Who Should the Military Serve? Washington Had an Answer
Published 17 days agoΒ β’Β 10 min read
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Hello, Reader!
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of generals to Quantico, Virginia, and told them to embrace his vision for the military's future or resign.
History shows us that this moment echoes a question George Washington answered in 1783: Should the military serve politics βor the Constitution?
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πΌοΈ The Big Picture
What's Happening: On September 30, 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth convened hundreds of U.S. generals and admirals from around the world at Quantico, Virginia, with one week's notice. [1]
At the meeting, Hegseth renamed the Pentagon the "War Department" and outlined his priorities:
End diversity programs
Raise combat fitness standards to "male level" standards
Restore what he called a "warrior ethos"
Hegseth told the assembled officers: "If the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign."
President Trump addressed the gathering, telling these U.S. military leaders not to focus on NATO allies facing Russian threats, but on American cities: "We're going to straighten that out one by one," Trump said, referring to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. "I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard." Trump characterized this as addressing "a war from within."[2]
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β οΈ Why It Matters: Senior military commanders meet regularly, but gathering nearly 800 generals, admirals, and their senior enlisted leaders from duty stations worldwide on one week's notice is highly unusual. The meeting concentrated the United States' top military leadership in one location to receive the administration's direction on military priorities and culture. [3]
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π What History Reveals: In March 1783, George Washington faced a similar moment. Continental Army officers, unpaid for months, threatened to take action against Congress. Washington's response established principles about civilian-military relations that have shaped American democracy.
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π Historical Deep Dive
Washington's Great Refusal
On March 15, 1783, George Washington addressed his officers at Newburgh, New York, confronting what historians describe as one of the most serious threats to civilian authority in early American history.
The Continental Army had not been paid in months. Anonymous letters circulated urging officers to either abandon the country if peace came, or refuse to disband and force Congress to meet their demands. Some even suggested making Washington king.
Washington addressed these proposals directly:
"If Peace takes place, never sheath your Sword says he untill [sic] you have obtained full and ample Justice--this dreadful alternative, of either deserting our Country in the extremest hour of her distress, or turning our Army against it, (which is the apparent object, unless Congress can be compelled into an instant compliance) has something so shocking in it, that humanity revolts at the idea. My God! What can this Writer have in view, by recommending such measures? Can he be a friend to the Army? Can he be a friend to this Country? Rather, is he not an insidious Foe?
---George Washington, March 15, 1783
When Washington struggled to read a letter from Congress, he reached for his new spectacles, a moment of vulnerability his officers rarely saw. He said, "Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind."
Washington's officers voted to reject the proposals and work through constitutional channels. George Washington chose civilian government over military force and showed his officers the value of this choice. [4]
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Charles Willson Peale, George Washington, 1776.
"When We Assumed the Soldier, We Did Not Lay Aside the Citizen"
Washington's restraint in using the military to supplant civilian authority wasn't isolated. In June 1775, after accepting command of the newly formed Continental Army, Washington wrote, "When we assumed the [role of] Soldier, we did not (lay aside the) Citizen." This principle that military officers remain part of the democracy they serve has been foundational to American civil-military relations for the past 250 years. [5]
On December 23, 1783, nine months after Newburgh, Washington made his most dramatic statement about civilian control. With the War for Independence won, he appeared before the Confederation Congress in Annapolis, Maryland, and resigned his military commission.
In delivering his resignation, Washington's voice faltered as he told Congress: "Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life."
Washington handed his commission to Congress President Thomas Mifflin and departed for Mount Vernon, arriving on Christmas Eve.
In an era when military leaders like Oliver Cromwell used their armies to seize political power, Washington's voluntary surrender established a different precedent. [6]
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Alonzo Chappel, Washington's Farewell to his Officers, 1865
The Founders' Design for Civilian-Military Relations
George Washington's actions reflected broader founding-era thinking about military power and civilian authority.
The framers had studied the English Civil War, where King Charles I used his army against his own people.
British soldiers stationed in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia during the 1760s-1770s created civilian-military tensions.
