George Washington

On February 22, 1732, at Popes Creek in Westmoreland County, Colony of Virginia, George Washington was born into the Chesapeake gentry. He trained as a surveyor, entered the Virginia Regiment, and became a colonial military figure during the French and Indian War. That experience in the Ohio Valley gave him a public reputation well before 1775.

The Second Continental Congress appointed Washington commander in chief of the Continental Army in June 1775, and he held the army together through defeats, winter camps, and the victory at Yorktown in 1781. He presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, giving the proceedings legitimacy while others argued the details. In 1789 he became the first president and organized the cabinet, neutrality policy, and federal enforcement under the new Constitution.

Washington's voluntary retirement after two terms helped establish the presidency as a civilian office restrained by republican precedent until the Twenty-Second Amendment later wrote that limit into law. His Farewell Address also shaped later debates over parties, neutrality, and national union.