Military Service

Military Service. Washington served in the Virginia militia 1752-1754, 1755-1758, rising from major to colonel, and as commander in chief of the Continental army 1775-1783, with the rank of general.

See Career before the Presidency. CAREER BEFORE THE PRESIDENCY In 1749 Washington accepted his first appointment, that of surveyor of Culpepper County, Virginia, having gained much experience in that trade the previous year during an expedition across the Blue Ridge Mountains on behalf of Lord Fairfax. Two years later he accompanied his half brother Lawrence to Barbados. Lawrence, dying of tuberculosis, had hoped to find a cure in the mild climate. Instead, George came down with a near-fatal dose of smallpox.

With the deaths of Lawrence and Lawrences daughter in 1752, George inherited Mount Vernon, an estate that prospered under his management and one that throughout his life served as welcome refuge from the pressures of public life. French and Indian War, 1754-1763. In 1752 Washington received his first military appointment as a major in the Virginia militia.

On a mission for Governor Robert Dinwiddie during October 1753-January 1754, he delivered an ultimatum to the French at Fort Le Boeuf, demanding their withdrawal from territory claimed by Britain. The French refused. The French and the Ohio Company, a group of Virginians anxious to acquire western lands, were competing for control of the site of present-day Pittsburgh. The French drove the Ohio Company from the area and at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers constructed Fort Duquesne.

Promoted to lieutenant colonel in March 1754, Washington oversaw construction of Fort Necessity in what is now Fayette County, Pennsylvania. However, he was forced to surrender that outpost to superior French and Indian forces in July 1754, a humiliating defeat that temporarily gave France control of the entire region. Later that year, Washington, disgusted with officers beneath his rank who claimed superiority because they were British regulars, resigned his commission.

He returned to service, however, in 1755 as an aide-de-camp to General Edward Braddock. In the disastrous engagement at which Braddock was mortally wounded in July 1755, Washington managed to herd what was left of the force to orderly retreat, as twice his horse was shot out from under him. The next month he was promoted to colonel and regimental commander. He resigned from the militia in December 1758 following his election to the Virginia House of Burgesses. Member of House of Burgesses, 1759-1774. In July 1758 Colonel Washington was elected one of Frederick Countys two representatives in the House of Burgesses.

He joined those protesting Britains colonial policy and in 1769 emerged a leader of the Association, created at an informal session of the House of Burgesses, after it had been dissolved by the royal governor, to consider the most effective means of boycotting British imports. Washington favored cutting trade sharply but opposed a suspension of all commerce with Britain.

He also did not approve of the Boston Tea Party of December 1773. But soon thereafter he came to realize that reconciliation with the mother country was no longer possible. Meanwhile, in 1770, Washington undertook a nine-week expedition to the Ohio country where, as compensation for his service in the French and Indian War, he was to inspect and claim more than 20,000 acres of land for himself and tens of thousands more for the men who had served under him. He had taken the lead in pressing the Virginia veterans claim. I might add, without much arrogance, he later wrote, that if it had not been for my unremitted attention to every favorable circumstance, not a single acre of land would ever have been obtained.

Delegate to Continental Congress, 1774-1775. A member of the Virginia delegation to the First and Second Continental Congresses, Washington served on various military preparedness committees and was chairman of the committee to consider ways to raise arms and ammunition for the impending Revolution.

He voted for measures designed to reconcile differences with Britain peacefully but realized that such efforts now were futile. John Adams of Massachusetts, in a speech so effusive in its praise that Washington rushed in embarrassment from the chamber, urged that Washington be named commander in chief of the newly authorized Continental army. In June 1775, delegates unanimously approved the choice of Washington, both for his military experience and, more pragmatically, to enlist a prominent Virginian to lead a struggle that heretofore had been spearheaded largely by northern revolutionaries.

Commander in chief of Continental Army during Revolution, 1775-1783. With a poorly trained, undisciplined force comprised of short-term militia, General Washington took to the field against crack British regulars and Hessian mercenaries. In March 1776 he thrilled New Englanders by flushing the redcoats from Boston, but his loss of New York City and other setbacks later that year dispelled any hope of a quick American victory.

