George Washington
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.
