FREE ESSAY ON GEORGE WASHMGTON

GEORGE WASHMGTON

GEORGE WASHINGTON 
Biography
George Washington was born on Feb. 22, 1732 (Feb. 11, 1731/2, old style) in Westmoreland
County, Va. While in his teens, he trained as a surveyor, and at the age of 20 he was
appointed adjutant in the Virginia militia. For the next three years, he fought in the
wars against the French and Indians, serving as Gen. Edward Braddock's aide in the
disastrous campaign against Fort Duquesne. In 1759, he resigned from the militia, married
Martha Dandridge Custis, a widow, and settled down as a gentleman farmer at Mount Vernon,
Va. As a militiaman, Washington had been exposed to the arrogance of the British
officers, and his experience as a planter with British commercial restrictions increased
his anti-British sentiment. He opposed the Stamp Act of 1765 and after 1770 became
increasingly prominent in organizing resistance. A delegate to the Continental Congress,
Washington was selected as commander in chief of the Continental Army and took command at
Cambridge, Mass., on July 3, 1775. Inadequately supported and sometimes covertly
sabotaged by the Congress, in charge of troops who were inexperienced, badly equipped,
and impatient of discipline, Washington conducted the war on the policy of avoiding major
engagements with the British and wearing them down by harassing tactics. His able
generalship, along with the French alliance and the growing weariness within Britain,
brought the war to a conclusion. The chaotic years under the Articles of Confederation
led surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Va., on Oct. 19, 1781. Washington to return to
public life in the hope of promoting the formation of a strong central government. He
presided over the Constitutional Convention and yielded to the universal demand that he
serve as first president. He was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, in New York, the first
national capital. In office, he sought to unite the nation and establish the authority of
the new government at home and abroad. Greatly distressed by the emergence of the
Hamilton-Jefferson rivalry, Washington worked to maintain neutrality but actually
sympathized more with Hamilton. Following his unanimous re-election in 1792, the
Federalists dominated his second term. His Farewell Address on Sept. 17, 1796(published
but never delivered) rebuked party spirit and warned against permanent alliances with
foreign powers. He died at Mount Vernon on Dec. 14, 1799.
Early Career
George Washington was born in Westmoreland county, Va., on a farm, later known as
Wakefield, on Feb. 11, 1731. 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. 
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. When George's father died he took his
place in the farm 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.
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 opportunities 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.
French and Indian War
In the early 1750's, Britain and France both strove to occupy the upper Ohio Valley. The
French erected Fort Le Boeuf, at Waterford, Pa., and seized a British post, Venango, on
the Allegheny River. Alarmed by these acts, Virginia's governor, Robert Dinwiddie, sent
Washington late in 1753 on a mission to assert Britain's claim. He led a small party to
Fort Le Boeuf, where its commander stated France's determination to possess the disputed
area. Returning to Williamsburg, Washington delivered the defiant reply. He also wrote a
report which told a vivid winter's tale of wilderness adventure that enhanced his
reputation for resourcefulness and daring.
Dinwiddie then put Washington in command of an expedition to guard an intended British
fort at the forks of the Ohio, at the present site of Pittsburgh. En route, he learned
that the French had expelled the Virginia fort builders and were completing the works,
which they named Fort Duquesne. He advanced to Great Meadows, Pa., about 50 miles (80 km)
southeast of the fort, where he erected Fort Necessity. On May 28, 1754, occurred one of
the most disputed incidents of his career. He ambushed a small French detachment, the
commander of which, Joseph Coulon de Villiers, sieur de Jumonville, was killed along with
nine of his men. The others were captured. This incident started the French and Indian
War. The French claimed that their detachment was on a peaceful mission; Washington
thought that it was engaged in spying. He returned to Fort Necessity, which a large
French force attacked on July 3. It fell after a day's fighting. In making the surrender,
Washington signed a paper that imputed to him the blame for l'assassinat (murder) of
Jumonville. Not versed in French, Washington later explained that he had not understood
the meaning of the incriminating word.
