Of the republic from 1789 until 1791. George Washingtons Mount Vernon posted this and 20 minute event. This is new york in 1789. We are standing in front of federal hall looking towards these river of new york. And the city even then, although the buildings were four or five stories high has some of the bustle and teaming qualities that its had for the last 200 years. Federal hall, even though the appearance i will show you look very classical, it is here. This is another image of new york and it may be somebody in this audience i would bet a who knows this house is standing at the manhattan end of the hall and tom. Holland tunnel. It is not there anymore. This is where Vice President john adams rented for the two sessions when the congress met in new york. This is to convey some sense of how rural and be collect manhattan was in 1789. The city ended about where New York City Hall is today. If you went beyond city hall you are going out of town. And this stood this building stood approximately 1. 5 miles maybe two miles from new york city. When members of the First Congress needed a break, and that was often, because it was very exhausting, and these fellows were working six and seven days a week, they went for walks or horseback rides in the countryside, and that countryside is often below houston street in todays new york. Greenwich village was at there somewhere. That is the new york that we are in, and this is federal hall, where just about all of the action is taking place. It is on wall street, the coffeehouse. The scene i showed you first is behind us. We are now looking in the direction of the hudson river. Ok. So the First Congress. Despite its significance, the First Congress has generally been treated as Something Like and asterisk after the Constitutional Convention. It is the government that the constitution outlined, and that it what, that is what it was, an it spring fully grown from the head of zeus. Which it didnt. It took two years of highly created and sometimes twofisted down and dirty politics to accomplish the job, and that job was creating the institutions of government, of creating what patrick henry, who i am going to refer to once or twice later on, referred to as the crazy machine of government. What we like that is what these men are doing in federal hall here. When the First Congress gathered in new york in march and april 1789, why was two months . Because it took them more than a month to get a quorum. Everybody who showed up on time, including James Madison, was in a blind panic that not enough people would turn up to make a congress. And in their letters to others they spread the fear that they fail before they even had gotten started. So the challenges facing the country are terrific. The country is a very shaky collection of 11 sovereign states. And rhode island, governed by North Carolina and rhode island, North Carolina and rhode island, governed by antifederalists, those who do not like it, have not yet joined the union. Opponents are demanding more than 200 amendments or even a new Constitutional Convention. The government has no reliable source of revenue. There are more than 50 different currencies in circulation. There is no permanency of permanent seat of government. Government had been nomadic in the 70s 80s. Southerners are suspicious of northerners, southerners, and westerners of easterners, and new englanders of just about everyone. There are very wellfounded fears that the west when we speak of the west, were not talking about montana and idaho and south dakota. We are about west of the appellations. Appellations. Alachians. We are talking about what soon becomes kentucky and tennessee and ohio and indiana and illinois. That is about as far west as anyone can imagine at this point. There are fears that the west will break off into another country or maybe several countries. Quakers and others are demanding an end to slavery while , southerners threaten secession, and they did so in the course of the First Congress threatened secession if congress bears to tamper with slavery. And as i said, and i will repeat it probably a few more times, even many members of congress doubt the government would survive its birth. Has James Madison said a number of times we are in a wilderness , without a single footstep for to guide us. Yes come the First Congress , achieved prodigious output. It established the fact executive department, the federal court system, the first Revenue Streams for the National Government, the first and amendments approved to the constitution, adopted a program for paying the countries debts, and embrace the principles of capitalism as the underpinning of financial policy. It founded the First National bank. It established the First National capital on the banks of the potomac. It enacted the first patent and copyright laws, founded the coast guard and i could go on. The members of the First Congress didnt regard themselves as demagogues. They never expected anyone else to consider them is that either. A great majority of them were professional politicians. Most of them were, gasp, lawyers. [laughter] this was not a congress of amateurs. Nobody, nobody threw down his plow, jumped on his mule, and rode to new york and legislated for a while and then went back to the farm to finish plowing. Nobody. Nobody tore off his cobblers. These men are professionals. They were overwhelmingly pragmatists. There were no ideological zealots. One or two were a little bit crazy, and a few others were famously a bit lazy, and a number of others, it seems, from time to time had to be pulled out of the taverns and brothels of the east side. Some of those names do not occur very often in the record, but among these men we will come back to him in a minute. You know who that is. James madison. James madison stands out as the leading figure, particularly in the first crucial session of