The Glenn Beck Program - Inside the First Presidency: Power, Fear, and the Bill of Rights | The American Story | Ep 9

Episode Date: June 6, 2026

In this episode we enter the pressure-filled launch of America’s government and get to know the major figures who shaped its destiny.  Relive George Washington's reluctant ascent to the presidency, from his Mount Vernon solitude to a triumphant inauguration amid national fears of monarchy.  Discover how James Madison championed the Bill of Rights against skeptics, ensuring fundamental American freedoms.  And inside Washington’s Cabinet, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson ignite a political rivalry so fierce it will define American government for centuries.  It’s the story of the human drama behind the Constitution’s first real tests, and how close the American experiment came to collapsing before it ever began. GLENN'S SPONSORS: PreBorn: Together, we can end the tragedy of abortion, one mother and baby at a time. To donate securely, dial #250 and say the keyword “baby,” or visit ⁠https://preborn.com/glenn⁠. Relief Factor: If you’re living with aches and pains, see how Relief Factor, a daily drug-free supplement, could help you feel better and live better. Try the three-week QuickStart for just $19.95 by visiting https://ReliefFactor.com. Jase Medical: Get your personalized emergency medical kit today. Visit https://jase.com/ and enter code “BECK” at checkout for a discount on your order. American Financing: American Financing can show you how to put your hard-earned equity to work and get you out of debt. Dial ⁠800-906-2440⁠, or visit ⁠https://www.americanfinancing.net⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

George Washington sits alone in Mount Vernon. He's staring into a misty morning, relishing the quiet. Outside, the Potomac River rolls quietly past, indifferent to the weight settling on Washington's shoulders. It's 1788, and he is, at least for the moment, a private man once again, a soldier in retirement, a farmer, a man who's already given everything he had to a country that just keeps asking for more. And today, it's asking again. Letters pile up on his desk like insistent knocks, friends, colleagues, respected officers from war, statesmen from every corner of the young republic, and all of them are saying the same thing. This fragile new experiment in self-government requires the best leadership.

You must be the president. A heartfelt appeal arrives from France, written in the unmistakable hand. of the Marquis D. Lafayette, one of Washington's officers and good friends during the revolution. Washington reads it more than once, maybe because it says what no one else dares to say. I beg you, my dear genera, do not refuse the responsibility of the presidency during the first few years. You alone can make this political machine operate successfully. Washington exhales slowly. Responsibility. expectation, fear. Though he would never call it that, the public must not think he wants the office.

He can't seem ambitious, hungry for power, king-like, he's against a king. The new constitution is barely ratified. The ink hardly dry. Americans are anxious, suspicious, terrified of any single man becoming too powerful. And Washington feels every bit of that weight. The pressure campaign is relentless on him. No one is more insistent than Alexander Hamilton, Washington's former aid during the Revolutionary War, now one of the most capable and ambitious political minds in America. Hamilton is very aware that Washington and his administration

would create opportunities, namely a very important opportunity for himself. In August 1788, he writes, You will permit me to say that it is indispensable you should lend yourself to the new government's first operations. It is to little purpose to have introduced a system if the weightiest influence is not given to its firm establishment in the outset. It was flattering,

but the quiet life of Mount Vernon held a lot more appeal to Washington, as he replied. On the delicate subject with which you conclude your letter, I can say nothing. For you know me well enough, my good sir, to be persuaded that I am not guilty of after when I tell you, it is my great and sole desire to live and die in peace and retirement on my own farm.

James Madison, Washington's quiet, brilliant, somewhat bookish neighbor from Virginia, adds his voice. He warns that if Washington refuses the whole project, the Constitution, the new government, everything they built, everything they fought for, could fail before it even begins. And Washington admits to Madison. To be shipwrecked inside of the port would be the severest of all possible aggravations to our misery. So Washington sits holding these letters, knowing that if he accepts the presidency, stepping into a storm no one has ever faced before. A government with no roadmap, a people on the alert for signs of a monarchy, a world waiting to pounce on failure.

