Challenges for the New Government

• Cabinet

• Neutrality Proclamation

• Impressment

Washington’s Cabinet

• Cabinet -- A group of advisors to help Washington

Secretary of State – Thomas Jefferson

Secretary of Treasury – Alexander Hamilton

Secretary of War – Henry Knox

Attorney General – Edmund Randolph

Federalist vs. RepublicanStrong

GovernmentWeak

GovernmentFriend of farmer

Friend of industry

Federalists

Hamilton

Democratic-Republican

Party

Jefferson

National Debt

• Alexander Hamilton designed a four part plan to pay the national debt:

1. Impose taxes– A tax on whiskey was one of them

– Whiskey Rebellion erupted when farmers refused to pay the tax

– Washington led 13,000 troops to Pennsylvania to put it down

– Showed the governments power to back up its laws

2. Repay the war bonds (Funding Bill of 1790)

3. Assume state debts (Assumption Act of 1790)

– The South didn’t want this because they had paid off their war debts

– The compromise – The North got their debts paid off and the capital of the United States was placed in the South

4. Establish a national bank

Trouble with France

• France began a revolution (like the US)

– At first the US supported them as they did for us

• France and Britain were at war

– Washington issued a Neutrality Proclamation (we would be impartial toward all foreign foes)

– Citizen Genet (Frenchman) came to US to find support for the war. Washington asks France to come and get him!

Storming the Bastille

Citizen Genet

Trouble with Britain

• Britain seized 250 American ships, cargo and crew.

• Practiced impressment – seizure of American sailors and forcing them to serve the British

Jay Treaty

• Washington sent John Jay to Britain to keep us out of war.

• Americans were unhappy with the treaty, but it kept us out of war

Trouble with Spain

• Pinckney Treaty (by Thomas Pinckney) was drawn up between Spain and the US

– Gave the US right of deposit at New Orleans

– Set southern boundary of the US

• Very popular!