Lighting 293 Candles on Washington’s Cake—Part IV First in Peace

 

 In retirement at Mt. Vernon Washington and Martha greet visiting French generals, just some of a steady stream of visitors.

Note—We left George Washington resigning his commission before Congress.  Today the veteran comes home.

When George Washington rode up to his beloved Mt. Vernon in May of 1783 he had not seen it in nearly eight years.  After receiving his commission from the Continental Congress as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army in 1775 he had ridden post haste to Cambridge, Massachusetts to take up his duties.  He had stayed with his Army throughout the long war.  Unlike other senior officers, he never took a furlough and thanks to his amazingly robust constitution had never fallen seriously ill with any of the many camp malaise that laid low many requiring convalescent leave.  Nor, despite often exposing himself to danger and being an easy-to-spot target with his commanding 6’2” frame on his usual huge grey charger, was he ever seriously wounded.  After the disastrous Long Island and New York City campaigns, Martha would come up from Virginia to visit him in winter quarters, but he had never dared a separation from the Army.

He was luckier than many returning veterans.  The home plantation had escaped the ravages of war.  Banastre Tarleton’s raiders had never reached it in their rampages across Virginia.  Martha was not only a devoted wife, but she was a capable estate manager with the help of experienced overseers and many skilled slave craftsmen, the condition of the property was as good as could be imagined.  Of course, the war had disrupted the markets for his crops and other products and the economy of Virginia was a wreck.    There would be many long rides around the property and directing his slaves to make repairs and improvements up to his high standards. 

There was also desk work to attend to.  He meticulously assembled all of his expense records and submitted them to Congress for re-imbursement.  You will recall that Washington’s pledge to serve at no pay was a key point in winning the votes to be elected.  Now he expected to collect about $450,000.  If that does not seem out of line to modern eyes for eight years away at war, it was a jaw dropping figure in the 18th Century.  Washington’s accounts included receipts for the most trivial purchases—quills and ink, for instance and bootblack—but were somewhat vague on larger expenses including hauling his extensive baggage and the expenses of Martha’s annual visits.  He also picked up the expenses of his official family—the rotating cast of young pets, aides, and staff officers who shared his mess and usually quarters.   In a pinch the General had also personally assumed some expenses for the Army.  It added up.  Congress swallowed hard and eventually ponied up mostly in bonds and extensive land grants.

Washington also entertained a steady stream of old comrades, admirers, political connivers, and speculators offering golden opportunities.  He gently turned aside most of the politicians but sometimes entered into some speculation or another in Western land or a favored scheme.    He treasured his contact with his former officers and kept up a voluminous correspondence with many including Alexander Hamilton, Henry Knox, and the Marquis de Lafayette in France.

His ties with his officers led to the establishment of an enduring and from the beginning controversial organization.

Semi-legendary Roman Republic hero Cincinnatus was called from his plow to be Consul and dictator to meet a crisis and retired back to his farm when the emergency passed.

From the moment that he told his brother officers that he was retiring from the Army and public service in his famous Farewell at New York’s Frauncis Tavern, the classical allusion loving educated elite who made up many of those officers began comparing him to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a patrician farmer of the early Roman Republic who gave up his plow to accept dictatorial powers as Consul and Magister Populi to meet an emergency.  After leading Rome to victory over an aggressor, he voluntarily gave up power and returned to the farm.  The humble act was even in antiquity so unusual that the name of Cincinnatus was remembered and revered long after the details of the crisis he met were but foggy memories.  

Even before the emotional meeting at the Fraunces Tavern Henry Knox, the former Boston bookseller, connected Cincinnatus with a society of Revolutionary officers that would honor Washington’s example of humble, selfless service.  A dinner meeting was called in May at Mount Gulian, also known as the Verplanck House chaired by another Washington favorite, Hamilton.  The dinner is often cited as the founding meeting of the Society of the Cincinnati. 

