The USA in the Time of George Washington
1789 – 1799
By Mike Donovan
The Man Who Would Not be King
The Quiet Man – Extremely formal and polite man even for his time - Six foot three, two hundred ten pounds, and physically fit – A great horseman in the class of Sam Grant – Possessed a legendary throwing arm - Smart, wise, surly, serious – “First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of his Countrymen.” – Tobacco and wheat farmer - 300 Slave-owner – Literate, but not highly educated - Bad speler – Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1758-1773 - Fox-hunter – Cherry tree – Big Complainer - Only President inaugurated in New York – He rarely laughed but liked to smile at wry humor.
“It is easy to make acquaintances, but very difficult to shake them off.”
GW
The USA’s first citizen was possibly its best ever. Washington never won a battle and he never lost a war.
Washington’s contributions to America were more influential before becoming president than they were as president (John Adams, Jefferson, and Grant were similar that way.)
“Wash” (Only Randolph was allowed to call him that) was a man with a strong ego and a strong sense of honor. George Washington owned slaves and never spoke out for a woman’s right to vote, but relative to his era the first US President was a progressive leader of the revolutionary nation.
Washington rejected a proposal that the President of the United States be addressed as "Your Highness." Good for Wash. He preferred and agreed to “His Excellency.” (Could you imagine if today, opponents of president Obama had to address him as "your highness?")
What an achievement to earn the title of the father of ones country, let alone the father of what eventually became the greatest and most powerful country of all time. But George Washington certainly earned it. His life is a map of the birth of a nation.
Washington's prominent leadership in the American Revolution certainly indicates that America’s revolution was not a proletarian revolution from below, like 1848 Austria or 1917 Russia. 1776 was a conservative revolution led by staid leaders like John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington - powdered-whig rebels who carefully decided on a new system of government. Monied aristocrats throwing molotov cocktails at the Governor's mansion is a paradox, but it’s not far off the mark. 1776 George Washington was a dignified aristocrat, a man of letters, manners and wealth, and even he was in support of the rebellion. To put it another way, the Rebels who fought the Redcoats were not trying to annihilate the bourgeoisie; they were the bourgeoisie. (and I use that misunderstood term ‘bourgeoisie’ in the way it is understood.)
George Washington became commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and led this rag-tag military organization through to the successful conclusion of the Revolution. Then, when his country needed a leader for the new nation, the choice for Washington was an easy call.
Washington was the only President ever elected unanimously, winning all 69 Electoral Votes in 1788 and all 112 in 1792. While he was not formally a member of any political party, his thinking was more or less in line with the group that eventually emerged under the label of Federalists.
On the other hand Washington was greatly influenced by Jefferson, who was ardently against the policies of the Federalists, so while Washington might have been in the end a Federalist, he was no poster boy for that cause. Some history charts list Washington as a ‘Federalist’ under the Party column, while others declare him non-Party. I agree with non-Party.
Washington wanted to be the aristocrat who was also a man of the people. He may have pulled it off.
The Federalists of the 1790's weren’t an organized political party, as we understand that entity today. To be a Federalist was more of an attitude than a political creed. They were the snobs. The pure Federalist was more concerned with the negative dangers of ‘mobocracy’ than the positive attractions of democracy. The Feds detested the crowd and studiously avoided common uneducated people. Federalists didn't hang out in bars. The Feds believed that government belonged to the wealthy and that the earning of wealth justified the monopoly of power. They were proud to be snobs. To the spoiled belong the spoils. Feds didn’t appreciate people who dressed above their station.
The anti-Federalists were just as wealthy as the Federalists but felt a little ashamed about it.
The American Revolution succeeded because, although it was led by a ruling caste, in spirit it belonged to every class. It was a unique Revolution in that way. 1776 had as little to do with class conflict as any revolution before or since.
Washington was so high-brow that he refused to shake hands with people once he became President. He thought this to be beneath his status. He was the Howie Mandel of his time (although the analogy is perhaps unfair because Washington was undoubtedly funnier.)
George didn't enjoy his time as president as much as he did his years as war leader. He never expected the barrage of criticism that came with the job. He got the full treatment and handled it badly. The newspapers called him nasty names including, “charlatan - impostor - jealous knave, usurper - tyrant - squid - and scoundrel.” The Providence Tribune called him, “One truly fine lady.” Washington never reacted in public, but in private he was hurt and complained to his close friends frequently and bitterly. George Washington felt genuinely persecuted.
George Washington is a rare hero of history in that he deserved every bit of the hero worship he has received. That's my conclusion. I rate him number one president of all time. Easily. Yes, even better than Harding.
WASHINGTON'S CABINET
Secretary of State
Thomas Jefferson DR) 1789-193
Edmund Randolph 1793-1795
Timothy Pickering 1795-1797
Secretary of War
Henry Knox -1789-1794
Tim Pickering (MA) -1795-1796
James McHenry-1796 (Fort McHenry namesake)
Secretary of Treasury
Alexander Hamilton - 1789-1794
Oliver Wolcott (CT)-1794-1797
Att. General
Edmund Randolph (VA) - 1789-1793
William Bradford-1793-1795
Charles Lee ---- 1795-1797
The population of the United States under Washington was 3.9 million (1790 census), or less than that of Chicago today. The USA grew more in the decade of the 1780’s percentage-wise, than in any other decade in history. This leap was partly because the flight of the ostracized Tories at the end of the Revolutionary War. This gave the next wave of immigrants a smaller base of people to impact.
Washington's salary was zero. He nobly declined to be paid for his services to the country as President, just as he had earlier when he took no pay to command the Continental Army. What a guy! I want at least a hundred bucks to do a charity benefit set for the dying.
BIO
The biography of Washington up the his inaugural as President provides a superb outline for the entire American Revolution.
George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He was the first son of Augustine and Mary Washington. George inherited two brothers from his dad’s first marriage. George was close to his two half-brothers Lawrence, and Augustine Jr. Both Augie and Larry were influential and helpful in George’s career.
Augustine died when George was 11. Mother Mary Washington took over the duties of a plantation owner. Mary made it clear to everyone who was boss. Mrs. W. made Katherine Hepburn look like a shrinking violet.
The legend of George confessing to his father that he chopped down dad’s favorite cherry tree is bogus. The real story is that he owned up to his mother about a different misdeed. Without permission young George tried to ride one of the family’s untamed colts, a prized animal named “Peyton.” In the violent attempt to throw off its determined young rider, the horse burst a blood vessel in its neck and died. George confessed to the deed. The head of the household was angry about the horse but she said,
“I rejoice in my son who always speaks the truth.”
Later some children’s-book writer re-wrote it as the stupid cherry tree story and it caught on as a national legend.
As for the political state of America in Washington’s boyhood, Americans in the 1740’s and 50’s did not think of themselves as ‘Americans.’ They did not think of themselves as Englishmen either. Their first allegiance was to their home colony. These colonies were little semi-autonomous nations within the empire. They were left alone to govern themselves, a system referred to as ‘salutary neglect.’
Washington's Virginia was a virtual nation, with the profound exception of foreign policy.
In Washington’s boyhood the colonies were not yet quarreling with the Mother Country, as they would do between 1765 and 1776. If anything the colonies quarreled with each other. The colonies had as many intra-mural rivalries as they had cultural ties. During one Indian war, Massachusetts had to set aside needed troops to protect its western flank against a potential attack from the Colony of New York! The colony-nations had never dreamed of uniting until mistreatment by the motherland finally drove them to it.
George Washington, proud Virginian was a high school dropout. Home tutors began his learning, then he studied at a primary school near his brother’s house (George went to live with his brother in order to attend the school.) Young George stopped going to school at 14 years old to become a surveyor.
Washington had a slight inferiority complex about his lack of formal education and this is largely why he was throughout his life a reluctant orator and was tight with conversation when in larger groups. In letters George was Lord Byron compared to any commoner, but compared to Lord Byron, he was a commoner, or at least felt he was. Washington always carried himself with high manners and was always polite in conversation to the point of absolute charm. But he was never literate in an Oxford way, and used little or no punctuation in his badly spelled letters.
There weren’t any high schools for young George to actually ‘drop out’ of, of course. There were few schools of any kind for that matter in the middle and southern colonies. Traveling tutors schooled most of the rich youngsters at their homes, and for higher education most Virginians parents preferred to send their sons off to Europe. William and Mary was a flourishing college in Washington’s Virginia but it was exceptional. The New England states paced the education race in the Colonial era. 90% of the population of 1788 New England could read and write, a percentage that many countries wish they could boast of today. The percentage of colonials in college was not impressive, not even in New England where it was highest. However, significantly, the quality of education certainly was, both in New England and in the middle colonies.
In the wilderness of Colonial Virginia, surveyor was one of the most important professions. George started out surveying the extensive property of a rich neighbor, Lord Fairfax. George did such a fine job that Virginia Colony hired him as an official surveyor. From now on, when it came to hills and streams and woods and boundaries of property, George’s word was law. Only 15 and 16 years old, his work was flawless. He was on the quiet side but well mannered, mixing well with older company.
And he had a tremendous throwing arm.
At the age of 19 Washington was appointed adjutant-general for the Mt. Vernon military district. This meant that Washington was leader of the local militia.
Brother Lawrence Washington was a career soldier and helped George learn military science. Larry had served bravely in the War for Rick Jenkin’s Ear, a war that was actually fought between England and Spain over one man’s severed ear. Brother Lawrence hit the beach fighting at Cartenega South America. The British lost, but Lawrence at least made it back alive and unwounded, unless you count pride.
Back home, Larry had lots of sharp minded military friends who visited the Washington place often. GW was an eager student, picking their brains in his strong and understated manner.
1751 had its downside, though. Lawrence was ill and was advised to take a vacation in the Caribbean. He went to ‘The Barbadoes’ (today spelled ‘Barbados’) and took George with him. George Washington fell sick with “Baybo” the infamous Barbadoan smallpox. With the help of youth and strength George beat the disease, but the bout with Baybo left some scars on his body forever.
In July of 1752, shortly after returning to Virginia from Barbados, George Washington’s half-brother Lawrence died of tuberculosis. The future president inherited the Mt Vernon estate. George was not the sole executor but because he had been close to his brother and was respected in the family for his maturity, he was chosen to live there and manage it. He was only 20. It was a sizable and valuable piece of property, and it expanded over time.
In 1753 George became a major in the Virginia militia.
In the French and Indian War George Washington risked his life in battle for England, and he did so willingly and with pride. The French and their Indian allies were enemies of the American people. France and England went to war for control of the American continent, and the Washington family was right in the heart of the fight. The French were trying to hem in the English colonies by means of a string of forts, and through alliances with dangerous Indians (as the English would do to the the Americans after 1783.)
The French and British had different approaches to colonialism. The French sought trade and profit, not expansion and settlements. The English colonized by farming and by settlements. The English countered the Franco-Native-American threat by making alliances with Indians hostile to the Indians allied to the French. It was two sets of combinations of reds and whites aligned against each other.
France and England had been to war three times in a relatively short span, and part of each E-F war was an overseas corollary war in America. The fourth and largest of these proxy wars was known in America as the French and Indian War, 1754-1763. In Europe it was called the Seven Years War. In Mongolia is was called nothing. The French and Indian War would be the first time that the main front between France and England was in America and the secondary front in Europe.
The Ohio River valley was an important prize for both empires. If the Virginians could create a road across the Appalachian Mountains between the watersheds of the Potomac and the Ohio Rivers they could pour settlers into Ohio country, and the land speculation business would have a billion new acres to play with. In 1753 Washington personally carried a warning to the French to leave western Pennsylvania or face the consequences. The French were blocking the roadway to the Ohio River Valley for English settlers. The French had built a small fort at the junction of the Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers, at the site of Pittsburgh today. When Washington reached Fort Duquesne (pronounced 'duquesne') the French commander allowed the Colonials in for a polite interview, but, of course, the Frenchman declined to evacuate under threat.
George Washington hacked his way back through the wilderness to Williamsburg, and reported the situation to Governor Dinwiddle (called ‘Dimwittle’ by his critics.) Virginia created a military force to go back and take Fort Duquesne. Dinwiddle asked George Washington to command the attack force but George thought himself unworthy and asked to be second in command instead.
Washington and his Virginia militia set out to attack Duquesne for Virginia and the King. Washington was second in command but at the front of the columns. Before advancing to battle Washington and his men built a crude fort to fall back on if they had to, and called it Fort Necessity.
When the first skirmish took place it was Washington who gave the order to fire. This skirmish grew into a battle, that later grew into a war, that then grew into a world war. George Washington personally fired the first shot of the French and Indian World War. He was trying to kill Frenchmen, whose help would later be indispensable to him against the British for whom he was now fighting.
The battle went badly for the Virginia boys. Out of necessity they even had to surrender Fort Necessity. Attack Force Virginia retreated back to Virginia.
But George had enjoyed himself nevertheless and wrote home that the bullets whizzing past his ear was a “charming sound.” This skirmish occurred on the fourth of July. The French and Indian/Seven Years War started badly for the Colonial-British team, but it was to end well.
The next spring the British attempted to avenge Washington’s defeat at Fort Necessity and drive the French out of the Northwest. They sent over a famous general with a considerable force of redcoats to march on Pittsburgh, even though it hadn’t been named that yet. Washington was one of the aides to this General Edward “Brash” Braddock (George didn’t volunteer as a regular officer because he did not want to serve under a British officer. As an aide, he did not have inferior status.)
“Braddock’s Braggarts” marched over the same road Washington had carved out of the wilderness the year before and they extended it in width. Approaching the destination Braddock marched his brightly colored soldiers in tight formation in the open field in the middle of a beautiful sunny summer day. When they neared Fort Duquesne they walked into an ambush. French and Indians hiding behind trees attacked from all directions. It was a slaughter. More than half of Braddock’s 1,500 men were killed or wounded, including commander Braddock. Washington read from the Bible over the dying body of General Braddock. The bullets whizzing by his ear weren't so charming this time, except in the sense that he seemed to have a lucky charm protecting him. The man saw more combat in his life than a First Division Marine on Guadalcanal, and never got scratched.
All told, George Washington was a part of four expeditions trying to take Fort Duquesne - First he led the expedition to survey the land and warn the French commander to leave. Second- he was in the lead of the failed attempt of the Virginia Militia to take Fort Duquesne. Third - he was with Braddock when the English Army tried to overwhelm Fort Duquesne with old-fashioned European military force and was defeated absolutely.
And now a fourth attempts was organized and sent on its way, the Forbes. General Forbes included Washington in a higher position than he had been under Braddock.
There were disputes as to the best road and the best attack strategies, but when the new and improved AFV reached Pittsburgh, it all became irrelevant. The French and Indians were gone. The French had abandoned the forks of the Ohio and Monongahela (not from fear of attack) and had burned the fort down. Forbes and Washington immediately began building a new fort named Pitt on the spot where today, the ‘steel city’ of Pittsburgh stands.
The FIW/7YW was the first world war. The French took a beating and were thrown off the North American continent except for a couple of small islands. Britain gained all of Canada, most of the Caribbean, and a free hand in the hitherto disputed territory to the west of the Appalachians. Slick ally Spain gained Louisiana from France.
George Washington had risen to the rank of colonel by the end of the French and Indian War.
George W. never lost the military bug. Between the French and Indian War and the Revolution he read most of the well-known books on military heroes and military theories. Washington did not love to read and didn't study all the classics of literature, but the fact that he put his nose in these military books at all, in spite of being a not scholarly guy says that much more about his destiny. He even ordered statues of all the famous war giants of history from Caesar to Cromwell from a London store and was incensed when the order was never fulfilled.
After the French War Washington relaxed and got hitched to Martha Dandridge Custis on 1-6-59. Martha was a widow and a rich Virginia landowner. George inherited three small children along with the land. They were named Jack, Claudell, and Patsy.
With the addition of Mrs. Washington’s lands, George was now wealthy. This is relevant for the American story. His moneybags would be critical in the prosecution of the Revolutionary War. No wonder he’s on the dollar.
The Mount Vernon Plot was named after a British Admiral named Sam Vernon – George loved the Royal Navy tradition and had once decided to join the Royal Navy - but his brother talked him out of it. MVP would continue to grow as the successful family bought new plots from neighbors. Wheat was the second most important crop on the 2,100 acre plot, after king tobacco. The south border of the MVP was the Potomac River
What kind of a plantation manager was Washington? First of all he was really tight with a shilling, I mean really tight. He was such a fastidious bookkeeper and organizer that today he would probably be medically diagnosed as having ‘obsessive-compulsive disorder.’ There wasn’t a pine comb that fell on his most remote acre that he did not personally make a written record of. His biographers have mountains of his boring Mt Vernon administrative papers to work with.
Because he did not want to pay the extra salary of an overseer, Washington ran everything himself. He was rich enough to pay someone to run the place (as Zachary Taylor did later on his slave-riddled plantation in Louisiana.) But Washington was too stingy and also was too athletic in both body and mind to live idly in a distant county sipping wine with the the uppity class. Washington was a full time horseman and a walking computer on the latest prices of tobacco and other products he was buying or selling.
George Washington was also not a man to be crossed. This story comes from the Scudder biography published in 1889.
It seems that Washington liked to hunt ducks on the banks of the Potomac at dawn or dusk and he kept hearing gunshots from a place where they shouldn't be coming from. A man from the other side of the river had been lately spotted illegally hunting on Mt. Vernon property and had been warned to knock it off. But the poacher was elusive.
Washington one day stalked the area where he expected the intruder to shoot from. As soon as he heard the first shot he jumped on his horse and raced to the spot. The knave had heard the horse racing for the shoreline. Washington crashed through the weeds and saw the perp pushing his boat frantically into the water. The bad guy actually leveled his gun and was about to shoot George Washington. But Washington’s horse made it to the boat in shallow water just in time for the future first president to leap off the horse like a hero and prevent the guy from getting a shot off. George Washington, the president on the dollar, the father of our country, then gave the man a sound beating.
