About Me
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On April 30, 1789 I stood on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York and took the 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," I wrote James Madison, "it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles."I was born in 1732 into a Virginia planter family where I learned the morals, manners, and body of knowledge requisite for an 18th century Virginia gentleman.I pursued two intertwined interests: military arts and western expansion. At 16 I helped survey Shenandoah lands for Thomas, Lord Fairfax. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754, I fought the first skirmishes of what grew into the French and Indian War. The next year, as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock, I escaped injury although four bullets ripped my coat and two horses were shot from under me.From 1759 to the outbreak of the American Revolution, I managed my 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 my fellow planters, I felt himself exploited by British merchants and hampered by British regulations. As the quarrel with the mother country grew acute, I moderately but firmly voiced my resistance to the restrictions.When the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775 I was elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. On July 3, 1775, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, I took command of the ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that would last six grueling years.I 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." In the ensuing battles I would fall back slowly and then strike unexpectedly. Finally in 1781 with the aid of French allies--I forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.Even though I longed to go travel home to Mount Vernon, it did not take me long to realize that the Nation under its Articles of Confederation was not functioning well, so I 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 me as President.I did not infringe upon the policy making powers that I 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, I refused to accept entirely the recommendations of either my Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who was pro-French, or my Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who was pro-British. Rather, I insisted upon a neutral course until the United States could grow stronger.To my disappointment, two parties were developing by the end of my first term. Weary of politics and feeling old, I retired at the end of his second. In my Farewell Address, I urged his countrymen to forswear excessive party spirit and geographical distinctions. In foreign affairs, I warned against long-term alliances. A lot of good that did.
