A quick look at the highlights/lowlights of the first Presidency, his warnings and Adams' subsequent Presidency

1. Washington’s Presidency
Problems within and without

2. Problems
Debt owed
No cash
Unsecure Frontier borders
No army
Foreign Wars raging

3. Nothing is easy
Problems are tangled up in each other

4. In addition
The Boy Band Cabinet has problems.
Mostly: Alexander Hamilton (Treasury) and
Thomas Jefferson (State) hate each other.
And disagree about EV-E-RY-TH-ING

5. So Washington
Has to spend his time dealing with these two
prima donnas and their crap.

6. So whose team are you
on?
Team Hamilton vs. Team Jefferson

7. Hamilton’s Plan
How to solve some of those problems

8. Revenue and Credit
Money and faith

9. #1 Pay off the Debt
pay it all off (Fund it), and take over the
state’s debts (called: Assumption)

10. This does the following:
● Puts the govt. on sound footing financially
● Enhances the govt. power
● Makes wealthy people look to govt. not
states for sources of power

11. Revenue from taxes
increase in excise taxes, including 25% tax
on whiskey

12. Congress deadlocks
Hamilton has dinner with Jefferson and
Madison and they break the deadlock.

13. Congress passes funding
and assumption
Charters a Bank of the United States, to hold
government deposits and issues banknotes.

14. Congress also oks some
taxes
Tariff to encourage manufacturing and
whiskey taxes approved.

15. Whiskey Rebellion
Poor people revolt against the taxes and
rebellion breaks out in western PA

16. Factions form
Madison and Jefferson vs. Hamilton and
Adams.

17. Madison and Jefferson
● Fear government power-keep it low!
● Treasury and the Bank corrupts
● Narrowly interpret the Constitution
● Agriculture is the way forward and is the
foundation of liberty
● Faith in the people--individualism is the key
● The West is the future of the country

18. Democratic-Republicans
Jefferson’s party.
NOT the modern parties of those names.

19. Hamilton and Adams
● Natural Aristocracy-Upper class should rule
● Individualism is dangerous
● Government should regulate people for the
good of society
● Govt. must invest in industry for the future
● Loose interpretation of the Constitution
● based in New England

20. Federalists
The party of Hamilton and Adams and
Washington (but he’s reluctant)

21. Native Americans
Washington and Knox approach the issue

22. Knox believes
● in the ideals of the Revolution: liberty and
natural rights & deals with NA in that light
● NA are sovereign nations of people who
have a right to the soil.
● He negotiates treaties from that perspective
with the Creek Nation in GA/FL and the Ohio
Nation in...OH

23. Problems with southern nations
● White settlers defy treaty and encroach
● Creek reach out to US, but Washington can’t
enforce the treaty
● So Creeks turn to Spanish who agree to help
the Creeks defend their territory

24. Problems with northwestern nations
● Ohio NA tribes refuse to sell “surplus” land to
white settlers.
● General St. Clair sent to deal with them, tries
to start a fight. His command is decimated.
● Washington has to send a larger force and
defeats the NA tribes, who are then forced to
give up their lands.

25. Washington Serves Two
Terms
Then he steps down, weary and upset at the
way government has worked.

26. Washington’s last words
He gives a Farewell Address

27. Washington’s Farewell Address
Warning #1: Each region of the country needs
the other.

28. Washington’s Farewell Address
Warning #2: In order to keep their liberty,
people must live within the laws of the
government.

29. Washington’s Farewell Address
Warning #3: If political parties are allowed to
form and take root, they will harm the
government, through their need for revenge.

30. Washington’s Farewell Address
Warning #4: Do not enter into “entangling
alliances” with foreign powers. Europe is a
mess--leave them be.

31. John Adams becomes the
next President
Federalist. He doesn’t do a great job.

32. Problems abroad
● France and US end alliance & have an
undeclared naval war.
● Britain impresses American sailors too.
○ which means they attack US ships and take the
sailors and force them to join the British navy.
● Adams can’t stop either from happening.

33. Alien and Sedition Acts
Adams & Federalists pass two laws
1) Alien Act allows President to deport
foreigners suspected of “treasonous” acts
a) lots of these were non-citizens who supported the D-
R party
2) Sedition Act imposed punishments for
speaking or publishing anything “false,
scandalous or malicious” about the govt.

34. Both target D-R
● Madison and Jefferson write laws passed in
VA and KY
● These laws say that when the govt. exceeds
its Constitutionally delegated powers, states
have the right to impose their authority--They
can nullify the federal government’s rules.