Kenneth Baker - George Washingtons War: In Caricature and Print

THE GREATEST IRONY of the American Revolution was that when George Washington assumed the role of president in 1787, he was given greater personal powers than were ever enjoyed by George III. He could appoint not only ministers but ambassadors, consuls, administrative officers and Supreme Court judges, and as commander-in-chief he could send his country to war, make treaties and conduct his own foreign policy independent of Congress.

George Washington
Washington to John Adams:
Sir, you have given yourselves a King under the title of President.

In 1776 it suited the rebels to demonise George III as a tyrant. In earlier years the target for attack had been the British Parliament and insensitive British ministers, but it was necessary to have a more personal target to motivate the patriotism of the foot soldiers of the revolution. The United States had to be seen to emerge as a nation by confronting and defeating a foreign despot.

The consequence of the Revolutionary War was that the people of America swapped a hereditary monarchy with limited powers for an elective monarchy which had much wider powers. The revolutionaries who had hoped for some wider distribution of power in the new American state were disappointed. Hannah Griffiths, a Quaker from Pennsylvania, in 1785 said it in verse:

The glorius fourth again appears
The day of days and the year of years
The sum of sad disasters.
When all the mighty gains we see
With all their boasted liberty
Is only change of masters.

The constitution agreed in September 1787 was shaped by a Conservative elite planters, farmers, merchants, lawyers, bankers and businessmen the radicals and revolutionaries were simply excluded. The President, the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court created a centralised government whose powers far exceeded the British colonial system that it had overthrown. The popular uprising known as Shays Rebellion was ruthlessly suppressed in 1786 and in 1794 when disgruntled Pennsylvanians objected to an excise duty on whisky, which was virtually indistinguishable from the levies that Britain had imposed thirty years earlier. Washington ordered 15,000 troops to quell the revolt. Tom Paine, the hero of 1776 and who had coined the phrase The United States of America. on visiting again at the end of Washingtons second term, wondered whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.

Washington had become the first president in April 1789. He was partially deaf and almost toothless, but he knew that he was needed to bind the country together. One of his first acts was to designate 26 November as a day of Thanksgiving. The founders of the constitution had made the executive head, the president, also the ceremonial head of the country. Washington revelled in this and during the debate on what title should be used to show respect he secretly favoured the style of High Mightiness. He was one of the wealthiest men in America Robert Morris, the wealthy New York banker, referred to him as Americas first Millionaire. He had all the trappings of a monarch: six white horses drew his canary-coloured carriage and when he ceremonially visited New York a choir on a ship alongside praised him in verses sung to the tune of God Save the King. His wife, Martha, held court in her salon on Friday evenings, just as Queen Charlotte did in her drawing room in London, and her husband remained aloof, not shaking hands with anyone. Many appreciated these trappings of royalty the African-born Phyllis Wheatley put it neatly in verse:

A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, Washington! Be thine.

George III

On hearing that Washington was not going to stand again as president for a third term, he generously acknowledged that he was the most distinguished character of the age.

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