In these Clinton-esque times, I think it's very important to realize that if we look at the period when the United States was founded as a country in 1780, matters were very different in the way the president was regarded.
The president about whom I'm speaking, George Washington, had a nearly universal outstanding reputation.
This was based primarily, of course, on his victory against the British.
Remember, the British were the most powerful army in the world.
In Washington, especially in his victory in October 1781, the Battle of Yorktown against Lord Cornwallis had defeated the British Army.
This was, you have to imagine the situation, even less than third rate power had defeated the greatest army in the world.
Now, one could, and some people have, raise questions about how good Washington really was as a general.
Thomas Paine wrote an open letter to Washington in September 1796.
He was very angry at Washington because Paine had been a delegate to the French National Convention,
He had been imprisoned and was faced execution by the Jacobins.
Payne was a member of the somewhat more moderate Girondist party.
He blamed Washington for not doing enough to get him out.
So in his open letter, he said that what Washington had done as a general was essentially to do nothing.
He had simply stayed away from the British as much as possible.
But one could argue against Payne that that was actually his great virtue that he had avoided,
although he had only one decisive victory, that was really enough, and he'd done a great deal to defeat the British.
But his prestige didn't rest only on his military attainments.
Even more important at that time was that after winning the war, he went to the Continental Congress of Annapolis and resigned his commission.
He didn't seek any power but simply went into retirement.
And at that time in American history, people tended to draw parallels with classical antiquity.
they were extremely important and Washington was compared with the Roman
soldier Cincinnati's who had been a farmer and then he had been called by
the Romans that they rescued a blockaded Roman army in 458 BC to become
temporarily dictator but after winning the battle he resigned his dictatorship
and simply went back to his form. So Washington was viewed as, like
Cincinnati, as a great, very virtuous person. He had had a chance to, since he
was commander of the army, he had had a chance possibly to establish himself as a
monarch, but instead of doing that, he said to the Congress he had fulfilled his
mission and now was going into retirement. And Lord Byron called him
in Washington, the Cincinnati of the West. Now, given this very high prestige for Washington,
it led people to what I think is a rather strange argument, people of time. They said
something like this, if Washington supports a particular measure, a particular act, then
it must be good, it must have something in it, or at least if we have doubts about this
in this measure, we should overlook them, or at least downgrade them, because after all Washington, who is the greatest and most virtuous man of his time, is supporting these measures.
Well, you can see this is not a terribly good argument, because even if it's true that Washington was such an outstanding person in virtue of matter,
I'm not going to really get into in this talk. It still wouldn't follow that his, the measures of the government he supported were good ones. I mean, we couldn't imagine a very virtuous person or a very outstanding military leader who really had bad ideas about politics and government and so that if people supported him on the grounds of that argument, they would be making a big mistake. But nevertheless, that was an extremely popular
at that time. So it becomes very important then, given that people had this view, namely if Washington supports a measure or supports some plan, they were themselves inclined to support it, to ask what was Washington's view of government. Now in the, here again we have to remember the 1780s was a very different time from the present. Nowadays people who favor strictly
government or the free market tend very often to say they support strictly constitutional
government. They favor, say, strict construction of the Constitution versus the very loose
construction of the Constitution favored by the modern Supreme Court. We must remember
in the 1780s before the Constitution was enacted, the Constitution was not a move in the direction
of Limited Government was a move very much towards centralized power.
Under the Articles of Confederation, which was in effect before the Constitution was established,
the states were virtually sovereign bodies.
You remember, in fact, in the Treaty of Peace ending the war in 1783,
the former colonies are listed separately in the treaty
as the Great Britain is said to have made an agreement with each of the separate colonies,
not with the United States as a whole.
And under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress could not tax without consent of
the states.
All money had to be voted by the states themselves to Congress.
Further, any changes in the Articles of Confederation had to be made by unanimous consent of the
of the States, and it was almost always impossible to get all the states to agree. Rhode Island
was one state that almost never agreed to any changes that the other states wanted.
Now Washington thought this was a very bad system, and he favored a much more centralized
System. He played a crucial role in getting together the
Constitutional Convention. He had been in the early planning even before the
Annapolis Convention of 1786. He had been, which only five
states participated in, he had been at a preliminary meeting in Mount Vernon, his
This Home Designed to Get Together Plans for a More Centralized Government.
