(Thank you to Amazon for having a great cover picture of the book when my camera refused to cooperate. You can click over and grab your own copy if you need one.)
As you can see, the book is George Washington by James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn. Part of the American Presidents series edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. This particular volume is copyright 2004, if that sort of thing is important to you.
So, as for the basics that everyone has already been told, Georgie-boy was born 22 February 1732 and he died on 14 December 1799 at the age of 67. He was our first president, serving from 1789-1797.
A fact that is less thrown around: He was, and remains, the only president to ever be elected unanimously. (Four times, in fact: unanimously voted commander-in-chief of the Second Continental Congress, president of the Constitutional Convention, and then unanimously elected to two terms of the presidency.)
The book talks about Washington as a young man, the events that lead up to the Revolutionary War, and the events after, but it mostly skips the entire war itself. Which I suppose makes sense, given the sheer number of books about just the war.
It does, however, mention that George pretty much started the entire French-Indian war singlehandedly in 1754. It's a story I've heard before, (most entertainingly in You Did What?, edited by Bill Fawcett and Brian Thomsen. It's an essay officially titled "You Sent Whom, Governor?" but more entertainingly sub-titled as "Never Send a Boy To Do a Man's Job").
Other fun facts: In the fall of 1794, George became the only sitting president to ever lead troops into battle during the Whiskey Rebellion. He took 12,000 troops and Alexander Hamilton (then acting Secretary of War) into western Pennsylvania to scare a bunch of loud protesters into shutting up and ending their whining about taxes. There was no actual battle or bloodshed involved. Just a lot of government threats and arrests. This also gave us the first use of the Presidential Pardon for two of the protesters who were convicted of treason.
George accidentally established the two-term limit tradition when he stepped down in 1797, turning the presidency over to John Adams. This was a tradition that everyone followed right up until 1940, when FDR said "heck, no" and stayed in office. Thankfully, it's now a firm law, signed into effect as the 22nd Amendment. (Because the last thing we need is some of these yahoos now trying to stay longer than two terms. One term for most of them is bad enough...)
George gave his Farewell Address in September 1796 and stepped down to retire to Mount Vernon. John Adams would serve as the second president, taking office 4 March 1797.
That's a very quick summary, considering the time it took me to get this posted, but I just really don't know what else to say about him.
No comments:
Post a Comment