By the terms of the surrender, he and his men were permitted to return, disarmed, to the
Virginia settlements. The news of his defeat moved Britain to send to Virginia an
expedition under Gen. Edward Braddock, whom Washington joined as a voluntary
aide-de-camp, without command of troops. Braddock's main force reached a point on the
Monongahela River about 7 miles (11 km) southeast of Fort Duquesne where, on July 9,
1755, he suffered a surprise attack and a defeat that ended in disordered flight.
Washington's part was that of inspiriting the men. His bravery under fire spread his fame
to nearby colonies and abroad. Dinwiddie rewarded him by appointing him, in August, to
the command of Virginia's troops, with the rank of colonel.
His new duties excluded him from leadership in the major campaigns of the war, the
operations of which were directed by British officials who assigned to Virginia the
humdrum task of defending its inland frontiers. No important battles were fought there.
Washington drilled his rough and often unsoldierly recruits, stationed them at frontier
posts, settled disputes, struggled to maintain order and discipline, labored to procure
supplies and to get them transported, strove to have his men paid promptly and provided
with shelter and medical care, sought support from the Virginia government, and kept it
informed. His command trained him in the management of self-willed men, familiarized him
with the leaders of Virginia, and schooled him in the rugged politics of a vigorous
society.
The French and Indian War also estranged him from the British. Thereafter, he never
expressed a feeling of affection for them. He criticized Braddock for blaming the
Virginians as a whole for the shortcomings of a few local contractors. He also thought
that Braddock was too slow in his marches. As commander in Virginia, he resented his
subordination to a British captain, John Dagworthy, and made a trip to Boston early in
1756 in order to get confirmation of his authority from the British commander in America.
He objected that one of his major plans was upset by ill-considered orders from Britain,
and in 1758 he disputed with British officers about the best route for an advance to Fort
Duquesne. The war ended in such a way as to withhold from him a suitable recognition for
his arduous services of nearly six years and to leave him, if not embittered, a somewhat
disappointed man.
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 across
the river. In April 1775 the governor of Virginia, John Murray, 4th earl of Dunmore,
canceled Washington's Kanawha claims on the pretext that his surveyor had not been
legally qualified to make surveys. At this time, also, Britain directed Dunmore to stop
granting land in the West. Thus Washington stood to lose the fruits of his efforts during
the French and Indian War.
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.
The American Revolution
When the 2d Continental Congress met on May 10, 1775, the fighting near Boston
(Lexington-Concord) had occurred. The British Army was cooped up in Boston, surrounded by
nearly 14,000 New England militiamen. On Feb. 2, 1775, the British House of Commons had
declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. This imputed to the people of that
colony the crime of treason. Washington, by appearing at the 2d Congress in uniform (the
only member thus attired), expressed his support of Massachusetts and his readiness to
fight against Britain. In June, Congress created the Continental Army and incorporated
into it the armed New Englanders around Boston, undertaking to supply and pay them and to
provide them with generals. On June 15, Washington was unanimously elected general and
commander in chief.
The tribute of a unanimous election reflected his influence in Congress, which endured
throughout the American Revolution despite disagreements among the members. In 1775 they
divided into three groups. The militants, led by Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and
Richard Henry Lee, favored vigorous military action against Britain. Most of them foresaw
the need of effective aid from France, which the colonies could obtain only by offering
their commerce. Before that could be done they must become independent states. Another
group, the moderates, represented by Benjamin Harrison and Robert Morris, hoped that a
vigorous prosecution of the war would force Britain to make a pro-American settlement.
Only as a last resort would the moderates turn to independence. The third group, the
conciliationists, led by John Dickinson, favored defensive measures and looked to friends
of America in England to work out a peace that would safeguard American rights of
self-taxation, thereby keeping the colonies in the British Empire. Washington agreed with
the militants and the moderates as to the need for offensive action. The conciliationists
and the moderates, as men of fortune, trusted him not to use the army to effect an
internal revolution that would strip them of their property and political influence.
