Untitled Flashcards Set

SETTING THE PACE: THE WASHINGTON ADMINISTRATION

Explain the precedents set by George Washington’s presidential administration.

While President Washington tended to leave economic policy to his secretary of the

treasury, he was far from a passive bystander during his 8 years in offi ce. Although

economic issues were the top priority, Washington also faced many others. Having

spent most of his adult life in public service, Washington knew how fragile the new

republic was. Th e votes to adopt the new Constitution had been close in several states,

and powerful leaders, including Patrick Henry in Virginia and John Hancock in

Massachusetts, would have been happy to return to a system in which the states were

supreme and the national government only a weak federation. Many rural Americans,

including the poor white farmers who made up most of the citizens, distrusted all

governments and felt they got little benefi t from them while the tax on imports raised

the cost of necessities. An obscure Massachusetts farmer, William Manning, who had

fought at the battle of Concord, now wrote a pamphlet, Th e Key of Liberty, in which

he argued that “friends to liberty and free government” needed to be watchful of the

“few” who were dominating the new administration and needed to be prevented from

destroying “free government” and “tyrannizing over” the people. While farmers like

Manning complained, Britain was alert, maneuvering in military and diplomatic

actions along the borders of the fl edgling republic, prepared to reopen hostilities and,

indeed, retake the newly independent nation.

Washington was especially worried that the new nation would lose the land west

of the 13 original states. Although Britain had ceded all its claims to land east of the

Mississippi River to the United States, Indians who lived in that huge territory had not

agreed, and when Washington took offi ce, the tribes were considerably stronger than

the U.S. Army. In addition, the British had not removed all of their forces from forts

in that area, even though they had agreed to at the end of the Revolution. Th e British

saw the Indians as a useful instrument to help them reignite a war that would end

American independence and return the country to the empire.

Many western whites were so fed up with the lack of protection by the federal

government that there was talk of forming a separate western nation. Between 1785

and 1788, John Sevier led settlers in the western counties of North Carolina—now the

state of Tennessee—to form a state they called Franklin, or sometimes, the Republic

of Franklin. Th ey were desperate for support in their battles with local Cherokee and

Chickasaw. When their petition to become a state failed, they virtually governed them-

selves as an independent nation. Sensing an opportunity, Spanish authorities off ered

fi nancial support to the settlers if they would affi liate with Spain rather than the United

States, but North Carolina authorities successfully reasserted authority in the region.

When he became president in 1789, Washington wanted to be sure there were no simi-

lar interests in independence or foreign alliances in the western lands claimed by the

United States