US Presidency
1925

Repeatedly, in his writings, even long before the struggle had seriously suggested the possibility of war, he used the phrase, Our Country, giving it an application vastly broader than the domain or concerns of any single colony. He was among the first to see the vision of an American Nation. No other man so early grasped certain physical and geographic arguments which urged nationality as inevitable. In this, his engineering training, together with his intimate knowledge of the topography of the Ohio and Potomac Valleys, had an important part. As a young surveyor he realized the importance of that break through the Allegheny system which these two valleys mark. Many years later he pointed out its strategic importance in connection with the defense and unity of the Colonies fronting the Atlantic. Before the Ohio was much more than a myth to most people, even in Virginia, Washington saw that the Ohio basin must be controlled by the Colonies if they were to be secure.