George Washington
George Washington by Gilbert Stuart
Williamstown
Overview
president of United States
byname Father of His Country
born February 22 [February 11, Old Style], 1732, Westmoreland county,
Virginia [U.S.]
died December 14, 1799, Mount Vernon, Virginia, U.S.
Overview
American Revolutionary commander-in-chief (1775–83) and first president
of the U.S. (1789–97).
Born into a wealthy family, he was educated privately. In 1752 he
inherited his brother’s estate at Mount Vernon, including 18 slaves;
their ranks grew to 49 by 1760, though he disapproved of slavery. In the
French and Indian War he was commissioned a colonel and sent to the Ohio
Territory. After Edward Braddock was killed, Washington became commander
of all Virginia forces, entrusted with defending the western frontier
(1755–58). He resigned to manage his estate and in 1759 married Martha
Dandridge Custis (1731–1802), a widow. He served in the House of
Burgesses (1759–74), where he supported the colonists’ cause, and later
in the Continental Congress (1774–75). In 1775 he was elected to command
the Continental Army. In the ensuing American Revolution, he proved a
brilliant commander and a stalwart leader, despite several defeats. With
the war effectively ended by the capture of Yorktown (1781), he resigned
his commission and returned to Mount Vernon (1783). He was a delegate to
and presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention (1787) and helped
secure ratification of the Constitution in Virginia. When the state
electors met to select the first president (1789), Washington was the
unanimous choice. He formed a cabinet to balance sectional and political
differences but was committed to a strong central government. Elected to
a second term, he followed a middle course between the political
factions that later became the Federalist Party and the Democratic
Party. He proclaimed a policy of neutrality in the war between Britain
and France (1793) and sent troops to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion
(1794). He declined to serve a third term (thereby setting a 144-year
precedent) and retired in 1797 after delivering his “Farewell Address.”
Known as the “father of his country,” he is universally regarded as one
of the greatest figures in U.S. history.
Main
American general and commander in chief of the colonial armies in the
American Revolution (1775–83) and subsequently first president of the
United States
(1789–97). (For a discussion of the history and nature of
the presidency, see presidency of the United States of America.)
Washington’s father, Augustine Washington, had gone to school in
England, had tasted seafaring life, and then settled down to manage his
growing Virginia estates. His mother was Mary Ball, whom Augustine, a
widower, had married early the previous year. Washington’s paternal
lineage had some distinction; an early forebear was described as a
“gentleman,” Henry VIII later gave the family lands, and its members
held various offices. But family fortunes fell with the Puritan
revolution in England, and John Washington, grandfather of Augustine,
migrated in 1657 to Virginia. The ancestral home at Sulgrave,
Northamptonshire, is maintained as a Washington memorial. Little
definite information exists on any of the line until Augustine. He was
an energetic, ambitious man who acquired much land, built mills, took an
interest in opening iron mines, and sent his two oldest sons to England
for schooling. By his first wife, Jane Butler, he had four children; by
his second wife, Mary Ball, he had six. Augustine died April 12, 1743.
Portrait of Washington, painted in 1772 by Charles Willson Peale
Childhood and youth
Little is known of George Washington’s early childhood, spent largely on
the Ferry Farm on the Rappahannock River, opposite Fredericksburg,
Virginia. Mason L. Weems’s stories of the hatchet and cherry tree and of
young Washington’s repugnance to fighting are apocryphal efforts to fill
a manifest gap. He attended school irregularly from his 7th to his 15th
year, first with the local church sexton and later with a schoolmaster
named Williams. Some of his schoolboy papers survive. He was fairly well
trained in practical mathematics—gauging, several types of mensuration,
and such trigonometry as was useful in surveying. He studied geography,
possibly had a little Latin, and certainly read some of The Spectator
and other English classics. The copybook in which he transcribed at 14 a
set of moral precepts, or Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in
Company and Conversation, was carefully preserved. His best training,
however, was given him by practical men and outdoor occupations, not by
books. He mastered tobacco growing and stock raising, and early in his
teens he was sufficiently familiar with surveying to plot the fields
about him.
At his father’s death, the 11-year-old boy became the ward of his
eldest half brother, Lawrence, a man of fine character who gave him wise
and affectionate care. Lawrence inherited the beautiful estate of Little
Hunting Creek, which had been granted to the original settler, John
Washington, and which Augustine had done much since 1738 to develop.
Lawrence married Anne (Nancy) Fairfax, daughter of Colonel William
Fairfax, a cousin and agent of Lord Fairfax and one of the chief
proprietors of the region. Lawrence also built a house and named the
2,500-acre (1,000-hectare) holding Mount Vernon in honour of the admiral
under whom he had served in the siege of Cartagena. Living there chiefly
with Lawrence (though he spent some time near Fredericksburg with his
other half brother, Augustine, called Austin), George entered a more
spacious and polite world. Anne Fairfax Washington was a woman of charm,
grace, and culture; Lawrence had brought from his English school and
naval service much knowledge and experience. A valued neighbour and
relative, George William Fairfax, whose large estate, Belvoir, was about
4 miles (6 km) distant, and other relatives by marriage, the Carlyles of
Alexandria, helped form George’s mind and manners.
The youth turned first to surveying as a profession. Lord Fairfax, a
middle-aged bachelor who owned more than 5,000,000 acres (2,000,000
hectares) in northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, came to
America in 1746 to live with his cousin George William at Belvoir and to
look after his properties. Two years later he sent to the Shenandoah
Valley a party to survey and plot his lands to make regular tenants of
the squatters moving in from Pennsylvania. With the official surveyor of
Prince William county in charge, Washington went along as assistant. The
16-year-old lad kept a disjointed diary of the trip, which shows skill
in observation. He describes the discomfort of sleeping under “one
thread Bear blanket with double its Weight of Vermin such as Lice Fleas
& c”; an encounter with an Indian war party bearing a scalp; the
Pennsylvania-German emigrants, “as ignorant a set of people as the
Indians they would never speak English but when spoken to they speak all
Dutch”; and the serving of roast wild turkey on “a Large Chip,” for “as
for dishes we had none.”
The following year (1749), aided by Lord Fairfax, Washington received
an appointment as official surveyor of Culpeper county, and for more
than two years he was kept almost constantly busy. Surveying not only in
Culpeper but also in Frederick and Augusta counties, he made journeys
far beyond the Tidewater region into the western wilderness. The
experience taught him resourcefulness and endurance and toughened him in
both body and mind. Coupled with Lawrence’s ventures in land, it also
gave him an interest in western development that endured throughout his
life. He was always disposed to speculate in western holdings and to
view favourably projects for colonizing the West, and he greatly
resented the limitations that the crown in time laid on the westward
movement. In 1752 Lord Fairfax determined to take up his final residence
in the Shenandoah Valley and settled there in a log hunting lodge, which
he called Greenway Court after a Kentish manor of his family’s. There
Washington was sometimes entertained and had access to a small library
that Fairfax had begun accumulating at Oxford.
