The Trump Administration Isn't Whitewashing George Washington's History—It's Restoring Historical Perspective
Democrats and their allies on the left are accusing the Trump administration of “whitewashing” American history (or downright censorship) because the federal government replaced the slavery exhibit at the President's House site in Philadelphia. That accusation is politically convenient, but it doesn't withstand scrutiny.
Nobody is claiming that George Washington did not own enslaved people. Nobody is claiming that slavery was not an evil institution. And nobody is erasing the fact that nine enslaved people lived and worked in Washington's Philadelphia residence during his presidency.
In fact, the new exhibit still discusses those enslaved people, the evils and contradictions of slavery, the abolitionist movement, the Constitution's treatment of slavery, the eventual abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania, Washington's views concerning slavery, and the civil-rights movement of the twentieth century. The Department of the Interior specifically says the new panels acknowledge “the evils of slavery” and tell the stories of the nine enslaved people who lived in the President's House.
So what exactly has been changed?
Some material was removed or repositioned. The previous exhibit contained a map of slave-trade routes, a slavery timeline, and particularly accusatory language such as “The Dirty Business of Slavery.” Critics argue that removing or reducing this material sanitizes the subject. But removing particular interpretive material is not the same thing as erasing history.
There is an important distinction here that Democrats seem unwilling to acknowledge: history can be told honestly without making America's sins the organizing principle of the American story.
George Washington was a slaveholder. That is a historical fact that should be taught plainly. But George Washington was also the commander of the Continental Army, the indispensable military leader of the American Revolution, the first president of the United States, and one of the central figures in the creation of the American constitutional republic.
Those facts don't cancel one another.
He also grew to hate the idea of slavery.
Washington's involvement with slavery should neither be concealed nor used as a reason to diminish everything else he accomplished. Americans are capable of holding two truths simultaneously: slavery was profoundly wrong, and George Washington was nevertheless a consequential and admirable figure in the founding of the United States.
That isn't whitewashing. That's historical complexity.
And there is another point liberals conveniently overlook: the replacement itself was not some unilateral presidential declaration that Washington was perfect. The administration's authority to replace the panels was challenged in court. In July, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit allowed the administration to proceed and described the planned replacement as being “full of historical context.”
Reasonable people can debate whether the new exhibit is better than the old one. They can debate whether certain information should have remained. They can even argue that the new panels place too much emphasis on Washington's achievements.
But calling the change a “whitewashing of history” implies that the administration is concealing slavery or pretending that Washington never owned slaves. That simply is not what happened.
What actually happened is that the federal government adopted a different philosophy of historical presentation—one that emphasizes both America's achievements and its failures rather than presenting the nation's past primarily through the lens of its sins.
That distinction matters.
America does not need a history that lies about slavery. But neither does it need a history that treats America's greatest achievements as morally suspect because the people who accomplished them were imperfect, flawed people.
Washington was imperfect.
Jefferson was imperfect.
Franklin was imperfect.
The founders were human beings living in an imperfect age. The miracle of the American experiment is not that morally flawless men created it. It is that imperfect men established principles—including natural rights, liberty, constitutional government and equality before the law—that eventually provided the framework by which Americans could challenge and ultimately abolish the institution of slavery.
Yes, we should tell the whole story.
Tell the truth about slavery.
Tell the truth about Washington.
Tell the truth about the founders.
Tell the truth about America's failures.
But tell the truth about America's achievements, too.
That isn't whitewashing.
That's history.
But the modern phenomena of "cancel culture" is flat out wrong!
For instance, should we cancel Martin Luther King Jr. because of his perverse sexual peccadillos? Apparently, he was a nasty guy. Does that behavior negate the good he did? Should we post panels up at his homeplace detailing his sexual deviancy? No? So in some cases you are FOR censorship, eh? Maybe it's not censorship, but civility. Can we at least agree that presenting Americans of the past as great, but flawed, people is better than just canceling them?
People are a product of their times. You are. I am. George Washington was. Slavery was legal. Terrible. But still legal. Those are the times he lived in. He never celebrated slavery.
We should be willing to acknowledge the moral failures of people we admire without pretending their accomplishments didn't happen.
Here is some historical context.
1. George Washington's clearest statement supporting abolition — 1786
Writing to Robert Morris on April 12, 1786, Washington said:
“There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it…”
He continued that abolition should be accomplished through legislative authority, adding that his vote would support such a measure.
That is probably the single strongest Washington quotation if you're making the case that he personally came to oppose slavery.
2. He wanted slavery gradually abolished — 1786
A few months later, Washington wrote that he intended not to purchase another enslaved person unless circumstances forced him to, because:
“it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery in this country may be abolished by slow, sure, & imperceptible degrees.”
That is particularly useful because it demonstrates that his position wasn't simply economic. He was contemplating the eventual abolition of slavery as a national policy.
3. He opposed treating human beings as commodities — 1794
Washington wrote:
“Were it not then, that I am principled against selling negroes, as you would do cattle in the market…”
Mount Vernon's historical documentation notes that Washington increasingly opposed buying and selling enslaved people during the 1780s and 1790s.
He was even more explicit in 1799:
“I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species.”
That latter statement is remarkably strong language for the period.
4. He called for gradual abolition in Virginia — 1797
Writing to his nephew Lawrence Lewis, Washington said:
“I wish from my Soul that the Legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual abolition of Slavery…”
Again, this was not merely an economic complaint. He was explicitly advocating legislative abolition.
5. His will provided for emancipation — 1799
Perhaps his most consequential action came in his final will. Washington directed:
“Upon the decease of my wife, it is my Will and desire that all the Slaves which I hold in my own right, shall receive their freedom.”
This ultimately freed the 123 enslaved people Washington personally owned. He couldn't legally emancipate the people belonging to the Custis estate, which was a separate legal ownership issue.
The important historical nuance:
Washington was a complicated man whose views on slavery evolved substantially over the course of his life, and the historical record contains both his participation in slavery and his increasingly strong desire to see it abolished.
