The Glenn Beck Program - The Reluctant President: Washington’s Leadership and Legacy | The American Story | Ep 10

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

As the French Revolution turns into a blood-soaked spectacle, the shockwaves reach across the Atlantic to President Washington’s desk. Follow Washington through the most volatile years of his presidency: cabinet warfare between Hamilton and Jefferson, street mobs stirred up by Citizen Genet, a deadly yellow fever outbreak, and the explosive Whiskey Rebellion that forces Washington back onto the battlefield. International crises, brutal press attacks, fragile alliances, and a nation still learning how to govern itself push the first president to his breaking point. And through it all, Washington makes the most important decision of his political life – one that will define the American presidency forever. GLENN'S SPONSORS: 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. 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. 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. Good Ranchers: Bring 100% American meat to your family with Good Ranchers. Visit https://www.goodranchers.com/ and use the promo code GLENN for free meat and $100 off your first three orders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's January 21st, 1793. In the city of Paris, pulsates with violence. The Revolutionary Square is packed. 20,000 people press shoulder to shoulder, shouting, jeering, climbing onto the rooftops for a better view. A gray winter sky hangs low over the city, and a wooden scaffold rises like something out of a nightmare. At its center sits a contraption that has become the defining sound of the French Revolution,

the guillotine. 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 here today, none of that matters. He's just another victim in the chaos that he unwittingly helped unleash. The crowd craves royal blood.

Louis 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. The blade drops. And the king's head tumbles into a basket. The war explodes across Paris, wild, primal, as if the crowd is finally tasting revenge after years of starvation and oppression.

But the horror doesn't stop there. Nine months later, King Louis's wife, Marie Antoinette, the queen infamous for her Let Them Eat Cake Line, faces the same fate. She's dragged through the streets, her hair shorn, her spirit bruntleth. She's made to climb the same wooden steps, her once lavish gown replaced with a plain white dress. She too will face the crowd and fall beneath the blade.

The massacre is only the beginning. The reign of terror sweeps across France like a wildfire with no windbreak. It's an environment where paranoia rules and death is a daily spectacle. In Paris alone, 3,000 men in with women in France. thousand men and women are marched to the guillotine. In the city of Nantes, revolutionaries heard 2,000 prisoners onto barges. They roped them together and drowned them in the middle of a river. Across the country, prisons overflow with the accused neighbors turn on neighbors and a whirlwind of suspicion. Under the radical Jacobin government, more than 17,000 people,

17,000 are executed in just 10 horrifying months. A revolution born from cries of liberty, equality, spirals into a bloodbath that makes the old monarchy look tame. Heads on pikes paraded through the streets of Paris, it becomes a common sight. And every wave of violence sends ripples across the Atlantic directly to the desk of President George Washington. He tracks the French Revolution with growing dread. What began as a hopeful echo of liberty in common with America has transformed into chaos that threatens to swamp the young United States. Every dispatch from Paris brings new complications,

new dangers, new political battles at home, and soon the French Revolution will become the single biggest headache of Washington's presidency. It is a crisis that will expose the fractures inside his cabinet, ignite street mobs in American cities, and nearly drag the country into a war it's nowhere near prepared to fight. This is the American story, The Beginnings, adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton.

Episode 10, The Reluctant President, Washington's Leadership and Legacy. Before George Washington was first elected president, he didn't anticipate finishing his first term, much less a second. He was 57 at the time of his inauguration, gray aching from decades of war and travel and ready to settle down at Mount Vernon again. Long before the cabinet fights, the newspaper wars, and the nonstop political trench warfare began, Washington confided to Alexander Hamilton his quiet hope. That at a convenient and an early period my services might be dispensed with and that I might be permitted once more to retire.

