George Washington (1732-1799), first PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. When Washington retired from public life in 1797, his homeland was vastly different from what it had been when he entered public service in 1749. To each of the principal changes he had made an outstanding contribution. Largely because of his leadership the Thirteen Colonies had become the United States, a sovereign, independent nation.
As commander in chief during the American Revolution, he built a large army, held it together, kept it in a maneuverable condition, and prevented it from being destroyed by a crushing defeat. By keeping the army close to the main force of the British, he prevented them from sending raiding parties into the interior. The British did not risk such forays because of their belief that their remaining forces might be overwhelmed. The British evacuation of Boston in 1776, under Washington's siege, gave security to nearly all New England.
Drawing from his knowledge of the American people and of the way they lived and fought, Washington took advantage of British methods of fighting that were not suited to a semiprimitive environment. He alternated between daring surprise attacks and the patient performance of routine duties. Washington's operations on land alone could not have overcome the British, for their superior navy enabled them to move troops almost at will. A timely use of the French fleet contributed to his crowning victory at Yorktown in 1781.
After the war Washington took a leading part in the making of the CONSTITUTION and the campaign for its ratification. Its success was assured by 1797, at the end of the second term of his presidency. In 1799 the country included nearly all its present-day territory between the Atlantic coast and the Mississippi River.
President Washington acted with CONGRESS to establish the first great executive departments and to lay the foundations of the modern federal judiciary. He directed the creation of a diplomatic service. Three presidential and five congressional elections carried the new government, under the Constitution, through its initial trials.
A national army and navy came into being, and Washington acted with vigor to provide land titles, security, and trade outlets for pioneers of the trans-Allegheny West. His policy procured adequate revenue for the national government and supplied the country with a sound currency, a well-supported public credit, and an efficient network of national banks. Manufacturing and shipping received aid for continuing growth.
In the conduct of public affairs, Washington originated many practices that have survived. He withheld confidential diplomatic documents from the House of Representatives, and made treaties without discussing them in the Senate chamber. Above all, he conferred on the presidency a prestige so great that political leaders afterward esteemed it the highest distinction to occupy the chair he had honored.
Most of the work that engaged Washington had to be achieved through people. He found that success depended on their cooperation and that they would do best if they had faith in causes and leaders. To gain and hold their approval were among his foremost objectives. He thought of people, in the main, as right-minded and dependable, and he believed that a leader should make the best of their good qualities.
As a Virginian, Washington belonged to, attended, and served as warden of the established (Anglican) church. But he did not participate in communion, nor did he adhere to a sectarian creed. He frequently expressed a faith in Divine Providence and a belief that religion is needed to sustain morality in society. As a national leader he upheld the right of every sect to freedom of worship and equality before the law, condemning all forms of bigotry, intolerance, discrimination, and persecution.
Throughout his public life, Washington contended with obstacles and difficulties. His courage and resolution steadied him in danger, and defeat steeled his will. His devotion to his country and his faith in its cause sustained him. Averse to harsh measures, he was enerous in victory. "His integrity," wrote Thomas JEFFERSON, "was the most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known. He was, indeed, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good, and a great man."
Early Career
George Washington was born in Westmoreland county, Va., on a farm, later known as Wakefield, on Feb. 11, 1731, Old Style (Feb. 22, 1732, New Style). His first American ancestor, John Washington, came to Virginia from England in 1657. This immigrant's descendants remained in the colony and gained a respected place in society. Farming, land buying, trading, milling, and the iron industry were means by which the family rose in the world. George's father, Augustine, had four children by his first wife and six by his second wife, Mary Ball, George's mother. From 1727 to 1735, Augustine lived at Wakefield, on the Potomac River between Popes Creek and Bridges Creek, about 50 miles (80 km) nland and close to the frontier.
Of George's early life little is known. His formal education was slight. He soon revealed a skill in mathematics and surveying so marked as to suggest a gift for practical affairs akin to youthful genius in the arts. Men, plantation life, and the haunts of river, field, and forest were his principal teachers. From 1735 to 1738, Augustine lived at "Little Hunting Creek" (later Mount Vernon). In 1738 he moved to Ferry Farm opposite Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock River. Augustine died when George was 11, leaving several farms. Lawrence, George's half brother, inherited Mount Vernon, where he built the central part of the now famous mansion. Another half brother, Augustine, received Wakefield. Ferry Farm went to George's mother, and it would pass to George after her death.
These farms bounded the world George knew as a boy. He lived and visited at each. Ambitious to gain wealth and eminence, mainly by acquiring land, he was obliged to depend chiefly on his own efforts. His mother once thought of a career for him in the British Navy but was evidently deterred by a report from her brother in England that an obscure colonial youth could not expect more at Britain's hands than a job as a common sailor. George's youthful model was Lawrence, a cultivated gentleman, whom he accompanied on a trip to Barbados, West Indies, in 1751. Here George was stricken with smallpox, which left lasting marks on his face.
When but 15, George was competent as a field surveyor. In 1748 he went as an assistant on a surveying party sent to the Shenandoah Valley by Thomas, 6th Baron Fairfax, a neighbor of Lawrence and owner of vast tracts of land in northern Virginia. A year later George secured a commission as surveyor of Culpeper county. In 1752 he became the manager of a sizable estate when he inherited Mount Vernon on the death of Lawrence.
