The Washington Presidency

Question 1

Presidential election results

Answer 1

No-one campaigned against George Washington, and so he was chosen as President by Electoral College representatives.

John Adams received the second highest number of Electoral College votes (each elector was compelled to cast votes for two candidates) and so became VP.

On 30th April 1789 Washington was inaugurated. His journey from Mount Vernon to New York turned into a triumphal procession, but privately Washington was a reluctant president

Question 2

Washington’s challenges

Answer 2

The USA was far from united;
Rhode Island and North Carolina had not ratified the Constitution;
the Constitution was untested;
the new government had no revenue, no system for taxation, and a huge national debt;
no judiciary department existed;
the US army consisted of just 672 officers;
the USA had no navy;
the USA’s western borders were vulnerable to Native American attacks;
parts of US territory were still occupied by British and Spanish troops.

Question 2

Washington’s advantages

Answer 2

The post-war depression was subsiding and the economy growing; there was widespread support for the Constitution and the new government - Anti-Federalists accepted ratification and agreed to participate in the new system.

Question 3

The Judiciary Act

Answer 3

1789
Established a system of federal courts.
At the top was a Supreme Court.
This system ensured that federal laws and rights would be adjudicated uniformly throughout the nation.
The act also stated that the Supreme Court should rule on the constitutionality of state court decisions and nullify state laws which violated the Constitution.
Washington selected 3 Supreme Court justices from the North and the 3 from the South, with John Jay as Chief Justice.

Question 4

Bill of Rights

Answer 4

Madison made a Bill of Rights a key priority. The House adopted 17 amendments; the Senate adopted 12, the states ratified 10. Guaranteed: freedom of religion, speech, assembly, the press, petition, right to bear arms. Prohibited: arbitrary search and arrest, excessive bail, cruel and unusual punishment, quartering of troops in private houses.

The 10th Amendment reserved to the states all powers except those specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution. The Bill of Rights took effect in December 1791, and helped to convince North Carolina (1789) and Rhode Island (1790) to ratify the Constitution

Question 5

The prestige of presidency

Answer 5

Known as President or Mr President
Not a monarch
Took precedence over governors

Question 6

Raising revenue method

Answer 6

Import duties

Question 7

Relationship between President and Congress

Answer 7

In August 1789 Washington appeared before the Senate to discuss Native American treaties, but some senators refused to discuss the matter in his presence and the debate turned into a shouting match over procedure. Washington eventually stormed out in a huff. In practice, the Senate was determined to maintain its independence from the executive, and so it became clear to Washington that he would have to look elsewhere for advice

Question 8

The federal civil service

Answer 8

In the autumn of 1789 the state, treasury and war departments were established along with the offices of attorney general and postmaster general. Washington was determined that the heads of the executive departments should be responsible to him alone, and Congress conceded that the president should have the right to appoint and dismiss them without consulting Congress.

Question 9

Cabinet

Answer 9

Alexander Hamilton - Secretary to the Treasury: Hamilton had been Washington’s wartime aide-de-camp. He had helped to organise the Bank of New York and had a good knowledge of public finance.

Thomas Jefferson - Secretary of State: The author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson had also been minister to France since 1784.

General Henry Knox - Secretary of War: Knox continued in the position he had held under the Confederation.

Edmund Randolph - Attorney General: Previously Governor of Virginia, Randolph was the government’s legal advisor.

Question 10

What was the response on public credit

Answer 10

January 1790
Recommended the funding at face value (rather than the depreciated market rate) of the foreign and domestic debt incurred by the Confederation ($56m), and federal assumption of the states war debts ($21m).

Hamilton believed a national debt would cement the union, establishing sound finances and ensuring credit. It would also enable Congress to assert its taxing power.

Question 11

Response to first report on public credit

Answer 11

There was little opposition to the foreign debt proposal, but the domestic debt proposal was bitterly opposed by southerners who claimed that it would enrich mostly northern speculators who had bought bonds cheaply when hard times had forced original creditors to sell.
There was even greater southern opposition to Hamilton’s state debt assumption scheme, as southern states had made greater progress than northern states in repaying debts. Southerners also feared the assumption would expand federal power at the expense of states.

Madison led congressional opposition, but Hamilton eventually got his plan passed by making allowances to states that had already settled their debts, and by locating the national capital in the south.

Question 12

What was the Second Report on Public Credit

Answer 12

December 1790
Hamilton proposed a tax on distilled spirits (which later became known as the ‘Whiskey Tax’) to aid in raising revenue to cover the newly enlarge national debt. This measure, which established the precedent of a federal excise tax, was passed by Congress in March 1791

Question 13

What was the Report on the National Bank

Answer 13

December 1790
Hamilton next proposed to create a national bank, reviving Robert Morris’s previous ideas. The bank would be funded by the federal government and private investors, binding the wealthy to the success of the union. The bank would hold government funds, collect taxes, provide capital, issue and regulate paper money. Madison opposed the bank, arguing that the federal government had no constitutional power to create it, but Hamilton argued that it was a ‘necessary and proper’ means of exercising the explicitly granted Constitutional powers of levying takes and regulating currency and commerce. Congress and Washington eventually supported the measure, and the Bank of the United States opened in December 1791.

