George Washington

President of the United States (1789–1797)

• Born: February 22, 1732
• Birthplace: Bridges Creek (now Wakefield), Westmoreland County, Virginia
• Died: December 14, 1799
• Place of death: Mount Vernon, Virginia

As commander in chief of the Continental army during the American Revolution, president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and first president of the United States, Washington was the principal architect of the nation’s independence and its federal political system.

Early Life

Born into a family of middling standing among Virginia’s planter elite, George Washington was the eldest son of his father’s second marriage. A favorite of his half brother Lawrence Washington of Mount Vernon, young George capitalized on this brother’s marriage into the prominent Fairfax family and the inheritance of Lawrence Washington’s estate. Thus, despite his losing his father at age eleven and his being a low-priority heir to his father’s lands, he was by his mid-twenties able to achieve greater prominence both in estate and position than his ancestors.

Washington's connections allowed him to succeed Lawrence Washington as a major and adjutant of militia in 1752, and the following year he carried a message from Virginia’s governor to the French forces encroaching on Virginia-claimed lands in the upper Ohio valley. In 1754, Lieutenant Colonel Washington surrendered a small Virginia detachment under his command to French forces in southwestern Pennsylvania. Thus began the French and Indian War (1754–63), known in Europe as the Seven Years’ War (1756–63).

Washington’s war record was solid but undistinguished, except for his well-recognized bravery during General Edward Braddock’s defeat on the Monongahela River in 1756. Failing to receive the royal military commission he sought, he returned to Mount Vernon, engaged in modern farming techniques, expanded his land holdings, and, in 1759, married a wealthy widow, Martha Dandridge Custis. Their marriage was childless, but Washington adopted her two children.

Life’s Work

Elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, George Washington never achieved a reputation of outspokenness comparable to that of, say, Patrick Henry. A delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, Washington impressed his colleagues with his mastery of military affairs and was selected by them to serve as commander in chief of the newly formed Continental army in 1775. He took command of the mostly New England force shortly after its defeat at Breed’s (Bunker) Hill and immediately sought to reform it into an effective fighting force. Containing the British forces inside Boston during the winter of 1775–76, he forced them to evacuate the city the following spring. Action then moved to New York City, where he suffered defeats on Long Island and Manhattan Island and was eventually driven across the Hudson River into and across New Jersey. His counterattacks at Trenton and Princeton during the winter of 1776–77 revived American hopes and allowed his forces to winter in northern New Jersey.

The following year, Washington countered the two-pronged British invasion from Canada down the Lake Champlain-Hudson Valley route and from New York via sea against Philadelphia by sending General Horatio Gates with some of his regulars to join local units in combating the northern invasion and by leading the Pennsylvania campaign himself. In the latter area, Washington was soundly defeated by General William Howe’s forces but escaped to rebuild his army during the bitter winter at Valley Forge. General Gates won a remarkable victory at Saratoga that encouraged the French government to recognize the United States. The subsequent alliance with France allowed the Americans to continue their efforts and forced the British to concentrate their naval and military forces against an ever-widening war that eventually saw combat from the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean Sea.

The new international conflict caused the British to withdraw from Philadelphia to New York in 1778. When Washington sought to destroy their forces at Monmouth, New Jersey, the result was an indecisive battle that could have turned into a rout had not the American commander personally rallied his troops. For the next three years, Washington headquartered his forces near West Point, New York, while combating some British raids and pinning the British forces in the New York City-Long Island vicinity. When the British developed a southern strategy to return Georgia and the Carolinas to their empire, Washington countered by sending Generals Benjamin Lincoln and Horatio Gates to the region. The result was defeat for both officers at Charleston and Camden. In early 1781, Washington sent Nathanael Greene southward, and Greene was able to conduct an effective area defense that thwarted British general Charles Cornwallis’s attempts to conquer the Carolinas. Exasperated, Cornwallis sought to cut off Greene’s supply line and to draw him northward by invading Virginia. At this point, Washington coordinated with the French general, the comte de Rochambeau, commander of a French expeditionary force in Rhode Island, and through him Admiral Count François de Grasse, commander of the French West Indian fleet, to unite their forces against Cornwallis in Virginia. The resultant surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in October, 1781, effectively ended British attempts to reintegrate the United States into the British Empire even though the treaty of peace would not be signed until 1783.

After Washington resigned his commission in 1783 (a remarkable event in itself, since most observers expected him to become another Oliver Cromwell), he maintained a high public profile during the next several years but did not seek major positions until 1787, when he became a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and presiding officer of that body. Although his position precluded his taking an active part in the deliberations, he played a significant behind-the-scenes role in the convention and, by lending his name to the final document, helped to ensure its eventual ratification.

During the convention and the ratification process, it was assumed that Washington would become the first chief executive of the new government. Elected president in 1789, he established precedents for the new office that are still followed. Unlike modern presidents, who receive the privileges and prestige of the office, Washington lent his public reputation to the presidency and thereby enhanced its repute.

Washington's government faced difficult tasks in the fields of administrative organization, foreign relations, and economic policy. Influencing each of these areas were both clashes of personalities and of political interests among other American Founders. Washington sought to resolve the issues without involving himself in the controversy. For the most part, except in the area of foreign policy, he was successful.

