George Washington. Father of our country. America’s first president. Right?
Wrong.
Do the math. The thirteen original colonies of the United States of America proclaimed their independence in 1776. George Washington became president in 1789. That leaves a gap of thirteen years—thirteen years when someone must have been running the country … right?
Right. And that first someone was a guy by the name of John Hanson—who won the job by a unanimous vote of Congress.
Hanson was then followed by Elias Boudinot, the second president of the United States. And Thomas Mifflin, the third president. Richard Henry Lee, the fourth. Nathan Gorman, the fifth. Arthur St. Clair, the sixth. Cyrus Griffin, the seventh. And George Washington, the eighth.
Pretty weird, huh?
It’s George Washington and the Seven (Political) Dwarves
If seven different men really did serve as president before George Washington, why did we all learn in school that George was number one?
Because George was the first president to rule under the Constitution we follow today. His seven predecessors, on the other hand, all served as president under the Articles of Confederation, a sort of first-draft Constitution.
Many historians deny the legitimacy of Hanson’s presidency because the Articles of Confederation only served to bring the thirteen colonies together into a sort of loose association or “league of friendship” called the Continental Congress.
According to the Articles of Confederation, states had the right to make their own decisions, and since states’ rights were all the rage, there was no provision for a central or national government that would have the right to meddle in the states’ affairs.
In fact, it wasn’t until the passage of the Constitution in 1789 that a federal government was created.
The absence of a federal government, executive branch, or chief executive in the Articles of Confederation was no accident. It was all part of the plan: after all, the authors of the Articles were rebelling against the tyrannical and upper-handed rule of the king of England, so why would they create a new government that gave someone else the power to control their lives?
Unfortunately for John Hanson, this little glitch in our constitutional law has made it possible for some historians to say he was merely the president of the Continental Congress and not of the United States of America.
Confused?
Here’s a quick timeline of history that will make things a lot clearer … since you probably only heard a fraction of this in your high school civics class:
• June 11, 1776: The Articles of Confederation, which proposed that the original thirteen colonies form a loose federal government, were presented to the young Continental Congress.
• November 15, 1777: Congress ratified the Articles, but they were still not the law.
That wouldn’t happen until all thirteen colonies approved.
• 1777–81: Conflict! The citizens of Maryland felt that because the size of their territory was dwarfed by the sizes of Virginia and New York, they wouldn’t get equal representation under the Articles of Confederation unless the two larger states ceded some of their land—thus giving Maryland equal footing in terms of size and representation.
• 1781: Finally! All thirteen colonies have signed the Articles of Confederation.
• November 5, 1781: John Hanson was elected “President of the United States in Congress Assembled” by a unanimous vote of Congress.
• 1787: The Constitution was drafted; it was ratified in 1788 and took effect in 1789.
• February 4, 1789: George Washington was the eighth man to be elected president by a unanimous vote of the Electoral College.
“ … Powers and Duties, Unimaginable to the Founders”
If it’s fair to deny that John Hanson was our first president, then it’s also fair to say most of the other men we recognize as having served as president (all those, say, from Washington to McKinley) weren’t either. For as Edward S. Greenberg and Benjamin I. Page explain in their textbook The Struggle for Democracy:
“Since Franklin Roosevelt’s day, the American presidency has involved powers and duties, unimaginable to the Founders.”
Over time the presidency has evolved. As chief executive, George Washington never had to worry about Middle East terrorism, climate change, healthcare, gay marriage and LGBT rights, a rising or falling number of followers on Twitter, or a host of things that must drive modern presidents mad. Was he any less of a president because of it?
John Hanson: Was He … or Wasn’t He?
So, who are you going to believe? Some history professor who wears tweed, smokes a pipe, and gets paid to put college freshmen to sleep? Or are you going to put your money on a couple of guys who were actually there?
“Mr. President, I feel very sensibly the favorable declaration of Congress expressed by your Excellency.”
—George Washington to John Hanson, a few weeks after Hanson was elected president
“[George] Washington accepts every condition, law, rule and authority, under the Great Seal and the first President of the United States, John Hanson.”
—Thomas Jefferson, while serving as George Washington’s secretary of state
Conspiracy Theorists Wanted: Please Apply within
Here’s the thing about John Hanson’s tenure in office that is impossible to fathom: If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson knew John Hanson was the first president of the United States, how come the rest of us have never heard of him before?
Could it be … a conspiracy?
