US Presidency
1927

His diary of the trip is filled with interest and enthusiasm over the possibilities of that region. Hulbert, who has made a study of it, calls him our first expansionist, the originator of the idea of possessing the West through commercial relations. It was a pioneer idea, instinct with genius, this author writes, and Washington's advocacy of it marks him as the first commercial American, the first man typical of the American that was to be. Due to his investments, he became the president of the James River Company and of the Potomac River Company, organized in 1785 to look into the possibility of opening navigation through to the West. To the Potomac Company, which involved the first interstate commerce negotiations in this country, he devoted four years of service. It has been thought that these negotiations entered into by Washington led up almost directly to the calling of the Constitutional Convention.