Download The Washington Administration After the Constitution was ratified

The Washington Administration
After the Constitution was ratified George Washington was chosen by the Electoral
College to serve as America’s first chief executive. Washington’s first responsibility was to
establish the executive branch of the national government as outlined in the Constitution. He
had to read the social contract and decide just how the government should look. Washington
decided that the Constitution gave the chief executive four major areas of authority—financial,
foreign policy, law enforcement and defense. He created four cabinet departments, treasury,
state, justice, and war, to handle responsibilities in each of these areas. Each cabinet
department was headed by a secretary who advised the president on matters under his
jurisdiction. Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s former aid in the Revolutionary War was
chosen as the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury. Thomas Jefferson was made the
Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph became the Attorney General, and Henry Knox was
named as the Secretary of War. Within this government Washington served as the Chief
Executive, meaning that he had ultimate responsibility over all functions of the presidency and
was a capable administrator because he understood how to delegate authority to his cabinet
heads.
Washington also had to create a federal bureaucracy to handle federal business,
determine the relationship between Congress and the Chief Executive, determine how the
states and the federal government would coexist, and overcome resistance to his tax policies in
the form of the Whiskey Rebellion. In 1794 farmers in western Pennsylvania refused to pay an
excise tax on distilled spirits enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Washington.
Since the Whiskey Rebellion Represented a major challenge to the authority of the
government, Washington, at the urging of Hamilton, his most important advisor, raised an army
of about 15,000 men and personally led them against the Whiskey rebels. The rebellion quickly
collapsed when confronted with overwhelming force and Washington communicated to all
Americans that the Federal Government would enforce its laws with military might if necessary.
Treasury Secretary Hamilton, a protégé of Robert Morris under the Articles of
Confederation government, devised a three tiered plan similar to Morris’ to stabilize the
financial structure of the Federal Government under the Washington Administration. All three
parts of this plan were controversial. The first, issued as the Report on Public Credit in 1790,
proposed that the Federal Government pay the Revolutionary War bonds issued by both
Congress and the Federal Government. Individuals who had sold their bonds to speculators at a
fraction of their original value and states that had already paid their bonds off did not like this
plan. In order to get Virginia, a state that had paid it war debt, to go along with assumption,
Washington and Hamilton promised to build the new national capitol, Washington, D.C., on the
banks of the Potomac River. Hamilton’s second plan, issued in 1791 as the Report on the Bank
of the United States, was equally as controversial. Hamilton proposed that Congress create a
national bank that would be partly owned by private investors and partly owned by the Federal
Government. Secretary of State Jefferson argued that creation of a national bank was
unconstitutional because the Constitution must be read literally—strict construction—and that
anything not specifically authorized in the Constitution was automatically forbidden. Since the
Constitution did not specifically give Congress the authority to charter a bank, Jefferson and
other strict constructionists said a bank could not be created. Hamilton, on the other hand,
argued that the implied powers of the Constitution allowed the Congress to do anything not
specifically forbidden by the Constitution. Loose Constructionists like Hamilton maintained that
since the Constitution did not specifically forbid Congress from chartering a national bank,
Congress could legally and constitutionally create the bank. Hamilton’s argument ultimately
won out and Congress established the First Bank of the United States in 1791. Hamilton’s third
plan, submitted to Congress as the Report on Manufactures in 1791 was also controversial.
Hamilton urged Congress to enact tariffs and other laws that would promote industry in the
United States because he believed that the nation’s future lay in manufacturing. However,
Jefferson and other agrarians opposed this plan because they envisioned the future of America
as being a nation of yeoman farmers who were largely self-sufficient. Congress rejected the
Report on Manufactures. Even though one part of Hamilton’s financial plan was rejected by
Congress, the overall plan was successful and the nation ultimately prospered and as Hamilton
envisioned, became an industrial powerhouse.
Foreign Affairs within the Washington Administration were equally as controversial. A
major controversy resulted when the French Revolution broke out in 1789. Back in 1778 the
United States and France had signed the Treaties of Amity and Alliance, by which France got
involved in the American Revolution in return for a promise by the United States to help France
in a later war. This later war had arrived. France and England began to fight after the French
Revolution broke out. France demanded that the United States honor obligations to help
France under the Treaties of Amity and Alliance. Washington, because he understood the
danger of war with England better than perhaps anybody else, refused to get involved. France
sent a representative, Citizen Genet, to persuade Washington to honor the treaties with France.
