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GEORGE WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON, George (1732-99), first president of the U.S., commander in chief of the Continental army during the American Revolution. He symbolized qualities of discipline, aristocratic duty, military orthodoxy, and persistence in adversity that his contemporaries particularly valued as marks of mature political leadership. Washington was born on Feb. 22, 1732, in Westmoreland Co., Va., the eldest son of Augustine Washington (1694?-1743), a Virginia planter, and Mary Ball Washington (1708-89). Although Washington had little or no formal schooling, his early notebooks indicate that he read in geography, military history, agriculture, deportment, and composition and that he showed some aptitude in surveying and simple mathematics. In later life he developed a style of speech and writing that, although not always polished, was marked by clarity and force. Tall, strong, and fond of action, he was a superb horseman and enjoyed the robust sports and social occasions of the Virginia planter society. At the age of 16 he was invited to join a party to survey lands owned by the Fairfax family (to which he was related by marriage) west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His journey led him to take a lifelong interest in the development of western lands. In the summer of 1749 he was appointed official surveyor for Culpeper Co., and during the next two years he made many surveys for landowners on the Virginia frontier. In 1753 he was appointed adjutant of one of the districts into which Virginia was divided, with the rank of major.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-65), 16th president of the U.S. (1861-65), who steered the Union to victory in the American Civil War and abolished slavery. Early Life. Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Ky., the son of Nancy Hanks (1784?-1818) and Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851), pioneer farmers. At the age of two he was taken by his parents to nearby Knob Creek and at eight to Spencer Co., Ind. The following year his mother died. In 1819 his father married Sarah Bush Johnston (1788-1869), a kindly widow, who soon gained the boy's affection. Lincoln grew up a tall, gangling youth, who could hold his own in physical contests and also showed great intellectual promise, although he had little formal education. After moving with his family to Macon Co., Ill., in 1831, he struck out on his own, taking a cargo to New Orleans, La., on a flatboat. He then returned to Illinois and settled in New Salem, a short-lived community on the Sangamon River, where he split rails and clerked in a store. He gained the respect of his fellow townspeople, including the so-called Clary Grove boys, who had challenged him to physical combat, and was elected captain of his company in the Black Hawk War (1832). Returning from the war, he began an unsuccessful venture in shopkeeping that ended when his partner died. In 1833 he was appointed postmaster but had to supplement his income with surveying and various other jobs. At the same time he began to study law. That he gradually paid off his and his deceased partner's debts firmly established his reputation for honesty. The story of his romance with Ann Rutledge (1816-35), a local young woman whom he knew briefly before her untimely death, is unsubstantiated.

JEFFERSON, Thomas (1743-1826), American revolutionary leader and political philosopher, author of the Declaration of Independence, and third president of the U.S. (1801-9). Jefferson was among the most brilliant American exponents of the Enlightenment, the movement of 18th-century thought that emphasized the possibilities of human reason. A Virginia aristocrat, he had the time and resources to educate himself in history, literature, law, architecture, science, and philosophy; as a diplomat and friend of French and British intellectuals, he had direct access to European culture and thought; and as a provincial farmer and novice revolutionary leader, he had the motivation and the opportunity to apply Enlightenment political philosophy to the task of nation-building. Jefferson as President. In the election of 1800, Jefferson and his fellow Republican Aaron Burr received an equal number of electoral votes, thus creating a tie and throwing the presidential election into the House of Representatives. After 36 ballots, the House declared Jefferson elected. (The Constitution was then amended to require a separate electoral vote for president and vice-president.) As had Adams before him, Jefferson faced opposition from an uncompromising faction within his own party as well as from the Federalists. He steered a steady course between these two extremes, appointing some qualified Federalists to office and refusing a wholesale purge of office-holders inherited from the Adams administration. He supported repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801, which had created a costly tier of federal appeals courts and would have encouraged appeals from state courts, but he opposed any assault on the independence of the Federalist-dominated judiciary; Jefferson's three appointments to the Supreme Court, made between 1804 and 1807, were all strong nationalists and upholders of judicial independence. During his first term his lifelong interest in the West and in American-French relations prompted his major presidential achievement, the purchase from France of Louisiana-all the western land drained by the Missouri and Mississippi rivers-and the organization of an expedition by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis to explore this territory. Foreign policy during his second term was less successful. Seeking to force the British to respect U.S. neutrality on the high seas during the Napoleonic Wars, he persuaded Congress in 1807 to embargo all trade with Britain-a move that failed to elicit any concessions, deva stated the nation's economy for a generation, and alienated New England, which lived by foreign trade. All historical data in "tidbits" above extracted from Funk and Wagnel publications.