The years 1751–52 marked a turning point in Washington’s life, for
they placed him in control of Mount Vernon. Lawrence, stricken by
tuberculosis, went to Barbados in 1751 for his health, taking George
along. From this sole journey beyond the present borders of the United
States, Washington returned with the light scars of an attack of
smallpox. In July of the next year, Lawrence died, making George
executor and residuary heir of his estate should his daughter, Sarah,
die without issue. As she died within two months, Washington at age 20
became head of one of the best Virginia estates. He always thought
farming the “most delectable” of pursuits. “It is honorable,” he wrote,
“it is amusing, and, with superior judgment, it is profitable.” And, of
all the spots for farming, he thought Mount Vernon the best. “No estate
in United America,” he assured an English correspondent, “is more
pleasantly situated than this.” His greatest pride in later days was to
be regarded as the first farmer of the land.
He gradually increased the estate until it exceeded 8,000 acres
(3,000 hectares). He enlarged the house in 1760 and made further
enlargements and improvements on the house and its landscaping in
1784–86. He also tried to keep abreast of the latest scientific
advances.
For the next 20 years the main background of Washington’s life was
the work and society of Mount Vernon. He gave assiduous attention to the
rotation of crops, fertilization of the soil, and the management of
livestock. He had to manage the 18 slaves that came with the estate and
others he bought later; by 1760 he had paid taxes on 49 slaves—though he
strongly disapproved of the institution and hoped for some mode of
abolishing it. At the time of his death, more than 300 slaves were
housed in the quarters on his property. He had been unwilling to sell
slaves lest families be broken up, even though the increase in their
numbers placed a burden on him for their upkeep and gave him a larger
force of workers than he required, especially after he gave up the
cultivation of tobacco. In his will, he bequeathed the slaves in his
possession to his wife and ordered that upon her death they be set free,
declaring also that the young, the aged, and the infirm among them
“shall be comfortably cloathed & fed by my heirs.” Still, this accounted
for only about half the slaves on his property. The other half, owned by
his wife, were entailed to the Custis estate, so that on her death they
were destined to pass to her heirs. However, she freed all the slaves in
1800 after his death.
For diversion Washington was fond of riding, fox hunting, and
dancing, of such theatrical performances as he could reach, and of duck
hunting and sturgeon fishing. He liked billiards and cards and not only
subscribed to racing associations but also ran his own horses in races.
In all outdoor pursuits, from wrestling to colt breaking, he excelled. A
friend of the 1750s describes him as “straight as an Indian, measuring
six feet two inches in his stockings”; as very muscular and
broad-shouldered but, though large-boned, weighing only 175 pounds; and
as having long arms and legs. His penetrating blue-gray eyes were
overhung by heavy brows, his nose was large and straight, and his mouth
was large and firmly closed. “His movements and gestures are graceful,
his walk majestic, and he is a splendid horseman.” He soon became
prominent in community affairs, was an active member and later vestryman
of the Episcopal church, and as early as 1755 expressed a desire to
stand for the Virginia House of Burgesses.
Portrait of George Washington in military uniform,
painted by Rembrandt Peale
Prerevolutionary military and political career » Early military career
Traditions of John Washington’s feats as Indian fighter and Lawrence
Washington’s talk of service days helped imbue George with military
ambition. Just after Lawrence’s death, Lieutenant Governor Robert
Dinwiddie appointed George adjutant for the southern district of
Virginia at £100 a year (November 1752). In 1753 he became adjutant of
the Northern Neck and Eastern Shore. Later that year, Dinwiddie found it
necessary to warn the French to desist from their encroachments on Ohio
Valley lands claimed by the crown. After sending one messenger who
failed to reach the goal, he determined to dispatch Washington. On the
day he received his orders, October 31, 1753, Washington set out for the
French posts. His party consisted of a Dutchman to serve as interpreter,
the expert scout Christopher Gist as guide, and four others, two of them
experienced traders with the Indians. Theoretically, Great Britain and
France were at peace. Actually, war impended, and Dinwiddie’s message
was an ultimatum: the French must get out or be put out.
The journey proved rough, perilous, and futile. Washington’s party
left what is now Cumberland, Maryland, in the middle of November and,
despite wintry weather and impediments of the wilderness, reached Fort
LeBoeuf, at what is now Waterford, Pennsylvania, 20 miles (32 km) south
of Lake Erie, without delay. The French commander was courteous but
adamant. As Washington reported, his officers “told me, That it was
their absolute Design to take possession of the Ohio, and by God they
would do it.” Eager to carry this alarming news back, Washington pushed
off hurriedly with Gist. He was lucky to have gotten back alive. An
Indian fired at them at 15 paces but missed. When they crossed the
Allegheny River on a raft, Washington was jerked into the ice-filled
stream but saved himself by catching one of the timbers. That night he
almost froze in his wet clothing. He reached Williamsburg, Virginia, on
January 16, 1754, where he hastily penned a record of the journey.
Dinwiddie, who was labouring to convince the crown of the seriousness of
the French threat, had it printed, and when he sent it to London, it was
reprinted in three different forms.
The enterprising governor forthwith planned an expedition to hold the
Ohio country. He made Joshua Fry colonel of a provincial regiment,
appointed Washington lieutenant colonel, and set them to recruiting
troops. Two agents of the Ohio Company, which Lawrence Washington and
others had formed to develop lands on the upper Potomac and Ohio rivers,
had begun building a fort at what later became Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Dinwiddie, ready to launch into his own war, sent Washington with two
companies to reinforce this post. In April 1754 the lieutenant colonel
set out from Alexandria with about 160 men at his back. He marched to
Cumberland only to learn that the French had anticipated the British
blow; they had taken possession of the fort of the Ohio Company and had
renamed it Fort Duquesne. Happily, the Indians of the area offered
support. Washington therefore struggled cautiously forward to within
about 40 miles (60 km) of the French position and erected his own post
at Great Meadows, near what is now Confluence, Pennsylvania. From this
base, he made a surprise attack (May 28, 1754) upon an advance
detachment of 30 French, killing the commander, Coulon de Jumonville,
and nine others and taking the rest prisoners. The French and Indian War
had begun.
Washington at once received promotion to a full colonelcy and was
reinforced, commanding a considerable body of Virginia and North
Carolina troops, with Indian auxiliaries. But his attack soon brought
the whole French force down upon him. They drove his 350 men into the
Great Meadows fort (Fort Necessity) on July 3, besieged it with 700 men,
and, after an all-day fight, compelled him to surrender. The
construction of the fort had been a blunder, for it lay in a waterlogged
creek bottom, was commanded on three sides by forested elevations
approaching it closely, and was too far from Washington’s supports. The
French agreed to let the disarmed colonials march back to Virginia with
the honours of war, but they compelled Washington to promise that
Virginia would not build another fort on the Ohio for a year and to sign
a paper acknowledging responsibility for “l’assassinat” of de
Jumonville, a word that Washington later explained he did not rightly
understand. He returned to Virginia, chagrined but proud, to receive the
thanks of the House of Burgesses and to find that his name had been
mentioned in the London gazettes. His remark in a letter to his brother
that “I have heard the bullets whistle; and believe me, there is
something charming in the sound” was commented on humorously by the
author Horace Walpole and sarcastically by King George II.
