George Washington was the first U.S. president under the U.S. Constitution. He served two consecutive terms in office from 1789 to 1797. He returned to his beloved home, Mount Vernon, on March 15, 1797. Immediately, he began months of repair because of neglect and mismanagement. In time, he was able to restore the Mount Vernon mansion house. The salvaging of his farms proved to be problematic. Throughout his retirement, Washington entertained local friends, former official associates, and strangers who wished to converse and see the first president, the Revolutionary War hero, and founder of the nation.

Washington closely followed affairs of state, including the growing tension between France and the United States, which, by the spring of 1798, had developed into the Quasi-War. Attacked politically by anti-Federalists, Washington was careful to preserve his personal legacy. He was appointed by his successor, President John Adams, on July 2, 1798, as Lieutenant General and Commander of America's newly-augmented army. Washington insisted for active command to be vested in Alexander Hamilton, whom Adams appointed Major General and Inspector of the Armies. Washington performed his duties, but Adams was jealous of Hamilton and was a proponent of naval power. Adams, however, was able to end the Quasi-War through diplomacy.

In the summer of 1799, Washington drafted a new will that left most of his estate to his wife, Martha. Unexpectedly, he set free all of the slaves that he owned outright, a legal order to be fulfilled after his wife's death. Washington's will was meant to be an act of atonement for a lifetime spent in human exploitation, and he hoped it would serve as an example to other slaveholders and hasten the end of American slavery. His post-presidency lasted less than three years until his sudden illness and death, which were caused by a severe throat infection, on December 14, 1799. Washington had planned a library to preserve his war and presidential papers, but he died before it could be built. In January 1801, Martha freed his slaves.

The Washington Monument was completed in 1885. Mount Rushmore, completed in 1941, has a gigantic Washington stone portrait sculpture to honor his presidency. In 2013, the Washington presidential library was completed and opened to the public.

Background George Washington, the first president elected under the U.S. Constitution, was born on February 22, 1732, in the Colony of Virginia. Washington served in the Virginia militia, was appointed Lieutenant Colonel and was British General Edward Braddock's aide-de-camp during the French and Indian War. In 1759, he married the wealthy widow Martha Custis, and they established their home at Mount Vernon. From 1759 to 1774, Washington served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and was considered a "cautious and prudent Virginia aristocrat."

From 1775 to 1783, Washington was the commander of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. After the war, British King George III granted America independence from Britain under the Treaty of Paris. Washington retired from the military and took up farming again at Mount Vernon as a celebrated war hero. Washington was elected President of the United States in 1789 and served for two consecutive terms of office after being re-elected in 1792. John Adams was elected to office in 1796 and succeeded Washington in 1797.

When Washington left office in 1797, the nation was divided into a two-party system, the Republicans and the Federalists, the latter of which dominated the U.S. Congress. The dispute with France over Washington's alliance with Great Britain in the Jay Treaty had not been settled, and the country was on the verge of the Quasi-War. Except for strong political criticism from the Republicans, the public figure of Washington was a legend as a general and the first president. Washington attended Adams's presidential inauguration on March 4, 1797, in Philadelphia and read aloud his final brief "farewell address." He was eager to return to his beloved home of Mount Vernon after he had served two consecutive terms of office. Before his departure, Washington sold and gave away his belongings, including a writing desk that contained love letters from his wife, Martha.

Although no one dared to challenge Washington for the presidency, his reputation, during the second half of this second term in office was under scrutiny of the Republican Party, which had been founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Although Washington was neutral politically, his core beliefs sided mainly with the Federalist Party. On July 30, 1796, the Aurora, an anti-Federalist newspaper, published Thomas Paine's open letter to Washington. Paine, who had been imprisoned in France, said of Washington that "the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any." Pro-French Republican editorials accused Washington of being a "tyrannical monster," and his lauded Farewell Address was castigated "the loathings of a sick mind." Washington, however, was determined to defend his reputation.

Return to Mount Vernon

Washington departed Philadelphia for Mount Vernon on March 9, 1797, and he traveled with Martha, his granddaughter Nelly, and George Washington Lafayette. The party arrived at Mount Vernon "six days" later, having made a few stops along the way, as Washington was a celebrated hero. In April, he opined in a letter that he was "once more seated under my own vine and fig tree" and hoped "to spend the remainder of my days." Washington was so intent on staying within 25 miles of Mount Vernon that he respectfully declined to attend the wedding of his nephew Lawrence Augustine Washington.

