George Washington was the first President of the
USA and is consistently voted as one its top five
leaders. He was born in 1732 in Virginia. His family
were well off and owned a plantation. Growing up,
he learned the morals, manners, and knowledge
necessary for an 18th-century Virginia gentleman.
He was greatly interested in two things while he
grew up: military arts and western expansion.
In 1754, at the age of 22, he became a lieutenant
colonel in the Army. He fought in the first skirmishes
of what grew into the French and Indian War. The
following year he escaped injury in battle although
four bullets ripped his coat and two horses were
shot from under him. His military experience taught
him valuable lessons in leadership he would use
later in his political life.
From 1759 to the outbreak of the American
Revolution, Washington managed his lands. He
married Martha Dandridge Custis and devoted
himself to farming life. However, he felt exploited by
British merchants and British regulations. In 1775,
he took command of his ill-trained troops and
embarked upon a war that was to last six grueling
years. He forced the surrender of the British at
Yorktown in 1781.
Washington entered politics and became a prime
mover in the steps leading to creating the
Constitution in 1787. After the new Constitution
was ratified, the Electoral College unanimously
elected him as the USA’s first President. Washington
avoided further wars and promoted the importance
of federal power. He died in 1799 and was hailed as
"first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of
his countrymen".
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the
United States. He was born in 1743 in Virginia and
died on July 4, 1826. He was the third of ten children
and grew up on his father’s 5,000-acre plantation.
He studied law at college. Jefferson is frequently
listed as one of the USA’s greatest Presidents. He
was also one of its most powerful advocates of
personal freedom and envisioned a great “Empire of
Liberty”.
Jefferson became a lawyer in 1767 and had a great
love of books. He was a very eloquent
correspondent using the written word, but was no
public speaker. At the age of 33, Jefferson drafted
the Declaration of Independence. In the following
years, he labored to make its words a reality in
Virginia. Most notably, he wrote a bill establishing
religious freedom, which became law in 1786.
Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister
to France in 1785. His sympathy for the French
Revolution led him into conflict with the party of the
Federalists. He gradually assumed leadership of the
Republicans and became Vice President in 1796. In
1801, he became America’s third President and
served from 1801 to 1809. He advocated tax cuts
and presided over the abolition of the slave trade in
1807.
While in Office, Jefferson purchased the vast
Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 and
authorized expeditions to explore the new west. He
also established the University of Virginia and the US
Military Academy at West Point. He is remembered
by the Jefferson Memorial in Washington and as one
of the four sculpted presidents on the Mount
Rushmore Memorial. He also appears on US postage
stamps.
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in
a one-room log cabin in Kentucky. Growing up in the
countryside, he made extraordinary efforts to
educate himself while working on a farm and in a
store. He said, “somehow I could read and write”.
He was a captain in the U.S. Army and then spent
eight years as a lawyer. His partner said Lincoln’s
“ambition was a little engine that knew no rest."
Lincoln was a one-term member of the House of
Representatives, but failed to get a seat in the U.S.
Senate. He campaigned for years against slavery,
calling it a “monstrous injustice”. In his speeches, he
continually reminded people that “the authors of
the Declaration of Independence…’did consider all
men were created equal’”. He was elected as the
United States’ 16th President in November 1860.
Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address:
"You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy
the government, while I shall have the most solemn
one to preserve, protect and defend it." Despite
this, the American Civil War started on April 12,
1861. Lincoln sent 75,000 troops to the South to
“preserve the Union”. At Gettysburg in 1863, he said
the War had created a new birth of freedom in the
nation.
Lincoln was re-elected for a second term in 1864
after building the Republican Party into a strong
national organization. He had already issued the
Emancipation Proclamation that ended slavery. He
promised to rebuild post-War America but was
assassinated in April 1865. Lincoln’s death marked
the first assassination of a U.S. president. He is
continually considered to be one of the three
greatest ever Presidents.
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President
of America. He served for two terms between 1901
and 1909. He was born in 1858 in New York City. He
was mostly home schooled because of ill health as a
child. He graduated from Harvard (where he was a
boxing champion) and in 1880 entered law school.
He dropped out a year later to enter politics. He is
often ranked as the greatest ever U.S. President.
During the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt was
lieutenant colonel of the Rough Rider Regiment,
which he led on a charge at the battle of San Juan.
His war-hero status prompted New York
Republicans to nominate him as Governor to draw
attention away from the state’s scandals. Roosevelt
won the election and served with distinction for two
years.
Roosevelt became Vice President in March 1901. Six
months later, with the assassination of President
McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, not quite 43,
became the youngest President in the nation's
history. He brought new excitement and power to
the Presidency as he vigorously led Congress and the
American public toward progressive reforms and a
strong foreign policy.
As President, Roosevelt believed that the
Government should play a greater role in the
economy. He steered the U.S. more actively into
world politics. He liked to quote a favorite proverb,
"Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go
far." He won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating
the Russo-Japanese War. Some of his biggest
achievements were in conserving America’s
national parks. He died in 1919 aged 60.