Dr. Samuel B. Hoff is a George Washington Distinguished Professor Emeritus and an internship director at Delaware State University. He has taught and published extensively on America’s founding era.
The anniversary of George Washington’s birth occurs this year amid America250 events. There remains one area of GW’s legacy that necessitates greater understanding and appreciation: his civilian contributions to the Declaration of Independence. From his stature as a planter to his many political posts, Washington brought critical credibility to the cause, then helped America gain freedom with his military leadership.
Washington was a member of the Virginia Colonial militia and later served as commander of Virginia’s forces in Britain’s war against France in the western frontier. Upon resigning his commission in 1758, Washington returned to Virginia in a civilian capacity and was elected to the House of Burgesses the same year.
Washington had little reaction at first to British policy toward the American Colonies. There is no record that he supported public protests against the 1763 Royal Proclamation — which limited Colonial settlements — or the 1764 Sugar Act. The 1765 Stamp Act — a tax on all paper products — provoked a coordinated Colonial response and certainly provided an opportunity for Washington’s participation. But he attended neither the Stamp Act Congress nor the Virginia legislature when these bodies passed written resolutions against Britain, and his opposition to the aforementioned tax was limited to written correspondence to family.
However, Washington’s reaction to the next major policy imposed on the American Colonies was more aggressive. Perhaps this was a consequence of his frustration over growing debt with British merchants or to some backhand criticism he faced for not being more vocal in fighting the Stamp Act. Whatever the case, Washington led the effort to pass the Virginia Association of 1769, which promised economic sanctions, such as nonimportation agreements, to combat the 1767 Townshend Act, a series of new taxes. That pressure caused England to partially repeal the latter law.
The events of the early 1770s in the American Colonies, including the Boston Massacre and another tax on tea, heightened tensions. Following the Boston Tea Party and Britain’s brutal response, Washington joined fellow Virginian George Mason to promote the Fairfax Resolves of 1774, part of the Colonial reaction to the Coercive Acts authorizing British military control. Washington used his membership in the Fairfax County Committee of Safety to prepare local citizens. At the national level, Washington was a Virginia delegate to the first Continental Congress, which, in 1774, adopted the Continental Association as a trade boycott against the British.
In 1775, George Washington attended the Second Virginia Convention, and along with a hundred other citizens, signed resolutions dealing with defense and militia support. Representing Virginia at the national level, he was unanimously chosen by the second Continental Congress as commander in chief of the newly established military in June 1775. Still, he continued to serve as a catalyst for the Declaration of Independence, released 13 months later: He supported Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” pamphlet in early 1776 and backed the famous resolution emanating from the Virginia Convention in May 1776, which called for free and independent states.
Following its approval by the second Continental Congress, Gen. Washington had the Declaration of Independence read to his troops. The DOI not only inspired American forces in 1776 but throughout the Revolutionary War. For example, Washington encouraged his troops to celebrate the second anniversary of the DOI in July 1778 while in New Brunswick, New Jersey, even allowing a double ration of rum.
After the American victory over Britain and Washington’s eventual return to civilian life, he was elected the first president of the United States under the Constitution. Serving two terms, he decided not to run for a third term. In his September 1796 farewell address, Washington simultaneously acknowledged the value of the Declaration of Independence, while underemphasizing his own role in its formulation and impact: “(T)he independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.”
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