What George Washington Actually Did as President

George Washington entered the office of President in April 1789 with a nation to put in order. He would need to lead the way as the Constitution was put in practice for the first time. On top of that, he had a host of other problems to deal with. Massive debt, unorganized and unsettled territories, conflict with Native Americans, relations with both Britain and France and the increasingly divided political factions of his nation. In this video we will follow Washington throughout his presidency as he did his best to lead America in its formative years. We will see how he succeeded and the areas in which he failed and that his successors would have to deal with after him. Building the American System Many details of the presidency were undefined in 1789. Therefore, almost anything Washington did could be impressed upon the office as tradition. So, Washington's choice to give an inauguration speech became a custom followed by every president after him. So too was the title of Mr. President, which Washington preferred to other monarchical-sounding honorifics like Your Excellency. To staff his government, Washington appointed the first cabinet, including John Adams as Vice President, Henry Knox as Secretary of War, Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury. But even here, things were still unclear. For example, Vice President Adams was quite confused at what his job even was. He was both the Vice President and the President of the Senate, two roles with undefined powers that left him complaining that he'd been given the most pointless office ever conceived by man. One of Washington's most pressing concerns was to prop up the judiciary. It was the least defined branch in the Constitution, and Washington would help give it much of its form. With the Judiciary Act of 1789, and appointed John Jay as its first Chief Justice. He further expanded upon this with lower district courts with judges appointed by the presidency to protect and apply federal law. The federal judiciary system that Washington established remains the basis of the system today. Perhaps the most urgent concern for most people was to enshrine people's rights in the new system. The Constitution did not provide clear protections for people's individual rights and liberties, a failure which its critics had seized upon in the ratification process. Several of the states, such as Massachusetts, had only ratified the Constitution with the condition that such protections be added. Washington also agreed, calling in his inaugural address for basic rights to be impregnably fortified in a new constitutional amendment. Support for such a Bill of Rights was not universal. Some critics argued that the Constitution, by strictly outlining the few powers the government had, carried an implied protection of rights that was good enough anyway. These voices were overpowered, though, and largely thanks to the works of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the Bill of Rights was introduced to Congress in September 1789. Proposed as a set of Ten distinct amendments, the Bill of Rights included provisions for religious freedom, freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial, and the right to bear arms. The Bill of Rights was ratified by the states over the following two years, becoming enshrined in the Constitution in December 1791. Disaster in the Northwest Physical expansion went hand in hand with the conceptual expansion of the US. Washington would oversee the admittance of three new states, Vermont in 1791, Kentucky in 1792, and Tennessee in 1796. Such expansion was anticipated by the Constitution, and the Americans expected that more states would join in time. However, mixed among these successes were a series of dismal failures in the Northwest Territories that soured Washington's first years as president. Since the implementation of the Northwest Ordinance, the Indians in the Northwest Territory had resisted American settlers with ferocity and success. A military man with newfound presidential powers, one of Washington's first acts was to deal with them. Secretary Knox agreed, and they dispatched General Josiah Harmar to lead a campaign in the Northwest Territory. The Northwest Indian War was far more difficult than Washington anticipated. The assorted alliance of Native Americans, quietly backed by the British, was a formidable match for the untested American soldiers. Harmar's mission was to destroy Native villages and rout their warriors, but on October 21, 1790, it was Harmar's men who were devastated in the Battle of Iquana in future Indiana. Hundreds of Americans were killed or wounded, and survivors said it was as if you could have walked from one side of the river to the other on the bodies left floating in the water. Eager to rectify the defeat, Washington then ordered Major General Arthur St. Clair to launch another campaign. On November 4, 1791, as St. Clair's army marched against Indian settlements along the Wabash River in Ohio, they were attacked by over 1,000 Indian men, led by the Miami war chief, Little Turtle. The battle became known as the St. Clair Defeat. Over 600 Americans were killed, making it the single greatest defeat the United States ever suffered at the hands of the Native Americans. With a fatality rate of 60%, it was, proportionally, the worst defeat the US Army has ever suffered in a major battle. Washington lays the blame firmly at St. Clair's feet. The controversy prompted Congress to begin the first-ever official investigation of the executive branch, where a committee concluded that Secretary Knox had failed to properly supply the army, but no action was taken to hold anyone to account. Instead, Washington and Congress used the disaster to expand the army, raise military pay, and pass the Militia Acts that that forcibly enrolled all fighting-age men in their state's militia to To be called upon when the need arose. Economics and Finance Fortunately for Washington, his administration's efforts in other departments were much more successful, especially in matters of finance and the economy. Washington's appointment of Alexander Hamilton as Treasury Secretary proved to be one of the best choices he ever made. A shrewd, intelligent, and ambitious man, Hamilton took on the immense task of organizing the nation's financial affairs. Hamilton began by consolidating the nation's debt into a federal, national debt that the US could begin repaying to establish its value to creditors. To ensure the government had more money to hand, he issued government bonds and implemented new tariffs and taxes. Hamilton also led the way on the establishment of the U.S. Mint to standardize coinage across the U.S. His economic reforms expanded federal power, much to the anger of certain states, mainly in the South, who resented the consolidation of power in a distant capital. To get these resistant southerners on board, Hamilton proposed a compromise. The South would accept his reforms, and in exchange, the capital would be moved southward to a new state along the Potomac River, at the middle of the current