If we look at what happened at the Constitutional Convention, again, Washington, when the convention
opened in May 1787, was immediately elected president unanimously, again, Washington was
far and away the most revered figure of the time.
favorite him although he didn't say much at the convention he was very much in on
the major planning particular of his fellow delegates from Virginia and James
Madison who is the generally called the father of the Constitution when he was
proposing his famous Virginia plan for the Constitution wrote out a summary of
The Theory of the Plan prepared it for Washington and got Washington's approval in advance.
And we can see what is this Virginia Plan that Washington approved of.
It was a much more radical plan than what was actually put into effect in the Constitution
itself of the states tremendously and established a much more centralized government.
Of course, this was not voted for by the Constitutional Convention, but you can see that the plan that Madison had in Washington proved it was very much in favor of a centralized government.
I should mention the historian Lance Banning, who's probably the top authority on Madison,
in his recent book, Sacred Fire of Liberty, argues that this plan wasn't so centralized at all.
He says, and I think his argument strikes me as very much going against his conclusion,
he says, well, this wasn't that centralized a plan because, after all, the power to veto any state law
was similar to the power that the British monarch had through the privy council of vetoing any
measure of the colonies, but one might ask, well, why isn't this just an example showing
it was centralized, that the powers of the national government would be equivalent to
those of the British monarchs, similar to those that the United States, the colonies
that Madison seemed to want to re-establish and Washington accepted.
Further, Washington favored a very strong executive power.
In the American Revolution, there had been, of course, a great movement against a strong
executive.
Remember, in the Declaration of Independence, there's a long list of grievances directed
specifically against the king, George III, that said he has done such and such.
So then there are other grievances that start for having done such and such, and those refer
to parliament, but there are a whole lot directed specifically at the king.
So the movement in the colonies, I mean during the revolution, was completely away from strong
executive power, and in fact in the Articles of Confederation, the president of the Continental
The Federal Congress virtually had no power at all, but Washington very much went against
this and he favored an extremely strong executive, and again, the delegates at the convention
went along with this to a great extent because of Washington himself.
They realized that the first president, if there was going to be a president, would be
Washington, of course, since he was such a great and virtuous person, there wouldn't
be any question of abuse of power under him. So they voted for a rather stronger executive
than they perhaps would have voted for had this figure of such tremendous prestige not
When Washington became President, he was very much in the line of a strong ruler.
He had almost all the cabinet departments directly under his control.
The officers would have to report directly to him in written reports on all matters except
Financial and Economic, which I'll get into a bit later. He had to approve everything the government did.
He was also, in spite of his having earlier rejected the chance to become king, if indeed there was such a possibility when he
given up command of the army, he was at least somewhat monarchical in his approach to the president.
He wanted to be called, his mightiness, the President of the United States.
He only abandoned this when people laughed at him.
I think he never forgave the Speaker of the House for laughing at this title.
But he, at first, there was, John Adams was very much one who supported strong court
Ceremony. At first, it seemed as if the presidency would be almost a replica of the British
court, although this was later abandoned. Now, things, as I say, thus moved so far
with Washington's favor to a much more centralized government, but unfortunately,
This doesn't come to the end of Washington's moves in the direction of a more powerful and less limited government.
Remember I said that he had direct control over everything in his administration, particularly the War Department,
Department, which he was a genuine expert, and also State Department and Diplomacy,
which he considered himself an expert, but with one exception, this was Finance
and Economics, and here the control was exercised by his former military aide,
who was also his most influential advisor, Alexander Hamilton. Now, Hamilton
Washington was a strong supporter of an even more centralized government than Washington.
During the Constitutional Convention, he had said that he supported monarchy as the best
form of government, which was not a position likely to win in much popularity.
After he gave that speech, he didn't say much more on the topic, but that accurately
reflected his views. So, he was an extraordinarily intelligent person. The
historian, Forrest MacDonald, who's a great admirer of Hamilton, calls Hamilton
in the most brilliant bastard in American history. Now, what Hamilton's
policy was, which again had the approval of Washington, and again once Washington
One example of this came out in 1790, in the proposal to assume the state debts. During the Revolutionary War, you'll recall, most of the state's
The states had run up enormous debts, and they had a great deal of trouble paying them.