Question 14

What was the Report on Manufactures

Answer 14

December 1791: Hamilton’s most visionary report, it proposed protective tariffs and government subsidies to promote manufacturing, but the plan was shelved by Congress.

Question 15

Success of Hamilton’s financial programme

Answer 15

The credit measures resulted in the value of new government bonds rising sharply.
The federal government was able to borrow money both at home and abroad, and foreign capital flowed into the USA.
Productivity increased and prosperity returned.
The Bank of the United States was also successful; it banknotes retained their value and it was able to exercise some control over the state banks.

Question 15

Political consequences of HFP: division

Answer 15

Southerners viewed the programme was a power grab by the federal government, northern bankers and speculators.

Question 16

Political consequences of HFP: party system

Answer 16

The Founding Fathers regarded political parties as corrupt and disruptive. However national parties soon began to emerge, partly in response to the divisions caused by Hamilton’s measures.

Hamilton’s appeal to northern commercial interests aroused sectional jealousies in the South and West and alienated debtors everywhere.

His efforts to centralise power, and open admiration for the British system of government, provoked fears of tyranny.

By 1792 Hamilton had become the embodiment of a party known as the Federalists, while Jefferson and Madison had become the leaders of those who took the name Republican..

Question 17

Political consequences of HFP: Hamilton vs Jefferson

Answer 17

By 1791 Jefferson had replaced Madison as the leading anti-Hamiltonian. The two men had very different visions.

Hamilton foresaw a diverse and commercial economy with both agriculture and industry; Jefferson wanted a republic of independent farmers.

Hamilton was pessimistic about the people, feared anarchy, and loved order; Jefferson was optimistic about the people, feared tyranny and loved liberty.

Hamilton wanted an even stronger federal government; Jefferson was protective of states’ rights. The divisions between the two men played out in a journalistic war of words in the newspapers.

Question 18

Political consequences of HFP: 1792 election

Answer 18

Hamilton and Jefferson persuaded Washington to serve a second term for the sake of national unity. Washington was unopposed and elected again. The Federalists held a majority in the Senate, the House was evenly divided, with many unattached to either party.

Question 19

Political consequences of HFP: Jefferson’s resignation

Answer 19

Washington tended to side with Hamilton, and Jefferson resigned in 1793.

Question 20

Division of France

Answer 20

France declared war on Britain in 1793. By the treaty of 1778 the USA remained an ally of France and was obliged to defend French possessions in the West Indies. Hamilton argued the treaty was no longer valid as it had been made with a government which no longer existed. He was strongly pro-British and knew British imports were providing most of the tariff revenue which his financial programme relied on. 75% of American trade was with Britain and 90% of its imports came from Britain.

Jefferson supported France but did not want war. He believed the USA should proclaim neutrality but not withdraw from the 1778 treaty, using it as a bargaining tool with Britain.

Question 21

Declaration of Neutrality

Answer 21

Washington saw foreign policy as a presidential concern. He took the pragmatic view that the USA, with its weak economy and armed forces, should avoid war with Britain. In April 1793 he issued a Declaration of Neutrality.

Question 22

Citizen Genet

Answer 22

Washington accepted Jefferson’s argument that the USA should recognise the new French Jacobin government (becoming the first country to do so), receiving France’s new ambassador, Citizen Genet, in 1793.

Genet was met with enthusiasm and after meeting Jefferson for talks he became convinced that the USA was privately allied with France. Genet encouraged frontiersmen to attack Spanish Florida and Louisiana, and outfitted four privateering ships to attack British shipping. Genet became an embarrassment, even to his Republican allies.

When he broke a promise not to outfit a British ship captured by his privateers as a French privateer Jefferson decided enough was enough. In August 1793 Washington demanded Genet’s recall after he threatened to appeal directly to the American people to support the French cause

Question 23

Problems with Britain

Answer 23

Britain refused to abandon military posts south of the Great Lakes, where its troops were accused of encouraging Native American attacks on western settlers.

Due to the war with France, Britain blockaded French possessions in the West Indies. When the neutral USA asserted its right to trade with French colonies, Britain seized 250 American ships, imprisoning their crews.

By 1794 the USA and Britain seemed close to war. In April 1794 a bill supporting a trade boycott passed the House. Only the casting vote of VP Adams stopped the bill in the Senate.

