Page 193 - American Stories, A History of the United States

Getting Started
7.1 Washington owed much of his success as the nation’s first president to an instinctive

feeling for the symbolic possibilities of political power. Although he possessed only
modest speaking abilities and never matched the intellectual brilliance of some of
7.2 his contemporaries, Washington sensed that he had come to embody the hopes and
fears of the new republic. Without ever displaying the attributes necessary to achieve
charisma—an instinctive ability that some leaders have to merge their own personality
7.3 with the abstract goals of the government—he carefully monitored his official behav-
ior. Washington knew that if he did not demonstrate the existence of a strong repub-
lic, people who championed the sovereignty of the individual states would attempt to
7.4 weaken federal authority before it was ever established.
The first Congress quickly established executive departments. Some congressmen
wanted to prohibit presidents from dismissing cabinet-level appointees without Senate
7.5 approval, but James Madison—still a voice for a strong, independent executive—
successfully resisted this restriction on presidential authority. The chief executive could
not function unless he had confidence in the people with whom he worked. In 1789,
Congress created the Departments of War, State, and the Treasury, and as secretar-
ies, Washington nominated Henry Knox, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton,
respectively. Edmund Randolph served as part-time attorney general, a position that
ranked slightly lower than the head of a department.
To modern Americans accustomed to a huge federal bureaucracy, Washington’s gov-
ernment seems amazingly small. When Jefferson arrived in New York, the first national
capital, to take over the State Department, for example, he found two chief clerks, two assis-
tants, and a part-time translator. With this tiny staff, he not only maintained contacts with
the representatives of foreign governments, collected information about world affairs, and
communicated with U.S. officials overseas, he also organized the first federal census in 1790.
Congress also provided for a federal court system. The Judiciary Act of 1789 created
a Supreme Court staffed by a chief justice and five associate justices. It also set up 13 dis-
trict courts authorized to review the decisions of the state courts. John Jay, a leading figure
in New York politics, became chief justice. But since federal judges in the 1790s were
expected to travel hundreds of miles over terrible roads to attend sessions of the inferior
courts, few persons of outstanding talent and training joined Jay on the federal bench.
Remembering the financial insecurity of the old Confederation government, the
new Congress passed the tariff of 1789, a tax of approximately 5 percent on imports.
The new levy generated considerable revenue for the young republic. Even before it
Quick Check went into effect, however, the act sparked controversy. Southern planters, who relied
What was the structure of heavily on European imports and the northern shippers who could control the flow of
the federal government under imports into the South, claimed that the tariff discriminated against southern interests
President Washington?
in favor of those of northern merchants.
conflicting Visions: Jefferson and Hamilton

Washington’s first cabinet included two extraordinary personalities, Alexander
Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Both had served with distinction during the
Revolution, were recognized by contemporaries as men of genius and ambition, and
brought to public office a vision of how the American people could achieve greatness.
However much these two men had in common, serious differences emerged. Wash-
ington’s secretaries disagreed on how the United States should fulfill its destiny. As head
of the Treasury Department, Hamilton urged his fellow citizens to think in terms of bold
commercial development, of farms and factories embedded within a complex finan-
cial network that would reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign trade. Because Britain
already had an elaborate banking and credit system, Hamilton looked to that country for
economic models that might be reproduced on this side of the Atlantic.
Hamilton was also concerned about the people’s role in public policy. His view of
human nature caused him to fear democratic excess. He assumed that in a republican
society, the gravest threat to political stability was anarchy rather than monarchy. The best
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