An Exemplary Person: George Washington, 1732-1799

Thomas Jefferson: intellectual, architect, writer

Born into moderate wealth: His family held slaves and owned middling tobacco estates in Virginia

A humiliating start: His capture on the way to Fort Duquesne in 1754 was used as a pretext to start the French & Indian War The following year, he was chief American aide to Gen. Braddock’s ill-fated expedition to expel the French. Braddock died; Washington conducted a well-organized retreat: his first of many.

A humiliating start: Retreating became his specialty. His first notable action in the Revolutionary War was retreating from Long Island and letting the British take New York. (Without irony, there are Signs like this one all over New Jersey and Pennsylvania.)

Marriage and home life: He spent the next several years at one of his family’s newer estates, Mount Vernon, on the Potomac in Va.

Marriage and home life: He spent the next He married a wealthy widow, Martha custis MarMartha Custis. They had no children.

An enormous ambition: Washington wanted to be a “great man,” and, like many in his generation, he pictured this in terms of the great men of ancient Rome.

An enormous ambition: And one unusually noble Roman in particular, a fellow soldier, Cincinnatus, who – in the midst of a war for Rome’s survival – was named dictator. When he had put down the enemy, he voluntarily gave up his power and returned home to become a simple farmer again. He became Rome’s model of civic virtue.

A war of compromises and patience: During the Revolution, he fought few battles, but spent most of his time trying to keep his army together and to get the Continental Congress to pay its soldiers. A rare battle: Crossing the Delaware, 1776

A war of compromises and patience: During the Revolution, he fought few battles, but spent most of his time trying to keep his army together and to get the Continental Congress to pay its soldiers. A more typical scene: surviving winter at Valley Forge

A war of compromises and patience: Typical soldiers’ huts at Valley Forge

A war of compromises and patience: Typical soldiers’ huts at Valley Forge

A war of compromises and patience: At Newburgh, NY, in 1783 he was faced with a rebellion of his own officers, over Congress’s refusal to pay them.

Victory at Yorktown, 1781:

Victory at Yorktown, 1781: If he [goes home winning the war], he will be the greatest man in the world - George III

After the war, he went home, to his farm:

Constitutional Convention, 1787:

Constitutional Convention, 1787:

Setting precedents: “Mr. President” Republican manners; no kingly court Limit of two terms in office

Setting precedents: He kept Jefferson, Hamilton and Adams together in his administration; he hated the idea of permanent parties.

Prescient warnings: In his Farewell Address in 1796, Washington warned against partisan politics, regional loyalties superseding national loyalty, and entangling foreign alliances.

After that, he went home again, to his farm:

After that, he went home again, to his farm: Called “the American Cincinnatus”

Washington the slaveholder:

Washington the slaveholder… Washington’s Cook

…in his will freed all his familys slaves

…in his will freed all his familys slaves He provided training for younger former slaves and an old-age pension for aged ones. His family opposed him on doing this. He was the only Founding Father who did anything of the sort.