Sagging American morale got a boost when Washington slipped across the Delaware River to New Jersey and defeated superior enemy forces at Trenton December 1776 and Princeton January 1777. But humiliating defeats at Brandywine September 1777 and Germantown October 1777 and the subsequent loss of Philadelphia undermined Washingtons prestige in Congress. Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Rush, and others conspired to remove Washington and replace him with General Horatio Gates, who had defeated General John Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga October 1777. Washingtons congressional supporters rallied to quash the so-called Conway Cabal. Prospects for victory seemed bleak as Washington settled his men into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in December 1777. To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, Washington wrote in tribute to the men who suffered with him at Valley Forge, without blankets to lay on, without shoes, by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions as with marching through frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a days march of the enemy, without a house or hut to cover them till they could be built, and submitting to it without a murmur, is a mark of patience and obedience which in my opinion can scarce be paralleled.

Of course, some did grumble and loudly.

No pay no clothes no provisions no rum some chanted. But remarkably there was no mass desertion, no mutiny.

Patriotism, to be sure, sustained many, but no more so than did confidence in Washingtons ability to see them through safely. With the snow-clogged roads impassable to supply wagons, the men stayed alive on such fare as pepper pot soup, a thin tripe broth flavored with a handful of peppercorns. Many died there that winter. Those that survived drew fresh hope with the greening of spring and the news, announced to them by General Washington in May 1778, that France had recognized the independence of America.

Also encouraging was the arrival of Baron Friedrich von Steuben, who, at Washingtons direction, drilled the debilitated Valley Forge survivors into crack troops. Washingtons men broke camp in June 1778, a revitalized army that, with aid from France, took the war to the British and in October 1781 boxed in General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, thus forcing the surrender of British forces.

General Washington imposed strict, but not punitive, surrender terms All weapons and military supplies must be given up all booty must be returned, but the enemy soldiers could keep their personal effects and the officers could retain their sidearms. British doctors were allowed to tend to their own sick and wounded. Cornwallis accepted, but instead of personally leading his troops to the mutually agreed-upon point of surrender on October 19, 1781, he sent his deputy Brigadier Charles OHara. As he made his way along the road flanked by American and French forces, OHara came face to face with Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau, the latter decked out in lavish military regalia.

OHara mistook Rochambeau for the senior commander, but the French officer quickly pointed to Washington, and OHara, probably somewhat embarrassed, turned to the American. Unwilling to deal with a man of lesser rank, Washington directed OHara to submit the sword of capitulation to his aide General Benjamin Lincoln.

In his victory dispatch to Congress, Washington wrote with obvious pride, Sir, I have the Honor to inform Congress, that a Reduction of the British Army under the Command of Lord Cornwallis, is most happily effected. The unremitting Ardor which actuated every Officer and Soldier in the combined Army in this Occasion, has principally led to this Important Event, at an earlier period than my most sanguine Hope had induced me to expect.

In November 1783, two months after the formal peace treaty was signed, Washington resigned his commission and returned home to the neglected fields of Mount Vernon. President of Constitutional Convention, 1787. Washington, a Virginia delegate, was unanimously elected president of the convention. He was among those favoring a strong federal government. After the convention he promoted ratification of the Constitution in Virginia. According to the notes of Abraham Baldwin, a Georgia delegate, which were discovered only recently and made public in 1987, Washington said privately that he did not expect the Constitution to last more than 20 years.

ELECTION AS PRESIDENT, FIRST TERM, 1789 Washington, a Federalist, was the obvious choice for the first president of the United States. A proven leader whose popularity transcended the conflict between Federalists and those opposed to a strong central government, the man most responsible for winning independence, a modest country squire with a winsome aversion to the limelight, he so dominated the political landscape that not 1 of the 69 electors voted against him. Thus, he carried all 10 states Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia.

Neither North Carolina nor Rhode Island had ratified the Constitution yet. New York was unable to decide in time which electors to send. Washington was the only president elected by a unanimous electoral vote. John Adams of Massachusetts, having received the second-largest number of votes, 34, was elected vice president. election as president, second term, 1792 Despite the growing strength of Democratic-Republicans, Washington continued to enjoy virtually universal support.

Again he won the vote of every elector, 132, and thus carried all 15 states Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia.

John Adams of Massachusetts received the second-highest number of votes, 77, and thus again became vice president. INAUGURAL ADDRESS FIRST New York City, April 30, 1789 When I was first honored with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed and being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS SECOND Philadelphia, March 4, 1793. This was the shortest inaugural address, just 135 words.

Fellow Citizens I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America. Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the Constitution requires an oath of office.

This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence That if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may besides incurring constitutional punishment be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony. VICE PRESIDENT John Adams 1735-1826, of Massachusetts, served 1789-1797. See John Adams, 2d President. CABINET Secretary of State. 1 Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826, of Virginia, served 1790-1793. See Thomas Jefferson, 3d President, Career before the Presidency. 2 Edmund Jennings Randolph 1753-1813, of Virginia, served 1794-1795. Author of the Randolph or Virginia plan, favoring the large states, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Transferred from attorney general, he remained aloof of the struggle between Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

Denounced by supporters of both, he was largely ineffective and was forced to resign amid unfounded charges that he had misused his office for private gain. 3 Timothy Pickering 1745-1829, of Massachusetts, served 1795-1800. Transferred from war secretary, he was a staunch Hamiltonian and stayed on in the Adams administration.

Secretary of the Treasury. 1 Alexander Hamilton c. 1755-1804, of New York, served 1789-1795. President Washingtons closest advisor, he was a great admirer of British institutions and a master of power politics. He saw his role in the government as that of prime minister.

His influence went beyond economics to include foreign affairs, legal matters, and long-range social planning. He advocated and helped create a strong central government at the expense of states rights. He put the infant nation on sound financial footing by levying taxes to retire the national debt and promoted the creation of a national bank. He also advocated tariffs to insulate fledgling American manufacturing from foreign competition.

Hamiltons vision of Americas future encompassed the evolution from a largely agrarian society to an industrial giant, a national transportation program to facilitate commerce and blur regional differences, a strong permanent national defense, and a sound, conservative monetary system. Even after resigning his post, he kept his hands on the controls of power. Washington continued to consult him. Hamiltons successor, Oliver Wolcott, and others in the cabinet took his advice. He even helped draft Washingtons Farewell address.

The foremost conservative leader of his day, he was anathema to Thomas Jefferson and his supporters. 2 Oliver Wolcott 1760-1833, of Connecticut, served 1795-1800. A lawyer and Hamilton supporter, he stayed on in the Adams administration. Secretary of War. 1 Henry Knox 1750-1806, of Massachusetts, served 1789-1794. Chief of artillery and close adviser to General Washington during the Revolution and war secretary under the Articles of Confederation, he was a natural choice for this post. He pressed for a strong navy. Fort Knox was named after him. 2 Timothy Pickering 1745-1829, of Massachusetts, served January-December, 1795. A lawyer and veteran of the Revolution, he strengthened the navy. He resigned to serve as secretary of state. 3 James McHenry 1753-1816, of Maryland, served 1796-1800. He had served as a surgeon during the Revolution and was a prisoner of war. He stayed on in the Adams administration.

Fort McHenry at Baltimore was named after him. Attorney General. 1 Edmund Jennings Randolph 1753-1813, of Virginia, served 1789-1794. He helped draft President Washingtons proclamation of neutrality. Washington disregarded his opinion that a national bank was unconstitutional.

He resigned to become secretary of state. 2 William Bradford 1755-1795, of Pennsylvania, served 1794-1795. He was a state supreme court justice at the time of his appointment. 3 Charles Lee 1758-1815, of Virginia, served 1795-1801. He was a brother of Henry Light-Horse Harry Lee. He urged, unsuccessfully, that the United States abandon its policy of neutrality and declare war on France.

He stayed on in the Adams administration. ADMINISTRATION April 30, 1789-March 3, 1797. Precedents. Many things which appear of little importance in themselves and at the beginning, President Washington observed, may have great and durable consequences from their having been established at the commencement of a new general government.10 With this in mind, then, he proceeded cautiously, pragmatically, acting only when it seemed necessary to flesh out the bare-bones framework of government described so sparingly in the Constitution 1 In relying on department heads for advice, much as he had used his war council during the Revolution, he set the pattern for future presidents to consult regularly with their cabinet. 2 Because Congress did not challenge his appointments, largely out of respect for him personally rather than out of principle, the custom evolved that the chief executive generally has the right to choose his own cabinet.

Congress, even when controlled by the opposition party, usually routinely confirms such presidential appointments. 3 How long should a president serve The Constitution did not then say. Washington nearly set the precedent of a single term, for he had originally decided to retire in 1793, but remained for a second term when it became clear that the nonpartisan government he had so carefully fostered was about to fragment.