Mount Vernon was solvent, but this was not typical of the time. Most farmers and businessmen in the Colonies were indebted to creditors in England, or to the Crown itself. This was one of the less noble reasons for the patriot rebellion of 76. In 1760 the little nations of English America were 2 million pounds in debt to the Mother Country. By the eve of the Revolution, that debt had more than doubled. Four and a half million pounds doesn’t seem like that much today. A few soccer stars make that in a season. But back then, it was a lot of money. Back then, you could buy a fleet of merchant ships for a mere three shillings.
Another factor was credit. Credit was easy for almost anyone to obtain through the medium of Scottish lending outlets called ‘factors.’ The factors were prevalent about in the rural areas of Virginia. Most of the Colonists were in hoc up to their necks. As long as agricultural prices remained high all was well, since most wealth was based on land and crops. When prices dropped you had problems.
There was very little currency. Tobacco was used more often than paper money to pay debts. A pack of smokes was settled a sports bet. There were some coins in circulation, but not enough to make the Colonial economy a monetary system.
In 1765 the Stamp Act, which taxed every official document with a stamp that had to be paid for, made the Colonies openly angry with the King. More incidents, such as the Boston Massacre of 1770, and the Tea Party of 73 changed the way the Colonies thought of England and of themselves. In response to the Boston Tea Party of 1773 the King closed the port of Boston and the Colonies began to unite in opposition to the Mother Country and in defense of Massachusetts.
In 1773 in response to the Coercive Acts against Boston, Washington rose at a state convention in Williamsburg and, in the climax of an emotional speech, boldly offered to raise a regiment of a thousand men at his own expense and march it to Boston to fight the English Army. It was an angry speech and one of the few times in his life that Washington showed strong oratorical skills. The money part certainly got everyone’s attention. One historian has allegedly debunked this story, but to hell with him. We like it.
In 1774 the colonies were in rebellion against England, but there had not as yet been a complete break nor was there complete unity. Before there was red white and blue, there was a field of grey. The Rebs summoned the first Continental Congress to Philadelphia to consider the two great issues of rebellion and independence. A convention at Williamsburg elected seven men (am I allowed to say that, even though it’s true?) to go to Philadelphia as Virginia delegates, and Washington was one of the magnificent seven. Edmund Pendleton and Patrick Henry, two of the other delegates, rode over to Washington’s place. From there the three famous delegates rode off to Philadelphia. Imagine being a fly on the neck of one of them horses.
Word came in of fighting in Massachusetts at Lexington and Concord exited the air in Philly. The Congress proposed that a Continental Army march at once to Boston to relieve the closed port and drive the British out of the city. Congress would have to appoint a commander. Who would it be?
There was concern about appointing anyone but a New England man to fight a New England battle. Would NE Yankees fight under a leader from another region? Or was it the obvious safest bet to place a New England man in position of authority? More important than whether New Englanders would fight under a “foreigner” was whether men in the other colonies would agree to fight for New England. Would Virginia and New York make the cause of Boston the cause of all the colonies? Would they even think to go into Red Sox country to fight the Red Coats?
John Adams of Braintree Massachusetts shrewdly solved the problem. He stood up in Philadelphia and began dropping hints that there was only one man in all the colonies with the reputation for competence, integrity and military experience equal to the task. He didn’t name Washington specifically (nor his desperately needed money) but it was so obvious to whom he was referring that George became uncomfortable and left the room.
The vote for Washington was an easy one and soon he was on his way to Boston at the head of a relief army composed almost exclusively of non-New England men. About 20 miles out of Philadelphia they met a galloping horsemen with the exiting news of the Battle of Bunker Hill. The New England patriot militia had stood and fought a conventional battle with regular troops of the King. They had held their own amidst terrible casualties on both sides and only gave up the position because their ammunition ran dry. Washington was elated. He knew that the true test had been passed. He was now not merely on his way to relieve rebels surrounding Boston. He was on his way to relieve an army surrounding Boston. Discipline problems throughout the war notwithstanding, from Bunker Hill on, the rebels of 1776 were bona-fide belligerents.
It was now a real war, just a war of revolution. It would tragically also be a civil war. Tories and Rebels were worse enemies than Redcoats and Rebels. Americans would be killing other Americans in bloody back-story back-stabbing skirmishes throughout the Revolution, especially in the South. The war was even more cruel in the west with the Indians involved. They tortured prisoners before they killed them as a matter of course and as a matter of strategy.
Washington took over the Army on the Cambridge common. I’m leaving in three hours to do a show within 500 feet of the spot. The rebs had the British hemmed in on the Shawmut peninsula., and could keep them there. The Redcoats were short of food and had to tear down buildings for heating fuel, doubling their already red hot enmity with the locals. But the Pats could not drive them out without artillery and didn’t have any.
However there was hope from a far corner of the map. The Americans had captured some cannon when they overwhelmed the defenses at Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York. Could the Yankees drag these heavy cannon over rugged roadless wintery New England and place them in a position to threaten the Redcoats? They did just that in one of the most remarkable feats of the war. Washington brought the Tico guns up to Dorchester Heights.
The British saw the cannon one morning and also saw the writing on the wall. The Royals considered a frontal assault to take the Americans and their cannon off the hill, but a severe Nor'easter damaged British ships in the harbor and delayed the planned assault. In the end the English under General Howe did not want a repeat of the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Royals had taken so many casualties in their victory that the rebels had gained confidence and prestige in the defeat. (Some of this material is repeated from the previous chapter, but it pertains to Washington personally, and is a good part of the America story to rehash.)
With Boston threatened by artillery on the high-ground, negotiations began for a peaceful evacuation of the British fleet from Boston in exchange for a British promise not to burn down the town as they made their exit. Burning down cities that they evacuate was a British military tradition.
The Lobster-backs sailed out of Beantown on March 17, 1776. What the British didn’t know was that Washington’s ‘guns of Southie’ were so short of gunpowder that they would have fallen silent after one or two shots if Britian had called his bluff. The bloody-backs bought the gambit and then they ‘depahted.’
The City of Boston has celebrated ever since with its impressive “Evacuation Day” parade. The date of the parade coincides with St. Patrick’s Day, so that visitors think they are attending the St Patrick’s’ Day Parade, but they are actually getting drunk and starting needless fights with outside tourists in honor of Washington’s great strategic victory in 1775, not in memory of their Irish heritage.
The next step for Washington was to take the American Army to New York City. He correctly guessed that the British could try to land there and cut the colonies in half at the Hudson. Washington’s army was soundly defeated at Long Island and in Haarlem. Washington’s military force was in a shambles and a panic. The incontinental army was forced to flee into New Jersey to save itself from capture, after an failed fighting attempt to hold on to Fort Washington.
Now began the great chase as the British tried to engage the Continental Army all over the territory of the middle colonies. The Americans were defeated in most of the larger skirmishes and won a few smaller ones, some of them rearguard actions. They struck back at British peripheral units while the overall picture still showed the British chasing them. Americans celebrated minor victories more because of their morale benefits than their strategic value.
Just northwest of Philadelphia today is Valley Forge National Park. Here the Continental Army settled down for the winter of 1777-1778. The British had occupied Philadelphia and had settled in for the winter in comfort while the Americans were camped to the northwest in the historic cold. In 1777 cold weather was not for fighting. Armies by custom and wisdom would settle down at some place and neither would contemplate serious offensive activities until the spring. It was like baseball season for killing. In today’s high tech world, cold weather doesn’t stop war anymore than it stops a person from getting to work. But in winter 1777-1778 it was time for the armies to hibernate. The Americans got the bunk bed with the open roof and the British got the fancy hotel suite.
The condition of Washington's Army at Valley Forge was awful. Few men had shoes or adequate armament and ammunition. Food was always short, as well as wood for fuel. Worst of all, some Scottish-American volunteers tried to cheer everyone up with bagpipes. Washington threatened to,
“Personally hang then next man that blows one serenity shattering note within my hearing!”
Washington’s hatred of bagpipes speakes volumes of his natural born wisdom.
In the meantime, many American civilians in Philadelphia were trading with and sleeping with the enemy. Many if not most of these affluent Tories were just low opportunists vying for an easy buck. They didn't love the King, just king beds.
The fair weather soldiers had all gone home. The ranks of the Continental Army were thinning out. It was an all-volunteer army, the troops honoring a variety of commitments. Even the honorable men that completed their terms of enlistment were leaving in discouraging numbers. And everyone was very cold in these the ‘times that try men’s souls.’ It is a myth that the famous winter of Valley Forge was particularly severe. In fact it was milder than average. But even a mild winter is not easy to endure without adequate clothing, and every winter has some very cold days and nights. Washington estimated in December in a report to Congress that of his 11,000 troops, a full three thousand were barefoot.
It was a low point for the American cause because the redcoats had the mo. The Colonials had no allies, little prospect of victory, and the “Conty,” the Continental Army was growing smaller by the day. The British were comfortably in possession of the two greatest cities on the mainland, New York and Philadelphia.
But the victory at Saratoga in 1777 began the turning of the tide.
Not long after Saratoga came a rider to Valley Forge with the news of the French Alliance. The great American victory at Saratoga had persuaded the French to back the Rebel cause. It had taken some months for negotiations, treaties and ratification, but now the word was in. It was official. Not only had the French agreed to full military support, but also pledged its national word of honor not to make peace with England until America was independent.
When Washington heard this news he was so happy that he spared the lives of two men on death row for military crimes. No only that, he reinstated them in the Army with a full pardon.
Spain then came into the war on the side of France, (without the added commitment to American Independence.) Spain was hoping to recover some territory recently lost to the English, especially Gibraltar. Washington could add Spain to the bag.
The addition of two great powers in 1778 to the list of belligerents changed the entire strategy for the British. Now the punishment and control of the Colonies was secondary to the primary goal of victory in yet another global war with its traditional enemies. The center of operations would now have to be moved to the southern colonies. From this central base the West Indies could be within striking distance, while the Rebels could still be addressed from a south to north striking direction. It was good strategy but the French Navy won a couple of key battles off the American coast, leaving the British trapped.
It has often been said that Washington lost most of his military battles. That's a bit unfair because Washington's object in the military phase of the revolution was to avoid pitched battles, not win them.
Napoleon said, "God is on the side with the heaviest cannon." God was therefore not with Washington until France provided the cannon, and until that happened he did not wish to defy the Lord. The idea was to keep a mobile military force in operation representing a political entity. As long as the Americans could maintain themselves as a rebel army validating a rebel Congress, the United Colonies of America would eventually win their independence though attrition of British will and manpower.
The entire object of the war as far as the British were concerned, was to get the American Army engaged in a full-scale battle. With superior training and material, the British could enter large engagements with confidence. In great battles even a draw would favor the British, for in organized military force, England could more easily replace losses. A war of attrition would favor the British, but this was only a dream if the Rebs could not be forced into large engagements. If on the other hand the American Army could remain one step ahead of the British in flight, and conduct harassing rear-guard actions, then the momentum sooner or later would have to swing their way. A war of attrition without pitched European style engagements would favor the rebels quite a lot.
The British Generals chased Washington all over the Continent for several years. When the smoke had cleared in 1778, all the British had been able to hold on to was Newport, Rhode Island and the Island of Manhattan. These are certainly two fun places, but not enough to declare victory over North America.
The British then tried to invade the South, winning some fights and losing others and accomplishing little. They thought the Tory movement in the South would support and sustain the Royal Army in Dixie but it was no go. The invading army of the south marched north towards a place called the Yorktown.
Now Washington could at last turn to stand and fight the British. This time the mouse was bigger than the cat. The French Navy, two French armies and Washington’s Americans surrounded a smaller British army of 7,000 men under Cornwallis at the waters edge of Virginia. Washington personally lit the fuse on the first cannon shot of the siege of Yorktown. The British surrendered the great army soon afterwards, and negotiations began for some form of American Independence. Yorktown did not officially end the Revolutionary War or grant the colonies independence; England still had 30,000 troops in place on the American continent. But it was enough of a loss that Parliament passed a resolution declaring that anyone who supported any further attempts to stop the Colonists in their quest for Independence was a traitor to the King! The King didn't even approve of this declaration in his name but he didn't try to interfere. Mad George knew it was over after Yorktown.
When Washington said farewell to his officers in a New York tavern they were all weeping openly. Washington had never once threatened to resign and he had a hundred opportunities to do so with justification. He never lost faith. He was the rock of Gibraltar when things were going bad and the guiding star when things were going good.
After presiding over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Washington retired to his home in Virginia. But when he was unanimously elected president he put down the plough, said so long to his slaves, and set out for New York City. Crowds of happy Americans feted him all along the way. He never imagined that he would take on more sad stress and sadness as president and sadness in peace than he had as a rebel leader in war.
WASHINGTON ADMINISTRATION EVENTS
INAUGURAL
BEGINNINGS OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
FIRST SESSIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
HAMILTONIAN ECONOMICS
ELECTION OF 1792
YELLOW FEVER 93
LANCASTER ROAD
GARDOQUI TREATY DEFEATED
DEFEAT OF ST CLAIR
FALLEN TIMBERS 8 20 94
BARBARY BARBARIANS
NAVAL ACT OF 1794
WEST INDIES CLOSED
JAY’S TREATY
NEGOTIATIONS FOR PINCKNEY’S TREATY
WHISKEY REBELLION
CITIZEN GENET
TREATY OF SAN LORENZO
TRIBUTE FOR THE BEY OF ALGIERS
FAREWELL ADDRESS
PEACE DIVIDEND
The first years of the young nation were, fortunately, years when the world was relatively at peace. The new United States would not have to get dragged into a war across the sea while it was still trying to get its sea legs. War would come later. For now things were peaceful. Well, sort of. Within a month of Washington’s Inauguration the French Revolution broke out. France would remain a frog in America's foreign policy throat for the next two decades and beyond.
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT BEGINS
The colonies had to backtrack now that they held the power. In Revolution they had discarded all forms of authority in a shopping spree of independence. For the decade from 1776 to 1786 it was as if the parents were away for the weekend and it was party hardy. Now it seemed that the parents were never coming back and they realized they actually had to pay the bills and run the place, and maybe even clean up the mess from the party. Condemning leadership is easier than leadership. Now it was time to stop glorifying the destruction of all authority and establish some new authority as well. The beginning of national government was to a large extent a repudiation of the revolutionary principles of 1776, and a recognition that some compromise had to be reached between the chaos of absolute freedom and the conservative structure needed to run an actual country.
The Congress of the Confederation had ruled the colonies since that powerful yet powerless body came into existence almost 8 years before Yorktown.
The CC on the face of it was holding all the governing power. It did not have an upper house to look down on it, nor a judiciary, nor an executive worth mentioning. But while nothing had the power over it, it had the power over nothing. The C-Congress had no power to compel the states to do anything. It could only ask, so it really was a weak and temporary expedient to help win the Revolution and little more. Once the real Constitution was ratified in 1788, the Congress of the Confederation officially declared that it’s days were numbered. When the new Congress convened on March 4 1789, the old Congress of the Confederation would consider itself dissolved.
The US Congress was very late getting started because of the poor transportation. It wasn’t easy to get to New York City in 1789. A quorum was not reached in either House of Congress until well after Washington was inaugurated.
There were no formal political parties but Congress was aligned roughly into the ‘Federalists’ and the ‘Anti-federalists.’ The Federalists favored the new Constitution and a strong central government with a strong executive branch. Most of the anti-federalists were afraid of misuse of power by the executive and wanted a Congress that was actually much stronger than the Presidency. The “Aunties” were against a balance of power.
The terms ‘Federalist’ and ‘Antifederalists’ were each a verbal paradox. The word Federalist would imply someone who favored a federation of powerful individualistic states. So on the face of it a Fed would strenuously oppose a powerhouse central government with satellite provinces masquerading as ‘states,’ which is what the United States of America is today, let’s face it.
In reality the so called ‘Federalists’ favored exactly that, a strong central government at the expense of the power of the states, while the Antifederalists favored a true federalism where the states retained some genuine sovereignty within a federation (I know what I’m talking about even if you don’t.)
The desire for a strong national government is usually attributed to the chaos and weakness of the 13 separate state governments under the old Articles of Confederation. But in fact the state governments were too strong. This was a much bigger problem than their weakness. “Democratic tyranny” was already beginning to replace the King’s tyranny in many colonial minds. States passed laws as they saw fit, with no concern for the welfare of the whole nation. Some states for example, charged a higher tariff on imports from their neighboring state than they did on imports from another country!
The new US Constitution created a true nation made of 13 subdivisions, rather than 13 powerful nations federated into one larger administrative unit for governing convenience. The states were allowed to delude themselves into thinking they were somewhat sovereign, and that delusion would be rectified in time, but not until a Civil War had spelled out the ugly truth.
On April 1 1789 Tom Scott from Pennsylvania arrived in New York City and at last a quorum was achieved and Congress could begin working.
Congress elected the first Speaker of the House in the person of Fred Muhlenberg. He had already been House Speaker in the Pennsylvania legislature and he came from a famous American family. Six Muhlenbergs would eventually serve in the United States Congress. They were the Kennedys of their time (in 1784 Teddy Muhlenberg crashed a stagecoach and injured his mistress.)
The post of House Speaker was an important but a non-partisan post in 1789. There were as yet no organized political parties to rally around in a scrap. In fact most Americans, rich and poor, aristocrat and lumberjack, had actually convinced themselves that the new nation would be free of party strife like the bickering in Europe. They thought they could rise above that and make a new world where people from the left and right didn’t line up and spout hate at each other.
Ha ha ha ha!
Congress continued its April fools day activity with the appointment of an 11 person Rules Committee. This is one of the most powerful Committees in he US Congress today. The ‘Rules Boys’ finished their work within a week and soon Congress had some guidelines. A Sergeant at Arms was named on May 12 (Sergeant Carter.)