The arrival of General Edward Braddock and his army in Virginia in
February 1755, as part of the triple plan of campaign that called for
his advance on Fort Duquesne and in New York Governor William Shirley’s
capture of Fort Niagara and Sir William Johnson’s capture of Crown
Point, brought Washington new opportunities and responsibilities. He had
resigned his commission in October 1754 in resentment of the slighting
treatment and underpayment of colonial officers and particularly because
of an untactful order of the British war office that provincial officers
of whatever rank would be subordinate to any officer holding the king’s
commission. But he ardently desired a part in the war; “my
inclinations,” he wrote a friend, “are strongly bent to arms.” When
Braddock showed appreciation of his merits and invited him to join the
expedition as personal aide-de-camp, with the courtesy title of colonel,
he therefore accepted. His self-reliance, decision, and masterfulness
soon became apparent.
At table he had frequent disputes with Braddock, who, when
contractors failed to deliver their supplies, attacked the colonials as
supine and dishonest while Washington defended them warmly. His freedom
of utterance is proof of Braddock’s esteem. Braddock accepted
Washington’s unwise advice that he divide his army, leaving half of it
to come up with the slow wagons and cattle train and taking the other
half forward against Fort Duquesne at a rapid pace. Washington was ill
with fever during June but joined the advance guard in a covered wagon
on July 8, begged to lead the march on Fort Duquesne with his Virginians
and Indian allies, and was by Braddock’s side when on July 9 the army
was ambushed and bloodily defeated.
In this defeat Washington displayed the combination of coolness and
determination, the alliance of unconquerable energy with complete poise,
that was the secret of so many of his successes. So ill that he had to
use a pillow instead of a saddle and that Braddock ordered his body
servant to keep special watch over him, Washington was, nevertheless,
everywhere at once. At first he followed Braddock as the general bravely
tried to rally his men to push either forward or backward, the wisest
course the circumstances permitted. Then he rode back to bring up the
Virginians from the rear and rallied them with effect on the flank. To
him was largely due the escape of the force. His exposure of his person
was as reckless as Braddock’s, who was fatally wounded on his fifth
horse; Washington had two horses shot out from under him and his clothes
cut by four bullets without being hurt. He was at Braddock’s deathbed,
helped bring the troops back, and was repaid by being appointed, in
August 1755, while still only 23 years old, commander of all Virginia
troops.
But no part of his later service was conspicuous. Finding that a
Maryland captain who held a royal commission would not obey him, he rode
north in February 1756 to Boston to have the question settled by the
commander in chief in America, Governor Shirley, and, bearing a letter
from Dinwiddie, had no difficulty in carrying his point. On his return
he plunged into a multitude of vexations. He had to protect a weak,
thinly settled frontier nearly 400 miles (650 km) in length with only
some 700 ill-disciplined colonial troops, to cope with a legislature
unwilling to support him, to meet attacks on the drunkenness and
inefficiency of the soldiers, and to endure constant wilderness
hardships. It is not strange that in 1757 his health failed and in the
closing weeks of that year he was so ill of a “bloody flux” (dysentery)
that his physician ordered him home to Mount Vernon.
In the spring of 1758 he had recovered sufficiently to return to duty
as colonel in command of all Virginia troops. As part of the grand sweep
of several armies organized by British statesman William Pitt, the
Elder, General John Forbes led a new advance upon Fort Duquesne. Forbes
resolved not to use Braddock’s road but to cut a new one west from
Raystown, Pennsylvania. Washington disapproved of the route but played
an important part in the movement. Late in the autumn the French
evacuated and burned Fort Duquesne, and Forbes reared Fort Pitt on the
site. Washington, who had just been elected to the House of Burgesses,
was able to resign with the honorary rank of brigadier general.
Although his officers expressed regret at the “loss of such an
excellent Commander, such a sincere Friend, and so affable a Companion,”
he quit the service with a sense of frustration. He had thought the war
excessively slow. The Virginia legislature had been niggardly in voting
money; the Virginia recruits had come forward reluctantly and had proved
of poor quality—Washington had hanged a few deserters and flogged others
heavily. Virginia gave him less pay than other colonies offered their
troops. Desiring a regular commission such as his half brother Lawrence
had held, he applied in vain to the British commander in North America,
Lord Loudoun, to make good a promise that Braddock had given him.
Ambitious for both rank and honour, he showed a somewhat strident vigour
in asserting his desires and in complaining when they were denied. He
returned to Mount Vernon somewhat disillusioned.
George and Martha Washington
Prerevolutionary military and political career » Marriage and plantation
life
Immediately on resigning his commission, Washington was married (January
6, 1759) to Martha Dandridge, the widow of Daniel Parke Custis. She was
a few months older than he, was the mother of two children living and
two dead, and possessed one of the considerable fortunes of Virginia.
Washington had met her the previous March and had asked for her hand
before his campaign with Forbes. Though it does not seem to have been a
romantic love match, the marriage united two harmonious temperaments and
proved happy. Martha was a good housewife, an amiable companion, and a
dignified hostess. Like many well-born women of the era, she had little
formal schooling, and Washington often helped her compose important
letters.
Some estimates of the property brought to him by this marriage have
been exaggerated, but it did include a number of slaves and about 15,000
acres (6,000 hectares), much of it valuable for its proximity to
Williamsburg. More important to Washington were the two stepchildren,
John Parke (“Jacky”) and Martha Parke (“Patsy”) Custis, who at the time
of the marriage were six and four, respectively. He lavished great
affection and care upon them, worried greatly over Jacky’s waywardness,
and was overcome with grief when Patsy died just before the Revolution.
Jacky died during the war, leaving four children. Washington adopted two
of them, a boy and a girl, and even signed his letters to the boy as
“your papa.” Himself childless, he thus had a real family.
From the time of his marriage Washington added to the care of Mount
Vernon the supervision of the Custis estate at the White House on the
York River. As his holdings expanded, they were divided into farms, each
under its own overseer; but he minutely inspected operations every day
and according to one visitor often pulled off his coat and performed
ordinary labour. As he once wrote, “middling land under a man’s own
eyes, is more profitable than rich land at a distance.” Until the eve of
the Revolution he devoted himself to the duties and pleasures of a great
landholder, varied by several weeks’ attendance every year in the House
of Burgesses in Williamsburg. During 1760–74 he was also a justice of
the peace for Fairfax county, sitting in court in Alexandria.
In no light does Washington appear more characteristically than as
one of the richest, largest, and most industrious of Virginia planters.
For six days a week he rose early and worked hard; on Sundays he
irregularly attended Pohick Church (16 times in 1760), entertained
company, wrote letters, made purchases and sales, and sometimes went fox
hunting. In these years he took snuff and smoked a pipe; throughout life
he liked Madeira wine and punch. Although wheat and tobacco were his
staples, he practiced crop rotation on a three-year or five-year plan.
