George Washington

George Washington commanded the Continental Army through the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), leading a poorly supplied, frequently outnumbered force to eventual victory over the British through a strategy of attrition and endurance rather than decisive early battlefield wins. He presided over the 1787 Constitutional Convention and was unanimously elected the first President of the United States in 1789, serving two terms before voluntarily stepping down in 1797 — a decision, made when no constitutional term limit yet existed, that set the enduring precedent for peaceful transfer of power in the American presidency.

His decision to relinquish military command after the war rather than seize political power (he was widely expected by contemporaries, including some of his own officers, to have the option of becoming a monarch or military dictator) is one of the most cited examples in American civic history of voluntary limitation of power.