http://capo.org/kmsc/presidnt.html
The Forgotten Presidents
By George Grant (ArxAxiom@aol.com)
Excerpted from The Patriot's Handbook
Who was the first president of the United States? Ask
any school child and they will readily tell you
"George Washington." And of course, they would be
wrong—at least technically. Washington was not
inaugurated until April 30, 1789. And yet, the United
States continually had functioning governments from
as early as September 5, 1774 and operated as a
confederated nation from as early as July 4, 1776.
During that nearly fifteen year interval,
Congress—first the Continental Congress and then
later the Confederation Congress—was always moderated
by a duly elected president. As the chief executive
officer of the government of the United States, the
president was recognized as the head of state.
Washington was thus the fifteenth in a long line of
distinguished presidents—and he led the seventeenth
administration—he just happened to be the first under
the current constitution. So who were the luminaries
who preceded him? The following brief biographies
profile these "forgotten presidents."
Peyton Randolph of Virginia (1723-1775)
When delegates gathered in Philadelphia for the first
Continental Congress, they promptly elected the
former King's Attorney of Virginia as the moderator
and president of their convocation. He was a
propitious choice. He was a legal prodigy—having
studied at the Inner Temple in London, served as his
native colony's Attorney General, and tutored many of
the most able men of the South at William and Mary
College—including the young Patrick Henry. His home
in Williamsburg was the gathering place for
Virginia's legal and political gentry—and it remains
a popular attraction in the restored colonial
capital. He had served as a delegate in the Virginia
House of Burgesses, and had been a commander under
William Byrd in the colonial militia. He was
a scholar of some renown—having begun a self-guided
reading of the classics when he was thirteen. Despite
suffering poor health served the Continental Congress
as president twice, in 1774 from September 5 to
October 21, and then again for a few days in 1775
from May 10 to May 23. He never lived to see
independence, yet was numbered among the nation's
most revered founders.
Henry Middleton (1717-1784)
America's second elected president was one of the
wealthiest planters in the South, the patriarch of
the most powerful families anywhere in the nation.
His public spirit was evident from an early age. He
was a member of his state's Common House from
1744-1747. During the last two years he served as the
Speaker. During 1755 he was the King's Commissioner
of Indian Affairs. He was a member of the South
Carolina Council from 1755-1770. His valor in the War
with the Cherokees during 1760-1761 earned him wide
recognition throughout the colonies—and demonstrated
his cool leadership abilities while under pressure.
He was elected as a delegate to the first session of
the Continental Congress and when Peyton Randolph was
forced to resign the presidency, his peers immediately turned to Middleton to complete the term.
He served as the fledgling coalition's president from
October 22, 1774 until Randolph was able to resume
his duties briefly beginning on May 10, 1775.
Afterward, he was a member of the Congressional
Council of Safety and helped to establish the young
nation's policy toward the encouragement and support
of education. In February 1776 he resigned his
political involvements in order to prepare his family
and lands for what he believed was inevitable war—but
he was replaced by his son Arthur who eventually
became a signer of both the Declaration of
Independence and the Articles of Confederation,
served time as an English prisoner of war, and was
twice elected Governor of his state.
John Hancock (1737-1793)
The third president was a patriot, rebel leader,
merchant who signed his name into immortality in
giant strokes on the Declaration of Independence on
July 4, 1776. The boldness of his signature has made
it live in American minds as a perfect expression of
the strength and freedom—and defiance—of the
individual in the face of British tyranny. As
President of the Continental Congress during two
widely spaced terms—the first from May 24 1775 to
October 30 1777 and the second from November 23 1885
to June 5, 1786—Hancock was the presiding officer
when the members approved the Declaration of
Independence. Because of his position, it was his
official duty to sign the document first—but not
necessarily as dramatically as he did. Hancock
figured prominently in another historic event—the
battle at Lexington: British troops who fought there
April 10, 1775, had known Hancock and Samuel Adams
were in Lexington and had come there to capture these
rebel leaders. And the two would have been captured,
if they had not been warned by Paul Revere. As early
as 1768, Hancock defied the British by refusing to
pay customs charges on the cargo of one of his ships.
One of Boston's wealthiest merchants, he was
recognized by the citizens, as well as by the
British, as a rebel leader—and was elected President of the first Massachusetts Provincial Congress. After
he was chosen President of the Continental Congress
in 1775, Hancock became known beyond the borders of
Massachusetts, and, having served as colonel of the
Massachusetts Governor's Guards he hoped to be named
commander of the American forces—until John Adams
nominated George Washington. In 1778 Hancock was
commissioned Major General and took part in an
unsuccessful campaign in Rhode Island. But it was as
a political leader that his real distinction was
earned—as the first Governor of Massachusetts, as
President of Congress, and as President of the
Massachusetts constitutional ratification convention.
