.
"But thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:57)
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