Washington's Second Term

I was mentioning to a friend yesterday how interesting history was. Her opinion was that history was incredibly boring, which made me wonder how history is being taught on the elementary, junior and high school levels. Also made me grateful for writers who delve into the subject and write books on the subject. It teaches me that the more things change the more they stay the say. It also makes me admire George Washington more than I did in the past.

Think of what Washington had to do during his first term. There were no cabinet positions, no Treasury Department.  The war was financed privately by bankers here and by France. At the end of his first term, both Jefferson and Hamilton (who disliked each other) begged him to run for a second term. Martha was dead set against it but that's another blog.

Washington's second term in office was a nightmare.  Within a week after his inauguration news from France arrived that the King and Queen had been sent to the guillotine. His friend, Lafayette escaped to Austria only to be put into a prison there. Many of the French aristocratic families who supported the American cause were executed. Then the new administration learned that the new French government was at war with England, the Netherlands, Prussia and Russia. This was terrible because by the terms of the Treaty of 1784 the U.S. was obligated to support France. Was the treaty still binding? It had been made with Louis XVI and he was dead.

As if this weren't bad enough a deadly yellow fever epidemic struck Philadelphia, then the new nation's capitol. After the epidemic passed Congress refused to meet in Philadelphia and the government was moved to Germantown. Following that Jefferson resigned from the government and was hard at work building an opposition party--the Republican Party. Washington was a Federalist. Then in 1794 there was the Whiskey Insurrection/Rebellion because of the tax on whiskey.

Another danger loomed on the horizon from Great Britain. She had never evacuated the Northwest Territory and agents there encouraged Indian attacks along the frontier. At sea Great Britain refused to accept American neutrality and seized American sailors to man their ships. Then France got in the game and did the same.

This is the tip of the iceberg. It's a wonder we survived.

All these events took place without modern technology and still we survived. Amazing. And yet, on some levels it sounds like items we read in the newspapers or hear on television each day.