But retirement continued to elude him. Despite the constant demands and overall strain of the presidency, Washington still led with the same granite, steady temperament and integrity that had carried him through the Revolutionary War and the Constitutional Convention. Thomas Jefferson, who spent countless hours debating Washington and Hamilton, admitted. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed, refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose whatever obstacles opposed. To the people who served closest to him, Washington's character was not merely

admirable. It bordered on myth. Tobias Lear, a 30-year-old head of Washington's five-man staff, lived in the presidential mansion as almost a member of the extended family. And Lear observed, I have never found a single thing that could lessen my respect for him. A complete knowledge of his honesty, uprightness, and candor in all his private transactions has sometimes led me to think him more than a man. But none of Washington's virtues could prevent the political squabbles within his cabinet. After Congress passed Hamilton's National Bank Bill in 1791, Jefferson and James Madison feared they were losing the war to prevent what they saw as America's slow slide towards a monarchy.

Their solution? Bring in reinforcements. They recruited Madison's old Princeton classmate, Philip Frunot. He was a writer and a fierce critic of centralized power. Jefferson offered Frenau a State Department job as a translator, but it was really just a window dressing job to get Frenau to Philadelphia. Once there, Frenau launched the National Gazette, an explicitly anti-federalist newspaper dedicated to shredding Hamilton's policies.

This press war didn't erupt out of nowhere. Hamilton and Jefferson had been circling each other like prize fighters since the administration began. Jefferson didn't like the politics and despised bureaucracy. Hamilton embraced them. Hamilton believed in a strong federal government and executive power. Jefferson believed in limited federal power and the supremacy of Congress and in state rights. They disagreed about almost everything.

Human nature, economics, constitutional interpretation, the future of the republic, even which foreign government posed the greatest danger. Hamilton believed France was unpredictable and dangerous, while Britain was America's most valuable commercial partner. Jefferson believed the British Empire was the threat to liberty, and the French Revolution was simply act two of the universal struggle for human freedom. Hamilton's allies became known as the Federalists. Jefferson's Circle coalesced into the Democratic Republicans, or often just Republican. Soon, the two camps could hardly stand to breathe the same. same air. President Washington intended to favor Hamilton's policies, especially on economic

matters, but he refused to call himself a federalist. He was determined, almost stubbornly, to maintain an image of non-partisanship, even as the country around him split into angry factions. That polarization played out most viciously in the newspapers. Hamilton supported both financially and with his own anonymous essays, The Gazette of the United States. Frunoz National Gazette became the home base for Jefferson and Madison's attacks. During the last year of Washington's first term, Madison blasted the administration and the Federalist agenda through a barrage of 18 essays in the National Gazette. Hamilton responded with private fury, saying he was certain.

That Mr. Madison cooperating with Mr. Jefferson is at the head of a faction decidedly hostile to me and my administration and actuated by views, in my judgment, subversive of the principles of good government, and dangerous to the union, peace, and happiness of the country. Jefferson, meanwhile, confided to friends that he was exhausted with his job of Secretary of State. He said he was only sticking with it because he was afraid Hamilton would be around for years.

He described his constant battles with Hamilton as going daily into the arena like a gladiator to suffer martyrdom in every conflict. Washington, now 60, felt the weight of every disagreement. He complained of memory lapses, worsening eyesight and fading hearing. He only had one original tooth left, making his oversized dentures a constant painful irritation. Martha always worried about his health with good reason. In addition to the flu and pneumonia that nearly killed him in 1790, he had suffered two separate tumors in the same area on his left thigh.

They had to be surgically removed without anesthesia, and that sidelined him for weeks. And yet, almost everyone else just assumed Washington would remain president indefinitely. So when he quietly informed Hamilton, Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Madison that he planned to retire at the end of his first term, all four urged him to stay. Even Jefferson and Madison, despite their opposition to many of his policies, begged him not to leave. Their problem wasn't him. Their problem was Hamilton. They believed Hamilton manipulated Washington to accomplish his agenda. That belief, Washington thought, was nothing but a paranoid fantasy.

