User:StatesManship GW

'States' Manship is the "user name" for American Historian, James Renwick Manship, Sr. of W.I.S.E.: Washington Institute for Statesmanship Education, Box 76, Mount Vernon, Virginia 22121-0076, phone 703-672-1776, and emails PresidentWashington@me.com, GeneralWashington@me.com, G.Washington@me.com, and/or StatesManship@me.com.

"America's Educator" Noah Webster, graduate of Yale College, who applied for the job of personal secretary for George Washington, and tutor to the grandchildren of Martha Washington, yet was not selected, losing out to the nephew of Lincoln, Tobias Lear of Harvard, years later "defined" George Washington in 1828, the same year that his famous Webster Dictionary was published, writing: "Literary power and statesmanship were combined in George Washington..."

George Washington never attended college, yet was described by Harvard History Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D. (1854 - 1943) as the best educated of the Founding Fathers, (better than Adams and Lincoln of Harvard, better than Madison of Princeton, better than Jefferson of William and Mary), whose education was free from a college curriculum or institutional biases of academia).

Much like self-taught, and self-made man George Washington, American Historian 'States' Manship combines unparalleled independent scholarship into "literary power" with three books on Washington, many essays, a poem, and three plays joined with passionate presentations to create "Performance Art" that 'paints' "three dimensional portraits of George Washington", an "art of history" that from grade school students to military retirees brings George Washington alive!

StatesManship concentrates on the overlooked, rarely taught, world changing, little known genius in "this Constitution for the United States of America", its first president - George Washington, its third president - Thomas Jefferson, and the other Founding Fathers.

History has been a passion for StatesManship since age 10 when he first knelt in prayer in the Washington box pew in Trinity Church, Newport, Rhode Island, and having purchased polish to shine the tarnished silver plaque in that pew, first brought shine to the memory of George Washington.

Also, at age 12, under the mentorship of Pulitzer Prize Editorial writer Ralph McGill of The Atlanta Constitution, young James Renwick Manship wrote a 168 page paper on the War Between The States. Now, StatesManship focuses mainly on our Nation's Founding Era, saying...

"The War Between The States, or misnamed "Civil War", divided America, and still does; while the War for Independence united America, and can again, if only We the People study, and return to the principles of our Founding Fathers."

Since 1997, Manship has been the "Second to None" George Washington Living Historian, having compiled a book in 2010 titled "Second to None: America's Washington". His easy to read "picture" book "Second to None: America's Washington", that tells of the world wide impact of "The World's Apostle of Liberty" per Thomas Paine, author of "Common Sense", is described as a "Prose Poem, Praise Poem with Pictures" and is sold in America, in Europe, in India, and Australia.

Long before StatesManship first portrayed George Washington in 1997, since 1974 when Navy scholarship student "Midshipman Manship" completed his degree in Economics, History, and Honors English at Auburn, where his Freshman Essay "Corners of Contradiction" was selected to be published in the University Press of America college textbook, "Writing Prose That Makes A Difference", the same year, Mount Vernon first signed a lucrative contract with American Historic Theater of Philadelphia to provide a "George Washington", first William Sommerfield, and now, since 2004 or so, Dean Malissa. Due to that influential Mount Vernon Estate connection, those men are the most widely recognized men to portray George Washington, even more than the several men hired by Colonial Williamsburg.

Yet likely more than any other George Washington re-enactor, StatesManship, a former award winning Navy Cryptology Commanding Officer in 1985, combines Scholarship with Drama to make George Washington come alive!

Governor Gilmore appointed 'States' Manship to serve on the Board of Visitors to Mount Vernon in 1998 (to 2001) after researching the relationship between Mother and Son from the facts of History, between Mary Ball Washington and George Washington miscast by many so-called "historians" as a domineering mother, or even a shrew, and debunking that scurrilous fiction masquerading as History. A future book on that beautiful mother - son relationship, and the life of Mary Ball Washington is on the "drawing boards".

In 1999, StatesManship performed a Dinner Theater style one man dramatic play over 100 times to over 5000 high school students on tour to the Capital City of Washington. One reviewer said, "It is like drinking History from a fire-hose!". Another said, "We felt the presence of Washington in the room!"

