george washington2

7/28/2019 George Washington2

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He did not actively participate in cabinet meetings, leaving debate to his ministers,

whose opinions he occasionally requested in writing.

"). almost Knox always slavishly sided with the treasury secretary, Jefferson usuallydisagreed with both

, a large debt, worthless paper money, and, in effect, a bankrupt and weak Union.

Major problems, old and new, urgentlyrequired solutions.

Great Britain continued to refuse to relinquish its posts in the American West; and

there was only a minuscule army and no navy at all. Virtually every effort of theadministration to settle these difficulties constituted a precedent

In the process of establishing precedents, Washington proved to be an uncommonly

able executive. "In his daily administrative tasks," Leonard D. White, a distinguished

authority on American public administration, commented, "he was systematic,

orderly, energetic, solicitous of the opinion of others but decisive, intent upon general

goals and the consistency of particular actions with them." Washington, in sum,

demonstrated his mastery of administrative detail and reserved for himself the final

say in major affairs of state.

During his first administration, Washington's department heads also played an active

role in advising Congress on legislative policy.This was particularly true of the

secretary of the treasury.Although the House was unwilling to allow Hamilton to

appear before it in person, he nevertheless exercised instrumental legislative

leadership. This included the submission of written reports and the use of influence

over members of congressional committees. But the trend toward executive

leadership of Congressespecially as exercised by Hamiltondrastically changed

during Washington's second administration. The alteration was not due to revised

views of Washington or his ministers on presidential leadership but rather to


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Congress' less friendly response, which was, in turn, tied in with the gradual

development of political parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans.

the provision of a bill of rights; and the enactment of tariff legislation.

In one conspicuous instance, Congress also enhanced the powers of the presidency.

James Madison of Virginia, one of the ablest and most influential members of the

House of Representatives, sought to deprive the Senate of any claim to veto executive

dismissals, by moving that department heads could be removed by the presidentsolely on his own authority. The House approved Madison's motion, but the Senate

was less easily persuaded. The vote on the resolution was a that was broken by its

presiding officer, Vice President John Adams, in favor of exclusive executive

authority. An important source of presidential power was thus established, although

the silence of the Constitution on the subject led to a century and a half of sporadic

controversy concerning it.

during his eight years in office, Washington, adhering to his resolve that the

separation of powers required him to pursue a hands-off policy toward Congress,

vetoed only two comparatively minor pieces of legislation.

. In appointing Hamilton, Washington, on whose staff the young New Yorker had

served during the Revolution, realized that he was tapping the best financial talent

the country could offer.

The president's satisfaction was the greater because he properly perceived that the

Treasury Department would be the nerve center of the new government. Fiscal

ineptitude had been chiefly responsible for the series of events that had toppled the


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Confederation and led to the adoption of the Constitution. Among the most

important provisions of that document was the pledge that "all debts contracted and

engagements entered into before the adoption of the Constitution shall be as valid

against the United States under this Constitution as under the Confederation." Themost pressing problem of the new government was the fulfillment of this pledge, and

it fell to Hamilton to propose the ways and means.

On 25 February, Washington signed the bill chartering the Bank of the United States.

sectional conflict between slaveholders and other agrarians of the South versus

mercantile and related commercially oriented interests of the North.

Washington supported Hamilton's program because he believed that it would benefit

all sections by promoting national prosperity and a more closely knit union. The

restoration and firm establishment of public credit, moreover, was a means to the

same goal. (which horrified Jefferson)

administration was actually run by Hamilton

As article after article appeared, Hamilton's attack on the secretary of state became

increasingly shrill.

both, pleading with them to subordinate personal antagonism to the national

interest.

During his first term in office, Washington's principal diplomatic difficulties

concerned the Indian tribes, Great Britain, and Spain. The most immediate menace

to national security came from Native Americans, who roamed and largely controlled

the western frontier. Had they been able to effectively deploy their manpower and

exploit their skill in guerrilla warfare, they would have presented an even graver

danger, one that the sparsely manned American military forces could not have readily


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parried. But individual Indian tribes often appeared more intent on fighting

each other than the white man, on whom they also were hazardously

dependent for guns and gunpowder. For their protection and security

they acquired them by playing the three contending North Americanempires against each other. Of these, Native Americans most trusted

Spanish Louisiana and British Canada and most distrusted the United

States. The former two not only supplied them with munitions but were also less

interested in seizing territory than in pursuing the mutually profitable fur trade;

fellow Americans in the United States were less interested in trading with the natives

than in acquiring their lands, often by treaties fraudulently obtained.