Continental officers, but not Militia or Volunteers, with three years’ service in the war or who were on active service at war’s end were eligible for membership.   Also eligible were senior officers of the French Army and Navy who had been involved in the Yorktown campaign and naval actions off the coast and in the Caribbean.  Most controversially, membership could be passed on to eldest sons by the traditional feudal rule of primogenitor.  Many critics felt that smacked of aristocracy and some feared it opened the gate to the creation of an American hereditary nobility.

But the idea was a success and by the end of 1783 functioning chapters were up and running in all thirteen states and King Louis XVI ordained the French Society of the Cincinnati, which was organized on July 4, 1784.  Almost half of the eligible 5,000 men had enrolled in chapters by year’s end.  Members proudly wore and displayed an Order medal featuring an eagle on a blue, white, and buff ribbon.  

The Diamond Eagle of the Society of the Cincinnati was the gift of French naval officers to George Washington in 1784 and has been the official insignia of the Society's president general ever since.

Washington initially has some reservations about the organization, especially when some officers did seem to feel that membership should make them eligible for special privileges from the State governments and feeble central  government under the Articles of Confederation.  He discouraged such talk pointing out that Cincinnatus was a model of selfless service and simple republican virtue.  Finally, however, he concluded that even with hereditary membership, it was not an order of nobility since no title, privileges, or property were granted by any state for membership.  In December he allowed himself to be elected President General of the Society and he served in that largely ceremonial position until his death.  Washington almost always wore his Society medal pinned to his coat including his entire time as President.

Controversy over the Order and Washington’s part in it would erupt again during his second term when radical Republican clubs which supported the French Revolution again leveled charges of aristocracy.   The Order of the Cincinnati continues to exist to this day and is open to one lineal descendent at a time of the originally eligible officers.  The members frankly consider themselves an elite but the Order keeps a low profile and is not involved in any political activity.

One of Washington’s prime post-war concerns was his vast western land holdings.  He had received grants for his service in the French and Indian Wars from both the British and from Virginia which claimed western lands stretching from today’s western Pennsylvania all the way to the Mississippi River and theoretically to the Western Ocean. 

On paper he was easily the largest landowner in the new United States.  But he was having a hard time turning vast potential wealth into reliable income.  Part of the problem was that continuing Indian warfare on the frontier prevented settlement of much of his Ohio Valley claims.  But a bigger problem was a combination of squatters who would not pay rent and settlers on the land with conflicting claims.

Washington’s vision was for a kind of feudal empire.  He did not want to sell the land he claimed instead he wanted to offer it to settlers on 999 year leases with a relatively moderate annual rent that would provide Washington and his heirs a steady and reliable income for generations.

So, one fine morning Washington packed his saddle bags, mounted his big horse, and rode out of Mt. Vernon to visit the area he had last seen at Braddock’s Retreat back in 1755.  In the years since the mostly trackless wilderness and Native hunting grounds around the headwaters of the Ohio had been settled, more or less, by frontier farmers.  The smoke of chimney fires rose from stump clearings in the forest and spread over valleys and hollows of the hilly country.  The old General would ride up to a cabin and surprise the astonished farm family, often sitting down to supper with them and stretching out his long frame on a palett  by the fire for the night.  He was friendly, but firm.  The settlers he saw as squatters on his land would have to agree to his offer of a 99 year lease or vacate the property and move on.

After years of dispute most of Washington's western land holdings ended up in Pennsylvania, not Virginia.  The area included Ft. Pitt and the newly created Washington County were his claims against squatters was heard.

Of course, the settlers saw things differently.  Many thought they had earned the land by virtue of their sweat and labor and the improvements they had made.  Some had blazed and surveyed their land, filing claims with local courts either unaware of Washington’s claims or believing them to be unenforceable yet others had grant papers from Pennsylvania which along with Virginia and New York all claimed the area.  None were willing to pay rent or vacate.

