Forgotten Founders Salutes
Bill Stanley
Some
Surprising
Presidential Facts
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President Peyton Randolph was heralded, including by George Washington, as
the father of the country.
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President
Henry Middleton surrendered to the British in Charleston, South Carolina in
1780 and swore a loyalty oath to King George III.
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President
John Hancock was the first Head of State who sought to combine the offices
of president and Commander-in-Chief in 1775 but lost the election of the
later to George Washington.
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President Henry Laurens presided over the final days of the drafting and
signing of the first U.S. Constitution, the Articles of Confederation. He
also, as President in 1778, fought hard to retain George Washington as
Commander-in-Chief. In 1779 he was captured by the British on a trade
mission to Holland where he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and later
exchanged for Lord Cornwallis.
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President
John Jay, as Peace Commissioner, would disobey the direct orders of the
President and Congress that required him, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin
to include France into Treaty negotiations. In 1783, this strategy resulted
in the U.S. obtaining, by treaty, the Northwest Territory (Michigan, Ohio,
Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota) which France sought to
be set aside as territory for Spain, itself and native Americans. In 1785,
Congress would reward Jay by moving the U.S. Capitol from NJ to NY so he
would accept the position U.S. Foreign Secretary.
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President
Samuel Huntington, with the fall of Georgia, South Carolina, most of North
Carolina, former President Middleton declaring allegiance to King George
III, Benedict Arnold’s Defection, endless state land disputes, French
threats to end the Franco-American Alliance, hyper-inflation and final
collapse of the U.S. dollar, managed to hold the nation together while
finally achieving the Articles of Confederation’s ratification on March 1,
1781.
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Samuel
Johnston of North Carolina, after being duly elected the second President of
the United States under the Articles of Confederation, declines the office.
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President Thomas McKean would later write declining the offer to run as
President Thomas Jefferson’s Vice President “ … President of the United
States in Congress Assembled in the year of 1781 (a proud year for
Americans) equaled any merit or pretensions of mine and cannot now be
increased by the office of Vice President.
[i]”
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John Hanson’s presidential tenure resulted in establishment of the first
consular service, a national bank that was chartered, a resolution
advocating the printing of a U.S. Bible and the adoption of a uniform system
of coinage.
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President Elias Boudinot was forced to order the government to abandon
Philadelphia and relocate the federal capitol to Nassau Hall in Princeton,
N.J. after the army mutinied holding him and Congress hostage in
Independence Hall.
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George Washington resigned his commission in 1783 to President Thomas
Mifflin who in 1778 conspired to replace him with General Horatio Gates as
Commander-in-Chief in the Conway Cabal.
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President
Thomas Mifflin ratified the Treaty of Paris ending the war with Great
Britain with the words “Given under the seal of the United States. Witness
his Excellency THOMAS MIFFLIN, our President, at Annapolis, this 14th day of
January 1784, and of the sovereignty and independence of the United States
of America, the eighth. President Mifflin, not George Washington as
President Obama maintained in a Shanghai town hall meeting, sent the first
trade mission to China.
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President
Richard Henry Lee established the 1785 Western Land Ordinance with the
township system utilized to survey all but the 13 original States. It was
also Lee’s resolution that was adopted by Congress declaring the colonies as
“free and independent states” from Great Britain on July 2, 1776.
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President
John Hancock, although elected as the 7th President of the United States
under the Articles of Confederation, never showed up for work despite five
months of assurances he would serve.
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While in office, President Nathaniel Gorham’s State of Massachusetts erupted
in armed citizen rebellion and Congress did not have the funds to assemble a
federal army large enough to end the insurrection.
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After three months of Congress being unable to achieve a quorum to convene
the federal government in New York, President Arthur St. Clair was elected
in the midst of the Massachusetts insurrection. Under his Presidency the
Philadelphia Convention was called by his Congress. His congress passed the
Northwest Ordinance which created the mechanism for creating states, provide
land grants for public education and outlawed slavery in six states creating
the Underground Railroad. The current U.S. Constitution was received by his
congress and was sent on to the States for ratification without one change
to the Philadelphia Convention’s original document. St. Clair remains the
only foreign born U.S. President because this new constitution only
permitted native born citizens to hold the office.
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President Cyrus Griffin’s wife, The Lady Christina, was a Scottish Nobel
woman who had eloped with Cyrus in 1776. While fleeing through the woods
she sprained her ankle requiring Cyrus to carry her to the minister to be
married. She would, in 1788, set the First Lady standard for entertaining
dignitaries, ambassadors and Heads of State calling on the Presidents of the
United States in America.
[i] McKean, Thomas to Alexander J. Dallas,
October 16, 1803, The Life of Albert Gallatin, by Henry Adams,
p.313
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CivicFest
2008
The U.S. Presidency and Political Hospitality
1776 to 1976
University of South Florida - St. Petersburg
The papers are
currently housed at the University of South Florida's Special Collections
and are subjects of academic study under the direction of Associate Dean Naomi
Yavneh, the Director of Undergraduate Research.