Washington's sister, Betty Lewis, died, and Washington was survived only by his younger brother Charles, the last of their generation of the Washington family. The death of Betty caused Washington "inexpressible concern."

Washington sent much of his vast collection of paper archives on the Revolutionary War and his presidency to Mount Vernon. He had a letterpress delivered to make copies of his papers. The archives originally contained "30 to 40 cases" of military expeditions, journals, and Congressional correspondence. Washington originally planned to build a library house at Mount Vernon and had ordered bookcases for his collections. However, his death prevented the building of the library. Washington's collections and the planned library would be a precursor for the modern presidential library system adopted in the 20th century by Congress.

Renovations Upon his return, Washington found his five farms and buildings at Mount Vernon were in ruins. He diligently put to work carpenters, masons, and painters to fix the buildings and the mansion house while he made efforts to rehabilitate his farmlands. Washington enjoyed what he called "the Music of hammers, or the odiferous smell of Paint." The army of workers under Washington's command created large dust clouds over his lands. Washington believed the enormous cost of the renovations was the equivalent of "an entire new establishment."

Possible daily schedule Washington would wake promptly at 5 a.m., wake his hirelings, and give them their assignments for the day. Washington chastised those of "their indisposition" who did not show up for work. At 7:00, Washington ate a meal of cornbread, butter, and honey that was easy to eat and reduced the pain that he suffered from ill-fitting dentures and swollen gums. Afterward, Washington mounted his horse and supervised his farms for six hours. He tended to his new distillery and ordered ditches to be widened.

In one instance, he monitored the health of a slave who had been bitten by a crazed dog. Washington forbade the poaching of deer on his lands. At 2:00 p.m., Washington returned to the mansion house and dined with guests at 3:00. After the meal, Washington showed his medals; prints of war battles by John Trumbull; and a key of the Bastille, a relic of the French Revolution that had been given to him by Lafayette. At the time, Washington was considered a "living legend," and many strangers visited Mount Vernon to see Washington in person.

Republican and Federalist feud

After Washington's presidency, the feud between Republicans and Federalists became toxic and inadvertently drew the former president into the foray. In March 1798, James Monroe, a Republican and former Minister to France who had been appointed by Washington, published an address that was critical of Washington's recall of him from office in an attempt to cover up his own insubordination. Monroe's denouncement of the Jay Treaty was a direct attack on Washington, who was furious after he read Monroe's pamphlet. He went to his study and responded by writing a line-by-line sarcastic and bitter critique of Monroe's tirade.

Washington had also been informed of a bizarre plot invented by Thomas Jefferson's nephew, Peter Carr, a Republican agitator. On September 25, 1797, Carr sent a letter to Washington, under the pseudonym John Langhorne, to entice him to attack Republicans, which would be circulated in the Republican press. Washington did not respond, and the plot was thwarted. Washington, however, took things further and blamed the plot on Jefferson. His relationship with the fellow Virginian Jefferson disintegrated. In March 1798, Washington agreed with a negative assessment that Jefferson was "one of the most artful, intriguing, industrious and double-faced politicians in America."

Washington went on the offensive. While visiting the Federal City, Washington publicly denounced the French Revolution. Washington through his letters described an overall conspiracy, beyond the pro-French Republicans, that was designed to overthrow the government. He wrote to Lafayette that "a party exists in the United States, formed by a combination of causes, who oppose the government in all its measures, and are determined (as all their conduct evinces) by clogging its wheels, indirectly to change the nature of it, and to subvert the Constitution." Washington also foolhardily endorsed John Adams's Federalist Alien and Sedition Acts, which were passed by Congress to quell the incendiary Republicans. Washington was also vindicated in the aftermath of a French bribery scandal, the XYZ Affair. The result was a public backlash against the Republicans' support of the French government.

Quasi-War

When Washington began his presidency in April 1789, France had been a strong ally with the United States, and Louis XVI had strongly supported financially and militarily American independence from Britain during the American Revolutionary War. Six days into his first term, the French Revolution plunged Europe into war, between France and Britain, and President Washington and his administration chose to remain neutral. On January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was executed by guillotine. Matters became more complicated when Washington signed the Jay Treaty in 1794 during his second term, which formalised commercial and diplomatic reproachment with Britain. In 1795, the French started to respond by capturing over 2,000 American merchant ships, and the American navy retaliated, attacked, and captured French naval ships. The French revolutionary wars continued after Washington's presidency.