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George Washington
(1789-1797)
June 15, 1775 -
Second
Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George
Washington head of the Continental Army.
April 3, 1776 - George Washington received an
honorary doctor of laws degree from Harvard College.
August 7, 1782 - George
Washington created the Order of the Purple Heart, a decoration to
recognize merit in enlisted men and noncommissioned officers. The
"Badge for Military Merit," a decoration consisted of a purple,
heart-shaped piece of silk, edged with a narrow binding of silver,
with the word Merit stitched across the face in silver. The badge
was to be presented to soldiers for "any singularly meritorious
action" and permitted its wearer to pass guards and sentinels
without challenge. The honoree's name and regiment were also to be
inscribed in a "Book of Merit." awarded to only three known
soldiers during the Revolutionary War: Elijah Churchill, William
Brown, and Daniel Bissell, Jr. The "Book of Merit" was lost, and
the decoration was largely forgotten until 1927 -
when General Charles P. Summerall, the U.S. Army chief of staff,
sent an unsuccessful draft bill to Congress to "revive the Badge
of Military Merit." In 1931 - Summerall's successor,
General Douglas MacArthur, took up the cause, hoping to reinstate
the medal in time for the bicentennial of George Washington's
birth. February 22, 1932 - Washington's 200th
birthday, the U.S. War Department announced the creation of the
"Order of the Purple Heart."
September 16, 1782 - George Washington first used
the Great Seal of the United States on a document.
November 2, 1783 - In Rocky Hill, New Jersey, US
General George Washington gives his "Farewell Address to the
Army".
December 4, 1783 - Gen. George Washington said
farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.
December 23, 1788
- Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the seat of
the national government; about two-thirds of the area became the
District of Columbia.
February 4, 1789
- George Washington, the commander of the Continental Army during
the Revolutionary War, is unanimously elected the first president
of the United States by all 69 presidential electors (represented
10 of the 11 states that had ratified the U.S. Constitution) who
cast their votes; John Adams of Massachusetts, who received 34
votes, was elected vice president; March 4, 1789 -
Government by the United States began; inaugural ceremony was
performed on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street, and a
large crowed cheered after he took the oath of office. The
president then retired indoors to read Congress his inaugural
address, a quiet speech in which he spoke of "the experiment
entrusted to the hands of the American people"; 1792
- unanimously reelected but four years later refused a third term.
March 12, 1789 - U.S. Post Office established.
April 1, 1789 - The U.S. House of Representatives
held its first full meeting in New York City; Frederick Muhlenberg
of Pennsylvania was elected the first speaker.
April 6, 1789 - First U.S. Congress begins regular
sessions, Federal Hall, New York City.
April 16, 1789 - President-elect George Washington
left Mount Vernon, VA, for his inauguration in New York.
Washington was 57 years old when he took leave of his family,
friends and staff at the Mount Vernon estate, to which he had
retired after leading the Continental Army to victory in the
Revolutionary War. Eight days after leaving Mt. Vernon, Washington
arrived in New York, where he gamely set out to "render service to
my country…with less hope of answering its expectations." Official
inaugural ceremonies commenced on April 30.
April 21, 1789 - John Adams was sworn in as
the first vice president of the United States.
April 23, 1789
- President-elect George Washington and his wife moved into the
first executive mansion, the Franklin House in New York City.
April 30, 1789
- George Washington took office in New York as the first president
of the United States. He came across the Hudson River in a
specially built and decorated barge. The inaugural ceremony was
performed on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street. In front
of 10,000 spectators, Washington appeared in a plain brown
broadcloth suit holding a ceremonial army sword. With Vice
President John Adams standing beside him, Washington repeated the
words prompted by Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, kissed the
bible and then went to the Senate chamber to deliver his inaugural
address, a quiet speech in which he spoke of "the experiment
entrusted to the hands of the American people." After delivering
his address, Washington walked up Broadway with a group of
legislators and local political leaders to pray at St. Paul’s
Chapel. The evening celebration was opened and closed by 13
skyrockets and 13 cannons. February 1789 - all 69
presidential electors unanimously chose Washington to be the first
U.S. president; March - the new U.S. constitution
officially took effect; April - Congress formally
sent word to Washington that he had won the presidency. He
borrowed money to pay off his debts in Virginia and traveled to
New York. 1792 - he was unanimously re-elected but
four years later refused a third term; 1797 - he
finally began a long-awaited retirement at his estate in Virginia.