While Washington debated whether to stick around for a second term, Hamilton charged that the National Gazette had really been started by Jefferson and Madison to publish their own views. He also alleged that Frunot was paid by the State Department as a front for his own. his real work at the Gazette. Washington summoned Jefferson and Hamilton, urging them to reconcile. Instead, they just blamed each other. At a meeting with Jefferson and Mount Vernon, an exasperated Washington, told him he just didn't believe that there was some cabal working to install a British-style monarchy in America. Jefferson insisted there was, and that Hamilton was heading up the effort. They would clearly never be on the same page about the issue, and the disagreement, cool,

their relationship in a way that really never fully recovered. By November 1792, after months of agonizing, Washington finally agreed to run for a second term, in part because he feared that Hamilton and Jefferson's feud would collapse the young government. The Electoral College delivered another unanimous victory for Washington. John Adams was re-elected vice president. Adams leaned federalist on policy, but like Washington, he refused the label. He continued his constant duty of breaking Senate ties 31 times, always siding with Washington. No vice president in U.S. history has ever cast more deciding votes. Still, Washington wasn't exactly celebrating his own re-election, writing to a friend.

To say I feel pleasure from the prospect of commencing another tour of duty would be a departure from truth. He had no idea that the biggest crisis of his presidency had only just begun. begun and that it was sailing toward Philadelphia from across the Atlantic. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Being prepared has always been a good idea, but Jace Medical is taking that idea to the next level with the Jace Plus and the pocket paramedic.

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the alliance with King Louis XVIth had supplied American troops with money and ships and gunpowder and hope. But by the early months of Washington second term, the same France that had helped secure American independence had collapsed into chaos, and that chaos was spilling over into American politics. The Federalists were horrified by the French Revolution's violence. Republicans, including Jefferson and Madison, insisted the stories of bloodshed were just exaggerated. They chalked it up to British propaganda or fear-mongering by the Federalists. They viewed the French Revolution as a sibling of the American one, a continuation of the human rights struggle against monarchy. But the two revolutions could not have been more different. The American Revolution

had been gradual and cautious, the political equivalent of a carefully boiled stew. The French revolution was a lightning strike that set the whole kitchen on fire, and keeping America out of that fire became one of Washington's greatest challenges as president. Shortly after Washington began his second term, the news arrived in Philadelphia that France and Britain, were officially at war. If America wasn't careful, it would be dragged right into the middle of that conflict. Young Republic was nowhere near ready for another war with the world's greatest naval power. Washington rushed this instruction to Jefferson.

War having actually commenced between France and Great Britain, it behooves the government of this country to use every means in its power to prevent the citizens thereof from embroiling us with either of those powers by endeavoring to maintain a strict neutrality. A fiery cabinet debate broke out. Hamilton was aggressively in favor of neutrality. Jefferson resisted. The United States had a treaty with France, he argued.

France had bled for American independence. Didn't the U.S. owe France loyalty because of their previous help? Washington listened, as he always did, weighing each argument with a kind of stillness that unnerved the rest of the room. Days later, he announced his decision. The U.S. would issue a proclamation of neutrality. It created a political firestorm in Philadelphia. Republicans argued that Congress, not the president,

held the constitutional authority to declare war, and therefore only Congress could declare neutrality. For many Republicans, including Madison, they saw what they had always saw in any action influenced by Hamilton. A deference toward England. Hamilton and Madison duked it out in the press using pen names like the old days when they were writing the Federalist papers, except back then they were on the same political team. Now into this frenzy, swaggered one of the most disruptive, obnoxious characters Washington had ever had to deal with.

Edmund Charles Jeunet, the new French ambassador. He arrived first, not in Philadelphia, but in Charleston, South Carolina. Carolina. And from the second his boots touched the dock, he began undermining Washington's neutrality. Genet went by Citizen Jeanne because French radicals were trying to rid their culture of bourgeoisie sounding titles like Monsieur and Madame. He threw himself into rallying public support for France. He recruited American ships as privateers, had them fitted out with cannons and sent them to hunt British merchant vessels. He gave speech. He gave speech. He toasted liberty, waved the French flags, and stirred American crowds into passionate pro-French support.

