George Washington: A Life from Beginning to End (Biographies of US Presidents)

by Henry Freeman

As he put on a pair of spectacles, he said, “Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind.” His officers, remembering how much Washington had gone through as their leader, were contrite; many were moved to tears. The following day they passed a resolution to commend their Commander-in-Chief for his devotion to his soldiers.

But history has affirmed the legacy of a man who, by seeking neither fame nor power, achieved both and in the process, earned the title of Father of His Country.

“I had rather be on my farm than emperor of the world.” —George Washington

The frontier lay ahead, land was limitless, and to his mind, colonization of the territory to the west was the nation’s destiny.

He had, at one point, considered a career at sea rather than on the land, and wanted to join the British Navy, but his family did not support this ambition.

helped to ignite the start of the Seven Years’ War, also known as the French and Indian War, with British and French forces playing out their traditional rivalry in the New World. The prize for the country that won would be the lands which both England and France wanted to control, those resource-rich, seemingly boundless stretches of fertile soil, deep forests, and the promise of wealth. For the colonists, who of course sided with the British because they saw themselves as British, winning was of paramount importance; they were fighting for their homes.

Washington’s surrender to the French would be his last; never again would he surrender a force in battle. English author Horace Walpole wrote, "The volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America set the world on fire."

Love was romantic in colonial America, but it was also practical, as was necessary in a land where people were needed to tame a wilderness. There were other women in Virginia, eligible brides who would be happy to marry the very available George Washington who had distinguished himself in his military service and who was a landowner.

“The British Government hath no more right to put their hands into my pocket without my consent, than I have to put my hands into yours, for money.” —George Washington

Extremely radical statement

But the Proclamation of 1763, by setting a defined western boundary with British posts established to regulate the border, required colonial settlers who had moved beyond the boundary to abandon their settlements. To make matters worse, the colonies themselves would be required to pay for the British posts monitoring the frontier. To the colonists, not only were they being denied the freedom to venture west, but they were charged with the payment for the force which denied them the freedom to move.

The French and Indian War had been expensive. It had drained the British coffers, and it seemed reasonable that the colonies should bear the expense of replenishing the treasury by paying taxes levied by Parliament. The colonists disagreed, and the response “no taxation without representation,” expressing their disagreement at being taxed but having no voice in Parliament, would serve as the foundation of their simmering discontent.

Another of the Intolerable Acts alarmed the other colonies. Parliament required the Massachusetts colonial government to obtain the approval of the governor before towns could hold meetings; appointments for councils would be by appointment rather than election.

The British enlisted slaves in their army and Virginia’s royal governor offered freedom to slaves who left their masters and agreed to bear arms against them.

And how would slaves possible hear of such an offer?

The social responsibilities of the president’s wife were not entirely unlike those of a Virginia aristocrat, although the atmosphere was probably more circumscribed.

but no one could deny that George Washington earned the praise which described him as “First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

George Washington had no children, no sons or daughters born to him. America was his child, and he raised his offspring as carefully and attentively as he would have done had he been a father. It forever remains for America to express its adherence to his lessons.