The House was in the house but what about the Senate? The upper chamber still was a man short while the House of Reps was up and running. On April 5 1789 the United States Senate finally opened for business when Richard Henry Lee of Virginia arrived in NYC to make a quorum.
Lee was one of the giants of US history. Senator Lee only only three years left to live. RHL was the man who first formally proposed independence for the colonies in June of 1776. When the Congress had convened in 1784 under the Articles of Confederation, Lee was chosen the President of that imperfect but developing assembly. Now he was continuing his key role in American history as a powerful member of the Senate.
On the 19th of April the Vice President arrived in New York from Boston. Pudgy stodgy brilliant supercilious super-federalist John Adams reached the northern tip of Manhattan where a ceremonious troop of celebrities and townsfolk escorted him on his high horse to a stately mansion on Richmond Hill, near present day MacDougal St. Two days later Johnny was sworn in as Vice President of the new USA. George Washington had not yet arrived to take over the office of chief magistrate.
George arrived on the Jersey shore of the Hudson on April 23rd. Crowds of well wishers and sunshine patriots had paved the road to New York all the way from Mt Vernon. But when Washington sat in a boat and was rowed by uniformed soldiers across to Manhattan the celebration peaked. Ships of all size and sail followed his small vessel in ceremonious escort. When Washington’s boat was close to the big city there was so much wild cheering from thousands of spectators that one could barely hear the church bells and cannon that were going off to mark the moment.
He disembarked at Wall Street and announced, “I have returned.” The party escorted Washington to number 3 Cherry Street where he would take up residence. 3 Cherry was the 1600 Pennsylvania of 1789.
APRIL 30 1789 - THE BIRTH OF A NATION
On April 30 three Representatives left Federal Hall to fetch George Washington. The 62 other Representatives and 26 Senators, plus John Adams waited. At last they heard the sound of drums, cheering and bagpipes drawing closer. The parade arrived at Federal Hall and Washington was sworn in on an outdoor balcony so the people could witness the fun.
After an exiting swearing in ceremony outdoors on lower Manhattan, Washington went inside to the Senate Chamber where he gave his hello address. Then the Senate and the President went to a church service on Broadway.
Can you imagine being able to go back in time and be there, on that April 30, the day the USA began? It just brings tingles up my spine to read about it and try to imagine it all.
Days later the Senate marched as a body to Washington’s residence to deliver the response to his speech. This ritual evolved into the President's Annual Message and eventually the State of the Union Speech (the custom ended briefly with Jefferson who handed in a written Inaugural Address that he had no intention of reading out loud in his weak voice.)
VEEP
The first Vice President was John Adams, of Braintree (now Quincy) Massachusetts, a man whose home I passed every day on the bus to and from the Career Academy Broadcasting Schoo in 1974, and who did not resemble neurotic beady-eyed pimple-headed actor Paul Giamatti in any way. Adams had suggested to the Continental Congress Washington should be made commander of the Rebel armed forces. Washington did not forget his friend when it was time to hand out the prized offices.
But Jack Adams did not care for the VP spot. He wrote to his wife that the Vice Presidency was, "The most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived." For many presidents the veep has indeed been an obscure and powerless post, but for others it has been pretty good. It depends on the desires of the President and the qualities of the Vice. George W. Bush in 2004 was accused of being number two in power, that his VP, Dick Cheney was the real power behind the throne. That is not exactly insignificant, and, as Adams would later learn, the Vice-Presidency is always a potential stepping-stone to the Presidency.
PARTY LINES
The first Congress was mostly Federalists. We won’t get back into what is a federalist, don’t worry. Different historians have come up with different interpretations as to exactly how many of Congress 1 were “anti-Federalist.” Most say that out of 22 US Senators, 4 were anti-Federalists. The ratio in the House was only slightly higher for those negative people.
ADVISE AND CONSENT
The new national leaders were feeling out the new system as they worked it. The Constitution provided that the President could make treaties with foreign powers with “the advice and consent of the Senate.” But no one knew exactly what that meant. Legal precedent would have to be established through a delicate trial and error process.
One Saturday in the spring of 1789 Washington and his Secretary of State Jefferson had arrived at seven foreign policy decisions. They decided to take them to the Senate for “advise and consent.” The Senate didn't know they were coming. The Senate was in session when Washington arrived and told the doorkeeper that he wanted to address the body.
Shrugging their shoulders the gatekeepers went inside and announced to a startled Senate that the President had arrived and was going to ask for consent.
Washington handed his papers to Knoxie who passed them on to Vice President Adams who started to read the first page. But a noisy horse and carriage went by the window and no one heard a word he said. The Senators asked Mr. Adams to repeat it and he did. This happened several times. The noise pollution of 1789 was equal to weed-whackers and car-alarms of today.
Adams made it though the reading. Washington then addressed the Senate to expound on some of the points that had just been read, but again, noisy horses and buggies bugged everyone and no one heard more than a word here and there of Washington's carefully thought out talking points.
After an awkward silence, Senator Morris asked that the full seven points be read again. Adams started all over again and this time the Senate deliberated on each point before the next one was read. Each time the Senators came to the same decision; that they were not sure, needed to study the issues further, and would give Washington the answer some time in the future. When this happened the seventh time, Washington flipped his wig. The President turned rose red and rose from his seat trembling with rage. Washington exclaimed with burning eyes, “This defeats the whole purpose of my coming here!” One witness later said that Washington managed to make angry eye contact with every single Senator in the room within the time frame of this one short sentence.
This was a defining moment in the American political system. If the Senate had consented on the spot then all Presidential decisions in the future might have had to make their way first through the Senate before they were even on the table. But by making GW angry that Saturday morning, the Senate shot itself in the foot. Washington decided that from that moment on he would do as he pleased as President and enact any measure or policy on foreign affairs he wanted to. GW would consult the Senate for advise and consent only after the policy was decided on and implanted, and he would only do so when absolutely necessary as the Constitution dictated. Essentially this meant that instead of working out the governorship of the nation (especially foreign policy) with the Congress as a team, Washington would lead the nation as a powerful executive and the Congress could then say 'good work' or 'hold on a minute.' Congress was there to do second tier work and keep a check on the President's possible excesses through the power of the threat of impeachment. But from the moment that Washington's face turned beet red with rage, Congress lost its power to make foreign policy, in part or in whole.
In June the Senate proposed that the President should require its consent to remove a cabinet member from office. The Senate already enjoyed the right to advise and consent on cabinet appointments. That is, they could reject an appointment they did not approve of. But the President could reject and sack any cabinet officer whose performance he later did not approve of. The Senate was now asking the president to agree to a double-standard in their favor. They could reject someone they did not like, but the President could not have the same right once the person took office. This would place cabinet officials in a position where they were serving for life (or at least the length of that Presidency) as long as the Senate approved of them.
The proposal was defeated, thank Allah.
(The cabinet sackability issue would arise again after the Civil War and lead to the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. The Senate passed this same law after the Civil War and Johnson declared it unconstitutional and defied it. Johnson was acquitted but the law remained on the books until quietly and properly discarded few years later.)
CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
Not every state had supported the new Constitution. Ratification had been a tough fight. One of the toughest opponents ironically was the "Constitutionalist Party." The name is misleading because this was the Pennsylvania Constitutionalist Party, named after the state constitution. The PCP liked the radical state (1776) Constitution of Pennsylvania and did not care much at all for the Federal one.
And now another one of my famous confusing sidebars on the word ‘constitution.’ Whatever a thing is made of, that is it’s constitution. A gallon of milk and a rock both have a ‘constitution.’ That is the basic small c definition. What something constitutes.
The USA is said to have modeled its own Constitution on the English ‘Constitution.’ But the English never had a written Constitution. The “English Constitution” was simply the collection of laws, mostly determined by custom, subsequently applied as law in practice, that governed the island.
The American rebel Colonies were so afraid of arbitrary misuse of laws by the executive branch of government that they did not trust that branch to obey any unwritten constitution. They felt that only by putting the ‘constitution’ of existing laws in concrete form could they keep the gatekeepers honest. The US Constitution is now so famous that the secondary definition of the word has become the primary.
The Colonies individually initiated the radical concept of the written constitution well before 1787. Each Colony drafted it’s own version. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 served as the first model for other state Constitutions. The Connecticut Constitution was so close to perfect that it was later chosen as the model for the national one. That is why Connecticut has ‘The Constitution State” on its license plates. The formalization of all the laws of the nation into a capital C constitution is an invention of the American colonies and the United States.
JUDICIARY ACT OF 1789
Only one day after reaching a quorum in April of 1789 the Senate began working on a Judiciary Act to create a strong third branch of the government. Since the judiciary would eventually prove capable of overturning Congressional legislation, this would be a case of creating the teeth that bite you.
Senator Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut did most of the hard work of judiciary freedom, writing the various drafts of the act which was passed by both Houses and became the legal law of the land on September 24, 1789.
The Supreme Court would consist of six men.
Ellsworth had one of the best legal minds of his time and is certainly one of the unsung heroes of the early period of American history. It was Ellsworth, by the way, who led the fight against a proposal that the country be called “The National Government.” Ellsworth insisted that it should be called “The United States” and his resolution to that effect was passed. So if it weren't for Ollie, the right-wing hockey crowds would today chant “NG – NG” instead of “USA - USA”
Ellsworth's legal work in creating the national judicial system was more important than his work with titles. The states had feared a federal judiciary branch that would supersede all the power of the state courts. This concern was answered by creating a structure that left plenty of discretionary clout with the state judiciary. Any legal issue that was not specifically relegated to federal jurisdiction was to be left with the state courts. More importantly it was made clear that in such cases the national government could not step in and overturn state judicial decisions even if it wanted to for moral or other reasons, and from the other direction no lawyer could appeal a state court decision to the Supreme Court unless the subject was specifically a matter assigned to federal jurisdiction by the Constitution. There was to be no discretion as to jurisdiction.
THE FIRST SUPREME COURT - 1790
Six men were nominated by George Washington. All were confirmed by the Senate within two days. One declined the nomination two weeks later.
John Jay was named Chief Justice. He was from New York and 44.
From South Carolina came 50 year old Justice John Rutledge.
John Blair of Virginia was 57.
Jimmy Wilson of Pennsylvania was 47.
Bill Cushing of Massachusetts was 57.
Number six was Bob Harrison.
Most of these men had been instrumental in their home states in helping to get the Constitution ratified in 1788.
Robert Hansen Harrison declined because he was very ill. Hanson was the personal secretary to Washington throughout the American Revolutionary War and they were good friends. When George begged Harrison to change his mind and join the first court Hanson gave in and cleverly wrote Washington a one-sentence letter giving his robe size. But halfway through the trip to Philadelphia Bob became so violently ill that he told his driver to turn the carriage around and head for home. Harrison was not going to join the Court after all.
The first session took place in the spring of 1790.
The Supreme Court was by far the weakest of the three branches of government in Washington's time. The action-oriented executive and legislative branches were dominant over the regulatory branch, the eye in the sky. The idea of a balance between the three branches was part of the fundamental system of government agreed to in 1778, but years into the first President's term, the Supreme Court had given no indication that it was going to ever do anything except have formal meetings a couple of times a year to settle very small matters.
Over the next 20 years that would all change. The Court became the last word on any disputatious issues (arguments) in the other two branches, making the judiciary an equally powerful branch in the triad, as originally intended. The Court can't initiate anything, but as the last word in all controversies, it has the clout of a bag of nukes. But it took a long time to get its act on the road. (Newt Gingrich in a December 2011 Republican presidential debate said that the Supreme Court is now the dominant branch of government and there is no longer a real system of checks and balances between the three branches, was was originally intended.)
John Rutledge accepted the nomination but did not sit for a single session. In 1792 he resigned to take a lower post in his beloved home state of South Carolina, for some strange reason.
After his wife died in 1792 Rutledge began to fall off his rocker, but Washington didn't know about that. Wash appointed Rutledge a second time, this time in 1795 to the interim post of Chief Justice. This time JR eagerly accepted. Apparently Associate Justice wasn't good enough for him, but Chief was.
But John made some intemperate speeches in which he said, among other things, that he would rather see the president dead than to sign a treaty with England that he disliked.
On December 15, 1795 the Senate voted to unseat Rutledge by allowing his temporary term to expire at the end of the year without further confirmation. Washington would have to appoint another Chief Justice, and one Philly newspaper accurately said that the Senate had in effect, “Told Rutledge to go jump in a lake.”
When Rutledge heard the news he actually jumped in a cold lake and tired to kill himself. Friends pulled him out in the nick of time, but that was the end of his career as a jurist.
BILL OF RIGHTS COMES DUE
The Founding Fathers next created the famous Bill of Rights. They included the right to freedom of speech, assembly, weapon possession, petition, and the freedom from torture. Only when these amendments were ratified would the United States be ready to roll up its sleeves and get to work.
That’s because two states had refused to ratify the Constitution because it did not contain a Bill of Rights guaranteeing every citizen against abuses by the federal government. And two other states, Virginia and Massachusetts, had ratified it only on the condition that it was understood that a Bill of Rights would soon be added. These two commonwealths had included these freedoms in their state constitutions, and they demanded the same rights in their national one.
Surprisingly the leading critic of the Constitution was the fiery states rights activist and famed orator Patrick Henry of Virginia. The man who had led in the initial fight against royalty was becoming a royal pain in the neck. Pat Patriot, of all people, led the criticism and opposition to the central government.
Mr. Henry and other Virginia politicians began to lobby for a new Constitutional Convention to modify the existing document to their liking. This was enough to light a fire under Madison’s wig. He suspected that these Virginians really wanted a new convention in order to give all the rights back to the states that had been given by the Constitution to the central power. It was the old Annapolis convention in reverse. The 1786 Annapolis affair was a convention to discuss modifying the Articles of the Confederation that was used as a pretext to write the new Constitution. This time a convention was called for to modify the Constitution. The anti-Federalists might use the Bill of Rights issue to win their lager political goal of shredding the Constitution. Madison (who had worked so hard to write and promote the Constitution as it stood) knew that he had to act now, not later, on getting the promised Bill of Rights into the Constitution and stop the Virginia conspiracy to bust the Constitution at birth. The idea of a second constitutional convention led by Virginia states-righters was unacceptable to Jim.
Madison got to work, using as a starting point no less than 210 Bills that had been proposed by various states and individuals regarding the prevention of federal abuses.
Madison had originally planned to re-write the Bill of Rights into the existing document, but Senator Sherman of Connecticut correctly reminded him that it would be wrong to alter the work which had already been ratified by the states after such hefty debate. Sherm persuaded James to add Amendments to the Constitution which could then be ratified or not ratified by the states without changing anything already established.
The 210 proposals were whittled down to a dozen or so. Madison used the Virginia Bill of Rights as a model but made a key change in the wording. The Virginia Bill of Rights said that the state “ought not” to do this or that bad thing. The new wording for the national version of the Virginia Bill of Rights would read “shall not.” That is a big difference.
Congress debated the amendments for much of the summer of 1789. Committees debated and re-worked them. The Committees proposed new amendments that were over and above anything that had been in any state constitution, for example a bill that would require Congressmen to vote at the instructions of their constituents. In other words the voters would not only vote the Congressmen in, they would then vote on how these people would vote. It was a horrible idea. Why not just put mannequins in the Congress if you’re going to go that route? The proposal was voted down.
Obviously an elected official should be sensitive to the predominant views of their constituencies, but if polls had to be consulted on every decision then some of the wisest decisions ever made in the Halls of Congress would never have taken place. The voters would never have authorized Lincoln to start the Civil War, and John Kennedy never could have co-written Profiles in Courage because there could be no examples of individual legislators making brave and politically unpopular choices. They would never get a chance to choose their conscience over the temporary popular whims of their constituents. Voters choose leaders, not puppets.
The House gave the ok to 17 James Madison Amendments on August 15 1789 and sent them to the Senate for debate, modification, and approval. Some were eliminated, including a provision that protected individuals from abuses by states. This would come back to haunt lovers of freedom and decency in America over the next 180 years or so. Washington couldn’t violate your rights, but Albany or Montgomery could. There was no power in the Constitution to stop from states from behaving badly.
On September 25 1789 both Houses of Congress passed 12 Amendments making up the now famous Bill of Rights. These benevolent laws would still have to be ratified by three fourths of the state legislatures before they became part of the government of the USA.
Once the Congress had approved the Bill of Rights, the two holdout states of North Carolina and Rhode Island decided to join the United States of America after all. Other states were debating the Bill of Rights per se, but RI and NC were still debating whether they wanted to remain separate states. Who knows, maybe they would still be nations today if they had held out. Little Rhode Island finally got on board on May 29, 1790 after a razor thin vote of 34-32, a victory partly inspired by the city of Providence threatening to secede from the state and join the USA as a separate new city-state.
As for the Bill of Rights, it took more than two years, but on 12.15.91 Virginia said yes and this made three fourths. The Bill of Rights was in.
CITIES OF THE NEW NATION
PHILLY 1789
The big city was Philadelphia with a grand total of 42,321 people, less than could fill up the Phillies baseball stadium today. Philly was the only US city that genuinely tried to hold on to a European aristocratic image. Boston, a little, but Boston had an earthy longshoreman element to it that mitigated its snobbery. Philly was the place in the USA for tea and powdered wigs. New York and Baltimore were important cities too, but did not have the rich charm of Philadelphia. The British generals had felt right at home in Philadelphia while Washington’s army suffered at Valley Forge.
European visitors were impressed with Philadelphia. It wasn't the powerhouse city of Paris or London but it didn't have the slums and poverty of London or Paris either. Philadelphia had started out fresh in the wilderness and would have to wait about another 80 years before it built up the ghettos for the poor. By 1900 Philly could point to the slums of London and say “we can match that.” But in 1789 it was almost utopian in its pristine beauty and elegance.
