The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

by Edward J. Larson

IT WAS AND REMAINS one of the most remarkable events in the history of war, revolution, and politics. General George Washington retired. Although a spoken act, like so much that set him apart, it was less what he said than what he did.

EXTOLLED BY LATER HISTORIANS as a signal event that set the country’s political course—Thomas Fleming called it “the most important moment in American history”6—Washington’s retirement was similarly praised at the time.

Even more than the commander in chief’s distinguished and disinterested service during the Revolutionary War, which was performed without salary or leave for more than eight and a half years, voluntarily surrendering the trappings of power for private life on a Virginia plantation made Washington a venerated American hero and world-renowned personification of republican virtue.