The President’s Cabinet: A rocky start to a United States of America
This is the second in a series of columns on the President’s Cabinet. With the advent of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), it might be time to review the departments that support the President’s ongoing job to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare of our citizens.
In this article, I will cover the major reasons that the original organization of our nation failed under the 1777 Articles of Confederation, which led to the adoption of a new Constitution of the United States in 1789. An Executive Branch consisting of the various departments and agencies, known as the President’s Cabinet, was identified in Article II of that document. The term “cabinet” was not mentioned.
Four major issues confronted our country at the end of the American Revolution. We had debts — state and federal. How were they to be paid? We had no way of coining money, managing it, or paying bills. We had no standing army or navy except for a few troops to protect our Western frontier from Native American attacks.
We had no federal court system to solve problems between the various states and enforce the original Articles of Confederation, or established rules of commerce, and could not deal with the issues of those still loyal to the King of England.
We also had no formal way to establish or enforce treaties and other agreements. British troops still occupied some of our lands in the Western frontier. We had given up control of the Mississippi River for 25 years to Spain in the Jay-Gardoqui Treaty of 1786.
It took months for our Congress to ratify the 1783 Treaty of Paris to end the war. This young nation was lucky to have an ocean between it and the European superpowers of Great Britain, France, and Spain, who were busy with other issues. How long would our luck last?
With those issues staring us in the face, very few of our national leaders were thinking of how we would regulate businesses, oversee our agricultural needs, manage our national lands, deal with veterans’ needs, protect our environment, ensure all Americans were afforded an education, regulate our transportation systems, or protect workers from dangerous working conditions and unfair labor practices. That would come later.
In 1779, John Jay, who would become the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said that taxes were “the price of liberty, the peace, and the safety of yourselves and posterity.” He requested the states to pay $45 million to pay the Confederation’s outstanding bills. They declined. He followed his initial request with the statement that “America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent.” The states were unmoved.
Gen. George Washington saw the need for the nation to have a strong central government with a permanent federal army. He had trouble getting funds for his troops to fight the war. His ideas about strong national government were supported by many of his generals. In 1783, he had to deal with what was known as the Newburgh Conspiracy. He was able to quell a desire by members of the army to take action to get back-pay.
Regardless, there still were riots in Pennsylvania that caused Congress to flee from Philadelphia. In 1786, a Massachusetts farmer, Daniel Shays, and his followers violently demonstrated against taxes to pay their state debts. Without a strong central government, the nation was destined to have more problems among dissatisfied citizens.
Perhaps the most vocal of Washington’s generals was Henry Knox. He became the first Secretary of War. Knox blamed a weak Congress for its inability to pay his troops. He felt there should not be 13 armies — one army would do. It should be funded by a central authority. He urged the Congress to write a constitution that included a commander-in-chief. Many of the states already had constitutions that also included a Chief Executive and a Bill of Rights.
On Sept. 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the American Revolutionary War. George Washington was 51 years old. He had fought in the French and Indian War as a British soldier and fought against the British army and their German state mercenaries (inaccurately called Hessians) in our Revolution. He wanted to get back to his beloved Mount Vernon plantation that had been ably managed by wife, Martha.
He resigned his commission as a three-star general in December 1783. In April 1789, he would return to New York City’s Federal Hall to take the oath of office as president under our new constitutional government establishing a strong central government. He immediately went about establishing cabinet positions — the first being secretaries of State, War, Treasury, and Attorney General.
Future columns will cover the different cabinet positions of our Executive Branch.
About this series
This is the second in a series of columns on the president’s cabinet by Bruce Simmons of Aurora, who worked in the private sector in Washington, D.C., for 25 years before leaving to become a high school humanities teacher. He is retired now and writes novels. Visit his website at bwsimmons.org.