He died two years later. His friend Henry Lee provided a famous
eulogy for the father of the United States: "First in war, first
in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
May 7, 1789 - The first inaugural ball was held, for
George Washington in New York.
May 12, 1789 - William Wilberforce (30) delivered
4-hour speech to Britain's House of Commons about abolishing
slavery; March 25, 1807 - Abolition of the Slave
Trade Act gained Royal Assent; July 26, 1833 -
arguments of compensation of slaves heard, slavery abolished.
July 14, 1789 - During the French Revolution,
citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison (built in 1370 to
protect the walled city of Paris from English attack) and released
the seven prisoners inside; royal fortress had come to symbolize
the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs. This dramatic action signaled
the beginning of the French Revolution. Joined by four-fifths of
the French army, the revolutionaries seized control of Paris and
the French countryside, forced King Louis XVI to accept a
constitutional government. 1792 - the monarchy
was abolished and Louis and his wife Marie-Antoinette were sent to
the guillotine for treason in 1793. February 6, 1790
- the last stone of the hated prison-fortress was presented to the
National Assembly.
July 27, 1789 - Congress established the Department
of Foreign Affairs, the forerunner of the State Department.
August 1, 1789 - Newly formed United States
Government passed Tariff Act, nation's first tariff legislation;
designed to protect America's burgeoning interests in foreign
trade; U.S. Customs began enforcing Tariff Act.
August 7, 1789 - The U.S. War Department was
established by Congress.
September 2, 1789 - The U.S. Treasury Department was
established. President Washington named his former "aide-de-camp,"
Alexander Hamilton,
former New York lawyer and
staunch Federalist,
as Secretary of the Treasury on September 11. Hamilton outlined a
practical plan for reviving the nation's ailing economy: the
Government would pay back its $75 million war debt and repair its
public credit. August 31, 1939 - U.S. Treasury Department moved to
its headquarters at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in
Washington, D.C. The Treasury Building was designed in high Greek
Revival style by architect Robert Mills.
September 11, 1789 - Alexander Hamilton was
appointed the first secretary of the treasury a week after the
official founding of the Treasury Department. Hamilton was
Washington's aide-de-camp during the American Revolution, was
instrumental in the formation of the U.S. Constitution. During
Washington's administration, Hamilton, with his support of strong
federal government and conservative property rights, often came
into conflict with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, a
Democratic idealist who favored states' rights.
September 15, 1789 - The U.S. Department of Foreign
Affairs was renamed the Department of State.
September 18, 1789 - The U.S. took out its first
loan. Alexander Hamilton took the loan from the Bank of New York
and Bank of North America; government took a little under a year
to pay back the loan of $191, 608.81.
September 22, 1789 - Congress authorized the office
of Postmaster-General.
September 24, 1789 - Congress passed the First
Judiciary Act, which provided for an attorney general and a
Supreme Court as a tribunal made up of six justices who were to
serve on the court until death or retirement. President Washington
nominated John Jay to preside as chief justice, and John Rutledge,
William Cushing, John Blair, Robert Harrison, and James Wilson to
be associate justices. September 26 - all six appointments were
confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
September 26, 1789 - Thomas Jefferson was appointed
America's first secretary of state and John Jay the first chief
justice of the United States.
September 28, 1789 - First Federal Congress passed a
resolution asking that the President of the United States
recommend to the nation a day of thanksgiving. A few days later,
President George Washington issued a proclamation naming Thursday,
November 26, 1789 as a "Day of Publick Thanksgivin" - the first
time Thanksgiving was celebrated under the new Constitution;
1863 - President Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation
that Thanksgiving be regularly commemorated each year on the last
Thursday of November; 1939 - President Franklin D.
Roosevelt issued a Presidential Proclamation moving Thanksgiving
to the second to last Thursday of November; October 6, 1941
- House passed a joint resolution declaring the last Thursday in
November to be the legal Thanksgiving Day. The Senate, however,
amended the resolution establishing the holiday as the fourth
Thursday, which would take into account those years when November
has five Thursdays. The House agreed to the amendment;
December 26, 1941 - President Roosevelt signed the
resolution, thus establishing the fourth Thursday in November as
the Federal Thanksgiving Day holiday
(http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/thanksgiving/index.html).
September 29, 1789 - The U.S. War Department
established a regular army with a strength of several hundred men;
Josiah Harmar was appointed the first commander-in-chief of the
U.S. Army.
October 3, 1789 - George Washington proclaims the
first Thanksgiving Day.
