page_title: George Washington's political evolution
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: George Washington's political evolution / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: George Washington statue by Horatio Greenough in the National Museum of American History.
context_page_description: George Washington's political evolution comprised the transformation of a young man from a moderately wealthy family in the British colony of Virginia who was motivated largely by self-interest into the first president of the United States and the father of his country. Washington was ambitious for the status and influence with which he had been surrounded in a youth spent around his half-brother Lawrence and the influential Fairfax family Lawrence married into. After working as a surveyor, a position he was able to gain with the patronage of the Fairfaxes, Washington sought to emulate his brother's military career with a commission in the Virginia militia, despite his lack of military experience. With the patronage of more influential people, he was appointed major in 1752. The next year, he was appointed special envoy charged with delivering to the French a demand to vacate territory claimed by the British. His successful completion of this task gained him his first measure of renown. Washington was promoted in 1754 and made second-in-command of the Virginia Regiment.
context_section_description: Washington was eulogized after his death as a man who "took on authority only when his countrymen asked him to do so", "wielded 'power without ambition'" and was "a patriot devoid of personal ambition". Gordon S. Wood concludes that Washington's resignation as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army was "the greatest act of his life, the one that gave him his greatest fame." It was an act that earned Washington widespread acclaim and a place in history as the Cincinnatus of the west, a reference to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the Roman military leader who, according to legend, relinquished power and returned to his farm after defeating Rome's enemies in the 5th century BC. Washington knew the legend of Cincinnatus, and Wills suggests that he consciously promoted the analogy. Washington's relinquishing of power, Wood writes, played to an image of a man disinterested in politics. Ferling argues that, far from being disinterested, Washington was such a consummate politician that "he alone of all of America's public officials in the past two centuries succeeded in convincing others that he was not a politician."
caption: George Washington by Horatio Greenough (1840)
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