George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, married Martha Danbridge Curtis on January 6, 1759, had John and Martha Curtis as adopted children, and died on December 14, 1799, at Mount Vernon, Virginia. He had no formal education and worked as a planter and soldier. A Federalist, he served as an officer in the French and Indian War, Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and president of the Constitutional Convention. During his era, the first tax laws were adopted and the Bill of Rights became law. In a letter to James Madison on May 12, 1789, he wrote, “To draw such a line for the conduct of the President as will please every body, I know is impossible...” In his Farewell Address of September 17, 1796, he wrote, “Time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of government, as of other human institutions;...Liberty itself will find in such a government, wit powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian.” Gutzon Borglum, sculptor of Mount Rushmore, later said in the New York Times Magazine on August 25, 1940, “This is the work that I love most, this intimate contact with the four men. As I become engrossed in the features and personality of each man, I feel myself growing in stature, just as they did when their characters grew and developed.” In the New York Herald Tribune on June 30, 1929, Borglum said, “Washington, as the guiding genius from the time of our national conception, through its struggle for life and the completion of its Constitution, becomes the central part of the great group.”