The War of the Revolution had leveled the upper crust attitude of Philly somewhat and then the French Revolution finished it. By the turn of the 19th century there wasn't an openly aristocratic city left in America.
NYC
New York in 1789 had less people than Philly. There were 33,321 people in NYC in 1789. There are today more people than that in a single housing project in Brooklyn.
BALTIMORE
13,521 people live in “Bally” (as it was usually called by the locals) in 1789. Baltimore was a tough little city and was growing rapidly. This was the most Catholic city in America, making it the least catholic city in America. You need a vocabulary to get the line.
NEWPORT
Today, Newport Rhode island is a beautiful tourist town full of rich people and lacking any terribly important industry, unless you count the Tennis Hall of Fame. It thrives on its intricate beauty and its rich inhabitants. I do about three gigs a year there and one time a drunken heckler threw a bottle of caviar at me.
It’s a small city, or a big town calling itself a city. But in Washington's America Newport was one of the big cities in America and a very important one commercially. Newport was also the city of sin for its major participation in the slave trade.
Before the Revolution Newport was much bigger than Providence. Newport traded with the lower colonies as well as with Europe. Newport would have remained somewhat Tory even if the British occupation forces had never landed there. The merchants of Newport had too many financial links with England to look with pleasure on a violent separation between the Colonies and the crown. During the Revolution the British occupied Newport for such a length of time as to damage it's pre-eminence permanently. While the Redcoats held Newport, Providence grew in importance. Another city had to carry on the Whig commercial interests while Newport went Tory. Providence outgrew Newport in the last quarter of the 18th century.
Newport was the New Orleans of New England. Produce funneled its way there there for export. It was the outport for Southern New England fish, lumber and horses, the top three exports. Horses made more money for Newport merchants than slaves did. When the horse freighting business slowed down later, the ships that specialized in the trade were useless and had to be broken down for lumber. The cargo holds were too smelly to ask a customer to ship his corn overseas in them.. A decade of horse manure had done its damage.
That is an important true Newport story and I'll tell you an irrelevant one. I was tear-gassed there in 1971. It was at the famous outdoor Newport Jazz Festival. When the freeloader crowd outside the fenced-in paying audience grew unruly, the promoters and/or the cops cancelled the show. The police then dispersed the crowd with tear gas and an infantry charge. It was like Chicago 68 for me. I was chased by a cop. He was three feet behind me and we were running neck and neck like an Olympic event. I'd done nothing but I was a hippie and he as a cop with a billy club and when the cops (and the concert security toughs) attacked the hippies this guy singled me out for a clubbing and came after me. I leaped over a tall barbed wire fence in the athletic move of my life. He didn't make the jump. I had a deep cut in the palm of my hand but didn't notice until five minutes later when the adrenalin died down.
Newport is home of the important Naval War College. I did a show there last year and the microphone was weak and kept shorting out. I saved my show by making a running joke about how the liberals were cutting the Navy budget so bad that they can't afford a decent microphone for guest entertainers.
SANCTIONS WORKED-WEST INDIES CLOSED
The first greeting card to arrive in young Uncle Sam's mailbox came from Great Britain. It read, ‘Congratulations on your new home. All trade with our West Indies is now completely forbidden.”
It was a rough hit. The impressive merchant fleet of young America depended largely on trade with the British West Indies. This had been true for well over a hundred years.
Do you remember “Let sanctions work” in the Gulf Crisis? This was a big debate during the weeks leading up to the Gulf War of 1991. The left wanted sanctions, not war, against Iraq, and the right said that sanctions never worked in all of history. Well they certainly worked in the 1790’s. The sanctions stung the USA pretty good in the Washington years.
Trade with the West Indies, especially the British West Indies, constituted the majority of American sea commerce. Some of it was legal and some of it wasn’t, but it was all part of the American economy. The new British prohibition cut off one full side of the famous “triangular trade.” The sea run from the US to the West Indies was short, profitable and safe. Now the American ships would have to sail the globe in search of trade.
It is hard today to see the West Indies for what they were in Washington’s time. These islands were very prosperous, even relative to the young USA. The West Indies had an economy superior to the continent. When Virginia and Plymouth were nearly starving to death and the survival of continental settlements was still iffy, the West Indies was a relative Shangri-la (slaves excepted of course). Kingston Jamaica was to Jamestown in 1670 what Philadelphia was to a western pioneer in 1870. The warm and conquerable West Indies region was long the first choice for development by the poacher powers like England, Spain, France and Holland. The Indies were Club Med compared to the wintry Maine, where hostile Indians had a limitless land rear and French connections.
The Royal trade sanctions were a serious blow and a lousy way to start the show. American foreign trade took a precipitous drop. Ships sat quietly in Philadelphia Charleston and Boston. An already chaotic and weak American economy was being hit with a serious setback in the opening frame. It must be added that the British did this only out of spite. It did not help their economy one iota to scuttle their sea trade with America.
HAMILTONOMICS
One of Washington's first appointments was the head of the Treasury Department. The nation's finances were a real mess to say the least and a leader had to take control over the crisis.
The first money boss was Washington's close friend and advisor, Al Hamilton, the man from Nevis. He was the Alan Greenspan of his time, but better looking.
Quick bio: Hamilton made it to America from a broken home as a result of his writing. There was a terrible storm on Nevis and when Hamilton wrote of it in the local newspapers, the editors were blown away. Hamilton, just a teen, earned money from a prestigious writing award and was soon on his way to America, arriving just in time for the Revolution.
When the shooting started Hamilton joined the New York militia and showed both leadership and courage under fire. While retreating across the Jerseys with the Continental Army in 77 Hamilton earned the admiration, respect and friendship of George Washington. The general made young Hamilton his aide de camp. Among his duties, Hamilton did most of Washington's writing for him. He was Washington’s Ted Sorenson.
Now as Secretary of the Treasury, Washington asked his friend to save the economy, especially its currency, from its current confused chaos. Alexander accepted the position under one condition. Hamilton demanded to be placed on the ten-dollar bill if they ever made one. Washington agreed, as long as he could be on the one.
Hamilton did it. “Big Al” (Adams sarcastically called him that) saved the economy. He was later rewarded for his service to the country by being shot to death by the sitting Vice-president of the United States on a cliffside in New Jersey!
THE DEBT – THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION
The debt was big. The foreign debt was $12 million dollars. The government also owed $42 million to its fellow Americans, and the individual states owed another $25 million to investors, speculators, and to Continental currency and bond holders. And remember, this was back when one dollar could buy 700 race horses. The debt was huge.
Hamilton convinced Washington that the first order of business was to pay off the interest on all outstanding loans, both foreign and domestic. Critics were in disbelief. This was at the bottom of their list of things to do with what little dough the nation had. But Hamilton knew that the United States had to maintain its credit to keep itself solvent. The USA had no money right now and might have to borrow some more. If it made its interest payments in a timely manner it could lay the basis for a sound currency, even if it were based on a massive deficit.
Hamilton actually welcomed the big deficit, and he deceived many of his supporters by only pretending to make plans to pay off the principal. Hamilton wanted the large deficit maintained as an economic stimulus. The government could create a national bank and create a massive currency supply that was justified by the need to pay off the national debt. The American people would understand this and trust the purpose of the government in issuing the millions of bank notes and bonds. People would invest in the government and feel they were doing a good patriotic deed for a struggling entity. And along the way the buyers were hoping to make a profit.
But without the deficit there was no need for the government to get this big currency and lending scheme going. The deficit justified the new all-encompassing national financial structure and ensnared every buyer into a flag-waving money pit.
There were dozens of popular alternate ideas of how to handle the financial crisis.
Many advocated "repudiation." This was the simple declaration that the new government was simply going to start all over with a clean slate and all of the old debts were therefore "repudiated." This hasn't worked for me with a bill collector yet and Hamilton was very opposed to it. Repudiation even if it offered some short-term gain, it would ruin the nation's credit. (The USSR repudiated its old Tsarist Russian debts for example in 1920, and that started the Cold War – read that carefully and twice.)
There were variations of the repudiation plans, but almost everyone agreed that this shouldn't be tried with the foreign debt, while the domestic debt repudiation idea was popular. There had been legal precedent. In 1780 the Confederation Congress had declared the $200 million worth of currency in circulation to be worth only $5 million. But repudiation was different for an independent nation, as opposed to a rebellious rabble of barely united colonies in the middle of a revolutionary war.
Some Congressmen advocated repudiation of the accrued interest but not the principal.
Others wanted to unleash moral wrath on the situation with a concept called "discrimination." Bloodsuckers who had bought currency and bonds as a fraction of their face value would be repudiated. These bonds and bills would not be honored. But the original holders who had sold the bonds and paper bills would be paid back in full, as a reward for their decency.
Discrimination was rejected. The United States would issue new bonds to pay all the old bills and back its new currency, and the old bills would be paid at full face value. This would mean a profit for speculators. It was full funding for all war debts. Hamilton got an earful on the immorality of all this, but he was more interested establishing a good financial reputation for the country than in punishing low-life gamblers who took a chance and bought cold. Buying cold is the only way to win at gambling anyway. Discrimination, taken to its logical extreme would make it impossible for anyone to sell a discounted bond to anyone anywhere for any reason. If the buyer wins, he has to pay it back? What kind of a financial game is that?
Then there was the issue of "assumption." Hamilton wanted the new national government to assume the debts of the states left over from the Revolution. This was a radical idea and there was a lot of opposition. Assumption of the state debts would be a tough sell.
The leader of the opposition was Jefferson who opposed Hamilton on just about everything. Jefferson had a Hamilton dart-board in his basement. Hamilton's usury schemes made the pure, holy, and agrarian Jefferson most unhappy.
The states that were heavily in debt thought that assumption was a great idea. These bad states included Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South Carolina. The good states on the other hand, Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland, the states that had managed their money well and were solvent, thought that assumption was a terrible idea and unfair to them. Why should the federal government have to bail out Massachusetts? Why should a solvent Virginia have to pay into a federal fund to pay the bills of the deadbeat states? But Hamilton argued that even the states with money problems should be rewarded for joining the new nation and sacrificing their sovereignty.
In the end assumption was adopted, but it took some log-rolling to get it done. The South had more of the solvent states and it had to be appeased. So Hamilton dealt for a more southern location for the permanent national capital in exchange for South support for assumption (detailed later.)
Virginia had to be especially appeased. Not only did it get the national capital location on the Potomac, it was allowed to play with the rules on which specific bill-due that “Assumption” technically covered. VA in 1788 had stuck the feds with a bill for $500,000 for an expedition it had sent out to explore the wild west. Now, as part of the Assumption log-roll Virginia decided to charge the national government 1 and a quarter million for the same job long completed. That's a trick that corrupt politicians and construction contractors still use today, but in the interest of political unity, everyone let it slide. There were other examples of this back-room diplomacy.
Apparently there was a very intense three-man dinner date that settled it all, one of the more powerful dinners in all of history. It was Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton dining, three guys deciding America's future between bites of mutton and squab. Jefferson wrote later that Hamilton begged the other two to adopt Assumption. Other say Virginia was the one trying to win Hamilton Virginia’s terms. By this alternative view, Virginia was pushing, and Hamilton was chewing his squab wondering if he dare go this far in open bribery for Virginia's favor on Assumption.
Assumption was part of a shrewd multifaceted scheme by Hamilton to connect various elements of the nation into selfish support of the new government. Hamilton did not try to appeal to the red white and blue. He tried to appeal to the gold, silver, and green. Alexander did not believe in the innate goodness of man, as Jefferson did. Hamilton was the cynic. Al did not appeal to patriotism or loyalty to win his points, he appealed to selfishness, the only force on earth even more powerful than love. The states that would be helped by assumption would now be gung-ho supporters of the USA.
There was also a ‘peace dividend’ in Hamilton's assumptions, a bonus benefit in foreign affairs. Going conservative in fiscal policy would help keep the U.S. connected to Europe. Integrating the American economy into the European banking system would (theoretically at least) decrease the likelihood of a new foreign war. Integration of the world's economy is certainly the main reason there hasn't been a great war since 1945. That system was only beginning to see the light in 1789.
Hamilton advised Washington to appoint battle heroes of the Revolutionary War to important political posts to generate more home support. Washington probably would have done that anyway, but for less calculated reasons.
Most of Hamilton's econo-plans were adopted by the US Congress on August 4, 1791. Frank Freidel Jr. coined the term “Hamiltonomics” by the way, in his 1978 book, Hamilton the Man From Nevis.
THE DEBTORS
Who owned the national debt? The creditors who held Uncle Sam by the beard can be divided into three groups.
The majority of American securities were owned by small groups of wealthy American investors. It helped a great deal that a few of these rich investors also happened to be members of the United States Congress. Nick Gilman of New Hampshire, for example, owned more than a thousand dollars worth of state bonds, while members of the NH Gilman family owned more than that. Congressman Teddy Bland of Virginia was good for $5,000 and voted against the wishes of his leader Madison in supporting full funding. Elbridge "Gerrymandering" Gerry of Massachusetts had $20,000 in state securities.
Next largest holders of the national debt were the foreign speculators.
The third largest group that Sam owed money to in bonds and other IOU's were the thousands of small investors all across America.
Of the foreign creditors, the United States owed the most by far to the Dutch masters. The Dutch held about one fifth of the total US National debt. They had bought up risky US securities far more daringly than the French did.
The Dutch had an advantage on Paris because the Dutch were liberal on money-trading and there was a large Jewish population in Amsterdam. But the French Catholic Church frowned on usury. Christ, after all, had thrown the money-changers out of the temple, the only time this gentle being had ever lost his temper. Jesus kept cool when the Romans occupied and oppressed his country, and he never became angry while being arrested, tortured and killed. But when Jesus saw people lending money in the temple at 23% he went berserk. Usury was a real no-no for Catholics.
Dutch investors had a big pay day when Hamilton won his way. Young Sam paid for a few windmills in the late 1700's. One Stadnitski investment group was paid off in total $1.33 million dollars on its investment. And you know by now how powerful a mere single dollar was on those days.
About the only thing that was certain in 1790 was that the country's finances were chaotic. The dollar existed, but in various forms and at various value depending on what state you were in. Most of the coins were foreign. In Boston six shillings equalled a dollar and a British pound was worth 3.3 dollars. In New York City 8 shillings matched a dollar and a British pound was worth 2.5 dollars. In Charleston a British pound was worth 4.2 dollars. I'm as confused as you are, but that gives you the idea if the confused state of the currency.
BANK OF THE UNITED STATES - THE BUS
Hamiltonomics was the art of offering favorable deals to states and individuals, and grabbing the loyalty of the nation by the pocketbook. But before Hammy could make his plans work he needed a national bank.
The first Bank of the United States was chartered in 1791. It wasn't easy to sell the idea to the country. The people and its leaders hated banks. The USA had some of that Christ moral prejudice against usury. The Bank of England was an unwelcome name at polite dinner conversation in the colonies. The BOE was commonly regarded as one the the destructive forces that had brought on the separation between the Colonies and the mother country. The Rebels had seen the Bank of England as only slightly less of a villain in the whole war for Independence than King George. The BOE was the equivalent to a 1790 American of what Mobil, Halliburton or the BOA is to a left-winger today.
The new United States was now proposing its own national banking monster to match the BOE. Jefferson was incensed, but he was ignorant about banking. To him currency was immoral unless it was tobacco or cow chips.
The rural Republicans needed a good argument to support their opposition to the BUS. They fell back on "strict constructionism" of the Constitution as a means to try and stop the bank. They pointed out that the Constitution did not include a single word authorizing the creation of a national bank. They submitted the argument that anything which is not explicitly authorized by the Constitution is illegal.
Hamilton and his adherents countered with the "elastic" or "loose" interpretation of the United States Constitution. The elastics said that anything not forbidden by the Constitution is legal.
This loose verses strict battle over the Constitution is one of the running themes of American political history. Situations still come up where the same argument is fought.
The bank was a more difficult matter to sell for Hamilton than assumption because there was no way he could play with the rules to bribe opposition parties and states. Everyone knew what the bank was and what it was for, and stats couldn't be juggled so that Virginia for example could get an extra half a million dollars as with the western expedition graft to grease the path for assumption.
The BUS Bill passed the Senate on January 20 1791. In February it passed the House 39 to 20. All seemed well for Hamilton but then Washington had second thoughts about all this loose versus strict constructionism debate. He asked his Secretary of State and his attorney general to submit to him written opinions on the constitutionality of the bank. Both Jefferson and Jack Randolph were more than willing to take up their quills and argue that the bank was most definitely unconstitutional. James Madison added his own concurring opinion. The three most famous political men in Virginia were opposed to the Bank of the United States as being unconstitutional.
Washington showed the little naysay masterpieces to Hamilton and told him that he was leaning towards vetoing the BUS unless Hamilton could counter with a new written analysis that convinced the President that the attorney general and the secretary of state were both wrong.
Hamilton was not expecting this but he took up the challenge. He had already used his pen to get out of Nevis and he could write about this storm with the same competitive and competent vigor. Hamilton's counter-report convinced Washington, just barely, that the Bank of the United States was Constitutional. The BUS started its engine on February 25, 1791.
The BUS was located in Philadelphia. The loose crowd had won the battle.
In one sense, the BUS as a Pyrrhic victory for the Federalists. The failure to stop the BUS, in tandem with the French Revolution helped to create the first opposition party in American History. Jefferson's Republicans began to think of themselves as Whigs, as in the old opposition party in England.
The first BUS was constructed over the next six years and still stands in Philadelphia. I saw it recently. It's run down and ugly enough to be a panelist on The View. They're planning on moving it to a new location which sort of defeats the historic value of the landmark in my book.
For Washington, the Bank of the United States came at a price. Thomas Jefferson was both surprised and hurt that his mentor and idol George Washington would not support him and veto the Bank. Things were never the same between Jefferson and Washington after the BUS.