He had his own water-powered flour mill, blacksmith shop, brick and
charcoal kilns, carpenters, and masons. His fishery supplied shad, bass,
herring, and other catches, salted as food for his slaves. Coopers,
weavers, and his own shoemaker turned out barrels, cotton, linen, and
woollen goods, and brogans for all needs. In short, his estates, in
accordance with his orders to overseers to “buy nothing you can make
yourselves,” were largely self-sufficient communities. But he did send
large orders to England for farm implements, tools, paint, fine
textiles, hardware, and agricultural books and hence was painfully aware
of British commercial restrictions.
Washington was an innovative farmer and a responsible landowner. He
experimented at breeding cattle, acquired at least one buffalo, with the
hope of proving its utility as a meat animal, and kept stallions at
stud. He also took pride in a peach and apple orchard.
His care of slaves was exemplary. He carefully clothed and fed them,
engaged a doctor for them by the year, generally refused to sell them—“I
am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species”—and
administered correction mildly. They showed so much attachment that few
ran away.
He meanwhile played a prominent role in the social life of the
Tidewater region. The members of the council and House of Burgesses, a
roster of influential Virginians, were all friends. He visited the Byrds
of Westover, the Lees of Stratford, the Carters of Shirley and Sabine
Hall, and the Lewises of Warner Hall; Mount Vernon often was busy with
guests in return. He liked house parties and afternoon tea on the Mount
Vernon porch overlooking the grand Potomac; he was fond of picnics,
barbecues, and clambakes; and throughout life he enjoyed dancing,
frequently going to Alexandria for balls. Cards were a steady diversion,
and his accounts record sums lost at them, the largest reaching nearly
£10. His diary sometimes states that in bad weather he was “at home all
day, over cards.” Billiards was a rival amusement. Not only the theatre,
when available, but also concerts, cockfights, circuses, puppet shows,
and exhibitions of animals received his patronage.
He insisted on the best clothes—coats, laced waistcoats, hats,
coloured silk hose—bought in London. The Virginia of the Randolphs,
Corbins, Harrisons, Tylers, Nicholases, and other prominent families had
an aristocratic quality, and Washington liked to do things in a large
way. It has been computed that in the seven years prior to 1775, Mount
Vernon had 2,000 guests, most of whom stayed to dinner if not overnight.
George Washington
Prerevolutionary military and political career » Prerevolutionary
politics
Washington’s contented life was interrupted by the rising storm in
imperial affairs. The British ministry, facing a heavy postwar debt,
high home taxes, and continued military costs in America, decided in
1764 to obtain revenue from the colonies. Up to that time, Washington,
though regarded by associates, in Colonel John L. Peyton’s words, as “a
young man of an extraordinary and exalted character,” had shown no signs
of personal greatness and few signs of interest in state affairs. The
Proclamation of 1763 interdicting settlement beyond the Alleghenies
irked him, for he was interested in the Ohio Company, the Mississippi
Company, and other speculative western ventures. He nevertheless played
a silent part in the House of Burgesses and was a thoroughly loyal
subject.
But he was present when Patrick Henry introduced his resolutions
against the Stamp Act in May 1765 and shortly thereafter gave token of
his adherence to the cause of the colonial Whigs against the Tory
ministries of England. In 1768 he told George Mason at Mount Vernon that
he would take his musket on his shoulder whenever his country called
him. The next spring, on April 4, 1769, he sent Mason the Philadelphia
nonimportation resolutions with a letter declaring that it was necessary
to resist the strokes of “our lordly masters” in England; that,
courteous remonstrances to Parliament having failed, he wholly endorsed
the resort to commercial warfare; and that as a last resort no man
should scruple to use arms in defense of liberty. When, the following
May, the royal governor dissolved the House of Burgesses, he shared in
the gathering at the Raleigh, North Carolina, tavern that drew up
nonimportation resolutions, and he went further than most of his
neighbours in adhering to them. At that time and later he believed with
most Americans that peace need not be broken.
Late in 1770 he paid a land-hunting visit to Fort Pitt, where George
Croghan was maturing his plans for the proposed 14th colony of Vandalia.
Washington directed his agent to locate and survey 10,000 acres
adjoining the Vandalia tract, and at one time he wished to share in
certain of Croghan’s schemes. But the Boston Tea Party of December 1773
and the bursting of the Vandalia bubble at about the same time turned
his eyes back to the East and the threatening state of Anglo-American
relations. He was not a member of the Virginia committee of
correspondence formed in 1773 to communicate with other colonies, but
when the Virginia legislators, meeting irregularly again at the Raleigh
tavern in May 1774, called for a Continental Congress, he was present
and signed the resolutions. Moreover, he was a leading member of the
first provincial convention or revolutionary legislature late that
summer, and to that body he made a speech that was much praised for its
pithy eloquence, declaring that “I will raise one thousand men, subsist
them at my own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief of
Boston.”
The Virginia provincial convention promptly elected Washington one of
the seven delegates to the first Continental Congress. He was by this
time known as a radical rather than a moderate, and in several letters
of the time he opposed a continuance of petitions to the British crown,
declaring that they would inevitably meet with a humiliating rejection.
“Shall we after this whine and cry for relief when we have already tried
it in vain?” he wrote. When the Congress met in Philadelphia on
September 5, 1774, he was in his seat in full uniform, and his
participation in its councils marks the beginning of his national
career.
His letters of the period show that, while still utterly opposed to
the idea of independence, he was determined never to submit “to the loss
of those valuable rights and privileges, which are essential to the
happiness of every free State, and without which life, liberty, and
property are rendered totally insecure.” If the ministry pushed matters
to an extremity, he wrote, “more blood will be spilled on this occasion
than ever before in American history.” Though he served on none of the
committees, he was a useful member, his advice being sought on military
matters and weight being attached to his advocacy of a nonexportation as
well as nonimportation agreement. He also helped to secure approval of
the Suffolk Resolves, which looked toward armed resistance as a last
resort and did much to harden the king’s heart against America.
Returning to Virginia in November, he took command of the volunteer
companies drilling there and served as chairman of the Committee of
Safety in Fairfax county. Although the province contained many
experienced officers and Colonel William Byrd of Westover had succeeded
Washington as commander in chief, the unanimity with which the Virginia
troops turned to Washington was a tribute to his reputation and
personality; it was understood that Virginia expected him to be its
general. He was elected to the second Continental Congress at the March
1775 session of the legislature and again set out for Philadelphia.