He helped win ratification in Massachusetts, gaining
enough popular recognition to make him a contender
for the newly created Presidency of the United
States, but again he saw Washington gain the prize.
Like his rival, George Washington, Hancock was a
wealthy man who risked much for the cause of
independence. He was the wealthiest New Englander
supporting the patriotic cause, and, although he
lacked the brilliance of John Adams or the capacity
to inspire of Samuel Adams, he became one of the
foremost leaders of the new nation—perhaps, in part,
because he was willing to commit so much at such risk
to the cause of freedom.
Henry Laurens (1724-1792)
The only American president ever to be held as a
prisoner of war by a foreign power, Laurens was
heralded after he was released as "the father of our
country," by no less a personage than George
Washington. He was of Huguenot extraction, his
ancestors having come to America from France after
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes made the
Reformed faith illegal. Raised and educated for a
life of mercantilism at his home in Charleston, he
also had the opportunity to spend more than a year
in continental travel. It was while in Europe that he
began to write revolutionary pamphlets—gaining him
renown as a patriot. He served as vice-president of
South Carolina in1776. He was then elected to the
Continental Congress. He succeeded John Hancock as
President of the newly independent but war
beleaguered United States on November 1, 1777. He
served until December 9, 1778 at which time he was
appointed Ambassador to the Netherlands.
Unfortunately for the cause of the young nation, he
was captured by an English warship during his cross-
Atlantic voyage and was confined to the Tower of
London until the end of the war. After the Battle of
Yorktown, the American government regained his
freedom in a dramatic prisoner exchange—President
Laurens for Lord Cornwallis. Ever the patriot,
Laurens continued to serve his nation as one of the
three representatives selected to negotiate terms at
the Paris Peace Conference in 1782.
John Jay (1745-1829)
America's first Secretary of State, first Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, one of its first
ambassadors, and author of some of the celebrated
Federalist Papers, Jay was a Founding Father who, by
a quirk of fate, missed signing the Declaration of
Independence—at the time of the vote for independence
and the signing, he had temporarily left the
Continental Congress to serve in New York's
revolutionary legislature. Nevertheless, he was
chosen by his peers to succeed Henry Laurens as
President of the United States—serving a term from
December 10, 1778 to September 27, 1779. A
conservative New York lawyer who was at first against
the idea of independence for the colonies, the
aristocratic Jay in 1776 turned into a patriot who
was willing to give the next twenty-five years of his
life to help establish the new nation. During those
years, he won the regard of his peers as a dedicated
and accomplished statesman and a man of unwavering
principle. In the Continental Congress Jay prepared
addresses to the people of Canada and Great Britain.
In New York he drafted the State constitution and
served as Chief Justice during the war. He was
President of the Continental Congress before he
undertook the difficult assignment, as ambassador, of
trying to gain support and funds from Spain. After
helping Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Laurens
complete peace negotiations in Paris in 1783, Jay
returned to become the first Secretary of State,
called "Secretary of Foreign Affairs" under the
Articles of Confederation. He negotiated valuable
commercial treaties with Russia and Morocco, and
dealt with the continuing controversy with Britain
and Spain over the southern and western boundaries of
the United States. He proposed that America and
Britain establish a joint commission to arbitrate
disputes that remained after the war—a proposal
which, though not adopted, influenced the
government's use of arbitration and diplomacy in
settling later international problems. In this post
Jay felt keenly the weakness of the Articles of
Confederation and was one of the first to advocate a
new governmental compact. He wrote five Federalist
Papers supporting the Constitution, and he was a
leader in the New York ratification convention. As
first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Jay made
the historic decision that a State could be sued by a
citizen from another State, which led to the Eleventh
Amendment to the Constitution. On a special mission
to London he concluded the "Jay Treaty," which helped
avert a renewal of hostilities with Britain but won
little popular favor at home—and it is probably for
this treaty that this Founding Father is best
remembered.
Samuel Huntington (1732-1796)
An industrious youth who mastered his studies of the
law without the advantage of a school, a tutor, or a
master—borrowing books and snatching opportunities to
read and research between odd jobs—he was one of the
greatest self-made men among the Founders. He was
also one of the greatest legal minds of the age—all
the more remarkable for his lack of advantage as a
youth. In 1764, in recognition of his obvious
abilities and initiative, he was elected to the
General Assembly of Connecticut. The next year he was
chosen to serve on the Executive Council. In 1774 he
was appointed Associate Judge of the Superior Court
and, as a delegate to the Continental Congress, was
acknowledged to be a legal scholar of some respect.
