On April 30, 1789, George
Washington, standing on the
balcony of Federal Hall on Wall
Street in New York, took his
oath of office as the first
President of the United States.
"As the first of every thing, in
our situation will serve to
establish a Precedent," he wrote
James Madison, "it is devoutly
wished on my part, that these
precedents may be fixed on true
principles." Born in 1732 into a
Virginia planter family, he
learned the morals, manners, and
body of knowledge requisite for
an 18th century Virginia
gentleman.
He pursued
two intertwined interests:
military arts and western
expansion. At 16 he helped
survey Shenandoah lands for
Thomas, Lord Fairfax.
Commissioned a lieutenant
colonel in 1754, he fought the
first skirmishes of what grew
into the French and Indian War.
The next year, as an aide to
Gen. Edward Braddock, he escaped
injury although four bullets
ripped his coat and two horses
were shot from under him.
From 1759 to
the outbreak of the American
Revolution, Washington managed
his lands around Mount Vernon
and served in the Virginia House
of Burgesses. Married to a
widow, Martha Dandridge Custis,
he devoted himself to a busy and
happy life. But like his fellow
planters, Washington felt
himself exploited by British
merchants and hampered by
British regulations. As the
quarrel with the mother country
grew acute, he moderately but
firmly voiced his resistance to
the restrictions.
When the
Second Continental Congress
assembled in Philadelphia in May
1775, Washington, one of the
Virginia delegates, was elected
Commander in Chief of the
Continental Army. On July 3,
1775, at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, he took command
of his ill-trained troops and
embarked upon a war that was to
last six grueling years.
He realized
early that the best strategy was
to harass the British. He
reported to Congress, "we should
on all Occasions avoid a general
Action, or put anything to the
Risque, unless compelled by a
necessity, into which we ought
never to be drawn." Ensuing
battles saw him fall back
slowly, then strike
unexpectedly. Finally in 1781
with the aid of French
allies--he forced the surrender
of Cornwallis at Yorktown.
Washington
longed to retire to his fields
at Mount Vernon. But he soon
realized that the Nation
under its Articles of
Confederation was not
functioning well, so he became a
prime mover in the steps leading
to the Constitutional Convention
at Philadelphia in 1787. When
the new Constitution was
ratified, the Electoral College
unanimously elected Washington
President
He did not
infringe upon the policy making
powers that he felt the
Constitution gave Congress. But
the determination of foreign
policy became preponderantly a
Presidential concern. When the
French Revolution led to a major
war between France and England,
Washington refused to accept
entirely the recommendations of
either his Secretary of State
Thomas Jefferson, who was
pro-French, or his Secretary of
the Treasury Alexander Hamilton,
who was pro-British. Rather, he
insisted upon a neutral course
until the United States could
grow stronger.
To his
disappointment, two parties were
developing by the end of his
first term. Wearied of politics,
feeling old, he retired at the
end of his second. In his
Farewell Address, he urged his
countrymen to forswear excessive
party spirit and geographical
distinctions. In foreign
affairs, he warned against
long-term alliances.
Washington
enjoyed less than three years of
retirement at Mount Vernon, for
he died of a throat infection
December 14, 1799. For months
the Nation mourned him.
Early Life
and Career.
Born in W
estmoreland
County, Va., on Feb. 22, 1732,
George Washington was the eldest
son of Augustine Washington and
his second wife, Mary Ball
Washington, who were prosperous
Virginia gentry of English
descent. George spent his early
years on the family estate on
Pope's Creek along the Potomac
River. His early education
included the study of such
subjects as mathematics,
surveying, the classics, and
"rules of civility." His father
died in 1743, and soon
thereafter George went to live
with his half brother Lawrence
at Mount Vernon, Lawrence's
plantation on the Potomac.
Lawrence, who became something
of a substitute father for his
brother, had married into the
Fairfax family, prominent and
influential Virginians who
helped launch George's career.
An early ambition to go to sea
had been effectively discouraged
by George's mother; instead, he
turned to surveying, securing
(1748) an appointment to survey
Lord Fairfax's lands in the
Shenandoah Valley. He helped lay
out the Virginia town of
Belhaven (now Alexandria) in
1749 and was appointed surveyor
for Culpeper County. George
accompanied his brother to
Barbados in an effort to cure
Lawrence of tuberculosis, but
Lawrence died in 1752, soon
after the brothers returned.
