Delaney Olsen; Hour 8
The challenges G.W. faced while he was president was first of all, everyone was getting upset because laws needed to be made, but we didn’t have an official system set up so we made the three branches of government. There was the Legislative, which made the laws, the Executive, which enforced them and the Judicial which interpreted them. There also was the Barbary Pirates which because we had no navy and a very small navy, they would attack the ships, imprison the soldiers and steal our cargo and goods when we were sailing along the Coast. So, we had to pay tribute to get them to stop. Another thing we had was something called National Debt which meant we had no money anywhere because we used it all up financing the Revolutionary War. Then, Alexander Hamilton got elected Secretary of the Treasury and he came up with the idea of a National Bank where people could deposit and get money in return and use paper currency to help pay back the federal government. The last two dealt with other nations including Spain who controlled the Louisiana Territory and thought that meant they could control the Mississippi River which angered us because we used it to ship goods across the country. So, we made a deal with Spain basically and came up with the Pinckney’s Treaty made by Thomas Pinckney that allowed our ships to use the lower Mississippi because Spain was alarmed that the U.S. and G.B. would work together against them. Finally, the last hard problem was the Native Americans working together with Great Britain because the British were continuing to trade with the natives and make them mad against us so when we tried to move westward the natives attacked us and drove us away, demanding that we leave the territory, even though we ended up defeating them, causing them to surrender in the Battle of Fallen Timbers and sign the Treaty of Greenville, (agreed to surrender most of the Ohio Land.) So, in the end Hamilton came up with the Jay Treaty which meant Britain would withdraw it’s forts in the NW Territory and we could trade with them again. Once again, all was well…
“It is far better to be alone,
than to be in bad company.”
G.W. only went to school until the sixth grade!
An interesting fact about him.
1732 / George Washington is born in Westmoreland County, Virginia1759 / Washington marries Martha Custis
1775 / Revolutionary War begins (the 13 Colonies against Britain)
1783 / Revolutionary War ends
1787 / Washington presides over the Constitutional Convention (the US Constitution is written)
1789 / Washington is elected President
1792 / Washington is elected President for a second term
1797 / Washington's second term as President is over - John Adams becomes President
1799 / George Washington dies at his home called Mt. Vernon, located in Fairfax County, Virginia.