For an entire month before he reached Philadelphia, Jeunet, behaved as though France, not Washington, commanded American policy. And when he finally arrived in the Capitol, he brought that chaos with him. As a French ship sailed into Philadelphia's harbor, was towing two captured British merchant vessels. Thousands of Philadelphians poured into the docks cheering. Jefferson privately horrified, warned Jeney to stop violating U.S. neutrality. Jeanne dismissed the warning and told Jefferson that France had a right to recruit American privateerships to fight Britain. Jefferson described Jeanne as,

hot-headed, all imagination, no judgment, passionate, disrespectful, and even indecent toward the president. The situation spiraled quickly. As Jeanne stirred up pro-French sentiment, Philadelphia's political climate came to a boil. Mobs even marched to the presidential mansion. John Adams later described it like this. The terrorism excited by Jeanne in 1793, when 10,000 people in the streets of Philadelphia day after day

threatened to drag Washington out of his house and affect a revolution in the government, or compel it to declare war in favor of the French Revolution, and against England. Everyone in Washington's administration was exhausted by the political drama swirling around Jeannes. By late July, Jefferson told Washington he would resign in September. Washington went to visit Jefferson at his house in Philadelphia to try to convince him to stay. According to Jefferson's own account, Washington said he understood the Republican's fear of monarchy

and insisted no man in the United States opposed monarchy more than he did. Washington's driving force was buying America time to let this new system of government work. According to Jefferson, Washington told him, The Constitution we have is an excellent one, if we can keep it where it is. Surprisingly, Jefferson agreed to remain in office a while longer. Eventually, Washington's cabinet agreed to demand Jeanne's recall. But before their letter even sailed towards France, news arrived that the radical, Jacobin government had already sent someone to replace Jeannes.

In fact, they ordered Jeanne back to France to stand trial for supposed crimes against the revolution. That meant certain death sentence. Jeanne begged Washington for mercy, and Washington granted him asylum. The troublesome ambassador moved to New York, where he eventually married the governor's daughter. But Jeanne left behind wreckage. His influence gave rise to Democrat-Republican societies.

Members of these political clubs considered themselves new versions of the Sons of Liberty, but Federalists thought they were modeled after the French Jacobin clubs. They found it, quite honestly, terrifying, seeing in these clubs the seeds of mob rule. Washington was dismayed that these Democrat-Republican societies ushered in a new more aggressive style of American Party politics. As if the political turmoil and keeping the U.S. out of war wasn't enough to deal with, The summer of 1793 brought an invisible enemy. Yellow fever. Within weeks, panic over the outbreak gripped the capital.

The disease claimed the life of Polly Lear, the young wife of Washington's head secretary, Tobias Lear. The Lear's actually lived with the Washington's in the presidential mansion, and Polly was practically family. President Washington led the funeral procession for Polly with his cabinet as Paul Bears. It was the only time Washington attended a funeral

as president. The federal government essentially was shut down, and the officials fled the city. Washington stayed longer than most, but even he and Martha eventually left from Mount Vernon. By November 1793, 5,000 people had died. That was 10% of the Philadelphia population. Finally, in December, after two months away from the capital, the outbreak dissipated. Washington's cabinet, Congress, and executive branch employees returned to a changed city. People didn't know at the time that yellow fever was carried by mosquitoes. The outbreak was over because the cold weather had returned. On the last day of 1793, Jefferson resigned as Secretary of State.

He supposedly had had enough of his political war with Hamilton. Jefferson wrote, I hope to spend the remainder of my days in occupations infinitely more pleasing than those to which I have sacrificed 18 years of the prime of my life. Hamilton didn't buy it. He wrote, "'Tis evident beyond a question from every movement "'that Mr. Jefferson aims with ardent desire at the presidential chair.'" With Jefferson gone, American partisanship surging,

and Washington increasingly battered by criticism, the United States was stumbling towards one of the most dramatic domestic crises of his presidency, one that would push Washington back onto the military stage. We talk a lot about freedom, especially as we get closer to the 250th of America. But one kind of freedom people don't always think about is the freedom to live your life without being held back by pain. The freedom to get out of bed and move, the freedom to work and travel and to play with your kids or grandkids, to do the things you still want to do. And that's what relief factor is really about. It's 100% drug-free research-based supplement designed to help

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906 2440 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit Americanfinancing.net slash glen, average savings based on borrowers who save it for $200. For a brief moment in 1794, Washington found a glimmer of optimism, something rare in a second term marked by political fires that seemed impossible to put out. In March, Congress finally approved a proposal that he had supported for years, the construction of six warships to protect American merchants from the Barbary pirates in North Africa. It was the birth of the United States Navy. But while Washington celebrated the new Navy, the seas were already churning with more dark storms.