One of the most critical areas was the creation of an independent executive system, which was not fully developed in the Constitution. Here Washington prevailed over those desiring to use the Senate as sort of a privy council under the “advise and consent” clause, and those, such as Alexander Hamilton, desiring a parliamentary cabinet system with the major executive officers responsible to the Congress. Among Washington’s other achievements were the creation of federal administrative agencies separate from those of the states; the introduction of orderly and stable relationships between officials based on law, instructions, and precedents; the maintenance of high standards of integrity, honesty, and competence; the recognition of claims of locality upon political appointments (often called “senatorial courtesy”); and the dominance of federal authority over individuals, demonstrated decisively in the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Some of Washington’s administrative policies, such as the use of the veto only in relation to constitutional questions, did not long survive his presidency. In the same vein, his use of the cabinet as a consultative body had a short life.

Other developments during his tenure can be attributed less to Washington’s personal efforts than to the circumstances of the time or to the role of others. The creation of the judicial system was largely the responsibility of Roger Sherman, and the Bill of Rights that of James Madison. The latter also formulated the first national revenue system. Hamilton created a financial system that funded government debts, instituted a national central bank, and established a national mint and stable currency. Washington either actively endorsed or did not oppose (in itself an act of endorsement) these efforts.

In military affairs, Washington often used his secretary of war as a cipher and conduit in a field where he had considerable expertise. His greatest disappointment in this field was Congress’s rejection of his proposals for a national military system; instead, it passed the Militia Act of 1792, which left the nation without any effective defense posture.

In foreign affairs he closely worked with Thomas Jefferson in his first administration and followed the often misguided instincts of Hamilton in the second. Jay’s Treaty of 1794 was the most divisive event of his tenure and did far more to encourage partisan politics than did any other policy matter. Despite the political consequences of Washington’s diplomacy, he is generally given appreciative accolades for his maintenance of neutrality in the Anglo-French struggle that drew most of the Western world into its vortex.

Washington undoubtedly believed that the greatest weakness of his administration was the development of partisan politics. Both the president’s supporters and his opponents favored a consensual political environment that saw partisan activities as divisive of national solidarity and indicative of corruption and personal ambition. The main intent of Washington’s farewell address was to warn against political parties.

His final legacy to the presidency was the decision not to run for reelection in 1796 and the consequent two-term tradition that continued until 1940. He established a precedent of turning the office over to a duly elected successor instead of waiting for either death or revolt for removal from office. Washington did not believe that his presence in the office was indispensable, and he instinctively knew that the peaceful transfer of power to a duly elected successor constituted an important building block in erecting a stable nation.

Washington's retirement from the presidency in 1797 did not remove him entirely from public service. When the Quasi War with France broke out in 1798 (and ended in 1800), President John Adams called Washington back to command the army with the rank of lieutenant general. In this capacity he normally remained at Mount Vernon and delegated much of the running of the army to Major General Hamilton. Washington died after a short illness in late 1799.

Significance and Legacy

No American figure has for so long dominated the national scene as has George Washington. For nearly twenty-five years, Washington remained the symbol of American nationhood, commanding its armies in a war for national independence, presiding over the convention that drafted its fundamental political charter, and transforming that charter’s vague articles into political reality as the first chief magistrate of the republic. As both general and president, he shaped the American military tradition with its subordination to civilian authority. As president, he established the contours of the American federal system and—even though he opposed its development—the party system.

Washington remains a revered, often mythologized figure in US history. He is deeply embedded in American society and culture in various ways. For example, the nation's capital (Washington, DC), the state of Washington, and many other places were named in his honor. The Washington Monument is a well-known landmark, and Washington is among the four presidents depicted on the famed Mount Rushmore memorial. Washington's Birthday is recognized as a federal holiday. Washington's likeness is featured on the one-dollar bill and the quarter-dollar coin, among other US currency, as well as many US postage stamps. He has also been depicted in many works of art, literature, and film.

As one of the most popular and influential US presidents, Washington has been studied and profiled by countless historians and other scholars. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, researchers increasingly raised awareness of controversial aspects of his life and career, bringing greater nuance to his legendary public image. Perhaps most notably, there was heightened criticism of his involvement with slavery. Washington inherited control over ten enslaved people when he was eleven years old, and as an adult he directly engaged in the slave trade. In addition, after marrying he exercised control over an even larger number of enslaved people at Mount Vernon through his wife's estate, though they were not all technically under his legal ownership. While slavery was widely accepted in White society at the time, after the revolution Washington came to express economic and ethical reservations about the practice and indicated sympathy for abolitionism. However, he made no direct actions opposing slavery as president or in any other capacity during his lifetime, in part due to fears that the issue would divide the nation. Meanwhile, his government engaged in various pro-slavery policies, including the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act. Washington did eventually include stipulations in his will to posthumously emancipate the enslaved people under his legal authority. The will granted immediate emancipation to his valet William Lee, while others were put under the control of his wife, to be freed upon her death. (Concerned that this might create an incentive to murder her, Martha Washington preemptively freed those enslaved people for which she was legally able to do so in 1801.) Scholars and activists continue to debate the implications of Washington's status as an enslaver on his legacy.

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