French and Indian War, 1754-1763. In 1752 Washington received his first military appointment as a major in the Virginia militia. On a mission for Governor Robert Dinwiddie during October 1753-January 1754, he delivered an ultimatum to the French at Fort Le Boeuf, demanding their withdrawal from territory claimed by Britain. The French refused. The French and the Ohio Company, a group of Virginians anxious to acquire western lands, were competing for control of the site of present-day Pittsburgh. The French drove the Ohio Company from the area and at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers constructed Fort Duquesne. Promoted to lieutenant colonel in March 1754, Washington oversaw construction of Fort Necessity in what is now Fayette County, Pennsylvania. However, he was forced to surrender that outpost to superior French and Indian forces in July 1754, a humiliating defeat that temporarily gave France control of the entire region. Later that year, Washington, disgusted with officers beneath his rank who claimed superiority because they were British regulars, resigned his commission. He returned to service, however, in 1755 as an aide-de-camp to General Edward Braddock. In the disastrous engagement at which Braddock was mortally wounded in July 1755, Washington managed to herd what was left of the force to orderly retreat, as twice his horse was shot out from under him. The next month he was promoted to colonel and regimental commander. He resigned from the militia in December 1758 following his election to the Virginia House of Burgesses.
Member of House of Burgesses, 1759-1774. In July 1758 Colonel Washington was elected one of Frederick County's two representatives in the House of Burgesses. He joined those protesting Britain's colonial policy and in 1769 emerged a leader of the Association, created at an informal session of the House of Burgesses, after it had been dissolved by the royal governor, to consider the most effective means of boycotting British imports. Washington favored cutting trade sharply but opposed a suspension of all commerce with Britain. He also did not approve of the Boston Tea Party of December 1773. But soon thereafter he came to realize that reconciliation with the mother country was no longer possible. Meanwhile, in 1770, Washington undertook a nine-week expedition to the Ohio country where, as compensation for his service in the French and Indian War, he was to inspect and claim more than 20,000 acres of land for himself and tens of thousands more for the men who had served under him. He had taken the lead in pressing the Virginia veterans' claim. “I might add, without much arrogance,” he later wrote, “that if it had not been for my unremitted attention to every favorable circumstance, not a single acre of land would ever have been obtained”.
Delegate to Continental Congress, 1774-1775. A member of the Virginia delegation to the First and Second Continental Congresses, Washington served on various military preparedness committees and was chairman of the committee to consider ways to raise arms and ammunition for the impending Revolution. He voted for measures designed to reconcile differences with Britain peacefully but realized that such efforts now were futile. John Adams of Massachusetts, in a speech so effusive in its praise that Washington rushed in embarrassment from the chamber, urged that Washington be named commander in chief of the newly authorized Continental army. In June 1775, delegates unanimously approved the choice of Washington, both for his military experience and, more pragmatically, to enlist a prominent Virginian to lead a struggle that heretofore had been spearheaded largely by northern revolutionaries.
Commander in chief of Continental Army during Revolution, 1775-1783. With a poorly trained, undisciplined force comprised of short-term militia, General Washington took to the field against crack British regulars and Hessian mercenaries. In March 1776 he thrilled New Englanders by flushing the redcoats from Boston, but his loss of New York City and other setbacks later that year dispelled any hope of a quick American victory. Sagging American morale got a boost when Washington slipped across the Delaware River to New Jersey and defeated superior enemy forces at Trenton (December 1776) and Princeton (January 1777). But humiliating defeats at Brandywine (September 1777) and Germantown (October 1777) and the subsequent loss of Philadelphia undermined Washington's prestige in Congress. Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Rush, and others conspired to remove Washington and replace him with General Horatio Gates, who had defeated General John Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga (October 1777). Washington's congressional supporters rallied to quash the so-called Conway Cabal. Prospects for victory seemed bleak as Washington settled his men into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in December 1777.