Early in the war, Washington and the army had to act as if they were agents of a
full-grown nation. Yet Congress, still in an embryonic state, could not provide suddenly
a body of law covering all the issues that figure in a major war. Many actions had to be
left to Washington's discretion. His commission (June 17, 1775) stated: You are hereby
vested with full power and authority to act as you shall think for the good and welfare
of the service. There was a danger that a strong general might use the army to set up a
military dictatorship. It was therefore urgent that the army would be under a civil
authority. Washington agreed with the other leaders that Congress must be the superior
power. Yet the army needed a good measure of freedom of action. A working arrangement
gave such freedom, while preserving the authority of Congress. If there was no need for
haste, Washington advised that certain steps should be taken, and Congress usually
approved. In emergencies, he acted on his own authority and at once reported what he had
done. If Congress disapproved, he was so informed, and the action was not repeated. If
Congress did nothing, its silence signified assent. So attentive was Washington to
Congress, and so careful was he when acting on his own initiative, that no serious
conflict clouded his relations with the civil authority.
The Presidency
Unanimously elected the first president, Washington was inaugurated in New York City on
April 30, 1789. Acting with a cooperative Congress, he and his aides constructed the
foundations on which the political institutions of the country have rested since that
time. His qualifications for his task could hardly have been better. For 15 years he had
contended with most of the problems that faced the infant government. By direct contact
he had come to know the leaders who were to play important parts during his presidency.
Having traveled widely over the country, he had become well acquainted with its economic
conditions and practices. Experience had schooled him in the arts of diplomacy. He had
listened closely to the debates on the Constitution and had gained a full knowledge both
of its provisions and of the ideas and interests of representative leaders. He had worked
out a successful method for dealing with other men and with Congress and the states.
Thanks to his innumerable contacts with the soldiers of the Revolutionary army, he
understood the character of the American people and knew their ways. For eight years
after 1775 he had been a de facto president. The success of his work in founding a new
government was a by-product of the qualifications he had acquired in the hard school of
public service.
John Adams: his successor.
Where Washington triumphed as legislative leader, his successor, John Adams, failed.
Adams's split with Hamilton hopelessly divided the Federalists in Congress and denied the
administration vital support. The most significant legislation enacted, the Alien and
Sedition Acts, became highly unpopular. Though he took no part in securing them, much of
the storm of public resentment fell on Adams's shoulders. As Washington's heir apparent,
Adams discovered that even the presidency was being reduced to the level of human
passions and party objectives. According to his philosophy, the position should seek the
man, and knowledge as well as virtue should qualify the man, without regard to
partisanship. Unlike Washington, Adams had rivals for the presidency, and he should have
been more flexible. Instead, he permitted Alexander Hamilton to assume leadership of the
Federalist party, while he tried to remove himself from partisan politics by associating
even with his party's critics. Adams entered office on March 4, 1797. Fully aware of his
slender victory, he sought political harmony. His inaugural address, tracing the progress
of the nation, declared his faith in republicanism and called upon the people to end
partisan politics. He tried to reach an accord with Jefferson, conciliate the
Hamiltonians, and steer a peaceful course through the controversy with France over Jay's
Treaty. But he encountered supreme difficulties.
As the first president to succeed another, Adams had no guidelines to follow on cabinet
appointments, patronage, and policy enunciations. He decided to keep Washington's
mediocre cabinet, partly because he wanted to reconcile the Federalists and partly
because he knew how difficult it was to get good men to serve. The cabinet was
Federalist--and more, Hamiltonian--in loyalty. Adams did not fully realize the inherent
dangers of this situation until 1799, when the cabinet violated its trust by working
against his policies.
With Federalists about him, Adams found partisan politics impossible to avoid, though he
favored Republicans Benjamin Rush and Elbridge Gerry with appointments. As relations with
France worsened, he had to recommend preparations for defensive warfare while
negotiations for peace continued. These measures irritated the Republicans, but Adams was
not deterred. He held to his policy of peace and preparedness even after the French
Directory insulted American envoys and began detaining American vessels. In January 1798
he proposed the creation of a navy department and asked for funds to put the military on
a war footing.
Four bills to control subversion, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, were also passed.
One of the acts imposed severe penalties on those who criticized the government. These
harsh measures, formulated in a time of fright, were approved by Adams. Although a score
of journalists were punished for their attacks on the administration, the laws were not
ruthlessly applied. The opposition, however, made them appear cruel and turned them into
symbols of Federalism.
Adams' reprisals against French seizures of American shipping were popular for a time,
and the Federalists won the 1798 congressional elections. Though Congress did not declare
war, Adams pushed ahead with military preparations, selecting Washington, Henry Knox,
Charles C. Pinckney, and Hamilton, in that order, to be the ranking generals of the army.
