BY DR. JOSE PALU-AY DACUDAO
GEORGE Washington was born in a self-educated newly land-owning Virginian family descended from common immigrants from England in the mid-1600s. The Washington family had acquired lands after three generations of hard work in farming and the local industries.
Washington’s first job was as a surveyor, then in demand in the unexplored American territories. Although he had no prior military experience, he later accepted the commission of major in the undermanned colonial militia, then still under British military authority.
He participated in the French and Indian War (1754-1763), defending his native state of Virginia against incursions by the French and their Native American allies.
During three years of bitter guerrilla war against the French, Washington learned firsthand the essentials of fighting in the American frontier setting ,and attained the rank of Colonel. He conducted his missions proficiently and acquired a reputation as a good officer; despite black propaganda (quite untrue) by the French that he had dishonorably assassinated a French commanding officer.
When the French threat to Virginia had abated, he resigned his commission. He then married Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy young widow and became a rich gentleman farmer.
By 1774, American resistance against unfair British rule and taxation was well-entrenched. Colonel George Washington (retired), gentleman farmer, and wealthy landowner was one of the credible and influential Virginians supporting the American cause. He was elected to the anti-British First Continental Congress.
As a retired military officer, however, Washington knew that it would take more than legislations and resolutions to safeguard American interests from the British, and so he spent 1774 and 1775 organizing a militia in Virginia. He attended the Second Continental Congress in 1775 dressed in his militia’s blue uniform, knowing that war was inevitable.
On June 15, 1775, the Continental Congress unanimously elected George Washington, a respected veteran combat officer and a known committed American patriot, as General and Commander-in-Chief of its army.
On July 4, 1776, the American Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence (from Great Britain). This might sound cool to us reared in our present times dominated by America’s power and prestige, but independence for one is treasonous secession to another.
Under British law, this American Declaration of Secession was high treason, punishable by drawing out the intestines out of the offender’s body and quartering him (cutting him up into four parts). The American patriots who signed, including the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, and the Congress’ appointed General, George Washington, knew that this was the fate that lay in store for them should they fail in their ensuing Revolution. There was no turning back.
After the most severe difficulties, starting with convincing the colonies to adequately finance the Continental Army, organizing and training the Army from mobs of undisciplined and underpaid colonists, and winning the American Revolution (1775-1783) against Great Britain (a world power), George Washington became the most powerful man in the United States and the idol of Americans.
A person of weaker or more despotic will could have used his power and popularity to become dictator. Washington, in spite of all attempts by his adoring officers and fans to install him as dictator or king, continued to obey the weak American Continental Congress.
Later, he was instrumental in persuading the States to form a Constitutional Convention and the Americans to ratify the fruit of this Convention, the American Constitution.
Consistent with his character, he had no personal desire to become President of the USA. Yet knowing that he was the best man for the job, he reluctantly agreed to be elected as the first President of the USA.
After twice getting unanimously voted by the Electoral College as President for two straight terms in 1789-1797 (the only man ever to get a unanimous vote for Presidency from the United States Electoral College), he steadfastly refused all proposals for him to run for a third term. Instead (as with Cincinnatus more than a thousand years before him) Washington voluntarily retired from political life, thereby setting the precedence for the maximum of two elected terms for a President of the United States.
(The Americans would not let go of him though. President John Adams, the second American President, appointed him in 1798 as Lieutenant General and Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of the United States of America, and Washington died while still in public service in that capacity apparently of septicemia from a respiratory tract infection.)
Washington consciously tried to model his life after that of Cincinnatus. He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, founded in Newburgh, New York, on May 13, 1783, by a group of American Continental Army officers, who believed in what Cincinnatus stood for.
Other members included Alexander Hamilton, Charles C. Pinckney, the Marquis de Lafayette, Horatio Gates, Henry Knox, and Friedrich von Steuben, all men who figured prominently in the American Revolution.
For his unsurpassable role in the founding of the United States of America, George Washington is known and honored by Americans as the “Father of His Country.” (To be continued)/PN
