Celebrating America, II: The Washington Presidency

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On April 7th, 1789, George Thompson, Secretary to the U.S. Congress, travelled from New York City to Mount Vernon. The weather was bad, the roads worse, and the rivers dangerous to cross. It took him a week. Arriving “by unremitted diligence,” he made his announcement to General George Washington: The Senate, “having opened and counted the votes of the Electors,” had elected him “to the office of the President of the United States of America.”

Washington accepted this news with trepidation. As he shortly wrote, "...my movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied with feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.” New experiences are always fraught.

But everything was new in this memorable year: Congress had first convened only a month before, on March 4th; Washington was inaugurated on April 30th; the Judiciary Act authorizing the Supreme Court was passed on September 24th; and Washington appointed the first Chief Justice (John Jay) and the five Associate Justices the same day.

Washington was well aware that the framers were strongly divided over the very thought of a “president”, fearing despotism. “Away with your President,” Patrick Henry warned. “We shall have a King!” But the Federalists pointed to the weakness of powerless state executives. Washington would have to prove himself as both effective and non-threatening.

He was also aware that he walked a tightrope between the emergent Federalist and Democratic-Republican Parties—championed, respectively, by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Washington was to be our only non-partisan president.

But his major fear was conflict among government divisions: “A free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration,” he wrote, “to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres.” Madison had already addressed this in the Federalist Papers No.51: “You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

It would have surprised both Madison and Washington that, in the current century, we’re still dueling over that.