He looks out over his farm. It's the place he loves more than any battlefield, any council chamber, any capital city. And he understands, if he says yes, his life will once again no longer be his own. Washington closes his eyes, and in that moment, he knows. He's under no illusion about how difficult it will be.

consider myself as entering upon an unexplored field enveloped on every side with clouds and darkness. America is about to choose its first president. But before the election, before the inauguration, before the fireworks, the parades, the prayers, there is this moment. One man, alone at his desk, accustomed to wrestling with difficult decisions, now faced with one of the hardest choices of his life. This is the American story, The Beginnings, adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton. Episode 9, Inside the First Presidency, Power, Fear, and the Bill of Rights.

It's hard for Americans today to imagine just how fragile things felt in 1888. The new constitution had been ratified, barely. But the fear of monarchy still hovered like a shadow over every conversation about the presidency. Americans had just fought a brutal war to escape the rule of a king. They didn't want to accidentally create a new one. That fear shaped how people viewed George Washington. His reputation towered over everyone else's. But surprisingly, one of his greatest political advantages was something deeply personal. He had no children of his own. In a world where hereditary power was the norm and in an environment terrified of that power, a leader with no air seemed safer. John Adams put it bluntly. If General Washington had a daughter, I firmly believe she

would be demanded in marriage by one of the royal families of France or England, perhaps by both. Or if he had a son, he would be invited to come according to Europe. For the very first presidential election in the U.S. history, things worked a little differently. States either held popular votes to pick electors, or in many cases, state legislators appointed electors directly. Then each elector cast two ballots, one for president, one for vice president. There were no campaigns, no debates, no rallies. And yet, when the electors voted on February 1789, George Washington received all 169. votes. John Adams won vice presidency. Behind the scenes, Alexander Hamilton had quietly pressured

many northern electors not to vote for Adams. Hamilton feared that a closer margin might embarrass George Washington, or even worse, create confusion about who should lead the new government. Hamilton was playing a political game while claiming not to be playing a political game, a theme that would recur often with him. When the new Congress assembled in April, in New York City, they set salaries, $25,000 a year for the president, and $5,000 a year for the vice president. Washington didn't want a salary. He had refused pay as the General of the Continental Army, but this time he couldn't avoid it. He was land rich, but cash poor. Years of crop failures at Mount Vernon combined with a bad national economy and his inability to sell Western land holdings

left him short on money. He actually had to take out a loan. to travel to his own inauguration. On April 16, 1789, Washington stepped into his carriage and left Mount Vernon. He wrote, About 10 o'clock, I bade a do to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity. And, with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York with the best dispositions

to render service to my country in obedience to its call but with less hope of answering its expectations. He was already a national celebrity but his journey north turned into a full-blown spectacle. Town after town erupted in spontaneous celebrations as he passed through. In Philadelphia, citizens presented him

with a white horse so he could make a dramatic entrance into the city. In Trenton, New Jersey, a massive floral arch stretched across the road with a banner honoring him. 13 young girls dressed in white scattered flower petals in his path. By the time he reached New York City, the city was overflowing with people. Washington could barely move through the crowds, pressing in from every direction outside the three-story mansion that Congress rented for him on Cherry Street. The Constitution said nothing about delivering an inaugural address. But Washington established this tradition. His draft, written in collaboration with an aid, was absurdly long and full of policy proposals.

Washington sent it to James Madison, now a member of the House of Representatives who tactfully advised him to ditch it. Beside being too long, Madison thought the policy proposals would be stepping on the toes of Congress. Madison then wrote a much, much shorter, tighter version. He also wrote Congress's official reply as well as Washington's response to Congress. Madison was apparently concerned about Washington crossing separation of power boundaries, while having absolutely no qualms about crossing them himself. At that time, New York's City Hall had been remodeled into Federal Hall by a French engineer. The House of Representatives met on the first floor in a room with a public gallery.

The Senate met on the second floor behind closed doors, secrets, sessions, no press, no public. In fact, the Senate's first hire was a doorkeeper whose job was to keep members of the public and the House of Representatives out of the room. Washington privately disliked the secrecy, but he never publicly condemned it. The Senate didn't open its doors to the public until 1794. And then on April 30th, the official procession formed outside of Washington's residence, and he entered Federal Hall, he walked to the Senate chamber, vowed to both houses of Congress and took his seat. Then John Adams rose and proclaimed, Sir, the Senate and House of Representatives are ready to attend you to take the oath required

by the Constitution. Washington then replied, I am ready to proceed. He stepped onto the balcony overlooking Wall Street. Thousands packed the streets and surrounding rooftops. For the president's swearing in, the Constitution required only the oath of office. But that morning, a congressional committee decided that Washington should lay his hand on a Bible as he took the oath. That was the frantic last-minute search for a suitable Bible. A local Masonic Lodge came up with a large leather-bound Bible. It was placed on a table draped in red cloth. The same Bible would later be used for the inauguration of President's Harding, Eisenhower, Carter, and George H.W. Bush.