U.S. territory. The Compromise of 1790 convinced the South to support Hamilton's financial plan. including federal assumption of state debts in exchange for moving the U.S. capital southward to a new site along the Potomac River, which would later become Washington, D.C. The crowning achievement of Hamilton's financial overhaul was probably the Bank of the United States, which was chartered in 1791. It oversaw the nation's debt, issued loans to the government and private individuals. and issued banknotes, among other key financial roles. Critics condemned it as an unconstitutional expansion of government power, but Washington stood by Hamilton's plans as a necessary and proper tool. Washington largely supported Hamilton's work, but one man who generally didn't was Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson and Hamilton represented two very different approaches to Hamilton favored a strong federal government with broad authority to promote trade and expand the nation's wealth, while Jefferson favored a limited federal government more in line with the revolution's original aims and was a strong believer in states' rights and the agrarian of small landholders. In 1789, Hamilton founded America's first official political party in the Federalist Party to act as a vehicle for his views and those of his allies. In 1791, Jefferson and Madison answered with their Democratic-Republican Party. Washington generally leaned towards the Federalists but lamented the harsh political split that was emerging under his watch. Federalists and Democratic-Republicans butted head on most of the major issues of the day. Federalists lined up behind Hamilton's economic reforms. Democratic-Republicans condemned them as tyrannical. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the Democratic-Republicans welcomed it as an inspiring echo of their own revolutionary ideals, while the Federalists treated it as a radical and destructive project that lacked the restraint that had characterized the American Revolution. Almost no issue passed through Congress or across the President's desk without inspiring a bitter argument between the two groups. Jefferson resigned his position as Secretary of State in 1793 after his four-year term. However, he continued to be deeply involved in political affairs and organized opposition to various Federalist causes over the next three years. Whiskey Rebellion Among the many controversial things Hamilton pushed through for his economic program was the Whiskey Tax of 1791, which imposed a tax on the sale and distilling of spirits. The tax was hated by most people, and they evaded it where they could. In 1794, Authorities in Pennsylvania attempted to crack down on whiskey tax evaders, but when local distillers heard about the arrival of a federal marshal and a tax collector, they attacked them. Both men survived, but the door of violence had opened. The Whiskey Rebellion spread rapidly through rural Pennsylvania, recalling Shays' Rebellion years earlier, which had shown the federal government to be weak and impotent. Washington would not allow such weakness for the new government. The militia acts passed in the wake of the St. Clair defeat allowed for the president to mobilize a staggering 13,000 men in the militia to suppress the rebellion. Washington personally led the armies to confront the rebels who dispersed in the face of such an overwhelming show of power. The strong response to the Whiskey Rebellion was a powerful contrast with the impotence seen in the federal government's response to Shays' Rebellion years earlier. At the same time as Washington gathering the militia to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, the US finally got the upper hand in the Northwest Indian War too. With a clear victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in August of 1794, the Indians were forced to seek peace. The Treaty of Greenville in 1795 saw the Indians accept U.S. control of the Northwest Territory and ended major fighting over it. With success against rebels and Indians, the new federal government had proven that it could do a better job dealing with crises that had paralyzed the previous federal system. Foreign Policy Washington, similarly, proved effective at navigating the perils of foreign policy. Washington kept quiet when the French Revolution swept through France in 1789, much to Jefferson's annoyance. Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans believed America should enthusiastically support the French in their their revolution, just as the French had supported them, however. Washington and the Federalists were not convinced of the merits, leadership, or self-restraint of their French counterparts. When the French Revolutionary Wars erupted between France and Britain in 1792, the French urged the Americans to join them. Citing the 1778 Franco-American Alliance, the French wanted America to attack British ships as part of a shared Republican war effort. Jefferson, ever the Francophile, completely agreed. However, Washington was firmly opposed to getting America involved in an unnecessary war. He recognized that trade with Britain was essential to America's economy and didn't want to alienate the British. Besides, the 1778 alliance had been signed with King Louis XVI, who the French revolutionaries had just beheaded. Surely the treaty was no longer valid. To be safe, Washington issued the Neutrality Proclamation of 1793, swearing off any involvement with France or Britain's wars. Angry, the French envoy Edmond Charles Genet attempted to recruit Americans to join the war privately anyway. Washington complained to France and got Genet recalled, but upon learning that the revolutionary government was likely to behead him, Washington gave Genet sanctuary instead. The resulting breakdown in relations with France was a blow to Jefferson and the Republicans. Relations with the other European powers improved, though. In 1794, Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to negotiate the Jay Treaty to secure British evacuation from forts in the disputed Northwest Territory and establish regular trade relations. Then the next year, Pinckney's treaty settled disputes with Spain, restoring American navigation rights to the Mississippi and settling on the border between American and Spanish territory. By the time Washington's second term was drawing to a close in 1796, he had clearly done an admirable job. Many people, such as John Adams, expected him to stay in the office for as long as he lived, and had he wanted to, he probably could have. However, Washington was a man of principle above all else. As he had done with his military commission in 1783, He was ready to lay aside his power when the time came, and in doing so, established the traditional two-term limit that has bound almost every future president. Washington left behind a robust system ready to meet the challenges of the future, but it was one torn by bitter political division that would only get worse as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson began their fight to inherit his office. 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