Another change took place in the Madison/Jefferson relationship, at least according to one historian. Prior to 1791 Madison was the trend-setter and Jefferson looked up to him. But when Madison's writing on the Bank of the United States was rejected by Washington, Jefferson became the trend-setter and Madison looked up to him instead. Supposedly some of this took place because Madison and Jefferson took a sail up Lake Champlain and Madison became very seasick, which brought out a condescending and paternal instinct in Jefferson towards Madison that had not earlier existed. Jefferson supposedly couldn't really love anyone unless they were helpless and needed him. Once Jefferson came to see Madison as a seasick little man, Jefferson became even more fond of him but on the other hand the power relationship switched between them.
If that isn't enough armchair psychoanalysis by historians without degrees in psychoanalysis, try this one. Jefferson according to this historian, never felt close to his father and Washington was the father he never had. Also Jefferson was hung up on not being macho enough and this was the basis on both his need to help smaller people and his need to look for a “superman father” which he chose in Washington.
That Jeff and Wash take is the same silly theory on why Hamilton was so fond of Washington, but that was a different historian who proposed that theory about Hamilton. Apparently Washington brought out the paternal instinct in a lot of powerful men who weren't close enough to their original father. Yes, and the reason Edison invented the light bulb was because he didn't get enough hugs when he was three. This kind of psycho-babble makes me seasick. Supposedly Hamilton was also hung up about being illegitimate and that's why he was so determined to maintain an air of honor and propriety at all times - as if people in 1790 didn't like to act that way anyway.
CLINTON SCANDALS
Governor Clinton of put his NY state in cahoots with a bunch of scandalous investors. They used western state lands to back a convoluted scheme to control the price of national securities and to force the merge of the Bank of the United States with the Bank of New York.
Massachusetts still owned a third of western New York state lands and had sublet much of that to investors in Holland who were sitting around waiting for the price of western NY land to rise before they sold it back to interested Americans.
The scheme is complicated and confusing. A guy named Duer led the plan which included buying up currency and securities at the right time and selling at the right time, a grand insider trading scheme. But another group saw what the Duer was up to and countered with a larger investment group and won the day. The result was jail for Duer, a stain on the Governor Clinton name and much damage to the national economy.
THE COUNTRY IN GEORGE'S TIME
One in five Americans in 1790 were slaves. Pure evil racism was a culprit of course, but there has to be a better selfish motive than the joy of being evil. The simple fact was that labor was desperately scarce. The land of opportunity meant that very few people wanted to work for someone else. America was an exiting place where anyone could jump on a horse and go out and find some land to own and cultivate. Who wants to get yelled at by a boss in a smelly tannery when there was a pretty good chance to set up for yourself in the beautiful countryside as a farmer?
In the Middle Atlantic states and in the South, the importation of slave labor seemed like the only way to succeed. There weren't enough people willing to work for short money so the solution was to make them work for free! It wasn't enough that whitey kidnapped a million black persons and forced them to work at a job they didn't volunteer for. The least that whitey could have done was pay them. Even an unfair pitiful salary might have given them some dignity
Cotton, indigo, and rice, the lower South staples, were more profitable than tobacco in Washington's time. Though sold in large volume, tobacco operated far too often in the red. Savannah had a better trade balance with the outside world than Richmond. South Carolina, where tobacco was not the staple, was the richest state in the Union. Tobacco in the first 50 years of the USA was a lucrative crop for only three. Only three times did the average tobacco farmer make more money than he or she lost. Tobacco saved the economic day for pre-revolution America. That is well-known and quite true. But after Independence tobacco, was anything but a national savior.
COMMANDER IN CHIEF
The new Constitution made it clear. The President of the United States was the commander in chief of the armed forces of the USA. Congress had the power to declare war but it was not in charge of the armed forces. Not even a little bit.
To this day there are still critics who say that there is too much power in the Presidency over the armed forces. How did this happen? Isn’t there something anomalous here? The colonies had rebelled against the tyranny of King George. It was one of the reasons for the break with the mother country. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence complained that the King had “affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.” And yet the new USA had put the power to control the military into one man. Washington was a civilian and a military man personally, and now the authority at the highest level. There was apparently no separation of power between the civilian and the military. They were both rolled up into one human being.
Yet, of all the 55 men at the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, only one, Bill Miller of NC, suggested that the power to control the armed forces should be given to Congress. The 54 overrode him and Miller didn’t press the point. The decision to place all power over the armed forces in the President was praised as wise by almost everyone who counted.
There were many reason for this. Firstly, was the personal trust and admiration the people had in Washington. It was almost a given that Washington was going to be the first president. And everyone trusted that he would not personally abuse this theoretically fantastic power.
There was the maxim, later coined by Lincoln but widely known to many that, “one bad general is better than two good ones.” Divided command leads to chaos and ineptitude, and splitting the US command of the military with a couple of hundred congressman or two dozen generals was not a good idea.
In revolutionary times, the Founding Father’s were not furious with King George for his military tyranny. The Americans were actually more alarmed at the idea of the King delegating military independence to his subordinates, be they governors or regional military commanders. It was not the dominance of the King in military affairs they feared, but rather the lack of it! The Crown still represented civil law, but had to share this responsibility with the Parliament. A general or a personally tyrannical governor had no such obligation. The colonists hated the lack of civil leadership over military power, not the placing of it in the King or Cromwell’s hand. That’s why they were willing to give military power to their President.
People in England did not mind the King having the power to take military action in a time of crisis. When the battle needed a timely decision, it is no time to turn it over to a debating society. Some Kings and Queens were better than others, but Joe Englishman always trusted that the King had the people's best interests at heart. They did not fear that the King would make insane military decisions just to satisfy some personal whim. The American colonists inherited this same common law common sense trust in the King. So in a major sense, the Revolution was essentially about restoring the prerogative of the King rather than in destroying it!
The Marlboro man and the Prince of Cumberland Farms played a role in this power evolution.
The Duke of Marlboro in the early 18th century had become such a powerful military figure in England that he began to take military decisions that crossed over into the political. He was winning battles for England but he was deciding where, when and against who they were fought. The Marlborough man was taking the British Army deep into the heart of continental Europe when any sane person could see that this was not necessary in any way. But who could argue with victory? Not even the King apparently. By taking such bold and successful leadership in military campaigns, the Duke of Marlboro frightened serious and influential political thinkers on both sea sides of the English speaking empire.
In England, the military Marlborough man became so powerful that he set himself up as a third power, capable of competing straight up against the Crown or the Parliament, a development not pleasing to the latter two. Duke eventually used his battlefield power to control politics in England.
In the New World Marlborough was a thorn in the neck even in victory. They needed British military power to protect them against the French and the Indians, not to go on some wild gamble in central Europe. What good did it do the Virginia colonist if the Duke of Marlborough wins lower Silesia from the King of Romania? Instead they had to sit by helplessly, incapable of even pleading with the Crown for military action in America while a military individual, not a representative of either Crown or Parliament made all the political decisions in the military theatres. The successes of the Duke of Marlborough influenced Madison and company to give power over the military to the civilian leader.
The Prince of Cumberland Farms (William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland) chipped in too. In the 1740’s he played the same role as Marlborough, but since he was related to the King it was thought he could be controlled. It was also widely believed that he was less dangerous because he was clearly less talented than Marlborough and was less likely to roll up a string of dangerously brilliant victories against the wishes of London.
The Duke of Cumby lived up to expectations with equally problematic results politically. He put the British Army deep into central Europe, lost a string of important battles, deprived the New World of British military might when it might have been enlisted to win serious territory for the Empire in an easier theatre, and exacerbated the political dilemma of granting the power to make military/political decisions to a singularly military man. Marlboro and Cumberland created a healthy fear of military leadership in military affairs on both sides of the Atlantic, a fear that hung over the heated debating parlor at Philly in the summer fo 87. Except for one weak protest from one delegate, the think-tank was collectively glad to give absolute civilian control over the military to the President of the United States.
There was also the experience of political life under Colonial governors to soothe fears of irresponsible executive dominance. The legislative branch controlled the purse strings, so whenever a Governor tried to enact an oppressive law, or order a foolish military expedition, the legislature simply agreed to the law or expedition and declined to appropriate any funds to allow it to operate. The Constitutional Convention didn’t feel terror at the thought of executive military power because it knew from past experience that as long as the legislative branch controlled the dough, there was only so far a loony tyrant could go. In fact, for all the attention historically that has been paid to the colonists complaining to the King during the colonial era about ill-treatment, the governors complained more often to the King about their treatment at the hands of the tyrannical legislatures. Governors like Pownal of Mass and “Dimwit” Dinwiddle of Virginia were griping to London that they were GINO’s, governors in name only, and pleaded with the crown for some genuine power over here.
Congress has the power to declare war, but in no instance of American history has Congress initiated a declaration of war. The executive has asked for a Declaration of War or an authorization to use force and then it has been up to the Congress to say yes or no. The President owns the puppet and the Congress owns the strings.
THE NEW ORLEANS PROBLEM
One of the major problems facing the new nation was Spanish control of New Orleans. Long before it was famous for Mardi Gras, New Orleans was the only place through which western products could pass through to outer markets. Later there would be canals, a great lakes transport system, and railroads roaring west to east, and much later there would be interstate highways and planes. But in 1789 there was only one way to transport the products of the west to market, and that was through New Orleans. And it could be only transported one way, downriver. The barges would be destroyed for lumber at New Orleans. There was no steam power, and the return trip would have to be by land. The Mississippi was a one-way street.
And it was in the clutches of Spain.
Spain declared war on Great Britain during the Revolutionary War, but did not ally itself to the United States. Spain owed no favors to the USA and the obligation as mutual. Spain, if anything, wanted to hurt the new republic. Spain was both a monarchial government and a New World power, opposing the US naturally on both counts. It was also a Catholic monolith, which didn’t help with it’s feelings for the essentially Protestant USA either.
The goal of Spain was to entice the American emigrants of the southwest who had left US territory to consider forming a new nation, independent of the parent US company, yet nominally independent of Spain as well (freeing Spain from the risk of war with the USA.) This would block the growth of the US empire, which was now clearly and openly competing with the Spanish. Many American frontier settlers liked the idea. No less a person than young Andrew Jackson gave serious consideration to supporting plans for a New Orleans based autonomous nation. Prosperity was more important than patriotism, as it usually is, and to some, a life with New Orleans and without the USA was more appealing than the reverse.
In 1789 the Spanish finally agreed to let American traders use the port of New Orleans, provided they paid a steep 15% duty on all goods.
Spain reluctantly gave when its sinister designs backfired. The Spanish were conspiring with various American adventurers to have the southwest US secede. Jim Wilkinson was the worst of these traitorous snakes. The conspiracy to form a separate nation in the New Orleans region never materialized, and Spain lived to regret letting the USA out of the N.O. box.
The New Orleans problem was unsolved when Washington left office.
SO LONG NEW YORK 1790
Congress recessed at lower Manhattan on August 12, 1790. It was the last day New York was the capitol. When Congress re-opened on December 6 it was in Philadelphia, where the government would reside for 10 years until Washington (the city) was open for business on the Potomac.
The 1st Congress came to an end in March of 1791. Most of the incumbents were re-elected, setting a pattern to be followed forever. There were a few exceptions. Senator Schuyler of New York was replaced by Aaron Burr, an event the New York legislature and the entire country would come to regret. Future war hero Tony Wayne of Indiana was elected to the 2nd Congress, but an investigation declared his vote tallies fraudulent and Wayne’s seat was put up for grabs again.
ST. CLAIR SLICED AND DICED 11.4.91
One of the low points of Washington's administrations was the complete defeat of the U.S. Army under General St. Claire's at the hands of the Indians in the Ohio country. Some still consider this to be the worst defeat in the history of the United States military. It was the Kasserine Pass 91.
Both Britain and Spain were encouraging Indian terrorism against white American settlements. The Miami Indians of the Ohio River valley were particularly truculent, even though none of them knew the word. An expedition was sent out against the “Miami Madmen” under the leadership of General Arthur St. Claire. Arthur's good name was already damaged during the Revolution for he had surrendered Fort Ticonderoga back to the Redcoats in 1777. Now he was entrusted with a dangerous mission against a formidable enemy. This was Artie’s chance to save his reputation.
He made it worse.
More than half the combat strength of the United States Army was slain in one battle! Of St. Claire's army of 1,500 over 900 were killed. The attacking Indians under Joseph Brant and Little Turtle were not taking any prisoners. Most of the KIA's were scalped. Only 40 Indians died.
Washington was dining with friends when a messenger leaped off his horse at the gate of Washington's home in New York with the news. When rebuffed by Washington's guards, he persisted in demanding that his message be delivered at once. The note was given to Washington during dinner. The President calmly finished dining with his guests. After they had all left, he was heard screaming in anger. "This is the worst! I told St. Clair to watch out for surprise attack! All is lost!"
Whether the fault was all with St Claire is not certain. His troops were poorly trained and their equipment was problematically defective.
Congress launched an investigation into the failure of St Claire. Opponents of Treasury Secretary Hamilton tried to blame him for the poorly funded army that met defeat. Others blamed “Knoxie,” the Secretary of War. Some liberals were opposed to the idea of an expedition against the Indians for any reason. They believed that the whites were violating Indian lands and that the reverse was not true. Some Democratic-Republicans were actually angry that America had organized a standing army for any purpose whatsoever.
So many accusations of malfeasance and even corruption were being fired at Knoxie and Hammie that their friends in Congress demanded that they be allowed to come to Congress to at least have the opportunity to defend themselves. But the idea was rejected on the sound ground that it would be dangerously close to European style parliamentary government to have cabinet members participating in Congressional debates. It would set a bad precedent that could be expanded on.
As for the Indiana Indians, the future did not belong to Miami. Three years later ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne avenged the scalped Americans with a victory at Fallen Timbers.
In 1792 the Spaniards persuaded the Creeks of the southwest to renounce the treaty they had made with the USA. Indian attacks on pale faced settlers and sentries resumed up the Creek. This combined with St. Claire’s disaster gave western Americans the sense that another ally might be needed to hold off these Indians, who were backed by England and Spain. That ally might have to be France.
PAPER CUTS – JEFFERSON VS HAMILTON
When Madison led what can be loosely termed the opposition party, things were relatively civilized. James genuinely wanted to propose more constructive alternative solutions for national problems than those of the so-called “Federalists.” Madison was personally on good terms with both Washington and Hamilton and conducted his opposition with civility.
By 1792 Madison had retreated from the role of leading the opposition to Washington, and Jefferson took over the job. With Jefferson's rise to leadership of the nay-sayers the civility part went out the window. Jefferson wanted to remain influential with President Washington but Hamilton was in the way. As long as Washington favored Hamilton it was hard for Jefferson to love Washington anymore. Jefferson and Hamilton were becoming openly adversarial.
The feud was fought largely in the newspapers.
At first Hamilton had a virtual monopoly in the paper cutting field. Several of the most influential newspapers were on Hamilton's side. The Charleston Evening Gazette wrote great things about Hamilton and unkind things about Jefferson, my favorite being,
“Thomas is a pompous naïve scoundrel, and no one thinks more highly of him than we do.”
The New York Packet (my subscription ran out last week) sang Hamilton's praises and put Jeff down. The Providence Gazette was on Hamilton's side as was the Massachusetts Sentinel.
The Gazette of the United States was probably the most influential newspaper in the country. GUS was headed by the famous Jackie Fenno, who admired Hamilton a great deal and in return got a great deal back. The editors worked for Hamiltons causes. Hamilton rewarded Fenno and friends with large government printing contracts, although this was not provably part of a prearranged deal. Hamilton just happened to later loan Fenno large sums of money when GUS got into money trouble.
Tom Jefferson, by comparison, had a moderate level of support, and from fewer newspapers. Randolph the AG was on his side as was Postmaster Osgood, but Jeff was getting paper-whipped all across America and there seemed little he could do about it. His support within the government could not counter the criticism he was getting from outside it.
Jefferson and Madison decided to fight paper with paper. They funded and founded a newspaper solely for the purpose of rebutting and attacking Al Hamilton, and the Washington Administration. They enlisted the help of the “Poet of the American Revolution” Phil Freneau. Phillip was an old pal of Madison at Princeton and was a big time anti-Federalist. Freneau also feared a new US monarchy with Hamilton at the helm. He was also a professional writer.
Jefferson got Freneau a job at the State Department that required no work, only pay. It was a corrupt move. Freneau would be writing against the government for the new newspaper and getting paid as if he was actually working for the government. In October of 1791 the Freneau- Jefferson-Madison trio launched the National Gazette. Its first issue denounced Hamilton as a “useless imbecile” and praised Jefferson as “the most wonderful man in the world.” The gloves were off and now the paper war between Hamilton’s rags and the paper that should have been named The Jefferson Gazette took off on a word war that lasted years.
THE NEW CAPITOL
When the British Army was chasing Washington all over the continent, the United Colonies made several places the temporary capitol of the new government. Philadelphia, New York, York (Pennsylvania), Annapolis, Lancaster, Baltimore, Trenton and Princeton all held the title for some period of time. Little Egg Harbor was the capitol for three hours.
Now for the location of a permanent capitol. The Southerners felt that even Philadelphia was too far north. Such a geo-snub of the south had the potential to endanger national unity. New York City was obviously out if Philly was too far north. On the other hand New Englanders didn’t like the talk going around about a new capitol being considered on the Potomac River. That was too far south for many influential Massachusetts men.
Hamilton struck upon an idea and proposed it to Jefferson over a tense dinner at Tom’s. The South was blocking Ham's plans for the assumption of the state debts by the federal government. Hamilton proposed a deal whereby the Yankees agreed to place the nation’s capitol on the Potomac if the south would in exchange agree to the assumption of the state debts by the feds. It was agreed. Philadelphia would be the temporary capitol (10 years) while the new Capitol was laid out and developed on pristine mosquito infested lands on the banks of the Potomac River.