In 1932 Seymour Wemyss Smith wrote a book called John Hanson, Our First President. In the preface Hal F. Lee reported that:
The only references to John Hanson in the card indices of the New York Public Library mention two articles [both of which Smith wrote] … and the Encyclopaedia Britannica took cognizance of Hanson for the first time in its Fourteenth Edition, dated 1929, having failed even to mention his name in former editions … To George Washington seven pages of the Encyclopedia are justly devoted—to John Hanson but fourteen brief lines.
Furthermore, Lee writes:
Washington was a prolific writer. For a score of years he made almost daily entries in his diary. It is odd that Washington’s diary is so complete up to the date of the election of John Hanson as our first President, Nov. 5, 1781, and that no further entries can be found until almost a year after Hanson’s death. Washington knew Hanson well. It is probable that he commented at length upon Hanson’s administration. But his diary covering this period is missing.
What do you think?
* * *
Okay, it’s true. Lee sounds a bit like a nut. We thought so too—until we cracked open a copy of Encyclopaedia Britannica’s 1954 Great Books series to read the Articles of Confederation verbatim. Everything looked fine until we got to the end … where you would expect to see the names of the forty-eight men—which included the likes of Hanson, of course, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock—who signed the Articles into law. Instead we found just one name printed there:
George Washington.
George, however, was not one of the forty-eight who signed the Articles of Confederation.
Or Was John Hanson Just Too Darn Boring?
If only John Hanson had lived long enough to read this book. He would have known: it’s not what you do as president that counts—it’s how much entertainment you provide and how much coverage in the press you get.
As Seymour Wemyss saw it:
Legends concerning Washington became national epics. He was not only “father of his country.” He chopped down a cherry tree and could not tell a lie. He threw a dollar across the Potomac. He was “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Of such stories are heroes made. Did John Hanson lack an efficient publicity department? Was he too absorbed in his job to think of what we today call “public relations”?
Yup. Too absorbed.
And it’s kind of sad too. Because even though he was a terrible president when it came to doing things to ensure his immortality and his place in history, when it was time to take care of the unimportant stuff—like running the country—Hanson did an admirable job. Especially when you consider that, according to the Articles of Confederation, he was limited to a term of just one year.
A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENT
John Hanson took office just as the Revolutionary War ended, and he ordered all foreign troops off US soil—making it the first time in almost two hundred years that all thirteen colonies were free of foreign armies. He took the United States from a wartime nation following the Revolutionary War to a nation at peace. This meant that he had to drastically reduce the size of the US Army without causing a mutiny, a difficult task considering that the new government had no money to pay existing soldiers for the work they had already done.
When those same unpaid soldiers threatened to take over the new government by force, every single member of the Continental Congress left … except Hanson. Instead he stood tall, and as the lone representative of the new United States government, he negotiated a peaceful settlement.
He created the Treasury Department, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the position of secretary of war. He also chartered a national bank, initiated a postal service, and established the first consular service. He was even, by some accounts, the one to declare the fourth Thursday of every November a national holiday: Thanksgiving.
Not bad for a guy who was in office for just one year.
POOR JOHN HANSON—ALL THE WORK, NONE OF THE GLORY
While writing this, your authors found themselves feeling kind of bad for John Hanson. So bad, in fact, that as soon as we’re finished here we’re going to write to both our representatives in Congress and the president and demand that John Hanson be recognized and given his due. If you’re smart, you’ll do the same. After all, if we work together and successfully convince our leaders in Washington to pass a law that says schools must teach about the “real” first president of the United States—in addition to whatever they already have to say about George Washington—we’ll all accrue great benefit from our efforts.
First, we’ll get the joy and satisfaction of seeing our government at work. Second, we’ll each get an opportunity to experience the thrill of knowing our voices count.
And finally, there’s the most important reason we should join together and undertake this important project: if we’re successful, we’ll all get another day off from work every year. After all, we’re not going to be foolish enough to insist that the federal government crown this guy as “first president of the United States” without also insisting that they make his birthday (April 3) a national holiday too.
BUT WAIT A MINUTE!
Astute readers may have noticed that in spite of all that has been said here about John Hanson, he probably wasn’t the first president of the United States either … since the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 and Hanson didn’t take office until 1781.
So who was in charge before Hanson? For the answer to that question and many others that are sure to arise, we direct you to The Patriot’s Handbook by Dr. George Grant. Even more a purist than the two of us, Grant says we had a president as early as 1774, when the Continental Congress first began to meet. Grant’s list of presidents, therefore, begins with Peyton Randolph of Virginia.
Randolph served as the president of the first Continental Congress from September 5 to October 21, 1774. But while Grant presents a convincing case for Randolph’s presidency, Hanson still gets our vote. After all, you’ll recall Hanson was the guy Washington called “Mr. President” and whom Jefferson called “the first President of the United States.”