1. Challenges for the New
Government

2. • Cabinet
• Neutrality Proclamation
• Impressment

3. Washington’s Cabinet
• Cabinet -- A group of advisors to help
Washington

4. Secretary of State – Thomas Jefferson

5. Secretary of Treasury – Alexander
Hamilton

6. Secretary of War – Henry Knox

7. Attorney General – Edmund Randolph

8. Federalist vs. Republican
Strong
Government
Federalists
Hamilton
DemocraticRepublican
Party
Jefferson
Weak
Government
Friend of
farmer
Friend of
industry

9. 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

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

13. 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

14. 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!

15. Storming the Bastille

16. Citizen Genet

17. Trouble with Britain
• Britain seized 250 American ships, cargo and
crew.
• Practiced impressment – seizure of American
sailors and forcing them to serve the British

19. 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

22. 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!