Britain, still at war with a revolutionary France, had been seizing American cargo ships suspected of trading with the French. Worse, the British Navy had resumed the old practice of impressment, stopping American vessels, searching their crews, and dragging off alleged British deserters. In practice, that meant capturing many American sailors as well. American merchants fumed. Federalists feared another war. Republicans argued that the British were humiliating the young United States,

and Hamilton was secretly encouraging it. Across the country, newspapers blazed with outrage. The situation was so explosive that even Washington feared the nation was only one misstep away from another violent clash with the British Empire. Federalist insisted the U.S. needed to say, sent a special envoy to London to negotiate trade and demand reparation for the seized ships. They also wanted to pressure Britain into abandoning the forts in the Northwest Territory. Britain had promised to vacate them after the Revolutionary War, but they were still there.

Hamilton recommended one man above all to be the envoy, John Jay, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Appointing a sitting justice to negotiate a treaty was politically risky, perhaps even unconstitutional since it crossed the line between the executive and the judicial branches. But Washington trusted Jay's calm judgment. So in April 1794, Jay set sail to London. Washington, meanwhile, stayed behind to face a crisis of his own. Three years earlier, Congress had approved Hamilton's excise tax on distilled spirits, the infamous whiskey tax. It was part of his plan to help pay down the national debt. In western Pennsylvania, farmers routinely turned grain into whiskey because it was easier to ship and trade.

They viewed the whiskey tax as government oppression. These farmers especially resented the new federal government inspectors who showed up to inspect their facilities. They were met with jeers and threats and violence. One inspector's house was burned down, another one was shot by local rebels. As the rebellion grew in numbers and in angry rhetoric, Washington's first instinct was diplomacy. He sent a three-man commission to Western Pennsylvania to negotiate. But the rebels refused to budge.

They declared they would resist the tax no matter what. The reports Washington received were sobering. This was no small protest. Between 6,000 and 7,000 rebels were gathering, armed, organized, and deeply resentful of the federal government. Washington feared the Republic itself might be at stake. Reluctantly, Washington approved a militia call-up of 13,000 troops. It was a force larger than many revolutionary war campaigns. He and Hamilton rode west to command them, making Washington the only sitting president

in American history to personally lead troops into the field. Federalist admired the show of force, but the critics pounced immediately. Republicans accused Washington of trying to justify a standing army, something they believed would be a major step towards a monarchy. But for the soldiers who watched him right along the lines of troops, Washington was not a would-be king. He was their commander once again. One observer wrote in his diary,

Men were affected by the sight of their chief, for whom each individual seemed to show the affectionate regard that would have been shown to an honored parent. General Washington passed along the line, bowing, in the most respectful and affectionate manner to the officers. appeared pleased. Washington's presence had the desired effect. The rebels backed down without a fight and order returned to western Pennsylvania. About 150 insurgents were arrested. After trial, two were sentenced to death, but Washington used his presidential pardon power for the first time and pardoned them both. After all the dust settled from the Whiskey Rebellion, Alexander Hamilton

announced his resignation as Secretary of the Treasury. Like Jefferson, he was exhausted and eager to return to private life. He was also deeply in debt and needed the better pay he could earn as a New York City lawyer. Henry Knox, the Secretary of War, one of Washington's oldest friends, also resigned, although his departure was less amicable. He had requested a six-week leave of absence to take care of personal business, but he overstayed his leave and failed to keep Washington updated. Knox's absence coincided with the Whiskey Rebellion, which really irritated Washington Now barely into his second term, Washington had lost Jefferson, Hamilton, and Knox, the three men who had helped shaped his administration, and he felt drained.

In a rare moment of candor, Washington wrote, Although I have no cause to complain of the want of health, I can religiously aver that no man was ever more tired of public life or more devoutly wished for retirement than I do. From a modern perspective, it is tempting to view the early presidential administrations as simpler, perhaps less taxing on those in office. After all, the federal government was smaller, Congress was smaller, the whole nation was smaller. But the presidency from the very beginning has always been incredibly demanding.