Washington rode home without satisfaction but he hired lawyers to file suit in recently created Washington County, Pennsylvania against David Reed and other dissenting Presbyterians known as the Seceders for back rent and possession of the land.  In 1786 with an eastern Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice presiding on circuit—an establishment type bound to be sympathetic to a gentleman of property and the Great Man of his era—ruled in Washington’s favor.  The General waived the back rent if the settlers would sign the long leases.  Most declined, lost their land and investments, and moved on.  But Washington was no more successful in getting anyone else to accept the deal and other squatters remained on other plots.

The Western visit would sour the feelings between Washington and the western settlers whether or not they were on his land.  Washington now regarded them as a lawless rabble and they in turn viewed him no longer as the hero of the Revolution, but as oppressor just like the British.  These attitude would come to a head years later in the Whiskey Rebellion and explain Washington’s use of a massive army to enforce taxation on locally produced whiskey.

Back home Washington tried to stay out of politics, but it was not easy.  The weakness of the Articles of Confederation presented him with practical problems, especially the attempt of Pennsylvania and other states to levy internal tariffs on products from other states.  This made it difficult and expensive for him to market his wheat and other crops there or in nearby Maryland.  His protégé Hamilton had his ear with his complaints that the war debts of the Confederation and the several states were crippling commerce, trade, and development.  And he was concerned that the Confederation was so militarily weak—the Continental Army had been dissolved and the equivalent of a single regiment was spread uselessly to small frontier garrisons—that it was unable to protect settlers in the Trans-Allegheny west from continuing Indian warfare. 

A fellow Virginian, young James Madison working in concert with Hamilton proposed a conference of states in 1786 to meet at Annapolis to hash out some common problems—a dispute between Maryland and Virginia over navigation rights on the Potomac and Rhode Island’s levy of an impost on all traffic on the Post Road that was the only recognized route connecting the Southern states with Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.  In addition, Shays’ Rebellion broke out in Massachusetts just before the conference convened scaring the hell out of propertied classes in all of the states.  The lack of Federal armed forces meant it took weeks for Massachusetts to mobilize its Militia to quash the rebellion.

Five states clustered around the Mid-Atlantic convened for the meeting but determined that the problems could not be addressed without changes to the Articles of Confederation which severely restricted effective central government.  At Madison’s urging they sent out a call for a new Convention of the states to amend the Articles.  Madison and Hamilton persuaded a reluctant Washington to attend as a Virginia delegate.  His presence and prestige were essential in persuading other states to have the confidence to send delegations.

As President of the Convention, Washington presided over the signing of the Constitution.  All of the delegates present were represented in this painting.  At the foot of the platform are critical actors Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison.

The Convention convened in Philadelphia in May 1787 as delegations dribbled in.  It officially opened on May 25 and Washington, in whom everyone had confidence, was unanimously elected President of the Convention.  He took a high-backed chair with a sun carved on the back to assume his duties Pennsylvania State House also known as Independence Hall.  He presided with even-handed probity through the long deliberations that summer in the very room where he had accepted his commission as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. 

Madison and other members of the Virginia delegation had no intention of simply modifying the Articles.  Instead at the outset of the convention he presented the Virginia Plan for a whole new government.  That plan would become the basis of discussions.  Since the Convention almost immediately exceeded the authority of its call and there was a general fear that public demonstrations would make calm deliberations impossible.  The proceeding would be held in the strictest secrecy.

The stoic Washington was not sanguine as deliberations dragged on through the sweltering heat.  He confided to Hamilton, “I almost despair of seeing a favorable issue to the proceedings of our convention and do therefore repent having had any agency in the business.”  He seldom interjected himself into the proceedings but when a stubborn minority was putting up a fierce resistance to the powers of the proposed new Federation he privately met with arch anti-Federalist Patrick Henry, the former Revolutionary firebrand and governor of Virginia arguing that the only alternative to the new government would be anarchy. 

