tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1934313418859465616.post8340875491666875765..comments2023-10-30T06:56:16.806-04:00Comments on The Soap Box: Who really was the first President?The Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13593240704921333636noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1934313418859465616.post-60465763596656348222012-11-27T17:11:01.095-05:002012-11-27T17:11:01.095-05:00Hmm... never thought of it that way... Thank you f...Hmm... never thought of it that way... Thank you for this information about history!The Lockehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13593240704921333636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1934313418859465616.post-63320500469463003002012-11-27T11:03:50.522-05:002012-11-27T11:03:50.522-05:00I'm going to have to disagree with you.
This ...I'm going to have to disagree with you.<br /><br />This game has been played many times over the past 200 years, and it's a "gotcha" game. (The TV sitcom "Webster" even did an episode on it, where the little tyke got ridiculed for saying John Hanson was the first President of the United States). The problem is, the "gotcha" punchline isn't very strong because none of these potential candidates are in any way comparable to the office that we know began in 1789. The whole thing rides on a semantic game, which is the meaning of the word "president."<br /><br />The "presidents" of these legislative assemblies are in no way comparable to the post-1789 office of the President of the United States. In most cases their powers were purely parliamentary--they could act upon motions from the floor, for example--but they had no state power.<br /><br />The pre-indepdendence Continental Congresses had no state power whatsoever. They could not, and did not purport to, take action to bind individual states to do anything. It was established not as a governmental body but as sort of a political action committee. Claiming that the president of the Continental Congress is the "president of the United States" is like claiming that the chairman of your local Chamber of Commerce is "CEO" of all the businesses in your town. It's just not an apposite claim.<br /><br />Furthermore, it is not accurate to state that the "presidents" of these various legislative bodies were the "head of state" in the same sense the post-1789 President is. There was effectively no head of state from 1775 to 1789. This concept was not really recognized in the modern sense at that time anyway, and the men who wrote the Constitution deliberately considered themselves as breaking with pre-standing tradition by establishing the President as a true head of state. Characterizing the legislative "presidents" as heads of state is not supportable, in my view.<br /><br />It's tempting to supply an answer different than "George Washington" when one asks who was the first President of the United States, but the more you investigate these claims, they more disappointing they turn out to be.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com