Thus he set the two-term standard that lasted until 1940. 4 When John Jay resigned as chief justice, Washington went outside the bench for a successor rather than to elevate one of the sitting justices to the top position, as many had expected him to do. In disregarding seniority as a necessary qualification to lead the Supreme Court, Washington established the precedent that has enabled his successors to draw from a much more diverse and younger talent pool than that of a handful of aging incumbent jurists.

Indian Affairs.

In 1791 President Washington dispatched forces under General Arthur St. Clair to subdue the Indians who had been resisting white settlement of the Northwest Territory. St. Clair failed, having been routed by Miami Chief Little Turtle on the Wabash River. Washington then turned to Revolutionary War veteran Mad Anthony Wayne, who before launching the expedition spent many months training regular troops in Indian warfare.

He marched boldly into the region, constructed a chain of forts, and on August 20, 1794, crushed the Indians under Little Turtle in the Battle of Fallen Timbers near present-day Toledo, Ohio. Under the terms of the Treaty of Greenville 1795, the defeated tribes ceded disputed portions of the Northwest Territory to the United States and moved west. Through diplomacy, President Washington tried with limited success to make peace with the Creeks and other tribes in the South. In 1792 the president entertained the tribal leaders of the Six Nations confederation, including Seneca Chief Red Jacket, whom Washington presented with a silver medal, a token that the Indian treasured the rest of his life. Red Jacket, who had led his warriors against Washingtons army during the Revolution, rallied to the American cause during the War of 1812. Proclamation of Neutrality, 1793. In the war between France, on one side, and Britain, Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, and the Netherlands, on the other, President Washington in 1793 declared the United States to be friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers.

Although he avoided using the word neutrality, his intention was clear.

Critics denounced the proclamation as reneging on the U.S. commitment to its first ally, France. However, it kept the nation out of a war it was ill-prepared to fight. The French minister to the United States, Edmond Genet, pointedly ignoring Washingtons policy, fomented pro-French sentiment among Americans and arranged for American privateers to harass British ships activities that prompted President Washington to demand his recall. Whiskey Rebellion, 1794. To help pay off the national debt and put the nation on a sound economic basis, President Washington approved an excise tax on liquor.

Pennsylvania farmers, who regularly converted their corn crop to alcohol to avoid the prohibitive cost of transporting grain long distances to market, refused to pay it. On Hamiltons advice, Washington ordered 15,000 militia to the area and personally inspected troops in the field.

This show of strength crushed this first real challenge to federal authority. Jay5 Treaty, 1795. Washington was roundly criticized by Jeffersonians for this treaty with Great Britain. To forestall further conflict with the former mother country and impel Britain to withdraw its forces from outposts in the Northwest Territory, as it had promised under the terms of the Treaty of Paris concluding the American Revolution, Washington relinquished the U.S. right to neutrality on the seas. Any American ship suspected of carrying contraband to the shores of Britains enemies was subject to search and seizure by the British navy. And Britain regarded as contraband virtually any useful product, including foodstuffs. Moreover, Jays Treaty failed to resolve one of the key disputes standing in the way of rapprochement with Britain impressment.

Britains policy of once an Englishman, always an Englishman meant that even after renouncing allegiance to the crown and becoming a duly naturalized U.S. citizen, a British immigrant was not safe from the kings reach.

If while searching an American ship for contraband, the British spotted one of their own among the crew, they routinely dragged him off and pressed him into the Royal Navy. But for all this, and despite the added strain on relations with France in the wake of Jays Treaty, the pact did postpone the inevitable conflict with Britain until 1812, when America was better prepared militarily.

After the Senate ratified the treaty, the House asked the president to release all pertinent papers relating to its negotiation. Washington refused on the constitutional ground that only the upper chamber had approval rights over treaties. He thereby set the precedent for future presidents to resist such congressional petitions. Pinckneys Treaty, 1795. Under its terms, Washington normalized relations with Spain by establishing the boundary between the United States and Spanish Florida at the thirty-first parallel. Even more importantly for the future of American commerce, the pact granted U.S. vessels free access to the entire length of the Mississippi River and to the port of New Orleans for the purpose of export.