Portrait by Gilbert Stuart, 1795
Revolutionary leadership » Head of the colonial forces
The choice of Washington as commander in chief of the military forces of
all the colonies followed immediately upon the first fighting, though it
was by no means inevitable and was the product of partly artificial
forces. The Virginia delegates differed upon his appointment. Edmund
Pendleton was, according to John Adams, “very full and clear against
it,” and Washington himself recommended General Andrew Lewis for the
post. It was chiefly the fruit of a political bargain by which New
England offered Virginia the chief command as its price for the adoption
and support of the New England army. This army had gathered hastily and
in force about Boston immediately after the clash of British troops and
American minutemen at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. When the
second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia on May 10, one of its
first tasks was to find a permanent leadership for this force. On June
15, Washington, whose military counsel had already proved invaluable on
two committees, was nominated and chosen by unanimous vote. Beyond the
considerations noted, he owed being chosen to the facts that Virginia
stood with Massachusetts as one of the most powerful colonies; that his
appointment would augment the zeal of the Southern people; that he had
gained an enduring reputation in the Braddock campaign; and that his
poise, sense, and resolution had impressed all the delegates. The scene
of his election, with Washington darting modestly into an adjoining room
and John Hancock flushing with jealous mortification, will always
impress the historical imagination; so also will the scene of July 3,
1775, when, wheeling his horse under an elm in front of the troops
paraded on Cambridge common, he drew his sword and took command of the
army investing Boston. News of Bunker Hill had reached him before he was
a day’s journey from Philadelphia, and he had expressed confidence of
victory when told how the militia had fought. In accepting the command,
he refused any payment beyond his expenses and called upon “every
gentleman in the room” to bear witness that he disclaimed fitness for
it. At once he showed characteristic decision and energy in organizing
the raw volunteers, collecting provisions and munitions, and rallying
Congress and the colonies to his support.
The first phase of Washington’s command covered the period from July
1775 to the British evacuation of Boston in March 1776. In those eight
months he imparted discipline to the army, which at maximum strength
slightly exceeded 20,000; he dealt with subordinates who, as John Adams
said, quarrelled “like cats and dogs”; and he kept the siege vigorously
alive. Having himself planned an invasion of Canada by Lake Champlain,
to be entrusted to General Philip Schuyler, he heartily approved of
Benedict Arnold’s proposal to march north along the Kennebec River in
Maine and take Quebec. Giving Arnold 1,100 men, he instructed him to do
everything possible to conciliate the Canadians. He was equally active
in encouraging privateers to attack British commerce. As fast as means
offered, he strengthened his army with ammunition and siege guns, having
heavy artillery brought from Fort Ticonderoga, New York, over the frozen
roads early in 1776. His position was at first precarious, for the
Charles River pierced the centre of his lines investing Boston. If the
British general, Sir William Howe, had moved his 20 veteran regiments
boldly up the stream, he might have pierced Washington’s army and rolled
either wing back to destruction. But all the generalship was on
Washington’s side. Seeing that Dorchester Heights, just south of Boston,
commanded the city and harbour and that Howe had unaccountably failed to
occupy it, he seized it on the night of March 4, 1776, placing his
Ticonderoga guns in position. The British naval commander declared that
he could not remain if the Americans were not dislodged, and Howe, after
a storm disrupted his plans for an assault, evacuated the city on March
17. He left 200 cannons and invaluable stores of small arms and
munitions. After collecting his booty, Washington hurried south to take
up the defense of New York.
Washington had won the first round, but there remained five years of
the war, during which the American cause was repeatedly near complete
disaster. It is unquestionable that Washington’s strength of character,
his ability to hold the confidence of army and people and to diffuse his
own courage among them, his unremitting activity, and his strong common
sense constituted the chief factors in achieving American victory. He
was not a great tactician: as Jefferson said later, he often “failed in
the field”; he was sometimes guilty of grave military blunders, the
chief being his assumption of a position on Long Island, New York, in
1776 that exposed his entire army to capture the moment it was defeated.
At the outset he was painfully inexperienced, the wilderness fighting of
the French war having done nothing to teach him the strategy of
maneuvering whole armies. One of his chief faults was his tendency to
subordinate his own judgment to that of the generals surrounding him; at
every critical juncture, before Boston, before New York, before
Philadelphia, and in New Jersey, he called a council of war and in
almost every instance accepted its decision. Naturally bold and dashing,
as he proved at Trenton, Princeton, and Germantown, he repeatedly
adopted evasive and delaying tactics on the advice of his associates;
however, he did succeed in keeping a strong army in existence and
maintaining the flame of national spirit. When the auspicious moment
arrived, he planned the rapid movements that ended the war.
One element of Washington’s strength was his sternness as a
disciplinarian. The army was continually dwindling and refilling,
politics largely governed the selection of officers by Congress and the
states, and the ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-paid forces were often
half-prostrated by sickness and ripe for mutiny. Troops from each of the
three sections, New England, the middle states, and the South, showed a
deplorable jealousy of the others. Washington was rigorous in breaking
cowardly, inefficient, and dishonest men and boasted in front of Boston
that he had “made a pretty good sort of slam among such kind of
officers.” Deserters and plunderers were flogged, and Washington once
erected a gallows 40 feet (12 metres) high, writing, “I am determined if
I can be justified in the proceeding, to hang two or three on it, as an
example to others.” At the same time, the commander in chief won the
devotion of many of his men by his earnestness in demanding better
treatment for them from Congress. He complained of their short rations,
declaring once that they were forced to “eat every kind of horse food
but hay.”
The darkest chapter in Washington’s military leadership was opened
when, reaching New York in April 1776, he placed half his army, about
9,000 men, under Israel Putnam, on the perilous position of Brooklyn
Heights, Long Island, where a British fleet in the East River might cut
off their retreat. He spent a fortnight in May with the Continental
Congress in Philadelphia, then discussing the question of independence;
though no record of his utterances exists, there can be no doubt that he
advocated complete separation. His return to New York preceded but
slightly the arrival of the British army under Howe, which made its main
encampment on Staten Island until its whole strength of nearly 30,000
could be mobilized. On August 22, 1776, Howe moved about 20,000 men
across to Gravesend Bay on Long Island. Four days later, sending the
fleet under command of his brother Admiral Richard Howe to make a feint
against New York City, he thrust a crushing force along feebly protected
roads against the American flank. The patriots were outmaneuvered,
defeated, and suffered a total loss of 5,000 men, of whom 2,000 were
captured. Their whole position might have been carried by storm, but,
fortunately for Washington, General Howe delayed. While the enemy
lingered, Washington succeeded under cover of a dense fog in ferrying
the remaining force across the East River to Manhattan, where he took up
a fortified position. The British, suddenly landing on the lower part of
the island, drove back the Americans in a clash marked by disgraceful
cowardice on the part of troops from Connecticut and others. In a series
of actions, Washington was forced northward, more than once in danger of
capture, until the loss of his two Hudson River forts, one of them with
2,600 men, compelled him to retreat from White Plains across the river
into New Jersey. He retired toward the Delaware River while his army
melted away, until it seemed that armed resistance to the British was
about to expire.
Depiction by John Trumbull of Washington resigning his commission as
commander-in-chief.
General George Washington resigned his commission as
Commander-in-Chief of the Army to the Congress, which was then meeting
at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, on December 23, 1783. This
action was of great significance in establishing of civilian rather than
military rule, leading to republic rather than dictatorship. Washington
stands with two aides-de-camp addressing the president of the Congress,
Thomas Mifflin, and others, such as Elbridge Gerry, Thomas Jefferson,
James Monroe, and James Madison. Mrs. Washington and her three
grandchildren are shown watching from the gallery, although they were
not in fact present at the event.