When all of the complex compromises were reached however and the proposed Constitution came before each state delegation for a vote, the always proper Washington declined to cast his vote in the Virginia delegation because everyone knew that the enumerated powers of the new Presidency were tailored in the universal expectation that he himself would exercise them. 

After much wrangling a draft of the Constitution was approved and a signing ceremony was set for September 17.  Several delegates were unhappy with the product and left before the signing and three of those remaining refused to sign—Edmund Randolph and George Mason of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.   They demanded a Bill of Rights.  Other delegate accepted Madison’s assurance that a Bill of Rights could be added as amendments after the adoption of the basic structure of the government. 

Then there was one last glitch.   Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts suddenly proposed an amendment to lower the size of Congressional Districts from 40,000 to 30,000 citizens.  Washington, who had refrained from participating in debates, spoke in favor mostly to move things along and it carried without further debate.

Then the final vote was taken.  Since Rhode Island had never even sent delegates and three of the four members of the New York Delegation had gone home, Washington announced the results—the document carried by “eleven states, and Colonel Hamilton.”  As presiding officer, he then was first to sign the document followed by other who were present.  Still others added their names later. 

Washington returned once again to Mt. Vernon.  It was known that he approved of the product but since he was expected to be elected President, he abstained from the ratification debates that raged in the states leaving it to Hamilton and Madison to defend the new Constitution with John Jay in the Federalist Papers.  

After ratification was finally complete the old soldier prepared for his new service.

Next— We will have to keep entries on Washington's presidency and final years--at least three more chapters, for another time.

 

Lighting 293 Candles on Washington’s Cake—Part I

Note—Today begins a four part series on the life, times, achievements, and flaws of the proclaimed Father of the Country, George Washington.  May it be a reminder of how far we have fallen.

Today is George Washington’s Birthday except it isn’t unless you live in Virginia, Illinois, Iowa, or New York.  Those are the only states that still mark the occasion as an official stand alone holiday.  And outside of the old boy’s native Virginia you would be hard pressed to find evidence of it outside of mattress sale ads.  Nobody gets off work for it anymore.  Schools are generally in session working too hard cramming for standardized testing to do much about it.  Since Ditto machines became obsolete I doubt if second graders even get silly Cherry Tree handouts to sniff and color.  Of course, George usually gets top billing with Abe Lincoln for the Presidents Day Federal holiday, but it’s just not the same.

Too bad.  The Father of Our Country; First in War, First in Peace, First in the Hearts of his Countrymen; etc. was an interesting dude.  He was one of the few who can truly be said to indispensable men of their age.  While not the stiff plaster saint devoid of common human foibles often depicted, he had enough grit, determination, and personal rectitude to hold an Army in the field for eight years against the mightiest empire on Earth with precious few victories under his belt and yet prevail—with a little help from the French.  He then helped shepherd a unique new republican government into existence and became the unifying leader that kept the component states from flying apart by centrifugal force.  And most astonishing of all, he walked away from power at the appointed date and let another take his place unchallenged or molested.  That unprecedented act set in motion 220 years of—mostly—peaceful transfers of power excepting the Civil War and attempts to overthrow the 2020 election results  spinning out of control.

To begin with George wasn’t even born on February 22.  He first saw the light of day on February 11, 1731 under the old Julian Calendar then still in use by England and its colonies.  He was an ambitious 21-year-old in 1752 when Britain adopted the Gregorian Calendar losing 11 dates and changing his birthday.  It must have been confusing and disorienting.

Washington's modest birthplace--Pope's Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

He was the son of a second marriage of a modestly prosperous planter and member of the gentry.  His Father died when he was just 11 years old and he became the ward of his older half-brother Lawrence who had married into the fabulously wealthy Fairfax family, Virginia’s largest landowners. The boy, without a fortune of his own, famously mooned over the lovely Sally Fairfax, the young wife of Lord Fairfax himself.  She may, or may not, have encouraged the attentions.  George wrote up rules for himself to adopt the manners of the aristocracy and get ahead in the world.

