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Washington’s Presidency

The states ratified the new Constitution of the United States in 1787, which created three branches of the federal government: Congress, the courts, and the presidency. In 1789, George Washington became the first person to hold the office of President of the United States.

Portrait of George Washington.

Portrait of George Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart, 1797. Image credit:  Wikimedia Commons

As president and head of the executive branch, Washington was responsible for enforcing the government that the Constitution created. He and the rest of the First Federal Congress quickly realized that the Constitution did not have clear solutions to every problem they would face.

The way that Washington and the First Federal Congress handled some of the issues the country faced during his tenure as president created a precedent, or an example for how future presidents should deal with similar situations. In the next few paragraphs, we'll take a look at some of the important questions Washington and his cabinet took on during his presidency.

Rise of the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans

During the Constitutional Convention, factions emerged almost immediately. These factions ended up forming the first two political parties in American history: the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans.

On one side, there were the Federalists. Generally, Federalists lived along eastern seaboard and were wealthy merchants or well-educated people who lived in the city. They supported a stronger central government and a loose interpretation of the Constitution: the idea that what the Constitution didn't explicitly forbid, it allowed. The Federalists also supported fixing the relationship between the United States and Britain for trade reasons.

On the other side were the Democratic-Republicans. The Democratic-Republicans frequently hailed from western regions and were more likely to be farmers than merchants. The Democratic-Republicans favored a weaker central government in favor of stronger state governments. They believed in a strict interpretation of the Constitution: the idea that the federal government couldn't do anything the Constitution didn't explicitly permit. They also preferred a foreign alliance with France, as the French had supported the United States in the Revolutionary War.

Debate over the national bank

Coming out of the  American Revolution , the United States was faced with the issue of a large national debt. After taking out loans from France to cover the expenses of fighting the war, the state debt totaled about $25 million. But after the Constitution brought the states under a central government, who would be responsible for the debt that the states owed? Would each individual state be responsible for paying back its debt, or would the new federal government pay?

Newly-minted Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton proposed a two-part solution: the federal government would assume the states’ debt and create a national bank. Hamilton believed a national bank would help to promote business by printing federally-backed money. There was just one problem: the Constitution said nothing about creating a national bank. However, Hamilton and his followers believed that under the “necessary and proper” clause of Article I, the Constitution gave Congress the right to create the bank to fix the debt problem.

Thomas Jefferson and his followers disagreed with Hamilton’s argument, stating that it was a misinterpretation of the necessary and proper clause. He believed that creating a national bank would be an abuse of power by the federal government.

Portrait of Alexander Hamilton.

Portrait of Alexander Hamilton, painted by John Trumbull, 1806. Image credit:  Wikimedia Commons

After much debate between these two emerging factions—the Federalists, represented by Hamilton, and the Democratic-Republicans, represented by Jefferson—the bill establishing the first Bank of the United States passed the House and Senate, President Washington signed the bill into law in early 1791.

The French Revolution and the Proclamation of Neutrality

The American Revolution sparked several other revolutions across the world, including the Haitian Revolution and the French Revolution.

At the start of the French Revolution in 1789, the United States had just ratified its new Constitution and Bill of Rights. When French revolutionaries came to the United States asking for assistance, Washington decided to issue a Proclamation of Neutrality, guaranteeing that the United States would stay out of the war and not take anyone’s side. This was a risky decision, since France had been the United States's major ally during the Revolutionary War.

Washington's decision to issue a Proclamation of Neutrality was rooted in the fact that the United States was still dealing with a sizable debt after the American Revolution. With this act, along with the recommendations he made in his Farewell Address upon leaving office, Washington set a precedent for isolationism, or refraining from involvement in international affairs, that set the tone for US foreign policy over the next century.