October 19, 1789- Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in
as the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
November 13, 1789 - George Washington returns
to Washington at the end of his first presidential tour (4 weeks)
through New England by stagecoach; visited northern states that
had ratified the U.S. Constitution; traveled as far north as
Kittering, Maine (still a part of Massachusetts); 1791
- President Washington embarked on his first presidential visit to
the southern states; made a 1,887-mile round-trip journey from his
estate at Mount Vernon, Virginia.
1790 - Grigory Shelikhov, a Russian fur trader who
founded founds Three Saints Bay, first permanent Russian
settlement in Alaska, dispatched Aleksandr Baranov to manage his
affairs in Alaska. Baranov established the Russian American
Company. 1799 - granted a monopoly over Alaska.
Baranov extended the Russian trade far down the west coast of
North America. 1812 - after several unsuccessful
attempts, founded a settlement in Northern California near Bodega
Bay. Russian interests in Alaska gradually declined, and after the
Crimean War in the 1850s, a nearly bankrupt Russia sought to
dispose of the territory altogether.
January 8, 1790 - President George Washington
delivers the first State of the Union address to the assembled
Congress in New York City; gave a brief outline of his
administration’s defense, foreign policy and domestic policies as
designed by Alexander Hamilton: 1) defense (preparedness for war);
2) charged Congress with creating "a competent fund designated for
defraying the expenses incident to the conduct of our foreign
affairs," "a uniform rule of naturalization," and "Uniformity in
the Currency, Weights and Measures of the United States"; 3) money
for and some measure of control over "Agriculture, Commerce and
Manufactures" as well as "Science and Literature." These national
goals required a Federal "Post-Office and Post-Roads" and a means
of public education, which the president justified as a means to
secure the Constitution, by educating future public servants in
the republican principles of representative government.
February 1, 1790 - The Supreme Court of the United
States (established by Article Three of the U.S. Constitution,
which took effect in March 1789) met for the first time, in the
Royal Exchange Building on New York City's Broad Street, with Chief Justice John Jay of New
York presiding.
February 20, 1790 - President George Washington
signed an act creating the U.S. Post Office.
March 1, 1790 - Congress authorized the first US
Census.
March 4, 1791 - Vermont became the 14th state.
March 22, 1790 - Thomas Jefferson assumes duties as first
US Secretary of State.
March 26, 1790 - Congress passes
Naturalization Act, requires 2-year residency.
April 3, 1790 - Revenue Marine Service, U.S. Coast
Guard, created.
April 10, 1790 -
Congress passed the Patent Act;
created U.S. patent system;
July 31, 1790
- The first U.S. Patent Office opened, first
patent issued to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for a method of making
pearlash and potash (used as ingredient in soap and fertilizer);
patent granted for term of 14 years, signed by George Washington.
Hopkins did not get Patent #1 as thousands of patents were issued
before the Patent Office began to number them. Only two other
patents were granted that year - one for a new candle-making
process and the other the flour-milling machinery of Oliver Evans.
May 8, 1790 - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
and French National Assembly created simple, stable, decimal
system of measurement units. The earliest meter unit chosen was
the length of a pendulum with a half-period of a second.
March 30, 1791 - Assembly revised the definition of the
meter to be 1/10 000 000 of the distance between the north pole
and the equator. April 7, 1795 - Convention decreed
that the new "Republican Measures" were to be henceforth legal
measures in France. The metric system adopted prefixes: greek for
multiples and latin for decimal fractions.
May 30, 1790 - President George Washington signed
the first US copyright law, giving 14 years' protection to books
written by US citizens.
July 16, 1790
- Congress declares that a swampy, humid, muddy and
mosquito-infested site on the Potomac River between Maryland and
Virginia will be the nation’s permanent capital. It was George
Washington who saw the area’s potential economic and accessibility
benefits due to the proximity of navigable rivers.
July 26, 1790 - U.S. passes Assumption bill
making U.S. responsible for state debts.
August 1, 1790 - The first U.S. census was
completed, showing a population of nearly 4 million people.
August 4, 1790 - Coast Guard began as the Revenue
Cutter Service.
December 14, 1790
- Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton proposed the Bank
of the United States to assume responsibility for easing the
nation's debt, to establish a healthy line of credit; bank's
distinctly Federalist bent angered planters and states' rights
proponents, charged Hamilton with catering to "monied interests,"
derided his plan as unconstitutional; February 25, 1791 -
President Washington signed the bill for the bank.