congress. There were three sessions two in , new york, the third in philadelphia. He served in effect as floor leader in the house. There were, i should remind you, there was no structure as we know the congress has today. There were no majority minority leaders, whips, and no structure of seniority at all. Madison was recognized by almost everyone as the foremost interpreter to the constitution, to which he contributed arguably more than anyone else. He was a brilliant parliamentarian, and i will tell you a story about that if theres time. A truly stunning maneuver that borders on sleight of hand that buffalod the rest of the house and was fundamental to bringing the capital here as opposed to being elsewhere where congress had already voted to put it. A brilliant parliamentarian, and had the complete confidence of the single most charismatic man in the United States, George Washington. With go back. This is george in a very president ial sort of pose, and this is a conjectural rendering of washington arriving for his inauguration. Im going to take the liberty of reading a short bit from the book here. I hate to slash my own words, but i am. Im just going to read an cerpt. When i again, this is mount vernon. This is George Washington here at mount vernon. Washington consider the sluggishness in getting the government up and running to be a national embarrassment. He was determined not to add to it. As this delay must be very irksome to the attending members, i am resolved no interruption shall proceed from me that can well be avoided. He assured James Madison by mail. Madison is in new york. The house of representatives was still debating codfish and molasses, when on april 22, Congress Learned that George Washington had reached the jersey shore. Washington left mount vernet accompanied by his aid david , humphreys, his secretary, tobias, his enslaved servant, billy lee and charles thompson. , a man who might have headed an executive department but did not. They crossed the potomac at georgetown, headed north through towards baltimore, across the Rolling Hills that some Potomac Valley promoters, washington among them hoped it , might become the site of the nations permanent capital. He had hoped to travel in has quiet and peaceful a manner as possible to conserve his energy, but that was not to be. The entire route was with cheering, shouting, flagwaving wellwishers throwing flowers at him, holding up their babies and demanding speeches. Towns that had cannons fired them. Veterans marched alongside them for miles. Men wept. Ben is for claimed a new era and behold the rising empire, so he slipped the crowds when he could. He agreed when pressed to deliver addresses in baltimore, wilmington, and philadelphia, where 20,000 people half of the , population thronged the call pulled the streets, long live the father of his people. And a laurel wreath was placed on his head. More crowds awaited him on the new jersey bank of the Delaware River where he famously crossed , during the war. Uniformed calvary and infantry escorted him between ranks of girls crowned with garlands foods strewed flowers before his feet and saying code to glory. They proclaimed washington had become virtually divine, or and they upon a skill of eminence that havent had never before assigned to a mortal. Expectations were high. [laughter] finally, on april 23, at elizabeth, new jersey, he was met by a committee of both houses of congress jon jay, and , numerous city officials and rotundityime figure of his wartime colleague henry knox. Libra needs an awning with red curtains, washington was wrote across the river in a 47 foot barge manned by 13 pilots dressed in white garments and black caps. Flagfestooned ships fired candidates across the harbor. As if inspired by the jubilation, porpoises leaped and dove around the barge. [laughter] eyewitness account. In the future site of the statue of liberty a boatload of illed aen and ladies tr welcoming ode of god save the king. As the pastor of the battery in my north of the east river to the booming of artillery, ofaas came from multitudes men impact like years of corn before the harvest. Recalled the success of motion to murrays wharf like the rolling of the sea. The panorama washington later withm, filled my mind sensations as painful considering the reverse of this scene, which may be the case after all of my labors to do good as they are pleasing. , in other words, he was pretty uptight. It was washingtons first trip back to new york since the end of the war. If any new yorkers held him personally responsible for losing their city to be british, and the catastrophic battle of long island, it was clearly forgiven. He was filled with trepidation all of the sacrifices, the years , of war and political struggle, the great experiment on which the nation was about to embark. It might yet collapsed in fiasco and come to nothing. An assembly of war veterans met ms. Inventories wharf. Murrays wharf. At the top of the steps, carpeted in his honor, they declared a guard was ready to take his orders. At this, washington, turning to the crowd, and with a democratic inspiration declared he would accept the honor guard but, in truth, the affections of his fellow citizens was all the guard he wanted. He rejected the use of a carriage, and preceded by a group of calvary and artillery and officers, the new yorks governor and mayor and clergyman and an amazing concourse of ordinary citizens went slowly through the streets, with silk banners, flowers, and branches of evergreens to the mansion on Cherry Street near the present , day brooklyn bridge, which had been rented for him. Later, the skies burst in a downpour. Downfall, but no one seemed to care. Not that there were not dissenters. To at least some republicans washingtons entire journey seemed like a royal progress that smacked of text monarchical excess and hinted at the