He received a middling education from a local Anglican priest and dreamed of following brother Lawrence into service in the Royal Navy.  His domineering mother squashed that dream when he was 15 and the right age to have a midshipman’s berth purchased for him.  He took up surveying when he was 17 and laid out tracts in the western counties of Virginia, sparking a lifelong interest in western lands.

When Lawrence died in 1752—the year of the calendar change, George came into his estate, Mt. Vernon named for the Admiral who Lawrence had served under.  The next year he was appointed a district adjutant of the Virginia Militia with the rank of Major.  

A fanciful depiction of the death of Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville near Ft. Duquesne was based on French accounts of the affair which depicted Jumonville as an unarmed diplomat assassinated under a white flag by Washington's men, although this version shows him trying to intercede.  What ever happened, it sparked a world-wide war.

His military career got off to a fast start by essentially starting a world war.  Dispatched to protect the interests of the Ohio Company land speculation scheme, Washington discovered the Ohio Company fort at the present site of Pittsburgh had fallen to a party of French and their Native allies and that they were building their own Ft. Duquesne.  The young officer and his militia men along with Mingo allies ambushed the French party killing most of them including its leader Joseph Coulon de Jumonville.  Jumonville may have been killed by the Mingos while Washington’s prisoner.  The story is unclear. 

Washington began to build his own Ft. Necessity near the former Ohio Company post, but his party was attacked and he was captured by the French before he could complete it.  He was paroled and expelled by the French and allowed to return to Virginia with his troops where he was greeted as a hero.  The French accused him of assassinating Jumonville and after a couple of years of diplomatic wrangling the incident became the casus belli of the Seven Years War or the French and Indian War in North America in 1756.

None-the-less, he was exhilarated by the battle and wrote to his brother, “I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.”

Given Washington’s unique experience it was no surprise that he was tapped as the senior American aide to British General Edward Braddock in 1755 for his expedition to expel the French from the Ohio country.  It was the largest deployment to date of British Regulars who along with colonial militia and Native allies were supposed to capture Ft. Duquesne.  Because no American officer could serve above the rank of captain without appointment from London, Washington was denied a field command at the rank of major and reluctantly was officially listed as a volunteer aid to the General.  Braddock was a conventional European soldier with no experience in the irregular warfare of the frontier.  He tried to push a heavy column over the mountains and through thick woods while hacking a stump road for the baggage train and artillery.  It was slow going and gave the French, alerted by their Native allies, ample time to prepare.

General Edward Braddock at the head of a still far to heavy "flying column" marched into an ambush and his death.  Washington is depicted as the soldier in blue beside him.  The young Virginian rallied the panicked troops and organized an orderly retreat.

Finally, on Washington’s recommendation, Braddock split his forces with a fast moving flying column leaving the heavy construction crews and baggage behind with a rear guard.  Braddock took command of the lead column with Washington, who had been ill with fever, at his side.  At the Battle of the Monongahela the well prepared French and Indians ambushed the lead column, cutting it to pieces and mortally wounding Braddock.  Washington coolly rallied the British and Virginia Militia and organized an orderly retreat from what had been a rout.  He had two horses shot out from under him and his coat was torn by four musket balls.  The expedition limped home.

Washington was hailed as a hero by his troops, but the British held him at fault for his advice on splitting the force.  He was not posted to the next British expedition against the French.  And his hopes for a Regular Army commission and a scarlet coat were dimmed. 

Instead, Washington was made Colonel of the Virginia Regiment and “Commander in Chief of all forces now raised in the defense of His Majesty’s Colony” in 1755.  The regiment, known as the Virginia Blues, was the first in the Colonies with full time professional soldiers, who were regularly drilled and outfitted with full uniforms and military equipment rather than ill organized, equipped and trained Militia turned out for short service. 