He served in Congress for five consecutive terms,
during the last of which he was elected President. He
served in that off ice from September 28, 1779 until
ill health forced him to resign on July 9, 1781. He
returned to his home in Connecticut—and as he
recuperated, he accepted more Counciliar and Bench
duties. He again took his seat in Congress in 1783,
but left it to become Chief Justice of his state's
Superior Court. He was elected Lieutenant Governor in
1785 and Governor in 1786. According to John Jay, he
was "the most precisely trained Christian jurists
ever to serve his country."
Thomas McKean (1734-1817)
During his astonishingly varied fifty-year career in
public life he held almost every possible position—from deputy county attorney to President of
the United States under the Confederation. Besides
signing the Declaration of Independence, he
contributed significantly to the development and
establishment of constitutional government in both
his home state of Delaware and the nation. At the
Stamp Act Congress he proposed the voting procedure
that Congress adopted: that each colony, regardless
of size or population, have one vote—the practice
adopted by the Continental Congress and the Congress
of the Confederation, and the principle of state
equality manifest in the composition of the Senate.
And as county judge in 1765, he defied the British by
ordering his court to work only with documents that
did not bear the hated stamps. In June 1776, at the
Continental Congress, McKean joined with Caesar
Rodney to register Delaware's approval of the
Declaration of Independence, over the negative vote
of the third Delaware delegate, George
Read—permitting it to be "The unanimous declaration
of the thirteen United States." And at a special
Delaware convention, he drafted the constitution for
that State. McKean also helped draft—and signed—the
Articles of Confederation. It was during his tenure
of service as President—from July 10, 1781 to
November 4, 1782—when news arrived from General
Washington in October 1781 that the British had
surrendered following the Battle of Yorktown. As
Chief Justice of the supreme court of Pennsylvania,
he contributed to the establishment of the legal
system in that State, and, in 1787, he strongly
supported the Constitution at the Pennsylvania
Ratification Convention, declaring it "the best the
world has yet seen." At sixty-five, after over forty
years of public service, McKean resigned from his
post as Chief Justice. A candidate on the Democratic-
Republican ticket in 1799, McKean was elected
Governor of Pennsylvania. As Governor, he followed
such a strict policy of appointing only fellow
Republicans to office that he became the father of
the spoils system in America. He served three
tempestuous terms as Governor, completing one of
the longest continuous careers of public service of
any of the Founding Fathers.
John Hanson (1715-1783)
He was the heir of one of the greatest family
traditions in the colonies and became the patriarch
of a long line of American patriots—his great
grandfather died at Lutzen beside the great King
Gustavus Aldophus of Sweden; his grandfather was one
of the founders of New Sweden along the Delaware
River in Maryland; one of his nephews was the
military secretary to George Washington; another was
a signer of the Declaration; still another was a
signer of the Constitution; yet another was Governor
of Maryland during the Revolution; and still another
was a member of the first Congress; two sons were
killed in action with the Continental Army; a
grandson served as a member of Congress under the new
Constitution; and another grandson was a Maryland
Senator. Thus, even if Hanson had not served as
President himself, he would have greatly contributed
to the life of the nation through his ancestry and
progeny. As a youngster he began a self-guided
reading of classics and rather quickly became
an acknowledged expert in the juridicalism of Anselm
and the practical philosophy of Seneca—both of which
were influential in the development of the political
philosophy of the great leaders of the Reformation.
It was based upon these legal and theological studies
that the young planter—his farm, Mulberry Grove was
just across the Potomac from Mount Vernon—began
to espouse the cause of the patriots. In 1775 he was
elected to the Provincial Legislature of Maryland.
Then in 1777, he became a member of Congress where he
distinguished himself as a brilliant administrator.
Thus, he was elected President in 1781. He served in
that office from November 5, 1781 until November 3,
1782. He was the first President to serve a full term
after the full ratification of the Articles of
Confederation—and like so many of the Southern and
New England Founders, he was strongly opposed to the
Constitution when it was first discussed. He remained
a confirmed anti-federalist until his untimely
death.
Elias Boudinot (1741-1802)
He did not sign the Declaration, the Articles, or the
Constitution. He did not serve in the Continental
Army with distinction. He was not renowned for his
legal mind or his political skills. He was instead a
man who spent his entire career in foreign
diplomacy. He earned the respect of his fellow
patriots during the dangerous days following the
traitorous action of Benedict Arnold. His deft
handling of relations with Canada also earned him
great praise. After being elected to the Congress
from his home state of New Jersey, he served as the
new nation's Secretary for Foreign Affairs—managing
the influx of aid from France, Spain, and Holland.
