Page 140 - Beers With Our Founding Fathers

Beers with our Founding Fathers

Through the age of twenty-three, Washington was promoted

from major to colonel in the Virginia army, and fought alongside and
for England against the French in the French and Indian War. By this

age, he was the commander of all Virginia troops. After being
denied a commission with the English army, he resigned his

command of the Virginia army and returned to Mount Vernon. He
married Martha Custis, who was endowed with land, and

Washington was granted more land for his military service. He
became one of the largest landowners – and slave owners – in

Virginia. Like Jefferson, being a slave owner was conflicting – he did
not like the concept of slavery, but conceded that it was the law of

the time and a necessity for his large plantation and operations.
This is much like illegal immigrant labor as also necessary for

economic reasons. Both are invalid – the former proven and the
latter can be by parallel inferences. In 1758 Washington was elected

to Virginia Convention.
Through the rising tide of contention between the colonies and

England, Washington remained opposed to independence.
Although he disagreed with contentious acts, such as the British

Proclamation Act and the Stamp Act, and felt that the crown and
England were subjecting the colonies to violations, he did not

become involved in the colonial movement until he introduced a
resolution to the House of Burgesses of 1769 calling for the halting

of English imports to Virginia. In 1774, after England imposed the

Intolerable Acts, he chaired a committee for Virginia to be
represented at the First Continental Congress; in 1775 he was
selected as a delegate. After the Battle of Lexington and Concord,

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