"To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness," Washington wrote in tribute to the men who suffered with him at Valley Forge, "without blankets to lay on, without shoes, by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions as with; marching through frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a day's march of the enemy, without a house or hut to cover them till they could be built, and submitting to it without a murmur, is a mark of patience and obedience which in my opinion can scarce be paralleled." Of course, some did grumble— and loudly. "No pay! no clothes! no provisions! no rum!" some chanted. But remarkably there was no mass desertion, no mutiny. Patriotism, to be sure, sustained many, but no more so than did confidence in Washington's ability to see them through safely. With the snow-clogged roads impassable to supply wagons, the men stayed alive on such fare as pepper pot soup, a thin tripe broth flavored with a handful of peppercorns. Many died there that winter. Those that survived drew fresh hope with the greening of spring and the news, announced to them by General Washington in May 1778, that France had recognized the independence of America. Also encouraging was the arrival of Baron Friedrich von Steuben, who, at Washington's direction, drilled the debilitated Valley Forge survivors into crack troops. Washington's men broke camp in June 1778, a revitalized army that, with aid from France, took the war to the British and in October 1781 boxed in General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, thus forcing the surrender of British forces.
General Washington imposed strict, but not punitive, surrender terms: All weapons and military supplies must be given up; all booty must be returned, but the enemy soldiers could keep their personal effects and the officers could retain their sidearms. British doctors were allowed to tend to their own sick and wounded. Cornwallis accepted, but instead of personally leading his troops to the mutually agreed-upon point of surrender on October 19, 1781, he sent his deputy Brigadier Charles O'Hara. As he made his way along the road flanked by American and French forces, O'Hara came face to face with Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau, the latter decked out in lavish military regalia. O'Hara mistook Rochambeau for the senior commander, but the French officer quickly pointed to Washington, and O'Hara, probably somewhat embarrassed, turned to the American. Unwilling to deal with a man of lesser rank, Washington directed O'Hara to submit the sword of capitulation to his aide General Benjamin Lincoln. In his victory dispatch to Congress, Washington wrote with obvious pride, “Sir, I have the Honor to inform Congress, that a Reduction of the British Army under the Command of Lord Cornwallis, is most happily effected. The unremitting Ardor which actuated every Officer and Soldier in the combined Army in this Occasion, has principally led to this Important Event, at an earlier period than my most sanguine Hope had induced me to expect”. In November 1783, two months after the formal peace treaty was signed, Washington resigned his commission and returned home to the neglected fields of Mount Vernon.
President of Constitutional Convention, 1787. Washington, a Virginia delegate, was unanimously elected president of the convention. He was among those favoring a strong federal government. After the convention he promoted ratification of the Constitution in Virginia. According to the notes of Abraham Baldwin, a Georgia delegate, which were discovered only recently and made public in 1987, Washington said privately that he did not expect the Constitution to last more than 20 years.
ELECTION AS PRESIDENT, FIRST TERM, 1789: Washington, a Federalist, was the obvious choice for the first president of the United States. A proven leader whose popularity transcended the conflict between Federalists and those opposed to a strong central government, the man most responsible for winning independence, a modest country squire with a winsome aversion to the limelight, he so dominated the political landscape that not 1 of the 69 electors voted against him. Thus, he carried all 10 states—Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia. (Neither North Carolina nor Rhode Island had ratified the Constitution yet. New York was unable to decide in time which electors to send.) Washington was the only president elected by a unanimous electoral vote. John Adams of Massachusetts, having received the second-largest number of votes, 34, was elected vice president.
election as president, second term, 1792: Despite the growing strength of Democratic-Republicans, Washington continued to enjoy virtually universal support. Again he won the vote of every elector, 132, and thus carried all 15 states—Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia. John Adams of Massachusetts received the second-highest number of votes, 77, and thus again became vice president.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS (FIRST): New York City, April 30, 1789. ". . . When I was first honored with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed; and being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require. ..."
INAUGURAL ADDRESS (SECOND): Philadelphia, March 4, 1793. (This was the shortest inaugural address, just 135 words.) "Fellow Citizens: I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America.
"Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony."
VICE PRESIDENT: John Adams (1735-1826), of Massachusetts, served 1789-1797. See "John Adams, 2d President."
