George Washington: A leader and more

On Feb. 20, Presidents’ Day, we mark the 292nd birthday of George Washington, the first president of the United States. No American has been more recognizable, yet even those who knew him found him hard to explain.

George Washington

Of his personal life, Abigail Adams wrote that “he has a dignity which forbids familiarity, mixed with an easy affability which creates love and reverence.”

The man who has given his name to a state, the nation’s capital, 33 counties, nine colleges, seven mountains, and 121 post offices was a Virginia planter, mapmaker, draftsman, surveyor, mathematician, politician, and military general. He was also a slave owner.

He was ambitious. As a young man, he pursued fame, fortune, and land ownership in whatever way he could. But during the American Revolution, he supported the cause with more than half of his wealth.

He did have a bad temper, and some say he was prone to loud cursing. But he had patience in other ways. At Yorktown, for example, the general put an end to unseemly celebrations among his troops, saying that it should be left to people of the future to celebrate.

Because Washington was able to balance leadership with restraint, he gave us a government strong enough to lead and wise enough to listen, says Richard Norton Smith, author of Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation (Houghton Mifflin).

As a slave owner, Washington disagreed with the system as it grew in disrepute and infamy worldwide.

In his will, he gave his valet immediate freedom and the 123 remaining slaves freedom upon his wife’s death. His wife freed them herself just a year later, in 1801, afraid to keep people enslaved who anticipated her death.