The federal government took over the state debts and the money to pay for this was to come primarily from tariffs (taxes or fees on imports and exports.)
There is a recent book that argues that this famous story about the Potomac compromise was a bit of a myth, and that both things were on their way to happening before Tom and Al made their deal. If this deal was made it wasn’t decisive in creating either the assumption or the Potomac location for the capitol. That’s what the guy says in his book anyway. I haven’t read it, I’m just paraphrasing a synopsis I read. Typical history, you read 30 versions of a story that all say basically the same thing, and then one book says all the others are wrong. In general, I try to go with the consensus version unless I feel very strongly that the iconoclast has it right.
FIRST VETO
In the Spring of 1792 the House passed a Bill to redraw several Congressional districts pursuant to the results of the first national census. But Washington thought that some of it was unconstitutional and decided to cast the first veto, or, as George preferred to put it, “to negative the bill.” Jefferson, Madison and the Attorney General Randolph concurred, as did Madison and Jefferson. This made Washington's stand easier.
The first veto made it to the House and the rich white men debated it heatedly. When the House failed to override the veto with the necessary 2/3 majority, a few Representatives were steamed. Others, even among Washington’s opponents were actually pleased. They were sagacious enough to realize that what little they had lost on the bill was small change compared to the fact that the veto had been exercised and the national governmental structure was proven to be working. They actually enjoyed making the historical moment, even though it went against them. They had lost the fight for this veto but established the right to overrule the veto in principle.
LANCASTER PIKE
A sad day for our wallets but a good day for progress was the one in 1792 when the first decent stone paved road was opened. The Lancaster to Philadelphia turnpike was a toll road. The term ‘turnpike’ comes from the pike across the road that is turned upwards when you pay the toll.
Bridges over streams and rivers were upgraded, and the states charged a toll for using them. Some citizens complained about the arrogant signs that said, “Have Toll Ready.”
ELECTION OF 1792
State elections were usually held before the national ones. The governors race for New York was interesting in 1792. A man named Clinton stole the election.
John Jay, a close friend of President Washington ran against the incumbent Clinton who was not. When the 16,000 plus votes were counted Jay was the NY winner by more than 400 votes. But Clinton was in command of the state government and it wasn't difficult for him to manipulate the situation. The tallies of three Western counties were declared illegal because they were delivered to the Secretary of State improperly. It was all a rotten lie, but it worked and the new tally showed Clinton the winner by 108 votes.
Loyalists to the Jay/Washington group were up in arms, almost literally. There were rallies and torch-light protests as well as talk of resorting to violence if necessary to stop Clinton from taking the oath of office. The Federalists finally backed off but, Jefferson’s reputation was damaged by the affair. He was supposed to be the hero of the honest working man against the corrupt politicians and now his faction was proven to be made from the very stuff he was claiming to battle.
Governor Clinton kept his seat and John Jay went on to become the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. American politics was at last fully operational.
Madison and Jefferson were opponents of President Washington but they were shrewd enough to give him their unequivocal support for reelection in 1792. They did, however, scheme to try to get John Adams out of the VP spot and replace him with a man of their own choice, the “reliable” Governor Clinton of New York.
Washington wanted to retire. The nation told Washington they needed him while Washington tried to tell the nation that he needed a month in the Bahamas. There was a financial panic in 1792, (partly caused by the Clinton securities scandal) and there were problems with European relations that begged for Washington's leadership and wisdom. Many urged Washington to keep the top job on the grounds that he was the only one who could control the nasty rivalry between Hamilton and Jefferson and the clashes between their followers.
Did Washington really want to go home or was he just posturing? It was not so much that GW didn’t like the job or the attention; it was more a matter of his health. George was fighting off many illnesses and would have been happier fighting them at his home and farm of Mt Vernon. Washington supposedly had a big ego, but even an egoist doesn’t want to be on center-stage while sick.
Washington expressed a fear of dying in office. Not the natural fear of his own death per se. He wisely worried that his death might set a dangerous precedent of president for life. Who knows if his death in 1795 might not have produced exactly that trend? It could have made the Presidency like the Supreme Court where people hold on to their jobs in their oxygen tents. The most gruesome thought of all is that if Jimmy Carter had been made president for life in 1976 he would still be in the White House today! Poe, Hitchcock, and King couldn’t write scenes that scary.
Washington was re-elected unanimously, which was easy to do since he was unopposed. There was no popular vote. He was popular, period.
The Jeffersonian anti-Feds failed to install their boy Clinton in the Veep seat. They thought they could pull this one off but John Adams got 77 votes to 50 for Clinton. Jefferson received 4 votes and the “Great American Rascal” Aaron Burr got a single vote.
CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS
In the Congressional Elections of 1792, the “Republicans” won control of the House 57 to 48, while the “Federalists” held on to the Senate 17 to 13.
The policies of the two groups were never so far apart as each claimed they were. Power groups needed to form cliques and an ideological war required declaration to justify the power groupings. Thus we have the liberal party of the Democratic Republicans being on the whole much more in support of slavery than the supposedly aristocratic Federalists. Similar hypocrisy could be noted in the issue of suffrage. In many states where the Republicans publicly declared the contest to be between “aristocrats” (them) and “democrats” (us) the DR's did everything possible to block inclusive suffrage, while the Federalists, the stodgy illiberals, offered support for voter expansion. Furthermore, “democrats” in the South knew that the people would never vote them in on a statewide level so they structured the districts in odd ways so that they could carry enough seats to win control of their state slates. (gerrymandering before Gerry put his name on the word.)
The irony of the Federalists was that they considered themselves to be the cynical realists on human nature, as opposed to the naïve idealists of the Jefferson clique, yet when it came to a hard cynical perception of what it took to win elections, it was the Federalists who were naïve and trusting, and the Republicans who practiced hard-nosed real-politics. The exact reverse was true for the Republicans who preached sincerity and caring for the little guy but practiced ruthless power politics at the expense of everyone but their leaders.
The Federalists tried to remain aloof from face-scratching political fights, while Republicans thought nothing of engaging in dirty fighting, and it cost the Federalists in the elections. Fortunately for the Federalists, Washington was an Olympian God by now and nothing could stop his re-election short of him holding a press conference while smoking opium.
The results of the Congressional elections should be taken with a grain of salt. Local contests were decided on local issues. The party lines were vague at best on the national level. At the state and local level they were virtually nonexistent. Its convenient for history books to say that the Anti-Federalists won control of the House 57 to 48 but these individual elections were not based on any such red versus blue lines in the sand. Even today, local elections do not always follow national party lines and in 1792 this was much more so.
GILES AND REYNOLDS
William Giles and Maria Reynolds almost took Hamilton down in late 1792.
In November Hamilton asked Congress to borrow $2 million from bankers in Holland to help fund the BUS, the Bank of the United States. Jeffersonian DR's thought there might be more than meets the eye in this request and that some of the money might be siphoned off to help Hamilton with professional and personal schemes. They were also suspicious of Hamilton's record with some earlier government funds totaling $14 million.
Hamilton submitted a short explanation addressing Republican suspicions on January 4, 1793, but it was unsatisfactory to the critics in its length and substance.
Congressman Brian Giles of Virginia formally submitted five resolutions to the House demanding that Hamilton provide an elaborate explanation for all of his suspicious financial activities. The list was long, and included state funds, his personal finances, affairs of the BUS, and the business minutiae of miscellaneous government loans. The Senate did the same and both Houses of Congress passed them.
The resolutions were sleazy on two points. One; Jefferson was behind the whole thing but never put his name on a single piece of paper. Two; Congress knew it was soon going to adjourn for many months on March 3 and it was believed that Hamilton simply did not have enough time to write such a detailed report. The Congress would adjourn with the scandal hanging in the air and over the long weeks, Hamilton's name, under a dark cloud, would slowly sink in the public mind.
But the Hamster ran the treadmill like a madman and finished the report to the surprise of everyone but his workaholic self. He submitted the report on February 20, 1793 and it was an above-board solidly detailed account of everything he had ever done with the nation's finances since he took over as Secretary of the Treasury. What was worse for the Republicans, it was clear from the report that nothing was ever concealed from President Washington and that George had signed on for everything. Jefferson and Madison were out of luck if they wanted to pull Hamilton's statue down.
MARIA REYNOLDS
Hamilton had an affair with a married woman named Maria Reynolds. His political enemies added a lot of accusations that the affair included shady financial dealings and blackmails. Maria's husband was also involved in the tangled web of deception and corruption.
A discreet committee went to Hamilton's home to confront him with the charges on the evening of December 15, 1792. Alexander came clean on the affair with Maria Reynolds but he denied any other corruptions directly or indirectly and invited any investigation on that angle. The accusers were satisfied. They never made the affair public even though it could have hurt Hamilton and they wanted to do that. But it was a different era. Maria Reynolds would not go down as the Donna Rice of her time, and she never got the chance to knock Hamilton off the twenty dollar bill.
FIRST IN FLIGHT - 1/9/93
On January 9, 1793 Washington was in Philly to watch the launching of a very special balloon. This big bag had a human being in a basket at the bottom named Toby Blanchard. The balloon took off and blew east into Jersey. Blanchard landed an hour or so later in Glassboro New Jersey. It was the first flight by a human in North America.
According to one book, Washington commented that, “That's one small step for a dumb man, one giant leap for the United States.” I forget the name of the book.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION – A STUDY IN CHAOS
The French Revolution can consume a lifetime of unfulfilled study. Every book I own on the French revolution I begin to read with enthusiasm, but never get past the one third point before I give up in a state of confusion and boredom. I wish this weren't so and wish I were a better scholar, but I stand by the statement of Winston Churchill,
“Few are so gifted as to understand the politics of their own country; None are so gifted as to understand the politics of another.”
While the first term of Washington was an era of good feelings before that term was coined, his second term was divisive, primarily as a result of the French Revolution. The Revolution broke out in 1789, then expanded into a general European war in 1793 in which France and England were the main combatants.
In 1793 the USA was beginning its second term. Political parties were sprouting, and factionalism was growing. Religious differences were present between Protestants and everyone else. Secularism (worshipped in France as the “Age of Reason) was taking on all religions at the same time that all religions were quarreling with each other.
The American financial system was in very bad and very confused condition. The currency was unstable and inadequate. American credit was almost as bad as mine was two years ago. The USA owed Europe a fortune for loans that had helped pay for the Revolution.
The United States had an ostensibly good relationship with France, but France was of little or no help in trade, finance and international stability. The United States had an ostensibly bad relationship with Great Britain, but Britain was of tremendous help in trade, finance and international stability. The USA had a useless treaty of friendship and alliance with a France that was always on the verge of a new war with England, which was bad because England was the only hope to stabilize the American economy..
England had promised to evacuate the forts on America's western frontier, but had found several lame excuses to renege on the pledge. England had cut off US trade with the British West Indies out of pure spite, thus hampering young America's economic recovery. The British still maintained alliances with the Indians on the American northwest frontier, hoping to keep the Rebs hemmed in on the eastern seaboard for all time.
Sometimes the Indians massacred settlers. Sometimes settlers massacred Indians, and sometimes everybody got along. In any case tension on the frontier was a plague to the George Washington Administration, especially since it meant that what was left of the American Army had to be placed out there to 'hold the fort.' This meant that if there were any trouble close to home base, whether internal or external, the US had no troops to call on. A local rebellion or foreign incursion could hardly be resisted properly with the army off on a road gig.
In the American southwest Spain was intriguing to separate parts of the continent from American control, while pretending to be America's ally. Spain, like England, was trying to keep the young USA hemmed in. France and Spain had liked the idea of taking the Colonies away from England, but they didn't want and even bigger and stronger monster to arise from the ashes of victory.
The on top of all this comes the French Revolution, and a change of power in Paris about every equinox. The old regime that had made the alliance with America is overthrown and replaced. Then the new regime is replaced by an even newer one.
The daily question was, who was France? What was France? The French revolution went through a sea change ten times in the next 18 years, and at a time that the US was desperately trying to find some stability in its foreign policy. America needed peace to gain some sound economic footing. The fantastic changes in France during its two-decade revolution made a wise foreign policy impossible for the first four American Presidents.
No matter which way President Washington and Secretary of State Jefferson turned, there was a negative reaction from somewhere. There were no great choices except to do the ostrich impression and even that failed miserably.
On top of all that there were the other nations of Europe from Holland to Russia. What happened in France didn't stay in France. What happened in France affected all the other nations of Europe and in sequence, the United States.
France was Catholic. America hated the Catholics, but paradoxically was the alliance friend of only France out of all the nations in Europe. England was Protestant, like the United States, but England was the enemy, even though the USA needed the trade and loans. England was secular, with a strong tinge of religion, like the U.S., while France before its Revolution was religious with a strong tinge of secularism. Then along comes the French Revolution denouncing all religion and putting priests and nuns to the guillotine. The FR worshipped reason to the point where reasonable people could say that France now stood for atheism. Surely most Americans would favor even Popery over abject atheism.
Washington had declared American neutrality, but he could not stifle the enthusiastic support for the guillotine gang coming out of the Jeffersonian camp. Tom was so caught up in rebel fever he declared that he would rather see the earth covered in blood with only Adam and Eve left on it than see the French Revolution fail. He felt that the American and French Revolutions were part of a larger international revolution. He was proud and exited that the French revolutionaries were waving a sparkling new red white and blue flag in flattering imitation of the USA.
As for Paris in the Terror, Jefferson was not that put off by the free use of the guillotine, and spoke of a little revolution now and then being a good thing.
But plenty of others in the USA felt differently.
When French rebels executed King Louis the 16th on January 21 1793, a lot of Americans were hurt and angry. Lou was the friend who had helped win American Independence. Now the King had been executed in public amidst sadistic cheering. A lot of people in the states didn't care for that scene one bit.
The finance-minded Federalists supported England in their war with France. Religion in America supported England too, which was to be expected since priests in Paris were getting their heads chopped off for the illiberal crime of being priests.
Treasury Secretary Hamilton believed emphatically, to the point of a crusade, that America's future was dependent on good relations with England. He was not against the French but he was against supporting their revolution, which might damage U.S. relations with the former mother country, England, the one with all the banks.
TREATY OBLIGATION DISPUTE
France and England were suddenly locked in full-scale war in 1793 at a time when America needed both. We've all had two friends who hate each other an each one bad-mouths the other to us in private and we don't know what to do as we like them both. We don't want to offend the one bad-mouthing the other one to us by defending them, but we don't like sitting silent while they rip someone we like. At best we can declare neutrality. America wanted to be friends with both England and France, but they hated each other and made the USA choose one. When the USA refused, problems abounded and would not be fully settled until the end of the War of 1812.
Jefferson so loved the French that he believed that the United States was obliged by the 1778 Treaty of Friendship to come to help out in the war at once. Hamilton told Washington that the Treaty only obligated the U.S. to help France in a defensive war if France was attacked first, and that was not how the 1793 conflagration began. France attacked England first. Jeff said that was just sophistry, as a treaty was treaty and never mind overanalyzing the fine print to suit your needs.
BRITAIN'S PITTIFUL STRATEGY - AND HAITIAN HELL
Pitt the Younger was directing British foreign policy in this war time. There was a counter-revolution in France (the Vendee) that opened a window to Pitt-Brit victory. France was weak and at that moment, Britain could have started a major offensive from Holland and possibly won a complete victory.
But...
Why win the war when you can keep it going and seize enemy foreign possessions all over the world? Britian actually deliberately failed to land large forces for a such an invasion so it could sent the Royal Navy off to the east Indies to grab and bag many rich French sugar islands in the Caribbean. That's some serpentine strategy, and it would have worked if Britian had not tried to take the Island of Haiti/Santo Domingo. If GB had just settled for Tobago, Guadeloupe, and to a Lesser extent the Antilles, the Pittiful strategy would have paid as handsomely as Brad Pitt.
But they pushed their luck when they tried to take a rich island that was in the middle of the one of the bloodiest revolutions in world history. The Brits got their fingers burned on the sugar stove in Haiti.
The grand leader of Haiti was L'Ouverture. He led the blacks slaves in open revolt against the Spanish oppressors. “Ovie” took the French Revolution as a signal that it was time for the slaves to rise up fro freedom. L’Ouverture took the revolutionary message of freedom at face value and foght for it.
In the middle of a three year island revolution of great violence, Great Britain shows up and tries to conquer it. All the English could really control were a few important port cities and they eventually gave up, but along the way they added a bad notch to their word wide reputation as bad guys.
Hundreds of rich white plantation owners fled for their lives to the United States. The Haitians spread stories of slave terror against their former masters, and of English scums showing up to take over and take advantage of a just people at their moment of truth.
GIRONDISTS - CITIZEN GENET 1793
Revolutionary France dispatched Girondist Citizen Edmund Charles Genet to the USA as the new ambassador. Genet landed in Charleston and his march on Philadelphia was like one endless 20th century ticker tape parade. America loved him. France had helped America win its independence and now America was going to support France’s new Republic!
Maybe. Maybe not.
With France and England at war, technically the United States was obliged by the Franco-American Treaty to come into the conflict on the side of France. But as mentioned earlier, there was an out-clause on defensive vs offensive warfare. Washington interviewed Genet and assured him of U.S. moral support but assured him at the same time that the infant nation was not about to go to war right now on behalf of a feud between France and England “that had been going on since the Paleolithic era.” His first task, he tried to explain to the thick-headed Genet, was to make a breathing space for the young USA to organize its government, recover from the economic chaos of the Revolution, and try and raise revenue to operate with. The last thing the Unite States could handle was a war right now.
Washington responded to Genets importunities by issuing a public ‘Proclamation of Neutrality.’ America was no longer going to get involved in Europe’s troubles and now you all have it in writing. He would later recap this point in his ‘Farewell Address.’
