Our Forgotten Presidents
Who was the first President of the United States? If you said George Washington, then you are...wrong. George Washington is the first President under the Constitution. From November 15, 1777 until May 23, 1788 our "Constitution" was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles gave alot of power to the states and not as much to the feds. All states were able to coin money, including the federal government. The government was not able to pay off debt to France and Spain fast enough. There was no economic stability. The Founders went back to work and came up with a stronger plan, the Constitution.
The President of the Continental Congress:
1. Peyton Randolph (1774)
2. Henry Middleton (1774)
3. Peyton Randolph (1775)
4. John Hancock (1775-1777)
5. Henry Laurens (1777-1778)
6. John Jay (1778 -1779)
7. Samuel Huntington (1779 -1781)
The Presidents under the Articles of Confederation or President of the United States in Congress Assembled were:
1. Samuel Huntington (1781)
2. Thomas McKean (1781)
3. John Hanson (1781-1782)
4. Elias Boudinot (1782-1783)
5. Thomas Mifflin (1783-1784)
6. Richard Henry Lee (1784 -1785)
7. John Hancock (1785 -1786)
8. Nathaniel Gorham (1786)
9. Arthur St. Clair (1787)
10. Cyrus Griffin (1788)
There is your pointless history lesson of the day.
This was originally posted on JasonPye.com on September 25, 2005.
Comments
But these "presidents" were not executives and had little or no executive power. They were essentially speakers of the Confederation Congress. The Articles of Confederation had no executive branch of government (nor a judicial branch). The Congress ran everything. Washington was, therefore, the first president who exercised the real powers of an executive.
In terms of the economic instability of the US under the Articles, much of that is a myth. Some states had recovered quite well by 1787. Others had more difficulty. It is true that concerns over paying foreign debts were important. But the nationalists, like Alexander Hamilton, who pushed for the constitution of 1787 had done so since at least 1780 (before the Articles of Confederation had even been ratified).
Posted by: Rick Morales |