ACN Investigates: The First President(s) of the United States of America

Surely George Washington was your guess? Wrong.

Think back to your history books

• The United States declared it's independence in 1776
• Washington did not take office until April 30, 1789

So who was running the country in between those years?

The first President of the United States was John Hanson.

The new country was actually formed on March 1, 1781 with the adoption of The Articles of Confederation. This document was actually proposed on June 11, 1776, but not agreed upon by Congress until November 15,1777. Maryland refused to sign this document until Virginia and New York ceded their western lands (Maryland was afraid that these states would gain too much power in the new government from such large amounts of land). Once the signing took place in 1781, a President was needed to run the country. John Hanson was chosen unanimously by Congress (which included George Washington). In fact, all the other potential candidates refused to run against him, as he was a major player in the revolution and an extremely influential member of Congress.


As the first President, Hanson had quite the shoes to fill. No one had ever been President and the role was poorly defined. His actions in office would set precedent for all future Presidents. He took office just as the Revolutionary War ended. Almost immediately, the troops demanded to be paid. As would be expected after any long war, there were no funds to meet the salaries. As a result, the soldiers threatened to overthrow the new government and put Washington on the throne as a monarch. All the members of Congress ran for their lives, leaving Hanson as the only guy left running the government. He somehow managed to calm the troops down and hold the country together. If he had failed, the government would have fallen almost immediately and everyone would have been bowing to King Washington. Hanson, as President, ordered all foreign troops off American soil, as well as the removal of all foreign flags. This was quite the feat, considering the fact that so many European countries had a stake in the United States since the days following Columbus. Hanson established the Great Seal of the United States, which all Presidents have since been required to use on all official documents. President Hanson also established the first Treasury Department, the first Secretary of War, and the first Foreign Affairs Department. Lastly, he declared that the fourth Thursday of every November was to be Thanksgiving Day, which is still true today. The Articles of Confederation only allowed a President to serve a one year term during any three year period, so Hanson actually accomplished quite a bit in such little time.

Seven other presidents were elected after him — Elias Boudinot (1782-83), Thomas Mifflin (1783-84), Richard Henry Lee (1784-85), John Hancock (1785-86), Nathan Gorman (1786-87), Arthur St. Clair (1787-88), and Cyrus Griffin (1788-89) — all prior to Washington taking office.

So why don't we hear about them? Why do we only know and learn about George Washington? It's quite simple — The Articles of Confederation didn't work well. The individual states had too much power and nothing could be agreed upon. A new doctrine needed to be written — something we know as the Constitution. George Washington was definitely not the first President of the United States. He was the first President of the United States under the Constitution we follow today.

Sounds great doesn't it? A remarkable tale of how historians locked out the true first President of the United States. Except it's not true. Nope not a word. This is an example of why it's best if you stick to the history books.

John Hanson was not the "first President of the United States." He has not been purged from the history books by a wave of revisionist historians who refuse to acknowledge his true importance in history. The plain truth is that John Hanson was not considered the "first President of the United States," even in his own time. And John Hanson couldn't possibly have been the "first President of the United States" because neither the office of the President of the United States nor the nation known as the United States of America was created until after he was dead.

The colonial leaders feared the creation of a too powerful central government dominated by factions and so specifically refused to create a unified nation or to transfer sovereignty to a national government. Instead they created the national Congress to whom they could subtract all administrative duties on behalf of the thirteen states: conduct foreign affairs, make war and peace, deal with Native Americans living outside the states, coin and borrow money, supervise the post office, and negotiated boundary disputes. Congress however could not raise money to carry out these tasks by levying taxes on the states, nor could it raise troops in order to defend the country or wage war, or even compel states to comply with the laws it passed. The Articles of Confederation created a Congress extremely limited in it's authority with insufficient power to carry out it's duties. Congress could neither pay off the war debt (because it could only print more money and not raise taxes to raise money) nor protect the states' territories from encroachement by the Spanish and British. As representatives stopped attending meetings, and ran out of money the Confederation Congress lost much of what little authority it had. In 1787 it transferred responsibility of the national debt to the states. In the words of George Washington the Confederation had been: "little more than the shadow without the substance."

The key point here is the that Articles of Confederation did not create the United States of America. It created an alliance of thirteen independent and sovereign states who had agreed to "enter into a firm league of friendship with each other." Rather the Constitution drafted in 1787-1788 created the new nation of The United States of America. It was this Constitution that created the office of a chief executive as part of a truly federal government of the United States. That office was filled by George Washington who was unanimously selected as the first president in February 1789.

John Hanson was chosen to preside over the Congress of the Articles of Confederation. Although technically he was the leader of that body, that body was not considered to symbolize a nation called the United States of America and as emphasized above it had very limited power.