Contributor

George Washington

(1732 - 1799)

Born in 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia, George Washington served as a general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies during the American Revolution. Following the war, he returned to his Mount Vernon estate, enlarging the house, laying out new grounds, and experimenting with mahogany, palmetto, pepper, and other foreign trees, grasses, and grains. In the first days of 1789, he was unanimously elected to be the first president of the United States, serving two terms, from 1789 to 1797. He died on December 14, 1799, in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Congressman Henry Lee famously eulogized Washington as “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

All Writing

Roundtable

Presidential Counsel

By George Washington

Be not tedious in discourse or in reading. More

Be courteous to all but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.

—George Washington, 1783

The period is not very remote when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations and horrors of war.

—George Washington, 1786