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United States of America
Presidential Token
Civil War – Pater Patriae – Washington Cabinet Memorial 1859
1859 Bronze Medal 21mm (6.03 grams)
Reference: MedalsUS# 602
PATER PATRIAE, President Washington facing right.
A MEMORIAL OF THE WASHINTON CABINET MAY 1859, Wreath.
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Washington’s Cabinet: The new Constitution empowered the president to appoint executive department heads with the consent of the Senate. Three departments had existed under the Articles of Confederation: the Department of War, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Finance Office. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was re-established on July 27, 1789, and would be renamed to the Department of State in September. The Department of War was retained on August 7, while the Finance office was renamed as the Department of the Treasury on September 2. Congress also considered establishing a Home Department to oversee Native American affairs, the preservation of government documents, and other matters, but the proposed department’s duties were instead folded into the State Department. In September 1789, Congress established the positions of Attorney General, to serve as the chief legal adviser to the president; and Postmaster General, to serve as the head of the postal service. Initially, Washington met individually with the leaders of the executive departments and the Attorney General, but he began to hold joint meetings in 1791, with the first meeting occurring on November 26. The four positions of Secretary of War, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, and Attorney General became collectively known as the cabinet, and Washington held regular cabinet meetings throughout his second term.
Edmund Randolph became the first Attorney General, while Henry Knox retained his position as head of the Department of War. Washington initially offered the position of Secretary of State to John Jay, who had served as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs since 1784 and acted as the interim Secretary of State. After Jay expressed his preference for a judicial appointment, Washington selected Thomas Jefferson as the first permanent Secretary of State. For the key post of Secretary of the Treasury, which would oversee economic policy, Washington chose Alexander Hamilton, after his first choice, Robert Morris, declined. Morris had recommended Hamilton instead, writing “But, my dear general, you will be no loser by my declining the secretaryship of the Treasury, for I can recommend a far cleverer fellow than I am for your minister of finance in the person of your aide-de-camp, Colonel Hamilton.” Washington’s initial cabinet consisted of one individual from New England (Knox), one individual from the Mid-Atlantic (Hamilton), and two Southerners (Jefferson and Randolph).
Washington considered himself to be an expert in both foreign affairs and the Department of War, and as such, according to Forrest McDonald, “he was in practice his own Foreign Secretary and War Secretary.” Jefferson left the cabinet at the end of 1793, and was replaced by Randolph, while William Bradford took over as Attorney General. Like Jefferson, Randolph tended to favor the French in foreign affairs, but he held very little influence in the cabinet. Knox, Hamilton, and Randolph all left the cabinet during Washington’s second term; Randolph was forced to resign during the debate over the Jay Treaty. Timothy Pickering succeeded Knox as Secretary of War, while Oliver Wolcott became Secretary of the Treasury and Charles Lee took the position of Attorney General. In 1795, Pickering became the Secretary of State, and James McHenry replaced Pickering as Secretary of War.
Hamilton and Jefferson had the greatest impact on cabinet deliberations during Washington’s first term. Their deep philosophical differences set them against each other from the outset, and they frequently sparred over economic and foreign policy issues. With Jefferson’s departure, Hamilton came to dominate the cabinet, and he remained very influential within the administration even after he left the cabinet during Washington’s second term to practice law in New York City. Vice presidency Vice President John Adams by John Trumbull
During his two vice-presidential terms, Adams attended few cabinet meetings, and the President sought his counsel only infrequently. Nonetheless, the two men, according to Adams biographer, John E. Ferling, “jointly executed many more of the executive branch’s ceremonial undertakings than would be likely for a contemporary president and vice-president.” In the Senate, Adams played a more active role, particularly during his first term. He often participated in debates in the Senate. On at least one occasion, Adams persuaded senators to vote against legislation he opposed, and he frequently lectured the body on procedural and policy matters. He cast 29 tie-breaking votes.
His first incursion into the legislative realm occurred shortly after he assumed office, during the Senate debates over titles for the president and executive officers of the new government. Although the House of Representatives agreed in short order that the president should be addressed simply as George Washington, President of the United States, the Senate debated the issue at some length. Adams favored the adoption of the style of Highness (as well as the title of Protector of Their States’] Liberties) for the president. Others favored the variant of Electoral Highness or the lesser Excellency. Anti-federalists objected to the monarchical sound of them all. All but three senators eventually agreed upon His Highness the President of the United States and Protector of the Rights of the Same. In the end, Washington yielded to the various objections and the House decided that the title of “Mr. President” would be used.
While Adams brought energy and dedication to the presiding officer’s chair, he found the task “not quite adapted to my character.” Ever cautious about going beyond the constitutional limits of the vice-presidency or of encroaching upon presidential prerogative, Adams often ended up lamenting what he viewed as the “complete insignificance” of his situation. To his wife Abigail he wrote, “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man . . . or his imagination contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet the common fate.” First presidential veto
The Constitution granted the president the power to veto legislation, but Washington was reluctant to encroach on legislative affairs, and he only exercised his veto power twice. He exercised his presidential veto power for the first time on April 5, 1792, to stop an apportionment act from becoming law. The bill would have redistributed House seats among the states in a way that Washington considered unconstitutional. After attempting but failing to override the veto, Congress soon wrote new legislation, the Apportionment Act of 1792, which Washington signed into law on April 14.
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