Naomi Yavneh,
Ph.D.
Associate Dean, The Honors College
Director, Office
of Undergraduate Research
University of South Florida
4202 East Fowler Avenue,
SVC 1088
Tampa FL 33620-6912
(813) 974-4241
(813) 974-5801 fax
The Smithsonian
Exhibit:
The American Presidency, A Glorious Burden
Interment of Samuel and Martha Huntington,
first U.S. President and First Lady
PoliticalFest
"World's
Fair of Politics" A Success in Philadelphia
Click Here
Carnegie Library -
February 1999 -
President's Day
Carnegie Institute - July 4, 1999
Rebels With A Cause
First President of the United States,
Samuel Huntington, Is Reburied -
November 2003
Pennsylvania Society Gold Medal Exhibit -
Waldorf=Astoria
'Rebels With a Cause' Opens at MGM -
March 2000
New York Hilton Presidential Exhibit -
GOP Convention 2004
James Madison's Montpelier -
US Constitution
Roosevelt's legacy is "an inspiration"
July 25, 2004
Everyone knows that the Declaration of Independence was signed
on July 4th, 1776, and that George Washington was our first
president. But Washington did not take the oath as president until March 4th,
1789, the day our constitution became the law of the land. So who was running
the show?
In fact, there were four distinct stages in the formation of the
United States of America:
1.
Continental Congress of
the United Colonies of
America – September 4, 1774 to July 1, 1776
2.
Continental Congress
the United States of America - July 2, 1776 to February 28, 1781
3.
United States of America – Articles of
Confederation - March 1, 1781 to March
3, 1789
4.
The United States of America, a Republic - March 4,
1789 to Present.
Each stage marks a clear, but different origin date for the
United States of America. In this program we will explore the birth and
evolution of the U.S. Head of State office now known as President and
Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America. Who were the Presidents of
the Continental Congress and, later, the Presidents of the United States under
the nation’s first constitution? What were their duties? How did they
cope with a war, hyper-inflation, the complete collapse of the U.S. dollar,
massive federal debt, religious tolerance, treaties, imprisonment,
court-martials, state disputes, taxes, and a constitution so flawed that the
framers ultimately chose to discard the document completely.
Although these Confederation
Presidents had
duties quite different from those performed by current President they were,
nevertheless, Heads of State and, in the case of ten men, Presidents of the
United States under the Articles of Confederation.
“Forgotten Founders” offers an exploration of an essential but hitherto
neglected aspect of our nation’s early history. Not only are the stories of
these presidents full of surprising facts (President Henry Middleton, for
example, surrendered to the British in 1780, while Arthur St. Clair was the only
foreign-born president) but they provide keen insight into the shaping of the
office of the presidency, as well as of the constitution itself, and into such
historic issues as the expansion of United States’ territory, the institution
and abolition of slavery, and the role and significance of the First Lady.
Moreover, the narrative of the tumultuous early
days of our country, when the nascent confederation repeatedly drew itself back
from the brink of economic, political, or military disaster, can shed light, as
well on the issues we face today.
Selection of the Presidents
1. Each Colony/State elected or appointed a delegation to
the Continental Congress or constitutional government known as “The United
States, in Congress Assembled.”
2. Regardless of population or delegation size, each state
had only one vote in both the Continental Congress and the United States, in
Congress Assembled. Presidents were elected by a simple majority of the states
in attendance once a quorum was formed.
3. The confederation Presidents utilized their unicameral
office to exercise much influence on United States public affairs and
legislation. For example,
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The President, in conjunction with his state’s delegation, had
one vote of thirteen in the unicameral government. Quite often, his “yes” or
“no” represented 1/9th and sometimes 1/7th of all the votes required in
quorums necessary to enact legislation under the Articles of Confederation
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Each President presided, in a voting “Speaker of the
House Capacity,” over the judicial, legislative and executive confederation
business.
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Presidents also had the power to call for the confederation
government’s assembly and adjournment.
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Presidents received, read, answered, and at their own
discretion held or disseminated the official state and foreign
correspondence.
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Presidents chaired the Committee of the States that
governed the confederation when the congress was not in session.[1]
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Presidents received visiting dignitaries at the Capitol
as the Head of State extending the nation’s official hospitality.[2]
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Presidents acted as judicial officers presiding over
numerous cases including Federal Court Appeals,
[3] Death Penalty Appeals,[4]
Military trials[5] and State
boundary disputes.[6]
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Presidents, although not serving as Commander-in-Chief, issued
military orders and signed military commissions. They also executed diplomatic
commissions, treaties, proclamations, resolutions, ordinances and loans.
4. The government of the United States did provide for the
President’s expenses, servants, clerks, housing, and transportation. Their home
state provided for their salary only as a voting delegate.
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