There was a great deal of controversy over what was to be done about these debts, should
they be paid off in full, which is what the Washington favorites, should they be paid
in part with sort of the present value to certain of the bondholders, which was Jefferson
in Madison favored all sorts of other plans. There were some who favored a kind of Rothbardian
policy of total repudiation of the debt, but this was a very unpopular one. Now, the key
here to Hamilton's policy is not so much that he wanted to assume the state debt, but it
was that he didn't want to pay off the debt and then just have the government, the state
Government or the National Government just operate on a balanced budget. He thought that
they should fund the debt, which is the government would give, pay people the interest on the
bonds, but then would continue more and more borrowing. Hamilton initiated the policy of,
it's been so popular ever since, of having government deficit finance. He thought the
Debt was a very good thing and American Keynesians such as Alvin Hansen and others have recognized
that Hamilton was an important predecessor of their views. Further, Hamilton favored
strong protective tariffs using the so-called infant industries argument and again Washington
went along with this. One of the actual disadvantages of the Articles of Confederation had been
that the states could impose taxes and tariffs on each other's goods, but this of
course might have been remedied by other means in the Constitution such as a free
trade agreement, but even though now one of the genuine advantages of the
Constitution was that there was free trade among the states, the states can't
impose duties on each other's goods, Hamilton and with Washington backing him
came up, partly negated the value of this by having the policy of protective tariffs.
This of course played a crucial role much later on in leading to the Civil War because
of southern resentment against tariffs that benefited the northern states.
But this, it was an even more basic assault on limited government that came later by Hamilton.
And this involved his proposal of a national bank for the United States.
The crucial fact here, I think, is not so much the economic particulars of having a
and National Bank, but the constitutional issue that this raised, there appears to be an overwhelming objection to the government establishing a national bank, which is that the Constitution says nothing at all about Congress or any other part of the government having the power to establish such a bank.
Further, the 10th Amendment and the Bill of Rights which the states insisted on for ratification
seems specifically to prohibit the government from assuming new powers.
It says all powers not delegated by this constitution to the government nor prohibited by it to
the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people.
This seems to rule out a national bank altogether, even if one took the view, which I think is
a wrong one, that a national bank was desirable, it seemed that there would be nothing one
could do about it, short of having a constitutional amendment to establish it.
But Hamilton would not let anything like the Constitution stand in his way, and a request
West of Washington, he submitted an analysis, a report on the constitutionality of the bank
and he advanced in this some arguments that have been crucial to the subsequent development
of statism in our country.
One was he said that he used the famous argument of the elastic clause, that Congress has,
One phrase of the Constitution has the power to enact all measures necessary and proper to establishing, to putting into effect whatever powers they've been granted.
So he took this necessary and proper clause to mean that the Congress could establish even measures that aren't specifically mentioned.
Even though there's nothing said about a bank, as long as it was thought necessary and proper to establish some sort of governmental function, which he took in a very broad way, Congress could do it, so there would be practically no limitation at all on the power of the government if this interpretation was accepted.
Now, you might think, well, how would Hamilton get around the 10th amendment, which seems to say, go against us, and say, no, no, any power is not delegated to the government or reserved to the states or to the people.
How would he get around that? Well, he was a very good lawyer.
and the barrier. Again, he resembles the present occupant of the White House in his ability to come up with unexpected nuances of words.
And he pointed out that the 10th Amendment doesn't say all powers expressly delegated by the government to the Constitution are reserved,
not expressly delegated or reserved to the states or to the people. It just says all powers delegated.
So this left it open for these indirect powers, the powers that weren't specifically mentioned
to be given to the central government.
In Hamilton's view, the 10th Amendment virtually did nothing, it really had almost no limitations
at all, imposed no limitations at all on the power of the government.
So this very expansive interpretation of the power of the national government and this
evisceration of the 10th Amendment was accepted by Washington when he signed the bill authorizing
the Bank of the United States in February 1791.