The troops were mostly draftees from the poorest levels of Virginia society and included some mulattos and native “half-breeds”.  Washington whipped them up into a respectable fighting force and deployed them in a string of frontier forts and blockhouses to protect settlers from Indian raids sponsored by the British.  He led his men in brutal campaigns against the Indians where his regiment fought 20 battles in 10 months and lost a third of its men. As a result, Virginia’s frontier suffered less than that of other colonies.  Years of low level frontier warfare followed.

In 1758 he and elements of his regiment were part of a new drive against the French in the Ohio country—the Forbes Expedition.  Despite the ultimate success of that expedition which ultimately drove the French from Ft. Duquesne, Washington saw little action and that was an embarrassing snafu—his men and a British unit mistook each other for the French in the heavy woods and 14 men were killed in a friendly fire disaster.

That might have contributed to Washington’s decision to resign his commission when he got home, but more likely was his continuing disappointment in the British refusal to incorporate the Blues into the Regular Army with a commission for himself.  Despite his love for the military, he “retired” to manage his Mt. Vernon estate and other properties in in December of 1758.

Martha Washington was not always the heavy set, grey haired matron familiar to most of us.  As Martha Dandrige Custis she was an attractive--and very rich--widow when Washington married her.

But there seems to have been an even more compelling motive.  On January 6, 1759 he married 28 year old Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy widow with two children despite the fact that she was older than him and he still secretly pined for Sally Fairfax.  But Martha was still beautiful, charming, and compatible.  She also had shown she could capably manage a plantation on her own.  She was an excellent partner for the ambitious George and soon they were devoted to each other, and he dedicated himself to raising her children when it became apparent that he would have none of his own.

Martha was, in fact, not just wealthy, but barring the Fairfax family, one of the richest persons in Virginia.  She brought with her not only more plantations and property but hundreds of slaves most of which she retained in her name but who joined the score or so that Washington owned and were soon all working under his exacting direction.  The young, retired officer had vaulted from the middling gentry to the front ranks of the Virginia aristocracy with all the prestige and responsibility that entailed.

Washington threw himself into the management of his properties, especially the home estate at Mount Vernon.  He began expanding the modest home his brother had left into to the impressive white mansion we see today with additions and modifications being constantly made.  He rode the extensive grounds daily personally overseeing the work of the plantation and spent hours at his desk planning and pouring over business matters. 

Seeing other Tidewater planters beginning to suffer from a total reliance on tobacco as a cash crop as it exhausted the soil and yields fell off, Washington sought to diversify his planting and began to employ the earliest innovations in scientific farming including crop rotation being explored by Scottish agronomists.  He put in wheat, rye, oats, flax, and hemp in addition to tobacco.  He strove to make the plantation as self-reliant as possible building grist mills, whiskey distilleries, sawmills, a rope walk, and directed wheels and looms in the slave quarters to spin flax and wool into yarn and weave the homespun into rough cloth.  He raised fine horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs and his busy smoke houses produced plenty of bacon and fine hams.  The sale of his surplus production eventually rivaled the revenue from his tobacco barns.  He grew richer by the year.

Washington at an older age was depicted as a kind slave master supervising haying in this painting by Junius Brutus Stearns.

Virtually all of the labor was provided by his slaves, who he found more honest and trustworthy than most hired white help.  Many rose from field hands to become skilled craftsmen, overseers, and household servants.  A few were taught to read and write to help with the details of administration.  Washington was a firm and exacting master, but by the standards of the day he was a fair one.  Whipping and other corporal punishment was sparing.  And because he was interested in expanding his slave holdings to serve his bustling properties, he seldom sold his slaves or separated families.  After all, he preferred to breed slaves rather than buy them.  And unlike so many other masters, Washington did not use his female slaves as a private harem.  His rectitude and loyalty to Martha prevented common sexual abuse that was rife among slave holders.

