You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

by Alexis Coe

Political partisanship, Washington predicted, would reduce the government to a crowd of bickering representatives who were very good at thwarting each other but got very little accomplished for their constituents. And for all his talk of unity, he had come to see people as for or against his administration and had little patience for criticism. Unbridled partisanship was his greatest fear, and his greatest failure was that he became increasingly partisan.

“He will have his usual good fortune of reaping credit from the good arts of others, and leaving to them that of his errors.”