7 Powerful tips from President George Washington
The United States is a great nation that has made its mark on the world forever. The President of our country is a person of great power, with the legal ability to abuse his privileged position, which begins the lessons that George Washington wished all of our nation’s leaders would understand.
1. President George Washington did not want to be a king
The President of the United States is not supposed to be our king. The founders of our great nation severed the title of King when they issued the Declaration of Independence. Our founders recognized “absolute despotism” results in “a long train of abuses and usurpations” that lead to “absolute Tyranny.” He said in his farewell address, “The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.”
2. President George Washington believed in a government of the people
President George Washington believed the government should be “of the people, for the people and by the people.” Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among people deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” George Washington sought to hear the people and balanced his trips in order to hear the voices of all people, both in the north and in the south. He said in his Farewell Address, “The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discrimination.”
Our first president warned against “geographical discriminations” or individual political parties that can create separations and other “baneful effects.” He said, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, … is itself frightful despotism.”
3. George Washington believed in limited and cooperative Presidential Powers
President George Washington attempted never to use his powers beyond what was absolutely necessary. At the beginning of our constitutional government our first President worried that our “form of Government” would “become destructive of these ends.” George Washington, when leaving office said, “All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or aw the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency.”
4. President George Washington believed in a balanced government
Our government was divided into three parts: the Executive Branch, Legislative Branch, and Judicial Branch, each with their own powers. George Washington believed in a balanced tripartite system. He wrote, “The Constitution of the United States, and the laws made under it, must mark the line of official conduct.” George Washington said in his farewell address, “The unity of government which constitutes you one people … is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence.”
Our first President advised, “It is important that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.”
George Washington told us to “remember, especially that for the efficient management of your common interests, a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian.”
5. President Washington did not manipulate with Presidential Orders
President Washington stood against Presidential Orders. He used proclamations, sometimes referred to as early Executive Orders, to inform people he was about to act upon existing laws, never to create his own rulings or twist laws in ways preferable to him. (The American Presidency Project). The first Presidential Executive Order (Proclamation), that calls for a Day of National Thanksgiving contains the statement, “Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me … President Washington worked in collaboration with, rather than on his own accord.
President Washington warned against the actions modern Presidents have taken to push their own desires upon the people. After eight years in office, our first President said such things “serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration of the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of a faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and mortified by mutual interests.”
Washington continued, and his words should speak to us today, as he said, “Combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely , in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
6. President George Washington listened and learned from diverse people
President Washington desired to see all people represented in order to accomplish the will of the people. The first Cabinet of the United States included people from both parties, who both agreed and disagreed with him. Both Thomas Jefferson (Secretary of State, Republican) and Alexander Hamilton (Secretary of the Treasury, Federalist) who held different opinions on most issues served together. Thomas Jefferson said our first President heard all suggestions and took his time in selecting whatever was best. Neither hatred nor friendship could bias his decisions.
Washington said, his opinion was “that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty.”
7. President George Washington believed the Constitution represented our best future
The Constitution of the United States lists six reasons for our government’s existence: 1) to establish Justice; 2) to insure domestic tranquility; 3) to provide for the common defense, 4) to promote the general welfare, 5) to secure the blessings of liberty; 6) to ensure the blessings of liberty are provided for the next generations.
Our first president said, “In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, the firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.”