Revolutionary leadership » The Trenton-Princeton campaign
It was at this darkest hour of the Revolution that Washington struck his
brilliant blows at Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey, reviving the hopes
and energies of the nation. Howe, believing that the American army soon
would dissolve totally, retired to New York, leaving strong forces in
Trenton and Burlington. Washington, at his camp west of the Delaware
River, planned a simultaneous attack on both posts, using his whole
command of 6,000 men. But his subordinates in charge of both wings
failed him, and he was left on the night of December 25, 1776, to march
on Trenton with about 2,400 men. With the help of Colonel John Glover’s
regiment, which was comprised of fishermen and sailors from Marblehead,
Massachusetts, Washington and his troops were ferried across the
Delaware River. In the dead of night and amid a blinding snowstorm, they
then marched 10 miles (16 km) downstream and in the early hours of the
morning caught the enemy at Trenton unaware. In less than two hours and
without the loss of a single man in battle, Washington’s troops defeated
the Hessians, killed their commander (Johann Rall), and captured nearly
1,000 prisoners and arms and ammunition. This historic Christmas
crossing proved to be a turning point in the war, and it was
immortalized for posterity by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze in his famous 1851
painting of the event.
The immediate result of this American victory was that General
Charles Cornwallis hastened with about 8,000 men to Trenton, where he
found Washington strongly posted behind the Assunpink Creek, skirmished
with him, and decided to wait overnight “to bag the old fox.” During the
night, the wind shifted, the roads froze hard, and Washington was able
to steal away from camp (leaving his fires deceptively burning), march
around Cornwallis’s rear, and fall at daybreak upon the three British
regiments at Princeton. These were put to flight with a loss of 500 men,
and Washington escaped with more captured munitions to a strong position
at Morristown, New Jersey. The effect of these victories heartened all
Americans, brought recruits flocking to camp in the spring, and
encouraged foreign sympathizers with the American cause.
Thus far the important successes had been won by Washington; then
battlefield success fell to others, while he was left to face popular
apathy, military cabals, and the disaffection of Congress. The year 1777
was marked by the British capture of Philadelphia and the surrender of
British General John Burgoyne’s invading army to General Horatio Gates
at Saratoga, New York, followed by intrigues to displace Washington from
his command. Howe’s main British army of 18,000 left New York by sea on
July 23, 1777, and landed on August 25 in Maryland, not far below
Philadelphia. Washington, despite his inferiority of force—he had only
11,000 men, mostly militia and, in the marquis de Lafayette’s words,
“badly armed and worse clothed”—risked a pitched battle on September 11
at the fords of Brandywine Creek, about 13 miles (21 km) north of
Wilmington, Delaware. While part of the British force held the Americans
engaged, General Cornwallis, with the rest, made a secret 17-mile
(27-km) detour and fell with crushing effect on the American right and
rear, the result being a complete defeat from which Washington was
fortunate to extricate his army in fairly good order. For a time he
hoped to hold the Schuylkill Fords, but the British passed them and on
September 26 triumphantly marched into Philadelphia. Congress fled to
the interior of Pennsylvania, and Washington, after an unsuccessful
effort to repeat his stroke at Trenton against the British troops posted
at Germantown, had to take up winter quarters at Valley Forge. His army,
twice beaten, ill housed, and ill fed, with thousands of men “barefoot
and otherwise naked,” was at the point of exhaustion; it could not keep
the field, for inside of a month it would have disappeared. Under these
circumstances, there is nothing that better proves the true fibre of
Washington’s character and the courage of his soul than the unyielding
persistence with which he held his strong position at Valley Forge
through a winter of semistarvation, of justified grumbling by his men,
of harsh public criticism, and of captious meddling by a Congress that
was too weak to help him. In February Martha Washington arrived and
helped to organize entertainment for the soldiers.
Washington’s enemies seized the moment of his greatest weakness to
give vent to an antagonism that had been nourished by sectional
jealousies of North against South, by the ambition of small rivals, and
by baseless accusations that he showed favouritism to such foreigners as
Lafayette. The intrigues of Thomas Conway, an Irish adventurer who had
served in the French army and had become an American general, enlisted
Thomas Mifflin, Charles Lee, Benjamin Rush, and others in an attempt to
displace Washington. General Gates appears to have been a tool of rather
than a party to the plot, expecting that the chief command would devolve
upon himself. A faction of Congress sympathized with the movement and
attempted to paralyze Washington by reorganizing the board of war, a
body vested with the general superintendence of operations, of which
Gates became the president; his chief of staff, James Wilkinson, the
secretary; and Mifflin and Timothy Pickering, members. Washington was
well aware of the hostility in congress, of the slanders spread by Rush
and James Lovell of Massachusetts, and of the effect of forgeries
published in the American press by adroit British agents. He realized
the intense jealousy of many New Englanders, which made even John Adams
write his wife that he was thankful Burgoyne had not been captured by
Washington, who would then “have been deified. It is bad enough as it
is.” But Washington decisively crushed the cabal: after the loose tongue
of Wilkinson disclosed Conway’s treachery, Washington sent the general
on November 9, 1777, proof of his knowledge of the whole affair.
With the conclusion of the French alliance in the spring of 1778, the
aspect of the war was radically altered. The British army in
Philadelphia, fearing that a French fleet would blockade the Delaware
while the militia of New Jersey and Pennsylvania invested the city,
hastily retreated upon New York City. Washington hoped to cut off part
of the enemy and by a hurried march with six brigades interposed himself
at the end of June between Sir Henry Clinton (who had succeeded Howe)
and the New Jersey coast. The result was the Battle of Monmouth on June
28, where a shrewd strategic plan and vigorous assault were brought to
naught by the treachery of Charles Lee. When Lee ruined the attack by a
sudden order to retreat, Washington hurried forward, fiercely denounced
him, and restored the line, but the golden opportunity had been lost.
The British made good their march to Sandy Hook, and Washington took up
his quarters at New Brunswick. Lee was arrested, court-martialed, and
convicted on all three of the charges made against him; but instead of
being shot, as he deserved, he was sentenced to a suspension from
command for one year. The arrival of the French fleet under Admiral
Charles-Hector Estaing on July 1778 completed the isolation of the
British, and Clinton was thenceforth held to New York City and the
surrounding area. Washington made his headquarters in the highlands of
the Hudson and distributed his troops in cantonments around the city and
in New Jersey.