The New York Chancellor Robert Livingston administered the oath. At the conclusion, Washington picked up the Bible and kissed it. Then Livingston turned to the crowd and shouted, It is done. Long-lived George Washington, president of the United States. The crowd roared. Returning to the Senate chamber, Washington delivered his inaugural address. He was visibly nervous.

Congressman Fisher Ames of Massachusetts described the scene. His aspect grave, almost to sadness, his modesty actually shaking. His voice, deep, a little tremulous, and so low as to call for close attention. Early in his address, Washington said, No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. When the address concluded, a grand procession escorted Washington up Broadway to St. Paul's Chapel for a prayer service. That evening, New York erupted with celebrations and fireworks.

The inaugural ball was delayed several weeks until Martha Washington arrived. When Martha finally did arrive, the city quickly embraced her. Abigail Adams admired her warmth and dignity, but Martha soon lamented that future first families would come to know life in a fishbowl. She wrote, I live a very dull life here and know nothing that passes in the town. I never go to the public place. Indeed, I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything else. Certain bounds are set for me which I must not depart from.

And as I cannot do as I like, I am obstinate and stay at home a great deal. In the Senate, an early debate erupted. What should the president officially be called? John Adams, ever drawn to formality, preferred something grand. The Senate proposed, quote, His Highness, the President of the United States of America and protector of their liberties. James Madison urged a little more restraint.

The more simple, the more Republican we are in our manners, the more national dignity we shall acquire. Fortunately, the House recommended and the Senate finally settled on just the President of the United States. Washington began working tirelessly to establish the new executive departments. No patronage, no backroom dealing. And he refused to appoint anyone who had openly opposed. the Constitution. That summer, Congress created three departments, state, war, and treasury.

The Constitution says nothing about a presidential cabinet. Washington invented it. Thomas Jefferson became the Secretary of State. Henry Knox, the Secretary of War, and Alexander Hamilton, was the Secretary of Treasury. Though the Senate confirmed Washington's picks, not everybody celebrated Hamilton's new influence. An anonymous critic wrote Washington, Beware of the artful designs and machinations of your late aide-de-camp, Alexander Hamilton, who, like Judas Iscariot, would, for the gratification of his boundless ambition, betray his lord and master. This uneasy tension between Washington's trust in Hamilton and the country's suspicion of him

would eventually explode into one of the greatest political battles in American history. When an unexpected pregnancy happens, the focus is almost almost always on the mother. And the dads. Too often, they're overlooked, pushed to the side, left feeling like their voice doesn't matter. Maybe that's how you would feel too. You want to be supportive, you want to do the right thing, but fear sets in. Questions start racing. Can I really do this? Can I be a good father? That's exactly how John felt. John wrote to me and he said, me, a dad? That didn't even feel possible. I didn't know the first thing about being a good father, but then we found pre-born. We talked to people, Glenn, who cared. We got free ultrasound, and that's when it all came together for me,

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of the American story right now, add free. Just go to glenbeck.com slash torch and unlock the full experience today. Near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington today, tucked away from the crowds beneath the curve trellis is a life-sized bronze figure of a man unfamiliar to most Americans. George Mason. His statue sits on a bench, legs crossed, looking contemplative, almost lonely. His position slightly off to the side of the national spotlight, and it's fitting.

Mason is the founding father who doesn't get many headlines in our history books, but without his influence, we might not have the Bill of Rights. Etched beside Mason's statue is one of his quotes. I recommend it to my sons never to let the motives of private interest or ambition to induce them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty and disgrace, or the fear of danger or of death, deter them from asserting the liberty of their country and endeavoring to transmit to their posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born. Mason had been obsessed with individual rights long before independence. In 1776, he wrote most of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which later became a blueprint for several key protections in the U.S. Bill of Rights.