CABINET:
Secretary of State. (1) Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), of Virginia, served 1790-1793. See "Thomas Jefferson, 3d President," "Career before the Presidency." (2) Edmund Jennings Randolph (1753-1813), of Virginia, served 1794-1795. Author of the Randolph (or Virginia) plan, favoring the large states, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Transferred from attorney general, he remained aloof of the struggle between Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Denounced by supporters of both, he was largely ineffective and was forced to resign amid unfounded charges that he had misused his office for private gain. (3) Timothy Pickering (1745-1829), of Massachusetts, served 1795-1800. Transferred from war secretary, he was a staunch Hamiltonian and stayed on in the Adams administration.
Secretary of the Treasury. (1) Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755-1804), of New York, served 1789-1795. President Washington's closest advisor, he was a great admirer of British institutions and a master of power politics. He saw his role in the government as that of prime minister. His influence went beyond economics to include foreign affairs, legal matters, and long-range social planning. He advocated and helped create a strong central government at the expense of states' rights. He put the infant nation on sound financial footing by levying taxes to retire the national debt and promoted the creation of a national bank. He also advocated tariffs to insulate fledgling American manufacturing from foreign competition. Hamilton's vision of America's future encompassed the evolution from a largely agrarian society to an industrial giant, a national transportation program to facilitate commerce and blur regional differences, a strong permanent national defense, and a sound, conservative monetary system. Even after resigning his post, he kept his hands on the controls of power. Washington continued to consult him. Hamilton's successor, Oliver Wolcott, and others in the cabinet took his advice. He even helped draft Washington's Farewell address. The foremost conservative leader of his day, he was anathema to Thomas Jefferson and his supporters. (2) Oliver Wolcott (1760-1833), of Connecticut, served 1795-1800. A lawyer and Hamilton supporter, he stayed on in the Adams administration.
Secretary of War. (1) Henry Knox (1750-1806), of Massachusetts, served 1789-1794. Chief of artillery and close adviser to General Washington during the Revolution and war secretary under the Articles of Confederation, he was a natural choice for this post. He pressed for a strong navy. Fort Knox was named after him. (2) Timothy Pickering (1745-1829), of Massachusetts, served January-December, 1795. A lawyer and veteran of the Revolution, he strengthened the navy. He resigned to serve as secretary of state. (3) James McHenry (1753-1816), of Maryland, served 1796-1800. He had served as a surgeon during the Revolution and was a prisoner of war. He stayed on in the Adams administration. Fort McHenry at Baltimore was named after him.
Attorney General. (1) Edmund Jennings Randolph (1753-1813), of Virginia, served 1789-1794. He helped draft President Washington's proclamation of neutrality. Washington disregarded his opinion that a national bank was unconstitutional. He resigned to become secretary of state. (2) William Bradford (1755-1795), of Pennsylvania, served 1794-1795. He was a state supreme court justice at the time of his appointment. (3) Charles Lee (1758-1815), of Virginia, served 1795-1801. He was a brother of Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee. He urged, unsuccessfully, that the United States abandon its policy of neutrality and declare war on France. He stayed on in the Adams administration.
ADMINISTRATION: April 30, 1789-March 3, 1797.
Precedents. "Many things which appear of little importance in themselves and at the beginning," President Washington observed, "may have great and durable consequences from their having been established at the commencement of a new general government."10 With this in mind, then, he proceeded cautiously, pragmatically, acting only when it seemed necessary to flesh out the bare-bones framework of government described so sparingly in the Constitution: (1) In relying on department heads for advice, much as he had used his war council during the Revolution, he set the pattern for future presidents to consult regularly with their cabinet. (2) Because Congress did not challenge his appointments, largely out of respect for him personally rather than out of principle, the custom evolved that the chief executive generally has the right to choose his own cabinet. Congress, even when controlled by the opposition party, usually routinely confirms such presidential appointments. (3) How long should a president serve? The Constitution did not then say. Washington nearly set the precedent of a single term, for he had originally decided to retire in 1793, but remained for a second term when it became clear that the nonpartisan government he had so carefully fostered was about to fragment. Thus he set the two-term standard that lasted until 1940. (4) When John Jay resigned as chief justice, Washington went outside the bench for a successor rather than to elevate one of the sitting justices to the top position, as many had expected him to do. In disregarding seniority as a necessary qualification to lead the Supreme Court, Washington established the precedent that has enabled his successors to draw from a much more diverse and younger talent pool than that of a handful of aging incumbent jurists.