He Wasn’t a Man for Backslapping, But He Was Admirably Dogged and True : Washington: Our first President hadn’t the wit and fire of Jefferson, and even flunked romance. It’s his perseverance and probity we like.

It is difficult to get emotional about George Washington, especially in comparison with his 18th-Century contemporaries. Patrick Henry was a fiery Revolutionary leader (“Give me liberty or give me death.”), John Adams a brilliant malcontent famous for his fidgety disposition, and Thomas Jefferson a learned patrician who espoused democratic views and was mired in gossipy controversies, including an alleged affair with a slave woman.

Washington had none of these emotive qualities. He wasn’t even chummy. There was the famous story of his wartime colleagues who, gathering in 1787, marveled at Washington’s aloofness. One in the group wagered that he could back-slap Washington and bring down his icy reserve. But when he put his arm around his former leader, Washington removed it, stepped away and returned a cold stare that none in the group would ever forget.

Unlike so many of his colleagues, Washington was not well-educated or even bookish. Military analysts--in his time and now--have suggested that he made mistakes on the battlefield. And he was scarcely noted for his amorous success--his timidity with Sally Fairfax, his first passion, resulted in his having to wed a second choice, Martha Dandridge Custis.

Washington, in contrast to Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, would not find fame abroad, for he never traveled to Europe. He ventured only once outside the United States, to go to Barbados with his brother Lawrence.

Finally, Washington had some unattractive physical traits. His feet were enormous, and the Marquis de Lafayette, no parochial observer, said Washington’s hands were “the largest I had ever seen on a human being.” Another contemporary noted that Washington “is wide-shouldered but has not a deep or round chest; is neat-waisted, but is broad across the hips and has rather long legs and arms. . . . His mouth is large and generally firmly closed, but which from time to time discloses some defective teeth.”

Because Washington had his share of human failings, the historian finds all the more reason to honor him on the anniversary of his birth. For Washington also exemplified the qualities that have made this nation as great and as distinctive as it is. He was the American success story: a man with no particular distinction of birth or education who was intent on making it big.

And make it he did, first as one of the great landowners of his era. He persevered in a manner that would upstage abler men and overwhelm his foes. His first entrance onto the military stage in the 1750s was unimpressive. No matter, he would try again. The British army whipped the dickens out of Washington’s army time and again, but the general never gave up.

Washington recognized the division of expertise among men, that some men did certain tasks better than others. Although had no great mind, Washington made the best of it. He was extraordinary as an administrator, especially as President. The matters of state were attended to, capable individuals were chosen to carry out policy, and the quest for solving the nation’s problems was sobered by Washington’s perception that ideal solutions might not be possible.

Most of all, Washington recognized that as the nation’s first President, his every action served to mold precedent and illuminate posterity. For these reasons, his conduct was reserved but unimpeachable. And he made certain that the presidency would not become monarchical in tone and that military leaders would not prevail over civil authority.

“His integrity,” wrote Jefferson, who often differed with Washington’s policies, “was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known; no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good and a great man.”