The Presidency of George Washington

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University Press of Kansas, 1974 - Biography & Autobiography - 210 pages
In this volume, Forrest McDonald admits that George Washington was no executive genius, and notes that a number of his advisers and cabinet members were considerably more important in formulating programs and policies than he was. Nevertheless, he maintains that, but for Washington, the office of president might not exist today. McDonald asserts that Washington's reputation as a man of integrity, dignity, candor, and republican virtue was well-deserved, and that he contributed best by serving as a symbol.

The book covers the central concerns of Washington's administration: a complex tangle of war debts; the organization of the Bank of the United States; geographical and social factionalism; the emergence of strong national partisan politics; adjustments in federal-state relations; the effort to remain neutral in the face of European tumult; the opening of the Mississippi River; and the removal of the threat of Indians and British in the Northwest Territory. McDonald also describes the rivalry between Washington's two most important department heads, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.
 

Contents

1789
23
The Financial Dilemma
47
Hamiltonianism
67
5 A Federal System of Politics 17911792
89
1793
113
Treaties and Intrigue 17951796
159
The Transfer of Power and An Epilogue
177
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About the author (1974)

Forrest McDonald was born in Orange, Texas on January 7, 1927. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and received a doctorate there in 1955. He taught history at Brown University, Wayne State University, and the University of Alabama, where he retired in 2002. He wrote more than a dozen books including Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution, The American Presidency: An Intellectual History, and biographies of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. He died of heart failure on January 19, 2016 at the age of 89.

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