In 1879, Congress declared George Washington's birthday a federal holiday. Then came the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968. Washington's birthday was moved from Feb. 22 to the third Monday in February, and recast as Presidents Day. Washington has been unfairly overshadowed.

He deserves his own day.

So respected was he in his time that the Continental Congress in 1775 unanimously elected him "to command all the continental forces raised, or to be raised, for the defense of American liberty."

After independence, a convention met in Philadelphia in 1787 "to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." They unanimously elected Washington to preside.

The U.S. Constitution was born and special conventions elected in the states ratified the results. Washington was unanimously elected the first president of the United States by the new Electoral College.

So what did Washington contribute to the "miracle in Philadelphia" besides his credibility? For four months, he presided but did not take part in the debates, except on one matter on the last day of the convention: The size of districts for the House of Representatives.

The draft declared "the number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every forty thousand." For the first time, Washington entered the discussion, rising to say that 40,000 people per representative was "an insufficient security for the rights & interests of the people."

Delegates voted unanimously to change it to "one for every 30,000."

A representative, Washington believed, should have first-hand knowledge of the circumstances and interests of his constituents, a check of the people on their government.

Washington, it turns out, cared deeply about the connection between electors and the elected.

During the colonial period, he served 16 years in the Virginia House of Burgesses. He experienced the arbitrary authority of British royal governors and believed in a legislature of equals based on elections.

As the conflict with Great Britain came to a head, he was elected to the Continental Congress. The issue of representation was critical. Two proposals sought representation of the people in the 13 states: one representative for every 50,000 inhabitants or one for every 30,000 inhabitants. But a third proposal, one-state, one-vote, won out. Virginia dissented.

Washington's experience during the Revolutionary War and in the 1780s showed the great flaws in that arrangement.

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the Virginians again fought for representation based on population. But in the Great Compromise between small and large states, we got equal representation of the states in the Senate and representation by population in the House.

Significantly, Washington's first veto as president, in 1792, was to uphold the "one for every 30,000" provision of the Constitution after the first census and reapportionment.

For almost 150 years, as population grew, the House was enlarged with every census. In 1911, Congress capped the size at 435 members. After the 2010 census, each district represents 702,905, far from Washington's ideal. The nation has had to balance district size and House size, so neither becomes too unwieldy.

So the critical issue of adequate representation has shifted to the states. There, of course, California is the outlier, with a lower house of only 80 members, each representing 465,674 people, and an upper house of only 40 members, each representing 931,349 – more than a member of Congress. The size of the Legislature hasn't changed since the state's Constitution of 1879.

It's not hard to imagine that Washington would be shaking his head at that. At what point does the connection between representatives and the represented become too distant and unaccountable? Washington thought deeply about that issue, and we should, too.

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