The final decisive stroke of the war, the capture of Cornwallis at
Yorktown, is to be credited chiefly to Washington’s vision. With the
domestic situation intensely gloomy early in 1781, he was hampered by
the feebleness of Congress, the popular discouragement, and the lack of
prompt and strong support by the French fleet. A French army under the
comte de Rochambeau had arrived to reinforce him in 1780, and Washington
had pressed Admiral de Grasse to assist in an attack upon either
Cornwallis in the south or Clinton in New York. In August the French
admiral sent definite word that he preferred the Chesapeake, with its
large area and deep water, as the scene of his operations; and within a
week, on August 19, 1781, Washington marched south with his army,
leaving General William Heath with 4,000 men to hold West Point. He
hurried his troops through New Jersey, embarked them on transports in
Delaware Bay, and landed them at Williamsburg, Virginia, where he had
arrived on September 14. Cornwallis had retreated to Yorktown and
entrenched his army of 7,000 British regulars. Their works were
completely invested before the end of the month; the siege was pressed
with vigour by the allied armies under Washington, consisting of 5,500
Continentals, 3,500 Virginia militia, and 5,000 French regulars; and on
October 19 Cornwallis surrendered. By this campaign, probably the finest
single display of Washington’s generalship, the war was brought to a
virtual close.
Washington remained during the winter of 1781–82 with the Continental
Congress in Philadelphia, exhorting it to maintain its exertions for
liberty and to settle the army’s claims for pay. He continued these
exhortations after he joined his command at Newburgh on the Hudson in
April 1782. He was astounded and angered when some loose camp
suggestions found expression in a letter from Colonel Lewis Nicola
offering a plan by which he should use the army to make himself king. He
blasted the proposal with fierce condemnation. When the discontent of
his unpaid men came to a head in the circulation of the “Newburgh
Address” (an anonymously written grievance) early in 1783, he issued a
general order censuring the paper and at a meeting of officers on March
15 read a speech admonishing the army to obey Congress and promising his
best efforts for a redress of grievances. He was present at the entrance
of the American army into New York on the day of the British evacuation,
November 25, 1783, and on December 4 took leave of his closest officers
in an affecting scene at Fraunces Tavern. Traveling south, on December
23, in a solemn ceremonial immortalized by the pen of William Makepeace
Thackeray, he resigned his commission to the Continental Congress in the
state senate chamber of Maryland in Annapolis and received the thanks of
the nation. His accounts of personal expenditures during his service,
kept with minute exactness in his own handwriting and totalling £24,700,
without charge for salary, had been given the controller of the treasury
to be discharged. Washington left Annapolis at sunrise of December 24
and before nightfall was at home in Mount Vernon.
In the next four years Washington found sufficient occupation in his
estates, wishing to close his days as a gentleman farmer and to give to
agriculture as much energy and thought as he had to the army. He
enlarged the Mount Vernon house; he laid out the grounds anew, with
sunken walls, or ha-has; and he embarked on experiments with mahogany,
palmetto, pepper, and other foreign trees, and English grasses and
grains. His farm manager during the Revolution, a distant relative named
Lund Washington, retired in 1785 and was succeeded by a nephew, Major
George Augustine Washington, who resided at Mount Vernon until his death
in 1792. Washington’s losses during the war had been heavy, caused by
neglect of his lands, stoppage of exportation, and depreciation of paper
money, which cost him hardly less than $30,000. He then attempted
successfully to repair his fortunes, his annual receipts from all his
estates being from $10,000 to $15,000 a year. In 1784 he made a tour of
nearly 700 miles (1,125 km) to view the wildlands he owned to the
westward, Congress having made him a generous grant. As a national
figure, he was constrained to offer hospitality to old army friends,
visitors from other states and nations, diplomats, and Indian
delegations, and he and his household seldom sat down to dinner alone.
Inauguration of George Washington
Presidency » Postrevolutionary politics
Viewing the chaotic political condition of the United States after 1783
with frank pessimism and declaring (May 18, 1786) that “something must
be done, or the fabric must fall, for it is certainly tottering,”
Washington repeatedly wrote his friends urging steps toward “an
indissoluble union.” At first he believed that the Articles of
Confederation might be amended. Later, especially after the shock of
Shays’s Rebellion, he took the view that a more radical reform was
necessary but doubted as late as the end of 1786 that the time was ripe.
His progress toward adoption of the idea of a federal convention was, in
fact, puzzlingly slow. Although John Jay assured him in March 1786 that
breakup of the nation seemed near and opinion for a constitutional
convention was crystallizing, Washington remained noncommittal. But,
despite long hesitations, he earnestly supported the proposal for a
federal impost, warning the states that their policy must decide
“whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered a blessing or a
curse.” And his numerous letters to the leading men of the country
assisted greatly to form a sentiment favourable to a more perfect union.
Some understanding being necessary between Virginia and Maryland
regarding the navigation of the Potomac, commissioners from the two
states had met at Mount Vernon in the spring of 1785; from this seed
sprang the federal convention. Washington approved in advance the call
for a gathering of all the states to meet in Philadelphia in May 1787 to
“render the Constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the
exigencies of the Union.” But he was again hesitant about attending,
partly because he felt tired and infirm, partly because of doubts about
the outcome. Although he hoped to the last to be excused, he was chosen
one of Virginia’s five delegates.
Washington arrived in Philadelphia on May 13, the day before the
opening of the Constitutional Convention, and as soon as a quorum was
obtained he was unanimously chosen its president. For four months he
presided over the convention, breaking his silence only once upon a
minor question of congressional apportionment. Although he said little
in debate, no one did more outside the hall to insist on stern measures.
“My wish is,” he wrote, “that the convention may adopt no temporizing
expedients, but probe the defects of the Constitution to the bottom, and
provide a radical cure.” His weight of character did more than any other
single force to bring the convention to an agreement and obtain
ratification of the instrument afterward. He did not believe it perfect,
though his precise criticisms of it are unknown. But his support gave it
victory in Virginia, where he sent copies to Patrick Henry and other
leaders with a hint that the alternative to adoption was anarchy,
declaring that “it or dis-union is before us to chuse from.” He received
and personally circulated copies of The Federalist. When ratification
was obtained, he wrote to leaders in the various states urging that men
staunchly favourable to it be elected to Congress. For a time he
sincerely believed that, the new framework completed, he would be
allowed to retire again to privacy. But all eyes immediately turned to
him for the first president. He alone commanded the respect of both the
parties engendered by the struggle over ratification, and he alone would
be able to give prestige to the republic throughout Europe. In no state
was any other name considered. The electors chosen in the first days of
1789 cast a unanimous vote for him, and reluctantly—for his love of
peace, his distrust of his own abilities, and his fear that his motives
in advocating the new government might be misconstrued all made him
unwilling—he accepted.
On April 16, after receiving congressional notification of the
honour, he set out from Mount Vernon, reaching New York City in time to
be inaugurated on April 30 (see primary source document: First Inaugural
Address). His journey northward was a celebratory procession as people
in every town and village through which he passed turned out to greet
him, often with banners and speeches, and in some places with triumphal
arches. He came across the Hudson River in a specially built barge
decorated in red, white, and blue. The inaugural ceremony was performed
on Wall Street, near the spot now marked by John Quincy Adams Ward’s
statue of Washington. A great crowd broke into cheers as, standing on
the balcony of Federal Hall, he took the oath administered by Chancellor
Robert Livingston and retired indoors to read Congress his inaugural
address. Washington was clad in a brown suit of American manufacture,
but he wore white stockings and a sword after the fashion of European
courts.
