WASHINGTON , A LIFE, Pages 770-772, by Ron Chernow,

The presidential legacy he left behind in Philadelphia was a towering one. As Gordon Wood has  observed, “The presidency is the powerful office it is in large part because of Washington’s initial  behavior.” Washington had forged the executive branch of the federal government, appointed outstanding  department heads, and set a benchmark for fairness, efficiency and integrity that future administrations  would aspire to match. A new government, constructed on free principles, is always weak and must stand in  need of the props of a firm and good administration till time shall have rendered its authority venerable and  fortified it by habits of obedience,” Hamilton wrote. Washington had endowed the country with exactly such a firm and good administration, guaranteeing the survival of the Constitution. He had taken the new  national charter and converted it into a viable, elastic document. In a wide variety of areas, from inaugural  addresses to presidential protocol to executive privilege, he had set a host of precedents that endured  because of the high quality and honesty of his decisions.

Washington’s catalog of accomplishments was simply breathtaking. He had restored American credit and  assumed state debt; created a bank, a mint, a coast guard, a customs service, and a diplomatic corps;  introduced the first accounting, tax, and budgetary procedures; maintained peace at home and abroad;  inaugurated a navy, bolstered the army, and shored up coastal defenses and infrastructure; proved that the  country could regulate commerce and negotiate binding treaties; protected frontier settlers, subdued Indian  uprisings, and established law and order amid rebellion, scrupulously adhering all the while to the letter of  the Constitution. During his successful presidency, exports had soared, shipping had boomed, and state  taxes had declined dramatically. Washington had also open the Mississippi to commerce, negotiated treaties  with the Barbary states, and forced the British to evacuate their northwestern forts. Most of all he had  shown a disbelieving world that republican government could prosper without being spineless or disorderly  or reverting to authoritarian rule. In surrendering the presidency after two terms and overseeing a smooth  transition of power, Washington had demonstrated that the president was merely the servant of the people.

Whatever their mandarin style and elitist tendencies, the Federalists had an abiding faith in executive  power and crafted the federal government with a clarity and conviction that would have been problematic  for the Republicans, who preferred small government and legislative predominance. Washington had  established the presidency instead of Congress as the driving force behind domestic and foreign policy and  established sharp boundaries between those two branches of government. He was the perfect figure to  reconcile Americans to a vigorous executive and to conquer deeply rooted fears that a president would  behave in the tyrannical manner of a monarch. He also provided a conservative counterweight to some of  the more unruly impulses of the American Revolution, ensuring incremental progress and averting the blood  excesses associated with the French Revolution.

Washington never achieved the national unity he desired and, by the end, presided over a deeply driven  country. John Adams made a telling point when he later noted that Washington, an apostle of unity, “had  unanimous votes as president, but the two houses of Congress and the great body of the people were more  equally divided under him than they ever have been since.” This may have been unavoidable as the new government implemented the new Constitution, which provoked deep splits over its meaning and the  country’s future direction. But whatever his chagrin about the partisan strife, Washington never sought to  suppress debate or clamp down on his shrill opponents in the press who had hounded him mercilessly. To  his everlasting credit, he showed that the American political system could manage tensions without  abridging civil liberties. His most fragrant failings remained those of the country as a whole – the inability  to deal forthrightly with the injustice of slavery or to figure out an equitable solution in the ongoing clashes  with Native Americans.

By the time Washington left office, the Union had expanded to include three new states – Vermont,  Kentucky, and Tennessee – creating powerful new constituencies with outspoken needs. In this nascent  democratic culture, the political tone was becoming brash and rude, sounding the death knell for the more  sedate style of politics practiced by the formal Washington. Although he had securely laid the foundations  of the federal government, he was still the product of his genteel Virginia past and accustomed to the rule of  well-bred gentlemen such as himself. He would never have been fully at home with the brawly, roaring  brand of democracy that came to dominate American politics in the era of Andrew Jackson. Nonetheless he  had proved the ideal figure to lead the new nation from its colonial past into a more democratic future.