Question 23

Tension over French Revolution

Answer 23

The French revolutionary cause remained popular with many Republicans through 1793-4. Mass demonstrations took place in many towns, demanding war with Britain. Federalists feared the spread of violent mob rule, inspired by events in France.

Question 24

Jay’s Treaty

Answer 24

1794
Washington sent Chief Justice Jay to London to negotiate a settlement and avoid war. Jay’s bargaining position was weakened because Hamilton had secretly informed the British that the USA would not join a League of Armed Neutrality.

As a result Jay’s Treaty, fell well short of what he had hoped for. Britain promised to: evacuate northwest forts by 1796; address American claims for compensation for ship seizures; grant American commerce limited access to the British West Indies.

In return the USA agreed to: address pre-revolutionary debts and northeast boundary disputes; give Britain favourable treatment in commerce; not outfit French privateers in American ports.

Jay failed in his aims to secure: a commercial treaty; compensation for the slaves carried off by Britain in 1783. He was also forced to accept the British position on the blockade of French colonies in the West Indies.

Question 25

Reaction to Jay’s Treaty

Answer 25

Republicans were dismayed. Jefferson said it was ‘nothing more than a treaty of alliance between England and the Anglo men of this country against the legislature and people of the United States.’

There were calls for Jay’s impeachment. The Senate only ratified the treaty after a long debate (20 votes to 10). Secretary of State Edmund Randolph opposed the treaty. Washington hesitated for 2 months before signing the treaty, eventually deciding it was better than war with Britain.

Question 26

Result of Jay’s treaty

Answer 26

The treaty ultimately proved to be a success: Britain surrendered its forts; increased trade with Britain stimulated an economic boom. However, it deepened divisions between Federalists and Republicans.

Question 27

Relations with Spain

Answer 27

Spain had encouraged secessionist plots among western settlers and incited Native American attacks. Jay’s Treaty prompted Spain to soften its attitude to the USA, as it feared that Britain and the USA were drawing closer together and might be contemplating joint action against Louisiana.

In 1795 Thomas Pinckney concluded the Treaty of San Lorenzo, in which Spain: granted the USA free use of the Mississippi and the right to use the port of New Orleans; accepted the USA’s boundary with Florida; promised to restrain Native Americans. A decade of Spanish intrigue was ended. The idea of a separate western Confederacy lost its point once the Mississippi was opened to American trade.

Question 28

Western expansion

Answer 28

Washington was determined to control the continent up to the Mississippi. Throughout the 1790s American settlers edged westwards. Kentucky (1792) and Tennessee (1796).

Question 29

Native American policy

Answer 29

Washington declared a just Native American policy as a top priority. He worked to create several sovereign Native American ‘homelands’, believing that the occupants would gradually be assimilated.

In 1790 he negotiated the Treaty of New York, restoring lands previously ceded by the Creeks to Georgia and providing payments for the rest of the land. He also issued a proclamation forbidding encroachments on Native American lands guaranteed by treaty.

Question 30

Native American tensions

Answer 30

Georgia defied the proclamation by selling 15 million acres of western land; in the north settlers simply moved onto Native American lands. In 1791 Washington reluctantly approved military expeditions into the Ohio Valley to put down Native American uprisings.

When an expedition was annihilated Congress demanded reprisals, leading to an cycle of violence that completely undermined the homeland policy.

Following a crushing defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, in 1794 the north-western Native Americans agreed to the Treaty of Greenville in August 1795, in which they ceded the lands which are now Ohio and Indiana to the USA.

Question 31

Western policy tensions:

Answer 31

Federalists and Republicans disagreed on western land policy. Federalists like Hamilton and Jay favoured: high land prices which would enrich the treasury through the sale of large parcels of land to wealthy speculators. Republicans like Jefferson and Madison wanted land to be sold cheaply in small plots, benefitting ordinary settlers. The Federalists got their way, although the sale of western lands failed to raise the revenue the Federalists had hoped for.

Question 32

The Whiskey Insurrection

Answer 32

In 1794 discontent with the excise tax on liquor in western Pennsylvania developed into armed resistance. Mobs attacked federal agents and prevented courts from functioning. In August 1794 6000 men gathered near Pittsburgh to protest against the tax, and set up mock guillotines to show their solidarity with revolutionary France.

Hamilton persuaded Washington to raise a militia of 13,000 men to deal with the mob, and led the militia to Pittsburgh, rapidly suppressing the ‘Whiskey Boys’. The strength of the federal government had been demonstrated. but frontiersmen had been alienated.

Hamilton’s role conjured up fears of a standing army and military dictatorship among Republicans. In part due to his growing unpopularity, and also his desire to earn money, Hamilton retired from office in January 1795.

He remained a power behind the scenes, exerting huge influence on both the cabinet and Washington.