Still, no matter how you cut it, there is no denying that the vast wealth that Washington amassed on the base of his brother’s estates and his wife’s properties was the direct result of slavery.

Despite all of this, Washington was still in debt to his British creditors for the importation of luxury goods for his household, especially in the early years of his marriage as he sought to establish his social standing.  When Martha’s daughter Patsy Curtis died in his arms of epilepsy in 1773 it was a crushing personal blow.  But he came personally into half of Patsy’s substantial estate with which he was able to pay off his English debt in full and permanently—a rare feat among the Virginia aristocracy.

It was not all work.  Washington enjoyed the amusements of his class—fox hunting at which he excelled and developed his reputation as the finest horseman in Virginia.  He entertained a stream of guests of the cream of Virginia society and visitors from other colonies and the Mother Land.  He enjoyed social dancing at which he was said to be quite graceful.  He also assumed the duties of a leading squire like the office of vestryman at his local Anglican parish despite a growing deism that detached him from conventional and orthodox Christianity.  He joined a local Free Mason Lodge, not taking it terribly seriously at first but then becoming immersed in its mysteries and rituals, the true source of the spiritual life that he could no longer find at the communion rail.  And of course, in addition to minor local offices and honors, was elected a member of the House of Burgesses. 

Given his wealth and status, Washington could easily have become a Tory, like the Fairfax family he had long sought to emulate.  But beginning in the mid 1760’s he began to throw his lot increasingly with those restive under the Crown and Parliament.  Perhaps it was the lingering resentment of a soldier who was never made a Regular, perhaps it was the spirit of the age.  He was never a deep or original political thinker like George Mason or a firebrand like Patrick Henry, but he was a steady, firm political presence.  The Stamp Act of 1765 stirred him to action and became especially active after the adoption of the Townsend Acts two years later in which Parliament tried to re-assert its authority over the colonies with a series of taxes, levies, and punitive actions aimed mostly at Massachusetts and New York.  In response Boston merchants began to agitate for non-importation declarations by the Colonies. 

In 1769 Washington and George Mason spearheaded the movement in Virginia where the House of Burgesses passed a resolution stating that Parliament had no right to tax Virginians without their consent.   Governor Lord Botetourt dissolved the assembly which then met at Raleigh Tavern and adopted a boycott agreement known as the Association.  It was a critical turning point.

When Washington posed for his first portrait for Charles Wilson Peale at the age of 40 in 1772 he was proud to wear his old Virginia Blues uniform.  He could still cut a dashing figure in it when he wore it to the Second Continental Congress three years later.

The furor in the Colonies led to the Townsend Act to be repealed in 1770 except for the tax on tea left in place as both an important revenue source and an assertion of Parliamentary authority.  But agitation in the New World continued and in 1774 London responded with what the Colonies called the Intolerable Acts.  Washington was livid he wrote to a friend,

They are an Invasion of our Rights and Privileges…I think the Parliament of Great Britain has no more right to put their hands in my pocket without my consent than I have to put my hands into yours for money… [We must not submit to acts of tyranny] till custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway.

Washington not only blew off steam, he acted.  In July 1774, he chaired the meeting at which the Fairfax Resolves were adopted calling for the convening of a Continental Congress.  The next month he attended the First Virginia Convention and was elected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress.  

George Mason, Virginia's leading intellectual figure, authored the Fairfax Resolves that called for a Continental Congress, but it was George Washington's prestige a Chairman of the meeting that helped get them adopted.

Meanwhile things were getting out of hand in Boston where the British had closed the port to trade, occupied the city, and quartered troops on the town.  Things blew up in April of 1775 when Massachusetts Militiamen resisted efforts by British Regulars to seize armories inland.  The Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Siege of Boston by Militia troops from throughout New England followed.

When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in the midst of the crisis, Washington showed up in his old Virginia Blues uniform and cut a dramatic, martial figure.  His life, and the fate of the colonies, would be changed forever. 

Tomorrow—Part II, First in War….