We peel back the stone veneer of the 'Father of our Country' to find a man who was terrified of his own power and haunted by his own contradictions.
ALEX: Okay, Jordan, I want you to close your eyes.
JORDAN: They’re closed.
ALEX: What do you see? When I say the words: George. Washington.
JORDAN: (Laughs) I mean, I see the dollar bill. I see the white wig. I see that... that sort of very stiff, very grim, stony face. He looks like he’s made of, I don’t know, granite?
ALEX: Exactly. A monument. An icon. He’s the guy who cannot tell a lie, the guy who stood in a boat, the guy who is basically... less of a person and more of a precursor to a mountain.
[SOUND: WIND WHIPPING, THE CLINK OF CHISELS ON STONE]
ALEX: But here’s the thing. If you actually go back. If you scrape away the marble... what you find is not a statue.
JORDAN: No?
ALEX: No. You find a man who was, quite literally, making it up as he went along. A man who was terrified—deeply, profoundly terrified—that if he stumbled, the entire experiment of America would just... shatter.
[SOUND: GLASS CRACKING, THEN SUDDEN SILENCE]
JORDAN: Wait, what?
ALEX: Today, we’re going back to the beginning. We’re looking for the heartbeat inside the monument.
JORDAN: This is Radiolab. I'm Jordan.
ALEX: And I'm Alex. Today: The Ghost in the Marble Machine.
[SOUND: RADIOLAB THEME MUSIC - STUTTERING BEATS, PLUCKY SYNTHS]
JORDAN: So, where do we start?
ALEX: We start in 1775. And things are... bad.
JORDAN: Bad how?
ALEX: Imagine you’re at a potluck, but instead of potato salad, everyone brought a musket. And nobody knows who’s in charge. The Continental Army isn't an army yet. It’s just a bunch of guys in mismatched coats who are really mad at the King.
JORDAN: (Laughs) Right, the "ragtag" group.
ALEX: Beyond ragtag. They’re disorganized. They’re broke. And then walks in George.
JORDAN: From Virginia.
ALEX: From Virginia. He’s tall. He’s athletic. He’s got this... this presence. And the Continental Congress looks at him and says, "You. You’re the guy. Lead us."
JORDAN: Did he want it?
ALEX: That’s the mystery! He basically says, "I don't think I'm capable of this." But then he does it anyway. He steps into this role of Commander-in-Chief. And for the next eight years, it’s just... chaos.
[SOUND: CANNON FIRE, DISTANT SCREAMING, THE SLOSHING OF WATER]
JORDAN: So he’s winning, right?
ALEX: No! He’s losing! Most of the time, he is literally running away. He loses New York. He’s retreating through the Jerseys. His men are deserting because their shoes are falling apart.
JORDAN: But we always hear about the crossing of the Delaware! The heroism!
ALEX: Okay, let’s talk about that. It’s Christmas night, 1776. It’s freezing. There’s ice in the river. Huge chunks of it. If you fall in, you’re dead in minutes.
[SOUND: ICE CRUNCHING, RUSHING RIVER]
ALEX: Washington is standing there, watching his men climb into these narrow boats. And he knows... if this fails, the Revolution is over. Not in a few years. Tonight.
JORDAN: So he's essentially gambling the entire country on a midnight boat ride.
ALEX: Exactly! He crosses. He wins at Trenton. He wins at Princeton. And suddenly, the narrative shifts. He's not just a general anymore. He’s becoming a myth.
JORDAN: But he’s still a human being.
ALEX: Right. And here is where Act Two begins. Because after the war... after he beats the biggest empire on Earth... he does the weirdest thing anyone in history had ever done at that point.
JORDAN: What’s that?
ALEX: He leaves.
[SOUND: A SINGLE DOOR CREAKING SHUT]
JORDAN: Wait, he just... goes home?
ALEX: He resigns his commission. He gives the power back to Congress. King George III supposedly heard about this and said, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world."
JORDAN: Because usually, when you win a war like that, you become the King.
ALEX: Precisely. You become Caesar. You become Napoleon. But Washington? He goes back to Mount Vernon to grow wheat.
JORDAN: (Whispering) But it doesn't last.
ALEX: It doesn't last. 1787. The country is falling apart again. The Articles of Confederation are a mess. They need a new plan. So they haul him back to Philadelphia to preside over the Constitutional Convention.
JORDAN: And let me guess... they decide they need a President.
ALEX: And there is only one person everyone trusts not to become a tyrant.
JORDAN: George.
ALEX: George. In 1788, he’s elected unanimously. Every single elector votes for him.
JORDAN: That... that never happens.
ALEX: Never. And now, he’s the first. Not the first *American* President, but the first *anything like this* in the world. There’s no map. There’s no manual.
JORDAN: He’s the beta tester for democracy.
ALEX: (Laughs) Yes! And he’s obsessed with the "Small Things." Like, what do we call him?
JORDAN: "Your Highness"? "Your Majesty"?
ALEX: People suggested "His Highness the President of the United States and Protector of Their Liberties."
JORDAN: That’s a mouthful.
ALEX: Washington hates it. He settles on: "Mr. President."
JORDAN: Just... Mister?
ALEX: Just Mister. It’s a revolution in a word. It says, "I am one of you."
JORDAN: But Alex, this is the part where it gets complicated, right? Because while he’s standing there being "Mr. President," talking about liberty and republicanism... he’s also going home to Mount Vernon.
ALEX: Right. To a plantation worked by hundreds of enslaved people.
JORDAN: This is the shadow, isn't it? The big, dark shadow over the whole thing.
ALEX: It’s the contradiction that defines him. He’s the "Father of the Nation," but he’s also a man who owns other human beings. And the researchers we talked to say he was... he was wrestling with it.
JORDAN: In what way?
ALEX: Towards the end of his life, he starts to see the writing on the wall. He sees that slavery is the thing that will eventually tear the country apart. He writes letterns saying he wishes for the abolition of it. But—and this is a huge 'but'—he doesn't free his slaves while he's alive.
JORDAN: He waits until his will.
ALEX: Only in his will. It’s like he could build a nation, but he couldn't figure out how to untangle his own life from this horrific system.
JORDAN: It’s an asterisk that’s the size of the monument itself.
ALEX: It is. And that leads us to Act Three. The final precedent.
[SOUND: SLOW, RHYTHMIC TICKING OF A CLOCK]
ALEX: 1796. He’s finishing his second term. People want him to run again. They want him to stay until he dies.
JORDAN: Like a King.
ALEX: Exactly. But Washington... he’s tired. His dentures—which, by the way, were not wood, they were made of ivory and, disturbingly, human teeth—they’re hurting him. He’s exhausted by the bickering between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.
JORDAN: The original political drama.
ALEX: He looks at the country and he sees two parties forming. Federalists. Democratic-Republicans. He hates it. He calls them "factions." He thinks they’ll ruin everything.
JORDAN: So what does he do?
ALEX: He writes a letter. The Farewell Address. And in it, he gives a warning that sounds like it was written yesterday. He says, "Watch out for regionalism. Watch out for hyper-partisanship. Watch out for foreign influence."
JORDAN: He’s basically giving us the cheat sheet for how to not break the country.
ALEX: And then? He walks away. Again. He leaves the office after two terms.
[SOUND: FOOTSTEPS RECEDING ON A WOODEN FLOOR]
JORDAN: And that becomes t...