But in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, when the time came to sign the new Constitution, Mason refused. His objection was simple and unwavering. There was no Bill of Rights. Mason's vision eventually fell to someone who, ironically, had been skeptical of the idea first, James Madison. Madison, reserved, cerebral, chronically frail, but stubbornly determined, found himself in an unusual position. As a Virginian, as a Washington trusted ally, and as one of the principal architects of the Constitution, he had to navigate political currents that shifted daily. Early on, Madison thought of the Bill of Rights as unnecessary because, as he argued,

the federal government could only exercise powers the Constitution explicitly granted. How quaint. But in 1788, while running for a seat in the first U.S. House of Representatives, Madison encountered a political reality. Many voters, especially anti-federalists, were furious that the Constitution had no Bill of Rights. Madison realized that if he wanted the public to trust the new government, compromise was essential. even if he believed a Bill of Rights was unnecessary, he came to see that it was politically necessary to gain wider support for the new Constitution. Once selected to Congress, Madison made the Bill

of Rights his top priority. In June 1789, he stood before the House and delivered a landmark speech proposing 20 amendments. Madison drew heavily from George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, but Congress seemed uninterested. Members were pre-officed. was setting up a functioning government, establishing the revenue system and organizing the executive departments. The amendments kind of felt secondary. But Madison refused to let it all go. He hounded colleagues relentlessly, pulled them aside in the hallways, pressed them after sessions, and then sent them copies of his proposals. He asked President Washington to support the amendments, knowing Washington's approval carried enormous weight. Washington then wrote a letter endorsing them, which helps soften congressional resistance. Gradually, momentum began to build. A month later, Madison gave another speech to push the amendments forward.

This time, the House formed a select committee, one member from each state to review and refine the proposals. After the debate, the committee approved the draft containing 17 amendments. They were sent to the Senate, which revised them and reduced them to the number of 12. Then, on September 25, 1789, Congress approved all 12 amendments and sent them to the states for ratification. Only 10 were ratified, what we now know as the Bill of Rights. Though formal ratification didn't occur until December 1791, the passage of the amendments was enough to convince the last holdouts, North Carolina and Rhode Island, to finally ratify the Constitution and join the new nation. The Bill of Rights itself is short but monumental because it sets constitutional boundaries that leaders are not permitted to cross. It would have been actually more accurate to call it the Bill of Limits since it places direct restraints on federal authority.

The First Amendment protects what are known as the Five Freedoms, Religion, Speech, Press, Peaceful Assembly, and to petition the government. Now over the past century, no clause has been more misinterpreted than the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, which declares, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. As a young man traveling through Culpepper County, Virginia, James Madison passed a jail where several Baptist preachers were imprisoned. Their crime? preaching without a license and publishing their views. Virginia's state sanction Anglican Church had them prosecuted. Madison never forgot the injustice.

It left a permanent mark on his understanding of liberty and his suspicion of government power over conscience. This memory shaped his drafting of the First Amendment. The Establishment Clause is straightforward and very clear, But in legal circles, it has become muddled by the phrase that appears nowhere in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. Separation of Church and State. Now that phrase, that came from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson after he became president in 1801. Modern courts have leaned heavily on that phrase, but Jefferson didn't mean it in the way too many Americans now assume.

Jefferson's record was unmistakably pro-religious liberty. He wrote Virginia's statute for religious freedom, a broad protection against compelled belief and state imposition of religion. His views made him very popular with Baptist congregations around the country who saw him as a defender of minority faiths. In 1801, a group of pastors from Danbury, Connecticut, wrote Jefferson expressing concern that religious liberty existed only as a favor granted by the state, not as a natural right. Jefferson replied with a reassuring letter. of separation between church and state. Jefferson's wall was not meant to prevent religious expression in public life. It was meant to reinforce the founder's understanding of two important religious clauses in the First Amendment.

First, that the federal government may not create an official state church. Second, the government may not restrict religious beliefs and expression. What gets lost in the separation of church and state rhetoric is that, Jefferson had no role in drafting the First Amendment. He was in Paris at the time, serving as the U.S. minister to France. Jefferson's own conduct as president proved he did not believe the public square should be secularized. Two days after writing that letter, Jefferson attended church services held inside the U.S. Capitol. In fact, he attended there almost every week during his presidency and even had a reserve seat.

When asked why, he wrote, No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion, nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man, and I, as chief magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example. Under Jefferson, Sunday Church services were also held at the War Department, the Treasury Department, government buildings under his direct control as part of the executive branch. clearly he did not consider this unconstitutional. He went even further.

