Two features stand out in this story. First, it could never have happened without the guiding presence of a singular figure whose transcendent stature was so acknowledged that the awkward contradiction the new republic was living became, instead, a lovely paradox. And second, despite the remarkable beauty of it all, standing squarely in the middle of this seductively attractive scene was an ugly fact: namely that the entire Native American population living in the eastern third of North America was the glaring exception to everything Washington’s iconic presence had made possible.