In March 1795, Jay's treaty landed on Washington's desk. It was favorable to Britain in many respects, which concerned Republicans and even some federalists, but it did secure two huge concessions. Britain would finally abandon its forts in the Northwest Territory, and it would compensate American merchants for those goods that had been seized. Most importantly of all, for the vulnerable young America, it avoided war. The treaty passed the Senate, and while Washington was deciding whether to sign the final version, newspapers printed the complete text of the treaty. Republicans had a field day raking John Jay over the coals for caving to Britain. There were riots in Boston and New York protesting the new treaty. Jay was burned in

effigy all across the nation. He said he could have traveled the length of the country by the glow of his burning effigies. Washington was again dismayed by the intense criticism. He didn't love the treaty, but it avoided war and it seemed to be the best they could get in the circumstance, so he signed it. The political battle then moved to the House of Representatives. Republicans moved to prevent funding, for the provisions in the treaty. They introduced a resolution demanding that Washington turn over all instructions and correspondence related to the treaty negotiations.

It was a direct challenge to the presidential authority. Washington consulted his cabinet as usual. He sought advice from Hamilton, who had returned to private law practice. He even invited John Adams to dinner to talk it over. John Adams wrote, He detained me there till nine o'clock and was never more frank and open about politics.

I find his opinions and sentiments are more like mine than I ever knew before, respecting England and France and our American parties. Washington decided to refuse the House request. He determined that the Constitution placed treaty-making authority solely in the hands of the President and the Senate. His stance convinced enough representatives to fund the treaty by a vote of 51 to 48. The narrow loss in the House stunned James Madison, who saw the defeat as a thing fatal blow to the Republican cause. The treaty fight ruined what was left of his relationships with Washington who never invited Madison to Mount Vernon again. A different easier treaty victory

came later that year through Thomas Pinckney's deal with Spain. It finally secured the free navigation of the Mississippi River. It granted Americans the right to trade freely in New Orleans, and it confirmed the Mississippi as the western boundary of the United States. It was a great win. But that type of victory wasn't enough to compensate for the mountain of criticism and stresses of the presidency. The opposition press was more brutal than ever towards Washington. Jefferson observed, He is extremely affected by the attacks made on him in the public papers. I think he feels these things more than any person I have ever met with.

I am sincerely sorry to see them. From the wings, as Vice President, John Adams observed the toll that the job had taken on Washington. The times were critical. the labor fatiguing, many circumstances disgusting, and he felt weary and longed for retirement. Washington finally made up his mind. He would not serve a third term. You know it's becoming exhausting, buying food from companies that want your money, but don't want to tell you where anything is made or anything much about it. You pick up a package, you squint at the label, and somehow you still need a private investigator

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be sure to read The American Story, The Beginnings, by David Barton and Tim Barton, Available now at wallbuilders.com. Before the end of Washington's first term, back when he still believed he might escape just after four years or less, he asked Madison to draft a potential farewell address. He didn't end up needing that one, of course. The political storms of the early 1790s kept pulling him back into duty. But as he entered the final year of his second term,

he knew it was time to step down. This time, instead of Madison, he turned to the man who had become one of his closest allies, and political lightning rod for half the nation. Alexander Hamilton. Washington sent Hamilton the unused Madison draft, along with several pages of his own handwritten notes, additions, and reflections.

Hamilton, always the overachiever, responded by producing two different versions, one, reworking Madison's draft, and the other a completely new address. For four months, the two men traded comments and edits. Washington provided the guiding principles, Hamilton shaped them into eloquent prose. By late summer of 1796, the final version was complete.