As President Jefferson authored the original plan for public education in Washington, D.C. And his chosen primary reading text? The Bible. Himnal. He also signed federal acts supporting Christian education among Native American tribes. None of this, in Jefferson's mind, violated the First Amendment. Jefferson and Madison's views were not hostile to religion. They were hostile to state-mandated religion.

Just as the Bill of Rights became the law of the land, another drama unfolded inside President Washington's administration, one that would erupt into the fiercest political rivalry of the era. Two men placed in the same cabinet, both brilliant, both indispensable, yet absolutely incapable of agreeing on anything. The coming clash not only shaped the early republic, but define the American political landscape for the next two centuries. For 250 years, Americans have believed in one powerful idea.

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Use the promo code free month for one month free. Jace.com. Alexander Hamilton's improbable life story unfolded like a Dickens novel. He was born out of wedlock in the Caribbean on the island of Nevis. His father abandoned the family. His mother died when he was.

was about 12. He then worked as a clerk in the Virgin Islands, keeping books for a shipping company. When he was 17, he wrote an eloquent letter describing his experience surviving a hurricane that was published in the local newspaper. Noting his talent, benefactors raised money to send him to the mainland for an education. There he went to King's College in New York City, which later became Columbia University. From there, Hamilton rose with a force of a man who realized early that genius alone was not enough. Ambition had to do the rest. He joined the Patriot Cause.

He became George Washington's indispensable aid to camp in the Army. He married into the wealthy Schuyler family, and by 1789, when Washington became president, Hamilton was 34. He was intelligent, intense, and completely certain he understood the economic blueprint that America needed. That certainty energized some people.

It scared the rest of them. In one of the starkest differences between Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson appeared immediately in how they responded to Washington's appointments. Hamilton, named Secretary of the Treasury, accepted instantly and plunged into work before the ink was even dry in his commission. He saw the moment. The birth of a new national government has a rare window into dramatic action that could shape the country permanently. His instinct was urgency. Jefferson, meanwhile, was on his way home from Paris, where he had spent the last five years as the minister to France.

By the time he reached Virginia and learned that Washington had appointed him Secretary of State, two months had already passed. Jefferson hesitated about taking the job. Washington and James Madison urged him to accept, and Jefferson finally agreed, but he didn't arrive in New York until late March 1790. From the first cabinet meeting forward, Hamilton and Jefferson seemed destined to collide. Hamilton championed commercial growth, manufacturing, banking, finance.

His aim was a strong national government that could stand shoulder to shoulder with global powers. Jefferson championed the small farms, liberty, minimal government, and America rooted in local self-rule. They represented two very different visions of what the United States should become. Jefferson once summarized the balance that he wanted between national and state power in a letter to Madison. To make us one nation as to foreign concerns and keep us distinct in domestic ones gives the outline of the proper division of powers between the general and particular governments. Hamilton got right to work designing a powerful Treasury Department. He hired 39 employees making Treasury the largest department in the new federal government. And he understood something crucial.

controlling customs officials, the people who collect the tariffs at America's ports, meant controlling the revenue stream that made government possible. Influence would accumulate quickly. Even before Washington's inauguration, Congress had passed tariffs to fund the new government. To enforce them, Hamilton sought the approval to build 10 revenue cutters, boats that were intended to patrol the harbors, chase smugglers, and guard customs collections. Washington approved. These vessels would eventually evolve into the United States Coast Guard.

But Hamilton believed deeply in federal power. From day one, he pushed its boundaries, sometimes softly, sometimes with an enthusiasm that made Jefferson and Madison really uneasy. One unique aspect of Hamilton's office was that Congress required the Treasury Secretary to submit periodic written reports directly to the legislature. Hamilton embraced this requirement as an opportunity, and each report became not to just financial guidance, but a blueprint for building the nation. In his first report, report on public credit, it was essentially a sweeping economic manifesto. The United States

owed more than 54 million in national debt and 25 million in state debt from the Revolutionary War. Hamilton wanted the federal government to assume the state's debt and to fund the national debt at full value, creating a unified financial system that tied wealthy creditors to the success of the new government. Historian Ron Chernow put it this way, quote, peerless in crafting policies embedded with a secret political agenda, Hamilton knew how to dovetail one program right with another in a way that made them all difficult to undo, end quote. Madison had been Hamilton's close ally at the Constitutional Convention, but now he viewed the rise of a funded national debt and a bloated Treasury Department

is far too similar to the British system that they had fought so hard against. And Jefferson, well, he agreed. In April 1790, Benjamin Franklin died at the age of 84. In his will, he left General George Washington a deeply symbolic gift. My fine crab tree walking stick with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the cap of liberty, I give to my friend and the friend of mankind. General Washington. If it were a scepter, he has merited it and would become it.