George ultimately inherited the
Mount Vernon estate.
By 1753 the
growing rivalry between the
British and French over control
of the Ohio Valley, soon to
erupt into the French and Indian
War (1754-63), created new
opportunities for the ambitious
young Washington. He first
gained public notice when, as
adjutant of one of Virginia's
four military districts, he was
dispatched (October 1753) by
Gov. Robert Dinwiddie on a
fruitless mission to warn the
French commander at Fort Le
Boeuf against further
encroachment on territory
claimed by Britain. Washington's
diary account of the dangers and
difficulties of his journey,
published at Williamsburg on his
return, may have helped win him
his ensuing promotion to
lieutenant colonel. Although
only 22 years of age and lacking
experience, he learned quickly,
meeting the problems of
recruitment, supply, and
desertions with a combination of
brashness and native ability
that earned him the respect of
his superiors.
French and
Indian War.
In April
1754, on his way to establish a
post at the Forks of the Ohio
(the current site of
Pittsburgh), Washington learned
that the French had already
erected a fort there. Warned
that the French were advancing,
he quickly threw up
fortifications at Great Meadows,
Pa., aptly naming the
entrenchment Fort Necessity, and
marched to intercept advancing
French troops. In the resulting
skirmish the French commander
the sieur de Jumonville was
killed and most of his men were
captured. Washington pulled his
small force back into Fort
Necessity where he was
overwhelmed (July 3) by the
French in an all-day battle
fought in a drenching rain.
Surrounded by enemy troops, with
his food supply almost exhausted
and his dampened ammunition
useless, Washington capitulated.
Under the terms of the surrender
signed that day, he was
permitted to march his troops
back to Williamsburg.
Discouraged
by his defeat and angered by
discrimination between British
and colonial officers in rank
and pay, he resigned his
commission near the end of 1754.
The next year, however, he
volunteered to join British
general Edward Braddock's
expedition against the French.
When Braddock was ambushed by
the French and their Indian
allies on the Monongahela River,
Washington, although seriously
ill, tried to rally the Virginia
troops. Whatever public
criticism attended the debacle,
Washington's own military
reputation was enhanced, and in
1755, at the age of 23, he was
promoted to colonel and
appointed commander in chief of
the Virginia militia, with
responsibility for defending the
frontier. In 1758 he took an
active part in Gen. John
Forbes's successful campaign
against Fort Duquesne. From his
correspondence during these
years, Washington can be seen
evolving from a brash, vain, and
opinionated young officer,
impatient with restraints and
given to writing admonitory
letters to his superiors, to a
mature soldier with a grasp of
administration and a firm
understanding of how to deal
effectively with civil
authority.
Virginia
Politician.
Assured that
the Virginia frontier was safe
from French attack, Washington
left the army in 1758 and
returned to Mount Vernon,
directing his attention toward
restoring his neglected estate.
He erected new buildings,
refurnished the house, and
experimented with new crops.
With the support of an
ever-growing circle of
influential friends, he entered
politics, serving (1759-74) in
Virginia's House of Burgesses.
In January 1759 he married
Martha Dandridge Custis, a
wealthy and attractive young
widow with two small children.
It was to be a happy and
satisfying marriage. After 1769,
Washington became a leader in
Virginia's opposition to Great
Britain's colonial policies. At
first he hoped for
reconciliation with Britain,
although some British policies
had touched him personally.
Discrimination against colonial
military officers had rankled
deeply, and British land
policies and restrictions on
western expansion after 1763 had
seriously hindered his plans for
western land speculation. In
addition, he shared the usual
planter's dilemma in being
continually in debt to his
London agents. As a delegate
(1774-75) to the First and
Second Continental Congress,
Washington did not participate
actively in the deliberations,
but his presence was undoubtedly
a stabilizing influence. In June
1775 he was Congress's unanimous
choice as commander in chief of
the Continental forces.
American
Revolution.
