In the eulogy that has echoed through the ages, Henry Lee proclaimed that Washington was “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” This formulation offered an elegantly concise summation of the three historical achievements on which his reputation rested: leading the continental army to victory against the odds and thereby winning American independencel securing the Revolution by overseeing the establishment of a new nation-state during its most fragile and formative phase of development; and embodying that elusive and still latent thing called “the American people,” thereby providing the illusion of coherence to what was in fact a messy collage of regional and state allegiances. There was a consensus at the time, since confirmed for all time, that no on else could have performed these elemental tasks as well, and perhaps that no one could have performed them at all.
Joseph J. Ellis, His Excellency: George Washington. Alfred A. Knopf. 2004. p.270-71
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