George Washington and America

1131 Words3 Pages

George Washington

Thesis Statement: George Washington is a hero because he stood up for his ideal that America should be free from England, and create a new form of government which would be fair and equitable. Even in the darkest of times, he never gave up and managed to maintain social and political order within the colonies.

Preliminary Outline

Introduction

English - American Relationship

The Townsend acts

Continental Congress

Washington is appointed commander in chief of Continental Army

Revolutionary War

Valley Forge

Constitutional Convention

Washington is elected as the first President of the United States

Slavery

Washington freed all his slaves

Conclusion

There are many ways to define a hero. Robert Kennedy defined a hero as someone who “stands up for an ideal, or for the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice”. Each time someone does this, “he sends forth a ripple of hope”. This definition may just as well be describing George Washington. George Washington is a hero because he stood up for his ideal that America should be free from England, and create a new form of government which would be fair and equitable. Even in the darkest of times, he never gave up and managed to maintain social and political order within the colonies.

Up until the mid 1760s, England maintained a friendly relationship with the colonies (Ferling, The First of Men 88). During the French and Indian war, colonial militias even had helped England defeat the British (Brookhiser 23). But, the war put England in huge amounts of debt. “According to the ancient precepts of mercantilism, the colonies were to exist for the benefit of the parent state” (Ferling, The First of Men 89). In 1767, England imposed the Tow...

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...hout sending those colonies into a spiral of political chaos and social disorder” (Selensky).

And, for all of these reasons, George Washington is a hero.

Works Cited

Brookhiser, Richard. Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington. New York: Free, 1996. Print.

Ferling, John E. The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon. New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2009. Print.

Ferling, John E. The First of Men: A Life of George Washington. Knoxville: U of Tennessee, 1988. Print.

Henriques, Peter R. Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington. Charlottesville: U of Virginia, 2006. Print.

Selesky, Harold. "George Washington." Encyclopedia of the American Revolution: Library of Military History. Ed. Harold E. Selesky. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. N. pag. Biography in Context. Web. 11 May 2014.

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