If you ask one hundred Americans, who is the best American citizen of ALL time? I've never done that, but my guess is the overwhelming answer would be George Washington. There is an almost worshipful quality that we take towards him, perhaps with some justification, as we have painted his deification onto the ceiling of our Capitol Dome.
We have a corporate memory of him that fits both our need for the hero and our understanding of who we are as a people - perhaps flawed by strong. Here's the question though, do we honestly believe that everybody who lived back then just loved and adored General Washington? Was there not... say... one, perhaps two people who found him odious or even overbearing? James Madison is known to have disliked the Generals "coarse language" at times, but really, is there nothing worse thought of him, at all?
The obvious answer is that of course there were those who not only disliked Washington, but worse, didn't trust him. So why have we ignored them and their versions of our history?
It's eerily similar to O'Brien holding up four fingers and asking Winston smith, "How many fingers do you see?" The answer is five...

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