George's early experiences had taught him the ways of living in the wilderness, had deepened his appreciation of the natural beauty of Virginia, had fostered his interest in the Great West, and had afforded portunities for acquiring land. The days of his youth had revealed a striving nature. Strength and vigor heightened his enjoyment of activities out of doors. Quick to profit by mistakes, he was otherwise deliberate in thought. Not a fluent talker, he aspired to gain practical knowledge, to acquire agreeable manners, and to excel in his undertakings.
Life at Mount Vernon
Resigning his commission late in 1758, he retired to Mount Vernon. On Jan. 6, 1759, he married Martha Dandridge, widow of Daniel Parke Custis, whose estate included 15,000 acres (6,000 hectares) and 150 slaves. Washington became devoted to Martha's two children by her first marriage, John Parke Custis and Martha Custis.
As a planter, Washington concentrated at first on tobacco raising, keeping exact accounts of costs and profits. He soon learned that it did not pay. British laws required that his exports should be sent to Britain, sold for him by British merchants, and carried in British ships. Also, he had to buy in Britain such foreign finished goods as he needed. On various occasions he complained that his tobacco was damaged on shipboard or sold in England at unduly low prices. He thought that he was often overcharged for freight and insurance, and he objected that British goods sent to him were overpriced, poor in quality, injured in transit, or not the right type or size. Unable to control buying and selling in England, he decided to free himself from bondage to British traders. Hence he reduced his production of tobacco and had his slaves make goods of the type he had imported, especially cloth. He developed a fishery on the Potomac, increased his production of wheat, and operated a mill. He sent fish, wheat, and flour to the West Indies where he obtained foreign products or money with which to buy them.
From the start he was a progressive farmer who promoted reforms to eliminate soil-exhausting practices that prevailed in his day. He strove to improve the quality of his livestock, and to increase the yield of his fields, experimenting with crop rotation, new implements, and fertilizers. His frequent absences on public business hindered his experiments, for they often required his personal direction.
He also dealt in Western lands. Virginia's greatest estates, he wrote, were made "by taking up ... at very low prices the rich back lands" which "are now the most valuable lands we possess." His Western urge had largely inspired his labors during the French and Indian War. At that time, Britain encouraged settlement in the Ohio Valley as a means of gaining it from the French. In July 1754, Governor Dinwiddie offered 200,000 acres (80,000 hectares) in the West to colonial volunteers. Washington became entitled to one of these grants. After the war he bought claims of other veterans, served as agent of the claimants in locating and surveying tracts, and obtained for himself (by July 1773) 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) along the Ohio between the Little Kanawha and Great Kanawha rivers, and 10,000 acres on the Great Kanawha. In 1775 he sought to settle his Kanawha land with servants.
Washington lived among neighbors who acquiesced in slavery and, if opposed to it, saw no feasible means of doing away with it. In 1775 he endorsed a strong indictment of the slave trade, but in 1776 he opposed the royal governor of Virginia who had urged slaves of patriot masters to gain freedom by running away and joining the British army to fight for the king. When Washington was famous as a world figure he dissociated himself, publicly, from slavery, although he continued to own many slaves. He favored emancipation if decreed by law. In his will he ordered that his slaves be freed after the death of Mrs. Washington.
Early Political Activity
After expelling France from North America, Britain decided to reserve most of the Ohio Valley as a fur-producing area. By the Quebec Act (1774), Britain detached from Virginia the land it claimed north of the Ohio River and added it to the royal Province of Quebec. This act struck at Washington's plans because it aimed to leave the Indians in possession of the north bank of the Ohio, where they could menace any settlers on his lands reserve most of the Ohio Valley as a fur-producing area. By the Quebec Act (1774), Britain detached from Virginia the land it claimed north of the Ohio River and added it to the royal Province of Quebec. This act struck at Washington's plans because it aimed to leave the Indians in possession of the north bank of the Ohio, where they could menace any settlers on his lands acro As a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1759 to 1774, Washington opposed the Stamp Act, which imposed crushing taxes on the colonies for the support of a large British army in America. Virginia, he said, was already paying enough to Britain: its control of Virginia's trade enabled it to acquire "our whole substance." When the Townshend Revenue Act (1767) levied taxes on tea, paper, lead, glass, and painter's colors, Washington pledged not to buy such articles ("paper only excepted"). By mid-1774 he believed that British laws, such as the Boston Port Act and the Massachusetts Government Act, showed that Britain intended to do away with self-government in the colonies and to subject them to a tyrannical rule. In May he joined other Virginia burgesses in proposing that a continental congress should be held, and that a "provincial congress" be created to take the place of the Virginia assembly, which Dunmore had disbanded.
Washington was chairman of a meeting at Alexandria in July that adopted the Fairfax Resolves, and he was elected one of the delegates to the 1st Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia in September. There the Fairfax Resolves provided the basis for the principal agreement signed by its members--the Continental Association. This forbade the importing into the colonies of all goods from Britain and all goods subject to British taxes. Moreover, it authorized all towns and counties to set up committees empowered to enforce its provisions. The Continental Congress thus enacted law and created a new government dedicated to resisting British rule. Washington spent the winter of 1774-1775 in Virginia, organizing independent military companies which were to aid the local committees in enforcing the Continental Association and, if need be, to fight against British troops.
First President 1789-1797
Washington
Writings and Speeches
