Renee Parsons
As the country anxiously awaits its fate after more than 250 years of electoral politics, whether to continue its pedantic path of predictability or to gamble its future on the radical disruption of a dictatorial one party tyranny that would undermine the country’s previous history and traditions.
From the opening pages of Eugene Roseboom’s “A Short History of Presidential Elections” it became clear that the country’s Founders had no preconceived notion of how to construct a politically parochial organization to establish the country’s electoral system in 1789.
A country born in political revolution, the US, since its inception, continued to be regarded throughout the world as a Christian nation. Having fled domination of the British Monarchy, the country’s Founders created the only country to ever adopt a First Amendment establishing that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” along with its indispensable commitment to free speech, individual liberty and the equality of personal rights.
Thomas Jefferson’s divinely inspired Preamble to the Declaration of Independence continues to reflect timeless Christian values: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
The theme persists throughout with the official National motto, “In God We Trust” which dates back to 1748 just as the prescient Founders followed their God-given instincts to amend the Articles of Confederation into Madison’s Constitutional masterpiece in 1787; a document that launched a rambunctious experiment into what became the world’s first Constitutional Democratic Republic introducing American concepts of self-government, freedom and liberty to the entire world. The Constitution was followed by a National Anthem “Star Spangled Banner” lyrics inspired by the drama of the American flag that continued to fly over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
It was all starting from scratch and was as originally American as possible.
The original system provided for state legislatures to each establish its own election process integrating a popular vote with all electors to meet on the same day. They would each vote for two candidates. The majority vote would be elected President while the runner up would be Vice President. The two Houses of Congress would tabulate the votes with any tie being settled in the House. If there was the lack of a majority, the House would ultimately declare the winner.
With no real precedent to follow or preconceived notion of a politically parochial organization in place after the first throes of the American Revolution in 1775, the Federalists inadvertently became the country’s first political party as George Washington’s Presidential candidacy became the avenue by which the Federalists organized his election. Given his consummate political and military skill during the Revolution, Washington was always The Man. There was no real alternative for the Federalists as they were always aware that they were making history by electing the country’s first President.
With the touch of elitism, it would come as no surprise to consider that national political parties began within the Cabinet and Congress rather than within what were then considered ordinary, every day lives of Americans.
Given that there were no primaries, no nominating conventions, no campaigning or national balloting and no opinion polls, the election of George Washington was greeted with a unanimity as all sixty nine electors voted for him. Although the Vice Presidential election of John Adams was a less harmonious, although logical choice. Adams, nevertheless, received only thirty four votes scattering votes to other candidates as he referred to “the most insignificant…that ever invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”
As the Battle of Princeton defeated the Brits in 1777, Alexander Hamilton became Washington’s Aide de Camp as Lt. Colonel where he remained for the next four years. Moving in high circles of diplomacy, intelligence and military negotiation as Washington’s emissary, Hamilton assumed field command in the decisive final victory at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781.
Once elected, Washington appointed Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State (1790-1793) and Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury(1789-1795) to serve in his Cabinet. From the outset, fundamental differences about direction of the country were undeniable with Hamilton, a European monarchist rather than a strict Constitutionalist, had more interest in establishing an economic engine for financial stability to support a strong central government. The Federal Bank became the symbol of how to accomplish fiscal politics to benefit rich security speculators.
Some things never change as fierce opposition from James Madison and the agrarian Jefferson as Hamilton angered rural Americans with its heavy taxes, debt increases and The Bank as an ever-present symbol of how to accomplish fiscal policies to benefit the rich. In 1798, Congress adopted the Alien and Sedition Acts asserted by Federalist veep John Adams with the intent of suppressing political dissent; although clearly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court was not yet sophisticated to assert its power of judicial review.
However, the open antagonism between Jefferson and Hamilton was more than the country’s first political rivalry as it went to the heart of the country’s massive revolutionary war debt with no financial system to address the common debt to be shared by the entire nation.
Thomas Jefferson envisioned a decentralized government, an agrarian country that offered more personal liberty and freedom that became the Democratic-Republican party (1792-1825) in opposition to Hamilton’s ‘paper capitalists’ which Jefferson saw as a threat to his farming vision of state’s rights and individual liberties.
Seen as unconstitutional by Madison and Jefferson, Washington favored Hamilton’s proposal and signed the first federal national bank into existence. Just as Jefferson and Hamilton spoke with different voices in the country’s evolution, the conflict continues today although public scrutiny threatens polarizing politics as the US wallows in $35 trillion debt with no serious resolution.