elevation of the new president in a sort of american king. A satirical and sacrilegious caricature that spread around new york labeled the entry, showed washington arriving in the guise of jesus in the american jerusalem of new york, sitting in billy lees lap, and mounted on a donkey that by David Humphreys wearing doubles once enchanting, the glorious time has come to pass when david should conduct an ass. Less nastily, but in its own way no less significant in its ambivalence about washingtons intentions, and member of congress promoted that a prominent quaker who had led a hand to the struggle when told , that washington was approaching his house, replied with quaker lead disdain for ceremony that he was perfectly indifferent to the general commotion at the door and declined to rise from the dinner table as the president elect recession marched by. I dont believe you on that can have negative note there, and you will realize that i think washingtons role in the course of the First Congress is really quite fascinating. Im going to give you just one short snapshot here. This actually describes the day of his inauguration shortly afterward. But it is a different note. As the inauguration approach, visitors poured into the city, filling taverns, boarding houses and private homes. Every one of them was desperate for a glance of washington. I have seen him, a young woman breathlessly wrote home. I never saw a human being to look so great and noble as he does. I could fall down on my knees before him and bless them. A landlady was so overwrought that she experienced a virtually orgasmic collapse. Her mind was so overcome by the expectations of seeing the president that it affected her whole frame in a very uncommon manner. It was so painful that though she promised herself much gratification, she wished it over. [laughter] so people responded to george in different ways. [laughter] so washingtons charisma and his wholehearted commitment to the republican experiment, and that is what it was, and experiment, or powerful assets for the fragile government. But congress, you have to remember, was the most powerful branch of that government. It was there not in washingtons mansion that the real decisions were made, the plans for the country were proposed, and fundamental conflicts hashed out. Washington was a republican in his bones. In his bones. Despite the adulation americans had no idea what a chief executive might be like except king george iii. It is not perhaps not as startling that people responded in the ways that i was describing here, as they do not know what the president is. There has never been a president. George washington is going to invent it. Washington, of course, had no agenda of his own to advance. He had no program for his first hundred days, which is a millstone that has hung around the neck of every president since fdr, generally by the media pundits and the opposition in order to be able to say, if the president has not accomplished what we expected him to do in the first 100 days, he is a failure. And i do not think any president benefits from that. I think we should retire the phrase. It certainly did not exist back in 1789. And when i said washington was a republican in his bones, he looked to congress for leadership, not the other way around. And his hands trembled at his inauguration, and that was for good reason because he knew everything he said or did would set a precedent for better or worse. Well, i should quote you at least a phrase or two up of what washington was thinking. Before he set out for new york, he confided to a neighbor here where we are right now, he said, from the moment when the necessity of accessing, accepting the office of chief executive had become apparent and, as it were, inevitable, a, i anticipated, and my heart was sick with distress, the 10,000 embarrassments complexities, and , troubles to which i must yet again be exposed in the evening of a life already near consumed in public cares. One of the first challenges very first the very, week of congress. It hinged on a seemingly innocuous question. Just what was the chief executive to be called . It might not have been president , and this is where john adams steps in and basically ruins the vice presidency for all eternity. [laughter] the First Congress spent weeks, weeks debating what to call the chief executive. Adams, who repeatedly with a nixonian charisma, excerpted inserted himself in the senate debate, essentially aggravating everyone. And diminishing the office of Vice President nearly with his every utterance. I do not hate john adams, but these were not his best years. Adams considered his most benign highness or at least his highness as the barest acceptable forms of address. Although he preferred his high mightiness, and he dismissed president as fit for nothing more than the leader of Fire Companies for a cricket club. Others proposed the name washington should itself become the title, like caesar or augustus in ancient rome, to be bestowed on future president s. Fortunately, George Washington would have none of it. He rejected all these grandiose titles. It was offensive to the leveling american spirit. Although he was obviously a patrician, a slave owner, a military man accustomed to command and obedience, he was a republican and he regarded congress as the core of the nations government. But underpinning his republicanism was an unreachable unreachable quality of selfrestraint, modesty, and respect for the dignity of his fellow men, including those he disagreed with. As far as he was concerned, the humble title of president was just fine. Thank you, george. I think we are all grateful for that. We have certainly had some president s, more than a few, i daresay, who we would have had a difficult time addressing as his high mightiness. Depending on where you are on the spectrum, pick your choices. [laughter] so,