The in 1783 he was elected to the Presidency. He
served in that office from November 4, 1782 until
November 2, 1783. Like so many of the other early
presidents, he was a classically trained scholar, of
the Reformed faith, and an anti-federalist in
political matters. He was the father and grandfather
of frontiersmen—and one of his grandchildren and
namesakes eventually became a leader of the Cherokee
nation in its bid for independence from the sprawling
expansion of the United States.
Thomas Mifflin (1744-1800)
By an ironic sort of providence, Thomas Mifflin
served as George Washington's first aide-de-camp at
the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and, when the
war was over, he was the man, as President of the
United States, who accepted Washington's resignation
of his commission. In the years between, Mifflin
greatly served the cause of freedom—and, apparently,
his own cause—while serving as the first
Quartermaster General of the Continental Army. He
obtained desperately needed supplies for the new
army—and was suspected of making excessive profit
himself. Although experienced in business
and successful in obtaining supplies for the war,
Mifflin preferred the front lines, and he
distinguished himself in military actions
on Long Island and near Philadelphia. Born and reared
a Quaker, he was excluded from their meetings for his
military activities. A controversial figure, Mifflin
lost favor with Washington and was part of the Conway
Cabal—a rather notorious plan to replace Washington
with General Horatio Gates. And Mifflin narrowly
missed court-martial action over his handling of
funds by resigning his commission in 1778. In spite
of these problems—and of repeated charges that he was
a drunkard—Mifflin continued to be elected to
positions of responsibility—as President and Governor
of Pennsylvania, delegate to the Constitutional
Convention, as well as the highest office in the
land—where he served from November 3, 1783 to
November 29, 1784. Most of Mifflin's significant
contributions occurred in his earlier years—in the
First and Second Continental Congresses he was firm
in his stand for independence and for fighting for
it, and he helped obtain both men and supplies for
Washington's army in the early critical period. In
1784, as President, he signed the treaty with Great
Britain which ended the war. Although a delegate to
the Constitutional Convention, he did not make a
significant contribution—beyond signing the document.
As Governor of Pennsylvania, although he was accused
of negligence, he supported improvements of roads,
and reformed the State penal and judicial systems. He
had gradually become sympathetic to Jefferson's
principles regarding State's rights, even so, he
directed the Pennsylvania militia to support the
Federal tax collectors in the Whiskey Rebellion. In
spite of charges of corruption, the affable
Mifflin remained a popular figure. A magnetic
personality and an effective speaker, he managed to
hold a variety of elective offices for almost thirty
years of the critical Revolutionary period.
Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794)
His resolution "that these United Colonies are, and
of right ought to be, free and independent States,"
approved by the Continental Congress July 2, 1776,
was the first official act of the United Colonies
that set them irrevocably on the road to
independence. It was not surprising that it came from
Lee's pen—as early as 1768 he proposed the idea of
committees of correspondence among the colonies, and
in 1774 he proposed that the colonies meet in what
became the Continental Congress. From the first, his
eye was on independence. A wealthy Virginia planter
whose ancestors had been granted extensive lands by
King Charles II, Lee disdained the traditional
aristocratic role and the aristocratic view. In the
House of Burgesses he flatly denounced the practice
of slavery. He saw independent America as "an asylum
where the unhappy may find solace, and the
persecuted repose." In 1764, when news of the
proposed Stamp Act reached Virginia, Lee was a member
of the committee of the House of Burgesses that drew
up an address to the King, an official protest
against such a tax. After the tax was established,
Lee organized the citizens of his county into the
Westmoreland Association, a group pledged to buy no
British goods until the Stamp Act was repealed. At
the First Continental Congress, Lee persuaded
representatives from all the colonies to adopt this
non-importation idea, leading to the formation of the
Continental Association, which was one of the first
steps toward union of the colonies. Lee also proposed
to the First Continental Congress that a militia be
organized and armed—the year before the first shots
were fired at Lexington; but this and other proposals
of his were considered too radical—at the time. Three
days after Lee introduced his resolution, in June of
1776, he was appointed by Congress to the committee
responsible for drafting a declaration of
independence, but he was called home when his wife
fell ill, and his place was taken by his young
protégé, Thomas Jefferson. Thus Lee missed the chance
to draft the document—though his influence greatly
shaped it and he was able to return in time to sign
it. He was elected President—serving from November
30, 1784 to November 22, 1785 when he was
succeeded by the second administration of John
Hancock. Elected to the Constitutional Convention,
Lee refused to attend, but as a member of the
Congress of the Confederation, he contributed to
another great document, the Northwest Ordinance,
which provided for the formation of new States from
the Northwest Territory. When the completed
Constitution was sent to the States for ratification,
Lee opposed it as anti-democratic and anti-Christian.
