"Be assured, his influence carried this government." – James Monroe to Thomas Jefferson, upon ratification of the Constitution
George Washington was a man who fascinated his contemporaries. Son of a Virginia family of modest means, almost entirely self-educated, ambitious for both material wealth and the high regard of others, Washington would rise through diligent application of his abilities to become the first general to win a modern revolutionary war, the first president of the United States, "the first in the hearts of his countrymen."
Albert Marrin has written a highly readable, fast-paced account of the life and times of this man who would put to rest his compatriots' fear of monarchy and forge a unity among the fractious American states at least for a while. For, as Marrin takes pains to show, Washington knew firsthand both the economies of slave owning and the contradictions it posed for the new republic. Toward the end of his life, after two terms as president, he pronounced the future. "I can clearly foresee that nothing but rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union."
– From the back of the book
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