Washington, however, issued the Proclamation of Neutrality, stating that the United States was
going to remain neutral in the Anglo-France conflict. Genet, angered at Washington’s
Neutrality Proclamation, began to recruit an army of American mercenaries to invade Canada, a
British colony, and issues Letters of Marque, authorizing American ship captains to act as
privateers on British ships. Washington faced a dilemma. If American mercenaries invaded
Canada and if American privateers attacked English ships this surely would mean war with
Great Britain, a war the United States likely could not win. At the same Washington could not
arrest Genet for violating the Proclamation of Neutrality because Genet had diplomatic
immunity and because he was extremely popular with many Americans who saw the French
Revolution as an extension of the American Revolution. What was Washington to do to solve
this dilemma? Fortunately for Washington, the situation worked itself out naturally when the
government Genet represented fell from power in France and a new, more radical government
took its place and began the period in French Revolution history known as the Reign of Terror.
Hundreds of French government officials were executed in the Reign of Terror and the streets
of Paris ran red with blood from the guillotine. Genet was recalled to Paris to be tried and
likely executed as an enemy of the state. Genet, realizing what his fate was likely to be, made a
deal with Washington in which Genet was allowed to become an American citizen in return for
disbanding his mercenary army and recalling his letters of Marque. Thus, the controversy
Washington faced over Citizen Genet ended.
The Jay Treaty signed with England was equally as controversial. Supreme Court Chief
Justice John Jay was sent to solve several problems existing between England and the United
States, including debts, attacks on American ships, trade with the West Indies, impressment,
and compensation for slaves freed during the American Revolutionary War by the British army.
Unfortunately, Jay was unable to get most of these issues resolved in 1794 because he was
negotiating from a position of weakness. He simply could not force England to do anything
because the United States was among the weakest nations in the world at this time. What the
Jay Treaty did accomplish, however, was to get England to agree to establish a joint commission
to look into debts Americans and Englishmen owed each other. The treaty easily passed the
United States Senate but when the House of Representatives voted on funding the joint
commission, enemies of Washington, including James Madison, began to play politics and
criticized the treaty for not accomplishing most of the American objectives. The treaty was
finally funded after a nasty fight on the floor of the House of Representatives but it remained
controversial throughout Washington’s presidency.
Not everything Washington did in foreign affairs was controversial, however. In 1795
Thomas Pinckney was authorized to negotiate with Spain a treaty that allowed the United
States to use the Mississippi River and ship goods to New Orleans where they could be put on a
vessel for transportation around the world. The Pinckney Treaty was a resounding success for
the Washington Administration as opening the Mississippi River to American commerce
sparked much economic growth in western states and territories like Kentucky and Tennessee.
Spain was willing to open the Mississippi and New Orleans to American commerce rather than
lose the territory as more and more Americans began to settle in the West.
During the Washington Administration the United States got its first two party system.
This system, which consisted of the Federalist and Democratic-Republican Parties, developed
over controversy that arose over the Hamiltonian Program and foreign policy during
Washington’s Presidency. Federalists generally supported the policies and programs of the
Washington Administration while Democratic-Republicans opposed them. Leading Federalists
included George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, while Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison, and Aaron Burr were leaders of the Democratic-Republican Party. Federalists
generally thought Congress had the power under the Constitution to establish a national bank,
fund the Revolutionary War debt, and enact policies to promote industrial development in the
United States. Democratic-Republicans, in contrast, believed establishment of the First
National Bank was unconstitutional, thought that the nation should develop along Jeffersonian
ideas of the Yeoman Farmer, and opposed having a national debt. In terms of foreign policy,
Federalists believed that the United States should stay out of the war between France and
England and that the Jay Treaty was worthy of support while Democratic-Republicans thought
the United States should honor obligations to help France in the war with Britain incurred
under the Treaties of Amity and Alliance and that the Jay Treaty was useless because most
American objectives had not been achieved. Paranoia is going to characterize the first two
party system. Both parties characterized the other party as dangerous. Federalists maintained
that the nation was headed for ruination if the Democratic - Republican Party ever got control
of the country. Likewise, Democratic-Republicans said that if Federalists were not thrown out
of power the American experiment with representative Democracy would likely fail. In terms of
ideology, the Democratic-Republicans believed in strict construction. In other words, they
believed that if the Constitution did not specifically authorize the government to do something
than the government was forbidden to do something. In contrast, Federalists believed in loose
construction. They believed that the implied powers of the Constitution gave the government
wide latitude to act in any area that the Constitution did not forbid the government to act in. In
other words, Federalists believed that if the Constitution did not specifically forbid Congress
from doing something than Congress had the authority to act.
Overall, the Washington Administration was successful in both domestic and foreign
policy despite the many controversies that erupted, especially after the development of
political parties. The Hamiltonian financial plan put the nation on a sound financial footing and
the Proclamation of Neutrality kept the country out of what likely would have been a disastrous
war with England.