In other acts of lasting importance, President Washington signed into law bills creating or providing for 1789 Oaths of allegiance to be sworn by federal and state officials First tariffs to protect domestic manufacturers Department of State and War and the Treasury Office of postmaster general Supreme Court, circuit and federal district courts, and position of attorney general Judiciary Act. Washington, of course, appointed all the first judges to these courts. 1790 First federal census Patent and copyright protection Removal of the capital to Philadelphia in December 1790 and to Washington 10 years later 1791 Bank of the United States 1792 Presidential succession, which placed the president pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House next behind the vice president in line of succession to the presidency U.S. Mint of Philadelphia 1795 Naturalization law, which lengthened residency requirement from two to five years Farewell Address, 1796 President Washington announced his retirement in his celebrated Farewell Address, a pronouncement that was printed in the Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser on September 17, 1796, but never was delivered orally.

In it he warned against the evils of political parties and entangling alliances abroad.

Throughout his term he had tried to prevent the rise of partisanship, but he had succeeded only in postponing such division by serving a second term. The Federalists under Hamilton and Adams and the Democratic-Republicans under Jefferson joined battle soon after he announced his retirement.

Washingtons warning to remain aloof from European struggles Was better heeded. The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations, he advised, is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible.

So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Isolationism remained the dominant feature in American foreign policy for the next 100 years. States Admitted to the Union. Vermont 1791, Kentucky 1792, Tennessee 1796. Constitutional Amendments Ratified. Bill of Rights first 10 amendments, 1791 1 Freedom of religion, of speech, of the press, to assemble and petition for redress of grievances. 2 Right to bear arms. 3 Restrictions on quartering soldiers in private homes. 4 Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. 5Ban on double jeopardy and self-incrimination guarantees due process of law. 6 Right to speedy and public trial. 7 Right to trial by jury. 8 Ban on excessive bail or fines or cruel and unusual punishment. 9 Natural rights unspecified in the Constitution to remain unabridged. 10 Individual states or the people retain all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government or denied to states by the Constitution.

Eleventh Amendment 1795 A citizen from one state cannot sue another state.

SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENTS 1 John Jay 1745-1829, of New York, served as chief justice 1789-1795. As the first chief justice, he established court procedure. While on the bench he negotiated Jays Treaty see Administration. He resigned to serve as governor of New York. 2 John Rutledge 1739-1800, of South Carolina, served as associate justice 1789-1791. His appointment as chief justice in 1795 was rejected by the Senate. 3 William Gushing 1732-1810, of Massachusetts, served as associate justice 1789-1810. He was the only Supreme Court justice to persist in wearing the formal wig popular among British jurists. 4 James Wilson 1742-1798, of Pennsylvania, served as associate justice 1789-1798. A Scottish immigrant, he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Speaking for the Court in Chisholm v. Georgia 1793, he ruled that a citizen of one state was entitled to sue another state, a decision so unpopular that it prompted passage of the Eleventh Amendment 1795, specifically nullifying it. 5 John Blah- 1732-1800, of Virginia, served as associate justice 1789-1796. A friend of Washington they had served together as Virginia delegates to the Constitutional Convention he brought to the bench many years of experience on Virginia state courts. 6 James Iredell 1751-1799, of North Carolina, served as associate justice 1790-1799. An English immigrant, he was at 38 the youngest member of the original Supreme Court. His lone dissent in Chisholm v. Georgia 1793 formed the basis of the Eleventh Amendment 1795. 7 Thomas Johnson 1732-1819, of Maryland, served as associate justice 1791-1793. A friend of Washington since the Revolution, he served as the first governor of Maryland and chief judge of the states General Court. He resigned from the Supreme Court for health reasons. 8 William Paterson 1745-1806, of New Jersey, served as associate justice 1793-1806. He helped draft the Judiciary Act of 1789 creating the federal court system.

In Van Homes Lessee v. Dorrance 1795 he established the Courts authority to strike down as unconstitutional a duly enacted state law, a precedent that anticipated judicial review of federal laws. 9 Samuel Chase 1741-1811, of Maryland, served as associate justice 1796-1811. Irascible and acid tongued, his gratuitous attacks on President Jefferson in 1803 led the House to impeach him, but the Senate fell four votes short of the two-thirds necessary for conviction. He was the only Supreme Court justice to be impeached.

Speaking for a unanimous Court in Ware v. Hilton 1796, he established the supremacy of national treaties over state laws. 10 Oliver Ellsworth 1745-1807, of Connecticut, served as chief justice 1796-1800. He was the principal architect of the Judiciary Act of 1789, creating the federal court system. In United States v. La Vengeance 1796, he spoke for the majority in extending federal authority to all inland rivers and lakes.