To assuage U.S. guilt for breaking the treaty, the excuse was later made that the French had tried to double-deal on the United States after the Revolution. The French tried to keep the United States hemmed in at the Appalachians with secret deals with the Spanish. The USA claimed it had been betrayed and was justified in more or less telling Genet, ‘now comes payback time.’ Besides, it was argued, the treaty had been made with Royal France, not this uncertain new government of guillotine-happy democrats.
The US position was weak on both counts. Both charges were true but neither could justify dishonoring the treaty. The US dishonored it because it chose to. There was no direct linkage on the first count and on the second, in international relations, treaties are traditionally continued intact even when governments change (when Bolo Russia pulled the same trick in 1917, the United States led the cry of outrage.)
Genet responded to diplo-defeat by outfitting an American ship as a privateer to prey on British shipping out of an American port. The US government told him not to, but Genet went ahead and did it anyway.
With the support of the Jefferson left-wing, Citizen Genet began making speeches and writing articles pleading his side of the story and criticizing the Washington Administration decisions. Jacobin-Americans held rallies all over the country celebrating the name and the cause of Citizen Genet. He was called ‘citizen’ because of the custom of the French revolutionaries to give everyone the same status by addressing each and every person as ‘citizen’ or ‘citizeness’, thus eliminating nobility by custom – in the US, nobility was explicitly eliminated in the Constitution. France had to do it piecemeal.
Genet was having a ball. The country was singing his praises. Until……
The State Department told Genet to pack his bags and get out of the country. Now. He was now persona non grata, an unwelcome guest. Hey Genet, fiche moi la pais! (“get lost, jerky,” in French
Back in France however, yet another French revolutionary group had overthrown Genet's bosses. Genet was understandably afraid that if he went back to France he would be risking his neck. He asked if he could stay, and promised to stay out of trouble.
The United States early on showed that it is, at heart, a merciful nation. Genet was allowed to stay in the US, marry a rich woman, and live happily but apolitically ever after.
YELLOW FEVER 1793
Citizen Genet wasn’t the only thing to plague America in 1793. Ships from the West Indies stopped at Philadelphia and dropped off an epidemic of yellow fever. It is a deadly disease spread by mosquitoes that leads to nausea, weakness, a yellowing of the skin, and, last but not least, death.
The August 1793 epidemic swept the city of Philadelphia, the largest city in the USA, and by this time also the nation’s capitol. Of all the spots on the new nation map, a killer plague hits the bulls-eye.
The plague put political passions on the back-burner. Criticism of Washington for not supporting the French Revolution ceased for a while. The government came to a standstill. Washington got a little “yellow fever” of his own and slipped out of the city. The President’s departure caused panic among those already despairing. Philadelphia became a ghost town in a horror movie. People walked down the middle of the street to avoid coming near anyone’s home. Loved ones deserted each other. People died in the streets alone and their dead bodies stayed there.
The entire Washington government at Philadelphia had to flee the city until cooler weather killed the nasty bugs. For a brief time the functioning national capital was in Germantown Pa. Jefferson courageously stayed behind in Philadelphia while just about everyone else slipped away.
The fever plague slowly subsided. On the evening of November 10 George Washington quietly trotted back into Philadelphia, a solitary figure on horseback formally nodding to a few stragglers in the street along the way.
Philadelphia was a city of 50,000 people at the start of the epidemic. 5,000 died from the terror of 1793, one out of every ten residents.
The Bible says that God created all living creatures, but one has to wonder about mosquitoes and flies. What about roaches? Didn’t Beelzebub have a few draft choices too?
JEFFERSON RESIGNS
Secretary of State Jefferson was tired of the favoritism Washington was showing to Hamilton so on the last day of July in 1793 he resigned. Little did Tom know that he was starting a tradition of petulance at the top post of State. Many more Secretaries of State have resigned since, usually because they finally realize that they are the cat’s paw in presidential decisions, not the decision-maker.
Washington was fond of Jefferson, but there was no denying that Hamilton had the President’s ear more than Tommy did. When Jefferson said he was through, GW asked him to stay on until the end of 93 which Tom gracefully did, moving back home to Monticello on January 4 1794.
WHISKEY REBELLION - 1794
Whiskey was an important product in hilly Pennsylvania, not just because they liked to drink. It was the cash crop to keep the family going. It was nearly impossible to transport grain to the Mississippi waterway system for export. It was cheaper and profitable to distill it into whiskey.
The excise tax on whiskey would eat up 25% of the value of the product and wipe out the profit margin. Moreover the Penn farmers couldn’t really pay the tax even if they wanted to because of a desperate shortage of currency. In fact in western Pennsylvania, whiskey was currency. In western Pennsylvania, many backwoodsmen decided that they would simply not pay their excise tax on the whiskey they distilled. The ground swelled with rebellion. An anti-tax mob burned down the house of one of the tax collectors.
The booze rebellion swept the state. Drunken hillbillies tarred and feathered the tax collectors. The angry hard drinking citizens of six counties in Pennsylvania were apparently going to secede from both Pennsylvania and the United States! The rebels even designed a flag for this new nation. They were going to name their new nation ‘FUBAR’ and the capitol was going to be called ‘Boozetown.’ All right, I made that one up, but the flag story is true.
The Revolutionary War generation had grown up believing in the nobility of justified disorder and the righteousness of open rebellion against authority. But the big American Revolution was a revolt against an unpopular Mother England 3,000 miles across a cold and stormy sea. The whiskey revolt was aimed against a beloved new central government at home, and against a flag now adopted and saluted by virtually all Americans.
President Washington did not hesitate. A precedent for authority had to be set. The federal government could not stand defied by physical disobedience and disorder. This principle was true in Western Pennsylvania in 1794 and it was true at Waco in 1993. A military expedition of nearly 10,000 militiamen was organized to go and put down the so-called "Whiskey Rebellion." President George Washington was at the head of the vanguard, out on point. The rebs dispersed. Hamilton was soon on the scene to carry out the arrests while Washington went back to Philadelphia. There were no serious casualties in the Whiskey Rebellion except rebellion itself. Many Whisky Rebs stood trial. Two were convicted and given the death penalty. Washington pardoned them because he thought they were mentally pathetic.
Can you imagine of the Whisky Rebs had stood and fought. President Washington might have been killed. After surviving bullets, bayonets and cannonballs in nine battles, and the threat of th King’s hangman, Wash goes down in a skirmish with drunks who wouldn’t pay their excise tax. The President personally leading the expedition probably wasn’t wise, but who was going to tell him what he could or couldn’t do.
FALLEN TIMBERS 1794
The ongoing Northwest Indian War was getting to be a source of humiliation in Philadelphia. But St Clair’s defeat in 1791 did have one fringe benefit for conservative Federalists. It was easier now for Washington and his Federalist buddies to get bills through Congress authorizing increased military expenditures. If St Claire had won a glorious victory, the idea of no standing armies might have stood. Many of the leading intellectuals of the Revolution had long been opposed to the existence of a standing national army for any reason. The smashing of St. Clair’s army helped to eliminate this opposition. The hard left still held its ground but the general population now began to abandon radical antimilitarism.
A new and improved US army was raised and salaried. It was time to avenge St. Clair. Over the winter of 93-94 General “Mad Anthony” Wayne raised a special expeditionary force to go west and put the Indians in their place.
The Indians of Indiana united to stop whitey. They assembled a force of several tribes, including the Shawnee, the Shawshanks, the Nimnucks, and the Nutmegs. The army facing Mad Wayne was a 1,000 red-man force led by many famous local chiefs. There were more all-star Indians in the line-up at Fallen Timbers than there are on an August night at Jacob's Field. There was Little Turtle in the forefront. Tecumseh was there too. And let’s not forget the Chief of the Delawares, Buncongahelas. That’s just to name three. All the big names were there.
The battle took place on a spot near today’s Ohio/Indiana border. It got its name for marking a place where a tornado had ripped a path of fallen timbers.
There was some hard fighting when the two forces collided but the bayonet charge of the American Army turned the tide, sending the Indian all-stars to flight. There were less than 50 killed on each side but the Europeans won the field.
The fleeing Indians sought shelter in a British fort but were denied admission. The British were holding the fort on disputed American soil, and did not want to provoke a serious war by actively participating in the battle. Admitting the hard-pressed Indians into the fort certainly would risk that.
The next year, 1795, the Treaty of Greenville was signed between red and white. The Indians lost a lot of land and dignity in the bargain.
BARBARY PIRATES INSPIRE THE CREATION OF THE US NAVY
The US Navy had performed pathetically in the Revolutionary War. The one or two warships left over in 1789 were sold to foreigners or converted to merchant ships. The USA had no navy in 1794, unless you count one rowboat docked in Newport with a musket fixed to an oar.
The US Navy was virtually nonexistent up that point. The country could barely stomach a standing army with dangerous generals; they didn't want to add a standing Navy too with its politically influential admirals. Most Americans did not consider admiral's admirable.
This disdain for the Navy, indeed for even having a Navy at all, turned into a real problem when the four barbaric Barbary States of the Mediterranean began to bully the United States. It was BS vs. US and the Barbs were having their way, seizing US merchant ships and demanding not only tribute from the US government, but private ransom payments to free the crews and ships.
Great Britian had protected Americans from the Barbary dolls. No one thought to consider that one of the negative consequence of Independence would be American vulnerability and defeat in the Mediterranean.
The four thug nations were Morocco, Algiers Tunis and Tunisia (all of a sudden I'm hungry for a tuna sandwich.) They were officially under the rule of that turkey, the Sultan of Turkey. Eisenhower would return to these four places in force in 1942 along with the Second Army Corps. But in Washington’s time the US was water-weak.
These four bully states were very much independent in there own sphere as long as they paid their own handsome tribute to the ugly Sultan. It was like a chain of Mediterranean Mafia command.
There was a hypocritical religious veneer to the whole thing. The Sultan was the leader of the region's Muslims. The Ottos had a “religious” dedication to destroying the infidels who did not adhere to the one true religion. Since westerners did not worship Allah, it was therefore ok to steal all their ships and take their crew members into slavery, and kill a few for laughs along the way. This was their idea of “asserting oneself in the way of God.” If heathens wandered into Moslem waters without warships to protect them, then it was like shooting fish in a Barbary barrel.
George Washington decided that something had to be done. He was a land warrior of renown, but in his youth he had come very close to enlisting in the Royal Navy. Washington had a water streak a nautical mile wide, and so he pressed the Congress to build a Navy.
Congress authorized the building of six frigates in 1794. They weren't completed in 1794, but when they were finished they turned out to be six of the sturdiest and most effective fighting ships for their size in the entire world. One of them was the legendary USS Constitution. This ship was so stellar that it is still a commissioned fighting ship in the US Navy today (During the Gulf War of 1991, the Constitution softened up the Iraqi defenses with a truly hellacious bombardment of Kuwait City.)
The MATT states only respected strength. You could only trade in the Mediterranean with peace through strength.
Only two countries had Barbary state respect. Great Britain and Portugal had enough naval power to not have to put up with any ship seizures. These two special cases still paid tribute to the Barbary Bums, but it was a small token figure compared to all the other victims. That's because they actually sort of wanted the Barbary States to plunder their other western rivals! Its like the burglar who arranges to get his own house robbed of a couple of old watches so no-one will suspect that he is robbing others.
England could have completely subdued the entire Mediterranean Mafia, but instead allowed it to continue to operate because these bad guys were doing some very productive shakedown work for the Crown. And all the while England pretended that it was a victim too. By accepting small sums, the Barbary States were really paying tribute to England to leave them alone while pretending that the situation was just the opposite.
When the United States made a treaty with the Barbary states the construction on all six frigates was halted. The bill Authorizing the construction had specified that condition -if the ships were not needed for war, and, as they were being constructed solely for the purpose of fighting the Algerian scoundrels, they will not be finished if a treaty be made with Islam.
Washington lobbied strenuously to get at least the three that were closest to completion finished, and before he left office these three were. When John Adams became president and became involved in a naval war with France, the other three frigates were completed.
JACKIE J
Washington appointed the first Chief Justice to the Supreme Court and his name was John Jay. He served from 75 to 79. he is remembered by history more for his bad treaty with England than for his service on the High Court. Jay’s great great great great great grandson played for the St Louis Cardinals of the National League.
JAY’S TREATY 1795
John Jay may have been the nation’s first Chief Justice, but he is better known in history as the negotiator of the infamous Jay's Treaty with England. This controversial treaty settled almost all disputes with Great Britain for the time being, but at such a cost to the USA that Jay was condemned all over the country.
By 1794 England and Spain were allied in a full-scale European war with revolutionary France. The young USA was caught in the middle both in politics and trade. The US wanted to continue trading with French Islands in the West Indies. The British were opposed to this for obvious reasons. Eddie Genet had outfitted many privateers in the USA who were seizing British merchant ships and dragging them back to America. This could not stand.
The British declared the French West Indies to be a war zone, but they cleverly did not issue the proclamation until after the US fall merchant fleet had left the continent to deliver their goods. That way these sea captains had no idea they were sailing into a spider’s web. The Royal Navy in the Caribbean snared 280 US ships in the prize trap over the winter of 1794-5.
Most troubling of all was impressment. This, to repeat, was the widespread practice of stopping American ships and taking men from them to serve in the British Navy. In each instance the British claimed that the men seized were deserters from the Royal Navy. This was probably true in most cases but there were exceptions where US citizens were taken like a kidnap victim.
The British did not recognize the right of a British citizen to change countries. Many US sailors with English accents had met the seven years residence requirement and had papers to prove they were citizens of the USA. The British ignored these papers. In some blatant instances, men without any European accents, men who never said ‘shedule’ in their lives were hijacked and impressed into service in England’s Navy.
The very act of stopping and searching American ships was a deep affront to the national honor. The eagle could never get a good night’s sleep as long as this nonsense was going on.
Washington sent Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay to England in 1794 to try to resolve the problems of impressment and the continued presence of British forts on US western soil. Other issues included the monetary claims of US citizens for the slaves taken away by the Redcoats during the Revolution, and counter Revolutionary claims by the British for losses incurred when French Privateers manned by American sailors took British ships as prizes.
The American people greeted the treaty Jay brought home with abuse, mainly because it failed to even address, let alone settle, the key issue of impressment. The only major concession JJ won for his country was the British agreement to withdraw its forces and forts from western US soil. England also agreed to a slight ease-up in the West Indian trade embargo. But England would not countenance American trade with France.
Jay’s Treaty was the best Jay felt he could do at the time, and for his troubles he was suddenly the most vilified man in America. John said that he could travel cross-country at night by the light of John Jay dummies burning in effigy.
One popular flyer of the day read.
“DAMN JOHN JAY
DAMN ANYONE THAT WON'T DAMN JOHN JAY
DAMN ANYONE THAT WON'T PUT LIGHTS IN HIS
WINDOW AND STAY UP ALL NIGHT DAMNING JOHN JAY”
Well put. I apply this ditty to many people I can’t stand today.
Jay’s Treaty did manage to avoid a new war with England. For Hamilton and his ilk, this was good enough for the time being. America was still recovering from its war for independence. Trade and banking ties with England were the foundation of Hamilton’s economic recovery plan. After a rough debate, the Congress ratified Jay’s Treaty in 1795.
To the emotional nation at large JT95 was a failure, but to the people at the top, the peace with England made the Jay Treaty a success.
GO WEST YOUNG NATION
One of the causes of the revolution was the Proclamation of 1763, which created an Indian buffer state hemming in the colonials in the west. This artificially drawn region kept England away from trouble with France. Britian was able to also maintain the traditional British-Indian alliances. Britain had not opposed American migration west per se. It was just that to their mind more benefit could be gained by keeping the colonists pinned down on the seaboard than from letting them push west.
With American independence, came independence of action on the frontier. This time there were only militarily weak Indian tribes to deal with.
The flight of pioneers across the Appalachians began almost immediately. By the time Washington was sworn in for his second term in March of 1793, Kentucky territory was home to more than 20,000 European-American settlers, as many people as were living in any given colony in 1787.
The mass flight west changed the social make-up and attitude of the USA. Out in the boondocks there were no aristocrats to speak of or speak to. Class stratification, so permanent throughout every nook and cranny of Europe, and to a lesser but still marked extent in east USA had actually now found a corner of the globe where it had little or no clout. The equalitarian quality of US society that foreign visitors later noted with astonishment was as much a product of western geographical conditions as it was of any progressive political agitation by elite writers or legislators in the east. As the frontier continued to expand, the snob privilege caste of east coast powdered wig people contracted, their influence restricted to the old cities.
There were still some divisions of society of course. What was different was that the divisions were no longer based on permanent class title, but on cash flow. A powdered whigger with no money was now a chump, and a dirty jeans frontiersman who made a lot of money now had the status of nobility. It was uncouth, but too bad. Money was now royalty. The USA had overthrown the King and replaced him with the golden dollar.
SLAVERY AND CARLIN
The late great comedian and preacher George Carlin cites the hypocrisy of the Founding Fathers in tough terms. He says that the Constitution was written by “a bunch of rich white slaveowners.” He shouts how their highbrow documents sing about liberty and freedom but are in total contradiction to their own lives.
“Now that is what is called being embarrassingly and stunningly full of baloney.”
He didn't use the word 'baloney.'
George, first of all, not all of the Founding Fathers were slaveowners. That’s baloney. 40% of them were, and 60% of them were not.
They did have money, true. But as far as being stunningly full of it, it should be remembered that prior to the American Revolution there was no effective momentum at all anywhere in the world for the ending of slavery. Now here in America we have an infant legislature that is about 60% against slavery and wants to do something about it, but in order to form a nation the South had to be appeased. The South would not join if slavery were banned, so banning the slave trade at a later date was the best they could do. They had to compromise on slavery.