January 28, 1791 - Secretary of Treasury Alexander
Hamilton delivered a report to the House on the establishment of a
national mint (authorized on April 2, 1792).
March 3, 1791
- The District of Columbia was organized, establishing a
non-partisan home for the federal government.
March 4, 1791 - President Washington calls the U.S.
Senate into its first special session.
November 26, 1791 - The President's cabinet
originated, as President Washington met with the heads of various
departments.
December 12, 1791
- The First Bank of the United States opened. It provided national
currency and acted as the government's fiscal agent.
February 20, 1792
- President George Washington signed the Postal Service Act
creating the U.S. Post Office; outlined in detail Congressional
power to establish official mail routes; allowed for newspapers to
be included in mail deliveries and made it illegal for postal
officials to open anyone’s mail; 1792 - a young
American nation of approximately 4 million people enjoyed
federally funded postal services including 75 regional post
offices and 2,400 miles of postal routes. The cost of sending a
letter ranged from 6 cents to 12 cents. Under Washington, the
Postal Service administration was headquartered in Philadelphia.
1800 - it followed other federal agencies to the
nation’s new capital in Washington, DC.
February 21,
1792 - Congress passes
President Succession Act.
April 2, 1792 - Congress passed The Coinage Act,
which created the Mint and authorized construction of a Mint
building in the nation's capitol, Philadelphia. This was the first
federal building erected under the Constitution. President George
Washington appointed Philadelphian David Rittenhouse, a leading
American scientist, as the first Director of the Mint. March
1793 - Mint's first circulating coins, 11,178 copper
cents, delivered. Soon after, the Mint began issuing gold and
silver coins as well. President Washington, who lived only a few
blocks from the new Mint, is believed to have donated some of his
own silver for minting.
April 5, 1792 - George Washington cast the first
presidential veto, rejected a congressional measure for
apportioning representatives among the states;
bill introduced a new plan for dividing seats in the House of
Representatives that would have increased the amount of seats for
northern states. After consulting with his politically divided and
contentious cabinet, Washington, who came from the "southern"
state of Virginia, ultimately decided that the plan was
unconstitutional because, in providing for additional
representatives for some states, it would have introduced a number
of representatives higher than that proscribed by the
Constitution; exercised his veto power only one other time during
his two terms in office; February 1797 - vetoed an
act that would have reduced the number of cavalry units in the
army.
April 20, 1792 - France declared war on Austria,
marking the start of the French Revolutionary wars.
April 24, 1792 -Capt.
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed the French national
anthem, ''La Marseillaise''. July 30, 1792 - first
sung in Paris.
May 8, 1792 - Congress passes the second portion of
the Militia Act, requiring that "every free able-bodied white male
citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or
shall be of age eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five
years… be enrolled in the militia." May 2- Congress
had established the president’s right to call out the militia. The
outbreak of Shay’s Rebellion, a protest against taxation and debt
prosecution in western Massachusetts in 1786-87, had first
convinced many Americans that the federal government should be
given the power to put down rebellions within the states. The
inability of the Continental Congress under the Articles of
Confederation to respond to the crisis was a major motivation for
the peaceful overthrow of the government and the drafting of a new
federal Constitution. Shortly after its passage, farmers in
western Pennsylvania, angered by a federal excise tax on whiskey,
attacked the home of a tax collector and then, with their ranks
swollen to 6,000 camped outside Pittsburgh, threatened to march on
the town. In response, President Washington, under the auspices of
the Militia Act, assembled 15,000 men from the surrounding states
and eastern Pennsylvania as a federal militia commanded by
Virginia’s Henry Lee to march upon the Pittsburgh encampment. Upon
its arrival, the federal militia found none of the rebels willing
to fight. The mere threat of federal force had quelled the
rebellion and established the supremacy of the federal government.
June 1, 1792- Kentucky became the 15th state of the
union.
September 21, 1792 - The French National Convention
voted to abolish the monarchy; the French Republic was then
proclaimed.
October 13, 1792 - The cornerstone is laid for a
presidential residence in the newly designated capital city of
Washington. Work began on the neoclassical White House building at
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue under the guidance of Irish American
architect James Hoban, whose design was influenced by Leinster
House in Dublin and by a building sketch in James Gibbs' Book of
Architecture. President George Washington chose the site.
December 5, 1792 - George Washington was re-elected
president and John Adams was re-elected vice president.
June 10, 1793
- Washington replaced Philadelphia as U.S. capital.