Although the Spanish attempted to block U.S. expansion in the Southwest bynegotiating profitable trade alliances with Indian tribes that served as a buffer against

attempts of the United States to seize Louisiana and to open the Mississippi River to

its commerce, the British posed the greater threat to the new nation's sovereignty.

The northwestern frontier was the scene of seemingly endless warfare between Native

Americans (aided and abetted by their British allies) and American frontiersmen

(intent on retaliation against murderous assaults on U.S. settlements in the West).

The crux of the problem, as the United States saw the matter, was that redcoats of His

Majesty's Canadian regiments still occupied seven forts in the Old Northwest, posts

that England had by the terms of the 1783 peace treaty ceded to the United States.

England justified its refusal to abide by this provision of the treaty by pointing to

stipulations that the United States had failed to honor: the repayment of

revolutionary debts due to British merchants and the return of Tory property.

Britain's true reason for holding on to the forts was to safeguard the route along

which Indian furs were shipped to Canada.

Washington did not immediately perceive the nature and extent of British

machinations in the West. When he belatedly did so, he swiftly asked

Congress to enlarge the small regular army by one regiment. That

done, he decided in 1791 to restore peace to the area by sending a punitive expedition

against the warring tribes. Commanded byGeneral Arthur St. Clair, the army

advanced from Fort Washington into present-day Indiana. On 4 November, St. Clair's

forces were, despite Washington's warnings about such an eventuality, ambushed and

humiliatingly defeated by a confederated Indian army. Although he was charitably


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exonerated by Washington as well as by a committee of the House of Representatives,

St. Clair resigned his commission. The United States Army, reorganized and enlarged,

was now placed under the command of General Anthony Wayne, a leading

Revolutionary War commander. During 1792 and 1793, Wayne postponed an activecampaign while he patiently instructed his troops in the tactics of forest warfare.

In the meantime,Washington took the initiative in another type of training

program by seeking to convince Congress and the state governments that

the solution to the problem of Indian-American relations was not war but

a change in attitude and the resultant adoption of policies that would

assure justice to Native Americans. The murder of a Native American, for

example, should be judged as the murder of a white person, measuresshould be taken to protect natives' property, and "such radical

experiments . . . as may from time to time suit their condition" should be

launched in order that Indians might gradually be integrated into U.S.

culture. The period was not auspicious for the acceptance of such ideas,

particularly in view of the persistence of Native Americans in conducting

savage raids against U.S. settlers on the frontier.

For Washington, a more immediate and personal problem was the approaching

presidential election of 1792. Early in his first administration he had made the

decision to retire at the end of a single term, and wishing above all else "to return to

the walks of private life," he balked at reversing it, the more so since for the moment

the foreign scene appeared serene and domestic developments, particularly the

success of Hamilton's economic program, gratifying. But would the rift in his official

family oblige him to reconsider his earlier decision to retire? Pressure to do so

crowded in from every quarter, from north and south, from private citizens and

official colleagues. Among the latter, none were more importunate than the principal

rivals of his cabinet, who suspended their acrimonious disagreement on everything

else political to urge the president to stand for reelection.

Neither Hamilton's nor Jefferson's pleas, nor those of many other prominent

Americans, had any effect on the president's unwillingness to announce his candidacy

for reelection. Nevertheless, over the months following his return to Philadelphia

from Mount Vernon in October 1792, Washington continued to remain mute.Predictably no rival candidate presented himself, and there was not even a whisper


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that one would. Aware that he was in a field of one, Washington certainly knew that

the electorate would take his silence for assent, and it did. On 13 February 1793 the

electoral college unanimously elected him to a second term. His running mate, John

Adams, was also returned to office, although by a vote of only seventy-seven to fifty.To Washington, now past sixty and in poor health, what others saw as an electoral

triumph was rather another four-year sentence to what he described to Jefferson as

"the extreme wretchedness of his existence."

george washington2

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