Washington
took command of the troops
surrounding British-occupied
Boston on July 3, devoting the
next few months to training the
undisciplined 14,000-man army
and trying to secure urgently
needed powder and other
supplies. Early in March 1776,
using cannon brought down from
Ticonderoga by Henry Knox,
Washington occupied Dorchester
Heights, effectively commanding
the city and forcing the British
to evacuate on March 17. He then
moved to defend New York City
against the combined land and
sea forces of Sir William Howe.
In New York he committed a
military blunder by occupying an
untenable position in Brooklyn,
although he saved his army by
skillfully retreating from
Manhattan into Westchester
County and through New Jersey
into Pennsylvania. In the last
months of 1776, desperately
short of men and supplies,
Washington almost despaired. He
had lost New York City to the
British; enlistment was almost
up for a number of the troops,
and others were deserting in
droves; civilian morale was
falling rapidly; and Congress,
faced with the possibility of a
British attack on Philadelphia,
had withdrawn from the city.
Colonial
morale was briefly revived by
the capture of Trenton, N.J., a
brilliantly conceived attack in
which Washington crossed the
Delaware River on Christmas
night 1776 and surprised the
predominantly Hessian garrison.
Advancing to Princeton, N.J., he
routed the British there on Jan.
3, 1777, but in September and
October 1777 he suffered serious
reverses in Pennsylvania--at
Brandywine and Germantown. The
major success of that year--the
defeat (October 1777) of the
British at Saratoga, N.Y.--had
belonged not to Washington but
to Benedict Arnold and Horatio
Gates. The contrast between
Washington's record and Gates's
brilliant victory was one factor
that led to the so-called Conway
Cabal--an intrigue by some
members of Congress and army
officers to replace Washington
with a more successful
commander, probably Gates.
Washington acted quickly, and
the plan eventually collapsed
due to lack of public support as
well as to Washington's overall
superiority to his rivals. After
holding his bedraggled and
dispirited army together during
the difficult winter at Valley
Forge, Washington learned that
France had recognized American
independence. With the aid of
the Prussian Baron von Steuben
and the French marquis de
LaFayette, he concentrated on
turning the army into a viable
fighting force, and by spring he
was ready to take the field
again. In June 1778 he attacked
the British near Monmouth
Courthouse, N.J., on their
withdrawal from Philadelphia to
New York. Although American
general Charles Lee's lack of
enterprise ruined Washington's
plan to strike a major blow at
Sir Henry Clinton's army at
Monmouth, the commander in
chief's quick action on the
field prevented an American
defeat.
In 1780 the
main theater of the war shifted
to the south. Although the
campaigns in Virginia and the
Carolinas were conducted by
other generals, including
Nathanael Greene and Daniel
Morgan, Washington was still
responsible for the overall
direction of the war. After the
arrival of the French army in
1780 he concentrated on
coordinating allied efforts and
in 1781 launched, in cooperation
with the comte de Rochambeau and
the comte d'Estaing, the
brilliantly planned and executed
Yorktown Campaign against
Charles Cornwallis, securing
(Oct. 19, 1781) the American
victory.
Washington
had grown enormously in stature
during the war. A man of
unquestioned integrity, he began
by accepting the advice of more
experienced officers such as
Gates and Charles Lee, but he
quickly learned to trust his own
judgment. He sometimes railed at
Congress for its failure to
supply troops and for the
bungling fiscal measures that
frustrated his efforts to secure
adequate materiel. Gradually,
however, he developed what was
perhaps his greatest strength in
a society suspicious of the
military--his ability to deal
effectively with civil
authority. Whatever his private
opinions, his relations with
Congress and with the state
governments were
exemplary--despite the fact that
his wartime powers sometimes
amounted to dictatorial
authority. On the battlefield
Washington relied on a policy of
trial and error, eventually
becoming a master of
improvisation. Often accused of
being overly cautious, he could
be bold when success seemed
possible. He learned to use the
short-term militia skillfully
and to combine green troops with
veterans to produce an efficient
fighting force.