February 12, 1793 - Congress passes the first
fugitive slave law, requiring all states, including those that
forbid slavery, to forcibly return slaves who have escaped from
other states to their original owners. The laws stated that "no
person held to service of labor in one state, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law
or regulation therein, be discharged from such labor or service or
labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom
such service or labor may be due"; disregard of the first fugitive
slave law enraged Southern states and led to the passage of a
second fugitive slave law as part of the Compromise of 1850
between the North and South; Notable fugitive slave trials, such
as the Dred Scott case of 1857, stirred up public opinion on both
sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Meanwhile, fugitive slaves
circumvented the law through the "Underground Railroad," which was
a network of persons, primarily free African Americans, who helped
fugitives escape to freedom in the Northern states or Canada.
February 25, 1793
- George Washington convened the first Cabinet meeting on
record - at his home.
March 4, 1793 - Washington's second inauguration,
shortest speech (133 words).
April 22, 1793 - President Washington attends
opening of Rickett's, first circus in U.S. (established in
Philadelphia by John Bill Ricketts).
June 23, 1793 - The first republican constitution in
France was adopted.
September 5, 1793 - The Reign of Terror began during
the French Revolution as the National Convention instituted harsh
measures to repress counterrevolutionary activities.
September 18, 1793 - President George Washington
laid the cornerstone for the U.S. Capitol.
January 13, 1794
- President George Washington approved a measure adding two
stars and two stripes to the American flag; followed
admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the union.
March 27, 1794
- President George
Washington and Congress authorized creation of the U.S. Navy.
May 8, 1794
- The United States Post Office was established.
June 5, 1794
- Congress passed the Neutrality Act, prohibiting Americans from
enlisting in the service of a foreign power; first instance of
municipal legislation in support of the obligations of neutrality,
and a remarkable advance in the development of international law.
July 27, 1794
- French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre, architect of
the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, was overthrown and placed
under arrest by the National Convention; he was executed the
following day. As the leading member of the Committee of Public
Safety from 1793, Robespierre encouraged the execution, mostly by
guillotine, of more than 17,000 enemies of the Revolution. The day
after his arrest, Robespierre and 21 of his followers were
guillotined without a trial in the Place de la Revolution. During
the next few days, another 82 Robespierre followers were executed.
The Reign of Terror was at an end.
August 7, 1794
- Irate farmers in the Monoghaela Valley of Pennsylvania rose up
against the federal tax on liquor and stills in the so-called
Whiskey Rebellion, torched tax collector's homes, as well as
"tarring and feathering revenue officers." The government moved
quickly to quell the rebellion: President Washington called in
12,900 Federal troops from to surrounding states to forcefully
usher the farmers back to their homes.
November 3, 1794
- Thomas Paine was released from a Parisian jail with the help of
U.S. ambassador James Monroe.
November 19, 1794
- The United States and Britain signed the Jay Treaty, which
resolved some issues left over from the Revolutionary War. The
most important problem was British retention of a string of small
military posts in northwestern U.S. territory that London had
explicitly agreed to vacate as part of the treaty of 1783. In
addition, British hindrance of American trade and shipping was
causing serious tensions between the two countries. The only
concessions Jay obtained was a surrender of the northwestern
posts--already agreed to in 1783--and a commercial treaty with
Great Britain that granted the United States "most favored nation"
status, but seriously restricted U.S. commercial access to the
British West Indies. All other outstanding issues--the
Canadian-Maine boundary, compensation for pre-revolutionary debts,
and British seizures of American ships--were to be resolved by
arbitration. The treaty was immensely unpopular; "Sir John Jay"
became one of the most hated Americans, "damned and double damned"
for caving in to the British. June 24, 1795 - The
treaty squeaked through the Senate on a 20 to 10 vote. President
Washington courageously implemented the treaty in the face of
popular disapproval, realizing that it was the price of peace with
Great Britain and that it gave the United States valuable time to
consolidate and rearm in the event of future conflict.
January 31, 1795
- Alexander Hamilton resigned his post as the Secretary of the
Treasury (established national bank and a tax-based system to
repay of national and foreign debts).
April 7, 1795
- France adopted by law, the meter, as the unit of length and the
base of the metric system = defined as one ten-millionth part of
the distance between the poles and the equator as measured by an
arc of the meridian from Dunkirk to Barcelona.
June 24, 1795
- U.S. and Great Britain sign Jay Treaty, first U.S. extradition
treaty.
July 1, 1795
- John Rutledge becomes second chief justice of Supreme Court.