But while Adams was visiting in Quincy (which had been set off from Braintree in 1792),
the cabinet secured Washington's backing to move Hamilton ahead of his colleagues and
make him second in command (actually, commander since Washington was not expected to take
the field). Adams grasped the significance of this maneuver. He saw lawful control of the
army shifted to Hamilton and, more, the naked specter of militarism. Hamilton and the
cabinet wanted to prolong the crisis with France and use the opportunity to consolidate
the Federalist party and spread the war into Spanish America.
By the time Adams fully realized what was happening, he had advice from Europe that
France would resume negotiations. In February 1799 he abruptly nominated William Vans
Murray as a special envoy, to the amazement of the Hamiltonians. Debate over the action
was bitter, and Adams compromised by agreeing to name a commission instead of a single
delegate, but he withstood the pressure of Hamilton, the British minister, and some
members of his cabinet. The commission finally concluded a treaty with France on Sept.
30, 1800. Adams had succeeded in preventing a war with France and preserving his
country's neutrality.
The treaty negotiations had split the party, and the Federalists now openly considered
the effect of this division on the 1800 election. When two cabinet members, Secretary of
State Pickering and Secretary of War McHenry, revealed their disloyalty to Adams, he
forced their resignations without any political finesse. His abrasive action infuriated
the Hamiltonians, who vented their feelings in public, matching the president's
undiplomatic conduct. The Republicans, led by Jefferson and Aaron Burr, enjoyed the
Federalist predicament. Adams was temperamentally unable to assume the responsibilities
of a party boss or to dramatize the achievements of his administration. The election
results reflected this weakness. The Federalists lost the presidency to Jefferson and the
Republicans by eight electoral votes (73 to 65) and also lost Congress.
Foreign Affairs
In foreign affairs, Washington aimed to keep the country at peace, lest involvement in a
great European war should shatter the new government before it could acquire strength. He
also sought to gain concessions from Britain and Spain that would promote the growth of
pioneer settlements in the Ohio Valley. In addition, he desired to keep up the import
trade of the Union, which yielded revenue from tariff duties that enabled the government
to sustain the public credit and to meet its current expenses.
The British and French
The foreign policy of Washington took shape under the pressure of a war between Britain
and revolutionary France. At the war's inception Washington had to decide whether two
treaties of the French-American alliance of 1778 were still in force. Hamilton held that
they were not, because they had been made with the now-defunct government of Louis XVI.
Washington, however, accepted Jefferson's opinion that they were still valid because they
had been made by an enduring nation--a principle that has since prevailed in American
diplomacy.
Fearing that involvement in the European war would blight the infant government,
Washington issued a proclamation of neutrality on April 22, 1793. This proclamation urged
American citizens to be impartial and warned them against aiding or sending war materials
to either belligerent.
Because Britain was the dominant sea power, France championed the doctrine of neutral
rights that was asserted in the French-American alliance. The doctrine held that
neutrals--the United States in this case--might lawfully trade with belligerents in
articles not contraband of war. Britain acted on a contrary theory respecting wartime
trade and seized American ships, thereby violating rights generally claimed by neutrals.
Such seizures goaded the Republican followers of Jefferson to urge measures that might
have led to a British-American war. Washington then sent John Jay on a treaty-making
mission to London.
Jay's Treaty of Nov. 19, 1794, outraged France because it did not uphold the
French-American alliance and because it conferred benefits on Britain. Although
Washington disliked some of its features, he signed it (the Senate had ratified it by a
two-thirds vote). One reason was that keeping open the import trade from Britain
continued to provide the Treasury with urgently needed revenues from tariff duties.
Unable to match Britain on the sea, the French indulged in a campaign to replace
Washington with their presumed partisans, in order to vitiate the treaty. They also waged
war on the shipping of the United States, and relations between the two countries went
from bad to worse.
The Western Frontier
Washington's diplomacy also had to deal with events in the West that involved Britain and
Spain. Pioneers in Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Ohio country, who were producers of
grain, lumber, and meats, sought good titles to farmlands, protection against Indians,
and outlets for their products via the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and New Orleans.
