🎖️George Washington

First President · 1789–1797

George Washington is often called "the indispensable man" of American history. He commanded the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and became the first president of the United States. His most consequential decision may have been his last in office: voluntarily stepping down after two terms, establishing a precedent that held for 150 years.

Virginia Planter and Surveyor

Washington was born into a family of Virginia planters but lost his father when he was 11. Lacking the resources for a proper formal education in England, he trained as a surveyor and by age 17 was working professionally, developing the attention to detail and stamina for outdoor life that defined him. At 22, serving as a militia officer, he played a central role in the opening skirmishes of the French and Indian War. The experience taught him hard lessons about British military arrogance and colonial competence.

Commander of the Continental Army

When the Second Continental Congress needed a commander for the rebel army outside Boston in June 1775, Washington — a Virginian who wore his uniform to sessions of Congress in Philadelphia — was the obvious choice. He held the army together through eight years of war with limited funds, perpetual supply shortages, a fraction of Britain's military resources, and several outright defeats. The crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night 1776 and the victories at Trenton and Princeton saved the Revolution at its lowest ebb. The siege of Yorktown in 1781 ended it.

His most extraordinary act of that period came in 1783, when he resigned his commission and went home to Mount Vernon rather than seize power. King George III is said to have remarked that if Washington really did that, he would be "the greatest man in the world."

Constitutional Convention and First Term

Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and was elected first president in 1789 by a unanimous Electoral College — a feat no one has matched since. His inauguration on April 30, 1789 in New York City launched a government that had to be built almost entirely from scratch. He created the first Cabinet, appointed the first Supreme Court, issued the first veto, and chose the location of the federal capital on the banks of the Potomac.

The Precedent of Leaving

Washington declined to seek a third term in 1796. His Farewell Address — written with significant help from Alexander Hamilton — warned against permanent foreign alliances, sectional division, and the "baneful effects of the spirit of party." By voluntarily leaving office, he established the most important precedent in American constitutional practice: that the presidency is an office, not a person, and that power in the United States flows peacefully from one leader to the next.

Complications

Washington was a slaveholder for most of his life. At his death, Mount Vernon held 317 enslaved men, women, and children; 123 of those were his outright property, and his will directed that they be freed upon the death of his wife Martha. The gap between the principles of the Revolution and the reality of slavery on the plantation he ran is one of the central tensions of his legacy.

Washington Trivia

• Washington never actually lived in Washington, D.C. — he chose the site but the city was not ready until after he left office.
• His wooden dentures are a myth; his actual dentures were made of human and animal teeth, ivory, and metal springs.
• He grew hemp at Mount Vernon — a common commercial crop of the period, used for rope and sailcloth.
• The only military rank ever to be held by Washington above that of general was granted posthumously in 1976, when he was elevated to "General of the Armies of the United States" so that no future officer could ever outrank him.

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