Guest Post: Washington's Warning of Enemies, Foreign and Domestic before his Death

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History with input from Eric Lipps and Allen W. McDonnell.

April 30, 1789 - 

At Federal Hall in New York City, General George Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States. During this moment of joyous national celebration, his coach was escorted by militia and a marching band, followed by statesmen and foreign dignitaries in an inaugural parade, with a crowd of 10,000 in attendance.

Behind the pageantry, the contradictions were rife, starting with the location:  New York City had remained a stronghold for British Loyalists right until the end of the American Revolution. Nevertheless, the idea of a self-governing republic emerged after the Continental Army's successful struggle for independence from Great Britain. At this pivotal moment of hard-fought triumph, Washington issued a stark warning about the fragile nature of liberty, emphasizing that true freedom entails protection from arbitrary and unreasonable restraint on the individual. He stressed that democracy requires constant vigilance to sustain and defend it, raising concerns about potential internal divisions or rebellions, which were significant worries for many of the Founding Fathers of the new republic.

However, there was a contradiction inherent in the Constitution: freedom was denied to African Americans, First Nations, and even to white libertarians who accused Washington of tyranny. Notably, this group of naysayers included the leading anti-Federalist Albert Gallatin, America's Swiss Founding Father, who was an outspoken opponent of slavery, fiscal irresponsibility, and a vigorous advocate for free trade and individual liberty. As if in prophecy, just two years later, Washington himself would be killed while personally leading troops to suppress Western farmers during the Whiskey Rebellion. The residual reverence for Washington in a sense placed him on the wrong side of the Federalists' regional balance argument. The general himself had struggled with his leadership role as a republican executive short of a king; although he had been offered the monarchy, he chose to decline. He was driven by his strong commitment to the ideals of the American Revolution and a democratic republic, but ultimately he was unable to use his personal authority to impose this vision upon the country. This tragic outcome echoed Benjamin Franklin's prescient warning at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia that the new country would be "a republic, if you can keep it."

Some of the republic's problems were pre-existing conditions that the British and other Europeans had brought to the Americas. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton adopted anti-slavery positions while other Founding Fathers owned slaves (including, allegedly Hamilton himself). Yet, all of them accepted the need to end the importation of slaves into the United States. The most charitable explanation for this confusion was a balance of ideals and self-interest. States rights challenged the Federalist cause, but the question survived the collapse of the Federalist Party, though in a transformed and less direct form. Radical thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson, who penned the famous words "all men are created equal," actively promoted libertarian philosophies while many of their personal and professional actions were a shocking failure of role-modelling. Conversely, in United States v. Schooner Amistad as a successful rebellion on the slave ship La Amistad led to questions of emancipation, former president and descendant of American revolutionaries, John Quincy Adams passionately and eloquently defended the Africans' right to freedom on both legal and moral grounds, referring to treaties prohibiting the slave trade and to the Declaration of Independence.

The accusation of tyranny would be repeatedly levelled at Washington's successors--most of whom were either military figures like himself or constitutional lawyers equipped to control the levers of federal power. This list included authoritative men such as John Adams, a Federalist who tried to balance states rights but used his executive power to enact the Alien and Sedition Acts that severely curtailed Freedom of Speech and the Press. Another, Abraham Lincoln who, despite promising "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," suspended habeas corpus (the right to a trial) during the struggle for states rights in the Civil War.

During the twentieth century, America became increasingly difficult to govern according to even the constitutional principles envisaged by the Founding Fathers. Most recently, the first African American president, Barack Obama, heralded as a product of Civil Rights progression, invited these same accusations after criticizing the Bush administration for losing its focus on national security. He promised that his own team would "refocus attention on al Qaeda," making the controversial decision to merge the roles of Secretary of Homeland Security with the Director of National Intelligence. This strategic move was designed to avoid turf wars, leading to the creation of a new, consolidated United States Investigation Services (USIS), which rolled all the policing agencies such as FBI, NSA, ATF, ICE, US Marshals, etc, into one entity. Obama's stated intention was to ensure investigators worked together at the city/state/national level instead of competing for personnel and resources. The precedent for this amalgamation could be traced back to the Manhattan Project, a consolidation of previously uncoordinated efforts by the US Navy and at least one group of Army scientists to develop the atomic bomb.

Author's Note:

The fictional killing of Washington is the point of divergence in L. Neil Smith's fictional Gallatin Universe, where a libertarian society forms the North American Confederacy. Meanwhile, the fundamental question of whether the Founding Fathers of the United States truly believed in liberty is complex and multifaceted. While they are often celebrated as champions of liberty, their views on freedom, equality, and individual rights were shaped by their time, personal experiences, and interests.

Provine's Addendum:

Finding a balance between personal freedom and national security proved the never-ending question in US politics. Some attempts at a more refined society, such as the Temperance Movement that argued for national prohibition of alcohol before falling flat on its face, demonstrated their issues but were ultimately humiliated in court. Other debates, such as defining personhood before birth, raised further questions about citizenship. In the end, power usually fell to the federal government itself, such as Unites States v. Reidel and Miller v. California restricting the abilities of individuals to distribute obscene materials. As legal definitions continued under scrutiny, often changing case to case, vagueness led to power by USIS to determine in the moment. Citizens could easily find themselves lost in the complex federal prison system, sometimes even overseas, without ever really knowing what it was they were accused of doing.