However, as one of Virginia's first Senators, he
helped assure passage of the amendments that, he
felt, corrected many of the document's gravest
faults—the Bill of Rights. He was the great uncle of
Robert E. Lee and the scion of a great family
tradition.
Nathaniel Gorham (1738-1796)
Another self-made man, Gorham was one of the many
successful Boston merchants who risked all he had for
the cause of freedom. He was first elected to the
Massachusetts General Court in 1771. His honesty and
integrity won his acclaim and was thus among the
first delegates chose to serve in the Continental
Congress. He remained in public service throughout
the war and into the Constitutional period, though
his greatest contribution was his call for a stronger
central government. But even though he was an avid
federalist, he did not believe that the union
could—or even should—be maintained peaceably for more
than a hundred years. He was convinced that
eventually, in order to avoid civil or cultural war,
smaller regional interests should pursue an
independent course. His support of a new constitution
was rooted more in pragmatism than ideology. When
John Hancock was unable to complete his second term
as President, Gorham was elected to succeed
him—serving from June 6, 1786 to February 1, 1787. It
was during this time that the Congress actually
entertained the idea of asking Prince Henry—the
brother of Frederick II of Prussia—and Bonnie Prince
Charlie—the leader of the ill-fated Scottish Jacobite
Rising and heir of the Stuart royal line—to consider
the possibility of establishing a constitutional
monarch in America. It was a plan that had much to
recommend it but eventually the advocates of
republicanism held the day. During the final years of
his life, Gorham was concerned with several
speculative land deals which nearly cost him his
entire fortune.
Arthur St. Clair (1734-1818)
Born and educated in Edinburgh, Scotland during the
tumultuous days of the final Jacobite Rising and the
Tartan Suppression, St. Clair was the only president
of the United States born and bred on foreign soil.
Though most of his family and friends abandoned their
devastated homeland in the years following the Battle
of Culloden—after which nearly a third of the land
was depopulated through emigration to America—he
stayed behind to learn the ways of the hated
Hanoverian English in the Royal Navy. His plan was to
learn of the enemy's military might in order to fight
another day. During the global conflict of the Seven
Years War—generally known as the French and Indian
War—he was stationed in the American theater.
Afterward, he decided to settle in Pennsylvania where
many of his kin had established themselves. His
civic-mindedness quickly became apparent: he
helped to organize both the New Jersey and the
Pennsylvania militias, led the Continental Army's
Canadian expedition, and was elected Congress. His
long years of training in the enemy camp was finally
paying off. He was elected President in 1787—and
he served from February 2 of that year until January
21 of the next. Following his term of duty in the
highest office in the land, he became the first
Governor of the Northwest Territory and the founder
of Cincinnati. Though he briefly supported the idea
of creating a constitutional monarchy under the
Stuart's Bonnie Prince Charlie, he was a strident
Anti-Federalist—believing that the proposed federal
constitution would eventually allow for the intrusion
of government into virtually every sphere and aspect
of life. He even predicted that under the vastly
expanded centralized power of the state the taxing
powers of bureaucrats and other unelected officials
would eventually confiscate as much as a quarter of
the income of the citizens—a notion that seemed
laughable at the time but that has proven to be
ominously modest in light of our current governmental
leviathan. St. Clair lived to see the hated English
tyrants who destroyed his homeland defeated. But he
despaired that his adopted home might actually
create similar tyrannies and impose them upon
themselves.
Cyrus Griffin (1736-1796)
Like Peyton Randolph, he was trained in London's
Inner Temple to be a lawyer—and thus was counted
among his nation's legal elite. Like so many other
Virginians, he was an anti-federalist, though he
eventually accepted the new Constitution with the
promise of the Bill of Rights as a hedge against the
establishment of an American monarchy—which still had
a good deal of currency. The Articles of Confederation afforded such freedoms that he had
become convinced that even with the incumbent
loss of liberty, some new form of government would be
required. A protégé of George Washington—having
worked with him on several speculative land deals in
the West—he was a reluctant supporter of the
Constitutional ratifying process. It was during
his term in the office of the Presidency—the last
before the new national compact went into effect—that
ratification was formalized and finalized. He served
as the nation's chief executive from January 22, 1788
until George Washington's inauguration on April 30,
1789.
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