In mid-September, Washington's head secretary, Tobias Lear, summoned the printer David Claypool to the president's house. Claypool was the publisher of the American Daily advertiser, one of Philadelphia's major newspapers. He arrived uncertain why the president wanted to see him privately. Washington met him in a side room. alone. He told Claypool that he was retiring. Then he offered him first access to publish his farewell address. Claypool set to type from the final copy that was handwritten by Washington

himself. On September 19th, 1796, the American Daily advertiser published what the public would soon call Washington's farewell address. Washington never delivered it as a speech. He never stood before Congress to read it. Instead, the documents spread quickly through the newspapers and through pamphlets to every corner of the nation. One of the most famous lines radiated with the patriotism Washington hoped Americans would never abandon. 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 discriminations. Washington had much more. more of a continental perspective since he had traveled more of the nation than almost anyone alive. From the backwoods of the Ohio Valley as a young surveyor to the battlefields of the Revolutionary War, to his tour of every state during his first term as president, he saw the nation as a whole, long before most Americans did. A major theme of his farewell address and one Washington pushed Hamilton to emphasize was a warning about the danger of political parties.

He believed that partisan ambition would become a parasite feeding on the Republic rather than strengthening it. He warned that political parties were likely to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people. Another warning focused on foreign relations. Washington understood that the United States could not afford to be dragged into Europe's endless rivalries. Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world. Commercial relationships were essential, but binding political alliances? Those would destroy the Republic before it reached adulthood. Washington's farewell address is still read annually in the U.S. Senate,

a tradition dating back to the Civil War. Hamilton kept secret how much of the address he had drafted. He never published his own involvement, he never sought credit, But not long after the farewell address appeared in print, Hamilton and his wife were walking down a New York street when they passed a Revolutionary War veteran selling pamphlet copies of Washington's message. Hamilton bought one, then said to his wife,

That man does not know he has asked me to purchase my own work. Washington's decision to step away after eight years created one of the most powerful unwritten rules in American history. The two-term limit. Remarkably, no president broke that tradition for nearly a century and a half until Franklin Delano Roosevelt won third term in 1940. The irony was thick. For years, Jeffersonian newspapers had accused Washington of secretly wanting to be king. Now Washington was voluntarily stepping away from the power, something no monarch would have ever dreamt of. The election to replace him was the first contested presidential race in American history.

Two titans of the American Revolution, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They ran against each other. Adams won with 71 electoral votes to Jefferson 68. Under the election system of the time, that meant Jefferson became Adams' vice president. On February 22, 1797, Washington's 65th birthday, Philadelphia hosted a massive dinner and ball with 1,200 guests.

Washington was visibly emotional throughout the evening. One witness wrote, I never saw the president look better or in finer spirits, but his emotions were too powerful to be concealed. He could sometimes scarcely speak. He had become the most admired man in the Western world, and yet he was counting the hours until he could leave public life behind. March 4th,

1797, inauguration day, Washington dressed in black, walked to Congress Hall. The house chamber and the gallery were packed. When he entered, the crowd erupted into thunderous applause. Thomas Jefferson entered next,

then John Adams followed. Adams later wrote of the moment. A solemn scene it was indeed, and it was made affecting to me by the presence of the general, whose countenance was as serene and unclouded as the day. He seemed to me to enjoy a triumph over me.

He thought I heard him think, I, I am fairly out and you fairly in. See which of us will be the happiest. Washington introduced Adams. Then he delivered a short farewell that brought audible sobs from the gallery. Adams took the oath of office becoming the second president in a nation that now had grown to 16 states with the addition of Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. At the end of the inauguration ceremony, Washington had one more symbolic gesture with which to step off the national stage.

He insisted that Adams and Jefferson leave the chamber ahead of him. It was an ideal symbol of a unique American system, the peaceful transfer of power, from the holder of the most powerful office in the land, back to the private citizen just like that. A few days later, George and Martha Washington loaded their belongings into carriages and began the six-day journey back to Mount Vernon. On the way, Washington made one last detour, like a proud parent checking on a child. He stopped at the construction site of the new presidential mansion, the future White House, in the federal district that already bore his name, Washington, D.C. John Adams would move into that house in November 1800.

On his second night in the White House, Adams wrote to Abigail words that would later be engraved on the mantle in the state dining room. I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof. It was a prayer for the ages, one that never expires in the twisting, winding, perilous, and victorious story of liberty in the United States. of America. Just 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.