These experiences shaped the framers' approach to how the Constitution defines military authority:
Congress, not the president, holds the power to declare war and raise armies. Article 1, Section 8β
The military cannot quarter soldiers in private homes during peacetime, nor can they be quartered in private homes during war unless Congress passes a law to that effect. 3rd Amendmentβ
In Federalist No. 8, Alexander Hamilton addressed concerns that a large union would endanger liberty. He argued that larger unions were better than smaller unions because in smaller unions, neighboring states would experience perpetual tension, which would cause them to drift toward establishing standing armies, fortifying frontiers, and electing executives who were too powerful. In essence, small unions would elevate military authority over civilian authority. β The U.S. Constitution prevented this state of affairs by dividing military authority between the executive and legislative branches, both of which were answerable to voters. [7]
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Frederick Kemmelmeyer, The Whiskey Rebellion, 1795.
Washington's Reluctant Use of Force: The Whiskey Rebellion, 1794
The Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 tested George Washington's principles about military restraint.
The rebellion occurred when western Pennsylvania farmers violently resisted a federal excise tax on whiskey. Reminiscent of the American Revolution's early tax riots, whiskey rebels attacked U.S. tax collectors and burned the home of regional tax supervisor John Neville.
Washington's response demonstrated and set a precedent for how a principled leader uses military force domestically. Before Washington sent in the military, he sent federal commissioners to negotiate with the rebel leaders and offer amnesty to those who agreed to submit to federal law.
Only after these efforts failed, and Supreme Court Justice James Wilson certified that local authorities could not maintain order, did Washington act under the Militia Act of 1792. Even then, he expressed his "deepest regret" at the necessity of federalizing state militias to restore order.
Washington personally led a militia force of nearly 13,000 men toward western Pennsylvania--the only time a sitting president has led troops in the field. Washington's presence ensured restraint. By the time he and his forces arrived, the rebellion had dissolved with minimal bloodshed. [8]
The contrast with between Washington's actions and current proposals is stark. Washington used military force:
In response to a specific violent crisis, not as a routine policy
After exhausting peaceful alternatives
Following constitutional procedures requiring judicial clarification
With personal oversight to ensure restraint
For law enforcement, not as a "training ground"
Washington also later pardoned the rebels. He demonstrated federal authority while showing that military force against civilians was a last resort, not a first option.
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Washington's Farewell Warning
In his 1796 Farewell Address, Washington warned against the dangers of partisan division.
He wrote that political parties:
are likely, in the course of times and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterward the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1794
Washington worried partisan conflict could lead to a "more formal and permanent despotism" where "the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."
Washington advocated keeping the military separate from partisan politics--viewing it as a nonpartisan institution serving the Constitution and all Americans.
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π¬ Final Thought
George Washington repeatedly chose republican principles and civilian authority over personal power. He made this choice at Newburgh in 1783, before the Confederation Congress at Annapolis nine months later, and again when he left the presidency in 1797.
As military leaders today navigate their relationship with civilian political authority, Washington's example from 242 years ago should continue to inspire and inform debates about civil-military relations: What principles should guide the military's role in American democracy? And how can the military, in turn, help protect our democracy?
History tells us who we are. Each generation must answer these founding questions anew.
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π§ Go Deeper
Explore the fascinating history of George Washington's military command with these episodes of Ben Franklin's World:
George Washington's Revolutionβ βEpisode 026β Discover what drove Washington to become a revolutionary, and how his leadership shaped the Continental Army and the American Revolution.
Whirlwind: The American Revolutionβ βEpisode 046β Explore the causes of the American Revolution and the greatest challenges Washington and his Continental Army faced during the War for Independence.
Valley Forgeβ βEpisode 348β Examine the Continental Army's winter at Valley Forge and how Washington's leadership sustained his troops through this challenging period.
Presidential Elections & the Electoral Collegeβ βEpisode 287β Find out how the Constitutional Convention created the system for electing the President and how political parties complicated early presidential elections.
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π¬ What Do You Think?
Washington repeatedly chose republican principles over personal powerβat Newburgh, at Annapolis, during the Whiskey Rebellion, and when he left the presidency. As we face questions about the military's role today, what principles from his example do you think matter most?
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