Yesterday Senator Ted Cruz observed that Bushrod Washington's confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1798 was not controversial. My over/under for Bushrod Washington references in these confirmation hearings was zero, but Senator Cruz's statement led to this essay in the Washington Post describing Justice Washington's ownership of enslaved people, his role in the American Colonization Society, and his dismal response to the public criticism that he received for selling people from Mount Vernon in 1821. My main quibble with the essay is that Washington was not a "terrible steward" of Mount Vernon. The problem was that Mount Vernon was an unprofitable farm that many Americans visited and trashed as if it were a park.
I have no idea why Senator Cruz invoked Bushrod Washington (unless he moonlights for Oxford University Press), but I hope that my new book presents a complete picture of Washington, including his record on slavery. I must admit that after writing a book on John Bingham, who fought all his life against slavery and for racial equality, I was hesitant to write a biography of an enslaver. But Justice Washington's public and private actions on slavery are quite revealing about the larger themes surrounding that issue in the early nineteenth century and, to some extent, today.