So Washington then accepted the basic premise that has been crucial for the subsequent development
of statism, namely that the Constitution doesn't impose extremely strict limits on Congress,
but through the necessary and proper clause, Congress is in a position to do much more
more than one might have imagined just by reading the specific language of the Constitution.
Now I should mention there's an obvious objection to my argument, I'm sure you all thought of,
that when I've been arguing that Washington's prestige led people to accept or at least not
to object to as much as they otherwise might have to state its measures.
What about the farewell address? Isn't this sort of the founding document of a non-interventionist
foreign policy? And indeed it is, and I think one must give credit here to Washington for,
in this sense, his policies moved strongly in the direction that supported limited government.
The policy in the Farewell Address, I should say the Farewell Address is not an actual speech, it's an article that Washington drafted in September 1796 and was published in the American Gazette, which was the official newspaper setting forward certain principles of government that he was giving when he retired from the presidency.
Policy. There's a lot of controversy on who helped in the draft. Some people think that
Hamilton really wrote most of the farewell address, but this has been disputed. But in
this address, Washington gives some principles that I think very much move in an anti-status
direction, foreign policy. He warns against what he calls inveterate antipathies toward
Particular States or attachments to other states and he suggests that Europe has a
set of concerns that are very distinct from those of the United States and the
United States should avoid intervention in these concerns. The European
politics, power politics, are essentially not an American concern. We should stay
out of them and, as he said, avoid permanent alliances. So his policy there, as I say,
has had very beneficial results in the sense that throughout American history, people have
appealed to Washington's farewell address as a reason to avoid entering the war, even
down to World War II, Opponents of American Intervention of the War, Appeal to the Principles
of the Farewell Address. Unfortunately, since I like to spoil everything, I must say there's
a problem in this use of this argument. Again, we have the fundamental, what I think is fallacious
argument, since Washington supported a policy, therefore it must be a good one. Again, people
People sometimes seem to argue, since Washington favored non-intervention, then we ought to
support this policy, but I think at least it's a less bad argument in that it has good
consequences.
Maybe it's all right to use bad arguments if they have beneficial consequences, but
more seriously, Washington in the farewell address actually gave good arguments for non-interventionism,
The kind I mentioned specifically that the U.S. had separate interests from those of Europe and should avoid interferences in European affairs.
And it's interesting, if we look at later presidents who have gone against Washington's non-interventionist policy, they have the farewell addressed very much in mind.
For example, Harry Truman, in his memoirs, of course, helped inaugurate the Cold War,
expresses very much resentment against the fact that it's a tradition for a member of
the Senate to read the farewell address every year.
He said he was pretty sick of this, and he said this was used by organizations such as
The American First Committee and the Ku Klux Klan.
You notice how with typical subtlety,
Truman links these two organizations.
So he said, this, of course, was outdated.
We couldn't use this now.
And he recognizes the great prestige even then of Washington's policies.
But even though, as I say, we have to give Washington credit
for the non-interventionist policy of the farewell address,
I think on balance he was still very much a supporter of centralized government.
We can see in later American history how much appeals to Washington helped support the moves towards centralization.
For example, Daniel Webster in his 1832 address on the centenary of Washington's birth very much opposed sectionalism
and the moves by various southern states to claim they had the power to nullify state laws on the grounds that Washington had favored a strong national union. Again, as if this were the decisive consideration. Again, during the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, Lincoln was very clear that slavery should be imposed in part because Washington, although himself a slave owner, had been opposed to slavery. Since Washington
Washington, who was the great leader and founder of our country that opposed the slavery, therefore
the sort of policy Lincoln favored of having the forcible intervention against the southern
states was also desirable. He was in the Washingtonian tradition, at least so he pictured himself.
So although then the picture is not an entirely unmixed one because of the farewell address,
I think we can say on balance that Washington was a strong supporter of centralism within
the context of his time and an opponent of limited government. James Madison, who somewhat
repented of his earlier strongly centralist views, predicted once that there would be
There would be a crisis in American government because of the growth of caesarism or dictatorship
and he predicted that this crisis would come about somewhere around 1930.
His prediction proved to be accurate and in part because of Washington's advocacy of centralism,
we've been involved in that same crisis ever since.
Thank you very much.