WHO WAS GREATEST THE US PRESIDENT?

With Donald Trump set to be inaugurated as the 47th president, we asked seven historians to nominate their choice for the most accomplished American leader

George Washington

IN OFFICE 1789-97 NO PARTY AFFILIATION

George Washington was the first president in US history - and I'm nominating him as the best, too. I am basing this on his success as a leader, his ability to negotiate conflict in his administration, and most importantly the example he set for future presidents.

Americans at the time of the Revolutionary War were enamoured with the ideal of the virtuous republican leader, in the model of the ancient Roman general Cincinnatus.

Washington was no perfect man, of course, and like many elite southern Americans he was a slaveholder. But in politics he came the closest to manifesting the republican ideal of any American president.

Washington became president after serving as the commander of the American Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. His leadership of the army was not uniformly positive, but his tenacity ultimately led to a successful outcome in the conflict with Britain. Many suspected he might simply remain in the position as a kind of benevolent American autocrat, but he resigned from the army in late 1783, returning to his Mount Vernon home in Virginia.

Befitting the respect that he commanded, Washington was chosen to preside over the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where the US Constitution was drafted. Then he became the first president of the US to be elected under that Constitution in 1789, in a unanimous vote of the electoral college.

Washington dealt with major political conflicts in his administration, especially between the treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, and secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, who bitterly disagreed over economic policy and the direction of the new republic. Washington was largely (if not completely) able to rise above the partisan bickering, and always believed that the republic and its leaders needed to manifest consensus for the public good.