In the northern area, Britain held, within the United States, seven trading posts of
which the most important were Niagara, Detroit, and Mackinac. The determination of the
Indians to preserve their hunting lands against the inroads of pioneers seeking farms
encouraged the British in Canada in their efforts to maintain their hold on the fur trade
and their influence on the Indians of the area north of the Ohio River.
The focus of the strife was the land south of present-day Toledo. The most active Indian
tribes engaged were the Ottawa, the Pottawatomi, the Chippewa, and the Shawnee. Two
American commanders suffered defeats that moved Washington to wrath. British officials in
Canada then backed the Indians in their efforts to expel the Americans from the country
north of the Ohio River. A third U.S. force, under Gen. Anthony Wayne, defeated the
Indians so decisively in 1794 in the Battle of Fallen Timbers, at the site of present-day
Toledo, that they lost heart and the English withdrew their support. Wayne then imposed a
victor's peace. By the Treaty of Greenville (1795) the tribes gave up nearly all their
lands in Ohio, thereby clearing the way for pioneers to move in and form a new state.
In 1796 the British evacuated the seven posts that they had held within the United
States. Because Jay's Treaty had called for the withdrawal, it registered another victory
for Washington's diplomacy.
The Spanish Frontier
On the southwestern frontier the United States faced Spain, then the possessor of the
land south of the 31st parallel, from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River. Intent
upon checking the growth of settlement south of the Ohio River, the Spaniards used their
control of the mouth of the Mississippi at New Orleans to obstruct the export of American
products to foreign markets. The two countries each claimed a large area, known as the
Yazoo Strip, north of the 31st parallel.
In dealing with Spain, Washington sought both to gain for the western settlers the right
to export their products, duty free, by way of New Orleans, and to make good the claim of
the United States to the territory in dispute. The land held by Spain domiciled some
25,000 people of European stocks, who were generally preferred by the resident Indians
(Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw, with 14,000 warriors), to the 150,000
frontiersmen who had pushed into Kentucky, Tennessee, and western Georgia.
The selection of Jefferson as the first secretary of state reflected the purpose of
Washington to aid the West. But before 1795 he failed to attain that goal. His task was
complicated by a tangle of frontier plots, grandiose land-speculation schemes, Indian
wars, and preparations for war that involved Spanish officials, European fur traders, and
the Indian tribes, along with settlers, adventurers, military chieftains, and speculators
from the United States.
Conditions in Europe forced Washington to neglect the Southwest until 1795, when a series
of misfortunes moved Spain to yield and agree to the Treaty of San Lorenzo. The treaty
recognized the 31st parallel as the southern boundary of the United States and granted to
Americans the right to navigate the whole of the Mississippi, as well as a three-year
privilege of landing goods at New Orleans for shipment abroad.
When Washington left office the objectives of his foreign policy had been attained. By
avoiding war he had enabled the new government to take root, he had prepared the way for
the growth of the West, and by maintaining the import trade he had safeguarded the
national revenues and the public credit.
Washington Steps Down
By the end of 1795, Washington's creative work had been done. Thereafter he and his
collaborators devoted their efforts largely to defending what they had accomplished. A
conservative spirit became dominant and an era of High Federalism dawned. As his health
declined, Washington became saddened by attacks made by his Republican opponents, who
alleged that Hamilton had seized control of the administration, that a once-faithful
ally, France, had been cast aside, that the Federalists were plotting to create a
monarchy on the British model, and that they had corrupted Congress in order to effect
their program. The attack reached its high (or low) point when Washington's foes
reprinted forged letters that had been published to impugn his loyalty during the
Revolution. He made no reply to his detractors.
Washington had been reelected unanimously in 1792. His decision not to seek a third term
established a tradition that has been broken only once and is now embedded in the 22d
Amendment of the Constitution. In his Farewell Address of Sept. 17, 1796, he summarized
the results of his varied experience, offering a guide both for that time and for the
future. He urged his countrymen to cherish the Union, to support the public credit, to be
alert to the insidious wiles of foreign influence, to respect the Constitution and the
nation's laws, to abide by the results of elections, and to eschew political parties of a
sectional cast. Asserting that America and Europe had different interests, he declared
that it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the
foreign world, trusting to temporary alliances for emergencies. He also w