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I was struck with General Washington. You had prepared me to entertain a
favourable opinion of him, but I thought the one half was not told me.
Dignity with ease and complacency, the Gentleman and Soldier look
agreably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feture of his
face.
Abigail Adams to John Adams, Braintree, Massachusetts, July 16, 1775

George Washington vividly impressed his contemporaries because he looked the part he played. He stood a full head taller than most of his soldiers. He repeatedly demonstrated his strength and stamina, moving with agility and dignity on foot and on horseback. His bearing bespoke authority; his demeanor inspired confidence.

The impression Washington made was not an accident. Despite his outward modesty, he realized he was an extraordinary man and was not ashamed of it. He lived in an age when distinctions of rank and talent were not only accepted but celebrated. He took for granted the differences between himself and the "common run" of ordinary men. He worked to create a public persona, for in his tidewater culture such self-presentation was the means by which a gentleman won public validation for his claim to social merit. Washington used his natural reticence to reinforce the image of a stern and forbidding classical hero. His aloofness was notorious and he worked at maintaining it.

Washington's drive for recognition began before the Revolution when on the frontier he was a surveyor, land speculator, soldier, and legislator. He used the wealth he made there to boost his political influence and economic standing when he returned to the tidewater. The centerpiece of his life among the gentry was Mount Vernon, the Virginia great house of his creation. In the late 1750s he began the process of turning his deceased brother's story-and-a-half farmhouse into a mansion befitting a Virginia gentleman with a wealthy wife, the widow Martha Custis, and her two small children. His renovations continued almost without interruption until his death. With no national capitol and no presidential mansion, Mount Vernon took on a symbolic presence unique in American history. The citizenry felt it was entitled to visit the house and be entertained by the nation's first president and number one host.

Washington's world was noted for the ideas of the Enlightenment and for the first successful revolution in history undertaken in the name of both nationalism and liberty. His was a pre-democratic, pre-egalitarian world of deference and reticence, and also a classical age. The Founding Fathers invoked such ancient Roman virtues as duty, gravity, and dignity, and Washington quite consciously embodied them all. His three most famous actions were governed by classical models: his resignation as commander in chief of the army in 1783, his crucial support for the Constitution in 1787 and 1788, and his farewell address on leaving the presidency. He was well aware of the fact that he gained power by relinquishing power.

Washington knew that everything he did would set a precedent for the future. "We are a young Nation and have a character to establish. It behooves us therefore to set out right for first impressions will be lasting," he wrote in 1783. More than any of his contemporaries he thought constantly about future generations, of "the destiny of unborn Millions," as he called them. More than a classical leader or a patriot hero, Washington has become merged with the United States.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning