On April
30, 1789, George Washington, standing on the balcony of
Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of
office as the first President of the United States. "As
the first of every thing, in our situation will serve
to establish a Precedent," he wrote James Madison,
"it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents
may be fixed on true principles."
Born
in 1732 into a Virginia planter family, he learned the morals,
manners, and body of knowledge requisite for an 18th century
Virginia gentleman.
He
pursued two intertwined interests: military arts and western
expansion. At 16 he helped survey Shenandoah lands for Thomas,
Lord Fairfax. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754, he
fought the first skirmishes of what grew into the French and
Indian War. The next year, as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock,
he escaped injury although four bullets ripped his coat and
two horses were shot from under him.
From
1759 to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Washington
managed his lands around Mount Vernon and served in the
Virginia House of Burgesses. Married to a widow, Martha
Dandridge Custis, he devoted himself to a busy and happy life.
But like his fellow planters, Washington felt himself
exploited by British merchants and hampered by British
regulations. As the quarrel with the mother country grew
acute, he moderately but firmly voiced his resistance to the
restrictions.
When the
Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May
1775, Washington, one of the Virginia delegates, was elected
Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. On July 3, 1775,
at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took command of his
ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that was to last
six grueling years.
He
realized early that the best strategy was to harass the
British. He reported to Congress, "we should on all
Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the
Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought
never to be drawn." Ensuing battles saw him fall back
slowly, then strike unexpectedly. Finally in 1781 with the aid
of French allies--he forced the surrender of Cornwallis at
Yorktown.
Washington
longed to retire to his fields at Mount Vernon. But he soon
realized that the Nation under its Articles of Confederation
was not functioning well, so he became a prime mover in the
steps leading to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia
in 1787. When the new Constitution was ratified, the Electoral
College unanimously elected Washington President.
He did
not infringe upon the policy making powers that he felt the
Constitution gave Congress. But the determination of foreign
policy became preponderantly a Presidential concern. When the
French Revolution led to a major war between France and
England, Washington refused to accept entirely the
recommendations of either his Secretary of State Thomas
Jefferson, who was pro-French, or his Secretary of the
Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who was pro-British. Rather, he
insisted upon a neutral course until the United States could
grow stronger.
To his
disappointment, two parties were developing by the end of his
first term. Wearied of politics, feeling old, he retired at
the end of his second. In his Farewell Address, he urged his
countrymen to forswear excessive party spirit and geographical
distinctions. In foreign affairs, he warned against long-term
alliances.
Washington
enjoyed only a few years of retirement at Mount Vernon. Even
then, demonstrating his continued willingness to make
sacrifices for his country in 1798 when the nation was on the
verge of war with France he agreed to command the army, though
his services were not ultimately required. Washington enjoyed
less than three years of retirement at Mount Vernon, for he
died of a throat infection December 14, 1799.
-
George
Washington