After the war
Washington returned to Mount
Vernon, which had declined in
his absence. Although he became
president of the Society of the
Cincinnati, an organization of
former Revolutionary War
officers, he avoided involvement
in Virginia politics. Preferring
to concentrate on restoring
Mount Vernon, he added a
greenhouse, a mill, an icehouse,
and new land to the estate. He
experimented with crop rotation,
bred hunting dogs and horses,
investigated the development of
Potomac River navigation,
undertook various commercial
ventures, and traveled (1784)
west to examine his land
holdings near the Ohio River.
His diary notes a steady stream
of visitors, native and foreign;
Mount Vernon, like its owner,
had already become a national
institution.
In May 1787,
Washington headed the Virginia
delegation to the Constitutional
Convension in Philadelphia and
was unanimously elected
presiding officer. His presence
lent prestige to the
proceedings, and although he
made few direct contributions,
he generally supported the
advocates of a strong central
government. After the new
Constitution was submitted to
the states for ratification and
became legally operative, he was
unanimously elected president
(1789).
The
Presidency
Taking office
(Apr. 30, 1789) in New York
City, Washington acted carefully
and deliberately, aware of the
need to build an executive
structure that could accommodate
future presidents. Hoping to
prevent sectionalism from
dividing the new nation, he
toured the New England states
(1789) and the South (1791). An
able administrator, he
nevertheless failed to heal the
widening breach between factions
led by Secretary of State Thomas
Jefferson and Secretary of the
Treasury Alexander Hamilton.
Because he supported many of
Hamilton's controversial fiscal
policies--the assumption of
state debts, the Bank of the
United States, and the excise
tax--Washington became the
target of attacks by
Jeffersonian
Democratic-Republicans.
Washington
was reelected president in 1792,
and the following year the most
divisive crisis arising out of
the personal and political
conflicts within his cabinet
occurred--over the issue of
American neutrality during the
war between England and France.
Washington, whose policy of
neutrality angered the
pro-French Jeffersonians, was
horrified by the excesses of the
French Revolution and enraged by
the tactics of Edmond Genet, the
French minister in the United
States, which amounted to
foreign interference in American
politics. Further, with an eye
toward developing closer
commercial ties with the
British, the president agreed
with the Hamiltonians on the
need for peace with Great
Britain. His acceptance of the
1794 Jay's Treaty, which settled
outstanding differences between
the United States and Britain
but which Democratic-Republicans
viewed as an abject surrender to
British demands, revived
vituperation against the
president, as did his vigorous
upholding of the excise law
during the WHISKEY REBELLION in
western Pennsylvania.
Retirement
and Assessment
By March
1797, when Washington left
office, the country's financial
system was well established; the
Indian threat east of the
Mississippi had been largely
eliminated; and Jay's Treaty and
Pinckney's Treaty (1795) with
Spain had enlarged U.S.
territory and removed serious
diplomatic difficulties. In
spite of the animosities and
conflicting opinions between
Democratic-Republicans and
members of the Hamiltonian
Federalist party, the two groups
were at least united in
acceptance of the new federal
government. Washington refused
to run for a third term and,
after a masterly Farewell
Address in which he warned the
United States against permanent
alliances abroad, he went home
to Mount Vernon. He was
succeeded by his vice-president,
Federalist John Adams.
Although
Washington reluctantly accepted
command of the army in 1798 when
war with France seemed imminent,
he did not assume an active
role. He preferred to spend his
last years in happy retirement
at Mount Vernon. In
mid-December, Washington
contracted what was probably
quinsy or acute laryngitis; he
declined rapidly and died at his
estate on Dec. 14, 1799.
Even during
his lifetime, Washington loomed
large in the national
imagination. His role as a
symbol of American virtue was
enhanced after his death by
Mason L. Weems, in an edition of
whose Life and Memorable Actions
of George Washington (c.1800)
first appeared such legends as
the story about the cherry tree.
Later biographers of note
included Washington Irving (5
vols., 1855-59) and Woodrow
Wilson (1896). Washington's own
works have been published in
various editions, including The
Diaries of George Washington,
edited by Donald Jackson and
Dorothy Twohig (6 vols.,
1976-79), and The Writings of
George Washington, 1745-1799,
edited by John C. Fitzpatrick
(39 vols., 1931-44).