But the left was there, and was fighting against slavery. And that was the vanguard of world liberalism at the same time Carlin is telling us that they all were hypocritical dogs, and shame on them. A rich entertainer who lives in a mansion and makes $12,000 a show telling us that relatively progressive men from 200 years ago were scums because they were aristocrats who didn't care about the great social issues like he does. These guys were in the arena on the hot seat, and they were making changes in the world with actions, not with hi-fallutin pompous speeches before adoring crowds; speeches that implied that the the speaker was a holy saint to be looked up to.
As a comedian, I completely idolized Carlin. He inspired me more than any comedian that ever lived. And he made me laugh more than any comedian that ever lived. But as a political preacher he’s a big mouth zero. It didn't take guts to call all Republicans a bunch of expletive deleteds in concerts in front of his fans in his era. If he had done it in 1790 that would have been impressive, but we will never know if he would have had the guts since he wasn't around then. I never read one article saying that Carlin donated half his concert salaries to help the poor and oppressed. He helped to maintain the great discrepancy between the rich and the poor by preaching against it.
Yes, the Founding Fathers were hypocrites, and this fact was not lost on anyone. That unacceptably contradiction fueled the abolitionists all the way up till the firing on Ft. Sumter. The guilt trip over the obvious hypocrisy was the reason that the Constitution included a clause dictating a legal abolishment of the slave trade in 1808. A presentist critic would probably respond by saying that this was a weak gesture. Why wait till 1808 to abolish such an evil? Not only that, why was there nothing in the Constitution to even attempt to end slavery as an institution where it already existed? The answer is that many of the Founding Fathers tried to do just that but they didn't have enough votes and needed the South to make a nation.
Starting with independence, US anti-slavery forces attacked the institution on several fronts, with religious groups leading the way, as they would until its abolishment. Carlin also hates the church with a violent passion and preaches vociferously against the existence of God. But it was the churches that had the courage to openly condemn slavery when it was unpopular to do so. Then along comes Carlin in 2002 to condemn both the church and the absence of progressive action against slavery back in the day.
Although the power of states rights would lead to the great secession, it was instrumental in creating the first anti-slavery movements. Unlike newspaper articles and public talk, states-rights provided a chance for direct action that counted. One by one the Northern states passed laws outlawing slavery.
What the Constitution could not explicitly say for fear of losing the South, the Northern states could say individually without fear of anything. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 eliminated slavery. That was seven years before Madison’s national Constitution was even drafted; so certainly the men of the Massachusetts delegation to the Philadelphia Convention were not ‘embarrassingly and stunningly full of’ anything, except perhaps progressivism.
In 1787 there was brutal slavery all over the world, particularly the Moslem. Pennsylvania Quakers founded the world’s first anti-slavery organization in 1775. They were full if it too -love and caring.
CORPORATE FREEDOM A FOUNDING FATHER FUNDAMENTAL
Hear the phrase ‘corporate America’ and what do you think of? Probably abject evil. There is nothing more demonized in America than ‘Corporate America.’ Not even the military is as demonized. But did you know that at one time, the freedom to incorporate a business was considered a libertarian and absolutely wonderful progressive thing? It was in 1787. Europe pretty much didn't allow it. The USA was the beacon of liberty for corporate enterprise, however oxymoronic that may sound.
By the end of Washington’s presidency the states had granted almost 200 corporate charters. By 1817 there were 2,000. In 1817 Massachusetts alone had more private corporations than there were in all of Europe. That is rad.
The freedom to start, control and own a business was not something anyone took for granted in Washington’s world. Most countries did not allow it and those few that did were hardly generous about the terms. But the new USA allowed corporations to form on a fairly liberal basis.
Freedom of speech gets all the ink, but freedom to make money on one’s own terms is just as much a foundation of freedom and it is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s just as progressive to control your own company, as it is to carry a placard that says ‘I hate the President.’ The latter right gets all the glory and the former gets nothing but scorn. Yet where would this country be without true “free” enterprise?
Big business has its faults. But it is not an inherent evil. Abuses must be monitored, held in check and punished. But it should not mean that we should lose sight of the progressive and liberal nature of the freedom to make money. Owning a business doesn’t make anyone illiberal or right-wing.
FAREWELL ADDRESS
Washington’s famous Farewell Address is important to American History because it stressed that the USA should not get involved anymore with any of Europe’s troubles. Washington had bad memories of troubles with England and France. After all, both had tried to shoot him before 1788 and both caused headaches for him after he became president. It is little wonder that his final speech advised the U.S. not to get involved with ‘those people.’ Isolationists for the next 200 plus years would invoke Washington’s Farewell Address with enthusiasm in support of their own causes.
In recent times, with intercontinental bombers and missiles and world terrorism, Washington’s sage advice is not always the last word, but it still counts for debaters.
The words of General Washington have been misquoted, misinterpreted, and misapplied. The admonition against foreign entanglements was only against permanent ones. Every isolationist cites Washington to back them up and it's bogus. He actually said,
“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with
any portion of the foreign world. However we may safely trust
to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies”
Yes, like Syria in 1991. The key word is permanent.
WRITER
Washington was an underrated writer, mostly because the writings of Jefferson, Madison, and a lot of Frenchmen are so much better.
AFTER OFFICE
George Washington tried to retire from the Capitol back to his home in Mount Vernon, but the sword called again. It seemed that under his successor John Adams, the new nation was about to go to war with its former ally, France. On July 4, 1798 George Washington became commander in chief of the United States Army with an official commission as lieutenant general. It’s more impressive than it sounds. Lieutenant general means you are the boss of all generals. No one would hold that title again in the US Army until 1864 when Grant took over the Civil War.
Fortunately, the so-called Naval War with France never escalated to a declared war and Washington returned to his plantation and his beloved slaves.
Washington died on December 14, 1799, missing the new century celebrations by just a couple of weeks. He had battled many illnesses. Washington woke up with a terrible sore throat that Saturday the 14th. The doctors came and applied the standard catastrophic treatment.
Bloodletting.
The ignorant past killed George Washington too soon. It was commonly believed in 1799 that sick people could be helped or cured by draining the blood from their body. Thanks for the help. While they were at it they might as well have thrown George into a raging fire for an hour and a half. God only knows which of today’s treatments will be proven to have been a medical mistake. Some of these pills ....
Washington was surely ill with something serious and the bloodletting may not have been the real cause of death. It may have been acute laryngitis or one of several other sicknesses. Many doctors have speculated in their journals to this day on what it might have been. But all are agreed that the bloodletting ruined his chances of fighting off whatever he had. Even one 1799 doctor who believed in the benefits of bloodletting was appalled at the amount of blood (.86 of a gallon) that was drawn from a man of 68 years.
Washington’s last words were,
“Tis well.”
They should have been,
“Stop doing that.”
CONCLUSION
It is often said that Washington showed his greatness because if he had wanted to be King instead of President, he could have been. The United States would have had a new ‘King George’ replace the old one.
Washington couldn't have really made himself King. That is a bit of an exaggeration. But it's certain that some people seriously desired this. These irreconcilable royalists preferred a new friendly upstart home-grown royalty to no royalty at all. Anti-democracy voices were not dominant, to be sure, but neither were they negligible, especially in the period between the surrender at Yorktown and the Inauguration of Washington on April 30, 1789.
The king-him voices probably could not have had their way even if Washington had conspired with them. There was never a majority lobbying for a royalist mutiny. Washington fell in completely with the libertarian trends of his time, and with the brilliant ideas in practice of Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Henry, Paine, and McGillicutty. He may not have written great works on the new way of political life and thought (like Paine and McGillicutty,) but he sure believed in these principles and lived it. Washington was on board, and so never had an inkling to be king. What little power the Washington for King movement ever had was lost on him.
What Wash could have had however was a third term if he had chosen to run in 96. But he did not choose to and with this gesture he began the two-term tradition in the White House. After FDR broke this custom in 1940 and 1944, Congress passed an amendment (#22) turning the original custom into law. Washington did a great service for America in beginning this custom, FDR did a bad thing in breaking it, and Congress did the wise thing in making it law.
Some have proposed making the Presidency one-term at 6 years. This would reduce the amount of time that the country is locked in divisive election campaigns and would help the occupants of Pennsylvania concentrate on their work by not having to run for re-election for half of the months in office. I would vote for that.
My favorite story about Washington, the one that most gives me a sense of him as a human being comes from a book about the life of Albert Gallatin, the great Treasury Secretary of the early years. Al and Washington are alone in a cabin working furiously by candlelight for endless hours over stacks of papers. Gallatin is working quietly in the corner on some numbers and Washington is getting frustrated in the middle of the room because he has been road-blocked by some mathematical problem. Finally he swallows his pride and turns back to ask Gallatin for his help. Gallatin solves the problem verbally without writing down the figures or breaking a sweat. Washington goes back to work. After about a minute Washington turns back and gives Gallatin a quick snarling angry look and then snaps back to his work. That's the thanks Albert got for helping Washington with the math problem.
I like the story because it says a lot about how competitive Washington must have been to be angry with the man who helped him, just because he felt that he had to play the role of inferior in the bargain. This is the healthy ego that showed up at the Continental Congress in full military uniform to let everyone know he was available if anyone was interested. Washington was a born leader. Who else would be so impolite as to not say thanks when someone helps you out? Gallatin recalled the story lovingly. It was just Washington being like some grouchy impossible to please football coach, but the man you most want to be in charge and a man you would do anything for.
There is a painting in one of my history books showing Washington at a formal ball. The caption reads that while he was always polite, he seemed uncomfortable in those extremely formal settings. Well of course he felt uncomfortable. He was a guy.
And he truly was. GW was an athlete and a soldier. He was a leader with guts, brains, diligence, and integrity. The slaves are another matter, of course.
Washington was not the best-looking President, but he may have been the best one. He was brave, wise, confident, capable and honorable. It is fitting that the Capitol is named after him.
GW has his critics just as he had them while prez. One contemporary wrote that he was ‘treacherous in private friendship.’ Modern liberals are ripping him a new wig for owning slaves.
SOURCES
Albert Gallatin, by Samuel Morse, c) 1895, Riverside Press – Very enjoyable scholarship and writing style by a classic guy. Morse provided the story of Washington giving him a snappy look.
This little hardcover book is a genuine antique yet if one book could survive an earthquake and a trip across the Sahara it would be this one. Riverside Press in Cambridge made some of the finest and sturdiest books of all time. People ask me what I'm reading and I show them the copyright date and their jaws drop.
It was a great era for history books. Incredibly, every other sentence was not capped off by a tiny number leading you to a boring and useless source note.
America and its Peoples, A Mosaic in the Making - 5th Edition by Randy Roberts, Steve Mintz, Linda O. McMurray, James Kirby Martin and Jim Jones - c) 2004
The American Pageant, A History of the Republic, by Thomas A. Bailey
of Stanford University – c) 1961 D.C. Heath
Bailey is my favorite historian.
The American Revolution, by George Otto Trevelyan c) 1914 – The condensed version of the six volume history. Trevelyan, a Whig MP laments the loss of America and blames Chatham for the disaster. His first of the six volumes was published in 1899 and Theodore Roosevelt thought it was a fine book.
I like the writing very much.
Bulwark of the Republic, A Biography of the Constitution, by Burton J. Hendrick, c)1927 – A marvelous book of information and political literature. He makes me look up a few too many big words, but BJH is fine. I also read Burton's diplomatic history of the Confederacy, and now I'm just simply a fan.
The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents, by William A. DeGregorio c) 2004 Barnes and Noble - Encyclopedic work provided the opening quote on acquaintances.
Diplomacy of the American Revolution, by Samuel Flag Bemis – c) 1934
Flag Bemis is always dry and yet always worth the effort. He's one of the gods of diplomatic historians, so we care what he thinks.
A Diplomatic History of the United States, by Samuel Flagg Bemis, Farnam Professor of Diplomatic History at Yale University – c) 1934 Henry Holt
Great work and a beautiful maroon hardcover physical book that opens wide and easy and looks like it would have lasted forever in mint condition if I hadn't marked it up beyond recognition.
George Washington, an Historical Biography, by Horace E. Scudder c) 1886 Riverside Press, Cambridge.
This book is way over a hundred years old and in good shape. Again, Riverside Press made books of exceptional lasting physical quality from the banks of the Charles River, a short walk from Harvard University. I own quite a few of these marvelous ‘Riversides.’ Most books of that age are disintegrating into dust but, Riverside made its paper to last forever.
The young Washington did have a great throwing arm and was active in many sports. There was a famous spot on the Rappahannock River where he astonished his pals by tossing a stone to the other shore. There is also a natural bridge of considerable height in Virginia where tour guides still tell the story of a legendary toss by Washington from the ground up.
A star athlete recently tried to duplicate the feat and failed.
George Washington, the Image and the Man, by W. E. Woodward, c) 1942
I’m not sure why Woodward has it in for Washington, since George is a fellow Southerner (Woodward is from South Carolina.) For whatever reason this is a hatchet job pretending to be afair and innocent storytelling. It is the standard low-road Woodward way. He's a pretty good writer but a really bad guy.
In title and style it reminds me of the Victor Lasky books ripping the Kennedys in the 60’s, those ‘Man and the Myth’ series, although Lasky at least is not a sneak. Woodward who pretends to like the subject while taking a thousand cheap shots. Laskey didn't hide his hate behind a thin yellow screen.
I think Woodward may have felt some resentment from the rivalry between his deep south and those Virginians of the “uppity upper South.”
Woodward also authored a very successful general US history that will be cited and discussed in later chapters.
A really bad person.
The Great Republic, Bernard Bailyn, Harvard, - David Herbert Donald, Harvard, - David Brion Davis, Yale, -Robert Dallek, UCLA – John L. Thomas, Brown – Gordon S. Wood, Brown - c) 1985 Two volumes.
With a collection of university talent like these guys you would think that this book would be one of the best general US histories ever written.
That’s right. It is.
Ponderous in a good way.
History of a Free People, by Henry W. Bragdon and Samuel P. McCutchen – c) 1954 MacMillan
HFP is a high school textbook that sets a new world's record for taking all the fun out of learning with the excessive tests at the end of every little segment. Bragdon was an “Instructor of History” at Phillips Exeter i New Hampshire, the football rival of the George Bush Andover schools.
History of the United States, by Henry William Elson – This is one of the best and most successful history books ever written. It was first published in 1904. My 1960 hardcover is the fifteenth revised edition! Elson is fair, opinionated, thorough, direct, informative, informal, lively, and has a heart.
This work is so enjoyable I don’t want to finish it, for then there will be nothing left to read. It’s one of those books where I leave the last 40 pages unread for years so that its still active on my shelf. I have a few of those (Ike's Crusade in Europe for one example.)
Maxims of Washington, by George Washington – The editor did a wonderful job. This book makes Washington sound like Voltaire.
Mount Vernon Historical Society provides the story about the Valley Forge pardons.
A New American History, by Albert Bushnell Hart, c) 1934
This was a popular textbook for high school students first published in 1917 and revised often. Hart is a Harvard man and this short book in simple language packs a tremendous punch. Al is tops in my book, and he even passes the racist test on the Civil War era, rare for any historian of his pre-Jackie Robinson mass redneck era.
Out of Many, A History of the American People, by John Mack Faragher (Yale); Mary Jo Buhle (Brown), Daniel Czitrom (Mount Holyoke); and Susan Armitage (Washington State), c)1994
This is the propaganda of the left that is being sold to our children today as basic history.
Oxford History of the American People, Samuel Eliot Morrison – c) 1965 Oxford University Press
Sam is a great and obviously hard working historian, but I find myself disagreeing with him on so many things that the reads are often as exasperating as educational. It's 1,200 pages long and I actually finished it.
Sam had this to say about George Washington's smart use of political opponents within his cabinet,
"Like some of his ablest successors, he wisely used the qualities of able men while ignoring their faults. Thus he could put up with Hamilton’s insolence and Jefferson's indirectness, because he needed their virtues and capacities to run the government."
There's a statue of Morison on Commonwealth Ave in Boston and I used to get a great feeling from it because he wrote the History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, the books that, as a boy, gave me my love for history. But after reading his general U.S. history, and the one he co-authored with Hank Commager, I think less of that statue.
The Presidency of George Washington, by Forrest McDonald – c) 1974
All the new Washington scholars cite this book. I've got one chapter to go. I think its good, but not great. The writer isn't fun or easy flowing. It's hard to pick up. It is easy to put down (as I just proved.)
A Short History of the American Nation, by John A. Garraty of Columbia – c) 1966 – c) 1974 (revised) – Harper & Row
School text for 1966 in substance and style. Revised probably does not mean that the older chapters were rewritten and rethought. The battered edges remind me how much I prefer hardcovers to large softcovers.
The United States to 1865, by Michael Kraus – c) 1959 University of Michigan Press
On a one-to ten, I give this book an eight. 'Special K.' as he was known around CCNY, explains things well.
The United States, From Colony to World Power, by Chitwood, Owsley, and Nixon – c) 1954
This hardcover history has a bad oder. I don’t like the intangibles coming through here. Tone is substance and they are substantially illiberal to a fault.
The United States: The History of a Republic, by Richard Hofstadter of Columbia, William Miller, who co-wrote The Age of Empire, and Daniel Aaron of Smitty College – c) 1957
They definitely side with Jefferson and against Hamilton in that big feud.
The War of American Independence, by Higgenbotham
I relied on this book a lot in the previous chapter.
The War of the Revolution, by Christopher Ward - c) 1952 - Two volumes
This a very detailed account of the military side of the Revolution. And it almost has enough maps!
Will Rogers – A recording provided the quip about bank lending.
VIDEO
George Washington, The NBC Miniseries had some enlightening scenes. (Unfortunately there were a lot of real boring contrived scenes that added nothing.)
COMEDIANS
Carlin - I have about 50 Carlin bits memorized. He and Cosby are the top two all time comedians. But he started it, when it comes to politics and history. You condemn our Founding Fathers, I defend them.
Bill Cosby
One of the lines in this chapter is inspired by a 1981 Bill Cosby bit about chocolate cake.
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