our early presidents* --professor ralph ketcham rome free academy october 27, 2010 *based on...
TRANSCRIPT
Our Early Presidents*--Professor Ralph
KetchamRome Free Academy
October 27, 2010
*Based on Professor Ketcham’s Presidents Above Party: The First American Presidency, 1789-1829
George Washington 1789—1797
John Adams1797—1801
Thomas Jefferson 1801—1809
James Madison 1809—1817
President George Washington 1789--1797
“To take measures for promoting the general welfare…To use your best endeavors to improve the education and manners of a people; to accelerate the arts and sciences; to patronize works of genius; to confer rewards for inventions of utility; and to cherish institutions favorable to humanity.”
--from Washington’s discarded first inaugural address
The First National Bank of 1791
Washington; Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State; Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury; Henry Knox, Secretary of War; and Edmund Randolph, Attorney General. Washington was frustrated by the partisanship quarrels between Jefferson and Hamilton in 1792.
The Jay Treaty of 1794
Jeffersonians opposed the Jay Treaty
Washington’s most famous speech, his farewell address, was never delivered orally. The speech was published in Philadelphia’s American Daily Advertiser on Sept. 19, 1796.
From Washington’s Farewell Address Sept. 19, 1796“The alternate domination of one faction over another…has perpetuated the most horrid enormities, and is itself a frightful despotism.”
A fight in Congress between Roger Griswold of Connecticut and Matthew Lyon of Vermont. Unknown artist, 1798 Public domain.
President John Adams 1797--1801
“…wish to patronize every rational effort to encourage schools, colleges, universities...for propagating knowledge, virtue and religion among all classes of the people...as the only means of preserving the Constitution from its natural enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction to elective governments.” –Inaugural Address
The XYZ Affair, 1797Three French agents;
X, Y and Z, demanded
U.S. pay bribes for
France to continue
peace talks. France
seized 300 U.S. ships
and Adams’ diplomacy
avoided a formal
declaration of war.
Alien & Sedition Acts, 1798
“The calumnies of the factious
and discontented may not poison
the minds of the majority of the
citizens, yet they will affect a
very considerable number, and
prompt them to deeds destructive
of the peace, and dangerous to the
general safety. This the people
have a right to prevent.”--John Adams on the Alien & Sedition Acts
President John Adams and…
The Quasi War with France, 1799
Negotiations with France, 1800
President Thomas Jefferson 1801--1809
First Inaugural Address“But every difference of
opinion is not a difference of
principle. We have called by
different names brethren of
the same principle. We are all
Republicans, we are all
Federalists.”-- Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1801
But in 1796 Jefferson had denounced…
“The monarchical party seeking to bring the U.S.
…the forms of the British government and
castigated men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England.”
--From a letter from Jefferson to Philipp Mazzei, 1796
The Louisiana Purchase, 1803
Louis and Clark Expedition, 1803
Merriwether Lewis and William Clark
The Embargo Act, 1807
A Year after the End of Jefferson’s Presidency…
“In a government like ours, it is the duty of the Chief Magistrate, in order to enable himself to do all the good which his station requires,…to unite in himself the confidence of the whole people. This alone…can produce a union for the powers of the whole…”--Thomas Jefferson, 1810
President James Madison 1809--1817
The Napoleonic Wars “
The War of 1812
The Hartford Convention, 1814
National Program of 1816
The Tariff of 1816
A national bank
Federal Subsidies for roads & canals
James MadisonAnd Henry Clay
President James Madison “The aim of every political
constitution is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers, men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to discern, and most virtue to pursue the common good of society…and to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous; whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”
Reflecting on the Four Presidents
“Notwithstanding a thousand Faults and blunders, (Madison’s) administration has acquired more glory, and established more Union than all his three Predecessors, Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, put together.”--A letter from Adams to Jefferson, Feb. 2, 1817
John Adams