Martha was as reluctant as her husband to resume public life. But a
month later she came from Mount Vernon to join him. She, too, was
greeted wildly on her way. And when Washington crossed the Hudson to
bring her to Manhattan, guns boomed in salute. The Washingtons, to
considerable public criticism, traveled about in a coach-and-four like
monarchs. Moreover, during his presidency, Washington did not shake
hands, and he met his guests on state occasions while standing on a
raised platform and displaying a sword on his hip. Slowly, feeling his
way, Washington was defining the style of the first president of a
country in the history of the world. The people, too, were adjusting to
a government without a king. Even the question of how to address a
president had to be discussed. It was decided that in a republic the
simple salutation “Mr. President” would do.
Portrait of George Washington
by Gilbert Stuart, 1796
Presidency » The Washington administration
Washington’s administration of the government in the next eight years
was marked by the caution, the methodical precision, and the sober
judgment that had always characterized him. He regarded himself as
standing aloof from party divisions and emphasized his position as
president of the whole country by touring first through the Northern
states and later through the Southern. A painstaking inquiry into all
the problems confronting the new nation laid the basis for a series of
judicious recommendations to Congress in his first message. In selecting
the four members of his first cabinet—Thomas Jefferson as secretary of
state, Alexander Hamilton as secretary of treasury, Henry Knox as
secretary of war, and Edmund Randolph as attorney general—Washington
balanced the two parties evenly. But he leaned with especial weight upon
Hamilton, who supported his scheme for the federal assumption of state
debts, took his view that the bill establishing the Bank of the United
States was constitutional, and in general favoured strengthening the
authority of the federal government. Distressed when the inevitable
clash between Jefferson and Hamilton arose, he tried to keep harmony,
writing frankly to each and refusing to accept their resignations.
But when war was declared between France and England in 1793, he took
Hamilton’s view that the United States should completely disregard the
treaty of alliance with France and pursue a course of strict neutrality,
while he acted decisively to stop the improper operations of the French
minister, Edmond-Charles Genet. He had a firm belief that the United
States must insist on its national identity, strength, and dignity. His
object, he wrote, was to keep the country “free from political
connections with every other country, to see them independent of all,
and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character
that the powers of Europe may be convinced that we act for ourselves,
and not for others.” The sequel was the resignation of Jefferson at the
close of 1793, the two men parting on good terms and Washington praising
Jefferson’s “integrity and talents.” The suppression of the Whiskey
Rebellion in 1794 by federal troops whom Hamilton led in person and the
dispatch of John Jay to conclude a treaty of commerce with Great Britain
tended further to align Washington with the federalists. Although the
general voice of the people compelled him to acquiesce reluctantly to a
second term in 1792 and his election that year was again unanimous,
during his last four years in office he suffered from a fierce personal
and partisan animosity. This culminated when the publication of the
terms of the Jay Treaty, which Washington signed in August 1795,
provoked a bitter discussion, and the House of Representatives called
upon the president for the instructions and correspondence relating to
the treaty. These Washington, who had already clashed with the Senate on
foreign affairs, refused to deliver, and, in the face of an acrimonious
debate, he firmly maintained his position.
Early in his first term, Washington, who by education and natural
inclination was minutely careful of the proprieties of life, established
the rules of a virtual republican court. In both New York and
Philadelphia he rented the best houses procurable, refusing to accept
the hospitality of George Clinton, for he believed the head of the
nation should be no man’s guest. He returned no calls and shook hands
with no one, acknowledging salutations by a formal bow. He drove in a
coach drawn by four or six smart horses, with outriders and lackeys in
rich livery. He attended receptions dressed in a black velvet suit with
gold buckles, with yellow gloves, powdered hair, a cocked hat with an
ostrich plume in one hand, and a sword in a white leather scabbard.
After being overwhelmed by callers, he announced that, except for a
weekly levee open to all, persons desiring to see him had to make
appointments in advance. On Friday afternoons the first lady held
informal receptions, at which the president appeared. Although the
presidents of the Continental Congress had made their tables partly
public, Washington, who entertained largely, inviting members of
Congress in rotation, insisted that his hospitality be private. He
served good wines and the menus were elaborate, but such visitors as
Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay complained that the atmosphere was
too “solemn.” Indeed, his simple ceremony offended many of the more
radical anti-federalists, who did not share his sense of its fitness and
accused the president of conducting himself like a king. But his cold
and reserved manner was caused by native diffidence rather than any
excessive sense of dignity.
George Washington on his Death Bed
Presidency » Retirement
Earnestly desiring leisure, feeling a decline of his physical powers,
and wincing under abuses of the opposition, Washington refused to yield
to the general pressure for a third term. This refusal was blended with
a testament of sagacious advice to his country in the Farewell Address
(see original text) of September 19, 1796, written largely by Hamilton
but remolded by Washington and expressing his ideas. Retiring in March
1797 to Mount Vernon, he devoted himself for the last two and a half
years of his life to his family, farm operations, and care of his
slaves. In 1798 his seclusion was briefly interrupted when the prospect
of war with France caused his appointment as commander in chief of the
provisional army, and he was much worried by the political quarrels over
high commissions; but the war cloud passed away.
On December 12, 1799, after riding on horseback for several hours in
cold and snow, he returned home exhausted and was attacked late the next
day with quinsy or acute laryngitis. He was bled heavily four times and
given gargles of “molasses, vinegar and butter,” and a blister of
cantharides (a preparation of dried beetles) was placed on his throat,
his strength meanwhile rapidly sinking. He faced the end with
characteristic serenity, saying, “I die hard, but I am not afraid to
go,” and later: “I feel myself going. I thank you for your attentions;
but I pray you to take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly.
I cannot last long.” After giving instructions to his secretary, Tobias
Lear, about his burial, he died at 10:00 pm on December 14. The news of
his death placed the entire country in mourning, and the sentiment of
the country endorsed the famous words of Henry (“Light-Horse Harry”)
Lee, embodied in resolutions that John Marshall introduced in the House
of Representatives, that he was “first in war, first in peace, and first
in the hearts of his countrymen.” When the news reached Europe, the
British channel fleet and the armies of Napoleon paid tribute to his
memory, and many of the leaders of the time joined in according him a
preeminent place among the heroes of history. His fellow citizens
memorialized him forever by naming the newly created capital city of the
young nation for him while he was still alive. Later, one of the states
of union would bear his name—the only state named for an individual
American. Moreover, counties in 32 states were given his name, and in
time it also could be found in 121 postal addresses. The people of the
United States have continued to glory in knowing him as “the father of
his country,” an accolade he was pleased to accept, even though it
pained him that he fathered no children of his own. For almost a century
beginning in the 1770s, Washington was the uncontested giant in the
American pantheon of greats, but only until Abraham Lincoln was
enshrined there after another critical epoch in the life of the country.
Allan Nevins
Henry Graff
Encyclopaedia Britannica
