George Washington: Proclamation of Neutrality

About the Author

As both soldier and statesman, George Washington played a pivotal role in the establishment of the United States of America, from the 1750s until his death in 1799. Washington could be found at the center of events during both the French and Indian War (1754–1763) and the American Revolution. As commander in chief of the Continental army during the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), he led the fledgling country through years of dismal, often uncertain conflict. After a brief retirement, Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Following two terms as the nation's first president, he retired to his plantation of Mount Vernon, dying on December 14, 1799.

Washington was born in 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. As a native Virginian, Washington envisioned his beloved Potomac River as the gateway to the West. As a young man he surveyed western lands, and he continued to take an interest in the West throughout his life. As a commander of militia troops in 1754, scouting western Pennsylvania, Washington was defeated by French forces at Fort Necessity, which helped spark the conflict that became the French and Indian War. In 1758 Washington, by then a colonel, won an important victory at Fort Duquesne. That year he also won election for the first time to Virginia's House of Burgesses. The next year, he married the wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis.

At the onset of the Revolutionary War, Washington stood out as the obvious choice to be commander in chief of the Continental army. Although he lost more battles than he won against the superior British force during the war, events like the crossing of the Delaware River became legendary; by keeping the army alive, he kept the Revolution alive. Finally, at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, Washington, with French allies, defeated the British under General Charles Cornwallis, effectively bringing the war to a close.

In 1783 Washington resigned his army post and retired to Mount Vernon. Meanwhile, in the wake of the war, the United States faced severe financial problems, ineffective government under the Articles of Confederation, and violent unrest. By 1787 Washington was among those who thought the articles insufficient to preserve liberty and provide order. Washington's reputation for fairness and prudence placed him in the presider's chair at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. In the end, the convention discarded the articles and proposed instead a wholly new constitution for the Union, one delineating a stronger central government. Having proved during the Revolutionary War that he could be trusted with great power, Washington soon became the nation's first president under the U.S. Constitution.

As president, Washington realized that every action he undertook would produce a lasting precedent. In choosing his political course, he drew from a well of wisdom, fortitude, and judiciousness that few of his contemporaries seemed to possess. He did his best to balance conflicting commercial and agrarian interests in the country, the former being represented in his cabinet by the New Yorker Alexander Hamilton and the latter by the Virginian Thomas Jefferson. By the middle of Washington's second term, both men had resigned and could be found leading the Federalist and Republican factions against each other. Washington, however, managed to stay above party politics, and he is the only president to have done so successfully.

Having published his Farewell Address in a Philadelphia newspaper on September 19, 1796, Washington retired to Mount Vernon the following spring. Several years later, after a riding tour of his plantation in unusually cold and damp weather, Washington's health rapidly deteriorated. He died of a respiratory illness on December 14, 1799. In his will, he freed those slaves he personally owned.