July 15, 1795
- The "La Marseillaise," written by Claude-Joseph Rouget de
Lisle in 1792, was officially adopted as the French national
anthem.
August 18, 1795
- President George Washington signs the Jay (or "Jay’s") Treaty
with Great Britain; known officially as the "Treaty of Amity
Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty; and The
United States of America"; attempted to diffuse the tensions
between England and the United States that had risen to renewed
heights since the end of the Revolutionary War. The U.S.
government objected to English military posts along America’s
northern and western borders and Britain’s violation of American
neutrality in 1794 when the Royal Navy seized American ships in
the West Indies during England’s war with France. The treaty,
written and negotiated by Supreme Court Chief Justice (and
Washington appointee) John Jay, was signed by Britain’s King
George III on November 19, 1794 in London. However, after Jay
returned home with news of the treaty’s signing, Washington, now
in his second term, encountered fierce Congressional opposition to
the treaty; by 1795, its ratification was uncertain. Leading the
opposition to the treaty were two future presidents: Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison, mistrusted Washington’s attachment to
maintaining friendly relations with England over revolutionary
France, who would have welcomed the U.S. as a partner in an
expanded war against England. Approved by Congress on August 14,
1795.
October 27, 1795
- Pinckney's Treaty, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or
the Treaty of Madrid, between Spain and U.S. is signed (negotiated
by Thomas Pinckney, America's special envoy to Spain), established
southern boundary of U.S. and giving Americans right to send goods
down Mississippi. Spain and the United States agreed that the
southern boundary of the United States with the Spanish Colonies
of East and West Florida was a line beginning on the Mississippi
River at the 31st degree north latitude drawn due east to the
middle of the Chattahoochee River and from there along the middle
of the river to the junction with the Flint River and from there
straight to the headwaters of the St. Marys River and from there
along the middle of the channel to the Atlantic Ocean. This
describes the current boundary between the present state of
Florida and Georgia and the line from the northern boundary of the
Florida panhandle to the northern boundary of that portion of
Louisiana east of the Mississippi.
January 4, 1796
- House of Representatives accepts the "Colors," or flag, of the
French Revolutionary Republic, proclaiming it "the most honorable
testimonial of the existing sympathies and affections of the two
Republics." In an accompanying message, the French Committee of
Public Safety lauded the United States as "the first defenders of
the rights of man, in another hemisphere." The French
revolutionaries were eager to link their overthrow of Louis XVI in
1789 to that of King George III in 1776. They viewed the
Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights as American
precursors to their own revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of
Man. New republic was deeply divided over the French Revolution.
Future President Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican
Party were impassioned supporters of the revolutionaries, even as
they turned to terror as a means of achieving their goals. By
contrast, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and
the rest of the Federalists looked upon the bloodbath the French
Revolution had become with horror.
March 8, 1796
- Supreme Court handed down an early decision on taxation in the
case of Hylton v. United States. The Court ruled that the carriage
tax, the issue at the heart of the case, was an indirect tax. As
such, the carriage tax was deemed constitutional, marking the
first time in U.S. history that Court had weighed in on the
constitutionality of legislation that had been passed by Congress.
June 1, 1796
- Tennessee became the 16th state.
July 22, 1796
- The city of Cleveland was founded by Gen. Moses Cleaveland.
September 17, 1796
- President George Washington delivered his "Farewell Address" to
Congress before concluding his second term in office.
December 7, 1796
- Electors chose John Adams to be the second president of the
United States.
January 1, 1797
- Albany became the capital of New York state, replacing New York
City.
December 26, 1799
- George Washington was eulogized by Col. Henry Lee as ''first in
war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.''
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George Washington and the American
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His Excellency: George Washington.
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--- (1970).
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______________________________________________
Links
George Washington: A National Treasure
http://georgewashington.si.edu/
Presents the first U.S. president through an exploration of the
Landsdowne portrait of him by Gilbert Stuart. The site provides an
interactive, detailed look at the portrait, using symbolic,
biographic, and artistic filters. The site also has a chronology
of Washington's life, a Town Hall with several discussion forums,
a section for children, and more. From the Smithsonian.
Washington's Birthday Celebration Association
http://www.wbcalaredo.org/index.html
Founded in 1898, is the largest Celebration of its kind in the
United States with approximately 400,000 attendees annually. The
almost month-long celebration includes parades, a carnival, an air
show, fireworks, live concerts and many other fun and exciting
events for every member of the family. |
