George Washington and the Founding of a Nation

Synopsis
Albert Marrin examines the "father of our country" from the points of view of character, military experience, and also his slaveholding to assess Washington's role in our history. A born leader with a commanding physique, unwavering self-discipline, and an unconquerable will to succeed, he was also—as Lord Fairfax observed when Washington was only sixteen— "a man who will go to school all his life." Washington's schools were the rugged country of the French and Indian War, the misery-creating insolvency of the Continental Army, and the agrarian responsibility of his plantation in Mount Vernon. Neither a political theorist nor a firebrand, a man whom order ruled and who ruled by order, Washington embodied the virtues of fairness, restraint, and farsightedness that would hold the American colonies together—at least for a while. For, as he said near the end of his life and after two terms as president, "I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union."