The gesture was poignant, a cap of liberty, a reminder of the revolution's ideals, gifted to the man who now presided over a government trying to be the anti-monarchy. But the gift came nearly too late for George Washington, because just a few weeks later, Washington contracted the flu and pneumonia, his throat swelled, his breathing grew shallow, fever spiked. Those closest to him, including his doctors, expected him to die. Abigail Adams captured the feeling many had when she wrote, At this early day when neither our finances are arranged nor our government sufficiently cemented to promise duration, his death would, I fear, have had most disastrous consequences.

The Constitution gave no instructions for what to do if the president became incapacitated. Hamilton and Jefferson eyed each other warily. Neither trusted the other. For weeks, Washington's life and national power hung in the balance. Finally, thankfully, Washington recovered. But when he returned to work, he stepped back in to a political firestorm. Hamilton's plan to assume state debts was tearing Congress apart. Then the location of the new U.S. capital became entangled with a debt issue.

The fight became so intense that some feared the union itself might fracture. Jefferson despised Hamilton's debt plan, seeing it as a direct threat to the Republican liberty. He joined Madison in resisting it, and in the middle of this turmoil, Jefferson encountered Hamilton walking near the president's residence. Jefferson noted, his look was somber, haggard, and dejected. Even his dress uncouth and neglected. Hamilton poured out his frustrations. The government was disunited. Congress was fracturing.

Jefferson organized a dinner at his home for Hamilton and Madison the next evening, and at the dinner, the three men forged a compromise with far-reaching implications for the U.S. Jefferson and Madison would help secure the votes for Hamilton's debt assumption plan. Hamilton would persuade Pennsylvania's delegation to support a temporary capital in Philadelphia and later a permanent U.S. capital on the Potomac River. Within weeks, Congress passed that exact deal. But later, Jefferson lamented that dinner party compromise. Of all the errors of my political life, this has occasioned me the deepest regret.

He didn't regret the capital's location. He regretted giving Hamilton the political leverage to expand federal power through the national debt. But Hamilton was not done with his blueprint. In December 1790, just after the capital relocated to Philadelphia, Hamilton submitted his next major proposal, the creation of a national bank. Madison hated it. He argued passionately that Congress lacked the constitutional authority to create such a bank. But the bill passed in the House and then the Senate that left the president, Washington, with a veto decision.

As was his habit, Washington requested written opinions from his cabinet. Jefferson's memo was scathing. He urged strict construction of the Constitution, reading its power narrowly. He then went on to compare the bank to Europe's monarchy system and warned that such federal power was dangerous. Madison went to see Washington and found him wrestling with the decision. Madison later wrote, The constitutionality of the National Bank was a question on which his mind was greatly perplexed. Hamilton, on the other hand, produced a lengthy defense, arguing that the

the Constitution's necessary and proper clause permitted Congress to exercise implied powers. If a national bank was necessary to carry out enumerated financial responsibilities, then the bank was constitutional. Finally, just before the veto deadline, Washington sided with Hamilton, and the National Bank became law. With the bills for the assumption of the state's debts, the new U.S. capital, and now the National Bank, Washington's long honeymoon period with the American people was over. The nation was slowly dividing into camps, Hamilton's and Jefferson's. Two visions for America, two philosophies of power, two future political parties starting to evolve. Some people feel kind of stuck right now. On one hand, they built up a lot of equity in their home over the years.

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For more of the history that inspired this podcast series, be sure to read The American Story, The Beginnings, by David Barton and Tim Barton, available now at wallbuilders.com. George Washington's decision to side with Hamilton on the National Bank does not mean that he was a big government progressive in a modern sense. In fact, far from it. Washington was deeply federalist. He believed in a strong central government, but the reasons were all practical, deeply rooted, in his personal experience.