StatesManship planned & produced the all day long George Washington "Man of the Millennium" Book Festival televised by C-SPAN Television in 2000 (available online even today -- worth watching!).

In five months StatesManship traveled four times from Sea to Shining Sea, over 30,000 miles to the 48 Continental state capitols, the 33 Washington counties, many of the 121 Washington cities, towns, and villages, and other Washington sites all across America, thereby learning an encyclopedic knowledge of the impact of George Washington All Across America.

For Christmas 2003, in conjunction with their Christmas play, Regent University Theater invited StatesManship to perform a portion of his play "A Revolutionary Christmas" that tells of America's first Statue of Liberty, commissioned by General George Washington to honor a 14 year old Black soldier boy, Jocko Graves, who gave his life for Liberty during the world changing, victorious Raid on Trenton at Christmas, 1776.

As a keynote speaker for the Navy Chaplains Convention in 2004, StatesManship began a three year history research effort into the TRUE "First Navy Flag", the Liberty Tree Flag with the motto "Appeal to Heaven" that first flew in September 1775 on the first seven ships commissioned for the Continental Navy, by the Commander in Chief of ALL forces, Army and Navy, General George Washington, so also known as the "Washington Cruisers Flag". In 2010, StatesManship applied to the Library of Congress for a copyright on the historical research to reproduce the design of the Washington Navy "Liberty Tree Flag", and was so granted a copyright by the Library of Congress in October 2012.

The Virginia House of Delegates have five times given standing ovations to 'States' Manship as George Washington LIVE on 22 February, George Washington's Birthday.

StatesManship was the George Washington at the State Dinner in the Historic Senate Chamber in the Maryland State Capitol on 22 December 2008 hosted by Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley to honor the 225th Anniversary of the "Birth of the Republic Day" - the day General Washington resigned his Commission to the Congress assembled in Annapolis on 23 December 1783, where when learning of this act of humility and submission to the elected servants of our government, King George III said of Washington that he was the greatest man of his age, or any age.

StatesManship has been in many parades all across America from Washington, DC, Alexandria, Charlottesville, Buena Vista, and Suffolk, Virginia to Nampa, Idaho to Manchester, New Hampshire, and climbed Mount Washington, overlooking Berlin, New Hampshire, as well as Mount Washington, overlooking Los Angeles, California.

StatesManship established from the Biography of Washington by his adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis, "Recollections and Private Memoirs of George Washington", that George Washington was a "shade over six feet", from the notes of Dr. James Craik at the death bed of Washington to be six feet (...another doctor the next day in his notes wrote six feet three and a half inches, that obviously was a casket measurement, not a body measurement, for how could George Washington grow three and a half inches overnight, after he died?...), and from a letter George Washington wrote to his tailor in London in 1763, when he was 31 years old, that George Washington wrote he was six feet, that together combine to definitively debunk the far too frequent myth of far too many "Washington Historians" who fail to check original source materials, so say or write that George Washington was anywhere from six feet two to six feet four in height.

StatesManship was featured in an article in The Washington Times in December 1999. Later John McCaslin of the Washington Times described StatesManship as a "Master of American History."

The New York Times on 6 November 2010 that discussed the Liberty Tree "Appeal to Heaven" Flag, and the study guide to this Constitution that New York Times reporter described as a "Concordance to the Preamble".

StatesManship has been seen in Time, LIFE, Newsweek, New York Times, The Washington Times, The Times of India, The Economist of London, and many newspapers all across America, as well as at National Press Club Press Conferences and other events around Washington on C-SPAN TV.

StatesManship was the opening speaker on Independence Day 2014 in the DAR - Constitution Hall gathering called "CELEBRATE AMERICA!".

A 30 year history teacher wrote in a recommendation for the McGraw Hill Prize in Education, "What David McCullough and others are doing between the covers of books, Mr. Manship is doing in person, the substantive information combined with the pageantry of costume is an extraordinary entry into the life and times of an era…”

Passion and energy, scholarship based on research into facts of History on Washington and this Constitution, military command excellence and civic leadership experience, as well as "God given" (Jeremiah 1:5) facial appearance many folks say looks like Washington, along with the proper height of "a shade over six feet", combine to create a memorable experience for folks in the audience, such that History, his story, and George Washington come alive.