The Unanimous President

Partisanship in the presidency is nothing new. The current administration overtly exists to advance its constituency’s interests over the opposition, as the previous administration had served its constituency above all others. During the Obama years, progressivist media painted the president as a messiah, whilst conservative media incessantly demonized him. During electoral deadlock, SCOTUS chose the prior executive of George W. Bush by a partisan per curiam of 5-4 in a case which counted ballots’ hanging chads.

But long ago, there was a president in whom the whole country confided. Partisans at the time disagreed about much and more, but in 1789, they were convinced that the only person who could then be president was George Washington.

As all Americans and many foreigners will know, Washington had served as the Continental Army’s Commander during the Revolution. During his years of service, on a shoestring budget he led a ragtag army to victory over the well-disciplined and provisioned British and loyalist troops. General Washington grew adept at balancing delicate egos and alliances both domestic and international. Such aptitude would prove indispensable during his presidency.

By the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the United Kingdom recognized the thirteen original states’ independence. In the following years, that independence of thirteen states proved impractical as established routes of commerce became subject to multiple internal tariffs and differing state currencies. There was also legitimate concern that in diplomacy and commerce, foreign powers would play one state off another. For these reasons, in 1787 delegates from twelve states (Rhode Island abstained) convened in Philadelphia PA, to deliberate unification under a national government. The assembly elected Washington, a Virginian delegate, to preside over the convention.

Washington was the convention’s natural choice for this role. By this time, he was easily the most famous American. Newspapers had widely reported his exploits during the Revolution. Older readership may even have remembered Washington’s popular journal published in 1754 of his embassy to the frontier in the Ohio territory which preceded the French and Indian War. Of immediate concern to the convention’s delegates was that Washington was a more senior (56 years old) member who commanded respect by remaining above the partisan fray.

Aloofness from partisanship was crucial at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 since many citizens distrusted the convention itself. Americans uninvolved in interstate commerce found life tolerable enough under the Articles of Confederation, the voluntary association which governed the thirteen states. When the call issued for a convention to revise the Articles, these Americans feared power’s centralization. Washington’s fellow Virginian Patrick Henry – who years earlier had expressed zeal for independence by famously declaring “Give me Liberty or give me death!” – declined invitation to the Constitutional Convention by remarking, “I smell a rat!” Those who favored a stronger national government came to be called Federalists. Their opponents, the Antifederalists, largely boycotted the Convention out of suspicion. The assembled delegates, therefore, needed Washington to preside over the Convention to lend his fame to the endeavor.

But it went even further. The Constitution’s Article II established the executive branch by creation of the role of President. All the delegates present understood that no other person could fulfill this role except George Washington. He was the only personage who had the national clout to make this novel institution palatable to Americans wary about the new national government. In a very real way, the role of President was specifically written for Washington.

Partisanship raged on during the Constitution’s ratification. The Convention had produced a Constitution with Articles I through VII detailing the new national government’s powers. Federalists profusely assured everyone that the new government would never prove abusive, but the Antifederalists demanded such assurances in writing by way of a Bill of Rights. The Federalists promised to approve such a Bill (the first ten amendments) upon the states’ ratification of the articular Constitution, but this compromise’s lynchpin was a President whom the populace trusted until the Bill of Rights could be added to circumscribe the national government’s powers.

To that end, it was agreed that every elector would vote for George Washington. Partisanship therefore shifted to electing the Vice-President, as the Antifederalists hoped to pair Washington to one of their number. Back then, every elector submitted two names without distinguishing whom he wanted in which role. The candidate with the highest number of votes would become President, and the runner up, the Vice-President. Fifteen years before the Twelfth Amendment would change this, electors in 1789 fully realized that if they all voted “George Washington – John Adams” as Massachusetts’ ten electors had done, then this would tie both candidates for the role of President, requiring the U.S. House of Representatives to choose the winner (Art. II § 1 ¶ 4). Hence, a flurry of letters was dispatched to induce electors to vote for a different person alongside Washington… all to ensure that Washington was indeed elected to the presidency!

The election of 1789 cannot be qualified as “unusual” since it was the first federal election, so there was nothing usual about it. More accurately, it was vastly different to modern federal elections. Of the thirteen original states, Rhode Island and North Carolina had not yet ratified the U.S. Constitution, so they did not vote. New York was the eleventh state to ratify the Constitution in July 1788, but partisanship stridently divided its Legislature between Federalists who predominated in the Senate, and Antifederalists in the Assembly, such that the Legislature in 1789 could not agree on electors by the electoral deadline (what, New Yorkers quarrelsome… unimaginable!). Thus, only ten of the states participated in this election. For the popular vote – which in theory guides the Electoral College – only propertied white males aged 21+ could vote, so the franchise was significantly smaller. Nonetheless, all 69 electors (with 3 votes uncast due to absence) voted for Washington, making him the only unanimous U.S. president, a feat repeated during the following election of 1792.

This grace from partisanship had its limits, though. By 1796, numerous newspapers circulated vocal partisan criticism against Washington. This had him realize the folly of running for a third term, so he declined nomination and declared his intention to retire at Mount Vernon, his estate in Virginia.

Nowadays partisan mass media accelerates and exacerbates polarization amongst the citizenry. Whoever wins an election to higher office is encouraged to “own the libtards” or “own the cuckservatives” as the case may be, such that running for office is just about weaponizing government against one’s enemies, whilst preventing government from being wielded against one’s own constituency. Still there are some citizens who campaign for office out of a noble spirit of public service, but partisan mass media focuses on those candidates prone to punchy sound bites who appeal to tribalism.

Today the USA celebrates 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. We will never have another unanimous president, which if anything is more reason for gratitude for the one person who held the Republic together when at its frailest. If this country hopes to last a while longer, then we’d do well to heed George Washington’s warnings about partisanship which he included in his Farewell Address, delivered at the erstwhile national capital of New York City on September 19th, 1796. The style is archaic but the wisdom behind the words could be no more current:

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force — to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party; often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.