He was a military man. A clear chain of command wasn't a political philosophy. It was simply how the world worked for him. And during the Revolutionary War, he had watched the Articles of Confederation sabotaged the war effort again and again. Congress couldn't raise the money. States dragged their feet,

Supplies ran out and his soldiers starved and shivered without coats. This is something Washington never forgot. So a stronger central government wasn't ideological for him. It was survival. But Jefferson and Hamilton's growing feud created something Washington feared even more than a weak national government. Political factions. He saw them as corrosive. Hamilton and Jefferson saw them as inevitabilities.

America's emerging political culture finally was beginning to take shape. Hamiltonian versus Jeffersonian, Federalist versus the Democratic Republicans, commerce versus agriculture, order versus liberty. It was the beginning of the essential conflict that has fueled American politics for the past 250 years, conflict over the size and reach of the federal government. And along the way, both major political parties have adopted Hamilton and Jefferson as their philosophical mascots. In the Gilded Age in the 1800s, an era of rising industry, railroads, steel, finance, Republican leaders embraced Hamilton. He was the founding father who champion

commerce, banking, full credit, capitalism. In that moment of industrial expansion, Hamilton was their man. A statue of him was placed outside the Treasury Department in 1923 during war in Harding's Republican administration. A few years later, under Republican President Calvin Coolidge, Hamilton, was put on the $10 bill. At that time, American progressives and much of the political left, detested Hamilton. To them, he represented big business, concentrated wealth, centralized power. He was exactly the kind of figure they believed had corrupted the Gilded Age. Jefferson, meanwhile, somehow another, had become the patron saint of of the Democratic Party.

When the Great Depression struck and Franklin D. Roosevelt began his massive expansion of the government, Jefferson's image, pro-farmor, pro-common man, became a convenient political symbol. Jefferson had been on the little used $2 bill since the 1860s. But in 1938, the Roosevelt administration moved him onto the nickel, the everyday coin of ordinary Americans. That same year, they also placed him on the three-cent stamp. And then they went further. In 1938, construction began on the Jefferson Memorial, with FDR personally laying the cornerstone.

Five years later, he presided over its dedication. Jefferson had become the philosophical giant for FDR's New Deal Democratic Party, conveniently ignoring, of course, that Jefferson favored limited federal government. But political taste has a very short memory. In recent decades, Jefferson has fallen out of favor on the political left because of his record on slavery. And Hamilton, thanks largely to a certain Broadway musical, has undergone a renaissance. In his book, How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America, written by Brian McClanahan, captured this shift. Quote, Alexander Hamilton, it seems, has been reinvented by Lynn Manuel Miranda.

He is the new hero for the left, a hipster who, personified the immigrant experiment who pursued active central government and championed the notion of a diverse America, end quote. Jefferson recounted a dinner party at his house where he showed Hamilton portraits of his personal heroes. Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, and John Locke, Jefferson told Hamilton how they were the three greatest men the world had ever produced. He said Hamilton paused for a long moment. Then he told him the greatest man in history was Julius Caesar. Jefferson said that pretty much summed up Hamilton's political philosophy. Jefferson reflected.

Hamilton was honest as a man, but as a politician, believing in the necessity of either force or corruption to govern men. One historian described the difference between these founders like this. Hamilton feared anarchy and loved order. Jefferson feared tyranny and loved liberty. Two visions. Two temperaments. Two fundamentally different theories on human nature.

And in the middle, George Washington. He had never wanted political parties. He had never wanted ideological warfare. He never wanted to referee a cabinet of men who thought the other side threatened the future of the republic. But by choosing Hamilton's financial system and by relying on Jefferson as a diplomat and political counselor, Washington unintentionally created the two polls around which American, politics would orbit for centuries and he was barely through his first term in office. Coming up on the American story, The Beginnings.

At the foot of the scaffold stands King Louis XVI. The same king who just a decade earlier bankrolled the American Revolution, funneling money, weapons, and ships to George Washington's struggling army. It was his support that helped the United States become a nation. But But here today, none of that matters. He's just another victim in the chaos that he unwittingly helped unleash. The crowd craves royal blood. Huluy looks out at the sea of faces, some furious, some triumphant, some simply curious. And then he's strapped in place.

The drum roll begins and the executioner pulls the lever. a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.