George Washington and the Constitution
The definitive multi-volume biography of Washington
is:
Freeman, Douglas Southall. George Washington, a
Biography. 6 vols. New York: Scribner, 1948-[57]
The best one-volume study of Washington's life is:
Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency: George Washington
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
For books dealing more specifically with Washington
and the Constitution and his role in shaping the office
of president under that system, see:
Hogeland, William. The Whiskey Rebellion: George
Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels
Who Challenged America's New Found Sovereignty.
New York: Scribner, 2006.
Phelps, Glenn A. George Washington and American
Constitutionalism. Lawrence, KS: University Press
of Kansas, 1993.
Rozell, Mark J., et al., eds. George Washington
and the Origins of the American Presidency. Westport,
CT: Praeger, 2000.
Websites
Ted Crackel, the author of the essay on "Washington
and the Constitution," directs the Papers of George
Washington Project at the University of Virginia. Most
of the Washington letters that he quotes have already
been published in the more than fifty volumes in this
series that have appeared in the last three decades.
All of these volumes, including the editorial annotation,
are now available in a fee-based digital edition that
subscribers can access as part of the University of
Virginia Press's "Rotunda" site. If you aren't
lucky enough to have library privileges at one of the
subscriber-institutions, you can use the website at
Mt. Vernon, Washington's historic estate, for free access
to a "Guest Version" that provides the documentary
texts (but not the footnotes). Both of these versions
offer keyword searching:
http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu:8080/pgwde/dflt.xqy?mode=menu&keys=menu-info-home-scholar
For Washington documents not yet published by the Virginia
scholars, go to American Memory, where you'll find images
of manuscripts in the Library of Congress's Washington
Papers along with searchable transcriptions:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html
The American Memory site also provides a good general
bibliography:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwbib.html
At their "Collection Connections" page
for Washington, scroll down to section three, "The
Constitution," for excellent suggestions for the
classroom:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/collections/gw/history.html
The staff at the National Portrait Gallery has made
excellent use of the opportunities provided by the Gallery's
touring exhibit of Gilbert Stuart's 1796 Lansdowne Portrait
of Washington. To accompany the exhibition, they created
an online resource on the Smithsonian Institution's
website, "George Washington: A National Treasure:"
http://www.georgewashington.si.edu/
I think you'll find the "Patriot Papers"
segment amusing and useful for elementary students:
http://www.georgewashington.si.edu/kids/patriot.html
The Web offers many Washington lesson plans, but these
two are right on the money for Washington and the Constitution:
Edsitement's "Washington: The Precedent President":
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=461
and PBS's "The President without Precedent":
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/inauguration/lesson_washington.html
Last and certainly not least, Mt. Vernon's education
office lists "Resources for Teachers" -- lesson
plans, reading lists for students and teachers, time
lines, etc. They're adding to this archive all the time,
so keep checking in, especially as they do a great job
of keeping their list of "links" to other
online Washington sites up to date:
http://www.mountvernon.org/learn/meet_george/index.cfm/ss/24/
